culture of cages
Would've wrote this yesterday after kan asked me "so whats your idea of what culture is?" and after watching the movie "cages". But i returned home a little late and sleeping after putting my spiffy expensive pressure-reducing "foreign-body sensation" causing eyedrops is important.
Not that it matters much now that i have to have my lense changed. And no, its not my spectacle lenses im talking about.
Its the lenses in my eye, the one with cataracts, the one with the 800+++ power. The cataracts has worsened to the point that its "ripened" (as i quote e doc) and my lens is now breaking down into pieces. He even showed me the photo of my eye, which shows me a very un-circular lens with a gap in my iris and a large clump of white stuff (my lens stuff) at the bottom. Overall it wasn't a very pretty sight, especially when you know its your eye you're looking at.
Anyway, this surgery will take place on the morning of wednesday, 28th March, at the Singapore National Eye Centre where in a short 15-20minutes the lens in my eye will be removed via a 2 point something millimetre incision at the corner of my cornea and replaced with an artificial lens with a power of 650 (cause i cant correct my left eye's power till im 21 and there needs to be balance)
After which, if dr yeo discovers that my torn iris has caused matter to fall into the back of the eye, he will proceed to remove it in a slightly more complicated surgery that will extend the process by an hour. I will be under general anaesthesia for the whole process due to this reason. The recovery will involve 1-2 weeks of home rest and a month after wherein my eye will be fragile and reddish. Total recovery time is 6months. (i think)
So i'm gonna miss all the fun stuff coming up, just like how i missed house comm and sc speeches and qna and how i missed signing up for sports day and voting for sc i will now miss arts day, sports day itself, presentation of faces of the year finalists and maybe even musicfest. How sad.
Now to yesterday where me, hoon, josh and david had a wonderful adventure rushing frantically (and running) to the cinema only to end up listening to the director's speech and watching GV's usual 20minute advertisments.
The movie attempts to preach some form of philosophy and ideas by packaging it nicely as a movie "close to heart". However despite its valiant attempts the plot fails with its jerkiness and lack of flow whilst the audio itself sounds dubbed at times and sometimes that spoils the flow, or mood of scenes. The part about tan the bird shop uncle being a minister once may be believable in Singapore due to our small size but would flop internationally where such an idea seems fantastical.
There is a part where ali (Tan Keng Hwa or however you spell it) says: "..we fear to love too much, to love to little" and some other lines that were forgettable/mumbled. I believe this is true mostly for Asian cultures such as Singapore.
We live our lives fearing many things, and in Singapore it is shown through our casual use of Kiasu (scared lose) and Kiasee (scared die). We fear being left behind, having lost out, having a bad reputation which, in a small place like here, means ending up with a bad future. As the chinese say, mian zi (face) is important and in singapore it is one of our most treasured possesions that we would do anything to protect.
We are trapped by our fears, many of us know that fear binds us, it makes our feet turn to stone and our hearts to water to flow away. In our culture of repressed ideas and a strong emphasis on strict obedience children grow up learning to fear their parents, failure, the loss of face and that restrains them. It makes them, the entire society, afraid to try, afraid to stand out, afraid to take the extra step that may bring a leap to mankind for fear they may be left behind as they took that step.
She said we fear to love too much, i prefer to think of it as a fear of reliance on others, that others are not predictable and may not be trusted and so we fear the repercussions of placing faith and trust in them. We fear losing the investment of our emotions for, living a risk-free life all along, we are not prepared for the pain and shock of emotional failure. She said we fear to love too little and in a singaporean context it tends to mean that we fear the talk that may come about as we fail to fit into the template of a "model citizen", loving and caring. We care about our face and our social standing and our popularity and image and reputation and so we cannot afford to seem to be uncaring, to love too little. Our Asian bonds make us puppet puppeteers of the puppet puppeteers around us as we jostle for control of the greatest number of strings, to gain the respect of more and the love of many. Though we can sometimes spend too much effort and time working to fit in, to gain advantage, to not lose out, that we end up entangled and restrained by the strings we've gained as we lose control of our emotions and as we realise that different people require different amounts of loving and we can never satisfy all.
We, as Singaporeans, have been told we cannot lose, that we have been born and are borne on the backs and bodies of our forefathers over rivers of blood and so we have a culture, a namesake and a tradition of success and perserverence to uphold. We are stressed out right from the first time we took the pledge, the first time we heard a minister speak. We live entrapped by the past of others and the future we want, unwilling to break free.
so dare to dare
Not that it matters much now that i have to have my lense changed. And no, its not my spectacle lenses im talking about.
Its the lenses in my eye, the one with cataracts, the one with the 800+++ power. The cataracts has worsened to the point that its "ripened" (as i quote e doc) and my lens is now breaking down into pieces. He even showed me the photo of my eye, which shows me a very un-circular lens with a gap in my iris and a large clump of white stuff (my lens stuff) at the bottom. Overall it wasn't a very pretty sight, especially when you know its your eye you're looking at.
Anyway, this surgery will take place on the morning of wednesday, 28th March, at the Singapore National Eye Centre where in a short 15-20minutes the lens in my eye will be removed via a 2 point something millimetre incision at the corner of my cornea and replaced with an artificial lens with a power of 650 (cause i cant correct my left eye's power till im 21 and there needs to be balance)
After which, if dr yeo discovers that my torn iris has caused matter to fall into the back of the eye, he will proceed to remove it in a slightly more complicated surgery that will extend the process by an hour. I will be under general anaesthesia for the whole process due to this reason. The recovery will involve 1-2 weeks of home rest and a month after wherein my eye will be fragile and reddish. Total recovery time is 6months. (i think)
So i'm gonna miss all the fun stuff coming up, just like how i missed house comm and sc speeches and qna and how i missed signing up for sports day and voting for sc i will now miss arts day, sports day itself, presentation of faces of the year finalists and maybe even musicfest. How sad.
Now to yesterday where me, hoon, josh and david had a wonderful adventure rushing frantically (and running) to the cinema only to end up listening to the director's speech and watching GV's usual 20minute advertisments.
The movie attempts to preach some form of philosophy and ideas by packaging it nicely as a movie "close to heart". However despite its valiant attempts the plot fails with its jerkiness and lack of flow whilst the audio itself sounds dubbed at times and sometimes that spoils the flow, or mood of scenes. The part about tan the bird shop uncle being a minister once may be believable in Singapore due to our small size but would flop internationally where such an idea seems fantastical.
There is a part where ali (Tan Keng Hwa or however you spell it) says: "..we fear to love too much, to love to little" and some other lines that were forgettable/mumbled. I believe this is true mostly for Asian cultures such as Singapore.
We live our lives fearing many things, and in Singapore it is shown through our casual use of Kiasu (scared lose) and Kiasee (scared die). We fear being left behind, having lost out, having a bad reputation which, in a small place like here, means ending up with a bad future. As the chinese say, mian zi (face) is important and in singapore it is one of our most treasured possesions that we would do anything to protect.
We are trapped by our fears, many of us know that fear binds us, it makes our feet turn to stone and our hearts to water to flow away. In our culture of repressed ideas and a strong emphasis on strict obedience children grow up learning to fear their parents, failure, the loss of face and that restrains them. It makes them, the entire society, afraid to try, afraid to stand out, afraid to take the extra step that may bring a leap to mankind for fear they may be left behind as they took that step.
She said we fear to love too much, i prefer to think of it as a fear of reliance on others, that others are not predictable and may not be trusted and so we fear the repercussions of placing faith and trust in them. We fear losing the investment of our emotions for, living a risk-free life all along, we are not prepared for the pain and shock of emotional failure. She said we fear to love too little and in a singaporean context it tends to mean that we fear the talk that may come about as we fail to fit into the template of a "model citizen", loving and caring. We care about our face and our social standing and our popularity and image and reputation and so we cannot afford to seem to be uncaring, to love too little. Our Asian bonds make us puppet puppeteers of the puppet puppeteers around us as we jostle for control of the greatest number of strings, to gain the respect of more and the love of many. Though we can sometimes spend too much effort and time working to fit in, to gain advantage, to not lose out, that we end up entangled and restrained by the strings we've gained as we lose control of our emotions and as we realise that different people require different amounts of loving and we can never satisfy all.
We, as Singaporeans, have been told we cannot lose, that we have been born and are borne on the backs and bodies of our forefathers over rivers of blood and so we have a culture, a namesake and a tradition of success and perserverence to uphold. We are stressed out right from the first time we took the pledge, the first time we heard a minister speak. We live entrapped by the past of others and the future we want, unwilling to break free.
so dare to dare
posted by slipperdan at 10:28 PM
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