Category — Singapore

How dare you!

J and I have had the occasional domestic dispute over the past 12 years (ahem). And in the post-dust up analysis, we’ve both come to the conclusion that we’re both “highly strung”, though me more than him. And I’ll cop to that. The thing is, after speaking with a few other friends, it appears that an awful lot of Asian women are “highly strung”. Let’s have a look at that a little bit more closely.

What do we mean by the term? I’m just throwing out stuff that I’ve heard, and think about myself:

• a bit on the defensive side
• can get too focused on one thing
• exhibits insensitivity to others when they are perceived to be in her way
• easy to anger when perceived to be insulted/put down
• very ambitious
• tendency to jump to conclusions, usually to the detriment of her partner
• high expectations (sometimes too high) of her partner
• can be very money/status-focused
• very analytical

I hope you’re starting to get the picture. (And, just to repeat the implication in plainer text, men can be highly-strung too, but we’re not talking about them in this post.) Now, let me wander off a bit to an anecdote.

J was recently at a workshop where an engineer was giving a highly technical presentation. Because the workshop was quasi-public, there were a lot of people standing around watching. An acquaintance of J’s, being short, asked him to take a photo of the engineer because she (the photographer) couldn’t see over the crowd and she (the engineer) wanted to send some photos of her presenting her workshop to her parents.

Just as J finished relating the story to me, a piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“I bet she’s single,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes. We got into a conversation afterwards, and she told she she was. But how did you know?”

You know how you get an insight that takes many hops but coalesces in your mind in a heartbeat? That’s what happened here. I’ll try to explain it to you in fewer words than I used with J. Tell me what you think.

What is of absolutely no doubt in Asia — at the risk of descending into stereotype — is that education is important. You may find a parent who’s inordinately happy with their son for everything he buys for them because he’s a successful, let’s say, landscaper. But no matter how proud his parents are of him, there is always some niggle that they’d be prouder of him if he had a degree. And perhaps worked in an office instead. Or had workers who toiled on his behalf. In an office. Or school of some type.

Here’s the problem with the Asian female. One, they’re told that Education is Critical. “Nobody will love you if you’re stupid.” She gets lots of pats on the head when she tops the class in school, becomes prefect, snags a spot at a good university, and graduates, beaming out of the photo frame that sits proudly in her parents’ living room. So far, so good.

The next obvious thing is to get a job. And that’s where the problems start. You see, the young Asian female thinks that she worked so hard, studied so hard, to get somewhere in life. The young Asian female’s parents, however, have inexplicably changed their tune. From, “So why aren’t you getting first-class honours?” it becomes, “Isn’t it time you got married?”

Now, this will throw any reasonable human being for a loop. What?! Why did you ride me so hard if all you’re going to say when I’m 23 is, “When can I expect the grandchildren? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

At this point, our young lady is caught in an unfortunate case of cognitive dissonance. Of course she doesn’t want to throw it all away just to play mother, especially not if she’s smart and knows she can climb the corporate ladder. So, instead of marrying, she says to herself: “I just have to make my parents proud of me. And once they realise how important it is that I make something of myself — as a person in my own right, rather than just as a wife or mother to someone else — they’ll understand and approve of me and then we can put this marriage nonsense to the side for the time being.”

I hope you can begin to get an inkling of where the young engineer is in this timeline? Caught in the throes of this mis-thinking, she’s well on the way to seeking approval by sending her parents tangible proof that people hang on her every word. That she is doing Something Meaningful. And it doesn’t involve a wedding ring. Pity it won’t work.

The fact is, it never works, and the nagging grows in scope and frequency. “You’re getting so old, lah. No man will want you soon.” “Why are you so smart? Men don’t like smart women.” “You’re too big for your boots, thinking you can get this promotion/start your own business. No wonder you can’t get married.”

And the young woman keeps on thinking that if only everything looked a bit more sparkly, a bit more meaningful, then things would come good. After all, her parents were serious when they said her education was important. She has more examples than she can poke a stick at to prove that point. So if she can’t sway them from their one-track marriage mind now, it must mean she hasn’t proven the worth of her education — of herself — to them hard enough.

And that’s how it begins. She must be perfect. Her boyfriend must be perfect. Her apartment/house must be perfect. Her car must be perfect. Her wardrobe must be perfect. And, as I’ve said before, because the parents have completely and utterly changed their tune, it never is. The problem is not with her, it’s with them. And, because she’s Asian, that’s a verboten thought because, from Turkey to Taiwan, the authority figure in the family is Always Right.

I am of the firm opinion that one of the biggest obstacles to female empowerment in Asia are the parents. I have seen too many worthwhile lives descend into some kind of obsessive-compulsive tail-chasing because the parents have now summarily decided that they want grandchildren and bugger what it means for their daughters. Marriages have been destroyed through the kind of desperate, serial approval seeking that starts with a conceded ceremony and continues from there till the day somebody drops. For the sake of sanity, it’s got to stop but, short of just waiting for all the ignorant old farts to die out, I’m not sure how.

Hearts and tigers!

So, both Valentine’s Day and CNY fall on Sunday this year. This means a double celebration for all those people of Chinese descent and all those hangers on (like me!) who just like to gorge on Chinese food goodies! However, I will say that this is NOT the time to go shopping. It’s a jungle out there!

After being solemnly informed by The Wast that J and I are not entitled to celebrate Valentine’s Day (“You’re already married, so you can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day and you only give flowers to girls you want to marry”), we probably won’t do very much. Our son’s right of course; Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers, not grumpy married couples with kids and warring domestic pets, so I hope that all lovers everywhere have a great day.

As for Chinese New Year …. Although I’m not an adherent of things mystical, I really do hope that the new year brings a change of luck for me. The last decade hasn’t been fantastic and I could do with being thrown balls of a different spin. To everyone celebrating CNY, have a great time and do take care on the roads, won’t you?

Monday and Tuesday are public holidays in the region, so I’m not sure if I’ll be sufficiently motivated to do a post. We’ll see.

And, in writing news, edits for “Singapore Sizzle” have come and gone, and I’m working on the second book in the “His Bodyguard” series and having a good time. Sian Bernardine and Chris Lance are quite different to Helen Collier and Yves de Saint Nerin, and so is the setting. More on that, maybe next week.

Have a good weekend everyone and have some fun.

Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.

BoingBoing is on fire at the moment with the case of Dr Peter Watts, a Canadian scientist and s-f writer who was held, beaten up and charged with assaulting a federal officer at the US-Canada border while on his way back to Canada after helping a USAian friend move house. For the record, he was beaten up by US guards, although Canadian authorities can be equally brutal, as the case of Robert Dziekański clearly attests.

BoingBoing are putting together a fund to help Dr Watts’ defence, and you can contribute via Paypal if you are so inclined. As a sideline, it’s an interesting observation that the USA is a place that makes a big deal about what “rights” a person has, until the time comes to actually exercise those rights (whether medical, economic, or judicial). At that point, you find out that the person with the most “rights” happens to be the one with the deepest pockets. Nobody else need apply.

What has been equally interesting to me have been the comments on BoingBoing, including a fair few that imply that Watts had it coming because he was probably “lippy” or “uppity”. And that got me thinking back to an incident at the Malaysia-Singapore border almost two years ago.

Lets face it, stalwart reader, you may think that being a writer is a cool thing but writers, by and large, really don’t fit into the normal, quiet mainstream population. They may seem quite okay from the outside, but there’s always some kind of dysfunction that separates them from the rest of the herd. And that dysfunction mostly manifests itself as questions. Writers need questions the way we need air. Without questions, quite simply, we wouldn’t exist. What if human civilisation dominated our galaxy? (Stories set in the Republic.) How would a romance work between a female bodyguard and the male she’s assigned to protect? (Guarding His Body) Is it possible for me to even think of a likely steampunk story and thus jump on the latest trend? (Alas, no.)

So, when questions are like life’s blood to us, it’s obvious that we will start asking them whenever something interesting happens. And therein lies the problem, because our Neo Dark Ages™ world doesn’t like questions. It doesn’t like anyone asking them or otherwise being lippy. Used to be that only applied to niggers, wogs, slopes, kikes, spics, etc., and women. But now, it doesn’t like anything other than silent subservience from anybody who doesn’t wear the appropriate uniform, period.

I’m reminded of the time our family crossed from Malaysia into Singapore. There were five of us, two adults with two kids, and J’s mother, who was visiting with us at the time. And it was also the time of the Mas Selamat flap. Singapore is very proud of Mas Selamat because he is their very own Muslim terrorist, and is thus like a badge of honour Singapore can wear and be inducted into the Western nations’ Hall of Countries Who Are So Wonderful That Everyone Else Wants To Have A Piece Of Us Out Of Sheer Jealousy. Unfortunately, this short man with a noticeable limp had escaped the detention centre by climbing out the bathroom window.

Anyway, the security at the border was pretty tight after he fleed (I believe he also threw spare rolls of toilet paper out the window before he jumped, to help cushion his fall) , and everyone had to submit thumbprints via an electronic reader, ostensibly to check against the thumbprints of Mas Selamat that Singapore had on record. They let our kids pass without any comment, but I had to wonder when they insisted that my mother-in-law submit to a scan. Yeah, I muttered to J, because Mas Selamat is so obviously hiding in the skin of an older, white woman from Europe.

If you tell me that this was not the smartest thing to do, especially within earshot of the Immigration official, I’ll agree with you. But, you know, it’s that question thing again that I was talking about. You think, “why the hell are they fingerprinting someone who so obviously isn’t Mas Selamat?” and, before your brain has time to answer “because it’s their job, stupid, just shut up”, your mouth opens and out comes some smart comment.

At this point, we were directed to another office, had our passports confiscated and were left watching a blank wall while the rest of the border world went on behind our backs. After twenty minutes, an officer came out, smiled, handed us our passports and told us we could go. No explanation was given, although she was very courteous. You’ll be pleased to know I kept my mouth shut that second time.

In retrospect, and after reading what Watts and others have gone through, we got off very very lightly. Which is scary when you realise that the courtesy in newly-developed or developing countries actually currently exceeds that in fully-developed countries. We may rant and rave about lots of things, but I wouldn’t want to be in the line entering the USA, Canada or the UK. In contrast, Singapore was an absolute cakewalk, despite my overt sarcasm. Terrifying, isn’t it?

It’s retail therapy time for the Augustin clan!

I’m over at Novel Spaces today, talking about why, if you love an author, you should buy direct from her/his publisher, rather than going through, say, Amazon. There’s some quick and dirty maths I set out, but I think you all can cope!

And today is a public holiday in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s Hari Raya Haji, which marks the end of the two-month pilgrimage period to Mecca. I found a site that has a great explanation of the festival, so go here and have a read.

Selamat Hari Raya Haji and have a good weekend everyone. I’ll catch you on Monday.

But from a different angle this time.

Malaysia is a beautiful country, and I’m not saying that just because I was born here. Coming back after decades away has meant that I see the country anew, with its sweeping vistas of green, hills and mountains draped in soft clouds, and the occasional touch of exoticism to tickle the fancy:

But Malaysia suffers from the same malady as most other Asian countries. It’s too good for the people. I’m referring to scenes such as the following from Sibu Island, as an example of the high regard with which Malaysians treat their natural environment:

And, my particular favourites, well above the tide line:

It appears that in both Singapore and Malaysia, used sanitary napkins are the female litter items du jour.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why boast to other people about what a beautiful country Malaysia is, then throw your litter out of the window? Singaporeans, I’ve seen you driving along the North-South Expressway (in Malaysia), tossing out milkshake containers and burger wrappers with gay abandon. Do you have such little respect for others? No wonder Malaysians despise you. You do in other countries what you don’t have the cojones to do in your country and if you noticed any car occupant clapping and giving a thumbs up sign to you when you were pulled over by the police for speeding, that was probably me.

So, there are two issues here: one is the attitude of Malaysians to their own common space. To be blunt, it’s disgusting. The way a locale is maintained is a true indication of the level of communal pride of the locale’s inhabitants. It doesn’t matter if itinerants come through and litter; the residents have already organised — through their local councils — regular clean-up crews to deal with it. At least, that’s the way it should work. But the bureaucracy here is so lackadaisical that nothing seems to make a dent. Remember that email I sent to the Johor branch of Tourism Malaysia after our disastrous visit to Desaru Beach? Never heard boo back. Lazy bastards.

And let me tell you something else. The waters around Sibu Island are supposedly the Mersing Marine Park. which means it’s supposedly protected from fishing and marine development areas. But not only is dredging of marine rocks going on, but one resort is holding its fourth annual fishing competition soon! With prizes! And, of course, you’ve already seen the scenic pictures. If this is how a protected area of the country looks, you can just imagine the rest of it.

Don’t you understand, Asians? Not everything in the world revolves around YOU. And while you may know where you threw that broken glass bottle, how would you feel if one of your children cut their foot open while stepping on it? Or one of your grandchildren? Seemingly courteous and hospitable people from throughout the region are revolting primitives once you get them beyond the confines of their homes. And I don’t know what to do to help stop it.

What’s that, you say? Institute stiff penalties like Singapore does? (That don’t work anyway except for the touristy Orchard Road, Bukit Timah and Holland Village precincts, but that’s a different point.) Nope, that isn’t the solution. Externally-directed punitive measures fail the minute these people (and I use the term lightly) visit another country. Oh, Singaporeans will be law-abiding little rabbits when they go visit Western countries, cowed by the surrounding orang putih, but put them some place where they can feel superior to the locals (Indonesia, Malaysia, or Thailand, for example) and they revert to the littering, thoughtless bullies that they are.

Malaysia has problems. I know that. Got a couple of days? I’ll list them alphabetically for you, some from recent bitter experience. But while the locals can claim (illegitimately, in my opinion, but still) ignorance, there is absolutely no excuse for our supposedly superior and better-educated cousins across the Johor Strait. With regards to looking after the environment, Singapore, you can talk the talk, but you can’t walk the walk. Malaysians, I wonder when you’ll grow up and realise the environment isn’t your own personal rubbish bin. And for the country that is Malaysia, I continue to weep for you.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s time for me to take a break. Rather than post in a haphazard fashion and thus frustrate you, gentle reader, I’m giving myself till the end of the month to recharge. I’ll still be posting over at Novel Spaces on the 11 and 27 of this month, but Fusion Despatches (that’s this blog) will remain in suspended animation during that time.

This is the second week where a Wednesday has gone wrong. This time it was a telecommunications upgrade in our estate. So apologies for yesterday and here’s the post ….

In one of my less recent posts, I related the story of the young Indian checkout lady, looking for a Western man to marry. I ended with a rhetorical question regarding orang putih:

Only, you and I know that they’re not always all they’re cracked up to be either, don’t we?

The problem is this. When people see J and I together, they jump to a particular conclusion. This conclusion isn’t limited to people who live in south-east Asia. I’ve found it in every country I’ve lived in. And the conclusion is this: white man with an Asian woman, huh? Wow, he must really be a control freak. Probably couldn’t hack marrying another white woman because he has some kind of inferiority complex, so he went for a more docile Asian chick.

Now, anybody with that notion, if they ever care to speak to us, will be disabused of it quite smartly within — oh — about three nanoseconds. But, if they don’t, they’ll continue to think that. Even my friend Parvathy’s husband, Ramesh, confided the same to me during a characteristic Malaysian bout of offhand candour that still takes me by surprise from time to time.

“I looked at your husband,” Ramesh told me, “and I thought he was like all the other Western men. He looks so serious, I thought — for sure — he was a very arrogant and controlling man. Then I met him, and he is completely different to what I expected. He’s very friendly and gracious and I like him very much. He’s very different to the kind of Western man I usually meet.” Now Ramesh has had a lot to do with all kinds of — literally, thousands of — people for decades, being a senior public servant associated with immigration matters, so I found it an interesting vindication of my own personal observations of how Western men are perceived in south-east Asia.

Bear with me while I attempt to pull some threads together. (Fair warning: I may not succeed.) First, there are a lot of independently-minded Asian women out there. Second, there are, by sheer geographical circumstance, fewer single Western men available. Using the law of supply and demand, supply thus significantly outstrips demand. And, just as with house-buying, where a seller’s market means the vendor can ask for more money, a supply overbalance means the Western men can be as arrogant as they want and still score the women. Just keep your eyes open on a Friday night around Singapore’s inner-city streets and you’ll see what I mean.

Secondly, it requires a certain amount of courage to approach somebody and a tad more than that again to approach somebody not of your default cultural group. So, it’s the more aggressive people who are going to score first. And where you have people with those bigger risk-taking characteristics, I believe you have a greater propensity to, shall we say, a certain brashness in their approach.

Thirdly, within this narrow context, who are the orang putih men who move to s-e Asia? For a start, they are not the staid types, content to potter around their little corner of England, or wherever, till the day they die. They are usually open to adventure, to the exotic, to the lure of money and prestige. And they are either young … or getting on in middle age.

What do you get when you put all these together? They are not so much relationships as business transactions, to my mind. Each party has certain social and mercantile expectations that they believe only the other can satisfy, whether it be the lure of a slim, exotic-looking woman who gazes adoringly at you while you drop a couple of thousand dollars at the nearest Isetan store, or a White Man you can flaunt to your local friends who isn’t as sensitive to Saving Face or appearances. In fact, the white man is focused almost entirely on appearances, but it’s just that his idea of them meshes with the woman’s rather better than a local man’s.

Within this seething milieu of money, cachet and smooth, submissive skin up for grabs, how many genuine relationships do you think get forged? So I can certainly understand the scepticism with which my own marriage is viewed, although that’s becoming less obvious and more tinged with respect now that we’re getting older and it’s obvious J isn’t with me because of my svelte figure, teetering heels or perky breasts. (Ah gravity, thou art a bitch!*)

Still, in such an environment, it’s difficult to separate the mercantile from the genuine and it colours (oops, sorry, bad pun) all views of Asian-other couples. I’m sorry to say, even mine.

(I know I have quite a few Singaporeans reading this blog. Any of you like to weigh in?)

(*) Quote from Sheldon Cooper, “Big Bang Theory”.

I see them around a lot, particularly when I visit Singapore. Young women in faded t-shirts and capri pants, long straight hair pulled back and tied, backs eternally bent, picking up a child, carrying grocery bags, or plucking a dropped possession from the floor. I see them in restaurants, sitting off to one side, maybe cradling a tall glass of carbonated drink if they’re lucky but, more often than not, feeding a toddler or infirm adult or patting a baby to sleep. In Singapore, they are called Foreign Domestic Workers, and they are everywhere. And I don’t know what to think of them.

In 2007 (I think) geneticist J. Craig Venter made a comment about the movie Blade Runner in Wired magazine. And he said:

“The movie has an underlying assumption that I just don’t relate to: that people want a slave class. As I imagine the potential of engineering the human genome, I think, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have 10 times the cognitive capabilities we do have? But people ask me whether I could engineer a stupid person to work as a servant. I’ve gotten letters from guys in prison asking me to engineer women they could keep in their cell. I don’t see us, as a society, doing that.”
– from Wired interview with Ridley Scott on “Blade Runner”

If I had enough money, I’d buy Dr Venter a ticket to Singapore to see for himself the slave class that, it seems, everyone does want. Dr Venter’s “guys in prison” are us. And it’s not a good look.

The problem is, it’s like winning the lottery. You’ve always wanted a lot of money but, now that you’ve got it, you don’t know what to do with it. FDWs are like that too. Everyone thinks they want one but, once they get one, they really don’t know how to behave.

Just because someone can afford an FDW doesn’t mean they should have one. I can’t tell you the number of stories I’ve read of workers being physically and sexually abused by their employers, to the point of malnutrition, severe injury, repeated sexual assault and death. And it only takes a brief stroll through the expat fora to also read first-hand anecdotes of expat children slapping their servants or yelling at them, all without a single word of retribution from their parents. One long-time (English) resident of Singapore gets so incensed, he deliberately makes it a point to film any child on his mobile phone abusing his/her maid in public just to try and shame the parents into decency.

And because I was curious about this whole situation, I visited a few maid-hiring websites, only to find that most these women are wives and mothers themselves who have left their husbands and children behind so they could go overseas and earn better money to send home. One site suggested that, in order to maintain good relations, employers should let their maids phone home once a week for a limited time and fly home for a holiday every two years. Such actions would result in a “grateful” worker. Could you, I wonder, stand to see your children only once every two years, or talk to them for only 20 minutes one day a week? And, in between, pick up after your masters, cook the food, babysit the kids, wash the windows and car, and go to sleep every night in a tiny non air-conditioned space with zero privacy? I know this because our Singapore apartment had a Maid’s Room, which doubled as a pantry, and I wouldn’t have been so heartless as to put our cats in there to sleep, much less a fellow human being.

But, on the other hand, I have no reply for those people who say that this is the only way for poor families from other countries to try and get ahead. And surely having one ill-mannered child yell at you is better than working 16 hours a day in a locked, uninsulated warehouse making sneakers or clothes for wealthy patrons till your fingers bleed. The problem is so big, the objections so practised, that I feel impotent before them.

And don’t think I’m singling out only Western people here, although they do tend to go a bit crazy the moment they realise they can afford servants in this part of the world. Wealthier Asians have servants too. Hell, I had them growing up — my parents employed a nanny, a cook, a gardener, a house-cleaner, and a driver. As the spoilt child of privileged parents, I used to order them around with impunity, and I cringe now every time I recollect it. J, as a male growing up in socialist Europe, is horrified by the concept of the FDW. He considers the employment of overseas servants as a manifestation of sociopathy.

It probably doesn’t surprise you to know that we don’t have a live-in maid/servant. The kids help us vacuum the place, brush the cats, sort their own laundry, and are often marched into their rooms to tidy up their beds and toy piles themselves. We’ve also started teaching them how to cook.

If we ever needed extra help around the house for any reason (and it would need to be a pretty big reason), I would choose a local casual worker. Someone who could do a few hours’ work and go back to their family at the end of the day. Not someone who would be at the mercy of my largesse. Who’d have to work 7 days a week with only one day off a month. Who’d only hear her child’s voice at the end of a crackling line once a week. Who’d have the threat of deportation constantly hanging over her head. Who’d have to sleep among the sacks of rice and towers of tinned goods in the stifling heat while I sleep in air-conditioned comfort.

These women, torn from their home communities, look so sad, so resigned, so worn-out, that I feel almost physically hurt every time I see them. Except for an accident of birth, I could be that person. And so could you. And if you and I deserve dignity and respect, then so do they.

POSTSCRIPT: I’m sorry if I’m making it appear that only Singapore has the problem of mistreating servants. It’s a pervasive problem. Hell, it’s human nature.

We had a chance to try out the school’s policy on bullying this week, the first week back at school for The Wast and Little Dinosaur.

Bullying. Bullying. At all the International and Australian private schools I passed through, bullying was part of the rich, natural fabric of life … usually directed against me. Although all said schools had a supposedly “zero tolerance” of bullying, nothing was done, even when I was desperate enough to go to the Office, or to my class teacher, and report it myself. That’s not to say that all the blame lay with the schools. My parents also contributed to the problem by not wanting to rock the boat or upset any authority, so there was never parental support backing me up in that regard.

With a jaundiced eye, then, I heard the “absolutely no tolerance” statement about bullying coming from the Vice-Principal of the current school and mentally yawned at the appropriate juncture. Until Little Dinosaur emerged from the school bus crying on Monday afternoon, followed soon after by The Wast with a stunned look on his face. It seemed that a boy from Primary-1 decided to bully our kids by pulling LD’s hair, taking some stickers she’d got at school and slapping TW across the face. (The kids, having been moved around countries for the past couple of years, and home-schooled part of the time, have no experience of such behaviour. Neither of them retaliated, being more confused and hurt than anything else. This kind of incident has rocked their naivety which, I’m sorry to say, is no bad thing, the world being what it is.)

The bus driver refused to give the boy’s name, and we were livid. After taking down the particulars of what happened from our kids, J charged down to the school first thing on Tuesday morning, ready to do battle and wave the “no bullying” policy in their faces. (It was decided that J should do it because he’s an orang putih (white man), but more about that in the second part of this blog.)

And he got the wind taken out of his sails completely. The Vice-Principal was utterly apologetic, explained that the young boy had already been told of punishment through a period of ostracisation, the bus driver informed, and parents told of consequences (J didn’t ask what they were, but we’re pretty sure it’s corporal punishment) should he repeat the behaviour. So, between the end of school on Monday, and the start of it on Tuesday, everything appeared to be settled. Subsequent bus trips have been uneventful, but we’re monitoring on an ongoing basis. That’s the good news.

Okay, so let’s get to the orang putih bit. If I want something down in this part of the world, I get J to do it. The hierarchy of status around here goes something like this: white man, Asian man, white woman (depending on her position), Asian woman. Sometimes, the white woman scores below the Asian woman, but not in casual encounters. The result of this is a lack of courtesy that drives me insane.

The men here see absolutely no problem in charging first into the elevator or a room or a queue of any sort. J tells me that, where he works in Singapore, the women always tell him to get into the elevator first and are stunned when he holds back and insists that they precede him. In a recent encounter, J and I were joining a male and his two female cohorts in the car. When J made to offer me the front seat, the man told him not to be silly. “You’re the man,” he said bluntly, in front of all of us. “You should be in the front.” “And that’s okay,” I replied sweetly, “because if we’re involved in a crash, you’ll cushion the impact.” Needless to say, Zaharin and I are not subsequently on the best of terms.

It’s the same in the corporate environment. I’m often the peer (or higher) of the suits I normally rub shoulders with, yet I’m relegated to invisibility status purely because I’m a woman. It doesn’t help that I have brown skin. When we go to a restaurant, the menu gets given to the males first. The drinks get given to the males first. The door is opened for the male; if I’m in front, or alone, I have to struggle with it myself. And it doesn’t seem confined to one race. If they’re Asian, chances are they’re chauvinists. Chinese, Malay, Indian, Korean, Japanese. The occasional skerrick, the single grain, of courtesy that I get from the rare Asian man only serves to highlight the fact that better behaviour is possible, but just not important enough for anyone else to emulate.

Do you know what impression you give, gentlemen? Not only to Western-educated women like me, but to Western businessmen as well? That you’re primitive fucks. (I do believe that’s the first time I’ve sworn in this blog, and please forgive me, but this is an emotional subject for me.) You want to know why Americans and Europeans hold you in some contempt? It’s because of your combination of sleazy toadying to them and arrogant sexism towards women. It’s the mark of bullies, not mature adults. The Westerners may discuss serious things with you, but they’re laughing at you behind your backs. I know, because I’ve been party to such discussions. I’ve even received apologies from some of them on behalf of thoughtless behaviour from their Asian colleagues. So let’s just say you aren’t making yourself any fans here, boys.

As for Asian women? Well, if they continue to accept this behaviour, then they’re nothing more than doormats who deserve to be stepped on. I don’t accept this behaviour. Neither does J. We are both appalled by the singular lack of manners in this region. But we’re also appalled by the fact that the women just seem to accept it. We don’t, but we’re specks in a sea of entrenched chauvinism. I don’t put up with such behaviour but will my actions to redress the balance make the slightest bit of difference? I don’t think so. In which case, should I even continue trying? I feel like Canute with his insight into kingly power. Fight something I know I will never change, or ignore it? What do you think?

The world news is all about rising food and oil prices around the globe at the moment. Different countries have tackled this problem in different ways. In Indonesia, for example, the price of petrol is rising by 30% but the government will be handing cash to low-income families to temporarily offset the increase. Malaysia already has subsidies for staple goods (there is export control on Singaporeans swarming into Malaysia to buy up cooking oil, flour and sugar cheap before heading back across the Causeway), and is looking at measures to lift petrol subsidies for foreign-registered (i.e. mostly Singaporean, nyuk nyuk) cars.

Well, of course, Singapore wasn’t about to take this lying down. So, on 27 May, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew made a speech about how subsidies (“like welfare systems in Europe”; notice there’s not even a sly allusion to Malaysia) have lowered incentives for their citizens to strive and excel. In other words, where there’s government intervention to help the average citizen, the average citizen becomes lazy and stupid, thus leading to the downfall of Western civilisation.

Answering the complaints of Singaporeans that food and transport costs in the island state should be subsidised, LKY’s counter is that Singapore must instead produce positive economic growth year after year. If you’re wondering how one answers the other, LKY explains that if Singapore produces positive economic growth each year, then Singaporeans will have more incentive to work hard (not like those lazy MalaysiansEuropeans), and will thus earn enough money to pay market prices for food! It’s a wonder the man’s genius isn’t appreciated outside Singapore, he has such a complete grip on global socioeconomics.

A direct quote from LKY: “When everybody knows the cost of what he consumes or uses, he will spend his money more to his benefit.” Isn’t it lovely? I want that one on a t-shirt as well.

Now, here’s the thing. The Singapore government believes that it can guarantee economic growth through population influx. Thus, it is thinking of increasing the population of Singapore by approximately 2 million people over the next decade. All this will do, however, will be to increase the domestic economic figure, or GDP. It will do exactly squat to affect the international economic figures, which is what is driving such things as the cost of groceries and oil.

The Singaporean government, while aware that it has no natural resources or solid manufacturing base to speak of, refuses to concede that this puts it in a vulnerable economic situation, hence the obsession to bring in more and more workers in an effort to spin greater economic prosperity. The fact that it hasn’t helped so far with sharply rising grocery and oil prices is only emphasised by one of Mr Wang’s posts, where he mentions that, for the year 2007, Singapore’s budget had a surplus of $6.45 billion.

So, according to the Singapore government, if you have an annual surplus in excess of $6 billion, no subsidies, and rising basic costs, then the solution is to bring in more people! Elementary, my dear Lee, elementary.

I had my name day recently. As a family, we’re always on the lookout for celebratory days of one sort or another. It became a bit of a running joke at work, where my co-workers would always ask what we were celebrating that week. My reasoning was that, for the price of one $2,000 plasma TV, I could afford to buy cakes and have a celebration at home or picnic outside once every two weeks for a year and a half.

So, anyway, when the time came to decide how the family should celebrate my name day, I didn’t hesitate. In this part of the world, there is no substitute. High tea.

I adore high teas, and have missed them dreadfully as I’ve travelled away from south-east Asia. It’s an Asian twist on the English afternoon tea, with an entire buffet laid out across a range of cuisines, from savoury to sweet. The Rose Veranda is a restaurant at The Shangri-La Hotel that holds a daily high tea, with two afternoon sittings on weekends. The ambience is lovely, with comfortable armchairs, low tables and full-length glass windows looking out on, er, well, other buildings mostly. This is high-density Singapore after all.

Foodwise, there were curries (mutton, vegetable, Thai fish, chicken), briyani rice, a variety of sandwiches, curry laksa with noodles, Thai salads, western salads, Indonesian stuffed hors d’oeuvres, fresh spring rolls, sushi and salmon sashimi, fresh bread rolls, a variety of cheeses, baked potatoes, crab cakes, quiche, and a small carvery station. For dessert, we could have strawberries and marshmallows in a chocolate fondue, handmade chocolates, cookies, a couple of cheesecakes, chocolate truffle cake, bread & butter pudding with custard, filled crepes, tiramisu, scones, vodka jellies with redcurrants, and fruit tarts, as well as a couple of other choices I forget.

The idea is that you pays your money and takes your choice. For 6 hours (weekdays) / 3 hours (weekends) you fit in as much to’ing and fro’ing as you can, accompanied by a teapot of one of 100 types of tea available. It is absolutely decadent and entirely irresistible. It’s also not cheap. We got barely any change from SG$200 (US$150 / EUR95), but I figured it this way. If J and I had decided to treat ourselves to a top-flight dinner for two somewhere, we wouldn’t have been able to get away without dropping around SG$150. For only $50 more, we had a family event for three adults and two children that the kids (and J’s mum) really loved and will remember.

Because I’m such a nitpicker, I have to admit that the High Tea wasn’t perfect. The service slacked off after the first hour. (We couldn’t get a refill of our water glasses for love nor money. Later on, I read on a board that the Shangri-La was supposed to offer free-flow tea, but that wasn’t evident either.) The delicious looking chicken from the carvery was seasoned heavily with five spice powder which, while loved by Chinese, tasted more like medicine to all of us at the table. A couple of chicken choices would have gone down better. Some of the food took too long to be replenished. When the delectable Brie and smooth blue-vein was finished from the cheese platter, they were replaced by a substandard cheddar type. The quiche was tasteless. The bloodline was left on the salmon sashimi, instead of being trimmed away. The price of ‘extras’ was breathtakingly extortionate. (SG$11 for an orange juice?!!) And the idea of having hot dessert plates to hold things like chilled cheesecake and handmade chocolates was pretty stupid.

We left before the end of the session and took a walk around the hotel before waddling home. The hotel itself is very opulent and the food there is good (this is my second visit to two different restaurants at the Shangri-La), but there are unmistakable signs of tiredness in the frayed furniture, and the clumsy way many fittings have been installed. Away from the main, and impressive, foyer, the air is musty, indicating carpets that are well past their use-by date.

High Tea at the Rose Veranda, Shangri-La Hotel Singapore: 7 out of 10.