it's a place which never fails to amaze me after so many years. even as it slowly deviates from the place in my memories, it's still fascinating to see the difference between what i remember and what it has become.
which is why i'm going back again.
each time i go on a different mood. 2004 was innocent, and the place still felt more british than chinese. 2005 was when i went in search of my ideal world, i found what i had in mind but was disappointed. 2006 was sweet, i went to do something i've never done before, and the atmosphere was jovial.
this year the mood is somewhat awkward. i'll be going with none of the above emotions. there's a purpose, but it's not strong. there's none of the metaphysical fluff that was present in the previous trips, and it'll never be as sweet.
i've experienced countless coincidences. some of them are mindless and you won't think about them a minute after it happened. others are more timeless and you could be made to think if they mean something. or maybe i hoped for them to mean something, but they didn't.
this one however, is out of the ordinary.
it's as good as... throwing a stone out of your window and by some freak accident it lands in the republic of chechnya. and it hits a person you know. and that person is the only person whom you know to be residing in that part of the world.
no, not a good example. keep the stone, keep the part about it landing in chechnya, change the person that it hits. the stone still hits a person that you know. but that person isn't supposed to be in chechnya at all. all along you thought he's in belarus.
ah, yes, that might be closer.
or maybe russia is too near to singapore to illustrate the odds of this happening. shift the whole episode westwards, let the stone land in rio de janeiro hitting someone who's supposed to be in sau paulo. ok, almost there.
now, suppose the stone kills the person, and the local police dig into his pockets, and uncover the watergate scandal.
there's perhaps a one in a million chance fore each component in this sequence of events to happen. for them to happen altogether, and in the right order, is mind blowing.
the only more obscure case that i've heard would be how god played with vinci, one fine day in autumn.
the media's bias towards obama did get discussed in the local media after all, 6 days after my previous post. to me the identity of the press just seems to reinforce the point: read article
last week i discovered that i am a victim of DBS in the lehman brothers' collapse too. back in 2004 i put half of my savings in a structured product and never checked back. as it reached maturity the fund manager called me to announce that i've been hit too.
i lost a grand total of $57, because the composition of lehman brothers in my fund was relatively small. that has been, erm, my closest encounter with the prevailing economic tsunami so far. i should consider myself lucky.
since we're on the topic let's talk about a bank today. the HSBC headquarters in central, hong kong, designed by lord foster of thames. i would have wanted to become an architect if not for my disabilities (in mathematics and drawing). but i'm still fascinated by the art, so there.
the headquarters of HSBC is an interesting subject. at the time it was built (in 1986), it was the most expensive building ever constructed. and that's because the project was logic-defying. instead of sourcing for the cheapest materials available, HSBC imported almost every single ounce of the tower from britain.
and the british claimed that it had never tried to siphon money out of its colony in the few years before its lease of hong kong expired.
few buildings in the world have designs that are so intertwined with political and supernatural factors. HSBC had made all future governments of hong kong promise that its view of victoria harbour will never be blocked.
the lion statues guarding its front doors never ceased seeking attention. one of them had an explosive lodged by the japanese during world war ii and it wasn't discovered and removed till the 1990s. the other was allegedly recast with its mouth closed, because a previous rendition with an open mouth apparently came alive and harrassed the public at night.
the cannon-looking structure on its top is not a service crane. it is merely a cannon-looking structure. when bank of china building came up in 1990, its sharp edges apparently hurt the fengshui of HSBC so much, the cannons were installed as retaliation. things seem to have been neutralised since then.
even the design of the building itself gave rise to conspiracy theories. locals believed that it's designed to enable dismantling. and in the climate of fear and uncertainty after tian'anmen, they alleged that HSBC could dismantle the whole building and move it to london. to me, it's too good a story not to believe.
architecturally, it is an unquestioned masterpiece.
the modular structure means there're only a total of 8 pillars in 2 columns altogether. that's remarkable for a building of its size. its facade remain ahead of its time even for today.
its proximity to the sea allows sea water to be used as the toilet flushing agent and coolant for air-conditioning. how many buildings can do that in singapore?
there is also a bank of giant mirrors at the top of the atrium, which can reflect natural sunlight into the atrium and hence down into the plaza. countless hours of my childhood were spent looking up from the atrium admiring the breathtaking design.
on sundays though, the atrium serves the same function as lucky plaza in singapore. which is a shame.
or maybe not. because lord foster's design gets truly utilised and appreciated.
horizontal at 11:42 PM
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
lecture series: govern by media
as a remedy to the lack of mental stimulation over the past 6 months, i have decided to bring back the lecture series. hopefully i can get myself to think as much as i seem on this blog.
i should be on duty at the time the results of the US presidential election are revealed. by the next time i can touch this blog, barack obama would have been confirmed as the 44th president of the united states.
this election has had the longest campaign ever. it began around a million years ago and had the most unconventional of candidates, in zhongwen's words: 女人，老人，跟黑人。
as things progress the competition seems to have died down. when the woman got eliminated it became a skewed race, when one party had a clear lead and the other looked set for defeat.
but is that really the case?
this year, the media probably had a larger say than it ever did in any election anywhere in the world. and it so happens that all of them decided to make you believe obama would win. and when this happens, obama would really win.
but the motive of any profit driven media organisation is to catch your attention. a charming half-black man looking confident would undoubtedly have more appeal than a war veteran who's equally confident. so when individual mediums show more of obama so as to catch more eyes so as to attract more adverts, the old man suddenly looks mild. because you see so little of him.
i remember a regular telling another regular, before i came to clementi station, that to get the OC to notice you, you should be either extraordinarily good-looking or extraordinarily loud. and if you're not the former you can always be the latter. and when you're the latter it doesn't matter whether the attention is good or bad.
whoever controls the media always controls the vote. which is why britain's voters were upset when tony blair got too close to rupert murdoch. then they changed the prime minister, and britain got even more upset. because brown isn't good-looking, or loud. he's even half blind.
sentimentally the people of singapore want obama to win. because we want to see america (and ultimately the world) governed by someone who's not white for the first time. which is why the foreign media, which in no way benefits from the election, seems to lean towards obama as well.
which is why when you ask a hundred people in toa payoh hub on a weekday afternoon who they want to see winning, all of them would say obama.
few realise that obama is fiercely protectionistic and if he wins singapore is going to get hit badly. few also realise what's going to happen when obama discovers that he can't fulfill his promise of withdrawing without leaving behind a chaotic region.
the discussion about how the media has been pro-obama during this election is gaining momentum. but i doubt it will be widely discussed in singapore. because if you get funny ideas you may be suddenly enlightened on how our country is, or should be governed, as well.
oops, i'm approaching the no-entry marker. i shall stop here.
horizontal at 11:55 PM
Sunday, October 26, 2008
penniless in beijing
it has become one of my recent recurring dreams. to be alone and penniless on the streets of beijing.
why i would have such weird dreams is anyone's guess. they usually begin when i'm in a corner of beijing i've been to, say, the "acrobatics macrocosm" or the temple of heaven (天坛). i would be penniless, but dressed the way i am normally. my mission was to find my way back "home".
"home" and beijing shouldn't link. but i've been to beijing 4 times and stayed at a different place each time. sometimes for up to a month, so there's indeed a feeling of "home". my dad has said to me once, 家人在哪里，哪里就是家。
this was my guiding principle through these recurring dreams.
in each of these dreams, my final destination is always furthest from the point i start out with. i had no money so i had to walk. i would then navigate through the streets, with a map of beijing in my head. some buildings and landmarks in these dreams don't exist in reality. but the map does, and i followed it. i even had clear concepts of the "ring roads" while i was navigating. and i always reached home, eventually.
an amazing feat given the fact that my geographical knowledge of beijing is perhaps D-grade like my math - passable but not good.
by right these should be nightmares. but they were also blessings in disguise as i got to revisit many places of significant value (to me, not to UNESCO). i've almost forgotten how 西单 looks, but these dreams refreshed me, with olympic posters included. their resemblance to real life varies each time.
and so i shall not read too deep into them. and be thankful.
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this was the political commerical for kuomintang in the 2008 presidential elections in taiwan. i'm no taiwanese. but this ad was so well done it almost moved me to tears.
horizontal at 10:42 PM
