Thursday, April 28, 2005

Kah Mee Optical Co

It was nice of my father to drive me to work as I forogt my wallet once again and had to get a taxi to work. On the journey, our motercycle went passed Tiong Bahru and I noticed this Kah Mee optical shop. I've been to Tiong Bahru for many times, but I never really notice this shop before and today it was the first time I knew where the actual location and how it looks like. Kah Mee optical shop is a popular optical shop in Singapore. However it was neither a big megastore nor a branded name by itself. In fact it is just a small neighbourhood shop in a old housing estate. But what makes Kah Mee popular was their TV commercial. "Is your vision blur and unclear? Tiong Bahru's Kah Mee Optical Co. is your only solution!" This slogan, together with the nolstalgic and oriental-sounding jingle, has never changed all these years, since the first time I saw their commercial when I was young. They have become such a familiar thing that once the music came up everybody knew what commercial it was. Even now, the music of their jingle is still ringing in my head...

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Singapore Idiot

I was walking across the overhead bridge to take a bus to work and as I almost reached the other side of the bridge, I realised that I had forgot to take my wallet and hence had to turn back to head for home. On my way down the bridge, I saw this middle-aged man with a walking stick taking small steps down the flight of steps. Poor thing, I thought. I saw him walking towards my direction when I walked up the steps, and now that I've made an u-turn, he was still there. I wish I could help, but I couldn't since it was his weak legs which prevented him from walking faster. This made me remind of an incident which happened during the Chinese New Year period at Chinatown.

My parents and I were shopping at Chinatown and after sometimes, we decided to cross over to People's Park market. Hence we went up the sky garden and proceed to the stairs at People's Park Complex. For people who have been there, the stairs down the People's Park Complex isn't very wide, at most it can only accomodate two person walking side by side. At that moment there was this old lady with weak legs walking slowly down that flight of stairs. Behind was was a young couple walking hand in hand, side by side. There was a huge jam behind and they were oblivious to it. I think they must be siamese twins stuck together at their palms and maybe waists, or that tearing their hands apart will cause them excessive bleeding from all parts of their body and would make them die within seconds. Even if they can't bear to break up their clutches, I don't think it takes great intelligence to just bypass the old lady by not walking line-abreast for a few seconds? I was so fed up that I wish I could just scream at the couple, but since I was with my parents, I decided to restrain myself. Surprisingly, no one behind me made any noise either!

To that couple who might be reading this (I hope they did!), congratulations! You've been awarded the title of Singapore Idiot! I hope you two go and make a big name tag out of it and wear it wherever whenever, so that everybody will know how stupid you two are! Shame on you!

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

The "Death" of TV Talents In Singapore

Recently in conjunction with the NKF charity shows, there was this commercial running on TV. In this commercial, a customer in a restaurant was having his meal when he was interrupted by the conversation of 2 groups of people whom had won some prizes after SMSing to some numbers. I wonderhow the producers of this commercial got these "talents" from, because except for the customer, none of the other supporting cast can act! For instance, there's this guy who exclaimed that he had won $2888 worth of cash with his girlfriend's eyes wide with excitement. To me it seemed that they had never won anything in their life before because they were simply too fake. "Wow! I've won myself $2888 cash!" "Oh yeah! You must be either lying under your nose or your prize is only $2.80!", I thought. It was so unreal! And the next pair were even more fake. "Wow! I won myself a limited set of Farrari laptop!". "Yah you don't seemed too interested. Give it to me then!". For goodness sake, can someone find better talents than these? If we are going to keep recycling these bunch of bad actors, soon the TV talent pool in Singapore will just die a natural death.

Dignity and Old Age

My impression of an average eldery person is someone who is gracious and has an air of dignity around him or her. However such elderly people are hard to find.

Just this morning, I saw an old lady just snatching a seat away from a secondary school girl. This school girl was just placing her bag on the seat by the bus stop, and this old lady just came up next to the girl, sweep the surface of the seat with her hands and then just sat down, ignoring that school girl completely. I don't know what was on the mind of this old lady. Does she think she has the right of way to everything just because she is old? Such instances of ungracious eldery people are countless. Not forgetting "kiasu" eldery people who shove and push people aside while boarding the bus so as to get a good seat.

No wonder some people do not want to give up seats to these eldery people, because to me, they simply do not deserve this kind of good treatment!

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Disgusting Bus Trip

It was raining cats and dogs during the evening peak hours, and as usual, roads were packed with vehicles and buses were packed with passengers. I boarded a bus at Bugis Junction and found myself a comfortable place to stand.

After a few bus stops, passengers from the rear started to alight and I had to move in to allow more passengers to board. And there in front of me was this big size guy sitting there listening to his earphone. He was in his twenties, maybe a few years younger than me. He did not caught my attention initially, but later I noticed that he kept scratching his head. But that is not all; after scratching his head, he'll examine his fingernails, smell them, and then put his fingers in his mouth! And the process went on and on throughout the journey. I felt totally disgusted, and if I had a frying pan with me then, I would sure knock him out cold! What was he thinking? He thought his head is a beehive and his scalp is oozing out honey? Or a chimpanzee looking for some tasty headlice? I can't imagine how can one do such a gross act while ignoring how other people may think and feel!

Thank god my ordeal only lasted for about 20 minutes before I reached my home and got off the bus.

Studio Recording at MediaCorps

Yesterday night I and my team mates from Chinese opera were at MediaCorps doing recording for one of the segments for the new season of "Top Fun" variety show. We were told to assemble at 6.30pm, but we reached there at around 5.30pm so that we could be better prepared. However we were later informed that the actual recording was at 8pm, leaving us with nothing but agony. Last year, I was in the audience during one of "Zong Yi Da Ge Da"'s studio recording sessions in Taipei, and there were so many NGs and retakes that it was no longer fun to be audience. We were at the TV station at 4pm, but could only enter the studio at 6pm, and by the time the recording for this 1-hour variety show was over, it was way past 10pm. This time round, it was much better as the recording took only 2 hours to complete. In this segment where contestants showed off their skills at impersonating pop stars, they had to also do an impromptu act of Chinese opera performance. Lifeng was the "model performer" and she was to sing and act a short selection of song backed up a 4 man orchestra, in which I was the main percussionist, and the contestants were supposed to sing together with the music after a few short rehearsals. Throughout our stay at the studio, nobody came to interact with us, but I guess it was normal for we are considered a bunch of "niche" people whom other people can't associate with easily. However, as we were about to leave, one of the celebrity guests, Celest Chong, came up to Lifeng and talked to her. Although I couldn't hear what they talked about due to my distance from them, but I heard something about being interested in Chinese opera and wanted to learn. That was something memorable, thoughshe's not the first celebrity actress I've came across that's so friendly and humble, but she actually initiated the conversation. I did not think too much of Celest in the past, but I think she changed my opinion about her now...