To laugh or to cry? (I)

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I was just scrolling through Workers’ Party @ Parliament blog when I read the following exchange between opposition MP Low Thia Khiang and one of the so called ‘elite talents’ (精英人才) of the Tali-PAP on 28 Feb 2008:

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang SMC): First clarification, the member in his speech said why should we quarrel with the discrepancy in the estimates because we are in a happy situation where we have a huge surplus instead of a deficit.

Does he agree that he misses the point? The point is not so much whether we end up with a huge deficit or huge surplus, the question is: why is the Budget estimate so far off the mark?

Second clarification: He says that if our estimate is off the mark, Hong Kong is even worse than us because they are off the mark much more than Singapore’s estimates.

I’m afraid that if this is the attitude of the People’s Action Party, we are going down a slippery slope. We are not so good in estimates, he says, but never mind, there are people who are worse than us.

So in Mandarin, this is exactly what we call ‘Ah Q jing shen’ (mentality)*.

Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC): In fact when I did my block visit last night, a resident asked me the same question: why does the Government have such a huge surplus? Did something go wrong in the estimate?

Looking at the papers this morning, when Hong Kong reported a huge surplus – four times above the estimate – the main reason given was it was an unprecedented year, property prices went up, they had huge transactions in the stock market. A similar phenomenon was seen in Singapore as well.

I told the resident: At the end of the day, I think the key question for this House is how do we look forward?

When the family breadwinner came back and said: ‘I’ve struck lottery”, you shouldn’t be asking, ‘Why did you strike lottery?’

You should be asking: how are we going to use the lottery money? So I think we should not miss the point. The real issue now is: What can we do now to make sure that there will be less and less need for all these social welfare programmes in the future. Look forward and not backward.

* Ah Q is a famous character in Chinese literature, known for his foolishness and optimism.

I was rolling the floor laughing my ass off when I read Lim’s reply. The fact that this guy actually holds a doctorate, makes it even more hilarious. This is the kind of replies I would have imagined Ah Beng and Ah Seng would have come up with.

Try and imagine this… Citizen Lim Dong Chiang told his wife that getting himself sterilised would have been a good idea because they can just continue to enjoy unprotected sex, save the money use for contraception, and not worry about having a baby.

One year later, Dong Chiang’s wife came home and told him she is pregnant. And when Dong Chiang goes looking for Dr Lim, I can almost imagine him giving this advice: ‘You don’t ask where the baby come from, Chiang. I think we should not miss the point. The real issue now is: What you can do now to make sure you have the money to raise the baby in the future. Look forward not backward.’

You know, if it was an opposition MP who said this he would have definitely have been ridiculed in Parliament, and by Singapore’s lapdog media until he has no place to hide. Remember what happened to Lim How Doong when he said, ” Don’t Talk Cock! ” in Parliament?

This is enough to make one weep but at the meantime, you don’t know whether you should be laughing or not!

Well done, Sembawang GRC. This is one of the clowns you gave 76.7% of the votes to. I suppose the Singapore Zoo probably could teach Ah Meng’s offsprings to be MPs better than they act… and they probably takes normal peanuts – not the TT Durai kind – for pay too.

Sembawang GRC, will you find the courage to fix this problem, the next time round? Or will you continue to keep them and spoilt them?

莫名其妙篇 之 小丑跳梁

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我朋友告诉我，最近他看台湾某电视节目时，有一个样子很像黑社会老大的人，被问到某事项时讲了这么一句非常有意思的话: “世界上很多人都无知，我也是其中一个。无知还乱讲就是无耻，所以我不回答。”

能讲出这样的话的人是肯定有一定的智慧的。加上他人像黑社会老大，所以我的朋友印象非常深刻。为何我说他有一定程度的智慧呢？因为这位仁兄所说的和孔子说过的有异曲同工之处。我是指孔子说过的: “知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也！” [解释: 知道就是知道，不知道就是不知道，这就是智慧啊！]

为何说是智慧呢？第一: 有些人喜欢不知假扮知道，其实一窍不通。第二： 能够谦卑的承认自己无知，是需要很大的勇气。因为人本身就是骄傲的。承认无知，就可能得要面别人的嘲笑。

不过，就算是被嘲笑其实也没什么大不了的。当一个人了解自己其实是多么的渺小，承认无知其实又如何？以我的观点来看，就总比在网志 (blog, 也称 ‘部落格’) 上卖弄自己的小聪明，或者炫耀自己在互联网上那虚有的名气强的多。

说到那互联网上的名气，为何我会认为它是虚有的呢？你想想吧，就算是下雪、或者 “布朗先生” (Mr Brown) 两人，他们的所谓的名气 (fame) 也未必是正面的。就如派瑞思.希尔顿 (Paris Hilton) 和小甜甜布莱妮 (Britney Spears) 两人，的确是非常风光。但是她们的报导很多时候其实是非常负面 (negative) 或者八卦的，唯一让人感兴趣的就是她们两荒诞的行径。但是在任何人和这两位小妞比之前可要记得，他们两人已经发达了。而且，可能她们和随便一个男人性交时用过的安全套，都可以卖个十万、八万。

反过来相比，就先以下雪来说吧。最近引起很多人注意主要的原因就是因为她辛辣无情的批评苹果公司出产的 iPhone 而引起其发烧友的公愤所致。她得不断的哗众取宠，以她的 ‘毒舌’ 让人愤慨才能在互联网上让人去注意她。无可否认，下雪是个很聪明的女孩子，而且目前可以说是非常成功的，因为她可以写网志来当职业。但是这能和派瑞思.希尔顿等相比吗？她虽然也可能启发了很多其他的小妞想走同样的路，但是新加坡的市场可以容得下两个、或者更多个下雪吗？

而以 “布朗先生” 为例，如果他当年不是批评政府而导致他丧失了在本地某报上的专栏，很多人也未必对他的网志有兴趣。虽然说在 “布朗先生” 为这份报纸写专栏之前就有一定的读者，但原本他就是以其风趣的文章来评论本地的时事才引起大家注意的。在某种程度上，其实互联网上的新加坡人就认为他是个敢于批评政府的人才热衷于阅读他的网志。但是被莫须有般套上了 “反政府份子” 的恶名，是件好事吗？反之，如果他明天反过来顺着毛拍政府的马屁，你我会不唾弃他吗？

读者诸君们，你们大家说说看，到了网络之外他两人的名气还会剩下多少？如果下雪、或者 “布朗先生” 走在街上，除了时常上网和参与网志作者 (Blogger, 也称 ‘博客’) 活动的人会认识他们，其他对互联网一窍不通、甚至于连网志是啥都不懂得的人，会认识他们吗？老实说，可能连像我和平时有看网志的读者诸君们可能都会 ‘有眼不识泰山’ 而和他们擦身而过。一般的人如比较年长的，如我母亲和阿姨，就更不可能会留意到他们了。

所以说，就算你得到了 ‘精英网志作者’ (Elite Blogger) 的虚名又如何？你长眠黄土六尺之下后的第二天，地球还是会公转自转。而且当你尸骨未寒，你那 ‘精英网志作者’ 的称号可能已经让另外一人侵占。其实人们就如 “消费” 日用品般阅读着你的作品。可能你的作品令一些小女孩陶醉，但有时候倒必须看一下这些人的程度。如果是一些无知又幼稚的小女生对你如痴如醉，那可能也是你的成熟度的写照吧… 嘿！

那些还没得到了 ‘精英网志作者’ 的虚名但是已经觉得自己写得很棒、很风光的，就更可悲了。在大家眼里其实还不就是小丑跳梁罢了。所以你要怎么写、怎么骂、怎么批评，就由你去吧。反正你的谩骂到后来反映出来的不只是你的无知，最主要的还是你的无耻。

兰州拉面

3 comments

I should have done a write up on this a few years ago when The Magus brought me her for dinner. That was when he decided that the Bush Administration Regime (if not America itself) no longer welcomes foreign talents (as a result of 9-11) and return to boring Singapore. I believe his opinion was that the U.S. under the Patriot Act was no different than Singapore with the ISD.

However, even before The Magus brought me to the place, Lanzhou La Mian (兰州拉面) used to be located in Lao Pat Sat some time in the late 90s. I was pretty sad when it moved out, and I have no idea where it has moved to.

Anyway, after I was re-introduced to the place, I brought a number of people to the shop (now located at 19 Smith Street) for dinner and it has so far not disappoint me and my friends. I am glad Daphne did a video with Bloggers’ Treat on the place because now it gave this lazy bum here the impetus to pay tribute to the eatery myself.

Lanzhou La Mian’s specialty is of course – la mian (拉面, which literally means ‘Pull noodles’ in Chinese). Simply put, it’s just ‘hand made noodles’ (手工面), but unlike the other kind of, the only machinery involved in the making the noodles would be the machine that mix the flour and water. Whatever else is all done manually.

My personal favourites would be the Chicken Chop (鸡排拉面) and Pork Chop Noodles (排骨拉面). And for sides, it would be the steamed (小笼汤包) and panfried dumplings (锅贴). They actually also have some Chinese style deserts, though the English names escaped me for the moment.

I am sorry I don’t take photo of my food, so do check out the video done by Bloggers’ Treat and Daphne. I believe the visuals would have more impact that the mere words I am using here.

Blog Advertising… yet again…

10 comments

Every now and then we will hear something about our ‘local’ Blog Advertising companies – e.g. Advertlets and Nuffnang. Most of the time it’s just complaints (if not the whines) of bloggers.

In rare cases, you hear something different. Even Blog2u was not spared of this curse, though in their case the matter quickly blew over with both sides – company and ex-staff – agreeing to remove their respective blog entries. (I will not go into details about this matter.)

Yet again, blog entries about nuffnang hits the Top 10 of ping.sg recently. This time written by bloggers who finally having enough of their service and deserting them. Starting with Limetouch, the body count soon increase to include: Kriscell, Wishbone and Sicarii. (If you aren’t mentioned here then it’s most likely your blog has been given the [-] on ping.sg, a list that is ever growing… daily.)

In Limetouch’s case, he also published his post on Innit, nuffnang’s very own propaganda machine People’s Daily blog aggregator which resulted in his ban in a matter of hours – an efficiency rarely seen in nuffnang (depending on who you asked). Of course, the reason for these bloggers finally ‘abandoning’ nuffnang, is yet again: the lack of ads, the never-ending controversy surrounding the transparency on how the ads are given out and also how bloggers are ‘tiered’ and paid. (And frankly speaking, I personally felt it wouldn’t matter very much to nuffnang unless there is a massive desertion of bloggers from using nuffnang to monetize their blogs, or when higher ups of big brands which use their service sit up and do something about it.)

Of course, where there are detractors, there will also be supporters. Blogger ylva wrote that she will not leave nuffnang regardless and stated that her reason she will stay with them for the ‘priceless’ activities nuffnang have organised and the ‘friends’ she can meet as a result of such activities.

But I wondered if ylva had thought about this: If bloggers continue to leave nuffnang in droves, then her chances of her making new friends are going to diminish as time goes by. Unless she’s content with meeting the same people over and over again, these ‘priceless’ activities she touted appears to me to be slowly depreciating in value.

Still, it was quite amusing for me to know that some actually found a special use nuffnang other than as an attempt to monetize one’s blog. It is now some kind of friend-finder or social networking facility like Asia Friendfinder. Perhaps nuffnang should consider adding a new facility along the lines of myspace, facebook or even friendster, so nuffnangers can now poke, slap or perhaps even scratch the back of one another.

Indeed, it appears to me that some bloggers are also unconsciously using ping.sg in that capacity and more than just a blog aggregator and a means to publicize their blogs as well. I personally have made and gained a few friends… and make a few enemies.

Meantime, I am glad I have outgrown the usual urge to respond to the ‘creative’ cut and paste of those who never grows up and fart through their blogs as easily as they do with their mouths. They are aptly be described by this new term: 兰州人 (Lanzhou Ren). An interesting term which I believe I will soon use often on die Mutter-Ficken Schweinhunde, hopefully without any offense to the real natives of Lanzhou.

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