August 28th, 2010 by Eshin
This stuff really makes me angry.
Some Hong Kong residents are bigoted enough to fire their Filipino domestic helpers in a response to the hijacking fiasco in the Philippines – Hong Kong Filipinos fear hostage backlash. Seriously, will you grow up?
“I have already told my Filipino maid to find another job. I have decided to hire a local Hong Kong granny or a new immigrant from mainland China to be my domestic helper,” Angel Hong wrote on the Facebook memorial page.
Angel, your sense of patriotism to hire a local Hong Kong granny is commendable. It also speaks volumes about your character that you list out your alternative maid choices listing typical groups that are more vulnerable than most. Really, I know older people want to feel useful but really, do you think she really wants to be cleaning your toilet bowl at her age? Don’t even get me started on how to take apart the “a new immigrant from mainland China” comment. I suppose when they aren’t fresh of the boat anymore, you’d probably sack rather than give a pay rise?
It really is a shame that 8 of your fellow citizens had to die before you decided you would rather hire locally instead of exploiting cheaper labour from overseas. Well, at least you got your bang for your buck while it lasted. Angel, indeed.
Now don’t get me wrong. The story of the crisis was sad and tragic and my heart goes out to those people that actually have lost someone in the tragedy. One can’t deny that the Filipino government and those responsible for ensuring everyone’s safety were bunglers in the extreme. But do we really need to go down the road of this gross bigotry? These hostages were not targeted because they were Hong Kongers or Chinese. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For if it becomes a nationalist and jingoistic call for tit-for-tat, surely one probably shouldn’t overlook the number of Filipino foreign domestic workers that are abused on regular basis by their employers in Hong Kong. Some even live under near hostage conditions as well. Instead the sharp, immediate threat of death is replaced by a slow, persistent threat of violence that lasts over sometimes many months, even years. Healing from the shame, humiliation and abuse might take many years, if ever.
To be fair, the territory generally has an okay track record at protecting the rights of its foreign domestic workers with exception of some key policy blunders. And while I’m sure our dear bigoted Angel Hong would never be a person to abuse the weaker elements of society, I’m sure she is breathing a sigh of relief that she’s not tarnished with the same brush for someone else’s actions.
This bigotry is what got Sikhs in America killed straight after 9/11. Could I have commemorated the tragedy in a better way than bashing someone’s stupidity? Probably. But then they pulled the stupid first by commemorating the loss of life by punishing those unrelated to the affair.
June 27th, 2010 by Eshin
This past week I have found myself in the curious position of having to explain the rivalry between England and Germany. When I talk about the grudge match that will be played this evening, I get looks from folks hereabouts that range from puzzlement to complete disinterest. Apparently the significance of England facing Germany is lost upon them.
Of course, I’m being mightily Anglo-centric on this and it really shouldn’t be a small wonder that people haven’t heard of the much loved battle-cry of the Brits – “Two World Wars and one World Cup.”
Here is an amusing article that attempts to explain some of the rivalry between England and Germany – World Cup 2010: why England v Germany is more than just a game of football.
C’mon England!
June 23rd, 2010 by Eshin
Unfortunately, not in a good way.
For some inexplicable reason that only the Apple marketing team can probably explain to me, I was in a rush to install the new OS4 that promises to be the first step in making my phone obsolete. Don’t even get me started on the fact that it is just barely a year old. To be fair, iTunes happily tells me that it will take about an hour or so to download and update, so I leave it to do its thing overnight.
Again, the Apple marketing boys and girls have some explaining to do as I happily I bounce out of bed like its bloody Christmas. I can’t wait to get my eager hands on the goods only to be told that…. iTunes was unable to restore my iPhone.
Errr, okay (nervous sweat beginning to appear). Breathe, I’ll just do a restore… Apple wouldn’t let me down… I’ll just restore to a last restore point. Crap, no.. it’s an error telling me that the actual restore doesn’t work. (nervous sweat begins to turn cold as I realise that all my stuff on the iPhone has just disappeared into the ether).
To be truthful, it didn’t worry me as much as that since most of my stuff is in the much vaunted cloud. At worst, it meant that I would lose a few hours restoring my old apps and setting up my phone to be just right. Of course, I would have lost most of my SMS which I hate.
But needless to say I was pissed. I tried to restore again and again, each time failing as surely as the previous times I tried to restore. Interesting, Apple had now but me in an endless loop of recovery, denial, recovery, denial.
My solution, and this is what made me irked to the point of posting, is that the solution wasn’t found in a number of complicated fixes that explore the fun side of manual resets and by-passes, but it lies in the Apple Universal Dock. Error 2001 refers to third party USB peripherals mucking about on your Mac, so Apple recommends disconnecting them all. I had none except for my iPhone and its nifty new Universal Dock. So I tried disconnecting the USB cable from the dock and plugging it directly into the iPhone and voila, the iPhone resumes its recovery process.
You would think that Apple products play nicer together since the company is run by a bunch of control freaks. Evidently not. Did OS4 change everything? I can’t tell you since I’m still sat here waiting for it to complete the restoration. But maybe I’m being harsh, it did change plenty – my perception of Apple shifts a little further to the big evil empire feeling and as of writing, I have a very beautiful brick of a tech piece on my desk.
April 1st, 2010 by Eshin
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a political post but I felt inspired after I watched Matt Damon’s Green Zone. The film tackles the issue of the questionable intelligence surrounding the weapons of mass destruction that drove the US and the UK to invade Iraq.
It’s an action flick and a fictionalizing of the search for WMD. It takes a left turn about a quarter of the way in with the main protagonist, Chief Warrant Officer Miller, essentially goes rogue and operates outside the US Army structure to help the CIA, that veritable institution of truth, to bring stability to Iraq.
It’s a fanciful tale and even with a stretch of the imagination, highly unlikely. Most audiences will know better than to take it as gospel which means our dear American friends probably will.
After all, didn’t most people take the notions of an Iraq being armed with weapons of mass destruction seriously? The film alludes to the mainstream media’s culpability in driving home that notion. Ironically, the film’s main protoganist is called Miller and the journalist considered instrumental in forming the popular opinion was New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Of course it would have been nice to have other people brought out into the limelight for their complicity in fabricating the most costly hoax of all time – Hans Blix, Colin Powell, and probably the Rupert Murdoch’s entire publishing arm.
Is it a small thing? No, we went to war over it and oddly enough, people are still dying in Iraq for it.
But I recall a conversation I had with a friend of mine way back in 2003, on the question of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. His point, and these days I tend to agree with it, is that regardless of whether or not they find these WMD in Iraq or that we were misled on the road to war, the fact is that the US and the world is embroiled in that country and will be. The solution wasn’t going to be the withdrawal of the US from occupying Iraq as we had long moved past that point, making the WMD issue a moot point.
Would I love to see Blair and Bush on trial for fraud? I sure would but like the trials of so many war criminals in this day and age – Radovan Karadzic, Sloban Milosovic, Augusto Pinochet and Saddam Hussein – who really cares by and large?
March 27th, 2010 by Eshin
Wow! We did it.
Through the Swim for a cause fundraising drive and my own Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore swim, we managed to raise a total of S$3,083.88!
In under a month, we exceeded our target amount of S$2,000 by 54%, which is pretty impressive. Here is the breakdown of where the proceeds will be going:
- UN High Commission for Refugees: $2,312.91
- Asian Women’s Welfare Association: $770.97
To all those who donated, you can give yourself a pat on the back. Here’s a special mention for you:
- Marios Kallis
- Joeri Gianotten
- Fiveyuan Sun
- Jenny Ang
- Valerie Goh
- Andrew Mason
- Stef Sng
- Joanna Ash
- Anouk van der Ros
- Alynn Teo
- Kerstin Strolz
- Chen Feng Yue
- Greg Chu
- Jaclyn Aw
- Reyhan Suryaditama
- Daren Goh
- Lee Huey Tan
- Lin Koh
- Chris Leo
- Debra Devied-Clayton
- Yvonne Yeo
- My parents
- My parents neighbours in Holland…
- … and a couple of you who wanted to remain anonymous!
Thank you to all of you and whether your donation was big or small, it has made a difference to people who need it.
