Kan Seng’s new task :

Promoting immigration, putting citizens first and making babies.

The Government intends to put these pieces together and look at the issues from a broader perspective, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday.

Into this total picture comes incoming Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng — Singapore’s new population supremo.

BBC News calls him the czar. I agree it’s important to have someone looking at the big picture when it comes to population size and composition, especially in a small and greying population like Singapore’s. It’s still funny, though, since Singapore has been desperately been trying to get its married and responsible citizens to have unsafe sex for years.

In my mind’s eye, I see the government changing its stance toward pornography: like chewing gum, it can only be dispensed to those bearing a prescription.

(Child’s excuse when caught checking out porn: “I’m only preparing for the day I’m called to serve my duty as a loyal Singapore citizen, honest!”)

My opinion is the point is being missed here. Paris firm on hostages as Allawi cites threat:

The Islamic Army of Iraq, the shadowy group holding the hostages, on Saturday night issued a 48-hour ultimatum to France over the headscarf ban, although it did not specifically threaten the lives of the two newsmen. But on Monday night, after the original deadline expired, their captors told the Al Jazeera news channel that they would extend the ultimatum by 24 hours, according to Agence France-Presse.

Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were shown in a video on Al Jazeera calling on the French government to revoke the ban and on the French people to demonstrate against the legislation.

…

But Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said bluntly that the kidnapping proved that France’s position on Iraq, presumably its opposition to the war and the absence of a troop presence - offered it no protection from terrorism.

Whether or not France opposed the war is irrelevant. Their reason for opposing the war, be they based on morals or money, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Iraq now has these murderous kidnapping groups, who will do pretty much anything to anyone to get some satisfaction. And we don’t know if what the US is doing there is making things better or worse.

… but it’s only news now: Underwater Excavation of Ancient Warships Under Way. Which would be odd, except

Chinese archaeologists are excavating sunken warships used by Zheng Chenggong and his followers to reclaim Taiwan from Dutch occupiers more than three centuries ago.

…

Lin said that what they have found can help prove that Dongshan served as an important military training base for Zheng’s troops.

Of course it’s purely coincidence that Dongshan is the island the PLA uses for military exercises as a demonstration of power toward Taiwan.

Snapshots of moments in Xiamen that make me snigger, point and click.

From Terry, who likes to send me stories that make my jaw drop, Woman defies doctors in bid for 42XXX breasts:

A spokesman for the Plastic Surgeons’ Association of Argentina warned the weight would be too much for her body.

He said: “She is risking her health because there needs to be balance on the body and she will lose that if the breasts go too big.

“She can also develop serious back conditions. But she doesn’t seem to care, all she wants is the title.”

I didn’t even know there was a cup size X, let alone XXX.

One afternoon, when my sister was making one of her expensive calls to Xiamen just so she could catch up with her younger sibling, she mentioned that my descriptions of China made it seem like California during the gold rush — Xiamen sounded like the ‘Wild East’. It’s easy to agree. Xiamen is growing at a pace that practically allows anyone to do whatever they want to make a buck or two; all that’s needed is a little ingenuity and the willingness and ability to work under anhy conditions.

You could be a shoe salesman (Jiahe Lu). Have an eye for style? Know the latest in footwear fashions? Nonchalant about liberating footwear from uncaring owners? Be your own boss! Get into retail; our special offer includes no overhead because you don’t rent any shop space. Athleticism is encouraged — the mafia may occasionally thump a few salespeople for not paying protection money.

If anyone needs a pair of slightly used black loafers, take yourself to Jiahe Lu, between Huli Dadao and SM. Men and women line the streets, standing proudly before their range of footwear, all neatly arranged, just like a shoe store. Almost all pairs are the aforementioned black loafers, and look suspiciously second hand. If there has been a trend towards, say, white loafers, all our shoe hawkers will display a pair or two. If one hawker has women’s pumps, all hawkers will have women’s pumps. I find it very odd indeed.

You could be a guide in Jimei (dai lu). Know your way around? Are you friendly and helpful? Are you unafraid to ride with strangers? Join our growing network of guides in and around Xiamen. You don’t need to be licenced; we like to keep our costs down. You’ll need to be able to work independently, and to fend for yourself if the trucker who picks you up also happens to be a psychopathic serial killer. A penchant for thrills and excitement is mandatory!

As the company bus makes its way from Xiamen island to the mainland (Xiamen mainland?), all will spy a few men who hang out by the side of the highway, holding up signs. No, they’re not hitchhikers, which was my first assumption. They are selling ‘dai lu’ services.

You could be a direct marketer (the boys who give out xiao jie cards and sell porn videos along the road). Are you young? Unemployed? Do you want to live on the edge? Join the strong and courageous few who have taken up the profession of pornography direct marketing! Wear whatever you like to work. All we are interested in are your results — do you give out xiao jie cards to enough prospects? Are you persistent enough, sticking cards in windows and throwing them at men and women who look like they might like some poontang? Do you make irresistable offers to drivers and passengers who just might be in the market for pirated pornographic videos?

These boys are the scourge of the city. They hang out near hotels and along traffic intersections, hoping to tempt locals and foreigners alike. Sometimes they don’t even bother to differentiate between men and women. They throw the cards at you, as if your declining means you secretly wanted a card advertising Chinese prostitutes.

(Amoy, Amoy will take a break over the next three weeks because I’ll be on a business trip that will likely leave little time for writing. Sorry. Come back for a new column on September 24.)

D W writes and reflects on everything in his life in two posts, Sweet. Nothingness. and Nothing. Sweet. I’ve never met the bloke, but from what I’ve heard, he’s a nice guy. It’s a little worrying to read that he’s so down. I think he needs to take a holiday to Xiamen and a night out with me and the girls.

Otterman speaks… on Cassandra, the mythological Trojan seeress.

Adri reviews COMEX. I read a copy of I-S that Neil brought back for me from his weekend in Singapore, and I never thought I’d say it, but I’m missing out on so much by being away. The film festival, WOMAD, new bars and clubs, restaurants, plays… *sigh*

Nicholas would like to be the biggest jerk in the room someday. I just hope it’s not a True Singapore Ghost Stories collection.

Photos snapped from the company bus this morning:

Some were kept awake by the sound of the typhoon wind. Others, yours truly included, slept right through it.

Dave Pell reminds us that an unfunny politician is better than one who pretends to be something they’re not.

John Kerry and George Bush need to stop harping on military service during the Vietnam war. We all know that Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam and spent four months there. We all know Bush was in the National Guard.

It was 30 years ago. Many of the voters they’re trying to court weren’t even born yet.

Get over it. It’s history. What’s important is what they are doing now, what they are planning for their country.

I’m tired of reading all this nonsense about medical exams, Swift Boats, and Cambodia. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Iraq Prison Probe Faults Intelligence Unit:

The new report identifies 27 people attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib, who are accused of complicity in the abuses. Of those, 23 are soldiers and four were civilian contractors working for the unit.

The investigation report says the violent and sexual abuses — particularly those captured in the now-famous pictures of naked and frightened prisoners — were mostly the work of a group of guards and military intelligence personnel who were not conducting interrogations but instead amusing themselves.

September 11 2001 terrorist attack in the US? CIA was at fault for not reading the signs. Abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib? Military intelligence was at fault for not training and managing those on-site. There’s either something seriously wrong with the intelligence services of the United States or they are the best donkey to pin the blame on when things fuck up.

What was the US government thinking, hiring civilian contractors and assigning soldiers with sadistic streaks to guard and interrogate prisoners?

… oh.

I was in Shenzhen over the last couple of days, and it was nowhere as exciting as ShenzhenParty.com makes it look. This is mainly because I spent most of my time in a printing factory, looking at digital proofs (there’s another hint for you).

I did get a chance to have a mocha at Starbucks (Seaworld in Shekou) — I never thought I’d be so thrilled to see a Starbucks, but there you go (the special Shenzhen Starbucks oversize coffee mug costs more than a bag of beans). We got directions to Starbucks from SPR Coffee, whose staff told us that they were a copy of Starbucks (only in China, only in China). I also had a great lunch and breakfast dim sum at a place called West Bay (Xi Hai Wan). I had no idea how much I missed Cantonese food until my meals in Shenzhen.

We came back to Xiamen as early as we could yesterday afternoon. There was a typhoon warning in Xiamen, and the last thing I wanted was to stay in Shenzhen another night (we stayed in a Chinese motel, which defies description).

I go on another business trip next week, this time for a fortnight.

I spent this last weekend watching the entire first season of Monk on DVD. I’d seen the trailers on Star World, and I’d heard how great it was.

It’s certainly quirky enough — Tony Shalhoub is amazing — and I love a good mystery, conveniently wrapped up in one hour. I’m always trying to guess whodunit and why before Monk makes that face.

Definitely worth watching. Bitty Schram is convincing as Monk’s long-suffering nurse / partner, and I love Ted Levine’s voice. I’ve enjoyed the experience completely. It’s not perfect, Monk’s OCD seems a little inconsistent at times, but what a fun show.

As for OCD and phobias, I totally agree that we all suffer, to some degree, from obsessive compulsive behaviour. I had a minor panic attack a couple of mornings ago that I’d forgotten to shut the fridge door, I’m always checking and double checking that I’ve locked the front door, I have a routine when it comes to getting dressed — if I mix it up, it throws me completely off.

So I feel we can all identify with Adrian Monk in some way, and this is why the series is so good.

My sister sent along the URL for The Mind of the Narcissist.

To a narcissist, love is interchangeable with other emotions, such as awe, respect, admiration, attention, or even being feared (collectively known as Narcissistic Supply). Thus, to him, a projected image, which provokes these reactions in others, is both “loveable and loved”. It also feels like self-love.

The more successful this projected image (or series of successive images) is in generating Narcissistic Supply – the more the narcissist becomes divorced from his True Self and married to the image.

I am not saying that the narcissist does not have a central nucleus of a “self”. All I am saying is that he prefers his image – with which he identifies unreservedly – to his True Self. The True Self becomes serf to the Image. The narcissist, therefore, is not selfish - because his True Self is paralysed and subordinate.

Maybe it’s because we want to see it, but, wow, the fit is uncanny.

D’you remember the days when it was really cool to have a Casio brand wristwatch that doubled as a calculator? When having those extra rows of buttons showed you had the stuff, the nouse?

Oh, it was just me, then.

From ThinkGeek comes the Wristwatch Television, and I was definitely struck with the same emotion that affected me (envy, but only a little) when my older cousin was given his calculator wristwatch so many years ago.

I’m not sure about having earphones plugged into my watch, though. That seems too geeky, even for me. Also, that PP strap tells me the makers of said TV Wristwatch did not think about styling.

(Are styling and gadget wristwatches mutually exclusive concepts, come to think?)

Glowystix from SarongPartyFrens enthuses about two of Singapore’s bands. I’m partial to EIC (I didn’t even know they had a band name till today) — and not only because Jack is a friend from junior college.

Chu Yeow has switched to WordPress. Welcome to the family, mate!

Indigo writes about her copywriting woes. I know how she feels — some freelance editing work I’ve done over the last year was completely re-writing PR pieces that had been translated from Chinese to English.

Ria posts some wonderful photos of her spider-hunting evening at the Central Nature Reserve. She enthuses about their webs and whatnot; I just call them ‘big fuck off spiders’.

Singapore ‘would not back Taiwan’:

After visiting Taiwan, his assessment was there was a real risk of miscalculation and mishap. He was alarmed by the rise of independence forces.

He said Singapore would not recognise an independent Taiwan, and he felt European and Asian countries would not either.

It feels like Lee Hsien Loong and his cabinet have forgotten Singapore’s own history and road to independence. Surely it’s better to say maintaining the status quo is best for political and business reasons, and “most Taiwanese politicians [do] not recognise that reality”. The only reason other countries would not recognise an independent Taiwan — and everyone knows it — is that China is seen as the place to be if you want to get rich.

China takes table tennis (ping! pong!) gold, Singapore’s Li Jiawei comes in fourth. The Straits Times laments that Tan Howe Liang is still the only Singaporean who has ever won an Olympic medal.

The Sunday Herald reports that Scotland is getting warmer, with an average increase of 0.25˚C a decade. So, in about eighty years, Scotland will be warm enough for my mother.

The Asia Times posts an analysis of dissent within the Chinese Communist Party:

On August 11, Huang JinGao, party secretary, in effect the chief executive of LianJiang County, Fujian province, on the southeast coast, published a weblog, or blog, on the official People’s Daily’s website in Beijing. Huang related a corruption case involving a business deal that went sour. His predecessors had signed a real estate agreement with a developer. The two sides then got embroiled in a long-running dispute. Huang claimed that the developer bribed his party colleagues, who then repaid the favor with illegal concessions.

Understandably, obstructing other people’s path to wealth and power is dangerous. Just how dangerous is it in the socialist paradise on earth? Huang said he had worn a bullet proof vest for the past six years, understandably afraid of deadly reprisal.

…

In fact, the most surprising thing about this public display of a power struggle inside the tightly disciplined party is that Huang’s letter got published at all, keeping in mind that the Internet forums in China are closely monitored by police who never fail to filter out such words and phrases as “democracy”, “freedom” and “dictatorship”. That it took the People’s Daily only three short days - hardly enough time to investigate and check on the Kevlar jacket aspect - to post the blog on the web is pregnant with political significance and intrigue. Only one explanation is probable: some very important person in the Communist Party Central Committee gave the green light.

The thing is that no conspiracy is impossible. In my humble opinion, if you can imagine a nefarious plan, it’s probably being executed, or has already taken place, somewhere in China.