We’re perfectly fine here in Koh Phangan. We’re on the other coast of Thailand, so we were completely unaffected, thank god. It was freaky that we were in Phuket just the day before, and I was telling Patrick I wished we could stay there a day before heading to Phangan. But all the flights were fully booked the next day and we had to leave Phuket right away. Freaky too to watch it all blow up in the news that they are broadcasting all day over here.

What a sad, sad, freaky thing to happen. My heart is out there to all those affected.

Koh Phangan is absolutely amazing. I think this is my paradize on earth. But it seems unfitting to rave about this place at a time like this. So I’ll keep it for later.

We are well and alive, alive and well, and thankful for it every second.

*phht*

My first Nazi flight.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! and all the good things. See ya next year!

Basement, Takashimaya shopping center. 3 women on a bench, (left to right) a grandmother, a mother, an Indonesian/Philippino maid. Grandmother sitting there, silent and bored. Mom is also sitting there, body turned towards her mom, away from her maid, elbows on knee, chin in hand, silent and bored. Maid sits straight, silent and bored. Oh, and maid is holding a 2 year old girl who is slumped across her torso, arms and legs spread-eagled to the sides, completely and peacefully asleep, burying her cheeks against maid’s chest. And maid is balancing girl’s big pink bag bigger than her, in between her legs.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been more aware of this, or because it’s more prevalent, but the way Singaporean parents behave with their children and their maids is just embarrassing. More often than not, we see situations like this one at Margarita’s. Last week at the Esplanade, there was a family watching the dance show. The parents wanted to go, but the kid was pouting, showing that she wanted to stay and watch. The parents merely rolled their eyes and walked off. The maid looks at them, looks at the kid, wonders for a while, then picks up the kid, with the kid flailing her arms, and trots to catch up with the parents. The parents never once looked back.

I wonder. Of course it’s easy for me to judge because I don’t have a kid and it’s not yet in the horizon of my thoughts even. I’m sure it’s difficult and time-consuming and frustrating and I’d want help. But I would think that if/when I do have a kid, I would want my 2 year old to be slumped across my torso when he/she falls asleep. I would think that only me and the father of my child would be responsible for disciplining the child, not the babysitter, nor anyone else. I would think that I’d be immensely uncomfortable fine dining while my kid sits outside in the steaming car with the maid.

So I would think all that. But of course, my words don’t have strength until I step in the Parent shoes. In the meantime, I’m making mental notes on what I will try darndest not to do. One thing I’m sure of: there’s something deeply disturbing in the maid system in Singapore. People have always been hiring nannies to look after children, as well as hired help with household chores. But to dump these two big responsibilities upon a poorly-paid 21 year old fresh from a village in Indonesia or the Philippines that hardly knows the local language? One would think a nation of highly educated citizens would question that right away. No wonder crazy shit happens.

It is acceptable:

To have a boot party in a carpark with 20 people crowded round a vehicle sloshing alcohol openly.

It is not acceptable:

To walk around in the streets carrying (of course they were drinking from it, but at the moment of being caught they were merely holding it) an open can of beer in a brown paper bag.

Now, here’s the bizarre thing: "in New York City" and "in Singapore" each belong to one of the above. Guess which?

***

The question is obvious for y’all who have lived in America. There’s a bizarre law in America that bans you from drinking alcohol in public. My brother was fined US$25 for carrying an open can of beer in a brown paper bag while walking to supper after bar-hopping in NYC last night. As mentioned above, he and his friend were not seen drinking from it, they just bumped into a couple of cops while holding it.

The law also means that an outdoor event will have to get special permits and set up barriers within which people can/cannot drink. When you purchase alcohol, it must be wrapped in an opaque brown bag. You may sit in a car and drink alcohol, but make sure the keys are out of the ignition (I’ll have to double check on this, but that’s what I was told). So people who are out bar-hopping, who want to go to a corner store to buy cheap(er) beer, must sneak drinking it from a brown paper bag; or people who want to chill at a picnic in the park must do the same. Of course, everyone does it, so whenever you see someone drinking anything out of a brown paper bag, you can be sure it’s an alcoholic drink.

It’s the silliest law ever. And then at the same time, as I mentioned in my previous post, Singapore (and America) tolerates, even celebrates, getting sloshed with alcohol, while executing people for other drugs.

Our societies are rampant with hypocrisy.

I think this picture of my mother on top of the tree next to the SHINY DISCO BALL (I can only type SHINY DISCO BALL in caps, sorry) is the coolest looking picture I have taken in recent memory:

I would love to see the Ah Lian vs SPG battling it out in the same room together (umm…so would a lot of guys…but I meant an oral battle…umm…so would a lot of guys…but…damn…dug my own hole here…umm…*insert (pardon the pun) own sexual connotation/pun here*).

They come from different planets, exist on different ends of the spectrum, *insert own cliched phrase indicating difference here*. One of them relishes on being the representative young Singaporean girl; the other clearly views herself as a dissident of the norm. Yet each of them represents a respective pure and complete Singapore Stereotype, bounded by their own narcissism (the shared trait of all bloggers, unite!). *insert own psycho-sociological analysis here*

So I woke up this morning, and discovered that out of nowhere, I got a pain in the neck, and upper back. I couldn’t tilt my head in the usual way I could tilt my head.

I went for my yoga class this evening (blessed am I that I took up this class with 11 other slackers, so I end up having a private one-on-one yoga class that would have cost me $80 per sesion, while paying $80 for 12) and my yoga teacher gave me an awesome 10 minute massage. Then we did some yoga stretched that help me out. In my discussion about how the pain could have come about, she mentioned that if one gets up too quickly from bed while waking up, that could cause the pain in the neck. And I rewound my day and remembered that the Fat Cat, usually banned from my side of the bed, had put his ass right next to my face and flicked his tail across my neck, leading me to jerk my hand up in shock and horror and shake Patrick up to carry the Fat One over to his side.

There you have it. Fat Cat caused my pain in the neck.

I have a deep heating pad pasted on my back right now and…it…feeelss…sooo….good….

And Pat insisted on watching at least one "Christmas movie" this week. Last night, we rented A Christmas Story, which I have never watched before. I can see why it’s a classic: it’s one of those movies with so many favorite scenes that you just want to watch it again and again, and it feeds on stereotypes that causes someone who grew up in America (Pat) go "yep, I’ve done that, and that, and…" The narrative is just delightful and Peter Billingsley is such a great child actor.

My favorite scenes have gotta be (you’ll have to watch the movie for the following to make sense):

* The mom wrapping Randy up, padding him till he can’t put his hands down. I like that scene because I wish to be wrapped up like that in cold weather (I hate the cold).

* Santa telling Ralphie "You’ll Shoot Your Eyes Out", and then shoving him down the slide by pushing his boot on his forehead.

* Mr. Parker reading the side of the box with the prize that he won:

Mr. Parker: Ra-gee-lay. That must be Italian.
Mrs. Parker: Uh, I think that says FRAGILE, dear.
Mr. Parker: Oh, yeah.

* …and most definitely, the scene in the Chinese restaurant where:

singing
Head Waiter: No, no, not ‘ra ra ra ra’, ‘la la la la’! Try again.
Waiters: Deck the halls with boughs of horry, ra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra.
Head Waiter: No, no! Sing something else.
Waiters: Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sreigh!

…and the mom is freaking out because the duck’s head was staring at her and the waiter went, "no problem" and chopped its head off, right there and then. (The stereotype is so true though! I’ve met more than one American shudder over their food staring back at them, while the Asian goes "…but it’s the best part!")

I wonder if 9 year old Patrick, growing up in sub-urban Florida watching this movie for the first time, ever thought he would be re-watching it in Singapore.

Instead, we had balmy trees…

…a private beach…

…a beautiful pool where we swam, read, slept, read, swam (repeat) all day…

…a couple of great books to keep the Chansidines engaged…

…loads of DVDs…

…coconuts twice the size of my head…

…a bunny at the breakfast restaurant, sparking off a freaky Donnie Darko nightmare…

…and a couple of really sunburnt Chansidines. Which is weird cos both of us got burnt on the very first day (thus shunning the sun all of the 2nd), and it was cloudy most of the day, and both of us hardly ever gets burnt. Beware the Batam Sun.