My night friend

And for many nights now, while lying in bed just before I fall asleep, I would start talking to this guy beside me. It is usually one-way, with me doing the talking, asking the questions, and then providing the answers. But more often than not, there are more questions than there're answers, which only begets more questions from me, like: "why aren't you answering my questions?!?" But he's a very quiet guy.

And last night, just before I fell asleep, this thought occurred to me. That the writing of my thesis is forcing me to confront all my physical, temperamental, and intellectual inadequacies - weaknesses, and flaws that have plagued my entire, entire life. That is, weaknesses and flaws that ought to have prevented me from climbing up (not that I've been very high up) the career ladder, the social scale, the food chain, so to speak. Yet, and yet, I have somehow wittingly or unwittingly squeezed through each gantry, bypassed the roadblocks, escaped the traps, and arrived at this point. This very gate where I would be let into the hallowed halls of academia. Or not. This very gate where I am confronted with all these flaws that I have to overcome, that I must, or else.

Such are the heavy thoughts that have accompanied me the past many nights, to bed, to sleep, and, perchance, to dream.

All while my quiet friend beside me keeps very quiet. So very quiet.

A quick hello and I'm still alive

They say the first year of candidature is the honeymoon period. You enjoy the novelty, the 'free time', the easy life of a student, reading all the great great books. Then comes the second year when the clock starts ticking, and you start feeling the panic. I'm in the middle of this second year now, and the ticking clock is getting very loud, and I'm getting very panicky indeed. And a range of feelings I've never in my life felt before, or to such an extent. Uncertainty, self-doubt, despair, depressed. And sometimes it's the thought of finally finishing that is keeping me going. The thought of all those who'd loved and supported me through the years. Those who helped me get to where I am now. And it's such thoughts that remind me not to give in, give way, and give up. And I am kept going especially by S., without whom, and it is to S. that I dedicate my thesis, my PhD. And no matter what, I must complete this dedication.

And they say the final year is the worst. O-o. :(

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Anyway. For those who are sick of the propaganda churned out by the Straits Times everyday, do bookmark this fantastic website for your daily dose of critical news commentary: The Online Citizen. For those who're writing argumentative compositions or GP essays, this will be a useful resource. For those who do not want to remain a dumbed-down, propagandized robot, this will be an indispensable weapon. Spread the word far and wide. Of course, there's another reason why I'm plugging this website. But that shall be for another day.

And a quick hello to everyone reading this. Good luck for your coming exams, and send my love to one and all. I know... student life is hard. But it's also the best. : )

Love Singapore

Think back to your childhood. Your first recollection of yourself. Your first memories. It is always voices that you hear. Voices from somewhere, and no image in your mind. The background is fuzzy, in monochrome. But the voices are clear. Someone else's voice. Perhaps your mum, or dad, or grandma, an aunt. A loved one, calling out to little you, a warm cuddly greeting perhaps.

As you gradually remember your childhood, those voices begin to recede. The images sharpen in your mind. Fragments of your childhood appear, and colours reveal themselves: walking to kindergarten, your hair neatly combed, your schoolbag full. A teacher writing big, big letters on the chalkboard, you looking out of the window at the generous sunshine. Your classmates' laughter at recess time.

When you think about why you love Singapore, somehow, it is because Singapore is the place you grew up in. The little shoebox where your childhood memories are kept. The place where you first found happiness in its innocence, its gentleness, its purity.

Think about why you love Singapore, and it is not because of the gleaming skyscrapers in the CBD, as if they are all there is to your country. Not the cheesy slogans and tacky National Day songs. Not the National Day parade whose pomp and pagaentry you remember only for as long as the fireworks briefly light the sky. Not the pledge you recite daily, unthinkingly, reluctantly. Not the national anthem whose meaning you do not know, and can't be much bothered about anyway.

When you think about why you love Singapore, somehow, Singapore the country, and all that is artificial about it, disappear. In its stead are the people and the places that you love. You can't explain it. But you have slowly begun to learn, that's how love is. Singularly obstinate, beyond anyone's command. Just like those childhood voices that you hear.

This national day, try celebrating a little differently. Forget about the forced singing and the fake pledges, the flag that means nothing, the fireworks that do not last. Shallow gestures of patriotism that add little to the meaning of Singapore, to the meaning of love.

Instead, think about the moments when you were happy. Perhaps your first love. Your first kiss. That particular and utterly spectacular sunset after a long and tiring day. Revisit the places that you grew up in. The void deck where you played hide-and-seek. Your old primary school. The friends that you once made. Your childhood memories.

Then, think about how it is these - these familiar places and beloved faces, that make you love Singapore. That make you want to love Singapore. That tug at the ribbons in your heart and that make you want to remain in this place.

When you love Singapore this way, the state, the country, even the nation, begins to recede. When you love Singapore this way, Singapore becomes irrelevant. Becomes unimportant. And when you love Singapore this way, it is a truer, more sincere love for Singapore.

July's almost end

A fragment: I remember standing by your window taking in the view. It was evening, warm, the sound of traffic softly bubbling from below. Singapore was spread out, as if waiting, its street lights coming on, inviting, beckoning. And then you came over, standing behind me, looking out into the evening too, waiting, inviting, beckoning. Night then came and went, but only a little too quickly.

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In a few months, I'd be saying this: A glorious decade, mine, is almost coming to an end. And what a decade it has been. And how I wish I had written it all down. A memento for myself. Every word a moment. Every letter a memory.

Half-way through my candidature now. I've to work harder. Keep writing and write some more. And then I'll finish on time. I must finish on time. I want to finish on time. And live a whole new decade, in another new life.

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A friend came to visit, and for three weeks I played tourist and was kept busy. Melbourne was an utterly marvellous host. Salvadore Dali, John Brack, Pompeii, Pinter, the Tokyo Ensemble, the MSO. Then there is the beautiful winter in this city, and how we drank to our hearts' content.

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How many years has it been, since I first heard your voice? Fifteen? Sixteen? When I was a complete stranger to myself? And it is still your voice that I hear, beside me all these time, in which foreign land. Always this voice, gently releasing this divine sadness. Like droplets of nightfall. Like this . . .

Street music and a student in Melbourne

Every weekend I would after a long exercise of dilly-dallying at home, finally take the tram into the city. The plan would be to find a cafe and sit down with a coffee and book. But that's the easy part. The hard part, being in Melbourne, is to decide on which cafe to go to. And I usually cannot decide until it's a little too late, almost getting dark, the cafes about to close, and I've been wandering around the streets and laneways for quite a long time. It's not that while I'm drifting on the streets I'm always thinking of which cafe to go. One's mind is constantly assailed by the streetlife of which one is part, like random actors rebelling against a script on a stage wide as a city, directed by no one but traffic lights, travelling vehicles, and in tandem with the oncoming crowd.

There's a spot in the city centre where I particularly like to simply stand, still but purposeful, as if I'm waiting for someone. For one doesn't desire to see or to be a madman in the city, inciting fear or arousing suspicion. It's a very musical spot. First the buskers' violins and guitars come weaving through. Then the assorted instruments on the streets - footsteps, conversations, ruffling in handbags in time for the tram bells to come and go - before finally, if the hour is right, the clock tower above you chimes in and strikes, again and again depending on the time, lifting you lightly in this brief orchestra of Melbourne streets and laneways come alive.

And then a student comes to Melbourne and you play not only amateur tour guide, but also willing tourist all over again. But you shun the touristy paths, for they are not the real city. The secrets to Melbourne are not along grand promenades or in mega-shopping malls - they are between these edifices, in the interstices of concrete and stone, behind chain stores, beneath slants of sunlight. Find an opening gap of a laneway wall-to-wall of spray-paint and graffiti, and Melbourne reveals itself: indie bookshops in a city of literature, quirky cafes in a city of coffee, old record shops in the underground in a city of mazes. In a different universe, in a world of its own, a secret gem to discover.

Melbourne days

He sat opposite me on the tram, longish fraying hair of yellow and white, framing triangularly his delicate face. If he weren't all dressed up in vibrant colours, I would've mistaken him for one of those old tramps you see around in the city, always covered in dirty woollen pullovers and always carrying a big rucksack. But instead he looked like Santa Claus; a Santa in white and blue, not in December at Christmas, all red and snow, but at the end of May, around about the beginning of our winter - Here, all the way down, in the southern hemisphere, in the middle of a Melburnian tram trundling towards the outer suburbs. 

I reckoned he was coming back from a footy match, for his white and blue were the colors of the local club. The tram stops. People got on and off. Someone in the streets, a middle-aged lady, spotted the white-and-blue man - all matching scarf and jumper and beanie with a little knob at the top - and enquired from across the streets and into the tram, "Did we win!" It was a question but it wasn't really a question. There was palpable hope that his answer would be in the affirmative; there was an obstinate certainty that, Yes, they had won; there was an urgent desire that insisted on a Yes, they must have won; they must win. 

And Yes, the man replied, stretching his neck out, "We won!" 

The woman shouted something back, something of an exhilaration, unintelligible, for her words were overwhelmed by her own clear tenor of euphoria, as well as by the noisy, indifferent rumble of the tram that had started on its way again. 

a book of my own

I've been buying so many books the last two months that when I stepped (AGAIN!) into a bookshop earlier on, I felt like a gambling addict who'd just stepped into the casino. Amazon.com is a fount of great evil from where cheap(er) books, rare books, books you've always wanted to buy but for some reasons hadn't, and books that're simply begging to be bought, can all be bought at the click of a mouse. And so I clicked, and so impoverished (monetarily) I am. 

Then there are the second-hand bookshops where every book that you think you fancy or want to read is simply there to be bought for a few bucks: cheap paperbacks, cheap hardcovers, books you never knew existed. Even a rare Virginia Woolf (essays on London) and a gem of Jeanette Winterson (an essay on why she loves books) - cloth-bound, thick paper, stitched together with thread and imprinted in gold . . . And so I bought, and I bought, and so more impoverished (monetarily) I am.  

And then there are the bookshops proper, lined with the newest novels and hiding the pleasant surprise of older ones that can only make such an appearance on a bookshelf in a bookshop than, say, Amazon.com can't. And how can one resist a new novel by Toni Morrison or John Berger, once again (and perhaps inevitably, but for how long more?) in hard cover, thick paper, stitched together with thread and imprinted if not in gold then silver or copper or some such . . . and so I bought, and bought and bought, and so very impoverished (monetarily) I am. 

I remember when I was in Primary school, my most-feared Chinese teacher used to tell us how he'd visit the bookshops every week, and how he would invariably purchase a book each time, for there's always a book to be bought. And as kids who didn't really appreciate books the way books are meant to be appreciated, how we sniggered at him then. But now look who's laughing at he (that is to say, me...) who visits bookshops not every week but almost every other day, and who walks out with not one but two, three, four books.

And how it is a measure of my monetary poverty that I weigh every purchase that is not a book - coffee and cakes, clothes, groceries, etc. - with how many books I might otherwise be able to buy. E.g. a mental dialogue with myself by the shopwindow/boutique/cafe would go something like: "by forgoing 3 cafe lattes and 2 cakes, I can own that hardcover Rushdie!", or, "that pair of Nike shoes cost FIVE BOOKS!!!" Sigh. If only I can have my cake and read it.

I hope I live long enough to finish reading all my books, although there are so many books to be read, to be had, and there is only one life and so much I can read. Or perhaps rather, I shall endeavour to live for as long as I shall finish reading all my books? And then perhaps I can drop dead happily, leaving behind all my books, testament to he (that is to say, me...) who once upon a time had read, for he thought life was simply too short not to have read good Lit., not to have owned good books, and not to have known the simple pleasure of the book - in words in its poetry, in stories in its imagination, in pages in his hands - cloth-bound, thick paper, stitched together with thread and imprinted in gold . . . 

(The latest casualty of my wallet as a result of that inescapable pilgrimage to The Bookshop is caused by F. Scott Fitzgerald's assorted writings "The Crack-Up", edited by Edmund Wilson (simply must buy!!!). Edmund Wilson is of course that august literary critic whose complete essays and reviews published by the Library of America I have purchased off Amazon.com and whose arrival I'm still awaiting. See how books conspire!)

O Winterson, long live gays & lesbians!

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Winterson has a new book out! Actually it's a short story collection by various writers, including some of my other favourite authors: Andrew O'Hagan and Ali Smith. 

Winterson has made her short story publicly available here. As usual, the classic Wintersonian story: fragmented narrative, contemplative rhythm, story without a plot, only full of light, love, and poetry.  So I'm getting the book! 

Actually last year there was a book of love letters, and Winterson contributed a very lovely piece. But I didn't think it worth getting as the other writers' pieces weren't as good. Maybe I'll get it if there's a paperback edition. Anyhow, check it out. In any case, try to get hold of Winterson's piece. Is very lovely.

And another favourite writer of mine - a poet - has been named poet laureate of England! No small matter given Carol Ann Duffy's a woman, and a lesbian, and she joins the ranks of Dryden, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Day-Lewis, Ted Hughes. 

Winterson doesn't really qualify for poet positions, but hopefully she might one day become Nobel Laureate! Hehe!

The Name 
By Carol Ann Duffy 

When did your name 
change from a proper noun 
to a charm?

Its three vowels 
like jewels 
on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants 
brushing my mouth 
like a kiss.

I love your name. 
I say it again and again 
in this summer rain.

I see it, 
discreet in the alphabet, 
like a wish.

I pray it 
into the night 
till its letters are light.

I hear your name 
rhyming, rhyming, 
rhyming with everything.

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And this is really amazing. I hope there'd be more of such events in Singapore! It actually makes it look more like a country than a ... factory??

Sex education

And so the inevitable has happened: MOE has suspended AWARE's sex education programmes. Excerpts from MOE's letter: 

"... In particular, some suggested responses in the instructor guide are explicit and inappropriate, and convey messages which could promote homosexuality or suggest approval of premarital sex. ...

Parents are ultimately responsible for inculcating values in their children. MOE's sexuality education programme aims to complement parents' role in helping students make informed, responsible and values-based decisions regarding sexuality."

-- MOE, Straits Times Forum, 7 May 09

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First of all, MOE's accusation that AWARE is 'promoting homosexuality' is moronic. If you're a straight man and loves women to the hilt, no amount of gay movies and gay novels and gay porn and hanging around with gay people will turn you gay. Just as if you're gay, no amount of straight movies and straight novels and straight porn and straight people will turn you straight. If you're gay or straight, you're gay or straight. You just are. One's sexual orientation is not like a credit card to be promoted. duh. What AWARE's programme does is to encourage everyone to be understanding and tolerant of one another's sexuality, amongst other things which I will talk about below. Because only when people are understanding and tolerant of sexual minorities can discrimination against gay people be eliminated. And it should be eliminated. Or is the MOE trying to encourage discrimination?

When people say things like "but Singapore is still a conservative society", they forget that they themselves constitute society. They forget that they are 'conservative' because they are 'made' conservative. They forget that society changes, and that they are part of that change, whether they like it or not. Just a few decades ago, women weren't allowed to attend school or hold a job. Arranged marriages were the 'norm'. So were having multiple wives and mistresses and domestic violence were aplenty simply because the men could get away with it. Stretch society back a few more decades and you get Chinese women with bound feet, colonial subjects forbidden to enter certain premises, and you lived a life without freedom simply because you were of a certain race, gender, and subject to a foreign Queen. These changed because your forefathers fought off the "this is simply the way things are" justification and fought for their rights, against racism, against injustice, against inequality, against colonialism, against oppression. They fought for what is right. Come think of it, during my great-grandmother's, even grandmother's time, it was normal for girls to be married at 15, 16, and start having kids. I believe in today's parlance, that is called teenage pregnancy. Anyway I'm rambling. The point is society's value and norms are constructed by ourselves, and they can change, are always changing, and will change.

I hope MOE will reinstate AWARE's sex education programme. The following are my reasons:

First, it is precisely because parents DO NOT talk to their own children about sex, or that parents themselves are ILL-INFORMED about sex (Ha ha ha. But I'm not kidding) that the responsibility has been pushed to schools to provide sex education. Sure, it is a sensitive topic, and every family has its own sets of moral values it wants to uphold. For example, how I bring up my own kids would be very different from how my friends or other families bring up theirs (obviously I would be a very, and I mean VERY, liberal parent). But the point is someone has to do it, because like it or not, students are very curious, and rightly so, and they're also very eager to experiment.

Second, I would rather students be fully informed about sex than to adopt (and for parents to insist that schools adopt) what is still a don't-ask-don't-tell method of conducting sex education, peppered with neanderthal scare-tactics, e.g. "If you engage in premarital sex the girl will get pregnant and will have to go for an abortion and/or you will contract STDs, or worse, AIDS!!!" [followed by bombarding the poor student with lots of gory pictures of foetuses and disease-ridden penises oozing with pus]. Scary, you bet, but are these informative and educational? No. Have these arcane methods prevented students from experimenting with sex? No. Rather, this is what happens: the problems associated with teenage sex remain unresolved, and everyone - students, teachers, schools, parents, and ultimately society at large - buries their heads in the sand, pretending everything is well in their make-believe world of asexual parents and virginal students. 

Third, even if parents do talk to their children about sex, it does not necessarily mean that what parents teach is right. Often, personal prejudices and mis-information are fed to their children, thus perpetuating ignorance. Parents do not have all the answers all the time. That is why parents send their children to school - that their children be educated by professionals and specialists. AWARE's sex education programme is developed according to international standards and ratified by experts, the classes are conducted by trained personnel, and aim to provide students with as much information as possible, and in a non-judgemental manner. This is because AWARE believes that only when one has as much information as possible can one make sensible decisions pertaining to sex, as well as form judgements about issues and about other people. For example, some teaching points from the AWARE programme:

A) people might place pre-marital sex as negative, but it is really neutral. The key is whether the couple is aware of the consequences and the responsibilities and is ready for them. Sex with girls under 14, with or without her consent, is considered statutory rape. Sex with girls under 16, with or without her consent is considered carnal connection.

B) Homosexual - people have different preferences for their partners. Homosexuality is perfectly normal. Just like heterosexuality, it is simply the way you are. Homosexuals also form meaningful relationships, and face the same emotional issues that heterosexuals do. The Singapore law does not recognise homosexuality and deems sexual activities as unnatural. 

As far as I can see, it aims to provide information to students as objectively as possible, and it steers away from moralising (because, if it does, liberal parents like ME would be furious! "Who are you to teach my child that homosexuality is wrong??? No one wants to be gay, and if he or she is, then he or she is! There is no fucking right or wrong!!!") More importantly, it aims to dispel the many myths perpetuated by PARENTS as well as by society. 

This is crucial, because when teenagers start to discover their sexuality from 12 years and up, the straight ones would discover they're straight (i.e. take an inexplicable, but natural liking to those of the opposite sex), and those who're gay would discover they're gay (i.e. take an inexplicable, but natural liking to those of the same sex). To deny teenagers the right to acknowledge who they really are is damaging to them. Try telling straight teenagers to stop looking at those of the opposite sex is difficult enough. Now try telling them to STOP being straight. It's not a far-fetched scenario - that's what gays are told to do, and have to live with. And that is wrong.

This is why, while I may agree with MOE's stand that the inculcating of moral values are ultimately the responsibility of parents, the onus is then precisely on schools to inculcate other values, values that parents don't necessarily practise, let alone teach: values of tolerance, diversity and open dialogue. More often than not, parents' ignorance and prejudices and bad habits are passed on to their children that schools would then have to correct. Sometimes it would have been too late. 

Hopefully, professional lessons and advice that are provided through schools' sex education programmes can help nurture the next generation of Singaporeans who would be less ill-informed, prejudiced, and bigoted, and who would be more welcoming of differences and diversity. Not just regardless of race, language or religion, but also of sexual orientation too. This is what the AWARE sex education programme sets out to do. 

If parents object to it simply because of their own conservatism or mis-informed views, then it is their own children who shall be the worse for it. Because like it or not, their kids will still be curious about sex, will still be sexual beings, and will be wont to experiment with sex - with themselves or with other people, whether they are boys or girls, straight or gay. Because, as I've tried to emphasise, this make-believe world of asexual parents and virginal students and where everyone is straight and happy simply does not exist.

AWAREness

I think yesterday's AWARE meeting is a historic moment in Singapore [more weblinks here]. And reading the 'live' updates on twitter and the various blogs, and then watching the video clips on Youtube afterwards, for once I wished I were in Singapore, in Suntec witnessing that great occasion. 

It was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and objected to deeds that had been carried out according to the law, but were not not necessarily legitimate, not necessarily right. Because sometimes, the means don't justify the ends. Because the law can bring about injustice too. Especially when the law is being exploited for sinister ends, something the PAP government has perfected into an art. So it was no wonder the grand mastermind 'Feminist Mentor' thought she and her minions could get away with it. But alas, she lacked the brilliance of that other Great Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew. 

It was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and denounced religious zeal - in this instance, a certain Christian fundamentalism - that had been misused, that is misguided, and can do more harm than good. This is on a personal note: I've read the bible from cover to cover (King James' version), and occasionally dip into it, always for its beautiful prose and calming poetry. I think the bible is one of the greatest piece of English literature there is around. I respect its teachings as a non-believer, just as I respect the myriad interpretations individual believers, disparate priests, denominations, and theologians can have - and that they ought to have. This is why I am suspicious of anyone who proclaims to tell the 'truth' about the bible. I respect the fact that you believe in God and that you put immense faith in Him as much as I expect you to respect me as a non-believer. Respect being the key here.

The AWARE saga somewhat turned into that tired gay/anti-gay debate, and if anyone of you is unconvinced that Christianity is not against homosexuality, email me and I'll attempt a sweet and precise deconstruction of the scripture, relevant verse by verse (King James' version) to tell you once and for all that homosexuality is not a Sin. (Or read Winterson). To those who say they cannot 'accept' gays and lesbians: other than because of their own ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry - Why? Gay people are just like everyone else - they live, they breathe, they fall in love. They wish for the little mercies that everyone receives daily, they too struggle for their breath of fresh air - perhaps more than any other people. 

Love is love wherever you find it, in whomever you find. As long as it is true. Why should one's love be predicated on hate? 

I can go on and on about this, about religion, gender/racial/sexual discrimination. 

But the Aware saga was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and demonstrated just how wonderful, and precious it is, to be inclusive by celebrating diversity - in ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. It was an occasion where I witnessed true fortitude and maturity in a people, not those stage-shows of patriotism on NDP. And because of all these, it was one rare occasion I was proud to be a Singaporean.