We all get along. Really!

There is a post on Living in Singapore where I made a comment, saying that ‘racial harmony’ in Singapore is not all it’s cracked up to be. The author, based on her personal experiences, begged to differ, stating (and I paraphrase) that

  1. there are hardly any incidents where racial slurs are directed toward an ethnic minority
  2. race is not used as a political tool, and
  3. there is a lot of racial tolerance in Singapore.

I also respectfully begged to differ, and stated my reasons in the comments. It got me thinking about race issues, though.

For full disclosure purposes: I’m born and bred Singaporean, of Chinese ethnicity. I went to a Chinese (Catholic) school. I must say that my social and school life did not tend toward a mixing of the races (but! My best mate in junior college was mixed Chinese/Indian/Malay! Therefore I must be okay!).

My instinct is that Singapore society is not, on its own, particularly enlightened when it comes to race relations. We take orders from our leaders, and they say, “You will all get along, regardless of race (language or religion).” Luckily most people are nice, so we all, generally speaking, get along anyway.

But (there’s always a but), how many Singaporeans have heard or told stupid racist jokes? My father’s a die-hard hater of anyone who’s non-Chinese (and ‘hate’ is not too strong a word to be used), so I’ve heard far too many. When he learned how to use e-mail, I learned how to reflexively use the ‘delete’ key. Others I know profess to not be racist at all, but then turn around and say, “Well, you know Indians / Malays are all lazy (or any other fairly similar comment).”

I don’t think any person is insulated from forming discriminatory opinions based on ethnicity, it just depends on how we deal with them when they come up. We grow up listening to our parents, relatives, and their friends. There are more than likely to be a few bigots among them. I am lucky that I am part of the ethnic majority in Singapore, and I think it makes many Singaporean Chinese blind to the casual racism Malay, Indian, and Eurasian (and all our other racially-mixed) people face.

The fact that Singapore’s racial harmony requires government-mandated programmes indicates, to me, that all is not well, all has not been well, and all will not be well for a while.

Further reading:

This weekend I…

  • did sweet FA until Saturday night
  • had dinner at Bellagio (fantastic Taiwanese restaurant, a must-try)
  • visited the latest and greatest pub in town, the Jazz Bar (which, inexplicably, does not play any music resembling jazz, there’s a pretty decent Filipino cover band – but it’s not jazz)
  • was taken to NASA (even less likely to play jazz, although Freddy vs. Jason was on the big screen – on mute, though, this is a techno music wonderland)
  • closed NASA (Neil and I got to talking while everyone went home)
  • slept all day Sunday
  • watched Nineteen Eighty-Four (Neil was all prepared to rave about it, but it got a little too weird for him – I need to read the book again)

Slip, Slop, Slap

hippoIt turns out that hippos make their own sunscreen:

The researchers collected sweat samples from the face and back of a hippo at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo.

…

They found unstable red and orange pigments that turned out to be aromatic compounds, naming the red one hipposudoric acid and the orange one norhipposudoric acid.

The researchers then set out to find out what these pigments did.

As the pigments reflected light in the 200 to 600 nanometer range of the spectrum, the researchers concluded they acted as sunscreen pigments.

Is it only a matter of (evolutionary) time before sun-worshipping humans also start to manufacture our own sunscreen? In the meantime, I’ll stick to my Banana Boat SPF 50.

A long, long road ahead

The British army will be sending the Black Watch back to Iraq. With more troops likely to be deployed after the June 30 handover.

The US army is, of course, also reportedly in for the long haul.

“But we also expect that (for) the unity of command and to make sure there is no confusion as to what we’re doing with respect to security, they will put those troops under the direction of the multi-national force commander, who will be an American.”

Who is not answerable to the International Criminal Court, I’m sure.

Back when the US government refused to ratify the ICC, their reason was to avoid politically-motivated suits against their citizens. It appears to me that their behaviour since this event would probably have caused far more allegations against them, political or not, had they ratified it.

Is the US government incredibly psychic and evil? Inquiring (and conspiracy-loving) minds want to know.

It’s a mighty big favour

Many, many years ago, before homes enjoyed broadband service, before weblogs were cool, and instant messaging was all but unheard of, I used to hang out on IRC – the Australian Undernet server on the #singapore channel, to be precise. I made a lot of online friends in those days, much more than the few Neil dubs my ‘online pals’. One, in particular, stands out.

best matesHis introduction came by way of a private message, or PM. He wasn’t one of those creeps trying to type with one hand, he was an international student, like me, and very, very shy. He was more than a little infatuated with a girl in his class, and had no idea how to chat her up. For some unknown reason, he came to me for advice.

I gave him advice. Our friendship thus bloomed, and we tended to hang out most weekends. He’s a few years older than me, and despite his relative inexperience with women, treated me like a little sister he had to take care of. Except for that time I got him falling down drunk (his first experience with alcohol, too) and had to drive him home. He saw me through dating one inappropriate guy after another, a keening lust for his flatmate (most worthy stalking material – I wonder what he’s doing now?), semesters with too much partying, and finally, graduation.

As can and usually does happen, he stayed on at university and I went home, so we lost touch. A few years after I last spoke with him, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a telephone call from said friend, looking to meet and catch up. I was really looking forward to seeing him again.

We had a great time reminiscing and embarrassing each other. As it turns out, not only had he managed to date girls with increasing confidence, he’d even got serious with one. He wistfully told me that she was still back in Australia, finishing off her degree. Then he told me he’d been getting horny without her and would I, as a friend, to make him feel better, shag him?

This is China

Or TIC, as my friend here likes to call it.

I forget who told me this, but people do have ‘freedom of speech’ in China. You can talk and complain and discuss all you like, but if the government decides you, with all your talk, are inciting violence and unrest, watch out.

It’s just like being back home!

You know it’s a slow day when…

… photos of an attempted suicide make the national news.

I wonder what that was all about. This house could be in any of the small neighbourhoods (小区). Hell, my friend in Singapore told me about a building collapse in Xiamen last year before I found out it was in Huli – where I live.

Hepatitis B carriers’ lives suck

A comment from mdmhvonpa drew my attention to this topic: Hepatitis B in China. The flood of information first began with lifeinjiangxi, which then spread to Asian Labour News (1, 2 & 3), and then to The Peking Duck.

I don’t personally know any Hep B carriers in China, but I do have relatives back home who have tested positive, and two who have since passed away from liver cancer. I can’t even imagine how impossible life must be for someone in China who is a carrier. People get pigeonholed and stigmatised for all sorts of stupid reasons, but this is really something. It seems to be part of the ‘ignore the sufferers, they’ll die, and the problem will go away’ sort of attitude that causes so epidemics. Remember SARS?

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