The 11th House

Tickle Me Pink

2008-11-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

Tickle me pink
Said the girl with the shaven head

I am tougher than the boys in the cage
The boys who send you out
To filch cigarettes from strangers
And lift miniature bottles of cologne from the shops

She went a roaming one day
And got lost on the way

Tickle me pink
Said the girl with the shaven head
Who found in the jungle
The cold, large metal cage

Inside the cage were boys so fair
So pretty, so slim, with only underwear

Tickle me pink, she giggled and stared
At those handsome, sexy young men in their underwear

Give us a fag luv,
And cover us in expensive perfume
We’re so pretty, said the boys, prettier than you

There were many male bodies cramped in the cage
Metal and cold, they made the girl’s hormones rage

Tickle me pink
Such a sight never was seen
All these pretty boys in their underwear

Some of the boys had lizard eyes
Some of the boys had talons for hands

Some of the boys had hooves for feet
Some of the boys had the tongue of a viper

Some of the boys had scorpion tails
And all of the boys had snakes between their thighs

The caged boys pouted and preened
Tickle me pink, I want to get in

So the girl shaved off her hair and took of her shirt
So maybe she’d fit in

But there were no vipers or lizards under her skirt

Only breasts,
Failing guts
And a heart that beat too fast

Slip through the cage
You’ll get used to the cold metal
Come play a game of cards luv
Actually, just kiss our backs and watch the game
Give us a fag and don’t tell us your name

The girl with the shaven head pondered a while
She cared not about the talons
and fangs and tails and wings

The boys were handsome handsome with the prettiest eyes
Deep, sad glassy rainbow eyes, with the liveliest smiles
Naked skin, soft, smooth and taut
Lips that looked like they would make her hair grow back

The girl with the shaven head slid through the bars
To join those strange and heavenly creatures

And they ate her alive, heart, liver, spleen, eyeballs and all

Had their cigarettes
Put on more cologne
And played a game of cards

Tickle me pick
Said the girl who was dead

I still think I’m tougher
Than the boys in the cage

Copyright, November 28, 2007, Michele Koh

Trading Giblets

2008-11-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Trading giblets……google it
Trip detected
Manifestated crudelites……google it
Jammy pammy, suck their mammies
Let me rammy, the goose up your wamy

The god of fur
Plah plah…dribbles in my ear
Let the guards who hold my temple safe
Pour out their juicy filth

And lick my disgrace

Din, din, tell ‘em nothing

Why make such noise?
The whores can do it

Why show my mind, cos the pigs implore it?
Why state my case, cos the snakes adore it?
Why choose a cause?

So the hunter can slit my throat?

Kill the roachy coach

My soul gets herpefied, by the giggled numb……ha ha, ha… ha ha…two-faced, five-assed swine.

But bacon be bacon, so I’ll pearlify… the two-faced, five-assed swine. For the bacon I be raken, less I end up broke and bakin’

Why cheapen meaning with words?
Why say something
Rrrrr Rump, hump pumping

Din din, tell ‘em nothing

Trip detected
Manifestated crudelites……google it
Jammy pammy, suck their mammies
Let me rammy, the goose up your wamy

The god of fur
Plah plah plah…dribbles in my ear
Let the guards who hold my temple safe
Pour out their juicy filth

And lick my disgrace

Din, din, tell ‘em nothing

Copyright July 25, 2008, Michele Koh

The Fetus

2008-11-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

Of this unwritten page
The petals of contentment
Are strewn, peace peace
That was born from
Self-righteous justice

Does this document mark
The denouement of the
Sentimental saga
Now the man has become fiction
The woman is redeemed
By the man’s suffering

The strong one
Finally unfurling
Like a shriveled
Fluid deprived fetus
Was there ever any love
Or was it war from the get go

Man wanted woman’s flesh
Man wanted her
To kiss his feet of clay
To worship at the shrine
To cry and pine at the altar
Of Adonis

Woman wanted man’s strength
Woman wanted his
Self-sufficiency
His kinship with nature
Brutish appeal
Business acumen

The fetus of his love
She put it in her mouth
Teasingly at first
Yes, I will nurse the baby
It could grow into a life together

He made her mad
He looked at other women
He spent too much time with Playstation
She ate the fetus
Now the man has become fiction

Copyright Sep 2007, Michele Koh

Pretty Words

2008-11-22T09:59:00.000-08:00

Tired tired but the head won’t rest
No more pretty words to give
No more nice sounds coming out of my mouth
My body is like a piece of rotting wood
My fingers like dead leaves
The frailty of my body was imperceptible in youth
Now it is tired tired
But the head won’t rest

Writers seem more prone to alzheimers
And parkinsons in old age
Perhaps because the mind is fighting
The atrophy of the body
The immune system falters

The skin burns, tightens and itch
The organs become phlegmatic in rebellion
Even the passion, the kind with the juice
Stops flowing
Till the only orgasm
Is the one achieved by stroking the word

Till the only bliss is the one that removes
The writer from other human beings

Removes her even from nature
Even from time, from space
From the concept of sex and race
From the concept of building and place
From the constrainst of money and face

Till the only concepts that give comfort
Are --- self and god
Self
God
Self god
God self
Self god
Deliriously happy in the certainly
Of that truth
I am god
God is me
Bliss

Tell me, you simple one?
Is there a greater freedom?
That when the head catches
Those pretty pretty words?
Is there a freeir man?
Than he who dwells only in the world of ideas
Unfettered by sentimental tugs that the human relations entail
Unencumbered by even the gentle stirrings of religion and politics
Unseduced even by the brief joy of companionship

Was there ever a freeir man than he who is God of thought
Creator of reality that does not long even to be?
A creator with no need to create
A vessel of restless seeds that wish to stay uncracked
Why become fruit
To offer your flesh for eating
Nobody eats the seed
So stay seeds
Why sow them?
That’ll bring them closer to their death

Life in the horrid body
Tired tired
Ill ill
The body unworthy of the mind
The mortal body
Bethrothed to the divine mind

Goodbye body
Goodbye memories
Goodbye love
Goodbye desire
Goodbye cares and woes
Goodbye death
Goodbye world
Goodbye feelings
I exist now only on a diet of thought

I judge not
I judge not

So lonely lonely
Tired tired
No more pretty words to give

In my world of thought
An immaterial world of possibly bogus anitmatter

I speak it plain
I speak it for my own benefit
I care not about you
If you think like me
Then you are like god
Then you understand
The simple simple, not so pretty words

Are you tired too?

Copyright 19 Dec 2007, Michele Koh

I Have A Jabberwocky

2008-11-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

I have a jabberwocky
Keeps me up all night

In the morning
It is tweedle dee or tweedle dum
Dee for a good day
Dum for a bad

Sometimes it does a Cheshire cat
And my head is away from my body
And I don’t know if I’m here or there

Then there’s holier than thou mad hatter
Who whips my nerves about like batter

And don’t you wake the walrus
Or it’ll slurp on your guts like oysters

And don’t you mess with the queen of hearts
Cos she’ll be eating all your tarts

But worse than them lot
Worse still than the jabberwock
Is the monster child named Alice

Who can make them all disappear
With a warm drawn bath
And two quick flicks of a razor blade

Copyright July 2008, Michele Koh

The Girl Across the Park

2008-09-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

A filmmaker friend called me up one night asking me to help him flesh out a story idea he had just come up with. The story is about a young man sitting on a park bench who notices across from him a girl, presumably young and attractive, looking forlorn, sad and day-dreamily distracted. Fascinated by the girl, he sits around mulling over whether or not he should approach her. The girl leaves, and as the man walks over to where she was seated, he finds a black notebook – the girl’s diary, and in it is a quote that reads. “Knowing is not enough. You must act.” Clearly, it is a love story. The underlying conflict here is to chase or not to chase, to reveal or not to reveal our true intentions to our object of affection. The choice of whether to hasten to love or to sit back and think about what it could be like to love and be loved in return, is presented to him.

My friend proposed two possible endings to his tale. One where our protagonist bides his time pondering the pros and cons of a possible relationship, and hatches his plans, while he’s doing all this the young woman commits suicide because her loneliness becomes too painful to bear. In an alternative ending they become a couple and she is pregnant with his child.

Why is it that so many men (and women) choose not to pursue the person they hold in rapture?

The more enamored we become, the harder it is to move. The nature of infatuation and obsession, the hovering cousins of erotic love, have a paralytic effect on us; and after a while, it becomes safer to sit back, relax and recreate a more willing and more available caricature of the girl across the park in our thought life than to physically risk the palpitations, tight chest, sweaty palms and discomfort that the prospect of the real girl presents; or the sinking feeling that follows should she reject our advances.

In life, the only thing we have control of are our fantasies. Painful things happen, that’s for certain, family members die, we lose jobs, we lose our health, our looks, our tempers; boyfriends and girlfriends break up, marriages end in divorce, husbands and wives die, leaving us with a very real and permanent emptiness. The preservation of love, and the dignity of romance is almost impossible in day to day living, where there are bills to be paid, where there are erratic bosses and the grind of nine to five; where there are bad hair days, mood swings, crying babies, unruly teens, aging parents, bad habits, infidelity, pornography, menopause, weight gain, hair loss, balance sheets, annual leave, flat tires, leaking sinks, laundry, vacuum cleaners, debts, decisions about what film to watch, where to eat, where to go on holiday, broken heaters, broken hearts. The vagaries of life make a poor set for a romantic epic.

The most wonderful thing about the girl on the bench across from us is that she will never be a part of this mundane script called life. She will never have to see us frazzled, burnt out and moody, and we will never have to smell her morning breath or look at her bloody tampon in the trash. Why run the risk of repelling her with our frailties? Why run the risk of her repelling us by displaying the symptoms common to women in love? What do we do with her once she ceases to entertain us and becomes ordinary? If the girl becomes our girlfriend or wife, we know there will be days, weeks, maybe even years when we look at her in all her familiarity and predictability and wonder if we are still in love with her. Days when we feel not an ounce of curiosity, or wonder, or tenderness towards her. We will no longer be free to dream even livelier and more gallant dreams about her. And on those days we might almost hate ourselves for thinking so lowly of her, and for being so unchivalrous. But that sad day will never happen as long as she stays on her side of the park and we stay on ours.

As long as we do not cross that dangerous field, she will never let us down. While reality leaves us beaten and exhausted, gasping for air and struggling to make sense of it all, she, in all her unreality offers us a sanctuary in our inner worlds. The unknown, as yet unloved girl, holds all the promise of a life that could be, if only we were more than human; the promise of heaven if only we were desirable enough, strong enough, pure enough, brave enough, patient enough and good enough. It is the untainted image we hold of her that spurs us on to become better human beings. It is the dream of the life unlived that helps us get through the one we are stuck in.

Our fantasy is the closest image of God that we will ever have. A God that requires nothing from us but blind faith. She is an immaterial God whom we cannot touch, whose core we cannot invade. Therefore our callous humanness cannot destroy her. The extent of this God’s love is entirely up to us. We can imagine that her love for us is as deep as the ocean and as constant as the tides. We can imagine her loving only us with complete surrender. A passionate, powerful and beautiful woman-god, sensitive and delightful in everyway, who longs for us with an animal passion and gentleness, and who loves us with a loyalty so fierce that she would lay her life down for us.

I say imagine, because it is only in the imagination that romantic and passionate love of such intensity can survive without burning us alive. The real world is much too harsh for such heroics. Ideals often have a slim chance of surviving the rigorous test of reality. The girl across the park is the muse of artists, writers and musicians, and if she were to enter the real world and materialize before us, she might turn to dust. Her very power lies in her non-existence, her elusiveness. Shana Alexander, the first woman writer for Life Magazine observed, “The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye.”

The girl across the park is the only sure thing we’ve got in this lifetime. She is incapable of letting us down because she doesn’t know our love exists, so she expects nothing. She cannot reject us, she cannot hurt us, she cannot leave us; and we will never have to stop loving her.

“Knowing is not enough. You must act.” Perhaps it is in the inaction that most of the action takes place, as it goes with most of us, it is in the day dreaming of our ideal partners, or our ideal careers, our ideal home, that we find our salvation, inspiration, enthusiasm and hope. The act of dreaming is much more pleasurable than any other activity. “There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.” Says English Enlightenment philosopher Edmund Burke.

“Knowing is not enough. You must act.” It was written in the girl’s dairy. Perhaps, immaterial as she was, she knew that it was on her part that action had to be taken, less we end up immobilized by illusion. If no life comes out of her, then she can retain her immortal perfection in our mind’s eyes and live on forever in our hearts.

copyright 2008, Michele Koh

I Want Her Smart...But Not TOO Smart...

2007-02-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

A male friend once told me, ‘the more intelligent and successful a woman is, the harder it is for her to be find a good partner’. Another levelheaded male friend said, ‘I want a woman who is attractive and smart…but not too smart’.

It would appear that when it comes to mating, an intelligent female is at a disadvantage. No man would ever complain about a woman being too beautiful, yet intellect it seems, should have its limits when bestowed on the fairer sex.

Why are men afraid of intelligent women? The first reason is the increased likelihood of conflict and discord within the relationship. The propensity and desire to argue, question and debate is a common trait among intelligent individuals. Debate and dissent often lead to the deflation of ego. Men need to protect their egos. Hence, a woman who threatens to deflate it sets off the red flag.

The second reason is that men like hiding and their biggest fear is that of emotional and psychological exposure. Men hate to have flaws in their thinking revealed, much less flaws in their beliefs and values. Women, by nature have the innate ability to read emotional cues better than men. However, most women lack the verbal and analytical skills required to convey her observations (about her man’s behavior) to him. That makes her safe, because she will never be able to conceptualize errors in his thought system coherently enough to make an impact. A highly intelligent woman however, has the ability to package and convey what she has observed and present them in a way that will actually force a man to confront his own inadequacies. Most human beings would rather suffer a lifetime living a comfortable lie than have to look at how weak and imperfect they are.

The third reaaon is that society equates intellect and career or financial success with masculinity, therefore a man who is living with a partner who is more intelligent and successful than him feels emasculated. Men feel uncomfortable and uncertain around smart, successful women. Strangely, men like philosophical sparring with members of their own sex. This is because they do not have to sleep next to their male mates. There is a comfortable distance between opponents.

There are men who insist that it is important that a woman is intelligent. Indeed, intellect is very attractive in the initial courtship phase for cerebral men, because they understand that an intelligent woman is usually more cynical and pragmatic and therefore much more difficult to bed. The thrill of the chase is heightened when she is aware of the mechanisms of the male brain and the sexual instincts. If a man succeeds in bedding a cerebral female, it would indicate that he scores highly in the intellect department himself. His ego is thus gratified by this assumption and he can do one of two things. He can move on to his next conquest or he can proceed to ‘feminize’ her by putting down her achievements or ignoring her when she wishes to engage in weighty conversations and meatier issues like politics, religion and ethics.

The fourth reason is that because intellectual confidence is a rare quality in females, most people perceive intelligent women as being arrogant. Men feel that women who are too intelligent are automatically vain, prideful, defiant, self-righteous and hard to control. ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ comes to mind when a man encounters a smart woman.

The fifth reason is the need to preserve personal identity after death. At the end of the day, men want women who will give them physically superior offspring, but they would like the child to inherit their brains and not that of another person. Most men would like to shape the personality of their own children and be the sole guardian of their moral education. By choosing an intelligent and successful woman as the mother of their child means that they will have to share the responsibility of this task and also the credit of it with another person. Smart women have their own notions about child rearing and impose their own belief systems on the child. Men do not like this as it minimizes the parts of his own personality that he has progenated in his child. He feels that in successive generations, his personality will be obliterated completely. Marrying a stupid woman is a man’s way of preserving his own ego-identity when he dies.

The sixth reason for the aversion to an intelligent female has to do with the lack of emotional energy men have for lengthy, complex verbal conversation. When it comes to talking, women have more stamina than men. The part of their brain that deals with language is more highly evolved than men. Men make great orators only because they speak for an allocated time, then spend the rest of their days in silence. Women need to verbalize their thoughts three times as often as males. Hence, a woman full of thoughts and philosophical queries and theories is plain tiring for a man. He simply does not have the energy to keep up. For most men, a frightfully smart woman is just too much hard work.

The seventh reason is that a man always needs to be right. He can be proven wrong once in a while, but he is usually never happier than when he knows he his right. When a man allows a highly intelligent woman into his life and his heart, he will always have to think twice about how right he really is.

Copyright 2007, Michele Koh

Aren't We All Bigots?

2007-01-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

Racism and xenophobia are hot topics in the UK press yet again. For the first time since World War II, a far-right group, backed by 23 million members in EU states, has won a place in the European Parliament. Calling themselves the Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS) party, this new ultra-right winged bloc have been dubbed “gypsy-haters, holocaust-deniers, xenophobes, homophobes and anti-semites” by the Independent. Besides the usual suspects (Asians, Arabs and Africans), the expansion of the EU has led to Eastern Europeans being the latest targets of xenophobes. Ironically, the admission of Bulgaria and Romania in January this year was what sealed the deal for Europhiles like Jean-Marie Le Pen, who voted against Romania and Bulgaria joining the EU in the first place. The arrival of six Romanian and Bulgarian extremists gave the ITS the 20 seats it needed at the Strasbourg Parliament on the 16 January 2007. Members include, Bruno Gollnisch of France’s National Front, who is awaiting a court verdict on charges of Holocaust denial, Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito, former UK Independent Party leader Ashley Mote and other nationalists and extremists from Austria, Poland, Denmark, Poland and Slovakia. The idea that this mish mash of peoples with distinctly separate, cultural heritage and language could rally together is almost comical. Jean-Marie Le Pen when introducing these party leaders at a National Front conference once said: “These are all our friends…they all hate each other, of course, but they are all our friends.”

From a political perspective, there are a number of reasons for the growing influence of the far-right. The increase in immigration has lead to a feeling of deprivation and fear among the European working class who now have to fight with labourers from third world and developing nations for jobs. These new immigrants tend to set up their own ethnic communities, and are reluctant to assimilate. Such in-grouping is a form of reverse elitism and by keeping huddled in closed communities, these groups sow the seeds of paranoia in society. Developed nations like America and Britain are moving towards militarianism, and in order to fund foreign wars, the respective governments need to drum up public support and get people believing propaganda like “Arabs are terrorists”. A report by the European Centre on Racism and Xenophobia states: “Racism and xenophobia are present everywhere; not one EU member state is exempt from this.” Perhaps, none of us are exempt from this. The appearance of the ITS in an institution like the EU Parliament is proof that it is not just the ignorant, poor or educated who are xenophobic.

The Oxford dictionary defines Xenophobia as an “intense dislike or fear of foreigners or strangers.”

Xenophobia is a natural as any fear. I recall as a child my own fear of an Australian family friend whom we called Uncle Charlie. Charlie Galloway was almost seven foot tall, with white hair, big hands, a hooked nose, freckly skin and an accent I couldn’t understand…and he smelt like sheep! My grandfather was a shipwright with an Australian vessel in the 1950s and when he fell ill in Perth, Western Australia, a good Christian couple, Charles and Joyce Galloway took him in and nursed him back to health. My family had become close to the Galloways over the years and had spent their honeymoon in their home. Charlie was a kind and friendly man with gentle eyes and he never did anything mean, but as a little Chinese girl who lived in a world inhabited only by slitty eyed, petite, black haired Orientals, this white-haired giant scared the be-Jesus out of me. Every time, uncle Charlie came for a visit, I would hide behind my mother’s skirt and scream and cry. When he tried to shake my hand or give me a present, I would shriek and run off into the kitchen. How awful it must have been for the poor old man. I must have made him feel like a mutant! Another, not so benign form of xenophobia is the kind that parents and grandparents instill in children through racist jokes and remarks. As a toddler, I would go for meals with my grandmother at the open-aired hawker centres. To stop her hyperactive granddaughter from running off on her own and getting lost, my grandma would tell me to sit tight, lest a turbaned Sikh whom she called “Babu Singh” caught me and put me in a gunny sack. She had made a boogeyman out of a racial minority. My grandma had given me one of the worse gifts one can give a child – a stereotype. It took many friendships with Sikh kids in school for me to unlearn it.

Xenophobia, like jealousy, low self-esteem and warts can be treated. The best way is through dialogue and humour. “How do Chinese parents decide on the names for their children? They throw pots and pans down a flight of stairs and pick the first sound they hear! Ching, Chong, Kong, Tek!” “Why are Italians and Greeks called W.O.P.s? Cause when you take a bag of shit and throw it against the wall, it goes WOP!” Ok, so these jokes are very silly and crude, but off-coloured humour is the only way we can safely address something that is a part of us all – the fear of people who look, behave and think contrary to us.

As a teenager, I hung out with a group of friends at the Far East Plaza shopping mall. There were Chinese, German, American, French, Indian, African and Malay, Middle Eastern and Eurasian youths who would all get drunk and smoke cigarettes together after school. The only thing we had in common were parents who didn’t understand our need for individualism and an eagerness to know about the world beyond little Singapore. We developed a lingo which allowed us to use semi-derogatory colloquial terms for each ethnic group in the most affectionate way. A Chinese person could be greeted by his non-Chinese friends with the word “munjen” (Tamil word for yellow tumeric – the colour of a Chinese person’s skin), an Indian person would be called a “tambi” (Tamil word for errand boy or office boy), a Caucasian person would be called a “guai loh” or “guai mui” (ghost boy/girl), “mat saleh” (white man), or “ang moh” (red head), a Malay person would be called a “mat” (short for the prophet Mohammed) and “minah” (the prophet’s mother) and a Eurasian would be called “grago” (in reference to Portuguese shrimp fishermen) or “chow hair” (Hokkien for smelly shrimp). It was like each ethnic group had its’ own comic strip super hero identity, and most of us didn’t mind the use of such terms. The terms were only used by other kids who were close enough and considered each other really good friends, blood brothers and sisters of sorts. So in our little teenage world in Far East Plaza, it was actually a privilege if someone called you a noggin or chink. It meant that you were a part of the inner circle, that you were not looked upon by the group as typical of your race. That you are no longer a foreigner, but part of a youth subculture where racial differences add to the ‘cool factor’. Of course, such candidness is reserved only for a certain place and time, and if the adult world operated in such a way, society would be in chaos. Gender, religion, sexual orientation and race are issues that most people feel too uncomfortable discussing in an in-dept way. Because you are either in or out. Depending on the consensus of the day, you are either the victim or the bully, the good or the bad.

I was at the hairdressers yesterday, and I overheard a white hairdresser talking to her British Indian lady client about the racist attacks by Jade Goody on Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on “Celebrity Big Brother”. The Indian lady said: “I don’t think Jade did anything wrong. That’s just her personality. They (the TV station) shouldn’t blame her. I don’t think she was being racist at all.” Shetty was allegedly called “the Indian”, and “cunt” on the show. Goody, articulating her xenophobic impulse had said: “She makes me feel sick. She makes my skin crawl.” Model Danielle Llyod remarked to another contestant when Shetty cooked a roast chicken dinner: “They eat with their hands in India, don’t they? Or is that China? You don’t know where those hands have been.” Llyod also called Shetty a “dog” and said she “wants to be white”. But our Indian friend in the salon obviously does not think that the abuse heaped upon her fellow Indian was racist. The white hairdresser said: “ I don’t know why they (the press and people in India) are making such a big deal about this. There are much more important things they should be talking about.”

This is exactly the kind of attitude that perpetuates xenophobia and racism today!!!! Parents not talking to their homosexual children about their sexuality and relationships! Husbands not talking to wives about the fact that her pay checque is bigger than his! Ethnic minorities not wanting to admit the reality of racism, and ethnic majorities dismissing the matter as if it were trivial.

The first racist slur that Shetty suffered may have been due to the fact that she is Indian. However, any subsequent remark can no longer be blamed on the colour of her skin or her accent. It can be attributed to her own cowering and meek personality. Anyone, regardless of rank or file invites insult when they are unassertive. The trouble with minority groups in any social situation is that they feel that they have to apologize for their minority status. That because they are black, female, Jewish, gay or have some kind of physical or mental defect, they have to work extra hard at making people like them and accept them. Or they become so conscious of their own differences that they interact with people in a very tense and socially awkward way, which makes people uncomfortable and attack them. Another problem with ethnic minorities, particularly those from post-colonial societies, (here Lloyd might be right) is that they ‘want to be white’ and the rest of Mediterranean and Slavic Europe secretly want to be Vanderbilt and Astor WASPs. It is hard to respect someone who is not somewhat nationalistic or at least proud of his or her roots. Some might argue that many third generation immigrants born in foreign cities have adopted the nationalities of their host countries. That is a weak excuse. When we look in the mirror, or at our father’s or mother’s last names, we know the community from which we belong. Irish accents and Italian traditions may have gotten lost in America, Chinese and Indian customs and languages may be restricted to kitchens and living rooms today, Afro-Caribbean songs may exist more so in memory than in day-to-day life. But they should not be abandoned. National and racial identity is an essential part of the human psyche and it needs to be embraced.

John Lichfied of the Independent wrote: “The far-right cannot be a coherent pan-European movement, but it can be a virus which spreads through the democratic institutions that it abhors like some kind of super-bug, a political “MRSA”.”

The virus does not come from the far-right. It comes from the people who would pretend that xenophobia does not exist within themselves. The presence of the ITS is perhaps a backlash against globalization and multiculturalism. A warning that the only way to deal with the potential threat of a fascist revival is to give people what they need – the right to be bigots, and to hate bigots. We don’t need to accept or tolerate, much less respect anyone unless we choose to. And even so, respect needs to be earned. We don’t have to like each other to live together or to keep our economies alive. As Le Pen said: “They all hate each other, of course, but they are all our friends.”

Copyright 2007, Michele Koh

Civil Society thrives on Marriage

2006-12-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

Tory leader David Cameron said that the root of Britain’s social ills is the breakdown of the family unit. The latest report from the Conservative party found that unmarried parents are more likely to separate than married parents. With 50% of unmarried parents splitting up after the child is five. Children of single parent families are most likely to commit crimes and end up abusing drugs and alcohol. Duncan Smith, head of the Tory’s Social Justice Party believes that there is a connection between the “growing underclass” and unmarried couples. He cites family breakdown, reliance on benefits, educational failure, drinking, drugging and debt as some of the outcomes of couples starting families out of wedlock.

“Family is the most important institution in Britain and if we are serious about tackling the cause of poverty and social breakdown, then we must look at ways of supporting families and also supporting marriage so that couples are encouraged to get together and stay together.” Mr. Smith said.

One can predict that the Tory’s Victorian approach to marriage will be perceived by liberals as a moral crusade, similar to John Major’s “Back to Basics” campaign which criticized single mothers. Feminists in the UK will certainly have a lot to get riled up about if the tax incentives for married couples do materialize.

In Singapore, most young single men and women still live with their parents till they get married. Unlike western societies, co-habitation before marriage is viewed with disapproval. The government in Singapore is pro-family and there are tax reliefs and rebates and housing discounts for newly married couples, but none for single-mothers. Singapore is a society that actively promotes marriage and ostracizes common law living.
When I try to explain that this is the reality in Singapore, my friends in the UK and US find it ridiculous and somewhat impractical. Most of my classmates, some as young as 19 are living with their boyfriends or girlfriend. A few of them have made this decision to live with their partners even though doing so meant that they would be cut off financially and emotionally by their parents. Their argument is that a man and woman need to spend some time living together before they can know if they will make good spouses. And also that it is more convenient financially. The sad fact is that many of these couples who move in together end up staying together for an average of three years before they go their separate ways.

Those to choose cohabitation claim that you need to REALLY know a person before you decide to commit to marriage. That most divorces are a result of people not knowing their partners well enough and therefore realizing after marriage that ‘the goods were bad’. They view living together as a sort of mock “trial marriage”, a rehearsal to help them gauge their level of suitability and decide if marriage is indeed for them.

Five years ago, I would have agreed with their naïve leftist approach towards relationships. However, having lived with boyfriends in the past, I am now against cohabitation and would have to agree with those who stand for marriage. Research has shown than “trial marriages” do not work. 40% of cohabiting couples break-up before they make it to marriage and the divorce rate for cohabitants are 50% higher than for non-cohabitants. So it would seem that living together out of wedlock increases your chances of NOT ending up “happily ever after”.

When I live with a partner, the main incentive is sex and affection. Neither of us is looking towards starting a family. There are no shared goals except for physical and emotional pleasure and mutual companionship. Without future plans there is no motivation to secure and increase financial assets or talents. There are no career, geographical or biological time frames and both end up in a state of limbo. I tend to get lazy and complacent once I have settled into my ‘love nest’. A ‘live in the moment’ mentality sets in. This is not a bad thing, but it can create a feeling of stagnation after a while. I have noticed this also in my friends who cohabitate. They become restless and because they have taken no vows, they feel that an independent, single lifestyle is still their right. They get resentful when their partner tells them what to do. “What right do you have telling me what to do? You are not my wife/husband!” so it goes. Often, when living with a partner, I feel secure in knowing that I do not have to go out and ‘hunt’ for sex and cuddles. Sex and physical affection is such a basic human need and cohabitation meets that need on a regular basis. However, once I have gotten my fill of physical intimacy, and the live in situation feels too claustrophobic, my greatest comfort comes from the knowledge that I can leave whenever I want to and NOBODY can fault me for me. I am blameless. How grown-up is that? I take all the fun and love that a boyfriend/girlfriend has to offer then leave when I have to actually deal with a flawed human being for the rest of my life. Cohabitation is great if what you want is a place to find fault with another person so you can convince yourself that marriage is indeed too difficult and the single life suits you better.

Living together takes the mystery out of marriage, and there is nothing to anticipate anymore. There is also something surreptitious and clandestine about cohabitation. When a man and woman are in love, they should always be proud of that fact and invite the world to witness their joyful union. That is what marriage is about. Marriage is inclusive. The wedding ceremony is an opportunity for the bride’s family and friends and the groom’s family and friends to come together to accept and encourage the couple. It is a celebration of approval and familiarity. The couple no longer enjoys sexual intimacy secretly, in marriage they are in fact asking those closest to them to acknowledge their sexual union because it is wholesome, it is good and they now know…it is their God-given right. Marriage is when lovers come out in the open and make an honest proclamation of their love for each other.

Cameron and Smith were right in their conclusion that the causes of social dysfunction is connected with people choosing to live together and start families rather than doing it the traditional way. Traditions are put in place for a reason and when people decide to break social mores, there are often consequences. I would rather grow up with a mother and father who fight constantly than grow up with only a mother or father, which I feel would force me to play the role of the parent or emotional partner to make up for the lack of opposite sex intimacy and support in their life.

When I was five, I often put a white crochet tablecloth over my head as a veil pretending I was bride. Perhaps today, women around the world, feel as if they longer have the right to play out that role or dream that dream. We have been conditioned by sitcoms like “Sex and The City” to believe that we are weak if we choose domesticity and children over a high-flying career and Jimmy Choos. We have been conditioned to believe that we can rear children without a good man by our side. We have become deluded enough to believe that within US alone is all we need to give proper love and moral guidance to a child.

Without marriage, children are nothing but pets, ego-projects deprived of moral structure and stability. Children who grow up without loving parents, will have little opportunity to observe love in action. It is no surprise then that if the dough does not stick, the cookie will surely crumble.

Copyright 2006, Michele Koh

Only the Mad Murder

2006-12-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

Today, newspapers in London report that “one person a week in Britain is killed by a psychiatric patient”, and 25 a week commit suicide. Most of these murders are committed by patients whom mental health workers have diagnosed as low-risk. National Director for Mental Health in England, professor Louis Appleby, said the problem was that psychiatrists and psychologists deal with such an overwhelming number of violent, high-risks patients everyday that they become desensitized. “Desensitization” occurs when “psychiatric staff become used to dealing with very high-risk patients and so fail to notice warning signs when one is becoming dangerously ill,” said Appleby. Professor Appleby chaired an independent inquiry to find out why mental health care in the UK was failing. The findings were published in a report entitled “Avoidable Deaths”. The report states that 10% of the murder victims were strangers and 90% were friends, carers or family members of the patients. Figures in England and Wales also show that there is an increase in the number of homicides involving people with “dual diagnosis” – that is, a patient who has been diagnosed with both a mental illness and a drug or alcohol addiction.

Only one in five murders? Probably all five murders in the week were committed by mentally ill people, only the other four managed to remain anonymous and functional enough not to have ended up under mental health care in the first place. It makes sense really that someone who has the audacity to take human life, whether another persons or their own would have to be insane. Sane people use the faculty of reason and analysis too well. Sane people often think of murdering, but rationality and practicality stop them before the final act. In the mentally unstable, there are often times when that faculty of reason disappears completely and they operate on emotion alone. Their ability to think about things from an observer’s perspective leaves them and they become the centre of the universe, the creator and perpetuator of the drama of life. The finger of God.The only way to stop the show is to end a life. Regardless of the consequences.

Desensitization certainly adds to the dilemma of the mentally ill person. Imagine that you have a cold and you sneeze hoping that your boss or teacher will see you sneezing enough times to tell you to go home and rest till you are better. You sneeze, but the pupil next to you is coughing blood. Nobody notices you. You continue to be seen by the rest of the office/school as just another pupil who should show up for work/class. You are expected to perform as well as others who are not sick.

These days, every 10th person I talk to has been diagnosed with some form of mental illness. When ‘mad’ people talk, they try to top each other’s crazy antics. If one person tells a story about how she overdosed on valium, another person will brag about how last weekend he fantasized about pushing his 4 year-old daughter onto the train tracks, and another might go on about how she is in anger management for breaking her mother’s jaw. So if I were a doctor and had to choose which of the three would get the last bed in my unit, it would seem that the woman who broke her mother’s jaw would be my best bet. After all, hers was an actual act of violence and not just a fantasy right? That’s how desensitization works. We look at a person talking to imaginary animals or banging their fists against their head and we go: “He just needs some attention. He’s just acting out. He’ll be ok in a while.” Low-risk behavior.

We look at someone who is smashing kittens against the wall or threatening to bite people’s noses off. “Ooh better put him in a straightjacket!” High-risk behavior. But the truth is, the man standing in the corner in his pajamas laughing his head off is as likely to stick a kitchen knife in your gut as the man mutilating puppies. All mad people are similar in their madness, the missing piece is the same, the only thing that is different is the behavioral symptoms they choose to display. Grandiosity, mania, paranoia and depression are the four main feelings that dominate the unbalanced mind. When either of the four feelings or a combination of them grow large enough to block out logical thought, a person will be capable of murder or suicide.

The Observer reports that victims are nearly always family members. That makes perfect sense. For the average unthinking insane person, the process of surveillance and selection is usually too much of a mental effort. Only someone whose analytical abilities were focused could muster enough energy to scan a crowd and choose a potential victim. That would indicate a certain amount of emotional detachment (that is something that most mental patients lack.) Calculated crime is usually committed by sociopaths and not your average mentally ill person. I will talk more about sociopathology another time, as I believe that sociopaths are not afflicted with any of the four main feelings of grandiosity, mania, paranoia or depression, but are a subspecies who have brain structures closer to reptiles than mammals. Sociopatholgy is characterized by the lack of emotion rather than the intensity of it.

Therefore, your average mental patient will kill a family member simply because they are the most accessible and being around that particular family member probably brings about the greatest sense of grandeur, mania, paranoia or depression in the mentally ill person and they feel that by removing the person, they will be able to remove the intensity of their emotional anguish.

The mentally insane are simple. In all their lunacy, they are more childish than the sane. If I were asked to find a common trait among the mentally unstable, it would be childlikeness. They are very naïve and self-centered. Their childlikeness makes them more uninhibited than sane folks and allows them to believe that they are innocent and guiltless no matter what they do. Hence they feel they have the right to take human life.

As for dual diagnosis, it doesn’t take an expert in psychology to see why drug and alcohol abuse would go hand in hand with mental illness. When a person experiences emotions beyond his coping ability, he will want to numb those intense feelings by putting himself in a drug altered state. A drug-induced altered state which to a normal person seems abnormal and uncomfortable, will feel normal to the chemically imbalanced person, whose own natural state feels more abnormal and uncomfortable than that induced by any drug. To a mad person, being drunk, high or stoned is actually more manageable than how living in his head feels without chemicals. So drugs and alcohol are to the abnormal mind what air and water are to the normal mind. Mad people crave drugs and alcohol in order to feel “just about aye-ok”. They are addicted because they need to escape the irregularities of their emotions and peculiarity of their sensory experiences. It is frightening being mad and the drugs and alcohol take the edge off that fear.

So are the one in five murders committed by mad people really “avoidable deaths”? I think not. Chemically imbalanced individuals are God’s way of controlling the population. When a society, race or nation is not doing the will of God, he activates the ‘kill switch’ in the mentally ill for population control. Madness, like cancer and AIDS is painful for those living with it. The difference is, with cancer and AIDS, it is the body that degenerates, with insanity, it is the spirit that degenerates.

A Free Pen & Pissed Off-ed Men

2006-10-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

I had just spent 2 days creating a CVS file with all the names and email addresses of people whom I would like to invite to read this blog. I spent time and effort writing a letter explaining the gist of this site. It was hard work filing, organizing and doing this database and when I finally sent the generic letter out to the 200 odd email addresses on the list, I felt a sense of achievement. But within half an hour, I received an email from one of the recipients, saying: “Michele, why the capital letters do you really want to shout?” I shrank to about 100 times my normal size. I suddenly felt ashamed and worried that I was blowing my own horn. I started going through all my postings to see if anything I wrote came across as bragging. I felt like someone had accused me of launching a self-promotion campaign. I felt like a spammer and a telemarketer, cold calling to sell my ideas and opinions.

Was I launching a self-promotion campaign? Yes. Is that wrong? No. Most artists complain that they cannot make a living or that they cannot pursue their passions and make a career out of it. They remain unknown and unhappy because their egos are so fragile that they would rather hide behind their canvases than risk being criticized or labeled a bad writer /painter/ musician. Or worse still...a bad person! Some have enough common sense to hire publicity agents and PR people. All I have done is taken the initiative to showcase my work. I am a writer and I hope that people will recognize me as one. If I am not WRITING then I how can I present myself as a writer. I am proud to be a writer. I am proud of my inclination towards the spiritual life. I am unashamed of the events in my past and my moral stand on things today. I have the right to say what I choose and if people think that is shouting, so be it. I have a big voice and I will use it.

The impact of the email was greater because the person who wrote it was someone whom I held in high esteem. Someone who appeared to be extremely intelligent, liberal, tolerant, affectionate, open-minded and kind. Certainly not someone to knock down freedom of expression. I was surprised at this person’s judgementalness.

I confided to a friend about this and she told me not to get unduly disturbed by the remark. She told me that as a writer I have to know that not everyone will agree with me and that I will encounter people who will whack me down hard. As painters and actors will know, there are more critics out there than fans. This is the first time it has occurred to me that by committing my thoughts to paper and making the decision to publish it, I have sacrificed my right to always be seen as a ‘nice person’. I have given up my right to a quiet existence of peace and goodwill. The pen is mightier than the sword. I will inevitable end up saying things that might make some people hate me. It dawned on me today that if I want to keep writing…….and writing honestly, telling the truth as I see it, it means I have to give up the privilege of being liked by everybody.

The Sign of The Cross

2006-10-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

First the niqab and now the cross. British Airways check-in worker Nadia Eweida is on unpaid leave because she refused to hide the cross that she wore around her neck. According to BA staff regulations, religious jewellery like crucifixes can only be worn underneath their clothes.

To a Christian, the cross symbolizes that they belong to Christ, that they are his followers and they believe in his teachings. Just as the niqab symbolizes faithfulness to Allah and suscription to the five pillars of Islam. Governments attack religion to no end, blaming Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism for wars and bloodshed. How far this is from the truth. Religion is the only thing left that reminds us of our humanity and our need for order and guidance. The real culprits for wars are corrupt governments and unethical businesses. It is the god of money and commerce that forces us to remove our crosses and headscarves. It is the god of tourism and corporatism that insists on turning us all into clones.

Men will blow up buses, towers and planes, soldiers will rape innocent civilian and people will die whether or not Heathrow is full of veiled women and crucifix wearing check-in staff. Everybody has the right to display and proclaim his or her religious affiliation. I do not believe for a moment that Muslims and Jews will chance upon the image of a 33 year old man pinned to a cross and be inspired to kill Christians. Nor do I believe that a Catholic or Protestant will bludgeon a woman to death simple because she wears a niqab. Anyone who assumes that religious artifacts are the cause of ethnic or cultural conflict is obviously not acquainted with God. God delights in differences, any sign or symbol of reverence for what is unseen and otherworldly is lauded by him.

Governments and corporations who attempt to inhibit religious expression are laying the foundations for their own hell. The Christians answer to their Lord Jesus Christ and Muslims are accountable to Allah. I wonder to whom these big wigs who laid down the BA dress code feel they are accountable to? Their boss who makes sure they get to keep their Jaguar perhaps? Or maybe no one?

The Narrowing Road

2006-10-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

I have heard it said that when one embarks on the spiritual life, the road gets narrower and narrower. The difference between a person who chooses hedonism and a person who chooses right living is conscience. When I was younger, my sole purpose in life was to extract as much pleasure from it as possible. And I had a whale of a time to boot! I felt like the master of the universe, the sculptor of my own destiny. The road was wide and I was almost paralyzed by the array of career and romantic choices that presented themselves. I smoked two packets of cigarettes a day, took prescription drugs every night, took street drugs on the weekends, drank copious amounts of alcohol, ate whatever I wanted, slept with whoever I wanted, didn’t do my homework in school and never got a full time job. I slept in till 3pm on weekdays, traveled as and when I wanted, for romance and adventure. And I borrowed money from my parents to support this lifestyle. I could talk myself out of anything. I was young, I was arrogant and I was blissfully ignorant of consequences.

But that wide and golden road was covered with land mines and no matter how fast and furiously I plodded I kept banging my head against walls and dead ends. I got tired. My heart got bruised. My brain got fried. I could have all the fun stuff a girl could want. A life of glamour and excitement; pretty clothes, pretty boys, famous friends, exclusive parties, exotic holidays, free drinks and drugs. I surrounded myself with people who appeared to love me. It’s easy to feel as if the whole world approves of you when you are constantly getting drunk on yourself. I fell in love with myself. Or rather the image of myself that I had created through drugs and alcohol. I had enough to make others envious, I had more on my plate than I could swallow but all I wanted to do was die.

But today, I am free from the desire to end my life. I am free from many other things, but still slave to some. I am not a born again Christian or Buddhist or anything. I have simply had an awakening of sorts. I have come to realize that a life of pleasure and the accumulation of worldly kudos, be it career or romantic merit, is futile. Because the nature of pleasure and success is impermanence. Pleasure is not loyal, achievement is not constant and both are avaricious. They expect to be fed constantly. The seeker of selfish pleasures will have to pay his pound of flesh in full eventually.

In opposition to a life of hedonism is a life of self-restraint, a life of communion with the transcendental - Him whom I have come to know as God. However, for a novice like myself, this life is grueling. It requires me to act with blind faith. To jump into a lake, though I know not how to swim. And as I travel along this simple road, more becomes clear. God and my conscience become one. I am no longer spitting and hissing at the voice of reason within me like I used to in the past. However, there are many carnal pleasures and perversions– casual sex, drinking, drugging, smoking, overeating, stealing, cursing, fighting, bullying, gossiping, lying, overspending, revelry and being bone idle – that I can no longer partake of with impunity. And I do miss doing these things! My very basic drive is to indulge myself, to defile all things pure and sacred, to hurt other people, to take all their goodies for myself. To watch them suffer, to be brutal and to mock and tease and to seek and feel pleasure in every neuron, every cell of my being 24 hours a day. 48 hours a day if possible! I like doing things that are bad for me. But I can’t.

Along with a conscience comes the gift and burden of awareness. I now know that I cannot do the things that give me that particular brand of wicked pleasure. I cannot be ruthless, lascivious or lazy. I cannot hurt people and expect not to be hurt in return. I can no longer sweep all my sins under the carpet and pretend that it’s ok. I know that karmic laws exist and apply to all human beings, no matter how wealthy, beautiful, gifted or intelligent. God and karma will give you what you deserve, so if you feel you are more fortunate than most of your contemporaries, you had better do more work at being good. You had better give something back to humanity.

One thing great about walking on a narrow beam is that your sense of emotional and psychological balance starts to improve. Also, you are not swaying from one side of the yellow brick road to the other or making detours to ask Scarecrow, Tin Man or Lion for directions or approval. Your eyes are focused on putting one foot in front of the other and you learn to trust the compass which is your soul.

Copyright 2006, Michele Koh

Veiling the Power of Tits & Ass

2006-10-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

“Tell the faithful women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not display their beauty except what is apparent of it, and to extend their scarf to cover their bosom.”-
Koran, 24:31

A woman walked into Commons leader Jack Straw’s office. The woman greeted him saying, “It is so good to finally meet you face to face.” She wore a niqab – a full Islamic veil complete with gloves and a veil for the face. Only her eyes could be seen. Perhaps meeting him face to fabric would have been a more appropriate statement. Straw said that he felt uncomfortable about talking ‘face to face’ with someone he could not see. So he decided he would say something :

"Now, I always ensure that a female member of my staff is with me. I explain that this is a country built on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws. I go on to say that I think, however, that the conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the covering from her face. Indeed, the value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that you can - almost literally - see what the other person means, and not just hear what they say. However, I can't recall a single occasion when a lady has refused to lift her veil; most seem relieved I have asked."

Straw’s comments have sparked another debate on multiculturalism in Britain, but perhaps the issue of headscarves has more to do with objection to the female form than it has to do with Islam and religion.

A truly shapely woman can clothe herself in a boxy suit and still give a man an erection. A swinging ponytail on an 8 year- old girl can sometimes stir inappropriate thoughts in older men. A teenage daughter dressed inappropriately around the house can cause much embarrassment to her father. Pre-pubescent schoolgirls who show too much leg can cause a male teacher much discomfort in the classroom. And I’m sure provocative dressing has caused many minor accidents among construction workers on the city roads.

The bottom line is this – a woman’s bottom will still get more attention than the most brilliant speech by a man. There is something about the female form…lips, cheekbones, neck, breast, waist, hips, wrists and ankles that the human eye (male or female) can’t help but focus on. More than aesthetically appealing, the image of the female body is capable of arousing the most devilish passions. Full of curves, like an apparatus begging for a grasp and squeeze from the human hand…flesh soft or bony like the pulp or stem from luscious fruit…the female form awaken hungers that if left alone would be far more beneficial to society.

I believe that the most tenacious, pervasive and least acknowledged of the seven deadly sins in lust. Lust is the egg from which all the others are conceived. It is from lust that human life is created. Everything that we do - career, hobbies, raising a family - these activities can be done successfully only because we have re-channeled our desire to have sex. Underneath everything we do is the desire to have sex. And under the desire to have sex is the image of a supple, welcoming, anonymous female body. I believe, that like the concept of God, the innate love and attachment to the naked female body is inherent in all of us. After all, it was through the sight of our mother’s nipples that we learnt survival. Most heterosexual women profess that they do not think of a male body when they masturbate, they think of a woman’s.

Perhaps women who wear burgas and niqabs are wise enough to know that the female body, if not publicly subdued can exact almost godlike powers over men…resulting in a society of latent rapists or aggressive, frustrated, confused creatures unable to function or govern well due to a pre-occupation with sex. (Clinton and Prescott know!)

Or perhaps by hiding their female forms they can increase that power, like forbidden fruit?

Whatever the case may be, in an age where tits and ass pop up on every website, newspaper and street corner, the niqab is a reminder to women of all races and religions that their bodies are sacred and one of the most potent weapons of mass destruction!

copyright 2006, Michele Koh

I Am A Fearless Warrior

2006-10-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

I held on tight
Look at me, I'm alright
I am a fearless warrior
I'll kill everyone in sight
Racing to the finish line
Yesterday's pain was worth it's price
Fuck if I care
I'm not playing nice
When I've used it all up
I'll crawl back inside
Watch me vanish
Poof I fly
Please save me
Save me...
Bring me back
Or else, I'll die
No! If I hold on tight
They will think that I'm alright
Tomorrow's pain is worth it's price
Wait! Maybe I'll play twice as nice
I'll be pretty, I'll be skinny
I'll be funny, I'll be kind
And maybe if I work the lie
That will save me from the shit inside
But today's pain is not worth the price
Look at me!
Look at me!
I'm alright
Look at me...holding on tight
I'm a fearless warrior
Dying inside

copyright 2006, Michele Koh

Are Young Singaporeans Mice?

2006-10-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

Singporean MP, Dr Toh Chin Chye said that the generation of today are meek and very calculating. They are less independent-thinking and lacking in initiative. It does not bode well for the emergence of future leaders in politics or business. Is this a fair assessment?

Singapore in the 1960s was a politically lively place, full of colourful characters with plans of changing our nation and maybe even the world. Teachers asked their students what they thought of the local elections, their opinions of the different emerging political parties and their views on events happening in the world. Students were encouraged to question and debate.

When Patrice Lamumba, then president of the Democratic Republic of Congo was assassinated, Singaporean MPs, including Lee Kuan Yew, staged a mass rally protesting the crime. Sadly, today, few Singaporeans of my generation care about what is happening in local government, much less in Africa or elsewhere. Those who do keep up with current affairs, are happy to remain critical bystanders, and nowhere today can the passion, zeal and eagerness for politics be found.

Whatever happened to the enthusiasm and initiative so alive in the men and women of my father’s generation?

I believe that the root of our political ambivalence lies in our education system. When I was in college in Australia and university in London, we were required to research everything for ourselves. Lecturers seldom hinted at which questions would come out for the exams, therefore in order to do well, one had to search and research thoroughly and never take any information at face value. In my secondary school days in Singapore, everyone had the same textbooks. Everyday, our teachers handed us photocopied notes for history and geography. Memorising those notes word for word was all that was required to get an A. There was no debate and nobody ever questioned what was taught. This system of teaching may produce meticulous, disciplined and hardworking citizens, but at the price of creativity, courage and assertiveness. As Dr. Toh Chin Chye said: “the generation of today are meek and very calculating.”

Perhaps another reason for this passive attitude is the effect of peace and economic security on our nation. Throughout history, civil wars, famines, natural disasters and political upheavals are often what motivates the common man to take an active role in shaping the political landscape of his country. While our parents had the ‘luxury’ of the struggle for independence as their legacy, our generation knew only comfort and economic growth. Our complacency as much as our ignorance has left us deprived of future leaders.

I once asked a national serviceman what he thought about the war in Iraq. I was appalled when he replied: “I don’t really know about these things. I don’t really think about these things.” If we do not start creating political and business leaders now, Singapore will be lost when the strongmen of today retire. Leadership begins with knowledge, and true knowledge comes with questioning, doubting and being brave enough to make mistakes. In his inaugural speech, Lee Hsien Loong called for more alternative views, pledging to create a generation with “more spirit, more verve”. Let us begin by encouraging debate in our classrooms without fear. Let us spend more time with the hungry, with the sick, and volunteering in our neighbouring countries where war, disaster and poverty have left human beings empty. This is the only way to purge the ignorance and complacency that has set in on this generation.

Tragedy in the Village of Paradise

2006-10-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

3 October 2006. 32 year-old milk driver Charles Carl Robert walked into a nearby Amish commune called the Village of Paradise and executed 4 teenage girls by putting a bullet to their heads. He then took his own life. Detectives investigating the case believe that Roberts, who was himself not an Amish targeted these innocent girls because he was angry at God for an undisclosed incident that happened to him when he was a boy of twelve, 20 years ago. The girls who were murdered represent the embodiment of Christian virtue, all that is uncorrupted that belongs to God. They were in the rage addled eyes of Roberts, the closest thing to God he could approach on this earth, hence they bore the brunt of his satanic hatred.

I can only imagine that whatever happened to young Roberts must have been had a devastating effect on his psyche and soul. I presume that it was of a sexual and emotional nature, possibly molestation and rape by a Christian minister. The death of his infant daughter in 1997 probably further convinced him that God had singled him out for ridicule and mental torture. In Robert’s anguished mind, God must have looked like a fat, ruddy faced, caricature of an old bourgeois pub drunk laughing at his simple ways and lack of psychic /supernatural powers.

20 years is a long time to wait to act against God. Roberts probably tried to find enemies in the faces of a handful of close human being, perhaps his wife, parents and children, but could find none who were the sole cause of his misery. So he externalized his delusional image of God on the young girls.

This is the 3rd high school killing/suicide in the US this week. The Columbine and Beslan massacres have made one thing clear – the innocent are the best targets. All of biblical truth can be seen in such school killings. The children represent Jesus and their murderer representing Judas. Perhaps that is the only way for all human beings, we are to choose our role in this life - to die as innocent lambs, victims of the malice of those who have power over our hearts, minds and livelihood or to take our own lives maddened by rage at others who have hurt us and taken away our innocence in the past. The only freedom I can see from here is forgiveness. And I pray that for the sake of their own sanity, the parents of the Amish girls find it in their hearts to forgive Roberts.

copyright 2006, Michele Koh

EROS Movie Review

2006-10-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

This was the first film I reviewed for Psychologies magazine in London. I don't think they published it. Didn't want it going into my trash...

EROS is an anthology of three short films about erotic love. Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni examine the subject from very different perspectives. The one thing these three directors excel at is atmosphere. Rather than leading with a strong plot, the films are more of a mental exploration of the complex and subtle emotions we feel when in love.
In “The Hand”, a young tailor’s apprentice falls for a manipulative Hong Kong courtesan (Gong Li), but the only way he can express his love is by making her the most beautiful clothes. Wong, who received international acclaim for “In The Mood for Love”, uses minimal dialogue, attention to detail, music and repetition to maximum effect, encapsulating the pain of unrequited love - when the things that most need to be expressed cannot be said.
In Soderbergh’s “Equilibrium”, Robert Downey Jr., plays a manic advertising executive who discuses a recurring sexual dream with therapist, Alan Arkin. Their session examines how through the course of daily living, we become subject to erotic amnesia.
In Antonioni’s “The Dangerous Thread of Things” a fourty year-old married man has a passionate encounter with a sexy young woman. Littered with Jungian sexual symbols - towers, waterfalls and horses, this is perhaps what the erotic dream state is like.
Rather than tell us stories about characters in love, EROS leaves everything to interpretation, unlocking the memory bank that is so fiercely guarded by everyone who has ever been confounded by romantic desire.

God of Fear

2006-10-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

22 Feb 2006
I lit my first cigarette at 2.30pm. It didn’t taste too bad. But it wasn’t very pleasurable either. Now I am feeling drowsy. The nicotine makes me drowsy and my muscles start to relax and I want to lie down in bed. It’s like a switch in my head goes off – it’s the health switch. After that first cigarette, I feel like I have undone all the good I have achieved through my Pilates, yoga and mediation in the morning. I am looking forward to becoming a non-smoker.

Fear. Where does it come from? It comes from the imagined figure watching our every move, the illusion of a tyrannical godhead that expects no less than perfection in every activity we do. We all live with a god of our own understanding, and when the understanding and perception of that god is askew, we become fearful. We believe that we only have one chance to get it right, and if that one action does not meet the approval of this imaginary god whose will we cannot accurately know, we are doomed to follow a series of failures for the rest of the day, or the rest of our lives. One chance to make that phone call about work. One chance to get that good grade. One chance to meet the right man. One chance to get married. One chance to quit smoking. One chance to be good. Only one chance at success. Believe this and the result is obvious – fear will dominate our lives.

So how do we minimize the amount of time and power that fear has in our lives? Change our perception of the godhead. Today, I see God as a comforting presence, not as a deriding or domineering authority figure. I see God as the source of comfort and rest. When I do that, my perception of people, especially people of authority change too. I stop worrying about whether or not they give me what I want or whether or not I say the ‘right’ thing. Because there is no right word or right time, or right way to get a job or fall in love or get well. There is only a good way, which fits only because all the ways that don’t fit have been eliminated. If there is no right way, then there is no wrong way, and if there is no wrong way, then we don’t have to be responsible for our failures, just as we stake no claim in our successes. When I say we are not responsible for our failures, what I mean is that we are not the hirelings of a boss-like godhead, so we do not muck up the job. Our creator does not need us to be efficient so he can pull off the job. He does that just fine without us. Our efficiency and discipline is done for selfish reasons – it benefits us and removes fear in our lives. The only reason why we perceive a thing or event as a failure is because of the amount of anxiety is stirs in us. It is a ‘failure’ because it makes us feel more negative emotions than positive ones, but the thing or event in itself is not a failure, it is simply our emotional response to it that makes it so.

With regards to emotional responses, even prolonged spells of anxiety, sadness, anger and loneliness are not entirely negative. Even fear is not entirely bad. Negative emotional states remind us that our work is not done and never will be. It makes us work all the harder at bringing forth that positive shine that comes with a clear and consistent understanding of the godhead as universal, eternal and a constant companion and friend. Another factor that contributes greatly to fear, more so than most people imagine is self-censorship. We look at a sentence again and again thinking that it is structurally, grammatically or ideologically unsound. We look for words that do not fit the sentence and think of various substitutes, we question the logic of the statement we make; we think that the tone is unauthentic. In so we as constantly looking at where we are less than excellent. How we pale in comparison to our peers or established persons in our field of work and we deride ourselves for not being as eloquent, creative or brilliant as them. We can carry this self-examination to the point of abject misery. We deride ourselves for a failure, which is not universal by any means, but is merely a conception within our minds. This failure has an audience of one. So why does this self-censoring and self-critique bring about the most anxiety? Because we are not allowing ourselves to be authentic, we are doing everything in our power, even on the most subliminal levels, like in diary writing, to project and protect our ideal selves for an imaginary audience. We seek to eradicate all thoughts and sentiments that contradict the ideal or that betray our ignorance or lack of conviction to ourselves. If we are intelligent, we are afraid that we have to admit that sometimes we are not. If we are attractive we are afraid that we have to admit that someday we will not be. If we are optimistic and happy, we are afraid that one day our confidence in positive thinking will let us down.

So how do we get around this problem? First we need to calmly accept that the godhead is good and he leaves us to get along with what we need to do. He is not a voyeur, and he meddles only to save us. Second, we need to realize that failure is only a state of mind, the reality of one, not many. Third, we need to work daily at being authentic, that means never pretending to be happier than we are or sadder or more troubled than we are. Always keep your responses true to the moment. Four, we need to ensure that we do not attach ourselves to secular or religious labels or virtues and vices. ‘I am the partner of the godhead’ is as far as I will go in convicting myself to any universal truth. Everything else, intellect, wit, humour, good looks, religious affiliation, language, gender and race is neutral and subjective. Never universal. And if it is not universal, it is not a reality per se, but a perception, and perceptions vary from one person to the next. Therefore, the concept of virtues and vices, optimism and pessimism, punishment and reward and right and wrong should have less and less of an effect on my internal balance. Even balance itself should not be regarded as a right or wrong state of mind. Good and bad exists in tandem, but it is only in this regard that I have a choice. If I choose what is good (which I will intuit only through friendship and acceptance of the godhead) I will feel less fear. If I choose what is bad (denial, resistance and usurpation of the godhead) then I will suffer fear. Secretly or openly, but without a doubt fear will reign supreme. It is only in surrendering things that sometimes seem right, that we can experience the excellent.

copyright 2006, Michele Koh

Hello World

2006-08-25T03:59:00.000-07:00

I am a first time blogger and am feeling awfully meek at the moment. I am trying to find my cybervoice, so to speak! I find it difficult to be authentic when I know that strangers will be reading this. So I'm stressing unecessarily about grammar and context and what not. Yes, I am neurotic!!! Also, I am unsure as to whether or not this blog would look better is it had a theme or if I run it like a free for all. What do you suggest?

Novelty of A Novel

2006-08-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

I like books, usually the best part about them is when I haven’t opened them yet, and the smell of their soft cardboard covers fresh out of the book factory. I like book covers and also I like the reviews, short and punchy on the back of the book jacket. “Brilliant”, “Tour de force”, “dazzling”, “original”, “spellbinding”, “striking”, “exhilarating”, “beguiling”, “cinematic”.

“Spellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most comtemporary fiction you’ll ever read…A truly great read.”

“A quite extraordinary novel…the language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. And what a narrative! What an story!”

“This remarkable and ambitious book succeeds as a savagely colourful, always-astonishing entertainment of elegant and bold storytelling.”

“Great book. Rich and illuminating and impossibly imaginative.’

“A quite extraordinary novel. The language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling – and yet never for the sake of showing off.”

They should publish a novel made up entirely of reviews. From beginning to end, just one review after another. That ought to hold my attention.

I buy my books because of the reviews and the covers, then I read a few chapters and I want to buy a new book. I guess it’s called a novel, because it’s the novelty of it that grabs you but then, the novelty wears off so fast.

The Lone Wanderer

2006-08-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

Ever so often, many of us feel an overpowering and desperate urge to pack our bags, whisk out our passports and fly off to new exotic countries. Our forefathers were nomads, who crossed treacherous seas and hiked through barren desserts often with no clue where their journey would take them. As evolution would have it, the desire to explore different geographical climates and experience new sights and sounds has been etched into our DNA. Along with its’ biological roots, travel has long been linked with magic and providence. Legends of flying carpets in “A Thousand And One Arabian Nights”, and the Greek ship Argonaut, that sailed in search for mystical objects like the Golden Fleece reveal that man’s delight in travel is eternal.

I’m not talking about business travel, family vacations or packaged tours, though elements of intrigue can be present in the aforementioned forms of travel. I speak of taking a journey into the unknown, of deciding to leave the securities of work and relationships behind and venture out because it seems like the only thing left to do.

When you go on a holiday, you become “the foreigner”. You break out of routines, habits and behaviors that you fall slave to in your own country and home. Instead of moving around among your fellow countrymen, you take on the role of the exotic stranger. When your feet land on new soil, and the people around you dress differently and speak in languages and accents that you don’t understand; you tend to experience a certain fear, or anxiety (as if you were an alien who just entered a new planet). The giddiness of the initial disorientation that comes with what I call “no strings” of “agenda-less” travel produces eustress – a mental state of positive psychological tension. This surreal altered state gives you the freedom to jump out of your skin. When I leave everything I know and love behind and take in the peculiarities of different pastures, I feel like a character who has stepped right out of the pages from a novel, and is about to be the author of the next chapter of the book.

When embarking on a vacation, most people opt for guided tours, where the goal is to take in or cram as many of the purported highlights and landmark sites as possible in a day. Tourists who go to Paris, almost always have the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe on their list of “must sees”, likewise, a visit to Italy would not be complete without an excursion to St. Peter’s Square or Venice. For travelers who hop on coach after coach with other non-locals on packaged holidays where comfort and safety is the name of the game, the chosen destination becomes nothing more than an amusement park for wealthy voyeurs. Conducted tours are funny like that…it’s like taking a whole bunch of grown ups from one city, herding them around like school kids and telling them to watch out for pickpockets and beggars as if they had just flown all the way to observe a zoo from behind a cage.

Backpackers make up the next category of travelers. Back in the early 60’s the word “backpacker” conjured up images of hobos, anthropologists, hippies, explorers and dreamers who made their own maps and blended in with the indigenous people at whim. These days, the very mention of the word “backpacker” brings on guffaws and sniggers from those who have been there and done that. Backpacking, like the more commercial brand of tourism, no longer carries the essence of fearless determination that it once implied. These days, backpackers are like the scum of the earth, traveling on meager budgets for as long as they can, hitting every Third World location and sucking the life out of all things antiquated. Sure you can still find “old-world” budget travelers, who are aware of their place in a strange land; but the majority of backpackers are students or menial workers on a long break. The pop status that has been granted to backpacking has created a coterie of restless urbanized youngsters who travel in groups or pairs. They hang around with other tourists and sit around all day swapping stories about London, Israel, Germany and Japan while staying in a guesthouse in Siberia! After staying in a foreign land for a quarter of a year, backpackers gain elite status and congregate like paupers of the expatriate community, they start berating the natives and scoffing at local customs that drew them to their destination in the first place. But pull these rugged looking “backpackies” away from their cronies and what you’ve got is a fish out of water.

So what then, is the most fulfilling way for a young person to truly experience the rewards of traveling?

• Go alone. Leave without the companionship of friends and partners. This is the only way to truly cut all ties with a familiar environment and connect with a new one.
• Forget the guidebooks. It’s good to arm yourself with only the most essential information like climate, weather and living expenses. Don’t overload yourself with too many cultural and historical facts and figures. Books and postcards can create unrealistic expectations.
• Don’t make reservations. Tourism is a massive industry and it’s more thrilling to walk around and peek at all your lodging options the day you arrive before deciding. If everything is booked up, the probability of being offered board by a local family is surprisingly high.
• Don’t make any particular site of interest your ultimate goal. Travel is not a means to and end. If you stress over trying to get to one particular spot, you’ll miss out on the real action.
• Get lost. Travel aimlessly. The most exhilarating thing about being in a strange new place is the ability to feel like a total stranger. Enjoy this weird sense of disorientation while it lasts because before you know it, your mind will become accustom to every street and sound.
• Be afraid...be very afraid. In all the best adventure stories, the hero is always terrified of the fiercesome inhabitants of the land. The city feels like a labyrinth, and the need to seek help overwhelms the intrepid explorer. The hero in the story did not know this was just a case of culture shock. It is at this breaking point, when you suddenly realize how weak, ill equipped and alone you really are in the big bad world that your journey truly begins. Your senses sharpen, you’ll need to muster all your resources and courage and move onward conscientiously.
• The most exciting events occur through adversity. When you realize that all your safety nets are three hundred and sixty five hundred miles away, it’s time to put down the map and IDD card and roam like a lunatic. You’ll find help and friends at the most unexpected places.
• Don’t force yourself to join activities and plan itineraries you don’t really want to engage in. Get comfortable with your surroundings first. Intuition is your best guide.
• Learn a new language. When you have to speak Spanish in order to get a get a cup of coffee or Hindi in order to find a toilet, you will pick it up a lot faster than in a classroom.
• Steer clear of touristy shops. The most interesting gifts are free. Pick up a stone from the Grand Canyon, a shell from the Bahamas or matchboxes from Shanghai. Not only are they more authentic and meaningful, it will also save you some money.

Travel is not about proving how many castles, museums, temples or volcanoes you’ve seen or showing off the number of souvenirs you’ve collected. When you slow down, throw your hands up in the air and wonder, “What the hell am I doing here!” all the real treasures a country has to offer come unfolding before you in due time. I have found myself unplugging dead cockroaches from the sink in a boat in Indonesia, peeing by a bush in the Andalusian mountains after getting kicked out of my hotel at four in the morning and being interrogated by armed Ghurkas in Nepal who mistook me for a journalist. The most wonderful aspect of traveling is the feeling of powerlessness. You never know what to expect. Bad weather, malaria, strange food or hostile natives, but when you overcome these obstacles, you will leave with the best gift ever – memories that are uniquely yours and stories to tell your grandchildren.

copyright 2006, Michele Koh