Raffles vs Labourers

While being in the vicinity due to the screening of Invisible City, saw this really interesting display along Singapore River put up facing our Raffles statue.

Look at how the statue/sculpture mirrors and contrasts against Raffles' statue. It did look a bit eerie, but it also had some tragic feel about it, like some unsung hero...look at the missing arm. What was really interesting was the inscription on its pedestal.

Here are the words inscribed:

"On this obscure site

and many others

we landed on Singapore soil

since time immemorial

with our labour and toil

changed your genius and perception

from a mere idea to a concrete reality"

And here's the inscription on Raffles':

"On this historic site

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

first landed in Singapore

on 28th January 1819

and with genius and perception

changed the destiny of Singapore

from an obscure fishing village

to a great seaport and

and modern metropolis"

As my friend said, it was a reaction to the original Raffles statue. Mark the words & the re-phrasing. Wonder how long it'll be there.

Each instance has a new revelation

Recently, I can't help reveling in how amazing GOD is...there is no word I can describe but "WOW".

I have recently commited/set aside time to take part in the 40-day fast for both the Love Singapore movement and some personal issues. He was really amazing as He revealed many truths from the Word and even in my life. It's hard to describe but there are so many wonders and revelations you can find in the Bible as it is so rich with the wisdom of GOD.
It was also brought upon my heart that my book for the year is 1 Corinthians.

Even though the 40-day is over, I'm still experiencing GOD and I really wish to be disciplined in my walk with Him. I'm really glad that I could share with people and bless them too. I managed to share my career testimony with my sis-in-law as she is looking for a new company to work in and to have more specialisation in her job scope. I was very blessed by GOD in my pursuit of a career and I wished to bless her too since I was blessed. Also, it was great that I could share with a Christian friend about focusing on GOD. I was glad & encouraged that she became clearer of her goals and realised some truths too and to be willing to submit certain areas to GOD. It is always good that we edify and support one another for I was also encouraged in the process and hopefully, it has helped her too.

It has been a fruitful time & I have been more positive about stuff. If people ask me now how I was doing, rather than say "I'm busy" and seem frustrated, I should say "I'm busy, but am doing great...I'm have a good time of revelation".

Invisible City by Tan Pin Pin

I finally caught Invisible City tonight. Good thing they extended it, or else I would have missed it altogether.

It was an interesting documentary. It's set in current times and shows people talking about the past, from the young local archaelogist to past filmmakers, photographers and curators, and even activists of the past.

It dawned on me, looking from our current modern times, how fast Singapore has changed, that such memories has been lost. Looking at the past footage or pictures, we are so far from the past. The poignant question asked by one interviewee was that if no footage was taken, does it mean it never existed...to me, it translated to possible obliteration from all memories.

Also, some of the interviewees were rather old and you could see that their memories were already fading. Would our heritage/past be lost eventually?

One of the striking part of the film was the portion where Ivan Polunin's footage was shown as a blank footage as he narrated while he was shooting his old films. Ivan was a filmmaker/photographer who captured mainly plants & flowers of Singapore & Malaysia during the late 1950s, especially for medicinal purposes. He also captured some lifestyle of tribes and people in the region. Anyway, he was trying to digitise his films by shooting & recording them onto DV tapes or HD DVDs. The blank footage was impactful as the word "invisible" came clear then (after all it's called "Invisible City" right?). As he narrates, you see nothing and what he describes seems invisible to you and you can only imagine what he was actually talking about.
He had answered earlier that he was of course worried that the films would be lost, that's why he's doing some self-digitisation, and even as his memory is fading, he himself is trying to sort out & record what they are about and archiving them, hence the narration (there was not much speech, if any at all, in the films). Even he has some trouble doing so, so how would others be able to understand if nothing is done? Can you imagine the significance of memories lost? And it also emphasizes if something is deemed non-existent if it is not recorded.

Does invisibility = non-existence? Is there a broken link between the past & present?

李大傻 Big Fool Lee

Caught the show 李大傻 at Drama Centre yesterday. I had actually expected it to be a jovial show, but it turned out to be more serious than jovial.

The play was about the legendary Cantonese story-teller Lei Dai Soh (actually I think it should be Lei Dai Sor/Sau) of Singapore broadcasted on radio/丽的呼声 (Rediffusion). His real name is Lee Fok Hong and he took his name 大傻 from some Hong Kong personality/show. Phonetically it sounds like "you big fool" and there is the famous Cantonese tune of "bin gor wa wo sor" ("Who says I'm a fool"). However, due to the reasons of politics (Speak Mandarin campaign) and the TV, he was slowly phased out as he didn't want to change from Cantonese story-telling and also due to the popularity of TV - it would have been meaningless for him and the essence of the story, spoken in a language that is not so familiar to him in terms of speech, would be lost (Note: he understood Mandarin perfectly well). He had many ups & downs in his life even though he was really a simple man.

Watching the show, the significance of how it was played came upon me - the actor playing 李大傻 only spoke Cantonese throughout the whole show as opposed to others. To me, this symbolised his steadfastness in his principles and emphasized certain issues.

National Day songs

It's National Day again (in 2 days time)!
Every year, we will have a new National Day song, but I find that my favourite song is still Count On Me Singapore. However, I only like the original version which was more melodic. Think the 1st MTV produced had many children holding candles, which I liked very much too.

Now, as I've grown up and know/understand our history better, it is really interesting to see how the songs have evolved. Count On Me Singapore was 1 of the early songs and talked about hope for the future of the nation and building it:

"We have a vision for tomorrow, just believe, just believe
We have a goal for Singapore, we can achieve, we can achieve..."

Then recently I keep humming We Are Singapore's starting line, which means so much now. It talks about how we managed to pull through difficult times and celebrates our freedom and success against all odds even though we are a small country, to be what we are today, having advanced so much in less than 50 years of independence:

"There was a time when people said
That Singapore won't make it, but we did..."

Nowadays it's all about "home" and "family".

Relational responsibilities

Something from Joshua Harris' book.

"When you're just getting to know someone, it's essential that you remember what I call your "relational responsibilities"...Imagine you're in a car on a lonely deserted road. No one's in sight, and the smooth pavement stretches out as far as you can see. You know the vehicle can go fast; you just don't know how fast. But you'd like to find out. No one will see you. Why not try it? You throw the car into high gear and roar down the road.

Now imagine you're in the car again, but this time a dear friend sits in the passenger seat. An instead of being on a deserted road, you're in the heart of a busy city, surrounded by other cars and pedestrians. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see a police car. You don't even think of speeding. You drive down the street slowly and carefully.

What's the difference between the 2 scenarios? The difference is that in the first you were an isolated person who only had yourself to worry about. But the 2nd scenario placed you in relationships with others. Instead of being alone, you had responsibilities. If you wrecked the car, you would be responsible for the life of the person strapped in the seat next to you. Your recklessness would also place the lives of the motorists around you in danger. And finally, the policeman's presence reminded you of the traffic laws you should obey. You drove slowly...
If you start out thinking only of yourself...you'll speed...and probably run over people along the way. But if you remember that your actions affect others, you'll find the resolve to proceed cautiously and carefully."

Food for thought

“Any fool can count the no. of seeds in an apple, but only GOD can count the apples in a seed” - Bob Schuller

¨The Twilight Zone¨- The Obsolete man (1961)

Check this out on a fellow librarian's blog.

Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: ¨The Twilight Zone¨- The Obsolete man (1961)#links

Hee...well, now books & libraries are more than physical right?

Why the toast always lands butter side down

OK! Now for what I actually set out wanting to blog about rather than the previous post. A mini book review!

Yes, finally finished the book "Why the Toast Always Lands Butter Side Down: The Science of Murphy's Law" by Richard Robinson.

It's all about Murphy's Law and it was really fun reading it. Some of them really applied to our everyday lives & little examples here & there really made me laugh. A great book to cheer me up and philosophical! Also humour in science. Now I know why we yawn when someone else yawns. It's because of mirror neurons!

The main law - "WHATEVER CAN GO WRONG, WILL GO WRONG".

Think many of us have experienced this so yup, if you're interested, read of how contradictory life is.

As promised, I shall share with you some of the laws mentioned.

"A heavy, ugly, useless thing has sat in the dark corner of a cabinet for 20 years. The day after you throw it away, you need it urgently."

"The best way to be late is to give yourself plenty of time."

"When your hands are tied, your nose itches"

"Bad luck comes in threes"

"Her pile is mess; your pile is work in progress"

"When you search for something, you go back to the same place again and again..."(...and on the 20th time, it's there)

"A confidential whisper is heard better than a loud shout"

"Every Beatles needs its Ringo"

"The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of 5,000 people is a statistic"

"When people can do as they please they all do the same"

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree on"

"Each solution opens the door to a more difficult problem"

"Never let a computer know how much hurry you are in"

"A committee is a group of people who can't decide anything on their own, but together can decide that nothing can be done"

"Committee: a place where good ideas go to die"

"If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings eventually become more important than the problem"

"The secret of success is sincerity - once you can fake that, you've got it made"

"In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence"

"When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder"

"The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of"

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind"

"Objects behave better when you shout at them"

"When a body is immersed in water, the doorbell rings"

"Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the room"

"Floorboards squeak loudest when you need to be quietest"

"Shortcuts are the longest routes"

"Traffic lights are always red when you're in a hurry"

"Your queue always goes slowest"

"Buses come in threes"

"The bigger the bargain, the more money leaves your pocket"

"Whatever you buy, the day after the guarantee runs out, it snaps"

"Everything looks useful until you buy it"

"The noodle effect: when at last you have to ask the supermart assistant where the noodles are, they're right beside your head"

Some updates

It's been a while since I've updated and well, been rather busy at work.
Deadlines drawing closer, work "climate" not so good as the "battle" between our division & mgt and the other division goes on...

Anyway, my boss has gone part-time for 5 months. Am guessing that it's because she's retiring soon (1 or 2 years time?), so she's slowly making her way out. Through this time, even though I had a painted impression of her when she came in (from feedback & the way she works), I guess I can live with it. At least she's not the political type & I see her being serious about the directive of preserving heritage, as opposed to my mgt. Ok lah, she also appreciates my work too lah. :)

Actually, I've been wondering if I will eventually transfer out to other divisions. You see, my 3 years is coming up (have to work 3 years in 1 division before you can transfer), and even though I will definitely stay till the major projects have launched successfully and more steady, am not sure what else I can do. I know there are some divisions that I will definitely not go (politics is terrible there), but not sure if I'm really up to the some others which pose possibilities or that I find interesting. But if I never try, who knows? Should try new things now since I'm not getting any younger and to get out of the ulu location. Or will I even continue to do professional work? Well, not exactly doing that now, but I joined the profession hoping to, except it didn't move that way. Anyway, my mgt isn't exactly on the professionals' side at the moment (thus the unrest). A no. of us are at risk of losing the only thing that's keeping us here.

Oops, intended only for a short update & started typing & typing as the track of words came. Now for some happier news. Yeah, recently there was an adjustment of salary scales to mkt rate & my pay was adjusted a little higher. Plus the annual increment & performance bonus, I feel a tad richer this month. Hmm...so the shopping done at GSS has been covered. Now hoping can save up for a MacBook.