Saturday, November 8, 2008
Siyuan before he fell sick
A couple of pics before we all fell sick start of October.
one is a visit by my sister and the other at HK Park
How do you know you're in HK?
This is a bit tongue in cheek of How do you know you're in HK, but does come from observations made in the past year. To be fair, the same things may be happening in Singapore too (I've been away for about 5 years), though I don't recall such incidents in Australia
1) The parents dining next to you don't know how to hold their four-month-old baby. It's their maid's day off and they don't hold the baby except for a day a week.
2) It's ten in the morning on the weekends, and the maid at the playground with the kid tells you the parents are still sleeping in. She also tells you that the day she's off, the parents bring the child to the grandparents.
3) The parents are shocked your kid doesn't have an English name, like Buzz, which they've named theirs. Of course it doesn't matter that they are neither Caucasian, Christian nor have kids born in countries like Australia.
4) While you're trying to open the door with one hand, and struggling to push the pram through with the other, somebody shoves past you to get through the door you've opened. You see, they don't want to touch the door frame.
5) People try to shove your two-year-old kid aside so they can run two steps up the escalator, where they then stand there.
6) They don't have baby chairs in restaurants, but Macdonald would have!
7) The waitress thinks it's okay to sit your kid in the path of people rushing out off the kitchen with hot soup.
8) Some people would stare at your child if he's too happy. It's not right, darn it, to be this happy.
9) The parents all want their kids to learn Mandarin/Putonghua, but they would avoid you and your kid if you speak it. You might be from mainland China, you see?
10) Your neighbour thinks you're a freak becos you put your child to sleep by 8 p.m. Theirs are still up at 11 p.m. watching T.V.
Again, this is tongue in cheek, but every observation happened, some quite frequently. There are also a lot of nice, considerate and normal people here :)
1) The parents dining next to you don't know how to hold their four-month-old baby. It's their maid's day off and they don't hold the baby except for a day a week.
2) It's ten in the morning on the weekends, and the maid at the playground with the kid tells you the parents are still sleeping in. She also tells you that the day she's off, the parents bring the child to the grandparents.
3) The parents are shocked your kid doesn't have an English name, like Buzz, which they've named theirs. Of course it doesn't matter that they are neither Caucasian, Christian nor have kids born in countries like Australia.
4) While you're trying to open the door with one hand, and struggling to push the pram through with the other, somebody shoves past you to get through the door you've opened. You see, they don't want to touch the door frame.
5) People try to shove your two-year-old kid aside so they can run two steps up the escalator, where they then stand there.
6) They don't have baby chairs in restaurants, but Macdonald would have!
7) The waitress thinks it's okay to sit your kid in the path of people rushing out off the kitchen with hot soup.
8) Some people would stare at your child if he's too happy. It's not right, darn it, to be this happy.
9) The parents all want their kids to learn Mandarin/Putonghua, but they would avoid you and your kid if you speak it. You might be from mainland China, you see?
10) Your neighbour thinks you're a freak becos you put your child to sleep by 8 p.m. Theirs are still up at 11 p.m. watching T.V.
Again, this is tongue in cheek, but every observation happened, some quite frequently. There are also a lot of nice, considerate and normal people here :)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
nostalgic
Have been away from Singapore for more than four years. Nothing brings back the memories as the songs both me and Lux grew up with. It was a period when local song-writers were bursting onto the scene, writing down-to-earth, at times poetic songs that are performed acoustically. It was known as xinyao, those songs. I was trying to find some of the older lyrics and songs to sing to Siyuan in an attempt to teach him more mandarin.
Found this old video of one of the more well-known songwriters -- 梁文福
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=LBUDfdzzSEs
One of the speakers on this program said: u don't have to read history, but if you listen to Wen Fu songs, u would have an insight into the Chinese cultural and social landscape of the 1980s in Singapore.
And yes, we continue to be sick. It's either a new flu or the old one striking back.
So it's been 3 weeks getting to 4 weeks of coughing and sneezing. Lux can't sleep, Siyuan is grouchy and I've coughed so hard my ribs are inflamed. Ecks.
Found this old video of one of the more well-known songwriters -- 梁文福
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=LBUDfdzzSEs
One of the speakers on this program said: u don't have to read history, but if you listen to Wen Fu songs, u would have an insight into the Chinese cultural and social landscape of the 1980s in Singapore.
And yes, we continue to be sick. It's either a new flu or the old one striking back.
So it's been 3 weeks getting to 4 weeks of coughing and sneezing. Lux can't sleep, Siyuan is grouchy and I've coughed so hard my ribs are inflamed. Ecks.
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