my ajumma notes

I can't take it any longer. That's it for me. [pic taken from AO website ] Surreal. It's just weird seeing Justine losing a first set 1-6 and not being able to return well. So Amelie is Australian Open champ, in a rather odd way. I mean, having played against three opponents who had to abandon the match, including the semi and final, must surely be rather un-satisfying. It's like you didn't really win the tournament. Read in someone's blog that Justine has effectively destroyed the moment for Amelie. She can't really savour victory because she 'won' in such circumstances. That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. But those of us here who have had (or still have) intimate experience with stomach trouble, well, me at least, can fully sympathise, empathise, etc, with Justine. I do also feel sorry for Amelie because she is trying so hard to convince herself that she deserved to win. She's saying stuff like I played well, I didn't notice h...

[US Open 2005, pic taken from her website ] Poor Kim, having to limp away in the semi-final . I thought she deserved another shot at Justine Henin-Hardenne and the AO title. She is playing so much better now than when Justine defeated her in the 2004 final, and I suspect many Australians still have a soft spot for her and would have rooted for her. Hope she recovers fast and well and gets on track again. Think the ladies final will be played at reunion dinner time. Poor Nalbandian too. I thought he deserved another go at Federer . He was just getting the self-belief necessary to do well at Grand Slams and I wonder if this loss to Baghdatis will deflate him once again. I guess it will be Federer versus Baghdatis in the final as I can't see Kiefer defeating him. But Bear Hugs , maybe you are right that he is getting worse, seeing that he actually could have lost his last two matches against Davydenko and Haas . He doesn't think so, though. Saw him on TV saying something like m...

TODAY reports today: After hiring an external agency to review its service sector, retail department store Metro realised that it all boils down to language. To solve the problem, it has installed language labs in its stores to improve the staff's proficiency in English. Eh, some months ago I also said that they should do something about the standard of English. Aiyah, this type of thing no need to hire external agency to tell you one lah. Well, it's good that Metro is doing something about it. Hopefully other retailers, hotels, restaurants etc will do the same. If not, not only will their poor English be 'misconstrued as bad service' , but they will also not be able to keep up with the competition from cities where the standard of English is improving . And I don't just mean Chinese cities . And while they are at it, perhaps they should also do something about the standard of spoken Mandarin. I mean, if they love speaking it so much, they should at least speak it ...

In certain parts of the world, you will inevitably see things that remind you of home like: But where I always feel kind of like I'm at home is in church. Even in Communist China. Guess we all know that religion is not exactly dead or driven underground (it is, only to some extent ) and it was easy for me to find a Catholic church to attend. The mass, as some of us would know, is generally the same all over the world, so even if you attend one in some other language, you know what is going on and even what is being said for a large part of the mass. That's what I mean by feeling like you're home. It turned out that the info I got from the Internet about mass times was outdated. We arrived at Good Shepherd Church expecting an English mass. Well, they didn't have English masses there anymore, were were told by this group of kindly elderly ladies who descended upon us. They got us to sit and rest and phoned another church to find out if there was an English mass there, wh...

Singaporean parents aren't the only kiasu ones in the world when it comes to their children's education . We were talking about school stuff with our local friends who have a son who is the same age as the boy. We explained that he goes to a school within walking distance of our place and we chose it largely because of this convenience. To that, they said that for them, distance was nothing. It didn't matter how far away a school was but their child had to go to a good school . Sounds so Singaporean. There have been people who thought we were crazy to 'give up' an almost assured place in a 'better' school for one in the 'average' school nearer to us. As for their son, not only does he go to a good school some distance away, he also attends enrichment lessons after school, such as English classes. Nothing is more important than a good education , we were told. Well, we all know that China is making a mega effort to get people to use the English langu...

Some people have written about how the Chinese economy is overheating, and in the past couple of weeks, the ST also ran articles about the environmental and social fallout resulting (at least in part) from the fast pace of change in China. I'll just leave it to the experts to discuss those issues. But I will add here my two cents worth about why I feel there is some way yet to go. No spectacular theories or views, just my low-level, non-tai-tai observations. To me, economic progress has to be accompanied by progress on other fronts -- social, political, etc. There is no denying that there has been progress in these areas but, as we see in practically all other societies (including ours), the economy tends to grow much faster than the rest of society can change and adapt. So here are some of my 'pet peeves' about life there: Queue-jumping Of course this happens everywhere in the world ( even in Singapore ) but when it is a way of life, you are really dealing with queue-jump...

The husband left this evening for a short overseas trip. It is certainly not the first time he is travelling without us, but the boy started bawling his eyes out after we said bye to him at the lift. I asked him why he was crying and he said that he was sad to see him go off and that he would miss him... wah... wah... and he wouldn't be able to see him for the rest of the week... wah wah... He was comforted somewhat only when I reminded him that the week was almost over anyway, and there weren't too many days to count before he would be back. And then he remembered it was dinner time... Aiyoh, I've always known that he was a sensitive little soul but this deluge of tears caught me quite unprepared. And then I realised that this was the first time he was actually seeing him leave. Most other times, he leaves in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. Well, he must be doing something right as a dad, musn't he?

The last time I visited Shanghai was some 20 years ago, when all the shopping you did as a tourist was in the state-run Youyi Shangdian (Friendship Store) and at small vendors' stalls at touristy sites. In those days, tourists and locals used different forms of the currency. There's nothing like that today, of course. Shanghai today boasts of huge shopping complexes, not unlike the ones you might find in, say, Seoul, Tokyo or Bangkok. Here is the inside of a huge supermarket (sweets section): Sure, shopping centres are not everything, but they do show how much a city has grown economically. Buying power and manufacturing power have rocketed and, as before, China is more or less self-sufficient. The rate of growth has been phenomenal, and that is something complacent Singaporeans should worry about, whether they want to admit that China is a threat to our economy or not. After all, Shanghai has already overtaken Singapore as the largest port in the world . Shanghai, of course, ...

Here begins my Shanghai Nights series. I've decided to do a series of thematic posts, rather than one very long one. Apologies if the thoughts seem random. There are some 5000+ Singaporeans who live and work in Shanghai. That means you probably know someone who lives and works in Shanghai. And of course that's not counting any locals you might also know. That being the case, we did have a fairly active 'social life' while there, considering it was just a week-long holiday. We visited SW, who has been in Shanghai for over a year and cannot wait to come back, in her lovely apartment in the Pudong area. To go back a little to the topic of housework , she pays her part-time help S$1+ per hour, not because she's a cheapskate or anything, but because that's the rate. Wow... Then there were the meals with some locals we know, and there is such a thing as a free lunch/dinner. I had two. And rather yummy ones, I must say. Could have had more but we excused myself and t...

It is probably universally expected that women would keep their houses well. What more stay-at-home ones. And I have just received the stamp of dis pproval from none other than my sister's maids. When they came over, the two lovely ladies took it upon themselves to clean my kitchen! And they told my sister that if we lived nearby, they would come over when they had the time to help me clean the house. That was rather sweet of them but unfortunately, we do not live near each other and anyway, I believe it is illegal for them to be doing housework in two houses. I'm sure we are not living in filth and squalor or anything, but I suppose it would not hurt if we were more diligent and thorough with housework. So it is now the 2nd of January of the new year, and I'm sure a welcome public-holiday reprieve for all school-going persons who would normally be dragging their feet to school on this day. Sigh... the days of early waking, uniform ironing and shoe washing are back... Time ...