TV Mobile

So I was on the public bus these past days for one reason or another. The car being out of commission until the weekend. What hit me while on the bus was not the sardine-like conditions but the incessant noise emanating from the TV Mobile console.

For those not familiar with TV Mobile. It's the brand name of a free-to-air TV station on most public buses in Singapore. Commuters get to watch news and re-runs of local TV programme while on the bus. Not a bad idea until you realise that the volume is perpetually turned up to drown out the engine noise. I suspect this is done so that the advertisements may be heard regardless of traffic and crowd conditions.


Photo credit: www.coverville.com

TV images I can ignore but it's really hard to even think properly when I have the equivalent of someone shouting into my ears for the entire journey. I don't need to know, for the 101st time, that MacDonald's is giving away $10,000 dollars in a lucky draw. And I certainly don't need the entire cast of Phua Chu Kang teaching me the finer points of Singlish.

There is absolutely no private space on public buses nowadays. Not even private space for personal thoughts. I'm very sure that there are laws against such things in enlightened countries.

God Jul och Gott Nytt

Peace and goodwill to all men


Image credit: www.hotlib.com

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christmas

Lest we forget

Humanity has the propensity to treat one another in the most depraved manner. Occasionally a spark of hope may shine through the darkness.


Photo credit: www.cartercenter.org

My wish this time of the year is for everyone to treat one another with respect and dignity.

Have a peaceful and silent night tonight. Wherever you are in the world.

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peace

Carcel de Caseros

One of the most notorious prison in Argentina has finally been demolished last week, according to a BCC report today. The Carcel de Caseros (Caseros Prison) was a place where dissendents of past regimes in Argentina were incarcerated and "disappeared."

The International Herald Tribune reported on August 7, 2007,

...The Cárcel de Caseros is considered to have been among Argentina's most inhumane prisons under Jorge Rafael Videla's brutal military dictatorship from 1976 to 1981.

What made Caseros worse than many other prisons was the lack of direct sunlight. Prisoners grew sickly from lack of vitamin D. Their skin turned green and flaked off, and their teeth, hair and eyesight deteriorated...

And instead of killings and physical tortures, the prison was constructed in such a way to exert psychological pressure on inmates. The walls were painted in garish colours and built in a way that disoriented the senses. Numerous prisoners committed suicide because of that.


Photo credit: fadwebsite.com

It is perhaps fitting that someone has made an art piece out of the deserted building. Using the broken glass of the facade windows to create a light illusion of faces staring out from the prison, Seth Wulsin won admiration from the Argentine public, some of them ex-detainees. The faces shimmered in the sunlight and, depending on where the observer was standing, not all were visible simultaneously. Some disappeared when the angle of the light changed with the passing hour.

It is an example of art that heals. All the more apt as, day by day, the building was demolished in stages, the faces disappeared forever. An ephemeral memorial to those who were "disappeared" and perhaps laying past ghosts to rest.

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art

Winter solstice

So once again we are at the turning point of the year. The northern hemisphere is experiencing its longest night. The winter solstice falls on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month of the Chinese calendar (十一月十三日) this year.

It's strange that I should remember and mark this astronomical event every year. The quietness of a dark night appeals to me more than the noise and light of other occasions like Christmas or Chinese New Year. I can imagine a family reunited for dinner on the longest night of the year.


Image credit: baidu.com

Of course, it's quite nonsensical to talk about a long, dark winter's night while I live right smack on the Equator where the climate is perpetually hot and humid. Maybe that's why I find it mind-numbingly stifling here. The weather is a metaphor of the mindset here in 1984-ville. Every where I turn to, people go to the same malls for leisure. Everyone lives in perpetual fear of losing their jobs, or of not getting their yearly bonus. The conversation topics revolve around property prices, public and private transport taxes. The weather is hot, humid and nothing else. We wear the same kinds of clothes the whole year round. And every household overworks its System 4 Inverters.

Nobody looks up at the sky anymore. We are losing our individual and collective souls. When was the last time you saw a shooting star? Really...

Pause and think about what it means to be in-sync with your inner soul as you go about completing the last-minute shopping. What is it to be human?

I wish you peace.