china academics - celebrities

finished reading 问学, 余秋雨(yu qiuyu), gain quite a lot of china culture. and invariably, also try to form own impression on this china's academic celebrity.

1. he's knowledgeable, knows what he talks
2. has his opinions on almost everything; especially very strong opinions on his own group of people - the chinese academics. he did not mince his words in rubbishing alot of the these people and their works, mainly they are not according to him liberal enough in adopting his way of appreciating beauty.
3. similar to lee au in taiwan, though his demeanor is very soft, not vociferous.
4. sucked deeply into arguments with other academicians.
5. married and beauty artiste - 马兰(ma lan), 16 years younger than yu.

and the fight between 易中天 and 余秋雨 on the sichuan earthquake donation overblown by the yi, who himself, like mr yu, a tv academic celebrity for his talk on "3-kingdom".

the problem with celebrity is they have to express opinions on almost all things asked of them, whether it's in their circle of expertise, or whether it's just personal feelings.....

the thing, anything that's named, ie held an opinion on, will create an anti-name, or an anti-opinion, in many many anti-opinions. and the academic has to defense all these. unless he keeps quiet. that's what yu claimed he had been doing. but did he?

he sued the 古远清, he fought some critics.....

anyway - whoever they are...... nobody is perfect, as long as they hold to some standard on their character, they should not be seen as saints..... just let them do what they do.

tiger mum - caution

we are at the tail of the tiger year. and before the tiger exits, it has the last roar..... not the from the male kind, rather, the tiger mum that roars the loudest!

this tiger mum was proud of her 'achievement' on her two daughters, she could not help to brag about it in her new book, 'Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother'.

almost two years ago, there's a case of a gal with a tiger dad reported widely over the world news. it was the case of a certain prodigal young girl name "Sufiah Yusof" , who was brought up under strict, regimented and hot-housing type of environment(if not stricter from what Amy describe in her book)championed by her "tiger" dad. Expectedly she aced in her studies and entered Oxford University at the age of thirteen. Things looked rosy for the child and her father until she disappeared and shocked the whole world when she appeared as a high-class call girl.

well ms amy chua will argue that by statistics, most of the kids that are under the tiger mum/dad education style will turn out good, and the kids that turn the other way are in the minority.

fine. but remember we are talking about a person's life here, even if one out of million kids turn bad from the hot-housing scheme is deemed as a failure for the scheme; just like passing a medicine for human consumption, the kid-raising test must be as strict if more stricter than testing a medicine for human consumption.

she may argue, if you use other methods which are not as strict, you cannot guarantee the kids will turn out good as well, and probably the percentage of getting good kids from other methods is less than the tiger-mum method.

fine. so what's the conclusion?

the conclusion is:

there's no one method to bring your kids up that they will turn out to be good. do not put it up to the world that your method is better than the others..... let the parents decide what they want to do with their kids, or not to do with them.

hard truths - soft approach

everyday you can see mm lee's face on the newspaper, apparently to push sale of the book 'hard truths' - interviews of mm by st reporters. in fact, it's mm's way of saying to the world, i'm not gone. i'm still here, don't take me as if i'm a goner.

today's lunch lohe in occ, the man sitting opposite him said, "mm very smart, i read the book, he could answer all questions so eloquently, without batting an eyelid. i really respect him."

he said, "that's supsupsui for mm. he had been asked so many times the same questions, even if you ask him in his sleep, he could still tell you his answers, without even lifting an eyelid."

the man said, " i respect him for saying that he wanted the parliament to demolish his house once he's gone."

"oh.... read carefully what he said... he said, he went england and india and saw that shakespeare's house and nehru's house were not well kept, and left in run-down state. so he's hinting that he doesn't want his house to be in the same state, once he's gone. if the state thinks that it's expansive to maintain it, might as well demolish. what do you think the state will do? demolish it?"

ahlian said, " no lah.... he doesn't want his house to be maintained by the state after he's gone. he would rather demolish it and leave the land to his kids, not to the state. that piece of big land will worth millions...."

"my daughter said she read the book, and said, it's boring."

"ha! that's whom the book is for, the young people. he wanted them to know the hard truths.... looks like he should have done some marketing to soften the hard feelings of the young towards the old generation."

"how?"

"put the book onto ipad, and hold a competition, like a quiz for those who have read it and give out prizes for winners, ipads, iphones, ipods.... and ipussy."

"ipussy?"

"oh...it's the latest gadget from apple.... ipod, iphone, ipad.... now ipussy."

"what's ipussy for?"

"it's where you put your ipad on."

tangling halt - beauty and beer

tangling halt has put on a new face quite sometime ago. the last time he was there, he remembered the place(hdb flats and surrounding facilities) was under major upgrading. that day he had samlo horfan, it was good.

there were new 40-story highrise hdb flats, and colorful low rise flats.

the sheng siong supermarket was doing good business selling cny goods.

upgrading in this area has been very successful, unlike some other places, the facade of the flats become like that of a factory, with additions of metal structures over it.... for no practical purpose and doing a lot of detriment to the beauty of the building.

- beauty is not only in the eyes of the beholder, rather beer-holder sometimes.

gilman village - BOhemia

another place going to go - the gilman village off alexandra road.

this corner of singapore has a colonial past. the old buildings used to house the British army within its walls. after the British left, the Singapore Armed Forces Combat Engineers took over this premises. later it was converted to F&B outlets.

he lived in the vicinity of the area many years ago, in Depot road. then he did not pay much attention to this little, until many years later, when he was shopping for furniture, did he realise there was such a quaint place. then the canopy walk from mt faber opened a few years ago, this place suddenly became a in-thing for the 'bohemians'.

- the bohemians do not know that they are living in bohemia until they leave bohemia, or bohemia leave them....