About China and a certain Mister Singh

I’m feeling rather excited since I will be heading for Beijing, China this coming July! Most people exclaimed at the foolishness of this decision, citing reasons how crowded and expensive it will be just right before the commencement of Olympics, how riots might possibly form and how one hundred and one reasons not to go. But I could not possibly resist the offer of a week’s luxury stay at the Traders Hotel, Beijing (under the Shangri-La’s wing) since Mr. Ratatouille is going on business and therefore my accommodation is free.

The last I was there was a good 12 years ago on a school performance tour. I had a good impression of the place, maybe because it was my first trip on a plane and because everything seemed wonderful to a fifteen years old girl who had never seen the world then. This July, I’ll be looking forward to seeing some interesting architectures: Beijing’s National Stadium dubbed as “The Bird Nest” and the National Aquatic Centre also known as the “Water Cube”. Looks like Dubai is not the only one evolving!

On the other hand, I was having a grand Monday on my own – shopping, having the luxury of reading a whole book in the library, snagging a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hardcover for only SGD19.90 when it was SGD49 a year back (oh I know what you think about grown women and Harry Potters of the world and it doesn’t bother me one bit) when I came across a Mister Singh. I was making my way to the National Library with my swinging ponytail and a pair of sunglasses when he stopped me and told me in a serious tone that my forehead is “dark” and “ominous” and it means I am down on Love, Life, Luck and everything L.

And it irks me no end. Sure, my forehead is dark but only because of the shadows formed by the short fringe of a recent haircut and because I am naturally tanned. Biting back my scathing tongue, I listened to him tell me that he can see my fortune and perhaps give instructions on how to avert the looming disasters ahead of me. Unfortunately, it was not one of my strong suit to tell him just exactly what I think of frauds then and there (he didn’t even have a Budgerigar as per the usual fortune tellers) until he disappeared out of my sight and I grew angrier as I walked along after my rejection of his fraudulent offer. I am cheesed because I did not offer him a “L” to keep for his own – a verbal Lashing. No man, of whatever race, whatever religion and whatever age should have the right to spoil a lovely afternoon for a lady just because she happens to be:

1. alone by herself

2. lugging bags of shopping as if she has no life (okay, maybe)

3. wearing dark sunglasses looking unapproachable (therefore insinuating a lack of friends?)

4. taking space walking down the road

No matter how superstitious or not, nobody likes to be told that they have something a dark, foreboding future ahead of them. There are others walking near me so why me? I figured that it had something to do with the fact that I am alone, have no ring on my finger and I usually adopt this look of absolute pensiveness and cast in thought as if deeply troubled. Don’t ask me why but I figured that will stop those salespeople and surveyors from approaching me and it worked out great so far except I must have come across as a pleasant surprise for Mister Singh who took it upon himself to imagine I would leap at his offer in order to get out of my sad destiny.

As I thought more about it, the reason why some women get cheated is because men like Mister Singh offered them hope, preyed on their inferior complexes, leeched on their neediness and told them stories they needed to hear. It was disturbing that there must be something about me that told Mister Singh that I would be the perfect prey.

But Mister Singh, you counted your chickens wrong this time round. Not this woman.

A Little Bit of Here and There and Everywhere #1

I should have turned up glamorous, in my “Celia Birtwell for Topshop” daisy dress, a one-piece black see-through with flouncy hems, designed to add an additional spring into each step I take. Nevermind I was not on back-breaking heels but glittery, silvery flats, I felt strangely feminine and empowered all the same. And that is till I encountered rain and a rush for time.

David Hockney drawing Celia Birtwell’s portrait on a lithograph plate at his Hollywood residence, 1981

Trust me, I squealed every minute I saw a vehicle approaching the side of the road I was at while anxiously flagging down cabs. You see, the side of road I was at was perilously close to a huge puddle of water which would render me quite unpresentable should the unfortunate occur and there were no better places I could flag a cab. I was lucky enough to hop into one after a ten minutes wait, thus sparing me of any embarrassment. I could not remember such an athletic moment for a long time, leaping agilely at the signs of imminent danger.

Finally I reached my destination and immediately got hyped up because it was the SATC afternoon! Miss E was in her tiered rainbow dress and Gretchen was in a purple satin floral top and mauve lipstick. Even Mister Ratatouille was dressed in a casual cream knitted polo and white Bermudas which even I considered as “stylish”. You see Mister Ratatouille prizes comfort above fashion but it seems like he has reached a new level of understanding with both.

I shall not provide a review of “Sex and the City: The Movie” because being female, when presented with a roomful of designer labels: fabulous clothes, cute clutches, strappy heels, outrageous bags and a sappy storyline that ends with a happily everafter, is usually quite biased. However, even I think that Mr. Big putting on the shoe for Carrie is cliché and corny. And I am driven to a new level of guilt after I read Anthony Lane’s review in “The New Yorker”.

The creepiest aspect of this sequence was the sound that rose from the audience as he displayed the finished closet: gasps, fluttering moans, and, beside me, two women applauding.

I was one of the applauding females. Nevermind the fact that we are thousands of miles apart, I may not be physically there – one of the two women who clapped right beside him but I sure embodied one of those style-over-sanity females during the screening, a contributor towards creepy theatric atmosphere for males. And in my defense, I was applauding for the walk-in closet. It was every bit of a closet worthy of every fashion addict’s wet dreams, roomier than my own room, mirrors reflecting more than enough of the owner in any given angle.

I don’t have much I want to say today but i do have some treats to share since I’ve been surfing and feasting on visual ice-cream so much so that I even start to think I will soon get fat(ter) from it.

(Bacon bits on a salad bowl)

++ Behold Nick Savvas’ installation art at Roslyn Oxley9, it’s pretty awesome if I may say so myself.

++ No money to buy a Hermes Kelly? No problem. Make one then!
++ Not-so-secret voyeur affair. I make it my business to nose what’s in other people’s bags! I like strangers whose bags hold more complicated mysteries than mine.

Art or what?

Bill Henson is an Australian photographer/artist who likes juxtaposition; of male and female, of youth and adulthood and of nature and civilization. He has also shown a preference for the use of chiaroscuro, an Italian term for clear-dark, making use of light differences to portray his artwork.

His 2007 – 2008 exhibition held at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was cancelled after a complaint was lodged by a child protection campaigner against the theme of child nudity evident in some of his works. So, the golden question – Art or Pornography?

A really thin line of distinction, if you ask me. Pornography is based on a sexual, explicit depiction of the subject matter, especially with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer. How would we ever hope to know what Bill Henson’s intentions are when capturing the subject matter? Was the nude art spawned from the point of a perverted, paedophilic voyeur or was it really Bill Henson, daring to be different, a self-declared artist with no interest in a political or sociological agenda in which would totally explain his actions. He does not care what type of social implication would spur as a result from his form of art. His job is to creatively express his subject matter in ways that he finds most reflective of his ideals and that would include nudity if required.

Personally, I abhor child pornography, if it is meant to be sexually provocative, if the intent is to portray children as sexual objects to titillate desires. I looked at a series of Bill Henson’s works over the years to determine my stance. I found the photographs of the naked youths strangely enchanting, eerily beautiful and haunting. What I noticed was not their bodies, but the expressions on their faces, the precision the shadows cast and the postures. The fact they are without clothes only made them even more vulnerable, a no-holds expression that beckons viewers “Come, look at me, understand my confusion, acknowledge my pain. See me!“

One of the comments I read online was that parents of these child models have no right to decide for their children. Children, perceived as immature, cannot foresee the full consequences of their actions even if they are willing. Years down the road, they might rethink “Oh god, I’ve made a mistake”. But this is not a thought process that only children-turned-adults are capable of. How many times have you, as an adult, question yourself whether you have made a mistake? Have I made a mistake jumping ship to a new company? Have I made a mistake marrying this guy? If in the case of Zahava Elenberg who had no regrets even 23 years after being one of Henson’s child models, does it mean that she had perhaps done something right? She certainly did not turn out wrong to be awarded as “Telstra Young (30 years or under) Business Woman of the Year”.

It amazed me how 25 years ago, Henson’s series of a group of young nude junkies lying about in European museums had been at worst called “obvious” and up till 15 years ago, his series of teenage nudes sprawled across car bonnets which had barely raised an eyebrow had now escalated to a hot discussion topic between art lovers and children defenders and being regaled as “revolting” by Rudd, Australia’s Prime Minister, a self-confessed strip club visitor. Tell me Rudd’s visit to a strip club is purely political and artistically-inclined in nature.

If a girl wears a push-up bra, does it mean she is out to seduce? If you shower your five years old daughter because you think she is incapable of getting herself properly clean up, can child protection campaigners claim that you are molesting your child? The sexual intent is not present, therefore you are not a child molester, you are a doting parent. Similarly, if Henson takes pictures of nude children without sexual intention but for the artistic value he sees in them, he can be argued as a devoted albeit unconventional artist. That being said, I have seen more blatant sexual poses made by children in advertisements fully clothed than Henson’s unclothed. How about children in bikinis prancing the beaches? They are too young to decide if they will ever regret wearing a bikini. Ought the manufacturers of children’s swimwear be prosecuted for endorsing such products?

I think what disturbs me most is in an age and time so modern that nothing should surprise us any further, people are looking out for signs of anything remotely sexual to deliberately berate it. No clothes bad, got clothes good.

Let’s see some of my favourite Bill Henson’s pieces.

note: The Bill Henson’s photographs in this post are taken from various sources from Google.

Ten bucks, why so hard to part?

It’s nearing the end of the month, which means that pay day is not here but cash is running low. One of my standard month end activity is to go through the bags I have used for the last few weeks because I am one sort of strange girl that can’t seem to keep things where they belong, even for money. I will find a buck here in this pocket and another two there in a forgotten compartment. So all in all, if I have been conscientiously leaving money all over, I should be able to live through the last week before payday frugally.

This has definitely not been my month. I must have exhausted all avenues because I couldn’t find a larger denomination anywhere! I mean there is the odd penny here and there but nothing consequential. In the height of my hunting furor, i found a carrot pouch (a pouch in the shape of a carrot). Lo behold! There were notes from the different countries I had visited and also some really old Singaporean notes which are probably worth a little higher than their original value right now due to its scarcity. And I found a modern ten dollars note.

Why had a modern ten dollars note end up in my carrot pouch which apparently carries only foreign currency and dwindling old-world dollars? And then I remembered. This ten dollars was given to me some years back by a pony-tailed Austrian man I had feelings for when he came to Singapore for a visit. Seeing the note also triggered cached memories of me sending him off at the airport, tearing unbearably and him giving me the ten dollars note, the last of his Singapore dollars so that I could take a cab home after. Obviously I chose to take the bus back home, “saving” up the ten dollars as a memory. Thinking back about it, the ten dollars note served a whole lot of purposes. It was a reminder of him. He was a man who took me seriously when I told him to dress up so that I could take a picture with him. He dressed in his Sunday best, of checkered pants, a crisp white shirt and a checkered vest, looking adorably handsome in them. It was the last thing he would ever leave me with. Perhaps, it would be a story I could tell my grandchildren of this one love their grandmother once had who never came back. It was a closure to a week long relationship, one i selflessly gave but never expecting any return. I was capable of Love!

(image deliberately ‘mosaic-ed’ to preserve anonymity)

We hadn’t talked in years since then, him being busy with his life far away and me with mine, in a world that is separated by a mere ten over hours flight but a lifetime of cultural and social differences, none ever considered making it work. The last I heard, he had a girlfriend and is a Professor at some Austrian university. I picked up the note from the pouch, determined that I would use it to overcome my month end poverty, my heart screamed “NO!” and ached. What is it about females and their emotions wanting to leave the last vestige of remembrance intact?

The ten dollars laid forlornly in my bag (i brought it out) as I contemplate vanquishing the right to a tangible object, an intangible love. Maybe what it is is not being able to trust myself to keep the memory alive without a physical object to hold onto. Perhaps I am scared that one day, his name will fade and all I am left with is wondering if this long forgotten past is a hallucination of my overworked mind.

SATC bit me!

I’m feeling slightly unfashionable because I am convinced that I must be the last woman standing who has not finished “Sex and the City” and is only just starting to rave about it right now. In preparation for the “Sex and the City: The Movie” that is launching on the 29th of May, i vow to finish up all the 6 seasons so that I am not completely clueless in the movie. My girlfriends and I have also decided to dress up stylishly and turn up fabulous in anticipation.

I like every character in “Sex and the City” with the exception of Charlotte York because she is so uptight sometimes that I feel like shaking her really hard. However, this is life, ain’t it? And in life, we always have a puritanical friend, a white sheep amongst the blacks, whom you secretly thought should have it up in the ass sometimes to get those ideals flushed out of the system. But I must admit that there is a little bit of each of the other 3 characters that I can identify with. With Carrie, I found myself having a shared cognition about shopping. We try to fix ourselves up by indulging in retail therapy everytime things go wrong. In her case, it’s shoes and in my case, it’s everything else. We cannot stop fantasizing about the right man for us but when one does come along, we show disbelief. The only man we find ourselves thinking about is the one who leaves us hanging in the air. And we love to write! It may be just a job for her but I like to think that she is the most honest with herself when writing. With Miranda, I see her. We try to win men over with our character before trying to show them that we can be sexy too. Her seemingly cynical remarks are nothing more than a cover-up for exposed vulnerability and lurking insecurity. Witty Miranda appears intimidating but she is a real softie inside. Samantha, samantha, she is not afraid of her sexuality and admits (or perhaps the word ‘broadcast’ is more appropriate?) to the world about her sexual desires. She has no qualms about the use of the words ‘sex’, ‘penis’ publicly and loudly just like how I don’t have mine. Does that make me a hybrid that would end up being three times more single than any other single?

It seems like there are two extremes of people I know. There is this one side who has Aidan-ish husbands and this other side who has a Mr. Big in their lives. I belong to the side who has a Mr. Big. My Mr. Big also has a moniker and no one ever refers to his real name. The one difference was my Mr. Big and I are not friends. We would not acknowledge each other’s presence on the streets if we so happen to run into each other, much less do a “hey you”. When we could even be considered to be “together”, he was as emotionally detached as I was needy for affection. It makes me feel pathetic now writing about it, wanting affection from the one man who gave the least of himself to me.

I am more than halfway through Season 4 and already I know what I am expecting. Aidan, the biggest thing that happens to Carrie after Big, will leave her because she is commitment-phobic. I cheated and read on the forum that Carrie will run into Aidan, find out that he is married with a son and they arrange to meetup for coffee. Ultimately, she walks away from him with him looking on, drawing a final closure to the pain they have caused each other and I will cry very badly. Why do we allow ourselves to be hurt by the elusive Mr. Bigs and deny the stable Aidans who love us?

Is there a certain masochist in us which can be suppressed but never be denied?

On a hind note, did I mention that I love, love, love Sarah Jessica Parker?

It is every woman’s inalienable right to have a pulled-together stylish, confident wardrobe with money left over to live.
- SJP’s Manifesto for “Bitten“

All those clothes under 20 bucks per piece!

Beichuan, or what’s left of it

News coverage these few days have been intensive, bringing latest reports of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that literally wiped out the Beichuan county in Sichuan province, home to 160,000 nestling in one of the world’s most beautiful valleys.

After the 12th of May, one who googles for Beichuan, hoping to find scenic photographs that document its lushness and beauty, will instead, be overwhelmed by a selection of increasingly depressive pictures that depict mayhem, huge rescue efforts, mounting piles of bodies covered by tarpaulin, flattened children beneath the rubble, confused orphans who wonder about their future, hysterical relatives with their faces streaked in tears physically restrained by the calmer ones and overcrowded living conditions in makeshift tents. You may wonder how Beichuan looked like before the earthquake but the name “Beichuan” has been forever marred by the natural disaster that sent death tolls scaling up till this very minute.

(All pictures are credit of Cryptome.CN)

We know people who demonstrated their resilience through harsh living conditions and became a source of inspiration. I remembered my Mandarin lessons in school, learning about little boys in families too poor to afford proper lighting and they studied by candlelight and grew up to be someone useful. I remembered Jantu in Mingfong Ho’s “The Clay Marble” who taught Dara how to cope with her ordeals by teaching her how to make her own “magic” clay marble. Arguably fictitious but we have more real life examples. How about Helen Keller, the first deafblind person to graduate from college? In modern days, we have our Lance Armstrong. Why do people come together collectively, gather strength and support each other through laborious moments? The answer was given by a CCTV host who seeded thoughts in my mind.

Why are we always touched by images and sounds like this?
Why do we have hot tears in our eyes while watching them?
(CCTV host chokes silently)
Because we love this piece of land.
The people living on this land understand how to take care of each other ….
(Face downwards, gathering composure)

I am not discounting the fact that there are a lot of people out there who grieved for the unfortunate and included them in their daily prayers but I have wondered what the motivating factors are, for volunteers who go all the way out to help? When I mean all the way, I am talking about people who work in rescue teams, who took time off to scale the hilly, unaccessible terrain to contribute their labour and at the same time, subjecting themselves to possible dangers that followed e.g. outbreak of plague. It is one thing to feel sorry and contribute money. I have always believed that it is easier to be kind when you are rich. But it is another to be part of a primitive relief work team, ceaselessly rummaging through debris and dirt to pull out dead bodies and search for the scarcely living. Do these people have bigger hearts than the usual?

When I brought up the point earlier about people who grew stronger in times of adversity, there are other real life examples to support this theory. I read of a woman who sawed her own right leg so that the rescue team could lift her out of the rubble. Apparently, the machinery which could remove the rubble would take too much time to arrive and the rescue team could not reach in enough through the rubble to perform the amputation and so they passed the saw to her. Where did her courage come from? Was it from a will to survive? A father heard his own son trapped in rubble crying for help. Holding back tears, he told the rescue team to continue digging from areas with less rubble and work their way so that people trapped in the “shallower” areas have more chances of survival. His own son died in the end. Where did the father’s selflessness come from? China’s one-child policy means that the dead son could be the last of his generation. Reading these stories humbled me but also made me less tolerant of our local spoilt brats who threatened suicide at the slightest opportunity.

We are 100 hours past the start of the disaster and every minute is a race against the Grim Reaper who is gleefully standing by. Every survivor brought out becomes a “miracle” and provides a gleam of hope to the tired workers. My heart feels especially painful because I know that soon will come a day when all the “Hellos” and “Anyone there?” will be answered only by an eerie silence and the lingering stench in the air, will be what’s left of the buried and the missing who had once lived.

Salad Quotes

We are beginning to wonder whether a servant girl hasn’t the best of it after all. She knows how the salad tastes without the dressing, and she knows how life’s lived before it gets to the parlor door.

My salad days, when I was green in judgement.

How I yearn for you oh Caesar salad!

Being Stella

Remember this: Stella Green is a pseudonym. A pseudonym is a fictitious name, also known as an alias, used as an alternative to a person’s legal name (according to Wikipedia). This does not mean she is anything less real than you who is reading the blog right now. It is still a person who is flesh and blood, typing away as Stella Green.

If I could maintain the freedom of speech wrapped in a protective layer of “Stella Green”, I could write and write without an ounce of worry for we always have to take responsibility for what we do since we came into adulthood. It is something I got used to, felt grateful for in some occasions (e.g. going to a R21 movies and gaining entrance into certain clubbing scenes) but was never quite accomplished at. I am bad at managing finance which is one of my greatest challenges at being adult. I never did get a hang at number crunching or perhaps, most arguably, I was too addicted to shopping to adhere to the rules of financial management, the top being something like “Spend within your means”.

Anyway anyhow, you will be hearing from me soon. Now that I found my voice, I want to talk again.

Okay, this is not so great for a first post but I found myself going to look at Daniel Radcliffe’s pictures for Equus over and over again, thinking “Harry is such a big boy now”.

My friend, Gretchen, thinks I sound like an old woman lusting for fresh, young blood. I must admit I feel the same.