Might Be Mad

It can't be helped that whenever anyone declares the above, responses ellicited will include a fair number that do us no favours as a people. In telling people who say we are retarded to either stuff it or take a hike, we are only confirming the statement, that we are morons. Because that's how morons behave: they are pig-headed and defensive beyond belief, sure in the knowledge that all is right with them and their world. Bigots, snobs. Idiots. I am not saying we are all like that, though. I say it cannot be helped because in any sampling of humanity, stupidity is bound to surface: even if it is not universal (and here we must be thankful for small mercies), stupidity is prevalent enough that Singapore, and the world too, is so fucked up. So what can we do? I can only hope in my limited capacity to persuade any one listening, that when we next hear someone say Singapore is retarded or that it sucks, unpleasant as it is, to refrain from hitting out, but to ask "why?...

That what we have with God is a relationship is nothing new to Christians; but I am writing about it anyway because of the acuteness with which this is being impressed upon me daily, that I fear I might burst if I don't find some release in writing about it. Why is this being impressed upon me daily? Because there are parallels aplenty between our relationships with the people around us, and that between us and God. Parents in particular, will encounter many; yet that is not to say that most parents are Christians. Indeed, all things considered, I believe Christians are a minority, a people with a peculiar faith. The visible church is huge; many even consider "Judeo/Christian" as the predominant mental framework of the Western world, which sets the agenda for much of what is considered "modern". For instance, I am undecided about polygamy, but I am glad that wife beating is now not only frowned upon in most countries, it is actually illegal. But then again, so m...

In the same way that we cannot fathom the thought processes of the mentally retarded, the workings of the local immigration service is likewise lost on me, and indeed a lot of people. I just can't understand why it takes so long to stamp a few pages, check faces, and do that little thing with the computer that the officials do... if matters are already computerised, how difficult is it to clear cars and people waiting to cross the causeway for whatever reason they might have? Instead, the jams at the causeway checkpoints between Malaysia and Singapore are always so bad, it's got people muttering murder. But perhaps i've been hasty. No disrespect to the state employees doing the best that they're capable of, given the tools and training they've been issued (whether it's part of Asian manners, an actual legal requirement, prudence or whatever, this “no disrespect” clause is a given when discussing public affairs and officials in Singapore, and I shan't be foun...

I'm pretty old-fashioned with regards to music in church, and am thankful that the one i attend only has a very limited (relatively speaking) repertoire in praise of God, comprising psalms, and hymns. Limited in the sense that we're not very adventurous and would baulk at say, Christian Rock, Christian Jazz or whatever. But still, it's better than singing some three-line thing and repeating it over and over, which in this day passes for devotional music in not a few churches. But let me leave church music proper for a future post; its importance warrants exlusive treatment. Here, i should just like to comment on the singing. I don't know if many Christians realise this, but singing in church is an act of sacrifice/service to God. It is a part of worship. As the heathen offer incense, meats, etc., to their particular gods and deities, Christians offer up our voices to God in worship. What does this entail? For me, several things. The singing is not about us, but God; so ...

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:1-4 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63 One of the questions that keeps coming up among Christians, is whether one should read the Bible literally, or figuratively. Loosely speaking, the ultra-conservatives preach the former – hell, the great flood, the resurrection, etc., are all real; whereas Christians of the more modern ilk take greater liberties with the scriptures, such that bits in t...

I feel I ought to say something about this matter; I owe her this much at least, for the pleasure she has given me through her soul-rending music -- I am talking about Jiang Meiqi, one of my favourite singers in Chinese Pop. She has a most beautiful voice, but for some reason, she's never quite hit big time, even if people generally have praise for her work. Perhaps it's because she's not impossibly pretty -- at least in the conventional sense, which seems to be the necessary ingredient for pop starlets that the record industry wheels out like pretty confections on a conveyor belt. But Jiang Meiqi is pretty. A bit on the tanned side, and she looks ordinary even; there's a certain willfulness in the shape of her jutting jaw and lips, and her nose is a little too large. But what an ensemble they form with her eyes, which are large, full of emotion, vulnerability and yet an utter absence of self-consciousness. A picture of perfection in imperfection, I would say. Of cours...

It's an ongoing series based on a popular manga, so on some days, i find myself in a state of withdrawal as I wait for the fan groups to work out the subtitles. Excellent stuff and so off-beat, with the funniest dialogue, and the subbers have done a brilliant job, including the wealth of contextual information and cultural references. In brief, it's centred on the life and adventures of the members of an odd-job agency (more like a surrogate family), who are more than what they'd care to admit, set in a Japan that melds sci-fi (alien oppressors, spaceships, thinking robots) and post-Samurai era where the carrying of swords have been banned except for the police and militia (sort of like Samurai X, or the period of the Meiji Restoration, where samurais were forbidden to bear their swords...). This is done wonderfully, and besides, it's such a wonderful metaphor for change, the hazy transition period between the classical age and a subsequent one taking shape at breakneck...

"He could hardly look at himself after having violated such a young girl. In the mirror he saw her face approaching. Startled by its fresh, poignant beauty, Oki turned round to her. She touched his shoulder, nestled her face against his chest, and said:'I love you.'"

Yesterday and old friend and i had tea, and we drank to "Uncertainty". Perhaps it sounds a little contrived, a scene crafted for some self-important short film; but I assure the reader, it was not. Every time we gather... which is not often, considering our busy schedules, we feel a little roughed up by life, and just relish the comfort of each other's company like a pair of stray dogs licking wounds. In our daily dealings with lots of people, it's pretty vexing that we seem surrounded by a whole cohort of people who are always so sure of everything. It's like being the sole infidel in a cult gathering. People are always so sure of what plagues the world, along with the necessary steps to make things right thing; never flinching from making bold judgements, partitioning blame; that so-and-so should shut up and die, that so-and-so deserved the calamity that befell him or her; that so-and-so sucks ass. Why is everyone so sure about everything? So confident? Is it an...

More than 200 episodes later, probably amounting to some 100 hours, i feel I owe a few words to my latest obsession – Naruto, the anime series. A good friend of mine has used the word “Narutard” on me (it would have been hurtful if not also used with a feeling of endearment), I have not felt any great urge to spend time with people in general (only very close male friends fall outside of this... I shall talk about friends and gender in another post) when I could just go home and watch another ten episodes of Naruto at a go... In the meantime, my reading has suffered. Melacholy Whores lies untouched, a colleague's copy of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is neglected, while a Japanese for Dummies remains in its cellophane wrap weeks after it was purchased on impulse without a discount. I think the Naruto series has enough young fans that another glowing review is not really necessary. At the same time, I feel I must give my two cents' worth, so that perhaps those who'v...

"Time expands and contracts. When it expands, it's like a pitch: it folds people in its arms and holds them forever in its embrace. It doesn't let us go very easily. Sometimes you go back again to the place you've just come from, stop and close your eyes, and realise that not a second has passed, and time just leaves you there, stranded, in the darkness."

"The tears I shed lately, particularly those linked to memories, were all but meaningless. They came out on their own, like bird shit. My dad knew this, and kept quiet."

"Was she awake behind her pale lids, he wondered, her nakedness a deliberate provocation? He suspected not. There was something too artless about the way her legs were splayed, too childlike about the way her hands were tucked up against her breasts. And the final proof'? She was snoring. If this was indeed a performance, then that was a touch of genius."

It's quite a fortuitous thing, I’d say; a bout of illness has reacquainted me with the joys of a steamboat. Nothing fancy, it’s just a boiling pot of stock, into which you put an assortment of ingredients only limited by the your imagination and the diameter of your steamboat. The Swiss have fondue, we have steamboat. And into the pot, you can have anything from chicken broth (an excellent choice for weak stomachs or when you’re still suffering from stomach flu) to chilli oil Ma La soup, which is numbingly spicy and apt to give you diarrhoea unless you’re made of sterner stuff. But some people swear it’s how southern Chinese women stay svelte and shapely, as opposed the popular conception that it is the rigours of planting rice that explains their enviable BMI. But back on the subject, it sure beats eating porridge. The very idea terrifies me. But steamboat, it seems, never gets tired. I could eat it every day. For a successful steamboat, I have found the following ingredients to b...

As I write this, my faith hangs as claws dug into a chalkboard, slipping and making an obscene racket. Life is hard. I have often even, exclaimed that life sucks. Yet how precious is life! What would we do to extend our own lives, or even that of our loved ones? Anything. But as experience shows, such iron resolve is in vain, and largely irrelevant as events overtake our lives and best laid plans like an incoming tide over a sand castle. As individuals, we can effect woefully little; the Bible tells us, we cannot make ourselves any taller, or our hair, any blacker. Where then the cause for arrogance? It must come from stupidity, or else one is living in denial. As I do. Not intending to be coolly self-deprecating, I count myself most unworthy of a Christian. Bitter, cynical, angry; carnal, worldly, and alienated, I am in speech, and action, near indistinguishable from the heathen. Yet I am a Christian because I believe in the God of the Bible, and have a relationship with Him; a relat...

Of course, Asher had been a spy. And when Jan van der Platz--sixteen and Asher's loyal shadow for weeks--had learned that Asher was not German but English and had confronted him in tears, Asher had shot him to protect his contacts in the town, the Kaffirs who slipped him information and would be horribly killed in retaliation, and the British troops in the field who would have been massacred by the commandos had he been forced to talk.

"She wondered, too, whether she had hampered them by giving him her virginity. She knew that in his mind, she had forced them to start with him taking something from her. She could tell he felt guilty about it. The ribbon of blood on the sheet was a simple statement in cipher: this is serious. Blood , she wrote in her diary, is the colour of love ."

Learned a couple of things over lunch yesterday, and being the generous soul that I am, I thought I would share. Much of this concerns boiling eggs, which to me are one of nature's most sublime gifts (along with clouds and light breezes), full of goodness despite the cholesterol controversy, voluptuously beautiful and pregnant with a wealth of erotic metaphors in their admiration, preparation and general experience. Simply, one could not be near an egg without thinking unclean sorts... in a clean sorta way. I love eggs for the shape of the shell, for which I am at a loss for words to describe, beyond “perfect”, “sublime”, “mmm”; the shocking luminosity of “sunny-side up” which lights up a morning better than a kiss; the fluffiness of the rice wine infused egg white that forms the soft bed of a steamed crab; the rich taste and texture of the yolk, the way this seduces one's sense of taste, touch and smell in the mouth, before doing wonderful things to my head as it is swallowed....

I am sure, on many counts, we do. As do many, many things, in all fairness. For starters, the world, and life, just ain't fair. The good die young and we are left with assholes for company. People who need money, can't ever find enough of it; those with time on their hands have no idea what to do with it. Toast always lands on the side that's buttered, etc. But back to Christians. Irking the world with silly notions and unwanted good intentions; always talking about salvation, thanking an unseen God for everything, always trying to convert people to Christ who is not even older than Buddha, have no respect for tradition (most offensively, at the refusal to partake in traditional funeral rites)... I shall not explain everything at one go; the virtue of brevity is, after all, that it is relatively painless. But primarily, Christians suck because the world would not let us be. Christians (and here, I am generalising -- there are just so many types) have an other-worldly mindse...

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. -- Matthew 8:1-3