Singapore's 40th Birthday

I have made a couple of lists before. One was regarding Singapore Fashion Faux Pas and another on the type of freaks people you meet when clubbing.

In line with the date: 9th August 2005, I have decided that I should have something written in here since I am in such a celebratory mood. *rolls eyes*

I had wanted to create a list of things uniquely singapore. So I set out thinking about things that I look for as clues when I suspect an asian looking person to be from Singapore. One of the first, especially if the person is sleeveless is the BCG mark. It's actually against tuberculosis. I never knew....Or that most primary school children in the 80s and 90s (do they still do it now??) will remember having to brush their teeth, squatting next to a drain with the rest of his/her classmates? Or how about hearing the story of bukit merah, you know, swordfish, wreak havoc, smart boy, banana trunks, jealous king, murder, blood, stained hill....was it really a boy and not some girl???so much blood....

But I decided against it.

And came up with a list of Singapore Slang. Some rhyming, like the cockney rhyming slang, others, just...erm....don't rhyme. There are more certainly. but I try not to have too many of the army lingo stuff. I didn't want any that was in common hokkien or malay language. Cause our friends up north will know as well and it's not as localised anymore is it?
Here it is anyhow. The 10:

10. steady phoon pi pi
This is in common use isn't it? I am not sure if it is really local. I haven't been up to Malaysia much and never been to Borneo. So I won't know if they have this elsewhere. Anyway, it's used when you want to praise something or to confirm an appointment. Often used alone as a reply. Steady is english so it's understood. Phoon Pi Pi means to blow whistle. I figure it came about partly due to the similar sound steady has with pi pi.

9. panh chance
Ok, another of the english mixed with hokkien type of slang. it literally means to give chance but how it is often used is when asking for some leeway. like when faced with a stronger opponent, you hope the opponent can panh chance. "panh" by the way, is pronounced as "pun". I am not sure if our neighbours up north/southeast blah use this as well? This is because I have some malay friends and indians too, using this phrase.

8. chop chop kalipok
This sounds rather "army". I do know that chop chop is actually from the english. but to add a kalipok behind is purely colloquial. But i am not sure if it is 100% Singaporelian. I can imgaine a moustachioed englishman in a safari suit hurrying his local worker, "well, chop chop now, we can't be doing this the whole day. I will miss my afternoon tea!" How the kalipok comes in I will perhaps never know. Kalipok means curry puff. Like Old Chang Kee type.

7. pattern jueh kueh badminton
Help somebody. This gets stranger. It's like "steady phoon pi pi. Not much meaning just alot of rhyming. And that's what makes it more interesting actually. it's got a sllighty negative connotation though can be neutral as well. Most often used on people who has got more style than substance. Defnitely not with reference to badminton. Although it can be used to describe sports. Like when a particular footballer dazzles everyone with his fancy footwork but fails to score... "jueh kueh" means "more than". So I suppose in badminton, one can have alot of fancy footwork, smashes, drop shots etc etc....how it ended up with patterns? I don't know.

6. talk cock sing song
Ok, "talk cock" was made rather famous by one Ling How Doong. He mentioned this in a parliamentary session once...He later explained that it was a proper phrase and was referring to "cock and bull story". right....Now, there is this other guy, Charles Chong, who made a lewd funny remark on oral sex by saying he is not a "cunning linguist". He was never penalised. So the lesson here is that you can use dubious phrases/words in parliament but always in good dose of humour. Anyway, why talk cock and sing song? Does it rhyme? Not exactly. Do they sound nice together? Sorta. Was it first used here? I don't know.

5. seow ding dong
This is not related to Ling How Doong, however much it rhymes with his name. Now, this slang is a little clever. Because ding dong is a proper english slang by itself. But by adding a local word, "seow", which means crazy in hokkien, you get this hybrid of craziness that can only be reserved for...really crazy people! I wonder when the first person to use this phrase, did s/he consciously know that ding dong was a slang. and thus, fortifying (sounds nutritious) the craziness. it's like saying fucking fucker or crazy asshat or swinging swinger or ugly horse face etc etc... anyways...when people say this phrase, it can be further (!!!wow!!!) emphasised by rotating the index finger around the ear.

4. ponten
This is very old school. And I think it is still being used. I don't know the spelling. And I don't know where it came from. If it is from a malay word, can someone just tell me? It's pronounced as Pon-Ten. And it is a word used by kids of schooling age, from primary school through to university. When you ponten, you are playing truant. You are AWOL from class. And it is so damn fun.... By the way. Why is it that we are playing truant? Why play? Is ponten a lousy pronunciation of playing truant? If it is, it is a damn lousy mispronunciation.

3. sabo
Short for sabotage. Some people pronounce it as say-boh. some as sar-boh. Very army, like chop chop kalipok. people who sabo alot are called sabo king. when you get sabotaged, you are said to be sabo-ed. when you are committing sabotage, you are sabo-ing. it is not pronounced as saboing as in boingboing.net but more like sar-boh-ing. It has been spread across the causewau already i think but i wonder if sillypolians used it first.

2. tawn
This is a BBQ at East Coast Park word. When you want to stay out after a bbq at east coast and not go home till the next day, you are tawnning. So you have your friends asking you, "eh, you going to tawn or not?" Is it also a case of lousy pronunciaiton? That this is actually a mispronunciation of "dawn"? As in, if you wanted to stay till dawn? I don't know.

1. shak
Army. I almost didn't want to include this. Shak. As in shaquille o'neal. It means tired, which is how I feel now..


Ok, so I have finished with the top ten. And I am wondering which ones should be taken out. I had wanted to include "piss" cause i thought only singaporeans use piss as being in a state of drunkedness but it is not apparently. then i wanted to have "mug" in there as well because in US and UK, mugging and to mug is to rob someone. But apparently to "mug up" is to study intensively in english. So no "mug".

Alright. This has been a long entry. I was kept interested. Were you?
Oh and er...tomorrow, I will give an analysis of the design of our State Flag.

Things that keep me up at night (not the dripping tap)

"Frankly, I don't think they would be able to afford me," said Ms Lu Yumin, 23, an accounts executive who says she loves shopping and fucking travelling.

That was what I read in the papers today. About this rag & bone man who was gonna propose to a nursery child care centre principal. He's known as Mr Khiew. Khiew who?

"Were you agreed to help me to build a up our better, bright future." Mr Khiew.

That's his proposal written on a small strip of paper.

But ST cannot have bad grammar on their paper. they cannot have fu*ck but can have cheebye. Go figure.
So the above was corrected into: "Will you agree to help me build a better brighter future?"
I think Mr Khiew's orginal sounds more sincere. Cause it's by bloody him. Not some other editor....
Continuing the papers.......

Sylvester Sim looks like a social-drug junkie sans makeup. Maybe he was staying up at night too, like me, listening to the dripping tap. That filial son. He was probably concerned about his mum - Avigline, court case. He looks hungry too, judging from his sullen state, and that by taking his mum out for lunch, he was surely gonna order some food for himself.

Stem cell expert Hwang Woo Suk who cloned a dog, is a 'national asset' of South Korea. He works 7 days a week. Arriving at the lab by 6am and leaving at midnight. Sleeps 4 hours. And that four hours of sleep he equates to time spent with wife. He says that it is very difficult for her but she is very proud of his achievements. So I am guessing they talk to each other in their sleep. Damn, the Koreans are the new Japanese alright. Efficient even in their state of rest. Find me a Korean wife please. In fact, I can afford the time to have 2 Korean wives if I sleep the normal 8 hours. Presently I can afford the time for 1.5 Korean wives with my 6-hour sleep routine. But financially, I can't. So....Actually his story reminds me of a song by the Flaming Lips: Race For The Prize. Wayne Coyne is a lyrical genius.

Two scientists are racing
for the good of all mankind
Both of them, side by side
So determined
Locked in heated battle
for the cure that is the prize
but its so dangerous
but they're determined
Theirs is to win
if it kills them
But they're just human
with wives and children
Upwards to the vangaurd,
where the pressure is too high
under the microscope, hope against hope
Forging for the future
but to sacrifice their lives
both of them side by side, so determined
they're determined
if it kills them
They're just human
with wives and children
Theirs is to win,
it will kill them
They're just humans
with wives and children

Lastly there is Jas Liew, a 19 year-old student who cheerleads, weigh 42kg and makes sense. She was featured on ST's hot bods column. She drinks a glass of unboiled tap water everyday as it detoxifies and cleanses her body. She avoids eating noodles because she thinks they go straight to her tummy. Ah.....the wonders of our NEWater. She might be right about the path that noodles take upoin entering our mouths. No wonder char kuay teow, fried hokkien mee and mee goreng are fattening. The noodles just slip right down.

I was checking out The Cabinet website. Well, anyway, Mr Lee Hsien Loong was clearly an over-achiever. He was a Brigadier-General when he was 32 years old. When I am 32, I should be so lucky and start calling myself Mr instead of some other military rank. At most it would be a Major. I am not wicked. But, what are the chances of another cable car incident? Touch wood.


*Touch wood* not like that. So naughty.

Mr George Yeo entered the Singapore Command and Staff College (SCSC - aka Some can come cannot) when he was 25. That is a very *wow* thing in military school where the average age of your peers should be thirtysomethings. SCSC prepares senior officers for very important jobs. And at 25, to graduate at the top of your class, says alot about him.

Now to start the day. Slept at 5am and woke at 930am. Funeral wake woke me up. Not funny. It's the 7th Lunar month by the way. Mind the things that go bump in the night.

Early Sunday mumblings

You don't remember what you set out to do. but when you end up having a good time. you know you have met your weekend objectives. was suppose to watch cleopatra wong tonight. but hey, i was sleeping.

soi sauntered down to jiak kim close to midnight. looks happening outside. met yve, mong, marc and jade in there. v was in the toilet. then aileen or eileen joined us. pin was doing the visuals for the launch of breakinasia. i thought the visuals were great. a lot more effort than the usual stuff you see on the screen. but how to keep up with the quality?

saw a number of friends and acquaintances there (Zouk/Phuture). the Liaison Officer for KD SRI INDERA SAKTI was there (Desmond Tan). Delvin Lee was there (Sec school class and school mate). Two ministers' sons were there.

Agnelli and Nelson gave a out and out trance set. Think it is real refereshing to listen to the lowest common denominator again after a long hiatus. Upstairs, reiki, tony and spoonky were trying to keep things intact. i think the steam was lost after 2am....

Content

Well, my Saturday sailing's over. Had an exercise with the RMN. No, not the Royal Manticoran Navy. Royal Malaysian Navy. Why is it that there are people, locals and foreigners alike, who still think that the "R" in RSN refers to some form of royalty? It's "R" as in Republic.

I am quite content to just sleep the rest of the day away. But there is something's 'abrewin' so I'll be heading down to Phuture in a while's time. But I really need dinner right now. Sleeping onboard is not good for restive deep sleep. You get woken up just before you drift into Zzz-land by the fire/flooding alarm. Then you wake up cause the ship's rolling is getting to you. Then the flurry of preparatory procedures begin. Then the guys start streaming in. Then you have to bloody wake.

Got to eat.....got to eat.....

Tuesdays are just an extension of Mondays

Tuesdays are over-rated.
I think they no longer mean that we are one day closer to the weekend.
They are just an extension of dreary Mondays.
Wednesdays follow Tuesdays (I am beginning to sound like a pre-school teacher teaching days of a week). They are suppose to be the midweek hump. Get over this hump and you'll pick up speed towards the weekend. But if your Saturday is gonna be spent somewhere in the middle of South China Sea....Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are just like Mondays. And the Sunday after the Saturday sailing is gonna be a harbinger for the inevitable Monday that will follow.
Damn.

It is unlikely that we will ever have days ending in "y" off. So dream on Mark. They will let that happen only if they officially change the spelling of [day] to [dei] hahaha.

So now we know how a week works and what it is made up of...

Today was also the first time in weeks that I managed to get out of base at a time that approximates close to the official knock off time. I have been putting in extra hours since the start of July and there hasn't been much of a breather...

But the reason why I could go off was because I was gonna visit one of my guy who was admitted into Changi Hospital. He was reacting to some painkillers he took and so the ambulance came into the wharf for the second time in as many months. And the other time in July, it was also for one of my guy whose finger got slammed between 12 6kg 57mm ammunition and the ammunition rack. That's 72kilos for those who are mathematically challenged. Plus acceleration of gravity blah blah my physics fail me....it equals great pain.

Ambulances on the wharf is not a fun thing. It is not a common thing. But we seem to be seeing a pattern here.

I'm gonna watch Perth on 15 Aug. Got my tickets. Wahey!
I'm gonna check out The Observatory's new album launch as well. That's on 2 Sep. Can't wait for the ticks. =)