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Saturday, 22 November 2008

Chillout Friday night....

Tonite,
i just feel like chilling at home.Watch dvds,order in takeaway.......playing wii and maybe a game of Mahjong.
But DD jio-ed Zouk,Coz S and his sister+gf are going down. I want to coz ive never seen DD's gf before!!!!!
kinda tired from wed so just gonna chill at home.Waiting for S to come ova, its like 11.12pm already.

What to do tomorrow? You know how its funny when ur gf is back u dun mind going out but all u both wanna do is laze and rest at home haha......oh wells maybe tmr ill bring Hazel out for a walk :) :) :)

Sunday, 16 November 2008

My Facebook is for shameless facebooking+photo-whoring and my Xanga is for words from my heart :)

Hi my friends and whoever chances upon this blog!

Yes i know i haven't written in ages, in this forgotten wasteland of my blog. I've decided this is the place i will share my rants and views of my world. What i experienced over my life back in Singapore.
Let's leave the party pictures and crazy reverie to facebook. Yes alot of people see one side of me which is the crazy partying and drinking. I mean the intellectual side of me remains intensely inside my brain.

Many things have happened over the last few months. Personally, i have my fair share of ups and downs. Me and my other half did have a timeout for a while, which i did sort my life out for the better. I mean i look back and i feel that change is inevitable in life. It's just how we manipulate our lives to cope with the change. I know im willing to change together with her that's for sure. She doesn't have to chance upon my blog to know that i do, doesn't matter seriously. I think it's through the downs that you think through whether the person is worth your effort and your time. I'm sure we both DO know the answer.

Talking about this question of hope, the advocation of hope of OBAMA. How one person's promise of hope has changed the world. This phenomenen of OBAMA-mania.....It has struck the mainstream media alright, OBAMA this OBAMA that....in the past was OSAMA this OSAMA that. How fickle our press is, how fickle our society is....i guess that explains the term Andy Warhol once mentioned, "Everyone is entitled to their 15 minutes of fame."
The question is WHEN? When you are dead or alive.
Of coz everyone hopes that their 15 minutes of fame is when they are alive and not dead and remembered, and of coz EVENTUALLY forgotten for some.....

Talking about this idea of 15 minutes of fame, i chanced upon this artist Yayoi Kusama through my job. We built this house in the Bukit Timah area, the owner is an avid art collector of sorts. He tells us his paintings are quote unquote, "PRICELESS".No wonder our painters fear of taking up the job of painting and protecting his works of art.

I chanced upon his Yayoi Kusama paintings. YES he has quite a few of them, which i seriously wonder how much they are worth. Anyway after "a GOOD goggle" and some "youtubing", Wow Yayoi is like the last remaining true POP artist alive. She actually is Japanese of coz, and used to be around Andy Warhol's Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory) and frequently around Andy Warhol.
She was never truely famous during her time in the Pop Art Mania in the New York of the 70's - early 80's. She is now currently living in and out of a mental asylum in Japan.They talk of Yayoi, its her work that consumed her mind and thus her brillance in his visions of this world, through her eyes.

Everything she saw was a dot, the world was made of an infinite universe of dots. Come to think of it, do this experiment on yourself...look closely at this very computer lcd screen of yours..close up...relax your eyes....they are dots....we always choose to forget thats the very basis of nano-technology, the study of the breaking an object into the smallest possible particle....dot or atom, whatever you choose to call it. Her obsession turned into her lifetime of work...a lifetime devoted to the exploration of her concept of looking at the world through her eyes. Of coz what she saw was dots and more dots.................
.........
..........
..............i know you all may go goggle Yayoi Kusama after this....
.....the choice is yours.....
..........i was inspired......
Your Art is inevitable your own enjoyment and passion.
If someone appreciates it, its just an incentive but never a neccessity.
I live by that......

.....END OF POST

Friday, 01 February 2008

Back in action!

Hi to long lost friends and whoever who still comes here....
Yap i have been pretty busy with life back in Singapore for about 13 months now...its been a whirlwind ride with lotsa partying and work too.
To all those back in Melbourne....miss the university days hanging out, doing group projects and partying like mad with people like Songliang, Danny, Qingan, Yaqi and many many more like my ex-course mates from School of Built Environment, our Bachelor of Design program! It was fun while it lasted but working life beckons....
Singapore is really a crazy place to live...everything moves so fast and quick....sometimes u just have zero time to stop reflect think about your life so far.I guess these is one of the motivations of me coming back to blog here.
At least when i do put these thoughts on the keyboard. I begin to reflect think and look upon my present life and what im not totally satisfied about.
In working life you either become a slave to your work....or if you are lucky enough to enjoy what you do...its a walk in the park and u actually gather satisfaction from what you do, and GET PAID FOR it too! Of course we work towards the weekends...
My new 2008 Resolution is to club less...drink more wine and not liquor haha....stay home more and enjoy my room that im lucky enough to have....get a huge ass lcd tv and mabbe internet tv/cable(local cable DOES suck)......spend more time with my family and with Rachel when shes back....walk my dog more in the evenings....around Katong.
Now that my new dog Hazel has her new home....me and my dad designed it together and with a couple of words to our workers....Tadaaaaaaa....Photos to be seen soon! Its still empty now...but ill take a couple when Hazel is happily in her new home...
Lastly, this is not the end! i will be writing and posting more pics up here again soon....probably linking the pics from facebook.
To my long lost friends and visitors here....Happy Chinese Lunar New Year!
HUAT ahhhH! :)

Thursday, 15 June 2006

A singaporean identity? what identity?

Ive been hard at work on my thesis, ive been thinking on what is so different about living in an Asian country like Singapore....ermmm actually nothing compared to living in Melbourne...except for the street hawker food you don't get here.

Basically 84% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats and also in modern condominiums...so what is it that makes us live like Asians when we live in completely the same type of housing westerners do? As written by William Lim a prominent architect in Singapore about Singapore, in his baseline paper on "Architectural Identity in Singapore".....he says, "Discourse about the identity in Singapore has to do with lack of strong identity".....HOW TRUE! if you think about it, Is Orchard Road bustling with shopping centres with labels you can get from any modern city in Asia or in the States or any Prada shop in Europe considered Singaporean? The Great Singapore Sale is a tourist attraction? i think a better tourist attraction for Singaporeans is a visit to the PSA or Port of Singapore Authority to see the ONLY reason why we live the way we live today, in a society where luxuries are provided most of us at the time of our births. Basically Singapore society are middlemen, the inbetween person who makes money off trading and selling at higher prices. The other supporting occupations just fuel the economy. Without the port we will just be like Batam island, maybe with some luck Bali.

This leads me to think of my thesis and what i really want to do in the future. And how apt that im writing my thesis on "Singapore and its interior identity". I ask myself this question,"How can we make ourselves live more like Asian, like Singaporeans?"...we can take from our parent's childhood memories of running in a kampong, amongst the malay communities. Interestingly, my dad told that's how he learnt so many languages...growing up amongst other races and chinese ethinicities. How can we re-introduce these lost traditions into families of today? The families we are going to create is a result of the spaces we live in....Alot like what you eat is what you are.

I ask myself alot of questions. What makes a living space Singaporean? Is it those old marble coffee tables we sit at in those colonial coffeeshops in the old part of chinatown? Is it the cock brand bowls we eat our wanton mees from in the past? Is it the family unit?
I realised how gradually the habit of sitting down at the dinner table with my parents...asking my dad and mum to eat before we start on a meal? How often do u really see that happening in modern families of today? As globalization changes our rituals of living and dining...our spaces have become devoid of the family function of the home....Then what makes a house a home then? Maybe a modular unit that can both be used as a living and dining room...can be expanded to cather for those big family occasions like Chinese New Year and Christmas....Something that can fit into a HDB flat, considering the standard family unit HDB house is a 4-5room HDB flat...gone were the days of a tiny one room flat. We have the luxury of more space in the home now....so why don't we make it a more conducive family environment to bring up our children?

As we continue to search for a Singaporean identity in our living spaces....Trends like mininalist zen in interior design is not DESIGN, its actually NON-design......is copying what we see from Japanese houses a way to solve our lack of identity? Asian identity in interiors is not about a well ornamenated antique vase and dark cherrywood furniture....its more then that it involves things like fengshui planning and the sensibility of the procession from one space to another....how fascinating if your home had no walls, just screens and subtle changes in levels to indicate the change in the function? Actually there are some HDB flats there are sold as empty spaces with no walls....perfect for the open concept...imagine how many Singaporeans will go crazy with an empty canvas haha....i juz chuckle thinking of it....Maybe our generation will make the difference...afterall it is us who will bring up the next generation.....Maybe then the Singapore Identity will be found?

Perhaps........;)

The Lo-Shu Fengshui Diagram                  A example of an Asian-style bedroom

Le Corbusier's "Unite d'Habitation",1952 >>>Retro flats in Singapore, RIPOFF!!!!!

Example of modular units in 5-room HDB Television corner with mounted LCD TV

View from expanded dining room table.    Vestibules of passage>>>Transitional space

Transformation of table unit to a bigger table unit for big family dinners.

Normal small family unit setting                    Easily transformation into a smaller space.

Friday, 14 April 2006

Have you ever thought of yourself as not being 100% racially tolerant?

I just watched "Crash" a movie about racial intolerance in the States, everyone who is interested in this issue should really watch this. One of the characters, played by Matt Dillion is a racial intolerant white american policeman...who goes around his rounds picking on African-American men...Particularly on one occasion he picks on this upper class black couple...this woman was giving her husband a blowjob inside his Lincoln Navigator...and gets stopped by Matt...who proceeds to body search her...and sexually molesting her infront of her husband...while her husband watched not doing anythin at all...in jeopardy of his reputation and his job.....this creates tension in their relationship.However, in a seperate occasion he proceeds to save her life when she crashes into another car whilst shes trapped in the flames.So what does the woman do then? Thank him for saving his life or hate him for sexually molesting her? This just shows how layered even Matt's racist policeman character evolves.

Thinking about how brilliantly constructed this script is, it just hits us how racially intolerant actually most of us are. Think about it, back in Singapore how we treat Indian workers who build most of our buildings (especially Bangedelshi workers cycling in the dark on bicycles at night), is like pretty much how some white americans treat the blacks especially those in the ghettos. Sometimes i think its hardly possible to be 100% tolerant of racial differences...How do we share our lives with people whom customs and lives we don't understand? This also resonates into our political climate of today, terrorism from both sides of the stories. I say the day we understand tolerance completely is the day mankind has reached a state of enlightenment, however this day is still far away....

Meanwhile...Palestinians and Israelis still take centerstage in the quest for the holy land.The crusade for this sacred holy land still continues...generations of children born with hatred and vengance still continue to propogate new terrorists of the future.It is said there are 11 sacred artifacts spread all over the South American continent, each crystal skull is embedded with the knowledge and wisdom or earlier perhaps more advance cultures that exist before us. It is said when all 11 skulls have been reunited together the truth and reason behind the existence of humankind will be revealed....So far 5 of them have been found by archaelogists. It is said the skulls are made up of the same element...silicon we use in computer chips today are made from crystals. This same extensive knowledge could be embedded in these skulls. Perhaps the day all the skulls are found and reunited will be the day when mankind has reached a state of enlightenment....where no wars exist and the truth behind our existence is revealed, and we finally come in terms with our purpose on this Earth of ours.

Till then, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan still rages on and the battle for the oilfields of the Middle East still continues.We still continue to work our life away for money in this capitalist driven global economy...continually fed images of terrorism on our televison screens...an uncertain world we live in indeed. I guess the only consolation is a place called home...where family keeps us going...and a thing called love for those of us who have found it ;) ....for those who haven't....keep looking...