Rachel invited me to this event several weeks ago. It is a film screening organised by the Women’s Wing of the Reform Party.

Since I generally have nothing much to do on weekends I decided to go to the event, which was at the Sinema Old School (at Mount Sophia) on 27 November 2010. Because it’s a long way in, and we have never been there in the past, we met up for coffee at Raffles City first before taking a cab in.

We arrived around 6:10pm and after identifying that we have brought the tickets for the event, we were given a goodie bag which also comes with the party’s first issue of ‘New Dawn’ and a small sticker for identification. Since I don’t know much of the people there, I generally kept to myself while Rachel pointed out to me some of the people well known on local blogosphere, such as an editor of The Online Citizen, and the author of Yawning Bread. Some other well known personalities who are present include the Reform Party’s (RP) Secretary Kenneth Jeyaretnam, along with Leong Tze Hian and British author Alan Shadrake, who is currently charged for ‘criminal defamation’. I joked with Rachel that one of the guy who stood apart all by himself may probably be an ISD agent though it is really unlikely an ISD agent would be so easily spotted.

We ate a little of the buffet and generally stayed in the air-conditioned shop until it was our turn to be seated for the movie – “Match made” by Mirabelle Ang.

The movie is actually a documentary about a 39-year-old Singaporean guy called Ricky who went to Vietnam to get a bride. Some parts were quite funny, especially when the girls are paraded before Ricky, very much like mamasans parade their girls to their customers in night clubs. Ricky will then ‘short list’ one or a few girls from each selection and I had to respect the girl’s courage and determination to look for a better life elsewhere even though I felt it was a little demeaning for those Vietnamese ladies. Many of these girls are almost 2 decades younger and the guy was always checking whether their year of birth, rejecting some when their Chinese zodiacs are not compatible.

From the ‘short listed’ ones, a translator will translate the questions from Ricky and the answers from the girls. The questions generally surround whether they are willing to live with the potential groom’s parents or why they wanted to marry out of Vietnam. In the end only two were selected and they were then taken to a clinic for a checkup the next day, ostensibly for diseases and whether they have been working girls. In my opinion, the main objective is a virginity check. When the matter was brought up, the Singaporean matchmaker (a Taiwanese married to a Vietnamese woman) vehemently denied being sexists and pointing out he is a father of three daughters.

Either way, once the final girl was selected, the movie went on to show the customary ceremony the couple has to go through in Vietnam. After the wedding dinner, Ricky returned to Singapore alone and the team then took us to the home and family of the bride called Nhanh. It also talked about how the girls are introduced to the matchmakers, and how much money her family gets (a measly US$350 – roughly 5,000,000 đồng, if I recalled correctly) from the matchmaker. As the bride cannot immediately join her husband in Singapore, it talked about how long it will take to apply the visas for the bride.

It will be at least 5 months before Nhanh arrives in Singapore, and the movie then ended abruptly. I will not reveal the ending so everyone can go watch it for themselves.

After the movie, there was a short speech by Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam, an introduction to some of the members of the Women’s Wing, the Reform Party followed by a impromptu speech given by Hazel Poa – the RP’s first lady candidate for this coming election. I would say by the qualifications of these candidates – all of which are professionals with high academic qualifications, the Tali-PAP can no longer denigrate the opposition parties for failing to field talents. Anyway, I have never given much weight to a person’s qualifications as a party’s candidate as I am in the considered opinion that having good qualifications would simply show a person is well trained in a particular field, not necessarily a definitive measure of a person’s talents or intelligence. The seemingly close association of some of RP’s members with Dana Lam, the current president of AWARE where one male member mentioned that he was part the legal advisors which put Dana Lam and her team into place caused me some unease. A brief thought crossed my mind when I recalled that the author of Yawning Bread, who is known to be openly pro-homosexual, is also at the event. (I will touch on that thought later.)

This was followed by an auction which brought much joy and laughter to those present. I won’t touch too much on the auctions themselves other than to mention that it is very similar to people bidding to have dinner with Warren Buffet. In these case, members of the Reform Party will provide either a free dental service, legal counselling, etc for the highest bidder. All of the proceeds from the auctions will go into the RP’s funds for the coming election campaign.

Rachel and I checked the merchandise briefly once the auction is done but we made our way off soon after.

~ * ~

Now back to the matter of my brief thought. The entire hullabaloo surrounding the so-called AWARE ‘coup’ in 2009 and the subsequent counter-coup left me with a bitter aftertaste. While all consider it as religious fundamentalists attempting to subvert a secular organisation, few would remember the so-called ‘coup’ also revealed undesirable sex education content which were slipped into some of our schools by that organisation.

With that in mind, the thought of AWARE subverting the RP through members of its Women’s Wing which has swelled in numbers briefly crossed my mind after the names Dana Lam and AWARE were mentioned more than once. While I vehemently object to the Tali-PAP’s immigration and housing policies in specific (and somewhat agree with Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s views on those matters in the first issue of ‘New Dawn’), I will feel uncomfortable casting my vote for anyone who seems to be closely associated with AWARE.

I asked myself, does the RP have other agendas other than those already made public? Would the RP pick up where Siew Kum Hong has left off? As far as I am concerned, an NMP making a big fuss over Section 377A was bad enough. An elected MP with the backing of voters gnawing on that again will be even more unappealing.

After all, while the current immigration and housing policies are unpleasant and they entail material hardships, they are not quite as unacceptable as any attempts which will threaten to unravel the fabric of our society. The threat that I maybe party to putting candidates into Parliament, whom I suspect might go against my views of a stable society and also my freedom of faith, will weigh heavily in my voting decision.