recentrunes.com

Mandatory Pole Dancing in Curriculum.

Key Quote: “I’ve gone through them and they’re rather accurate.”

Key Quote: “…I am sure Singaporeans’ sex life will improve tremendously from today onwards …what is the whole point of legalizing oral and anal sex between heterosexuals when such acts are mostly carried out between homosexuals?”

For the obtuse: Looks like she answered her his question before asking it.

Hello.

I am not a coolie,
or a mobile phone trader…
and I don’t live in a hut with stilts
I am licenced to drive but do not own a car…
and I don’t know Tom, Harry, Dick from Changkat Changi
although I am certain they got character.

I have a Prime Minister,
and a President too, just in case.
I speak English and curse in Hokkien,
Not Chinese.
And I pronounce it Mine,
NOT MY ONE.

I can proudly hang my country’s flag in August,
because it is the only time that is allowed.
I believe in Identity, NOT Rubber-stamping,
DIVERSITY, NOT Group-think,
AND THAT THE MEE GORENG TRULY REPRESENTS OUR CULTURE.
FREEDOM WITHOUT LIMITS IS JUST A WORD,
AND THAT WE DID NOT CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN TO EAT SOY,
AND IT IS PRONOUNCED “EX-CUSE ME” NOT “ES-CUSE ME”, “EX-CUSE ME”!

SINGAPORE IS THE SMALLEST COUNTRY IN ASIA,
THE FIRST NATION OF KIASUISM,
AND THE BEST PART OF SOUTH MALAYSIA.

MY NAME IS IVAN

AND! I! AM! SINGAPOREAN!

Technorati Tag: iamsingaporean

Men care for the environment.

This is how Anti-Littering Ads should be done.

It cannot get any sweeter; charge people money to look at a garbage dump and call it an eco-tour.

But this blog feels that being a kid was more fun, or at least we got a more comprehensive education, when this aired in Singapore briefly:

I think this rather dates me…

has the right to be self-righteous.

Others are allegedly intimidating criminals.

James+Gomez Singapore

And one day, because of this Singaporean innovation, pets shall rise up against their owners and devour them.

So when your pet is chewing off your leg, remember, you read about this here first.

pets singapore hamster science

Received a comment from Rachel de Souza which resulted in a very fun (for me) search for the various types of Peranakans.

From Rachel:

If I were to be nitpicky, the term Peranakan is an encompassing term that can be quite misleading as there are Peranakans of Indian background called Chitty Melaka. Even the Eurasians (and I do mean the authentic Portuguese and Dutch origin, not the modern-day "half-breeds") are known as Peranakans too. Whereas those termed Babas and Nyonyas (the actual spelling) are better known as Peranakan Cina. Btw, there are Peranakan Cina of Teochew and even Hakka ethnicity, the last can be found in Bunka island, Indonesia. How the hell I know? I’m a Nyonya -Eurasian myself on both sides of the family. So there.

Posted by: Rachel de Souza | 21 December 2005 at 11:33 PM

Result of my searching and reply to Rachel:

I think you mean the Jawi Peranakans which were a community of Indian Muslims who married native Malay women. The Malacca Chettys (or Chittys) is a community which was the result of matrimony between the Chettiars of Tanjore and Travancore with local Chinese and Malays.

The term "Jawi Pekan" (Jawi = Arabic, Pekan = town) is a shortened term for Jawi Peranakan where Peranakan is a conjunction of Pekan and Anak (Child) which also means (loosely) local-born Muslim.

The Peranakan that most Singaporeans know are the Peranakan Cina which were also known as the Baba Chinese or Straits Chinese or Baba Nonya.

The Baba Chinese has it’s roots in Malacca where Princess Hang Li Po of China was given in marriage to Sultan Mansur Shah, who reigned Malacca from , she was accompanied by 500 Chinese youths who later stayed on a hill called Bukit Cina. It is speculated that the Peranakan Cina came from those youths.

While most Peranakans are of Hokkien ancestry, there are some of Teochew and Cantonese descent too.

The integration with Dutch (in Indonesia), English etc came much later. This was an effort to assimulate quickly into the local culture. In fact, because of their propensity to embrace new cultures, the Peranakans quickly became the middle men or advisors to Malay or Indonesian royalty. In fact, the British (I think) termed them as "King’s Chinese".

In any case, the "pidgin" English or Singlish that most people speak now (in the Straits actually, so "Singlish" is a little too parochial) can be traced back to the mixture of Hokkien, Malay and English spoken by the Peranakan Cinas.

"Nonya" (Singapore) or "Nyonya" (Malaysia) usage is dependent upon which country you come from, although "Nyonya" seems to be the more common form used in history books.

Hope this helps.

This was really fun for me. ;PPP

singapore
peranakan
baba

Was published in The Straits Times Singapore Forums. He was writing on how the theory of Evolution is not a scientific fact and Budak sent in a reply which can be found here.

I am too busy (the Slow Food Website is 3 years old and needs an upgrade) to write an essay of my thoughts on this issue now.

For those who cannot wait till the weekend, go google Susan Haak for a very clear analogy on the scientific process and its difficulties.

Anyway, back to Andrew Loke, I think his views on the whole thing show a distressing lack of the understanding of science and the scientific process for someone training to be a doctor.

Andrew, take a human body apart down to its component elements and you will find non-living matter, e.g. Carbon.

And yet, here we are.

To dismiss the theory of evolution as "just a theory" is like saying that Andrew Loke is just a trainee medical officer in Changi General Hospital.

By the way, can trainees append the "Dr." honorific to their names?

Last week when I found out about Chewonit going down, I was pretty upset and wrote this.

Today, I find this on Tomorrow. (hah!)

Agagooga was so outraged at this article, that she he wrote this which got Tomorrow’d and started a chain reaction (including mine).

[By the way, I think my pictures of her are better and more conclusive. ;PPP]

Looking at the comments, I’m pleased to note that it’s mainly asking everyone to leave Dawn alone with about ~5% bitching.

I guess Candyfeehily is right: Leave her alone.

I am actually quite amused at the open letter written by xialanxue. Her entries are very droll. You can almost picture her becoming like techpark88 in her senior citizen years.

Plastic surgery is not really a big deal, it’s just another form of improving one’s self (yes, I agree it can be overdone). However, I guess it can be traumatic for the person going under the knife as the implication is that something is wrong in the first place.

Furthermore, being very young, one would assume a certain amount of insecurity, hence the constant entries about friends (& parties) and the need for denial.

Although, like Kenny Sia, I can’t find the denial bit.

Anyway, I believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Just hope she won’t shut down her blog like Chew (or Hazel).

[I read this entry on Sesame Seed's blog on Sunday and was filled with anger. I wrote a long and rather "vulgar" entry on Monday morning.

It had a cool picture of women and middle fingers.

However, following the "sleep on it" rule, I deleted the entry before going to work. Here's a nicer and more polite entry. Still a rant though.]

It’s very rare to find a Singaporean blog that make you sit and think critically. Doubly so to find a Singaporean blog that also amuses you at the same time, without resorting to cheap theatrics or unnecessary drama.

This is why when I found out about this, I was very upset and angry.

Another great blog gone because of unpleasant people that take it upon themselves to police the Internet and leave "tetchy" comments on what they don’t like.

I have received those too.

They can be hurtful and it really wears you down when you try to explain in clear and concise terms that their comments really make no sense.

Of course, we tend to forget that people who leave comments like that tend to follow certain rules.

So it becomes an exercise in futility as they keep repeating the same irrelevant or illogical points over and over again; as if repetition will make them right.

Oh no, they will say, we are just concerned that the contents of your blog will cause problems to other people.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Don’t be a troll, go start a blog and begin pontificating. Be like him or this blog. While I may disagree with their views or merely find them amusingly whiny, I find their courage to make a stand in public commendable.

While I welcome the official censors and watchdogs, sometimes I wonder who on Earth gave these other people the perogative to police us.

Gosh, if they find the Internet so troubling, then they should just quit.

Leave us alone.

We do not need your paranoia and insecurities. And we certainly do not welcome your attempts at inflicting your version of political correctness on us.

Society and civilization will not collapse in your absence.

A slur has been cast upon my name. A slander has been placed upon this blog. Although Adrian Monk would say that "…newspapers libel; they do not slander…"

It all started today. Bright was the sun in the sky as I set out to The Moomba for the 60th Slow Food Convivium Society (Singapore) luncheon. It was preordained that I would be sitting with Budak and MrsBudak.

I was told that my blog was mentioned in the newspaper Today. I replied saying that I think I saw a list of food blogs, but I don’t think mine was on the list.

But, just to be sure, I went and googled. To my surprise, I saw an article written by Mr. Miyagi in Today Online.

The first page was ok. A good round up and a great summation of how Singaporeans deal with their frustrations at being stuck on an island with really-nothing-much-to-do without resorting to porn.

But when I turned to the second page, the word "grappag" screamed out at me. As someone who has done programming for many years, I am very sensitive to typos. Like a compiler that refuses to go any further, I felt… uncomfortable.

Ah well. No matter. We shall overcome.

The more serious issue I have is the accusation of having all the time in the world.

People might misunderstand.

Due to recent events, I am now taking it easy for a while before I participate in my next adventure. The loss of the use of the most excellent Apple Powerbook is a serious blow to me.

So I need some time to regroup and calm down.

But I really do not have all the time in the world.

I mean, do you know just how funny the world is?

The amount of funny stories, headlines and websites available is simply overwhelming.

I cannot keep up.

Just google on something simple like "Star Wars" and you will be swamped with cool stories like this.

No. I do not have all the time in the world to share all these fun stuff. Alas.

But these people might have. ;P

Actually, most of my blogging is done over the weekends. Armed with my trusty IBM M, I scour the Internet for funny news. Then I think about how to give them a funny spin; think of and his thought processes and you will know what I mean.

Takes about 1-2 hours to gather and schedule two funny entries a day for a month. It’s pretty hard work similar to this. But its fun. Really fun.

The rest of the entries are ad-hoc soapbox essays or replies like this. Or when I discover something so funny that I can’t wait to share it.

I would like to say that it’s all about time management, but I am not a lifestyle guru, so I won’t.

In any case, thanks Mr. Miyagi for devoting such a large chunk of the article to quoting Recent Runes. Hopefully you can fix the typo so that I can find some peace.

Oh, and one last thing, if you go to the front page of the Slow Food web site, the graphic will show you just what we really stand for (being unskilled labour, that piece took me 5 hours to conceive and implement, so go and see). We’re not that uppity.

To quote a famous criminal, "It’s a good thing."