Palestine, Another Day In Paradise

I saw Ross Kemp's Middle East documentary on BBC Knowledge yesterday. He took a trip across the Israeli border into Gaza and explored what life was like in this half of Palestine under Hamas rule. There was the usual scenes of destruction, buildings half-destroyed, rubble everywhere. People went about their lives around the concrete mess, their cars whizzing about like organised flies on a horizontal, pock-marked asphalt plane.

Mr Kemp went around talking to business owners and locals about the last major Israeli offensive, Operation Cast Lead, that was meant to take out terrorist infrastructure but left most of the city in ruins instead. Homes, schools and government buildings were destroyed. The people, upset, got on with their lives, most quietly waiting for something good to come their way.

Mr Kemp noticed the kids on the streets. They didn't play with toys like balls and dolls but with guns and rifles. Almost all the shots edited and put in as final cuts showed Palestinian kids in this manner. It was alarming, enough for the BBC presenter to get an opinion from kids seeking psychiatric treatments in a local hospital. This was the bit that got to me. All the children, effectively under 12 years of age, hated Israel. They had witnessed their parents and siblings get hurt by or be killed by "enemy" soldiers or in Israeli attacks. A girl talked about seeing half her mother's head blown off. Another boy said that his life was shit and it was better to be a martyr and be with God in heaven. The boys around him agreed with his views. Later, Mr Kemp got access to a terrorist camp and was unwittingly part of a video recording session where a would be suicide bomber was making his last declaration of faith and resolve, to be broadcast after his personal attack on the enemy. The stunning revelation was that he was a 24 year old university graduate with a law degree, a thinker and idealist, driven to this fatal extreme.

That's the routine state of affairs there. Kids who have seen death and have the ambition to die. Grown men who die to make a stand. It's so depressing to hear from kids that their lives have no value in living form. They think they're better off hurting other people as they kill themselves as suicide bombers. There is no value to being alive in Palestine. As Mr Kemp alluded 'if all you've known is hostility, then that's all you'll be, hostile."

It must be truly awful to live like that. It lends another perspective to our daily gripes, into the 'yeah, that's not so important any more' bucket. No parent watching would be able to keep a dry eye I think. To know of sweet kids with warped ideas of how life is, how it could never be better than rubble, bombings, few male role models, weeping widows, a constantly reiterated hate for an enemy they cannot see, one that comes in the night and blows things to bits. It's real bad.

What's worse is that almost no one can change the situation. Not without Israel's permission. Not even the UN it seems.

Another day on paradise yeah.

Checked Out An EC in Punggol

I followed some friends to an Executive Condominium showflat on Good Friday. Sited in Punggol, it has drawn quite a lot of attention. In fact it was almost sold out, with a few scraps now left for those late to the party.

So things that picked at my interest:
- The model of the blocks with fake trees and toy cars had two blocks out of the six missing from obvious representation. They were marked as flat rectangular shapes on the plan. The attending sales rep said that the blocks were removed to give a complete view of the estate. Ironic.
- The minimum number of bedrooms available is 3. No studio, no mickey mouse flats. Target audience is clear: families or couples intending to have a few little monsters. They even had 3-bedroom units with a roof terrace. Posh.
- I was especially interested in the dual-key units. A sort of studio apartment with bath and kitchen attached to the main unit, with separate doors from a common entrance. The sales rep indicated that couples with parents or those keen to make some rental income were purchasers of the single stack of 4-bedroom dual-key units. In fact, he was surprised at the demand, they all sold out quickly. I think the developer would have more of these huge units if they knew better. They're expensive.
- There isn't any ethnic quota for ECs. In all likelihood, these gated compounds would turn into Chinese only ghettos. It's kinda sad. Upper middle class, hanging out by themselves, breeding elitism, taunting the neighbourhood with swimming pools and tennis courts. Sort of bothers me.
- Payment - it starts immediately. From low amounts in the few hundreds and upon TOP it goes into the low thousands.

Well then. I ain't getting one anyway. Good to know what's going on.

Being Too Nice, Too Bad

Nice guys end up last.

Colleague shoved me into a corner meeting room yesterday and told me news about people movements in the office including a new old hire. It was not a negative revelation. I was more glad it was sensible. Anyway, I proceeded to rant on about the amount of work I have on my To Do's list because I was asked how the new role was shaping up. Sigh. Then colleague said I was too nice, that I shouldn't be helping so many people solve their problems. Interesting eh. I remember in the army some old fogey would tell us NSFs "see who need help, go and help them". It was perhaps necessary advice then to keep potentially idle hands busy. These days it ain't worth it, so it seems. The corporate world laughs at those who slog. If you ain't done by six (pm), something needs to be fixed. Same colleague was saying that it was the stability and familiarity of the job the was enjoyable and in fact necessary for maintaining sanity. I need to do the same - keep to the boundaries of stability and familiarity to establish a new status quo of anti-slog. Well I'm hoping for things to smoothen out soon while I tackle the fires and simultaneously take a step back to gawk at the big picture.

Nice guys end up last in the office.

The Weather Lately

A few nights ago I jumped out of bed. There was an extremely terrifying explosion outside and from slumber, I was instantaneously hurled out of comfort zone to a crouch next to my bed, eyes partly blinded by the white flash.

That flash was lightning and that explosion was thunder. This was 4 o'clock in the morning. I got out of my room and found my mum awake too. "Wah scary ah" she said. I couldn't agree more. I have no idea what a real bomb drop is like except from what I've seen on film (this is despite being in an ammunitions depot while in NS) but I guess it would be as terrifying and paralysing. Perhaps more paralysing and painful with limbs detached and my foot in my mouth.

I couldn't really sleep for the next hour or so, By 8am the rain had stopped and cleared out any clouds to make the nicest, coolest morning we've had in a long time, traffic snarls aside.

On Sunday, it was dry as a bone outside with the heat searing down upon us like meat grilling on a barbecue. Madness. Everyone was running into the safety of shopping malls to be accosted by equally fuming sales assistants peddling their things to uninterested passersby. The heat was like a warm-up to the hot yoga class I had that day.

The weather has been freaky. Short sharp bursts of turmoil at either extremes of the scale. Scientists sort of predicted this. I'm not sure how. Probably from simply looking at the sky and writing their observations down. Extrapolating from facts. Some blame global warming. Others simply say it's normal. Others point to fewer trees to absorb gases and water. Then there's pollution too. Maybe the world is ending. (I'm sure there are apocalypse fans out there who are cheering the apparent onset of planetary destruction, the end of liver with onions, Justin Beiber and Euro-techno music too) Any way meteorologists slice and dice it, it's the man on the street still being left to his own devices - air-conditioning and umbrellas.

With all the recent wetness, I guess it's an opportunity to develop better umbrellas. And better non-slip shoes.