Monday, March 30, 2015

10 Notable Articles about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore

It's been a week since Singapore learned that its founding father had passed away at the age of 91. This was my first experience with loss.

And while there were tears, outpouring of love and respect, and back-to-back documentaries of the man who built this nation, there were also many eloquent articles that surfaced all over the Web as Singaporeans begin to emerge from their shell of apathy to reexamine what it means to be Singaporean and reassess their view of their first Prime Minister.

Here are 10 notable articles that struck a chord with me:

1. Calvin Cheng's defence of the Singaporean model of governance

2. Bertha Henson's candid account of her encounters with Mr Lee

3. Lili Tan's pensive musing on death and how it unites the living

4. Deborah Tan's heartfelt letter to Mr Lee that made me cry

5. Steph Leong's well-researched article on Mr Lee and his policies

6. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's interview with Today newspaper, in which he shared insights on the man we all thought we knew

7. Jaime Ee's reflections on the surge of patriotic fervour that has arisen these past few days in the wake of Mr Lee's passing

8. A taxi driver's informal tribute to Mr Lee, as recounted by Tiffany Joyce Lim

9. Sahana Singh's comparison of the Western ideal of personal freedom versus the Asian notion of community before self, and argues how much better off we are for sacrificing some personal freedom for the greater good.

10. A reflection on the past week of mourning that perfectly encapsulates all the reasons for our profound sorrow at Mr Lee's passing.


And here were some of the ways we immortalised him,

At the Istana:






On the way to pay our last respects to him:

photo by Chen Zhirong

At community centres all over the country:


At the National Library:



And the ways the outside world honoured him,

In Time magazine:


In the words of foreign dignitaries,

And their physical presence:

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton

The Bhutan king

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Sultan of Brunei


And finally, this video that shows just how larger than life, yet human, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was (please get your tissues ready):



Yesterday, we sent Mr Lee off on his final journey. 

Throngs of people gathered around the Parliament House and lined the funeral procession route to send Mr Lee off. Even the clouds hung low that day, and the downpour marked the climactic end to a great legacy. People wept for him, as did the skies.

I will never forget the day I waved my flag in the pouring rain and caught my first and only glimpse of Mr Lee, the day I broke down in public with my fellow Singaporeans as I whispered a word of thanks that I hoped he could hear.

At 4:35PM, we bowed our heads for a minute of silence, saying our final goodbye to the man who changed all our lives for the better.

Words can't express how much gratitude, respect, and love I have for this man who was iron-willed enough to do what needed to be done to bring a tumultuous fledgling nation to its current state; who was never complacent and always sought ways to improve; who took no bullshit from detractors and opponents, but was always kind and protective of us, the citizens; who was so devoted to his country so much he made it his lifelong project and saw it through till his final days.

So we've lost him at last. Indomitable as he seemed, he was, after all, human, and no man - no matter how noble or gifted - can live forever. But perhaps we should also be thankful for the fact that we had lived in a time when a great, fearless leader by the name of Lee Kuan Yew was around to pave the way for us to venture another step forward.

Rest now, Mr Lee. We will continue writing the Singapore story for you. You will live forever in the hearts of your people, and be dearly missed.


Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Remembering Mr Lee Kuan Yew

I woke up yesterday morning to the news of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's death. My first thought was, what now? What is to become of the country that he built from scratch without his guidance, leadership, intellect, and foresight? Will we have the tenacity, loyalty, and enough love for the country to go on and ensure his life's work does not go to waste?

As I went about my morning, everything became magnified. Every privilege and luxury that I - and many of us - have come to take for granted: clean streets and running water and skyscrapers and an elaborate transport system and a cushy office job to go to.

As the founding father of Singapore, Mr Lee devoted his life to the country and was always fearless in his ways, his opinions, his policies, and took shrewdly calculated risks (remember the casino debacle?) that paid off in the end. He did whatever he could to put us in the global arena and had a profound love and sense of responsibility to the country and its people.

Whatever your grouse with him might be, however you may resent him for his iron-fisted autocratic ways, you can't deny that he was whip-smart and had the foresight and steeliness that was required to pull Singapore out of a backwater slum to the teeming metropolitan city that it is today.

He did whatever he could to the best of his abilities, broke boundaries, and was, a hero of his time. Whatever faults you may deem him to possess, he did what was needed, risking resentment from the people with his harsh policies for the good of the country, the bigger picture that the common man was yet unable to see.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/lee-kuan-yew--thoughts-and-sayings-135540680.html

Yes, times are a-changing and what the people expect of their servant leaders are different. I don't deny that Mr Lee's rule probably won't sit well with many people of my generation, the post-war generation that has never experienced the hardships of war or the early days of independence, when we had basically nothing and no support from anyone.

But as he said, he did what he deemed best for Singapore in the sociopolitical environment of his time, and he raised our annual per capita income from $500 to $55,000 in the 50 years he was involved in the governance of Singapore, no mean feat given that Singapore was just a tiny island with hardly any natural resources at the mercy of our neighbours.

I don't claim to have in-depth knowledge of Singapore politics; nor am I able to articulate as well as others who have written beautiful, moving tributes to the late Mr Lee. Up till now, this post is a mess of sentimentality and emotion. But I'd just like to express my immense gratitude to the grandfather who, while sometimes stern and assertive in his opinions and beliefs, always had our best interests at heart.

I want to promise him that Singapore will be fine, that we will have the grace and courage to move forward as a united civilisation that looks far beyond our own petty, selfish needs and do what is best for our country. But I dare not. For his tenacity, vision, drive, and deep sense of responsibility and love for his people and country are unparalleled.


There is none like him, and there will never be. Love him or loathe him, he had poured his life and soul into his country. He makes us proud to be Singaporeans, for all its triumphs and failings. He was a giant amongst men, a hero who fought hard for his people and his convictions, and simply a man who loved his family and his country, a visionary whose ideas weren't always accepted by the people during his rule, and one of the greats of modern history.

Singapore was incredibly lucky to have him as her leader, and I really, really hope that we can sustain his legacy and continue to make Singapore a country that we can be proud of.

Be at peace, Mr Lee. While we mourn your passing, we also celebrate your achievements, and are forever indebted to you for all that we now possess.


Saturday, March 21, 2015

Open Letter to A Depressed Friend





Dear Blue,


You've been pretty down lately. Actually, down might be an understatement. You're depressed. Clinically so. And I don't know how to help.

It started after you took up this job. You started out with intense concentration and a drive to perform well. You asked questions, turned to others for help. But then the demands of the job got to you, and liaising with clients proved to be more stressful than you expected. You got emotional when they got emotional; you took it personally, feeling each client's exasperation more keenly than you needed to.

It didn't help that your superior took it upon herself to micromanage and required a daily update of your work, and issued you copious documents and Excel sheets to fill out to keep track of every transaction made and deal closed. And despite your best efforts, despite the extra hours you worked, things were still scattered all over the place.

Soon, everything started weighing down on you from every end, and things were slipping through your fingers like water no matter how hard you grasped and clenched your fists. Meanwhile, your superior continued to monitor your behaviour at work, running a tight leash and hawk-eyeing your activities on your computer and even cellphone.

"She's a tyrant," we all declared, shaking with indignation on your behalf. "You don't have to let her bully you like this."

"But it's my fault," you would say, staring morosely into space. "I'm not meeting targets."

I used to call it a Capricorn trait. Capricorns are a broody bunch, and they tend to blame themselves for everything that goes wrong, whether or not they are at fault. "You're such a typical Capricorn. Cheer up! Things will be okay."

Sometimes, I wanted to tell you to snap out of it. And I might even have on one occasion when your pessimism got to be too much for me. "Get mad, don't get sad," I said. Sorrow and self-pity were useless emotions that put nothing in motion, only drive you deeper into the mud. Anger helped; anger catapulted you out of the mud, for better or for worse. But it isn't like you to get mad; anger isn't your default emotion.

Besides, I realised that depression isn't something you can just "snap out of". It consumes you whole and takes over your life, like a giant winged beast that blots out the light in the sky, a beast whose cries you can't block out. A Fellbeast.

Too often, it's easy to discount someone else's emotions unless we experience them ourselves. We tend to attribute a person's depressed state to his or her mental tenacity, and believe that once you force yourself to rise above it you'll be fine. But depression isn't just a state of being; it's a condition that requires hours of therapy, antidepressants, and a listening ear.

So that's what you did. You went for therapy sessions and took medication, and things did get better. You laughed more, and engaged in more social activities again. But still there are times when work eats away at you so you can't even taste your food or focus on everyday tasks. All we can do as your friends is hold up your spirits, padding you with constant reassurances, remind you of everything else that's good in your life, and actively seek for alternatives to improve your situation.

Reality is not always kind, and so you sometimes have to fill that role all on your own.

You have to allow yourself compassion and forgiveness. Shame is not useful. Feeling lazy or weak or as a failure won't fix anything for you. Beating yourself up isn't a very good way to become who you want to be.
~ Chuck Wendig


Dear Blue, you taught me to have more patience for someone who requires constant encouragement to keep afloat. You made me experience "sympathy depression", and in turn understand what it's like to be cloaked in the iron blanket of hopelessness and unrelenting self-doubt and criticism.

So I hope that while you develop a rhino heart and a bullet-proof armour against the slings and arrows of life, the sticks and stones that others may launch at you, you will also be far kinder to yourself than you are. You are more capable than you believe, funnier than you think, and stronger than you realise.

Whatever you choose to do from now on, know that we will always have your back and be here to offer a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, or supply you with as many images of derpy hot guys and cute fuzzy animals as you need to feel better again.


Love,
Joyce

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Drama Review - Pinnochio


I've been meaning to talk about Pinocchio, the Korean drama series I just finished watching. I started watching it around the same time I read Jellicoe Road (still wrecked by that book), and finished around the same time I finished reading it too. So a lot of what I wrote for No Room in Neverland was very much influenced by the mood of these stories.

So, Pinocchio.

It's about a girl who has the Pinocchio condition, wherein she is unable to lie because it causes her to hiccup endlessly until she tells the truth*.


Despite her condition, In Ha decides to follow in her estranged mother's footsteps to become a high-powered broadcast journalist (who is rumoured to go to any means to get her scoop, even if it means fabricating stories and twisting the truth).

After her parents' divorce when she was a child, In Ha and her father go to live with her grandfather in the countryside, where she finds her "uncle", this boy her age posing as her distraught grandfather's son who died out at sea.

Going by the name of Dal Po, the boy has also recently lost his entire family - his fireman father died on the job and is accused by the media of sending his team into an empty building on fire, his mother took her own life following the incident, and his older brother is missing. While Dal Po harbours a crush on In Ha*, he also learns that In Ha's mother is the journalist who accused his father of killing his team in the fire and left him an outcast for the remainder of his life.

Meanwhile, In Ha struggles to reconnect with her mother by sending her text messages she hope she would one day receive a reply to. On the day before she goes for her interview at the news station with Dal Po, she receives one. But the sender is not her mother. It is the son of retail tycoon who decides to apply for a journalist post to meet In Ha.


The show centres on Dal Po's quest for revenge against In Ha's mother, his search for his older brother, In Ha's struggle to make sense of what happened 13 years ago, when the media misdirected the focus of the fire and laid the blame on Dal Po's father***, as well as the mystery of why In Ha's mother's cellphone ended up in the hands of the heir to the retail conglomerate.


*Because obviously they couldn't make her nose grow longer.

**Yes, of course Dal Po and In Ha have a thing.


But it wasn't heavy-handed or overly sappy. The development of their relationship was natural and comfortable, not melodramatic with copious declarations of love. Think Wes and Macy from Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever rather than Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell.

***This just goes to show how the media can warp public perception.


This show is just SO FREAKING GOOD. In terms of plot, subplot, character growth, character interaction, pacing, everything was perfect. Okay, it got a tad melodramatic at times, but every character has motive, agency, and flaws, and the antagonists come in proverbial shades of grey. This show is so under-rated compared to You Who Came From the Stars, which, while engaging enough to leave you hooked on every episode, didn't bring me to tears and a hair-tearing state the way Pinocchio did.

The scene that particularly got me was the part where In Ha's mother, the cold, aloof, successful news anchor

 
realises the devastation she wrecked on others, as well as her negligence of her daughter, while she was busy pursuing her career.



I tried so hard to stave off the ending, but as with all good things like Jellicoe Road, it eventually came to and end and now I'm in an existential crisis where I don't know what else to read or watch that can fill this void in my life.

So I'm starting on It's Okay, That's Love, which centres on mental illnesses and the stigma faced by mentally ill patients. I also have Hyde, Jekyll and Me (which I'll watch after all the episodes are out because waiting for a new episode each week is a bitch) and Kill Me Heal Me lined up. So please let them be good!

Reading material-wise, I'm reading Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta, which I read when I was 14 but need to reread to jog my memory before reading the sequel, The Piper's Son. Also, I'm still on Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo because dammit the trilogy must not end!

Monday, March 02, 2015

Book Review - Jellicoe Road, by Melina Marchetta


Jellicoe Road. Where do I begin?

What seems like a frivolous opening about territory wars (i.e. a bunch of teenagers taking their land way too seriously) in the Australian outbacks soon reveals itself to be much more complex and layered and cross-generational than expected.

The first sentence strikes you right off the bat - My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die - so you know there is more to this story than meets the eye. Taylor Markham, the reluctant leader of the school's underground community, was abandoned by her mother at age 11. And at 14, she ran away from boarding school, only to be brought back by the brigadier, a mysterious stranger who terrifies Taylor but has obvious ties with her guardian Hannah.

Taylor is on a quest to find her mother and make sense of her recurring dreams about a boy in a tree:
I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.

Meanwhile, the territory wars sees Taylor reunited with Jonah Griggs, the leader of the visiting Townies whom she met on a train when she embarked on her search for her mother. ***spoiler alert*** Jonah, who called the school and had the brigadier bring her back, who thwarted her attempt to find her mother. Jonah, who had killed his abusive father and had meant to end his life until he met Taylor.

As she learns more about the founders of the warring communities (the Townies, the Cadets, and the Jellicoe School students), who were really just a group of friends whose fate intertwined as a result of a fatal car accident one of them saved the other four from, Taylor learns the truth about her family, and the beautiful, tragic fates of those who met on Jellicoe Road.

Again, this has to be asked: what is in those Australian waters? There's just something about Australian YA lit that manages to worm its way into your heart, park itself there, and wreck you from within in the best possible way.

Like Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley and Stolen by Lucy Christopher and This is Shyness by Leanne Hall, Jellicoe Road seemed like a lighthearted read, with funny moments like this:
"So, like I asked, what’s with the nightie?"
"It smells like what I always think mothers smell like," I tell him honestly, knowing I don’t have to explain.
He nods. "My mum has one just the same and you have no idea how disturbing it is that it’s turning me on."

And like The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee, it was magical enough to make the story a little surreal and that much more enchanting.

But like those other books, Jellicoe Road is so richly layered and poignant. You fall completely in love with the characters because they seem so real and relatable - their heartbreaks are your heartbreaks, and your happiness is a result of theirs, and you're just so thankful when they find some reprieve.

There are truths that you discover and learn together with the protagonist, who is just figuring out how to live and love despite being abandoned when she was a child:



 And moments that make your heart break for her:
"What do you want from me?" he asks.
What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him.
More.

And the other characters, like Narnie:
"My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.

I counted.

It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said."

And Jonah:
He sits on a train with me when we're fourteen and he weeps, tearing at his hair, bashing his head with the palm of his hand, self-hatred pouring out of him like blood from a gut wound in a war movie, and for the first time in my life I have purpose. I am the holder of the grief and pain and guilt and passion of Jonah Griggs and as we sit huddled on the floor of the carriage, he allows me to hold him, to say, "Shhh, Jonah, it wasn't your fault." While his body still shakes from the convulsions, he takes hold of my hand and links my fingers with his and I feel someone else's pain for the first time that I can remember.

And of course, there's the HUGE plot twist that Doesn't. Let. Up. You sort of snowball towards the end, where it all comes to a gratifying revelation. I remember stopping dead in my tracks (yes, I read while I walk) when Jonah made his revelation (see above), having to turn off my Kindle to take a breath and process it all; I remember aching for Jonah and wanting to give him a hug, even though HE'S NOT REAL.

I love how the fates of the Tate, Narnie, Fitz, Webb, and Jude collided on Jellicoe Road, and how their friendship turned into kinship, though I hated how life destroyed them because I had come to love them like they were my friends.

Plus, Marchetta did a brilliant job of tying dual story lines. Attempting exactly that with No Room in Neverland, I'm learning a lot about this technique from reading Jellicoe Road.

Vinaya's review of the book pretty much sums up my reaction:
This book is so fucked up. Completely, totally fucked up. Everybody in it is fucked up, and living their lives is fucked up, and by the time you're done with it, you're fucked up, but you can't tell because your head is cloudy from all the tears you've shed getting through this fucked-up book.

I hate On The Jellicoe Road. I hate books that make me cry, and this book made me want to weep tears of blood for all that lost youth and promise, and the pain of loss and the promise of the future. If somebody had told me how mixed-up and emotional this book was going to make me feel, I would have abandoned it in a corner and floated off to the simple uncomplicated world of supernatural ass-kicking, where nobody dies and even if they do, they rarely stay dead.

Like I said, this is one book that wrecks you completely. And you gladly let it. It's the kind of book that leaves its indelible mark on you, and you need a day or two to stew in its brilliance and process it entirely because there are just too many emotions to digest that it elicited.

But now that I'm done with it (trust me, I tried as hard as I could to put off getting to the end), WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO READ NOW THAT WILL FILL THIS VOID? Perhaps another Melina Marchetta book, The Piper's Son, will do the trick.