Whinges of an Alien

The bus ride back to my little room rented from a human family takes about 35 minutes every evening, and passes by many HDB flats (The Singapore government built flats, HDB stands for Housing and Development Board) in Chinese housing area including the China Town. Since mid August, I have been noticing a lot of burning of candles, prayer paper that represents "hell money", joss sticks, and paper replicas of luxury items in these areas. There are also some heavily decorated stages and tents set up in various areas, completed with altars and amazingly, karaokes! It looks like something really big is going on. Aahhhhh... it's one of the most important Chinese festivals in Singapore: The Hungry Ghost Festival! The festival which the Chinese believe that the hell gate would open and free all underworld souls to wander amongst the livings' world. All that burnings are the humans' offerings to feed these hungry and perhaps greedy ghosts, so that they shall not disturb or...

TVs are so common these days. You've got one, she's got two, he's got three (except poor me who is now trapped in a humble room who does not have access to one); and now even the fish!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw this in Suntec City. How on earth did that big TV screen get into the aquarium?!! Well obviously some technicians and engineers helped, of course, I'm not an idiot. But why??? I know this is really 'different', and 'innovative', to humans' standard. The business owner must have thought: "Hmmm... the wall looks kinda empty here, let's build an aquarium and keep some colourful and lucky kois to boost our business." When the big, world-class aquarium is installed: "Hmmm... the fish look kinda lonely and bored. Oh why don't we give them some entertainment? Let's place a TV in there. Fantastic! That way the aquarium would look soooo "out of the box" (a phrase the Singaporeans use literal...

A usual morning, a routine tea and toast breakfast down the sandwich place, with my usual half closed/half opened eyes. The lady at the counter is as grumpy as usual, Singapore is as hectic as it usually can be. A young bloke caught my eye. A young, trendy looking bloke whom I guess works in an advertising agency or some sort of design industry (according to years of observations and experience in the industry myself) from his "smart-casual" outfit. Standing in the queue, he has a short flask in his hand. I am curious: is he planning to do what I am hoping that he is? I have already finished my breakie, but I decided to stay for a bit due to my nosey nature. And... YES! When it came to his turn at the counter, he handed over his flask for his takeaway coffee! YAY! Someone is doing the things that the few of us are doing! One more to the club! The hope is out there! [I nearly went up there and gave him a bear hug, but thought I'd better not scare his little effort away so ...