my ajumma notes

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. William Butler Yeats Happy Teachers' Day, teachers!

Topic: The Japanese Occupation of Singapore Letter 1 (excerpts): Being half-Japanese and half-Singaporean, my sons are no exceptions (children of Japanese ancestry being apprehensive about participating in National Day celebrations in Singapore schools) . They confessed to me that some pupils had hurled offensive words at them during such events. I feel one of the main reasons for this is a lack of sensitivity among teachers. When my older son was in Primary 5, his Chinese teacher told the class that Japanese were bad and stupid to attack the US during World War II. This teacher later told us that he had made such a remark because he did not realise that he had a half-Japanese pupil in his class. Letter 2 (excerpts): I can understand her frustration and anger in learning that her child was inadvertently discriminated against by the school teacher. However, I believe this was an isolated case. In our multi-ethnic society, whether in school or in the working place, foreigners, includin...

(belated comments on that song) The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay, The glory that was Rome is just another day, I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan, I'm going home to my city by the bay. I left my heart in San Francisco... This is what came to mind the first time I heard/saw There's No Place I'd Rather Be , this year's National Day song. I'm really not into locally 'created' works which copy other styles, storylines, etc. Granted, 'copying' and suiting the 'new' work into a different situation require some skill, too, but, well, let's just say some people have better skills than others. For example, I like I Still Call Australia Home , which has been cited as a 'similar' kind of song. So, anyway, this poor song was fiercely lambasted by someone in last Saturday's ST. This guy wrote that the earlier debate about whether the song should have the word 'Singapore' totally missed the point,...

Also in last week's Sunday Times, two scary articles: 'Too Thin Teens' and 'Hey! Big Spender' . Too Thin Teens Not surprisingly, the number of teens with anorexia nervosa has risen. Boys were not mentioned much in the article but I understand that there are now also more boys with this condition. Peer pressure seems to be really overwhelming these days. One of the girls talked about how everyone else was so thin and how thin girls were popular. In fact, the classmates competed to see who would be the thinnest of all. Doctors are also concerned because more girls see having anorexia as 'hip'. How and when did life in a girls' school become this way? Even while in hospital for treatment, the girls resist recovery, outdoing one another in not putting any weight back on, hiding or getting rid of the food they are supposed to eat, exercising secretly in the toilet, etc. Hey! Big Spender According to this article, teenage girls are spending 'hundreds of ...

Yesterday's Sunday Times reported the results of a street poll (again, nobody asked me) about the 'qualities that make a true-blue Singaporean' (in order of popularity): 1. Singlish 2. food 3. kiasuism 4. dunno wat - they never say one 5. griping and whining (said a respondent, 'I can find something to complain about, no matter where I am or what I am doing.' Ha ha, could have been me...) Anyway, the writers of the article described Singlish as 'the tortured product of Singaporeans' grapppling with English'. Wah, why they say until like dat? Every language oso got some people speak better, some people speak worse, what.

Several pages about Singaporeans and friends in today's ST. Hmm... I thought 'friendly' and 'having friends' (though related) mean different things... And what's so surprising about people ranking family and friends above the 5 Cs? Shouldn't this be the case, not just in Singapore but anywhere in the world? Hmm... Okay, okay, this is not a day to complain or nitpick. What I shall say, in line with the 'friends' theme, is that I'm grateful to live here in an era when it is not weird or wishful to expect your teacher, spouse, parent, boss, senior colleague, junior colleague, or even your in-laws, whatever their ethnicity, creed or nationality, to be your friend as well.

Warning: Spoilers ahead! A show with elements of all three of the above? Yup. With a stupendous stroke of creativity, someone has come up with this superb (so far) serial. Scandal in Old Seoul (a.k.a. Capital Scandal ) is set in the 1930s, during the Japanese Occupation of Korea. The romance and humour do not trivialise or detract from the fight for independence. Well, not for me, anyway. There are also other underlying social themes such as modernisation/westernisation versus tradition, wealth versus poverty, decadence versus purpose in life, men versus women, etc. The action is exciting from Episode 1, and there's not really been a boring moment for me so far. This is quite unlike all other K shows I've watched, which take a while before the action really begins. Even Sam Soon , I'll have to say, took about 2-3 episodes to warm up, and some others, well, only warmed up towards the end! I'm glued to this one! And I've not even talked about the music and wardrobe y...

Reading, as most of us can prove, is an excellent cure for idleness. In Pride and Prejudice , Mr Darcy says, 'All this ('accomplishments' a lady should have) she must possess... and to all this she must add yet something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.' There are so many books of all kinds being published these days that even if you were not idle and finished reading all the books you wanted to, you still wouldn't be short of new books to read. Another recent visit to Page One yielded more... er... fascinating titles . Here are some: 1001 Books to Read Before You Die I thought that was really funny. Wouldn't you rather shelve this book and use the time to read another one instead? Maybe one of the 1001 recommended books? How to Be a Famous Writer Before You're Dead What's with the death theme? Pilates for Dogs What can I say? And finally... How to Be Idle No joke. I really saw this book. 'Mark, if you ask me ...