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I haven't been complaining about Singapore for a while, but someone sent me this scan of a page from the local magazine, expatLIVING, something I wouldn't ordinarily buy. (Internet killing reading? There are MILLIONS of magazines for sale all over the place!) The writer/complier (Deborah Goldman) no doubt plagiarized these jokes from a variety of sources, so hopefully I won't be sued. I've heard most of them before, received wisdom sort of clichés - a bit like the 'You Know You've Been In Hong Kong Too Long' jokes in Nury Vitachi's old column in the SCMP (who can remember that?)
The bit about the cupcake (no.5) remains very true. Singaporeans (and Hongkies) will cue forever to get whatever is the vogue food item, free or not. (Remember the Hello Kitty queues in HK in 2001 or so - was that the McDonalds fracas?) Here in Singapore, two years ago, the mass hysteria was for donuts.
Donuts? Donuts.
As I would walk though Vivocity Mall at lunchtime I'd always see a queue going back around the block at the new donut shop there. OK they're nice soft, very fresh donuts. But they're not THAT good! It's just that if someone else has something (like a choc-coated, nut-encrusted ring of carbo-foam) they have to have it too. They don't want to miss out on what is apparently an orgasmicly good gustatory experience! It IS the kiasu thing. (Look it up.) I've never seen a group of more fad infected fools.
Cut to today... The staff at the donut shop stand forlorn and unloved, their once essential product now forgotten by those fickle Singaporeans.
And you know what that means?
That means I don't have to queue for my donuts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Neither do I have to queue for tickets to Sam Mendez's Bridge Project production of "The Tempest." Heaps of seats, obviously not a fad.
I missed Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf) in "King Lear" and Ethan Hawke (Ethan Hawke) in "The Winter's Tale" in the previous tours of The Bridge Project through Singapore and I am not going to miss this one... Seat AA46 (circle, front-row, slightly to the right - perfect seat!), matinee performance...
To the theatre!
E@L
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12 comments:
Singapore population 4,839,400
Mikkeli (Findland) 48,681 (around 34,000 in the town itself)
You would hardly notice a fad here- thank my lucky stars I live in a small town. (and I feel in the last 12 years it has grown too big)
You would even get (or anything else) The Tempest in any shape or form here; saves me having to go the theatre.
Turn on, tune in and drop out;-)
I second that.
4,839,400 people, 1 thought - DONUT!
I haven't done much theatre myself, even when I was in Melbourne and Sydney which have thriving thespian action! (Also 3-4 million people).
Tempest was OK, very truncated (isn't there supposed to be a rape scene?), very 'static' directing with lots of standing around (characters not in current scene were sitting on chairs in the dark at the back of the stage, sometimes for 1hr or more; very Beckettian), interesting set - water and a ring of sand.
At one stage the spirit of Miranda walks across the stage with long veil draped over her head and body. She had a flesh colored dress beneath it. In Finland, or anywhere else in the western world, she would have been naked underneath. It would have been more artistic!
Remember that Cosmopolitan magazine was too rude for Singapore only 3 years ago. This is a country where prostitution is legal, but blow-jobs are not...
that article was obviously written by an aussie. spelling! haha.
the hello, kitty fad happened in singapore too. yes, mcdonald's was the culprit. and before that it was beanie babies. and somewhere along the way, it was bubble tea. and at some other point it was...
Knobster: Aussie spelling? Where? It looks fine to me.
Hmmm so Phil if blow-jobs are illegal I guess that whole "Smell Yo Dick" song just doesn't register with Singaporeans.
And I love me some thespian action.
Jay
Braking is spelt, er, "braking" not "breaking". This isn't an Aussie misspelling so much as misspelling just seeming an Aussie phenomenon in general, as corroborated by other Aussie friends of mine! Americans can be worse but from what I've seen, Aussies' misspellings tend usually to be phonetically correct, just spellingly wrong.
Jay: I purposely avoided the 'thesbian' puns.
Knob: pay the 'breaking' typo. Not sure about these seditious comments re cultural/racial differences in typing errors.
My misspelings are usually because my hands type too fast for my brain (or is the other way around?) resulting in letter transpositions and ellipses, and recently I have been having crises over double leterrs. Obviously that part of the brain has been damaged.
America's entire language has been ruined/corrected to be more phonetic thanks to Webster and his big dictionary. Color instead of colour, realizing instead of realising, etc... It's skandalus.
oh, i don't mean you, perish the thought! (if you typed ghoti, i'd know you meant fish) i'm on a mailing lists that has a lot of aussies on it, plus have lots of other non-E@L aussie friends, and they consistently make the same mistakes. and they're not as smart as you, so that's not it :)
Knobster/Mungo (or whatever your D&D name is): If it's not part of a sport most Australians wouldn't have a clue. Back when I was kid, it WAS a sport - there was Spelling Bee programme (correct spelling) on TV every week and we all watch is enthusiastically! "Ready, Mithter Deethe" was the call from the buck-toothed competitors. (Mr Deece was the MC's name.)
E@L I'm never one to pass up a unmade pun, no matter how juvenile.
Bonzo! Hmpf.
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