Risk your life and limbs

Now, honestly, how many people (who are not foreign workers who have no choice) would actually not mind being ferried in a lorry, even with 'better' seating height restrictions, seating space, canopy and what not (some of which will take three years to install)?

picture from here

Regarding language

I thought he would talk about the new immigrant-cum-foreign talent/worker issue... Hmmm... Does that mean we have to wait till next year's speech?

Some months ago, I heard on 97.2 this phone-in discussion thingy about the decline in service standards. This man (sounded old) called in and practically ranted about foreigners from a certain country being (practically) single-handedly responsible for today's lousy service standards. It was quite amusing to hear him but of course the issue is not so amusing.

Ok, I will not run away from the issue and I will specifically make some comments about people from the land of my ancestors.

One, I honestly do not understand how one can be employed in the service sector without being able to speak at least some English. I wish this issue had been part of the discourse on racial harmony. I do not like having to speak Mandarin when I should be free to speak English.

Two, I am not comfortable with the idea of giving new citizens time to learn English. I feel they should at least make the effort to learn the language before even applying for citizenship. There are new citizens who do not bother to learn English because they can get on with life without it. And that is quite a scary prospect for Singapore.

After all, knowing the language is just part of the whole story. There was this article around National Day which reported that an appalling number of Singaporeans couldn't recite the pledge. I remember a new citizen was quoted as saying something like the pledge was hard to learn because of its many big words. Well, that is one thing but the pledge is beyond the big words - does he actually understand the spirit of the pledge?

Then there was an article this week about foreign doctors making up for the shortfall of local doctors which reminded me of the good experience I had with one such doctor when my dad was in hospital. She wasn't the best of doctors or whatever but she certainly fulfilled her role as well as any other doctor, keeping me posted regularly, discussing the pertinent issues, giving attentive care (beyond just medical care) to my dad and so on. I want to point out that another doctor - local (and my family has had many very good experiences with local young doctors especially), Malaysian, Indian, Burmese, etc - may/would have done the same thing. My main point is she was able to render this 'good service' partly (largely?) because she could speak English. (Obviously, she wouldn't even be working as a doctor here without being competent in English.)

Do I sound resentful? I don't know...

Maybe I am resentful but I sure do not like how this bodes for the future of my country. And I do not like how this, in its own way, is going to wear out our 'social fabric'. When non-English-educated aunties and uncles need to communicate inter-racially, they can do so in Malay and smatterings of English. In the future, what language are people going to speak?

Patriotic pieces

I enjoyed the music segments of this year's parade, namely the interesting montage of old national songs (but it must have been hard for people to sing along because the songs changed every other phrase or so!) and the music through the years section (or whatever it was called).

And the classical-style arrangement for the national anthem at the end of the parade was lovely.

I also like the Electrico song that some people have a problem with.

Today, I found out about Mr Brown's version of the Electrico song. Funny...

Happy National Day, all!

Seeing double

I guess this happens when you watch enough K drama (or TVB or Mediacorp or whatever). After a while, everyone one starts popping up in different series and you wonder where you last saw them.

Chanced upon Summer Scent which is doing a rerun on KBS World. A supremely melodramatic serial from the 'old' days of K drama that I'm not following. It is just that it comes on immediately after 2 serials I am trying to follow (more on them another day!).

BEFORE (the Summer Scent cast in 2003):

AFTER (and all grown up!):

Son Ye Jin in Spotlight - at least she got to do a character with more depth and spunk.
Han Ji Hye in Likeable or Not - expressions still look the same but thankfully she doesn't have that blondish hair anymore.

Ryu Jin in Capital Scandal - acting still flat, even when he was cast as such an amazing character.

I have not seen Song Seong Heon, the male lead, in any other show. Think he was the best actor of the four. He was the only one who could do his emotional scenes convincingly.

More doubles:

Strange but there is so much physical likeness between couples.

Son Ye Jin looked so much like Jang Nara in Wedding and she and Ryu Jin looked like Jang Nara and Ryu Shi Won in Wedding (below).

Son Ye Jin and Song Seong Heon looked like Han Ji Min and Kang Ji Hwan in Capital Scandal (below).

Country scenes:

About the only really enjoyable parts of Summer Scent are the flowers and lovely countryside and mountain scenery. Which featured quite strongly in shows like Wedding (see above) and The Man From the Vineyard (below). I really like the out-of-Seoul sites. Something you don't get in TVB drama.

Technology, money or sports?

Is technology taking the sport out of sports?

Sounds like a GP essay question, ha ha.

Those hi-tech suits

Was just remarking to the husband the other day that Roma 2009 (World Swimming Championship) has become a farce. My reasons: First (and not too important), there are too many synchro events. Second, and much more important, the Arena and Jaked swimsuits helped produce records that no one will be able to break for maybe the next 5 years if they go back to using their old swimsuits.

I was wrong! There was this Australian coach who said that those records will still be around in the next 40 years.

Park Tae-Hwan (Olympic gold medallist), wearing his 'old' swimsuit, didn't even qualify for any finals.

Frankly, the idea of taking 45 minutes to squeeze into that long-legged skin-tight suit is quite off-putting. But I guess for medals and records, there are things that people will do.

Our Singaporean swimmers, apparently, are also hi-tech suit owners. And the plan is for them to use them at the SEA Games. Hmm, guaranteed to make us even less loved by our sporting neighbours, no?

Hawkeye
Hawkeye is old news by now, of course, but I just read this article about it. As an armchair tennis watcher, I have to say that I do like the use of Hawkeye because it reduces a lot of trouble linked to contentious calls. However, all players as well as armchair watchers know that Hawkeye is fallible since it is still based on human judgment. And anyway, it has been proven, occasionally, to be wrong. But overall, I guess it has helped.


Helmets and other stuff
Lastly, we now know for sure that Felipe Massa's helmet made sure he will be able to leave the hospital alive, and still speaking 3 languages.


However, all the safety precautions of race cars and outfits aside, the circuit is another place where the fight is, partly, between the technological haves and have-nots. Of course that translates into a big fat advantage for richer teams.

---------

From the looks of it, we will not be going back to the days when swimming races were swum in plain old swimming trunks.