Tag Archives: Singapore

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

The Singapore School of Villany (Inspector Singh Investigates #3) – Shamini Flint

Inspector Singh is home – and how he wishes he wasn’t. His wife nags him at breakfast and his superiors are whiling away their time by giving him his usual ‘you’re a disgrace to the force’ lecture. Fortunately for Singh, there is no rest for the wicked when he is called out to the murder of a senior partner at an international law firm, clubbed to death at his desk. Unfortunately for Singh, there is no shortage of suspects – from the victim’s fellow partners to his wife and ex-wife – or motives, as many of the lawyers have secrets they would kill to protect. And very soon Singh finds himself heading up an investigation that rips apart the fabric of Singapore society and exposes the rotten core beneath. Perhaps coming home wasn’t such a good idea, after all…?

Beat the heat…..the Singapore way….

Posted on by
Reply

Most days the one consistent conversation you are bound to have these days in Singapore is about the weather! We are currently obsessed with it – it’s too hot, everyone says all the time.

The late Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister post-independence once famously declared air-conditioning to be the greatest invention of the 20th century.
Temperatures consistently hover around the mid-thirties (in Celsius, or around the nineties in Fahrenheit) with high humidity and it’s no wonder that people staying in this sunny island feel the heat….

This is probably how hell feels like, I thought this morning on the way to work. Waking up, drenched in sweat, in spite of sleeping in an air-conditioned room, the moment you come out from a bath, you are drenched with sweat. Getting to work is a pointless exercise as by the time you reach your air-conditioned office, all the time and effort you took to get ready to come to work has come to naught!

With most places in Singapore being air-conditioned, when you actually go to the great outdoors aka the non-air-conditioned spaces, the heat really hits you and completely saps your energy. Without this, you are more likely than to wilt in the heat instead of actually doing any work.

I dream of a time when the whole of Singapore is covered by a temperature controlled dome and we live in an ideal climate! Far-fetched perhaps, but knowing Singapore, this may not be something of out a sci-fi movie, but a reality decades down the line.

In researching for this post, I asked GG & BB earlier this morning if they felt the heat in school. For the sake of perspective, they study in non-air-conditioned classrooms and have around 30 minutes of recess daily (more if they stay back in school after lunch, in which case recess including lunch time will be around 75 minutes) and another 30 minutes of PE in school daily. Both BB & GG were actually quite nonchalant about the heat and said it didn’t bother them one bit while they were in school. Is this the resilience of the young where they seem impervious to heat? Or maybe it’s just me getting old…..

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

The Singapore Decalogue – Zafar Anjum

 In this collection of ten beautifully crafted, interconnected short stories, Zafar Anjum engages two commonplaces about Singapore: one, that it is a nation of immigrants; and two, that it is a nation still looking to sketch out the parameters and contours of its own soul.

Through Asif Basheer, a newly arrived immigrant from India, Zafar Anjum takes us through the complexities of present-day Singapore. As we follow Asif making his spiritual odyssey through a fast-changing Singapore, we are taken on an unforgettable journey of love, lust, hope and despair.

Goodbye Mr. Lee and Thank You

Posted on by
1

Singapore woke up on Monday morning to a news they all feared and dreaded. Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, the man who is credited for making Singapore the world-class city state it is today, was no more. 

 

Mr. Lee or LKY as he is known, had been in hospital for over a month, battling pneumonia and had been deteriorating in the past week. 

Widely regarded as the man most intrumental in shaping the path to Singapore’s prosperity, he was a man who was loved and feared in equal intensity while alive. However, it is in death that an entire nation – from young to the old, from citizens to residents – mourn together for the man who is synonymous with the nation.. 

He fought for our independence, built a nation where there was none and made us proud to be Singaporeans. We won’t see another man like him.  

These words from PM Lee Hsien Loong’s televised message to the nation reflect perhaps what a lot of people were feeling. 

He gave us a country we can be proud of, a home to bring up our family and a better life we can aspire to…Much of today’s ‘Singapore DNA’ can be traced to his personal character, philosophy and values – Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in a letter to the late Mr. Lee’s son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 

National Day this year is going to be bittersweet. Singapore is celebrating 50 years of independence and the architect and man responsible for this celebration will not be around to celebrate with the nation he helped found. SG50 will not be the same without LKY. 

This post isn’t going to be about LKY’s vast achievements which can be found online and in the various media, but a small tribute to a great man who shaped this country I now call home. 

Later today, I am going to take BB & GG with me to our nearest CC to write in the condolence book and in our own small way, honour the man, they have the privilege to share a birthday with. I always tell them even if they are able to do a fraction of Mr. Lee’s achievements in their life, they would achieve a lot in this life. 

 

Goodbye Mr Lee Kwan Yew and a heartfelt THANK YOU for making Singapore what it is today – a place we are proud to call home and be a part of. Each time I come home from a trip, when I land in Changi airport, I am so happy to be home. The Singapore efficiency, especially when you compare to the country you’ve just come from, makes you happy to call this place yours and it is all due to your foresight and planning.

To his family, be strong – the whole of Singapore is with you in your time of grief. 

#ThankyouLKY #RIPLKY #LeeKwanYew

In My Hands Today…

Posted on by
Reply

My Mother-In-Laws Son – Josephine Chia

My Mother-In-Law’s Son centers round a Peranakan woman, Swee Gek, who is in an abusive marriage but is constrained by the limitations of women in her time to take positive action.

Her marriage is further strained by Choy Yan, the eponymous Mother-In-Law of the title whose values are archaic and patriarchal. Taking place in a 1949 -1950 Singapore that is just recovering from the onslaught of the Japanese War, Swee Gek’s Chinese husband, Wong Kum Chong, is inadvertently drawn into participating in Communist activity against the Colonial Government by a communist agitator, Teng Xin Nan.

Narrated from the perspectives of different characters, My Mother-In-Law’s Son is a revealing story of a Singapore and her people struggling to find their feet in the aftermath of a war. It also shows how people going through difficult circumstances can be susceptible to revolutionary ideas. Through Swee Gek’s personal fight against her oppressors, this novel also explores the meaning of love: of whether love can be unconditional or that it is always accompanied by possessiveness.