El Laberinto del fauno

I recently went to my Ang Mo friend house and borrowed some DVDs to watch. To my surprise he has a copy of this Mexican movie, El Laberinto del fauno (in Spanish). It's called the Pan's Labyrinth in the International English and is a film by Guillermo Del Toro(Hellboy). The visuals effects are fantastic and the story very compelling.

Although supposed to look and sound like a children's film, the film is definitely only for adults. A lot of blood and gore yes, but behind all of these, there is a hidden moral behind the story which I comply greatly to. I am not going to spoil the film by talking about too much about it. I heard this film was already shown on Singapore's Cinema (R21). So I guess you could try to get a copy of the DVD if possible. Highly graded for those into cult films. 4.5 out of 5 stars for my taste. :)

The Singapore Inconvenient Story (We are not as good as we think)

If you CARE to check the meaning of inconvenient under dictionary.com. This post is about a situation I perceive in Singapore social trend. From the people I spoke to, I kind of derived this post.

We Singaporeans tend to follow the crowd or want to be "one" of the crowd. This is especially true when the gahment say something so and so is good and we tend to just blindly follow.

Take for example, in the 1980s, the gahment was pushing engineering and we have flock of engineering students in the 1980s, followed by IT in 1990s (due to the Technology wave). Currently the trend is biomed. I myself have met students in my poly days that have not any interest in computer, yet they signed up the course as its supposed to be the "in" thing.

I even met some friends of mine joining churches because its "cool" in my secondary days. Not to say that most of them don't go to church anymore.

I also met some people who blindly venture into business as others are doing too. Examples from them are mass investments into China (with no results yield) and throwing money into stock exchanges (KLSE) and got burnt jialat jialat.

What about the bubble tea syndrome? Some people see other's business and copied it. These copiers normally have deeper pockets and they will undersell and to kill of other smaller competitors.

So are majority Singaporeans really that talented and good as mentioned in the mass media? I seriously doubt so. I think we are painting ourselves to be too good. The only positive edge about Singapore education is the using of the English language as its main official language. Other than that, most students (including me) are just bookworms who mostly use strategies to get good grades in the schools. Hardworking? Yes most of us are but at the same time, not working as smart as the Chinese or Indians. In short, we are not that good in areas that takes risks and sudden changes in the environment.

In short, I am a bit worry about the future generation of Singapore (our kids mainly). If they are going to compete against the children of China and India, who will win?? I mean we are already lack natural resource in our country and the only reason we are on top is because of our human resource, yet more and more bright local Singaporeans are leaving Singapore. The gahment tries to solve this by allowing more foreigners to be granted PR or citizens but yet, are they going to stay in Singapore forever?

Hectic week.

I am suppose to write once every 2 days, or at least try to. But this week was rather hectic over here for me. First, wife's friend is moving her house so I have to be the pick-up driver cum moving man for the day. Quite fun actually as you get to see few types of people when labour is involved. First is the looker which just looks until they are called to help. Then there is the worker who is enthusiastic and energetic all the way. Then there is the commander which gives people command on what to move. I classify myself as the observer.. hahah.. one who looks around a lot but don't really need to wait for people to call for me when help is needed. Anyway, completed the move in the afternoon and we get free lunch at their house, usual fare of chicken, vegetables and rice.

The next day, we went fishing with some of our friends. Very hot weather and we thought that its good to get out of the house as its very warm and stuffy in it. They have a lot of fishing ponds in Thailand (some of my friends will be very happy to learn about this) and you get to fish for the whole day for free!!! That is unless if you decided not to take any of your catch home at all. Most of the ponds actually are restaurants which you could send your catch to the kitchen to be cooked and served to you on the spot. Nothing beats the taste of a freshly caught fish (by yourself) and grilled or deep fried on the spot. The fish they eat is normally catfish or fresh water fish. That's why the best way to cook them is grill or deep fry and top it with lots of chili to get out the muddy taste.

The third day I helped my Ang Mo friend move his stall. (everyone moving!!) haha.. His rent just got more 5000baht more expensive so he decided to move out. The new location is not too far from his current position and offers a bigger space and much much lesser rent. He managed to borrow a cart which we mount onto his bike and proceeded to move part of his stuff over to the new location. Not completed though as most probably I will be helping him the new few days.

Today we went to Chiang Rai hospital for a routine check-up for my wife. (Almost a year after) Baby seems to enjoy the cheap bus ride (30 baht per head and baby is free) and we get to travel 72km to Chiang Rai (beat that SBS transit!!!). btw.. 30 baht is a dollar and thirty cents in Singapore dollars.

Slow..

I am a bit slow on posting as nothing really interesting is happening here in Maesai. Except the weather is getting hotter everyday. Today the temperature in my room measures 34 Celsius! That's indoors!. Add another 2 to 4 degrees for outside temperature. Even at night, its a hot, no wind 31 degrees. Lucky its not humid (dry) but it makes the air very hot to breadth. Even my leather chair is hot. Really need to use the air-con to cool the room before going to bed.

Girl girl seems to be taking the heat quite well, but I think she is like me, prefer cooler weathers. She kinds of having more bad-tempers when its really hot. I guess we just need to endure for 2 more months of heat...

Meanwhile, I do heard Singapore has lots of news and interesting stuff happening. I wish I could write more but since I am not in Singapore, very hard for me to really comment on some of the issues.

Sour!!!酸！！！

Girl trying a piece of guava which happens to be very sour.... she kinds of like it though.... :P

Song Kran Part 2

Yesterday on the third day of Song Kran (which is suppose to be the last day of water fun), we went to the Wat (temple) in the morning to get blessed for the year and later in the afternoon. We took a trip to Chiang Saen to catch a Dragon Boat Race (Thai style of dragon boat). But the informer seems to have gave us the wrong day (suppose to be today) so we did not catch any big events. You may view a photo essay below by clicking on the album.

Song Kran 2007

Today is suppose to be a working day but as the 2 days of Song Kran is on a weekend, the Thai people will have an addtional 2 more days of holiday. (Bloody good man). No major splashing of water in Maesai today. Some kids are still having some minor fun but not as havoc as the last 3 days. We went around paying respect to my wife's relatives and some elders (ma cham our CNY bai nian). So we scooter around the area, going to 5 different places today. Now just reach home and finish this blog before going to bed... really a bit poofed liao.

Song Kran

Song Kran (Swang Krang) , 泼水节, or the New year (Water festival) of Thailand. Its on every 13th of April and yesterday was the first official day of party and fun. Actually the water drenching already started a week ago where children starts to squirt water guns at passing motorbikes.

I was sick so I am not that involved till today. Feeling better, I went to my storeroom to get my soakers out. 1 water pistol and another water canon. Baby and wife was at the rear while I drove the bike out. The plan was to drive to the main road and back. Wat lau... war zone just at the entrance of our village. Already all wet and bloody hell, they use buckets of river water which is bloody cold. Baby not very happy with the splashing, a bit scared.

They are 3 major variants of splashing water in Song Kran. The first are the the "Tankers". There are the people that will be on the back of their pickup with a whole drums (oils drums) of water as ammo and drive around the town to attack the "Sentries". The "Sentries" are just people standing at the roadside. These people will use hoses and pails and normally they are the most devastating as they are the most heavily "armed". Finally there are the "scouts" or "runner". Both are on bikes. "Scouts" are normally following the tankers but they run in front. If they see any major "sentries" in front, they will rush back to inform the tankers to come and play. Scouts normally have 2 people on the bike with little water pistols. "Runners" are just people on bikes trying to siam (evade) as much water as possible. Normally they are alone and they are actually quite dry compare to others. (really skillful in evasion)

We are going out as scouts but we got no tanks so just try to have some fun. We did not managed to hit the main road, half way we turned back as Huihui was all wet and we do not want her to catch a cold. The return journey also jialat. Tankers are jammed at our village entrance as there are dozen of sentries there.

No pictures as my camera is not even splash proof. Quite dangerous as these kids will just spray whatever at you. Quite fun actually, maybe someday if any of you managed to come to Northern Thailand (they are more playful here than Bangkok). Get to soak some water and laughter.

Btw... not to mention a lot of pretty ladies all wet and sexy........ especially those with very thin clothes... :P