Jolly Folly, Mighty Morphin'

I was back at Fullerton last night.

Might have been the towering pillars and high roof that made the place exude this familiar sense of grandeur, silencing me into admiration. Might have been the cascading flow of memories that had choked me, making me unable to speak. As guests with their roller bags passed by, I could not help but feel an urge to offer a helping hand, to tilt my head, to smile (like a fool) and offer a greeting in name of service. It is a feeling I miss.

What can I find to substitute the cliche "It only seems like yesterday"? But it really did seem like it was only yesterday when I walked into that interview room. Slipping into a suit everyday in the unbelievably musty locker room, sulking at the bad food at the cafeteria, feeling on top of the world when a compliment letter comes in from a guest who had had a great stay.

When people ask, "So how are things?", doesn't anybody feel like it's such a hard question to answer? I mean, where do I even start? Fragments flash before my eyes, episodically more than semantically. And a different set of fragments each time. I'm never a great talker to begin with, and when the mind hits a block arising from overflowing rather than uncertain information, I just don't know what to say.

Kena stun, they call it. That's when silence befalls me again. Mouth open, but unable to speak.

Posted by Brandon at Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | Permalink

Allow me to be ... what's the word? .... ulu, maybe?

Just when I thought ruffling through the pages of a book to obtain information is slowly becoming outdated, the world has already moved beyond Web 2.0. You'd think being in the States and in the center of the world's buzz would kind of elevate me to a greater level of cosmopolitan worldliness, but my sophistication in technological knowledge remains, well, unsophisticated.

The new media has become the old media, at a time when I shouldn't already be learning how to use Facebook applications, but rather, fishing for where schools of other fish are congregating in newly-established mass orgies of communication. And really, whoever has the keenest eye for new media, whoever can sow the seeds for tomorrow's next big thing, whoever dares flout the rules of convention, is in for the big catch.

Someone once said, "You do not ask Vera Wang to fit you, YOU have to fit into Vera Wang", alluding to the well-known, allegedly classy bridal outfit designer. ISN'T THAT WHAT OUR MEDIA WORLD IS TODAY? Consumers out there have become Vera Wangs, and profit-seeking suckers out there are bowing down and feeding our knightly kings and divine divas exactly what they want. Gone are the days when I tell you McDonald's tastes good. Consumers tell ME through their blogs, their virtual trumpets and their online ammunition, deflecting the very arrows that used to paralyse their own decision-making ability and choice.

And I'm just thinking, if everyone used the new media to woo consumers, then everyone becomes equally attractive compared to each other. Like a zero-sum game. So it becomes natural tendency to go faster, and the business world becomes more like a race to keep abreast.

Well, maybe, only maybe, in the future, the winner is the one who forgot to race. The one who becomes an accidental counter-culture, the one whom people so very much learn to appreciate.

A mobile phone is a mobile phone to me. Even up till today. You either call or sms. Now, I doubt the gadget that people have in their hands would be called a mobile phone for much longer, because soon we'd be able to activate short-range missiles with it. Then North Korea would move on - beyond missiles. Then, we end up catching up. And some unimaginable conception rises from the ashes.

I suppose we all can't help it. A mummy never returns to its tomb. A child, never back to its womb.

Posted by Brandon at Wednesday, June 10, 2009 | Permalink

Why do people see Singapore as boring? Why is it that the only two things people know about Singapore is chewing gum and its governance?

I kind of found some semblance of an answer from that office cubicle of mine.

I think tourism is a creative industry. (Cue: Singapore does NOT do well in that department. Look at our empty theatres and censored films.) To manage creativity with the clockwork efficiency and precision that we are so famous for is like catching a fish with a mousetrap. I'm not saying Singaporeans miss the point in trying to promote our arts, our country and our love for all things Singaporean. I'm saying we are afraid of, unable to face the consequences of the act of

CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS.

I love to bring up the example of the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD campaign in Australia. I vaguely remember it as a global call for someone to live the high life on a tropical beach. His or her job is just to comment on it. Something to that extent.

Well, it was kind of sensational. But it worked. People noticed.

How many times is Singapore going to pull the same tricks? The same bulbs light up Orchard Road every year during Christmas, but I doubt anyone feels differently from the previous, despite the thought and effort (I noticed during my internship) that goes into planning the light-up. WE ARE SO STUDIOUS, UNYIELDING and DILIGENT, pursuing a goal (cue: Tourism 2015 Plan) with fervour (cue: Key Performance Indicators), but whether that translates into people feeling differently about our nation is not something we can measure in definite terms.

What about our tourism product? For a country to feature the Zoo prominently (and repeatedly)in its suggested itineries, for me, is evidence of desperation. I don't think we have a lack of things to offer, but I think people do not search deep enough to find out what makes Singapore tick. People are afraid to admit that we are kiasu, kiasi, colourful and friendly in our own, special ways. It hits me as an irony that our campaign, Uniquely Singapore is about everything un-UNIQUE about us - an over-painted Clarke Quay, duck tour boats that more than half of Singaporeans have never stepped foot on and of course the world's tallest Observation Wheel (a monstrosity that rises out of a misdirected ambition).

Last week, I strolled the streets of Little India. The smell of the spices, the garland, the oils, the prata man flipping his prata in his tattered, tight, belly-revealing singlet, the flow of silk cascading down shopfronts... It set me thinking, THIS IS REALLY US. Sometimes, the understated becomes the real deal. It's so sad that organised trips to the heartlands, eating at a kopitiam and line dancing at community centres are considered OFF THE BEATEN TRACK - when honestly, these are the primary essence of our identity, waiting to be explored and for us to feel proud of.

We'll talk again when such "OFF THE BEATEN TRACK" tours become too touristy, but until we steer our boats in a different direction, we will never hit the dock. We'd be floating around, spinning in circles, as the rest of the world moves on.

What do you think?

Posted by Brandon at Sunday, June 07, 2009 | Permalink

The hardest thing about unplugging from a lifestyle of leisure and re-connecting into the socket of work life is probably staying awake. Becoz afternoon naps dissolve into your many cups of coffee, and couch-potatoing evaporate into the scented air.

Day Number 1 was a quick preview of cubicle life. My bad habit of leg shaking has to re-emerge, to get rid of that feeling of immobility. One feels hungry more easily. People converge at elevators, toilets and water-coolers, but quickly return to their compartmentalised sanctuary filled only with the sound of typing at the computer as well as stacked with piles of paperwork enough to kill acres of forests.

The life of a lowly intern. I've learnt to lower expectations. To learn to peel potatoes before plunging into the gourmet. Today, I expressed my opinion of Christmas lighting along Orchard Road in a meeting graced by designers, managers, executives and industry representatives. It must have been the longest silence in the history of my life after I presented my take - from the very back of the room. People were thinking, but I did not know what of. People were sceptical, coz eyes looking to the floor, fingers at the chin, pursed lips MUST mean doubt and apprehension. That was one of those moments where I thought, I need to vanish RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. But couldn't.

The silence was broken by an awkward laugh by an executive, followed by a skilful re-direction of attention to someone else's earlier comment. My sigh of relief came in spurts.

Ok, I must have said something really stupid to get zero comments from the floor. Come to think of it, I MUST HAVE THROWN people off their thoughts, becoz my idea was just kind of random and on hindsight, irrelevant. Like a beautiful opera gone off-key.

Posted by Brandon at Monday, June 01, 2009 | Permalink