Author: Grievous

Our England Not Powderful Lah! (偶们的阴文不行啦!)

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I really haven’t been following the news closely lately. I must have focused too much of my attention coming up with the gossip piece on the matter of Edison Chen Eidpr0n Chantuk, drooling over the new version of ping.sg and following Obama’s progress in the Democrat primaries.

It has been almost a week since I started reading some of the blogs in my RSS and I noticed this piece on DK’s, where some Taiwanese were criticising our English accent, and our enunciation of English words on a variety show over there.

I am quite sure some people would felt really outraged, and have already retaliated by pointing out that either they probably aren’t as fluent in their English (i.e. England also not powderful). But in my opinion, what’s the use of pointing out the obvious? After all, that would leave us in the same boat as speakers of ‘lousy English’. It doesn’t matter that we vary in the degree of ‘lousiness’, but I simply cannot even understand why we need to even respond to defend ourselves in that matter. After all, most of us aren’t native speakers of English, nor is English our first language.

But what is even more amusing is that non of us realized that some Taiwanese has a very peculiar accent when speaking Mandarin too. For e.g. instead of saying 我很幸福 (‘wo hen xing fu’ – which means: I am very blessed), some times you hear 偶很姓胡 (‘ou hen xing hu’ – which is literally meaningless).

We watched some Taiwanese productions and generally we know there seems to be a common problem in Taiwan to mix up the ‘f’ pronunciation with ‘h’. For e.g. 饭 (‘fan’, which means rice), is pronounced as 唤 (‘huan’), and 福 (‘fu’) which is pronounced as 胡 (‘hu’). And I recalled that we used to joke about Stephanie Sun [孙燕姿] wanting her boyfriend to be of the surname 胡 (Hu), since she has a song called 我要的幸福 (‘Wo Yao De Xing Fu – The Happiness I wanted) which is mis-pronounced as 我要的姓胡 (I want the Hu guy).

Now, we don’t joke about such things on our variety shows, do we? Even though, in my personal opinion, we really had even more to joke about because of the fact that they can’t even speak something that’s supposed to be a native language properly. And this isn’t even the usual 十 (‘shi’, meaning 10) and 四 (‘si’, meaning 4) pronunciation problems we normally have.

Granted, they speak their native Taiwanese as a first language, but still they are a Chinese people and wouldn’t it be even more pathetic if you can’t speak Mandarin well? That would put them in the same league with this angmoh market research guy I know, who speaks Mandarin with a really funny accent.

Yes, We Can…

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I heard about Senator Barack Obama a long time back from an old friend, Chris Ng (also known Modeus among a certain circle of friends), way before Obama made his bid for President. At that point of time, I have never thought how Obama could hope to compete against the Hillary Hilarious Clinton.

Even after the Iowa Caucus, I would thought his win was just the bloom of the Morning Glory, where it would fade when the sun sets. New Hampshire seems to support that view, even though I talked about Obama often with a few friends, and we generally root for Obama. Then Senator Obama bounds back in South Carolina, and one of my friends sent me several videos of his speeches, and I begin to pay more attention to the Senator of Illinois. The video demonstrates that Senator Obama is a powerful speaker as he is definitely doing right what has been taught in some of the ‘How to be an effective communicator’ courses I have been to, though I have not given his speeches a more serious thought. After all, the context is more suitable for audiences in the U.S.

Yesterday, Feb 6, is Super Tuesday in the U.S. (Feb 5 over that part of the world). And since I had to work in spite of it being the Chinese New Year Eve here in Singapore, I began to ‘tune in’ to the news coming out of the U.S. and keep track of the progress of Senator Obama in the primaries going on across 20 over states. And as I was looking through the news coming through the Reuters Kobra software on one of my traders’ (who has gone on leave) workstation, I came across a report of the following video.

Yes, we can.

As I watched the MTV, and listened to the snippets of Obama’s speeches in the background, it dawned upon me that being an effective communicator isn’t what Senator Obama is all about. Hilarious can accuse Obama on being short on policies and plans (i.e. ‘You campaign on poetry, but you govern in prose.’ ), but Obama offer more than just policies. He offered hope, and something for the people to believe in, the ability to be bigger than themselves, and to do more in spite of what they are. Never since listening to the speeches of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, have I seen a politician who can inspire so much. Now I believe he stands a chance, and I’ll glady cheer on Senator Obama, even though whether he becomes President of the United States or not, it probably wouldn’t have much effect on me over here in this country.

Hilarious may claim she’s more experienced, may have been more savvy and ready to rule, but in the last 150 years, one of America’s greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, has hardly the experience of some of his peers when he campaigned for President. And if Hilarious talks about experience, then we need not look further than the White House in the person of Dick Cheney. ‘Nuff said!

The MTV reminded me, that in the movie ‘Enemy At The Gates’ , when Khrushchev ask what else can be done now that intimidation and execution has failed to rally the people of Stalingrad, and one of the cadre replied: We give them hope, comrade.

Yes, hope, and something to believe in. That is what Senator Obama offers to the American people.

Sadly, as I watched the MTV, I also felt that if Obama is a Singaporean, then he would fail dismally. Because for a speaker to be successful, you need an audience of similar capacity. I do not think I would find a receptive audience in Singapore, much less politicians of this calibre, who would probably come with a lower price tag.

Lyrics here:


It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can. Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores
and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can. Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized;
women who reached for the ballots;
a President who chose the moon as our new frontier;
and a King who took us to the mountain-top and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can. Si Se Puede
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

We know the battle ahead will be long,
but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way,
nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We want change!
(We want change! We want change! We want change…)

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant.
We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check.
We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. We want change!
(We want change! I want change! We want change! I want change…)

The hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA;
we will remember that there is something happening in America;
that we are not as divided as our politics suggests;
that we are one people;
we are one nation;
and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast;
from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.
(yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…)

Means Testing – A load of bullshit

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This isn’t new so it isn’t news. But I have wanted to say this for a long time: The excuses given is a stinking load of droppings from a bull’s behind.

Let me try and explain with this analogy:

The reason they need to start denying people who can afford it from eating at hawker centres is: to upgrade your neighbourhood hawker centre to restaurant standards. People who can afford to eat at restaurants should be prevented from taking advantage of the subsidised food at the ‘restaurant standard’ hawker centres.

What the hell? The fact is, the people who eat at restaurants also contributed part of the money – and perhaps more than the others on an individual vs individual bases – into upgrading the hawker centre. So why does it even matter whether the standards can improve to that level? That’s not forgetting whether these people will like eating hawker centre food at all, no matter the standards?

Above which, what good is a super nice hawker centre with restaurant standards in which few people even qualify to eat in it at hawker centre prices? Not to mention that after contributing to making it restaurant standards, you have to pay some ridiculous price when you have to eat in it? Might as well go straight to the restaurant if you can afford it! On top of that, why the hell upgrade the standards in the first place? Might as well leave it at the current standards where everyone can enjoy the subsidised food!

So, let’s consider this. The people who can afford going to Mt Alvernia or Mt Elizabeth technically aren’t interested in going to restructured hospitals anyway. How often are these people ‘abusing’ the heavily subsidised and improved Class B2 and C wards in the first place? I must ask, are there even figures to substantiate that there is an increase in the rich using the subsidised wards now to cause us to be concern about their ‘abuse’ of them later when they are improved? Besides, whether the rich uses those wards is not the main issue… the rich also pays more taxes so what logic is this to deny them subsidised wards should they even find it agreeable to use them in the first place? * ptui *

Furthermore, common sense will also tell you that should they managed to improve the ‘lesser wards’ to Class A standards, it will definitely come with a Class A price tag too. Or at least then they can justify that kind of price tag. But will they really cost so much or like our HDB prices, a figure is just pulled out of thin air and we are then asked to pay for it?

Now, the people who are going to stay at the ‘subsidised’ wards are people like you and I, who in most cases would prefer to keep it as cheap as possible because our money don’t come easy. And now here’s this stupid means testing that tells you – Oh, by our standards you made enough money, so stop being a burden to the state and go fend for yourselves. And suddenly, you discover you might as well have gone straight to the better wards right along.

Next, this gover-min always tells us that we don’t really have much poor people in this country. We also haven’t got people on the streets and we have a really small percentage of people below the poverty line. So who would really qualify for subsidies in the end, and are the subsidies even real or just ‘market subsidies’ because no one had a clue how the price came about?

Frankly, I am not surprised that in the end, even our hospital subsidies will go along the line of our HDB ones. That is, there will be an ‘astronomical, real and tangible’ subsidy in the books of the gover-min but we just wonder why the hell we are our asses off for our own medical bills, or that why we are paying a ridiculous sum of premium for our own health insurance.

Just pray hard no one rubs salt on the wound by telling you our restructured hospitals aren’t making money, and a ‘Health and Medical Council’ (HMC) is formed to rubber-stamp their annual demands for fee increments!

[Gossip] Blogosphere Violence – The HK Celebrities “Photo-Gate” Scandal (艳照门事件)

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The first time I heard of the term Media Violence (传媒暴力), I was watching the movie 黑金 (also known as 情义之西西里岛、贪婪之岛). It simply means manipulating the media for a certain political agenda.

Ever since then, media violence has evolved into the form of the paparazzi (狗仔队) in which the late Princess of Wales, Diana Spencer is the most notable victim.

Since then, it has even evolved further with the advent of the Internet, into Internet Violence (网络暴力) and of course it would naturally extend onto the Blogosphere. An example of that would be how bully Bo Davis, who humiliated a local trishaw-man, was shamed and ‘put on trial’ at least several thousand times over by the world for his insensitive actions.

But once again, Internet violence has erupted on Blogosphere – this time about scandalous photos allegedly taken off a celebrity’s laptop when he sent it for repair. Either way, this is my take on the matter and I divide the entire scandal into three stages and I suspect that there’s are certain ulterior and insidious motives behind it all.

The first stage is the release of photographs of HK actor and singer Edison Chen Edipr0n Chantik (陈冠希) with his ex-girlfriend (and ex-singer) Bobo (陈文嫒), and then a series of him with Gillian Chung (钟欣桐), a member of the girl band Twins. The second stage is the release of photographs of HK actress Cecilia Chung (张柏芝) in various compromising positions. The last stage would be the release of photos of Joey Yung (容祖儿) and Jolin Choi (蔡依林) allegedly related to the entire incident.

Why did I separate them into stages, when everyone is talking about it as if it is one single incident and are greatly anticipating the release of even more photographs of these celebrities?

First of all, the series of photos between EdipR0n and Bobo and then with Gillian Chung have both the ‘male lead’ and a ‘female lead’ in them. I feel no remorse for them even though they might be a victim, regardless of whether the photos are real or photo-shopped. If they are real, it has always be my considered opinion that certain people should be banned from the use of Information Technology.

Then a new series of photographs of Cecilia Cheung are released, and these do not contain any male lead in them. In it she looked either dazed, high on drugs or drunk. I felt sorry for her looking at the facial expressions on them, even though I traditionally disliked her.

If you ask me why I am making a point about the facial expression, that is because my common sense tells me that all fakes and photo-shopped naked pictures of celebrities almost certainly show the celebrity beaming at the camera man. In other words, the facial expression is taken off another photo when the celebrity is showing their best to try and please the media. Knowing that these celebrities are not in the AV industry, why on earth would they posed in those positions in their best media smiles? Perhaps, they have a certain hidden fetish for hentai that we don’t know of?

So, why the difference in feelings for both groups when they are all victims? The reason is simple, it would appear to me that Cecilia may have been coerced into taking those photos. In other words, it appears that she is made to pose and then someone was deliberately walking around to take those photos of her in different positions. They reminded me of the photo scandal of Carina Lau, apparently taken under coercion.

In summary, other than the most circumstantial evidence, the first and the second series of photos appear to have the least of relation whatsoever. In fact, I have reasons to suspect that people with nefarious intentions are behind it to sabotage Cecelia, who has all the appearances of being happily married with child over the last few months.

As for the last series of photos, there isn’t even much to even talk about. A lot of people knew the Joey Yung one was fake for a long time. And the ones with Jolin Choi are hardly even scandalous and according to some taken off one of her MTVs. This entire last series isn’t even worth the attention of anybody, but are just the works of the media (just like this post) to feed on the curiosity of the masses.

Incidentally, a friend from HK informed me that one of the print shops of a tabloid newspaper / magazine was recently destroyed in a fire, allegedly the work of arson. It makes me wonder if that was the precursor of an organised crime, whereby this entire affair is just part of the attempt to milk the public of money by selling them such trash while a rival couldn’t take advantage of the current scandal.

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