There is no charge for awesomeness

*blows dust off blog*

A new chapter in life, a new (more relevant) look for my blog. Since I came back from Europe, this blog has been rather neglected – not that there wasn’t anything to blog about, but I reasoned since I’m back there wasn’t much need to update since I was around……well actually I was just too damn lazy. However, my passion for writing hasn’t abated yet and regular updates are just round the corner, just that they’re halfway round the globe.

2008 was a mixed year of highs and lows – dotted with periods of calm and stress, tears and joy. A year where I matured (ok yes I know you can’t tell), and even found the time and money to go on a couple of overseas trips. I felt it was quite extravagant since I went to so many places in Europe last year, but the guilt was tempered by the notion that I would be earning money pretty soon. Money can’t come soon enough.

Anyway, the impetus for this sudden blog revival is, of course, the commencement of my search for a pet kamel in two weeks’ time. Yes, thats camel with a K – no prizes for guessing why.

Since the offer in March, its been a pretty long wait. The most popular question posed to me by far last year – “So when are you leaving for Dubai?” Evidently, everybody thinks I’m going to Dubai. Almost all conversations (in the early months) would go like this:

Friend A: “Hey Chris! When are you leaving for Dubai?”

Me: (friendly laughter) “Jan 09, and no la its not Dubai, its actually Kuwait”

Friend A: “Ohh Kuwait? I thought you were going to Dubai. How far is Dubai from Kuwait?”

Me: “Err its about an hour’s flight away….”

At this point in time, Friend A looks quite interested in a comparison between Dubai and Kuwait. Due to its aggressive tourism drive and stories of unprecedented opulence, many Singaporeans are much more familiar with Dubai. I’m no expert in Middle East culture by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d gamely go on about the 2 cities anyway, trying to sound like I know exactly what I’m talking about.

“Well its not as touristy as Dubai, its not all that similar actually. Dubai is more….whereas Kuwait is more….blah blah blah…oh you know it gets up to 50 deg C in the summer and your car’s dashboard will melt if you park it directly under the sun blah blah…”

Seriously that was how many of the conversations went. A few months later, I’d bump into Friend A again.

Friend A: “Hey, you’re still around! When are you leaving for Dubai?”

Me: (smiles knowingly) “Next jan!”

Friend A: “Cool!”

That was much easier than giving another soliloquy on Kuwait vs Dubai with bits of Iraq (just north of Kuwait) thrown in. And it wasn’t just Friend A, friends down the alphabet did the same thing too.

My aunty is extremely worried that I’d be killed by terrorists over there. Everytime I see her she’d ask me if I can reject the job and stay in Singapore. I am very appreciative of her concern but initially I laughed it off, saying that I wont go to Iraq or do silly things that would endanger my life.

Gradually, however, I began to think about the fact that I’d be staying in a predominantly expat neighbourhood (i.e. Western), the anticipated pullout of US troops contributing to the unstability in the region, present and past wars in Iraq/Israel/Gaza/Palestine/Lebanon, the unpredictability of Iran’s President, govt travel advisories asking citizens not to travel to Kuwait…..and many more flashpoints.

In a way, these things made me want to go more. Not that I like to put myself at risk but its going to be a real eye-opener, and really, if you keep worrying about these things, you’re letting the terrorists win. And when I was there, I felt totally safe. The Kuwaiti invasion happened almost 20 years ago now, and future invasions are highly unlikely.

After reading so much on the news about the Middle East, I can’t wait to go there and see things for myself without any media-tinted glasses. Of course, the Arabs are much more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis, unlike some of the mass media. I remember reading that Yasser Arafat once promised that Palestine would be the ‘Singapore’ of the Middle East.

One thing I’m not looking forward to, however, is the possibility that  I might be the only Singaporean in Kuwait. Who will know my deep deep pain when I miss Singapore food? What if I actually miss the PAP? What if nobody understands what I mean when i say ‘how come there are no trees by the road here one? how come everything so brown?! arrghhh!’

While collecting my visa, I asked the nice lady at the Kuwait embassy (amazing private suite at the top floor of the Ritz) whether there are many Singaporeans in Kuwait, she furrowed her eyebrows, went into deep thought for a few seconds and replied ‘errr well I received one visa enquiry a few weeks ago….’

Where the hell is Matt?

The star of this YouTube video, Matt Harding, is this lucky guy who is sponsored to travel around the world dancing (albeit quite horribly) in many different locations. He shot to fame in his first YouTube 2006 video (Link to video collection). Seeing his first video made the back of my hairs stand, seeing his latest video did too, making u feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe our world isn’t that different after all and utopia might be on the horizon. Singapore had the briefest of scenes in that video but hey, at least he did visit and you could see people dancing around him.

Which actually, is in stark contrast to his dancing scene in Kuwait, where he dances in front of the iconic water towers with a lone stray dog jumping beside him. I saw his initial video long ago on YouTube, and when his new video came out, watched it and loved it but didn’t think of blogging about it. After all, I tend to see lots of interesting stuff online and I’d be pretty busy if i blogged abt each one. Furthermore, whats interesting to me might not be to others. But i chanced across a post about him in a Kuwaiti blog and saw a different side to Matt. (I take a particular interest in Kuwait cos I’ll be going over indefinitely to work in a couple of months time). Matt writes about his travel experiences on his blog and his Kuwait experience is here.

Read it, its actually a very interesting writeup on Kuwait. I cant vouch for its accuracy as I’ve only been there 3 days, but I can relate to his descriptions. What I can’t relate to though, is his insensitivity to other cultures and religions. I expected something more tolerant from a guy who’s been all around the world. I’ve traveled to quite a few places and took some modules which emphasizes on cross cultural understanding, but even without it, being respectful and understanding to a foreign culture should come across as second nature. The somewhat polarized comments on Matt’s blog are worthy of a read too. To be fair, I’ve read a couple of other entries and they’re all written in a very entertaining and light hearted manner, if somewhat condescending to poorer countries. Being a travel buff, I still plan to go through most, if not all of them in time to come.

To quote the Kuwaiti blog, “Watching the video you get a feeling of world unity and peace but then when you find out the kind of person Matt really is it suddenly makes sense why the world is at war.”

P.S. Its been a pretty eventful past few weeks (for once I’m not working yaay!), and I’ll try to post pics/updates soon!

What you wont see in the mainstream news

Taken from Google Video:

“The wealth generated by Singapore’s much-touted economic success story has not benefited everyone, least of all its senior citizens, a.k.a. the nation builders. Filmed on the streets and back-alleys of downtown Singapore in July 2007, this video does not contain any enactments or acting. Directed, shot and edited by Martyn See.”

Nation Builders of Singapore

From director Martyn See’s blog:

“I’m a Singaporean who survived 15 months of police investigation for the making of banned short film ‘Singapore Rebel’, deemed to be an illegal political film under the law. Has since followed up with ‘Zahari’s 17 Years’, a documentary on an ex-political detainee, and ‘Speakers Cornered’, a chronology of brief scenes from a street corner standoff between pro-democracy activists and the police. Otherwise, he is mostly a law-abiding Singaporean video editor.”

Links to some of his other films:

Singapore Rebel (YouTube), (Google Video)

Speakers Cornered (YouTube)

Films like Singapore Rebel and Fahrenheit 9/11 may give a rather one sided account, but they do show a side of the story that most people are unaware of.  Reading the Straits Times does not give one a balanced view of the political situation. Neither does solely reading all the growing anti government vitriol you can easily find online these days.

This post is not to express my political views, but I am strongly for exposing people to both sides of the coin so that they can draw their own conclusions. Ignorance shouldn’t be an excuse for apathy.

I give myself 15 years (hopefully)

I wouldn’t want to be known as ‘that old uncle in the Porsche/Maserati/Skyline”, right?

Minds Car Wash @ Telok Blangah SPC

MINDS (Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore) has a car wash outlet in SPC Telok Blangah (before Vivocity / Harbourfront if you’re coming from the west). I found out about this great initiative from one of the car forums, and since it was near school, I decided to go down one day to show my support.

Car owners will know that it is a really back-breaking job to wash a car – I do wash my car on occasion but in order to save time and effort (I usually take around 2 hours to wash and wax), I usually bring my baby to a petrol station with a manual car wash service for $6. These are typically manned by foreign workers where basically, you drive your car in where they spray water and foam onto your car, use a sponge to wipe it all over, use a powerful waterjet to clean off the foam, then use a towel to dry your car. This doesn’t necessarily guarantee your car is clean though, sometimes the cleaners do a pretty bad job and the car’s cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired. Furthermore, since they use a common sponge for all cars and a very powerful water jet, scratches are definitely inevitable. Its especially painful when its a new car (Okay I know I’m a slave to my car, it should be the other way round right yah yah). Of course, it would be best if i do it myself, which would guarantee a squeeky clean car and minimal scratches, but the weather and time doesn’t always permit. Laziness does play a part too. I simply cannot put up with a dirty car, so usually I take it to the petrol station car wash once a week, and I do try to go to the stations with better service. The turnover rate is pretty high, its common that the station that does a relatively good job suddenly changes the car wash personnel who now do a poorer job. If my car looked the same after the wash as when it first went in, I’d probably never go back again. Bottom line is though, standards vary widely and don’t expect too much. And after all, it is only $6.

Wow that was a long introduction to petrol car washes, haha. Anyway, my take on the MINDS car wash (which i think is the only one of its kind) was that it is a good way to let the less fortunate earn some money while having an opportunity for them to feel valued. Although it is definitely physically exerting, washing cars – especially with a bunch of friends, can be pretty fun as you get to play with foam and water (thats one positive way of looking at it). Although I expected the standard to be roughly the same as those of the average car wash, I was definitely more than willing to accept a relatively less well done job. In a way, I didn’t want them to physically exert themselves as much as an able bodied foreign worker. So even if my car wasn’t washed properly, I’d go back to them again as a show of support.

But to my pleasant surprise, the MINDS people did an absolutely fantastic job. They took so much pride and professionalism in their work, more so than most other service personnel I’ve encountered (not just car washers), and more so than even some NUS students take in their projects. There were about 5 people washing one car, which was more than the usual 1 or 2 elsewhere, and each person was responsible for the cleanliness of their respective area. They took their job very seriously, cleaning and re-cleaning if they thought the area was still dirty. And they evidently took care not to scratch the car in any way (which is my pet peeve of other car washes). Granted, there were supervisors (older uncles, presumably volunteers) doing QC checks and if they found evidences of shoddy work, they would not hesistate to playfully scold the car washers and tell them to do a better job. Almost all of them appeared to be having fun while on the job, laughing and giggling. There was a lump of bird shit of my windscreen, and the guy in charge of initially hosing the car down didn’t spot it so pieces of it were still stuck there, the people using the sponge then hollered at him, gd naturedly chiding him for missing it and telling him to direct the jet on that spot again. They then flashed a questioning thumbs up to me to ask if I was happy that the bird shit was gone so they could start using the sponge. I smiled and gave 2 thumbs up in return. They seemed happy to have this opportunity to work and it definitely showed in their professionalism.

I was somewhat brought down to earth by the experience. There I was, a relatively more privileged kid, sitting in the comfort of an air conditioned car while other kids toiled hard to clean it for a rather meagre sum of money. Was it fair? To be honest, I never felt comfortable sitting in the car even while it was being washed by able bodied foreign workers as I felt spoilt, but I reasoned that I, in a way, am contributing to their income and they were also glad to have business. I felt more uncomfortable (guilt maybe?) in the MINDS wash, but seeing them enjoy themselves was a big mitigating factor. In all honesty, they might never experience the simple pleasure of driving a car, or even working in a normal comfortable office job which most take for granted. This made all the race for results, top internships, job offers with high salaries, luxury goods etc seem more than a little silly. I think people are innately sympathetic to the needs of the less fortunate, but sometimes are too caught up in their own stuff and doing something about it is relegated towards the rear of their priorities. Sometimes, people allay that guilt by donating money, which I’m sure helps but probably not as much as more tangible things like being given the chance to do some decent work, like being in a car wash. Actually, most locals wouldn’t want to work in a car wash cos of the physical exertion and probably, the stigma of being in one. Which makes their attitude even more commendable.

The process took longer than usual (due to their meticulousness), and my car came out of the car wash cleaner than it ever was at any petrol station car wash. And this is from an objective point of view, I didn’t give any concessions. And so I’d like to help spread the word about this great little car wash, if you’re in the vincinity (and in a car, obviously), do drop by and show a little support to these professional people who deserve praise for having such a positive attitude and making the best of what they have. If only more of us could be like that.

Operating Hours

Weekdays : 10am – 6pm
Weekends : 10am – 3pm

Reflections

I do realise that I haven’t been blogging for ages, I admit it isn’t really a top priority when I’m not overseas and more importantly, this semester has been absolutely unrelenting in terms of workload. At its most hectic, I had 4 submissions due that one day, and I hadn’t really slept the past two nights. I think that was a near death experience, but i’ll gladly do it again in place of studying for exams! Anyway, I just finished my last presentation today and I must say that it was a very satisfying and apt conclusion to a semester that I feel has been the best of my NUS life.

Results aside, it also has been a pretty fulfilling 2008 so far. This realisation only hit me while I was driving home today. Prior to this, I didn’t (or had no time) to take stock of what happened since I came back from exchange. Although I did work hard, I think luck played more than a supporting role in some moments.

I was lucky to be in project groups that were really great to work in. Especially my project groups for Financial Statement Analysis, New Venture Creation, Human Resource Management and Biz Policy & Strategy. A few of my group mates were already close friends and I guess that helped a lot. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think that my groups in these modules were definitely one of the best in the respective classes! Working with these project mates came with lots of fun and laughter too. Of course things didn’t always go swimmingly, but these were relatively well handled.

Well there were other satisfying moments like getting into Startup @ Singapore – credit due to my grp members who worked hard on it, and when I got an unexpected and unsolicited interview which became a perm job offer (in the middle east of all places!), and everything seemed like a blur from the moment I got the call for the first interview, to when they flew me over to Kuwait for the final grueling interviews. Which also solved my summer internship problem (if i decide to accept) as they would be willing to wait for me til I graduate at the end of the year. I’ve also been really really happy that Qinlei quit flying and went to do what she loves, in a firm she loves to work in. People around me have also been getting what they want, and in that regard, I really can’t ask for more.

However, the biggest highlight of 2008 has to be…. *drum roll*….

MY NEW MAZDA 3!!

Mum and gf, on the day of collection in the Mazda warehouse!

If you knew me the slightest bit, you wouldnt be surprised that I chose this event as the biggest, heh. To cut a long story short, I traded in my beloved but problematic Chevrolet Aveo** for a new Mazda 3. I fell in love with it actually the day it first came out almost 3 years ago, and when the opportunity came to get one, to me no other car came close, not in that budget range anyway. Granted, there are drawbacks such as the utter lack of power and the fuel consumption, but the other stuff such as the looks, the interior. the handling especially etc. more than makes up for it. Yes, it is *just* a Mazda but I’m very proud of it all the same. I find myself looking more than ever for excuses to drive. But damn I dunno what to do with it if i go overseas to work. Crap. I definitely wouldn’t want to sell my baby away.

**To explain the address of my blog and msn nick, aveo-lution is a pun on the Mitsubishi Evolution, which is one of the fastest cars on the road (which evidently mine wasnt).

Although I have a feeling that luck is finite, and I might jolly well have used up my quota this year, I still have one last request – to hope that the dice I bring in for my June CFA exams will give me the correct answers to the 6 hour exam. However, the general consensus is that people who bring a dice to their CFA exams might as well bring a pillow and bolster.

Laughter, the best medicine

These are some jokes that i came across and personally find pretty funny. In movies and tv shows, slapstick and gross humour aren’t as appealing to me as witty, quirky, sarcastic remarks (some of my all time favourites are Chandler – Friends, Greg House – House, Alan – Boston Legal, cast of Whose Line is it Anyway?) However, on the printed side of things, I’m able to tahan (and appreciate) quite abit of lameness in jokes:

—

A snail learns to be a racing driver, At his first race he
is told to put a mark on the car to identify it in the race so he draws an S on the doors.
He gets off to a bad start but soon starts making his way through the field, As he takes first place the commentator excitedly shouts “Look at the S car go!”

—

 

A penguin was driving his car down the road when he felt that the transmission was starting to slip.

Lucky for him, there was a transmission repair shop on the side of the road, so he coasted right up to the service bay and talked to the mechanic about the problem.

The mechanic said he was a little busy but could check it out in a half hour. The penguin said fine, and waddled off to kill some time on the street. A block up the road, he saw a 31 flavors Baskin Robbins store, he went in to get cooled off.

Hey, he’s a penguin.

After a little while, he went back to the repair shop, and saw that his car was up on the rack. The mechanic walked out to greet him, and said “Looks like you blew a seal”.

 

The penguin wiped off his mouth and said: “Nope, it’s just vanilla ice cream”

—

 

An Italian, a Scotsman, and a Chinese fellow are hired at a construction site. The foreman points to a huge pile of sand and says to the Italian guy, “You’re in charge of sweeping.” To the Scotsman, he says, “You’re in charge of shoveling.” And to the Chinese guy, “You’re in charge of supplies.”

A few hours later the foreman returns and finds the pile of sand untouched. “Why didn’t you sweep any of it?”

The Italian replies in a heavy accent, “I no gotta broom. You tella the Chinesea guy he inna charge of a supplies, but hea disappeara, and I coulda no finda him!”

Then the foreman turns to the Scotsman and asks, “Didn’t I tell you to shovel that sand?”

The Scotsman replies in his heavy brogue, “Aye, ye did, laddie, but I couldna get meself a shovel. Ye left the Chinee in charge of supplies, but I couldna find him!”

The foreman is really angry and goes looking for the Chinese guy.

Just then, the Chinese guy springs out from behind the pile of sand and yells, “SUPLISE!”