My picture

This court, this hall, this sport. Carpetted flooring, seats for supporters. This is where I belong.

Pls comment to suggest how this story can turn out to be.

My description of scenic picture

This is a picture I took from the web.
Clouds like large, fresh marshmallows floating in an anti gravity oven, drifting at their own will. Well-crafted rocks glistering under the crimson sun, right above the crystal clear water, corals can be seen through the shallow ocean. In the background, pine trees at designated positions, offering sought after shade. A centre for optimum relaxation, full of serenity.

Short Story: The Identity of a Singaporean

Short Story: The Identity of a Singaporean (revised)

“We the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people…” I never imagined myself, as a former US citizen, to be reciting this pledge of allegiance to Singapore. It has been an exciting decade since I set foot on this “Little Red Dot”. Everything changed, from my taste for food to my strong American accent. And this is how my story goes…

Mark Sullivan, division manager of BCAIC Inc. , hails from New York, USA, has 2 young daughters and a loving wife. I have just been seconded to Singapore, with a task to expand the business locally. Having heard many horror stories about Singapore, I thought I would be in for a rough ride. Nevertheless, I had to put food on the table for my family, so I can only proceed as planned.

“Good morning passengers, I am your captain for today!” A broadcast was made over the PA system. With both hands filled with bags, I chucked them into the overhead compartment and plunged into my seat. The flight was smooth and the service was excellent. The air stewardesses were all helpful and meticulous, every one of my needs was satisfied, I believe my family enjoyed it much as well. This was my first taste of the professional, award-winning, Singapore International Airlines, which I would never forget.

Our first week in Singapore was all on administrative matters. After that, it was all about work and living the life as a Singaporean. Our family went to all of the renowned places such as the Zoological Gardens, Sentosa and Botanical Garden, etc. We experienced a variety of activities. Together with Singapore’s efficient education system, my daughters were both enrolled in a local kindergarten in no time, while my wife stayed at home and kept herself busy with other expatriates wife and of course our household chores were all taken care of by our Filipino helper. This was when my time in Singapore got interesting.

During a meeting with one of Singapore’s well-developed organizations, Mr Bean, I realized that Singaporeans were very efficient and professional and what they call it, kiasu. The representative that conversed with me shared with me about Singapore’s way of working, he even told me about the word “kiasu”, which from what I understood is known as being afraid of losing out to others. For example, Chinese New Year is coming up; many “kiasu” families have multiple bookings with several restaurants even before they were open for reunion dinner reservations.

There was once were my colleague introduced my family to this unique pastime called “prawn fishing”, from what I had understood it was a time for relaxation where anybody could come and fish for prawns in an enclosed pond for just thirty Singapore dollars every three hours, I was something which my family enjoyed a lot. We never even knew there was such a thing in the world! At the prawn fishing area near East Coast Park, my family decided to take up the three hours of fishing as it’s something we would not be able to do again. The stall owner was so kind that he allowed us to have another hour free! My daughters were ecstatic when they had caught their first prawn. To our surprise, we only realized after we were done that we allowed to keep the prawns we caught! The friendly and kind stall owner even threw in a few more for the trip home. We ask the stall owner for things to do at the beach just next door. He told us that we could utilize the “free” barbecue pits at the beach. My family was stunned by the fact that a barbecue pit was free! Nothing, I mean nothing was free in New York, even tissues. We were all really happy with Singapore’s way of life. That day, we spent the day at the beach. Barbecuing our fresh prawns, swimming at the ocean, having a whale of a time. I’ve never seen my family this happy before! It made me feel great. However, that night my younger daughter fell terribly ill being under the sun for most of the day and not being hydrated. At 2am, my wife and I brought here to the nearby hospital, Raffles hospital, to our surprise during the wee hours of the morning there were still many people working there, always on the watch, always ready. My daughter was prescribed with medicine and within a few days, she was back in top form.

My impression of Singapore had already started to change. Not only were the people friendly and easy to converse with, they were also kind and helpful. Unlike in New York, it was like the survival of the fittest; colleagues were pitting against each other and never helping one another out with work. After only being exposed to the Singapore style of work, I finally realized that life here was not that bad. In Singapore, people work together as a group and not individually.

Surprisingly, I have developed an immense liking for chilli. Similar to all other Singaporeans, I have started to eat chilli with basically everything. One day after work, my wife and I gathered the children and went out for dinner at this special place near my office which was highly recommended by my Singaporean colleague, Lau Pat Sat. At first, the one thing that captured all our eyes was the portable stalls that were lined up at the entrance of the food centre. The distinct smell of barbecued chicken and mutton kebabs filled the air, which later I was told that they were called satay. The atmosphere of the hawker centre was amazing; people from different races and background were coming together and enjoying the food they love. Their love for food was just indescribable. One of the favourite Singaporean pastimes is eating, especially eating out. Stall owners were friendly and helpful, from what I observed, they gave me a larger portion compared to the other locals; I guess this is their way of showing their generosity? That night, our family had a whale of a time, unexpectedly there was an elevated stage right smack in the middle of the hawker centre which was used for musician to entertain the patrons with soothing music, which was something very creative, on the contrary in New York there’s no such thing as a hawker centre.

One more thing that I noticed was that Singapore’s cleanliness is highly commendable. I was told that the cleanliness is due to Singapore being a “fine” society. Apparently, imposing of fines is a common thing here, from littering to jaywalking to speeding. I’ve also caught on the Singaporean way of speaking, Singlish. Apparently, the use of expressions such as “la”, “lor”, “hor”, “ah” is extremely common among the locals. Over time, I soon find myself lapsing into the use of these expressions. I enjoyed every bit of my stay here and soon I realized that my older daughter is eligible for Primary 1 registration and thus decided to take up the government’s offer of Singapore citizenship to secure her a place in a reputable local school.

“I, Mark Sullivan, hereby renounce my US citizenship to become a citizen of Singapore.” Today, both my daughters are in renowned secondary schools with fluency in both mandarin and English. From then, I never looked back.

Done by: Tan Wei Jin(24)

2o3

Telephone Conversation - Wole Soyinka

I am going to analyse this poem and answer a few questions:

1. This poem is full of colours not just that of skin, what do you think these colours signify?
2. What does the dialogue in this poem reveal about these two characters?
3. The poet dramatises a battle, who wins finally and why?

The poem is about a telephone conversation in England between the poetic persona seeking to rent a house and an English landlady who completely changes her attitude towards him after he reveals his identity as a black African.

Ans 1: The landlady also discriminates the poet by saying things like “ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?”, this is racism, the landlady is just insulting the poet by making fun of his skin colour. The poet uses sentence fragments, “Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered / Omnibus squelching tar”, to describe the persona’s frantic attempt to ascertain the situation. The diction “red”,which is connotative of terror and disturbance, is used three times to highlight the extreme mental discomfort of an African man, who referred to city buses, again humorously, as the idiomatic “omnibus”.

Ans 2: He was happy about the privacy that he believed that he would enjoy, for “The landlady swore she lived / Off premises.” At this stage, we get to know that the two were engaged in a telephone conversation, which, however, was to come quickly to an unpleasant end as the man decided to reveal his nationality - “Madam,” I warned. / “I hate a wasted journey – I am African.” A sudden, unexpected hush of silence is strengthened by a caesura in line 6 of the poem to emphasize the impact of the African’s race being revealed to the landlady. The landlady asked “HOW DARK?” The poet uses capital letters here, and a lot more to come, to accentuate the landlady’s effort in seeking clarification for something that would have been irrelevant to their previous topic, yet it mattered a lot to her. “I had not misheard”, the persona reflected. Before he was able to respond, the landlady asked again, “ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” reinforcing the racist overtone in the English society today. The woman’s pushy, unequivocal stance in pursuing the answer dumbfounded the man, who was so confused and so taken aback by the landlady’s sudden change of attitude that he suddenly appeared to have a blank mind. The automation imagery “Button B. Button A” that the poet uses here not only vividly shows the man’s temporary confusion, but also humorously foreshadows the intelligence contest that is to follow.

Ans 3: The victory the persona had over the landlady in this part of the conversation demonstrates the obvious difference in their education and knowledge, also illustrating the fact that beyond the landlady’s lavish exterior, she was simply a shallow judgmental racist.

The importance of setting in a story

New post!
I will be answering the following questions for 3 questions:

• Where has each of the above stories been set?
• What time period has each of those stories been set in?
• What clues do you get from the setting about the kind of story it is going to turn out to be?

1st story
The Real Durwan by Jhumpa Lahiri

1. Calcutta, India.
   
2. Around the 1950s.
   
3. The story starts off with a depressing sentence, " Boori Ma the sweeper of the stairwell had not slept in two nights, so the morning before the third night she shook the mites out of the building". Boori Ma has not slept in two nights and her living conditions were so bad that she had a ton of mites on her bed that she had to shake them off. The setting tells me that the story is going to be sad, unhappy.

2nd story
The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1. Baker street, London, Britain.
2. 19th Century.
3. The story starts off, " On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace;" In the story, the person has around seventy cases which has studied about Sherlock Holmes, he has only recently made progress, discovery but however was not able to link the cases together. To add on, Sherlock Holmes lives in Central London and is a rich and reputable dec I get the impression that this story will be about mysteries and new discoveries.

3rd story
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

1. Town in England
   
2. 18th Century
   
3. This story is special, it starts of with a statement," IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." From this, I can deduce that this story is going to be something about a man who is rich and is in want of a wife, however he faces some problems when trying to get her.

In to kill a mockingbird, the first chapter is basically the background information of Jean Louise Finch both family and friends, the start of her friendship with Dill. It is merely a general chapter of her background.

Thats it. I will be posting again soon.
Sincerely,
Wei Jin