I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Goodbye Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Together with Ed McMahon, it makes three this week. It is a sad week. To be honest, I only really knew Michael Jackson. But it starts to get surreal when people you know from watching them growing up start dropping off.

What I don’t get is how everyone gets celebrated only when they’re dead. Suddenly, Michael Jackson is remembered as the King of Pop again. After years of being labelled a paedophile, a looney bin, disturbed, broke and in denial; when he’s dead – he’s a humanitarian, a talent, a gifted entertainer. They’re playing his songs on the radio now. Over and over. Only when he’s dead. Nice.

Honesty is such a lonely word.

Collectively, and generally, Asians are at a disadvantage with some of the principles of Marketing.

Culturally, we are incalcated with a value system that discourages praise – self or otherwise. Parents didn’t talk up their kids to their friends, (well brought up) kids are taught not to gloat, teachers didn’t dispense gold-stars and pats on the back. It was supposed to instill a sense of modesty, an understated quest to outdo and surpass.

It’s changing. While I grew up in the “tough love” era where my dad talked down our accomplishments (if at all), hailing our idiocy instead of our successes, it’s surely different now. My dad hangs on every word my brother’s kids say, lauding it as the smartest thing in the universe. Their actions are written in his book as “curiousity” or “being perceptive”, while mine were categorised as “being kaypoh”. My friends who are now parents will proudly wear their kids’ accomplishments on their sleeves like a badge of honour. They should. There are other ways to show your kids to strive. There are better ways to get them to achieve even more. They need to learn to market themselves. Unabashedly.

Subtlety and the elegance of modesty is all but lost. Entertainment is loud, senses are lost, the world has lost some of it’s old world charm. Kids need the confidence to sell themselves proudly, and grow into adults who will do the same. It would be great if they could do it in a dignified manner, but nuances are often lost. I get that. But being good at something isn’t something they should hope people see in them – they need to be assertive enough to make sure people do when necessary. The world we live in moves to a different tune, and it’s not light chamber music anymore.

Case in point: The Singapore Airlines CEO is taking a 20% pay cut for the year. Doesn’t sound like much. The British Airways CEO is working for free next month. What a hero.

It’s all about perception. There will be fewer and fewer who will be able to make the numbers out.

So there you go. Teach your kids to speak for themselves. Teach your kids to be proud of their achievements, and to be earnest about it. Not coy, not fakely modest. Hopefully while you’re at it though, take the effort to spare your friends and family from over-embellished versions of your kids achievements, it’s not a competition. Be earnest, not coy, not fakely modest.

It’s fast becoming a survival skill. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

There. Spoken like someone who doesn’t have kids!

I just read a bunch of skin-crawlingly saccharine-sweet-to-the-point-I’m-going-to-throw-up blog entries from a classmate from eons ago. Who’d have guessed that with our education and grounding we’d veer so far apart on the likeness scale? This is someone I used to hang out with. A fair bit too. But that was eons ago.

I notice that people place emphasis on some way of defining themselves. An identity. She seems to identify with being a wife. Which is nice. It seems she used to teach. I respect that. It helps us figure out who they are, I suppose.

The thing I’ve learnt about being here in the US (besides them flagging things like dreamt, learnt in the spell check as errors – get with the programme!) is that everyone has some need to be heard. Everyone has an opinion, and it’s the collective freaking obligation of everyone else and their pet alligator to indulge it; redundant, ignorant, and completely irrelevant as it may be. Restraint and subtlety are notions people whisper about in the corridors, but hey, who’s ever seen or heard it?

And just when I think I’m above it all, and I’m looking down on the world, dispensing my pearls of wisdom, I realise in my quest to not identify, I have. In trying to make what I say count, I’ve said too much. I’m the fervent anti-identity! And I’ve to blog every time I feel that need to rant!

Perhap, to give definition to something is also to shape the opposite. Afterall, there isn’t good without evil. Right without wrong. I hope, when I’m through with it, I’m nothing. But my goal remains elusive. Because being nothing is something.

So for now I’ll content myself with bringing some balance to the force. For every lovey dovey account of her “hubby”, I’ll admit to my slow descent into being tubby. For every time she spews out complicated sentences that sound like a copywriter’s canned message, I’m crafting my revenge. With choppy sentences.

I like bugs. Some bugs. Mostly the ones that don’t fly at me. And are at least 2 feet away. I prefer photos of them. Ok, I like bug macros. Fascinating, like watching cows chew grass. It’s gross. But I can’t look away.

When I was nine, and we went to Europe during the June holidays, I got many startled looks when I spoke to storekeepers and locals in English. Not in a bad way. They were mostly surprised that I spoke it at all. I put it down to them not seeing many Singaporeans. I thought I must’ve been one of the first Singaporean kids they’ve ever met. Maybe.

Almost 20 years later, on my first trip to the US, someone at Customs asked me where I was from. I said, Singapore. He said, Really? Where did you learn to speak English like that?

“Sesame Street”

People still laugh when I readily admit I spent my childhood afternoons watching TV. KF’s nephews and nieces have been programmed (perhaps rightly so) to think of it as an activity to indulge in moderation. In my childhood, with no one really to stop me, it was the only thing I looked forward to, besides my grandma’s lunch. And probably a lifeline for my monolingual father. My Cantonese-speaking grandmother watched me for most part of the day. My dad says I could only speak Cantonese growing up. When I went to kindergarten, the kids all spoke Mandarin or Hokkien. The teachers spoke mostly Mandarin. I remember my favourite teacher, the one who used to walk me home sometimes – she spoke to me in Mandarin.

So I’m neither lying nor kidding when I state that I learnt English from watching Sesame Street. And the Electric Company. And everything else on the telly after that, Art Attack, some Bonanza, and Kung Fu.

I remember wondering why Kwai Chang Caine spoke so slowly. I thought, wow, he must not really be Chinese if he spoke Chinese so badly. He isn’t. Though he’s got some strangely Asian eyes.

Anyway. Thank you, David Carradine, for being my afternoon entertainment all those years ago. See you later, Grasshopper.

And this makes post #800. Took me 5.5 years or so. Not terribly prolific, I’m afraid.

A lot of things have happened in 5 and a half years. Ch-ch-cha-changes. What’s for sure – time is no longer on my side. Yeah, it never was, but you don’t know that in your 20s. The youth that I took for granted is fast wearing thin. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. In fact, I don’t know what I’m looking for. Or if I’m even looking. Peeking, maybe.

I suppose this is where the argument for having kids should kick in, and perhaps miraculously answer everything, or give meaning to anything. But unable to make that leap, that boat too is soon setting off from the harbour and at some point I will miss even that. But the ticket price is hefty, and I’m still a cheapie.

I wonder if I’ll look back on my 30s and think of it as losing more than I’ve gained. Like a sick reversal of youth. I wonder, looking ahead, if it’ll get worse. If this is payback for the semi-charmed life I used to lead.

Ah, life. Wondrous and monstrous at once.