Happy National Day Singapore!

We celebrated Singapore's National Day in drunken revelry last night at Yakki's.

Can't remember much of last night, but we shall sum up ten Singaporean things we're proud of. Since Yakki's busy clearing his bowels from last night, I shall just assume he agrees with me on this list.

1. Tin Pei Ling and Nicole Seah
Without them, we would have less to talk about during the last GE. Being so Gen-Y, they brought us into the whole political thingy. From "I don't know what to say" to "apologising to the Muslim community for the comments LKY made", the two candidates spiced up our normally boring political scene.

2. National Day Parade Songs, especially the Fun Pack Song
"In a Heartbeat" was moving when performed live, but I beg to differ on everyone's disdain for the song. Yes, the lyrics suck and ripping off Gaga's not very original. Still, the video posted on YouTube made my day. Laugh along with it for a change. And if you can't, then just be proud of our old NDP songs like "Count on me Singapore" and "Stand up for Singapore".

3. Peace
Look at Libya. Look at Syria. Look at Xinjiang. Ok, maybe they're too 3rd world for our liking. How about London? The mess there goes to show we all have a part to play in keeping our country safe and peaceful.

4. Hawker Food
Singapore food is so hard to define because it's so varied! You can't really have a Singaporean restaurant overseas, 'cos what's Singapore food man? Laksa, Bak Kut Teh, Mee Siam, Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rice, Chill Crab, Beef Noodles, Char Kway Teow, Hokkien Mee, Roti Prata, Briyani, Prawn Noodles. The list goes on.. you get my point. We love hawker food. Good and cheap (Screw Garibaldi).

5. Water
We had no water. Now we have too much (read: floods). 17 reservoirs (excluding temporary one in Orchard once a year), numerous desalination plants. We're a leading nation in water technology, I'm guessing.

6. Cubs and Lions
Our cubs have been doing us proud since YOG. And our Lions, honestly, haven't been that bad. We don't win much, but at least we've kicked our Malaysian rivals out of the World Cup qualifiers. Perhaps we'll continue doing so when our young Lions return to the Malaysia Cup scene.

7. Baby Boomers and Gen X
Yeah, they're not as savvy as us Gen Ys. But they brought us from third world to first world. Because of their hard work, we can kao beh about all the little things in life like poor internet connection, roads being clogged up by nice cars, etc. Respect them aye.

8. Lee Kuan Yew and the forefathers
Gotta give it to the man. We would be living in kampungs and slums, struggling to find jobs, food and water, if not for his vision and dedication. Ok, maybe that's a bit exaggerating. But look at Europe and US, we're doing not too bad for a nation with no resources and history.

9. Barbarella and the other variants of Michelle Chong
You just gotta love the SPG, the maid, the KTV hostess and the oh so Singaporean Nancy Goh. Michelle Chong rocks.

10. Singapore Spirit
Not quite sure what the NDP committee is referring to when they say this year's NDP is to reflect the Singapore Spirit. But whether it's our tendency to whine, complain and Stomp about everything, our never-dying kiasu-ness or our habit of queuing up ridiculously for food, I think we Singaporeans are unique. Embrace our Singaporean-ness, Singaporeans.

Disclaimer: This list is not exhaustive and is subjective. Please don't be too anal about the reasons I came up with. If you disagree, chill for today aye? It's National Day!

Photo Source: NDPeeps

Day Out with Nicole Part I

As promised, we bring to you Yakki's first series of photos of the lovely Nicole.

The shoot almost didn't happen because the skies were about to open up and dump water all over us. Fortunately, the rain patiently waited for Yakki to capture Nicole's smiles.

It was great working with her, as she was so professional yet natural.

A New Era Awaits Singapore

I had actually written a long piece that reflected my opinions on this year's elections, but I think enough has been said about GE2011.

We all know and have our own take on the results, so let's leave it at that.

Life returns to normalcy tomorrow.

Yes, it is a new era for Singapore politics, but let's do our part as citizens.

Not just by putting two strokes to form an "X" on our voting slip. It's time for us to work hard as one to bring our country to greater success, progress and happiness. Boy, the GE has made us serious men.

Anyway, if anything, one man united our country last night. And the honour goes to the star of GE2011, Mr Yam Ah Mee. You can laugh at his unimpressive English, but he did his job and he is a star.

Ok, seriously. I wish they had put Yolanda Be Cool's We No Speak Americano for his remix.

Yam Ah Mee the Superstar

Source: My Paper

With that, I propose a toast to Mr George Yeo, Mr Chiam See Tong and to the future of Singapore.

Lastly, let's drop the anger and angst we've managed to conjure in the past month.

It's time to let our hair down and party!

*plays Yam Ah Mee remix

Girls Generation: Gee Ahruh See by MrBrown

Striking off Political Apathy

Whether it was due to social media, Tin v Nicole, housing costs or simply a sign of growing/age-ing, Yakki and I have taken a strong interest in this year's GE.

While continuing our policy of maintaining political neutrality on this blog, we have to speak of our virgin rally experience.

NSP took our cherry this evening and we look forward to repeating this rallying experience with the other parties in the days to come.

We thought it was appropriate to witness Nicole Seah in action. After all, so much hype has been generated about someone of our age, we really had to listen to what she has to say and what NSP has to offer.

No comments on the issues they spoke about, but the rally made us realise the importance of being engaged in our country's politics.

It's easy to sit back and let the online commentators or mainstream media influence your thoughts about the candidates. But attending rallies is one good way to get to know the candidates better.

I finally understand why some leaders are worried about the younger generation's indifference or bochup-ness towards politics. Imagine the only influence on our choice comes from a friend's mouth or a feed off someone's blog, our judgement will not be ours, but of someone else's.

Somehow I feel that it's our responsibility as citizens to make sure we're aware enough to make an informed decision.

On a lighter note, a mid-20s dude who arrived late at the rally came up to us just to ask if Nicole Seah had spoken.

If anything, Nicole's done her part by stirring our generation out of its political slumber.

Where are the rallies?

Was trying to find out where the NSP rally is and saw this on www.gothere.sg.

Pretty useful aye?

Happy rally-watching!

Game On!

Ok, we didn't wanna talk about politics, but we just couldn't help ourselves.

You see, our facebook newsfeed's fully fed with GE supplements. The papers are flooded with GE articles. Everything's GE.

We should learn from the Brits. Shops across the UK are selling Royal Wedding everything.

We should really be cashing in like our Brit friends by doing all things GE. Have some GE Sales instead of GSS from today till Polling Day with uber special discounts on the Cooling Off Day.

Perhaps some Kate Spade-designed Tin memorabilia for 7 May aye?

And since we're not politicians and we don't wanna be like everyone else's giving their two cents' worth when we don't really know what we're talking about, we'll just highlight the key matches coming next Sat.

4 key matches we reckon everyone should keep an eye on. Champs League semis-style. But only one leg. No home and away. Just home.

Match 1: Holland-Bukit Timah - Dr V versus Dr V
Match 2: Aljunied - PAP led by Foreign Minister George Yeo v WP All Stars
Match 3: Bishan-Toa Payoh - Wong 'Mas Selamat' Kan Seng v Chiam See 'Potong Pasir' Tong

And of course not forgetting,

Match 4: Marine Parade - Tin 'Kate Spade' Pei Ling v Nicole 'Rebecca' Seah Xue Ling

On a separate note, I asked a friend if we should go see some rallies, you know, soak in the atmosphere. His reply was "Workers' Party's and Nicole Seah Party's?"

This came to mind.

Wet Wet North-East

We need to take a break from politics.

The upcoming General Elections is machiam the World Cup. Comes every 5 years and for 3-4 weeks, everyone talks like they really know politics really well and in depth.

So we, at The Tuck Shop, shall not talk about it no more. We'll leave the talk to the politics bigwigs, policymakers, incumbents, MP-wannabes, critics and commentators (we all wanna be a political John Dykes or Shebby Singh).

Unless, any more sweet young things come forth to contest.

Instead, we shall focus our remaining youthful exuberence on exploring Singapore.

You know you've come of age when, instead of returning from a club at 5 on a public holiday, you get up at pre-sunrise to catch some sunrise at some ulu part of Singapore. That's what we did. And along the way to the ulu place, Gold 90.5 was dishing out goldies for the oldies. Pure enjoyment.

Spoken like two true wise old men with a combined age of 55.

Anyhow, we arrived at Lorong Halus to check out the wet wet lands of the North-East.

Like the vast expanse of China's North-East, we have not explored much of the North-East in the many years we've lived on this island. So to experience the sunrise on this little piece of northeast land with 3-4 ponds and a certain Serangoon reservoir was kinda refreshing.

Flowers of Lorong Halus

We won't describe much about this Lorong Halus wetlands thingy because,

1) It's not all that, really. It's just a fairly quiet and population-untouched place to hang, look at birds, stroll or cycle around.

2) It's kinda unique, so we don't want it to be trottered by every yuppie/hippie/wannabe in Singapore.

On point number 2, if I could indulge in some disgressing, this situation reminds me of our experience about 10 years ago when Yakki and I were still young.

Back then, we discovered this music enclave in a little village in Holland. We found our home for live music and bottled beers. We enjoyed watching a petite, cute girl strumming her guitar and stretching her vocals for a small, appreciative crowd.

And then, every yuppie/hippie/wannabe turned up shortly after we had just laid claims to the enclave. Now we skip Wala Wala's because everyone wanna be at walawala.

So lies the dilemma of sharing an interesting place with the rest of the online world when we know its serenity could be destroyed by our humble post.

Or maybe not, since our blog only has a high hit count when we post photos of hot celebrities and politician(s).

Only Hot, Creamy China Dates For Me

Once in a while you read an article on the newspaper and feel compelled to respond to it.

There was one such article, titled "Sorry boys, it's only ACS(I) dates for me", involving a certain Miss Jiang Lai, a former St. Nicholas and ACJC student China-born Singapore PR. It was covered by The New Paper today, prompting me to look for the actual post she made a few days ago.

Basically, to Miss Jiang Lai, Chinese High boys are all ugly, RI boys less ugly, but very boring. Catholic High boys, from her experience with one, are average, repetitive and boring. St Andrews' are wannabes, imitations of ACS(I). And the rest of the boys school, "unmemorable to warrant mention".

I ought to defend my fellow shorts-wearing schoolmates, but it's really not worth spending too much effort on debunking her theories because they are all generalisations.

It's as good as me retaliating with unfair comments about:

St. Nicholas - where many of my family and friends came from -

or

ACJC - whose hockey girls in my time were hawt -

or

PRC girls - whom many have biased opinions of, but I still maintain my personal stand that a lot of them (from the huge sample size in China) are really nice and endearing (and hot, fair and smooth, as long as they shave).

But one subjective opinion I can make about Ms Jiang Lai is that she doesn't belong to the nice, endearing, hot, fair and smooth category of China girls I would love to know.

Shall not describe her physical features

You can decide for yourself if she's anywhere near hot

So, my point is, if you're someone as pleasant-looking and as logical-sounding as Nicole Rebecca Seah.

Nice

Or as hot and creamy as Fan Bing Bing or Zhao Wei, then you do have a beauty-given right to insult us non-ACS(I) boys.

Very nice

Very nice too

But if you're looking like that (see first two images of post), hello-oh, look in the mirror biatch.

Leticia Bongnino - His Maid, Our Army

Leticia and Boy Boy
The Noose

Michelle Chong does a really good impersonation of the maid who carried his boy boy's full pack on the Noose.

Social Media's Heating Up The General Elections

Have you noticed that the General Elections (GE) seems a lot more exciting than 5 years ago?

It's probably due to the use of social media in this upcoming GE. In the past, only newspapers and TV could give us coverage of the rallies and build-up to D-Day. But now, with Friendster Facebook, Twitter, blogs, microblogs.. news, rumours, gossip of anything and everything GE have been newsfeeding and tweeting away.

Look at little Miss Tin. She's been screwtinised by many, ridiculed in Temasek Review and teased on Rockson. They even dug out her past Facebook photos and mocked her choice of boys/men. To the max.

Kawaii Max!

Anyway, social media's gonna make an impact in this coming elections. Look at the impact Stomp.com.sg has maid with the fullpack photo. "My Maid, Our Army" is making more impressions in everyone's head than any Saatchi & Saatchi advertisement.

My Maid, Our Army

But what I really like about Stomp.com.sg is that it's becoming the new NewPaper. I remember how the NewPaper used to have the gossipiest and sleaziest news in town (until I realised how it was a poor cousin of the Chinese wanbaos).

Anyway, the NewPaper is soon becoming the poorer older brother of Stomp.com.sg. Stomp's gotta the latest lowdown and lowblows on any lowlife. And it's supplied and powered by the people.

It's got pictures of crap drivers, rude service staff, inconsiderate passengers. But it's also got many many love stories and public display of affection snippets. It goes to show that the Government's been kinda successful in their Romance Singapore campaign to get Singaporeans lovin' and humpin'. Problem is Stomp's showed that most people aren't happy with our Gen-Ys la-ji-ing and doing their PDA thing in public.

So you have contributors demanding these Gen-Ys go "get a room".

Except that both public and private housing is kinda ex now, so they can't really go get a proper room.

And then hotel rooms are also kinda ex, 'cos we have tonnes of tourists coming here to gamble.

"How about doing it in a car?" That's out of question of course with the COEs costing more than an actual car.

So our Gen-Ys have no choice, but to do it on MRTs and buses. Cheapest. Greenest.

"Go public", didn't they say?


A lot to think about. A lot to read about, this GE.

Are you average?

SINGAPOREANS are the fourth richest people in the world in terms of personal wealth and second richest in Asia-Pacific, according to a Credit Suisse report.

The average wealth per adult here has grown from US$105,000 in 2000 to US$255,488 (S$336,000) this year.

Wealth is calculated as the value of financial assets like stocks and bonds plus non-financial assets - principally housing - less an individual's debts.

...

So are you average?

Shanghai - Singapore Expo-sed!

Ooh we're tumbling down

We're spiralling
Ooh, tied up to the ground
We're spiralling

Photo Source: AFP

Tune into an Urban Symphony. That is the theme of the Singapore Pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai.

We arrived at the Singapore Pavilion, having seen Angola, Brazil and Canada pavilions. There was a happy feel around the Singapore Pavilion with hawker favourites and local "produce" such as Roti Prata, Laksa, Eu Yan Sang products being sold in the vicinity.

We were really proud and expectant when we flashed our red passports to cut the long queue into the exhibit area.

Until we entered the area, that is.

Before I continue, I have to apologise for the lack of original photos. Yakki refused to take any for the Singapore Pavilion.

The concept of an Urban Symphony evoked artsy-ness. You would expect a vibrant kaleidoscope of music, colours and media on the first floor.

Instead, we were treated to low-quality musical displays and plastic-paneled exhibits depicting the costumes of the four races in Singapore. I don't remember seeing any Singaporean Chinese women wearing KTV hostess-styled dresses as a cultural dress-up, but apparently that was what Singaporean Chinese women wore back in the day.

We had a replica of an F1 car randomly placed in the compound, with little fanfare to do justice to the Singapore GrandPrix, the crown jewel in Bernie Ecclestone's F1 circuit. An accompanying STB or F1 video advert or highlights of the past night races could have generated more buzz.

Reusing a 2008 STB video/photo montage would have sufficed

Photo Source: STB

We quickly browsed through the first floor and made our way to the second, hoping for some redemption.

To our delight, there was a queue to the second floor. What were we queuing for? We had no idea. What's next? No one told us anything.

We suffered in the hot weather as the pavilion, despite one of the few non air-conditioned ones, had few windows to allow humane ventilation.

Finally, we entered the auditorium on the second floor. The 8-min feature film was on how Singapore diversified its water resources by applying technology. Maybe not, it was more of an interview, no, it was a lecture by our Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on the topic.

I love the old man, but it seemed like someone wanted to milk on MM's reputation and popularity in China to enhance the whole pavilion experience. They could have showed an educational video on how NEWater's made or the desalination plants around Singapore or the Marina Barrage. Or how Marina Bay was developed from nothing into the brilliant skyline we have today. Or put on a YOG video.

Anyway, if we had tried to impress the Chinese, we didn't as comments such as "Wake me up when the show's over," or "等了这么久听他胡说什么" were heard in the crowd.

We gave up on the entire Singapore experience and headed for the exit. Except that the only exit was to head up to the 3rd floor and complete YourSingapore experience before you can leave.

Reaching the top of the pavilion, trees, plants and Chinese people engulfed us as we sought for the way out. The view would have been perfect from the roof of the pavilion, but the architect decided that in Singapore, your view should be blocked by trees. You should not have a great view of other countries' pavilions. You should have an inward perspective of the world.

We felt quite disappointed with the whole visit to our country's pavilion. Of the three we visited earlier, Singapore's underwhelmed us. We visited Japan's later on, and they had a 3D-model of a water treatment process, something that we could have placed in our own.

As we left, I overheard a Singaporean remarking that the exhibitions within the pavilion felt very juvenile, very primary school. We couldn't agree more. We went on a complaining marathon about the pavilion.

So, if there's one thing the pavilion did excel in, it stirred the true blue whiny Singaporeans in us. And for all the bad valid reasons.

School Holidays = No Traffic Congestion

Today's Teacher's Day and traffic on the roads was significantly smoother.

Why?

We list down a few possibilities.

School Days since 1965

1. Teachers are well-paid and own cars
Teachers' Day means all the cher-drivers, numbering 50,000 or so, are off the roads.

2. Parents take leave, MC or chao geng to stay home with their kids
Someone in office mentioned, "Just look at the car park, half empty".

3. A lot of ah sia students these days
In the new economy, students skip trains and 'O' levels and drive to university.

End of One Dream, Beginning of Many

Photo: SPH-SYOGOC-Xinhua

The 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore came to an end last night. As the Olympic flame extinguished, it marked the end of an eventful journey. The memories of the YOG will forever be etched in our hearts.

Inspiring was one word I remembered Yakki mentioning during the first Cubs game he attended.

The Games is pretty inspiring huh.

The Flame as Last Spotted in Marina Bay

Photo: ChannelNewsAsia

I totally agree.

Pre-YOG, we squirmed when we heard that we could be fined $130 for not giving way to the YOG buses. But we knew that us fine Singaporeans do need monetary incentives many a times.

During YOG, we saw the SFI food being served to the volunteers and felt that for a $5.5 million food tender, SFI could have done a better job and not short-change the volunteers or us taxpayers.

And yes, people will whine about the $387 million spent on the Games. With one or two itching to be arrested by criticising the Government on an anti-YOG facebook page.

But let's be objective and break it down for all.

The last 12 days have brought 3,600 youths from all over the world and 20,000 volunteers in Singapore together. For many of them, what an experience it is to participate in the first ever Youth Olympics and interact with youths from 204 countries.

It did take Singaporeans a bit of warming up to react to the YOG atmosphere. We were off to a slow start with the publicity of the YOG fairly poor leading up to the opening day. Tickets are moving slowly. But once the flame was lit and kiasuism activated, Singaporeans were quickly snapping up tickets to the popular sports. The YOG spirit in Singapore suddenly came alive.

The YOG also gave us football fans something to cheer about with the success of our national team, albeit a very very young one. It's not the bronze medal success that we're speaking about, but the quality of football they displayed. Attacking, positive, spirited, entertaining and most importantly, fun football.

Cubs packing the Stadium like no other S-League match can

There will be the cynics and the critics and the skeptics and the whatevers. But we enjoyed the Youth Olympics. And if these people can deliver a better experience at a lower cost to us all, then please go ahead and indulge us.

Until then, we will remember the good old times long after the flame has gone.

The butterflies in the stomach, the joy of bonding and the pleasure of scoring we will forever reminisce.

Isabelle Li, China Born or Not?

Isabelle Li of Team Singapore won the silver medal in the Youth Olympic Games table tennis today. But many have wondered about her place of birth.

Confirm China-born la.

Ya man, she shouts and plays like one.

China written all over her face?

Straits Times Photo: Chew Seng Kim

I guess there are a lot of skeptics when it comes to Singapore table tennis players. After all, most of the senior team who won the World Championship a few months ago are born in China, then inducted into the Singapore ecosystem through the Foreign Talent Scheme.

So, we had to do our research and find out if Isabelle was China-born.

A quick check with Google seemed to confirm that she's Singapore-born.

Then, her parents lei?

Some of our friends remained unconvinced she's truly truly truly Singaporean. We found out that her mother's family name is Sim. Should be a "true blue" Singaporean, right? Sim does sound Singaporean aye?

Then, her Dad's probably from China.

...

Hopefully, Straits Times will do a feature and shed some light on the matter. I guess people simply cannot believe that a Singapore-born Singaporean can compete on a world stage in the sport of table tennis.

Sailing ok. Table tennis should be China-born. Bowling yes. Badminton probably Indo-born.

Do our athletes' places of birth matter to you?

Cubs, our Nation's Pride

Dejected Cubs congratulating the Haitians

We were at the Jalan Besar Stadium to witness our cubs' loss against the Haitians tonight. The cubs didn't play as well as they did in their past two games, but they certainly put in tremendous effort in their bid to qualify for the Final.

A combination of careless mistakes, poor finishing and perhaps bad luck knocked our cubs out of the running for the gold medal. Still, they are our nation's pride and have inspired many.

The disappointment really had to be the crowd at the stadium tonight. The grandstand fans were pretty fantastic, but the fans at the gallery area, where we were situated, were poor.

One of the few decent fans in the gallery

It's easy to cheer on your team when they're beating the Zimbabweans and the Montenegrins. It's so easy to jump on the bandwagon and start purchasing the match tickets on the back of two victories.

But it takes a real fan to stand up and cheer the team on when the team is down, when the team needs your support.

The gallery crowd watched the game like it was an EPL match shown on a tele at home. Comfortable in their seats, silent when the cubs were chasing the game, letting out the rare yelp when the cubs missed their chances. That's not the way to support your team.

Worst of all, when the cubs conceded a late penalty, streams of fans at the gallery stood up.

"Fans" emptying the terraces before the final whistle.

To leave their seats.

For the exit.

WTF seriously.

A brilliant and sublime display of true support for the team that they had recently adopted after two inspiring YOG wins. Leaving the 15 years olds in the lurch when they had been hit by penalty decision is a disgrace. The team was staring at a two-nil defeat and all these fair-weather fans could think about was beating the traffic or going for supper.

The cubs have proven that there's hope with our nation's football. They impressed. They delighted. They fought.

Taking on the world

But it's time the fans do their part and put the nation above themselves.

Our Cubs Rock!

Football is a funny game and Singaporeans are funny supporters. Having beaten Zimbabwe in their opening match, fans began to ravage the YOG ticket website and stream into Jalan Besar Stadium on the back of the impressive victory.

Yakki and I, being the ardent Lions fans, got our tickets (preliminaries, semis, finals) way before the euphoria began. Self pat on the back.

All would have known by now that we defeated the Montenegrins 3-2 with goals from Muhaimin Suhaimin, Jeffrey Lightfoot and Brandon Koh. A great display by and of our multicultural setup in Singapore.

Minutes before kickoff, we were off to a beautiful start on a breezy Thursday evening when we spotted a fan outside the Jalan Besar Stadium.

No need for more description. See pictures for thousands of words.
Lightfoot's Cool Head

Brilliant Tackle on Montenegrin Ballerina

Fans and players showing appreciation

Anyway, the press always covers a match in great detail when we're doing well. So needless for us to say more when you can them on the official papers and websites.

For more Yakki's action photos of the match, check out the album on our Facebook Page.

Rain and More Rain

It's been an interesting year for Singapore, weather-wise. Instead of the usual hot and humid or very cloudy or heavy thunderstorms and showers expected all over Singapore, our Met service now has access to the word "flood" in their limited vocabulary.

The rain has caused many problems to us Singaporeans. Some losing their cars. Others having their condos' car park or landed property filled with sexy brown water. We too had our problems with the rain.

Bad Bad Rain

Remember we were gonna do an article on "Birds". Yes, 鸟. The rain has forced us to cancel many early Sunday morning trips to the birds' sanctuary. So you'll have to wait a little longer for the "Birds" article.

Anyway, back to today. As I was driving along the surprisingly-only-damp Bukit Timah Road, I wondered about my insurance's coverage for a drenched car, and then about changing to a more flood resistant car like an SUV or a crossover.

The new Kia Sportage

Speaking of which, Yakki and I should be test driving some new crossovers (in flood conditions preferably) in the coming month, so keep a lookout for that.

The new Peugeot 3008

But on a serious note, we should be thankful that the floods here have not caused any loss of life as seen in Pakistan and China. We are really a fortunate bunch of people. Be grateful.

Cubs' Scorcher against Zimbabwe

Video Courtesy of Yahoo! SEA