Hey Indy, that doesn't happen in our country

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,166184,00.html? The Electric New Paper :

Hey Indy, that doesn't happen in our country

Peruvians upset by film's glaring & insulting mistakes

MOST of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull takes place in Peru, but many Peruvians are seeing red over the movie's many clumsy - and often insulting - mistakes about their country.

31 May 2008

MOST of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull takes place in Peru, but many Peruvians are seeing red over the movie's many clumsy - and often insulting - mistakes about their country. Viewers in Peru cringed when the famous fictional archaeologist arrives there and announces that he learned to speak Quechua, the language of indigenous people across the Andes, when he was captured by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. But Villa and his revolutionaries, who raided the US town of Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, spoke Spanish, not Quechua, which is spoken by some 10million people in places like Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. 'This is outrageous,' said Mr Hugo Neyra, who heads Peru's National Library. Mr Neyra and others are also angry at seeing Mayan warriors from Central America speaking Quechua in the Peruvian jungle, where hundreds of native languages, but not Quechua, are spoken. The movie also shows quicksand, man-eating ants and enormous Hawaiian waterfalls, all of which do not exist in the Peruvian Amazonia. In what is perhaps the biggest insult, director Steven Spielberg and writer George Lucas place the Mayan pyramid of Chichen Itza, located in Mexico, in the Peruvian jungle. Another mistake: the location of the Nazca lines - which give Jones clues in the movie. Visible only from aircraft, the lines representing stylised animals are etched on a patch of coastal desert some 370km south of Lima - and not next to the Incan capital of Cuzco, smack in the southern Peruvian Andes. The Mayan civilisation thrived in southern Mexico and northern Central America between 250 and 900, while the Quechua-speaking Incas thrived across the Andes from 1200 to 1533. Historian Manuel Burga said that Spielberg and Lucas had been given bad advice. 'Even if it is fiction, there are many incorrect facts,' he said. 'This is going to be damaging to many people who do not know our country because it shows a Peruvian landscape that is not real. 'It is not possible to mistake the Amazon region with the Yucatan jungle in Mexico.' Mr Neyra said that many informed Americans and Europeans will realise that it is 'an aberration' to mix Mayan and Incan archaeology. 'They know that Machu Picchu is in Cuzco and that Chichen Itza is in Mexico,' he said. Historian Teodoro Hampe is scathing in his view of they way Americans view the geography of Latin America: 'For them, Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia or Peru are all the same.' AFP

A boy gave Snowylass flowers yesterday ...

Thanks to my wife's constant reminder, I am still the first guy to give Snowylass flowers.

But yesterday, a boy named Dillon the Gorilla (that's his nick, he likes gorillas and said he'd like to be one, and tries to imitate one) from her school got his dad to buy some flowers and gave it to MY daughter.  And said he likes her.

And Yana and Emma, 2 girlfriends (sometimes opponents) of Snowylass in her class, said Dillon wants to marry her, something he apparently didn't deny.

Well, such things aren't exactly new in her school, but it's actually the first time apparently a guy gave a girl flowers.

To other readers of my blog, know that Snowylass is only turning 5, and this is like pre-school we're talking about.

Snowylady, my wife, was with me yesterday when we fetched the kids and saw the flowers, and the boy.  And Snowylady had to point out how I am actively ignoring the whole business.

After that, Snowylass mentioned she'd like to make something nice, like a card, for Dillon.

This is too much.  I gave her countless presents and she never thought of making a card for the presents I gave her.

Snowylady said I'm jealous.

Am I?  Or am I just playing the expected role in this whole business?

They're just kids.  Little kids.

*sigh* I felt like I was served an advance warning of how things are going to be, and I just don't know how I'll behave myself when Snowylass is older.

The bright spot for me was when we asked Snowylad who attends the same pre-school whether he likes Dillon.  The answer was no.  For some reason or other, yesterday, he knocked the bigger boy down, though I couldn't get details out of when and where and why or how it happened.

Snowylad is turning 2.5 years old and has never actually hurt anyone wilfully or intentionally.

I may just have to depend on the little brother to protect his sister.

Men are no good things when it comes to girls.  I know.  I am one.

Sometimes, I think just having a daughter is payback for a man, for being a man.

A Scene from 我爱夜来香 All the Wrong Spies(1983)

It's one of those scenes from a show watched before, stuck in your mind but never in clear focus.

They used to make really funny movies in those days.

In the later segment of this clip is a scene right out of Casablanca. For years, I found myself wondering what was the song the cast in the scene were singing, and now I finally found it.

It's 《歌八百壮士》, composed during 2nd Sino-Japanese War, inspired by the events of Defense of Sihang Warehouse (四行仓库保卫战), 1937, from Oct 26 to Nov 1. The 谢团长 in the song referred to 谢晋元.

Homes in Hong Kong

From one of my favourite columnist - the budget tai-tai Tabitha Wang.

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/254147.asp

Home, sweet home 
In Hong Kong, you are where you live 
 

Topping my list of things to do the moment I touched down at Chek Lap Kok airport was to find a place to live.

Despite the dire warnings I had been given about how rents in Hong Kong are the highest in Asia, if not the world, I wasn't too worried.

Unlike in Singapore, property agents have brick-and-mortar shops here.

There is no need to wade through the classifieds to find them — they are everywhere. If an area is very popular — such as the Mid-Levels — there are rows of such shops, all displaying enticing photos in their windows. All you have to do is pick one and pop in.

But I had reckoned without a few things. One was that owners don't tie up exclusively with an agent here, which means there could be up to a dozen trying to rent you the same flat.

It may sound convenient — one agent can show you every flat available in the area if you wish — but it also means you don't get a chance to bargain prices down.

With so many agents competing, the owner is likely to choose the one who comes up with the best offer. So, most agents try to get prospective tenants to go for the flat with the highest rent.

Having dealt with nightmarishrealtors in Singapore, aggressive sales tactics were the least of my worries. The real headache was trying to decide which area to live in. It was no use asking the locals.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that they don't care. Hong Kongers are as obsessed about land as Singaporeans — perhaps more so, given how much of Hong Kong Island (the most desired piece of real estate in the Special Administrative Region) is made up of mountains so that the only build-able areas are along the coastline.

The problem is, if you ask a local where the good areas are, you never get a straight answer. Instead, he is more likely to profile you: “Hmm, you strike me as someone who likes to shop, has no children, so you don't need to be close to schools ... try Causeway Bay.”

Even strangers you have spoken to for about one second at a party will try their hand at this amateur personality profiling.

It was only after I arrived that I realised why the Hong Kong-based friends I had emailed before the move refused to commit themselves to which would be a good area to live in.

“It depends,” they had said. If pressed, they would reluctantly tell you where they are living but added quickly: “It suits me, but I don't know about you.”

Eventually, someone spelt it out for me: “Where you live says something about who you are. If you pick The Peak or Repulse Bay, you are old money. If you plumb for the Mid-Levels, you are either a new expat or an upper-middle class local. If you live in the Outlying Islands, you are either a farmer or a hippie expat.”

It finally made sense. It wasn't how much you could pay, but what sort of image you wanted to project.

I was shown flats in North Point — an area that had no recommendable qualities other than being an interchange station for even more ulu areas with flats costing as much as those in the Mid-Levels.

We have the same thing in Singapore too, don't we? Katong for old money, Marine Parade for beach-loving family types, Toa Payoh for heartlanders, Orchard Road and Tanglin for the expats — every area has a personality.

My problem now was to pick a place that would suit a laidback Katong Girl who loves bargain shopping and a city-lover who wants to be within walking distance of Central, the equivalent of our CBD.

I wanted Wan Chai, the world of Suzie Wong, with its wet markets and dark alleys selling counterfeit goods. My husband wanted somewhere in the city, as close to his office as possible.

We settled for the Mid-Levels, wheremost first-time expats end up, because it's only 10 minutes' walk to Central. So, what does it say about us?

I don't know and I don't care because the flat has a roof terrace with a view of The Peak and that's good enough for me.

Tabitha Wang loves her roof terrace, never mind that it’s grubby, hot and good only for hanging the laundry out to dry.

ST Online 2008-05-07 S'pore to be 'City of Millionaires': Barclays survey

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_235048.html

S'pore to be 'City of Millionaires': Barclays survey

SINGAPORE will have the highest concentration of wealthy households in the world within a decade as economic expansion and the growth of its financial services industry draw investors, said Barclays Plc.
Almost 41 per cent, or 436,000, of Singapore's households will have assets of at least $1 million by 2017, compared with 39 per cent in Hong Kong and 28 per cent in Switzerland, according to a survey by Barclays Wealth, the bank's wealth management unit.

Singapore was second in 2007 with 23 per cent, while Hong Kong had 26 per cent, the report said.

Singapore's US$132 billion economy grew last quarter at the fastest pace since 2003 as tax breaks and efforts to draw banks and manufacturers to expand or set up new businesses in the city offset slowing demand for electronics. Growth is expected to moderate this year because of a US slowdown, Bloomberg news reported on Wednesday.

'It's a little premature to assume that growth will continue in a straight line, but the underlying trend remains one where Asian countries are generating plenty of economic activity and employment opportunities,' said Song Seng-Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK Securities Pte. in Singapore.

Economic growth elsewhere in Asia is also boosting wealth creation. China, the world?s fastest-growing major economy, is estimated to become the third-wealthiest nation in the world by 2017 by total net worth, lagging behind only the US and Japan, while India will be ranked eighth, according to Barclays Wealth.

'Unprecedented Wealth Creation'
'Not only are we seeing unprecedented wealth creation in Asia, but the structure of the region's economies have fundamentally changed,' Didier von Daeniken, chief executive officer of Barclays Wealth in Asia, said in a press release.

'Education, technology and globalization are driving wealth creation, resulting in a shift of economic power to the East.'

Singapore households with more than $1 million held about $672 billion in assets last year, and will grow to US$1.6 trillion by 2017, according to Barclays Wealth.

The survey takes into account assets such as cash, shares, bonds and property.

ST Online 2008-05-07 8-year-old boy robbed of handphone

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Courts%2Band%2BCrime/STIStory_235052.html

8-year-old boy robbed of handphone
An eight-year-old boy was robbed of his $200 handphone last Sunday at 10pm.
He was returning from a trip to the provision store at Block 230 Tampines St 23, when a man accosted him and demanded to see his handphone.

The man then grabbed his handphone and ran off.

The suspect is described to be of fair complexion, 1.7m in height, and having a mole under the right side of his lip. He was wearing a cream shirt and long black pants.

Anyone with information can contact the Police at 1800-255-0000.

Reviewing my edited translation of Di Zi Gui

Got a call from AsiaPac Books today - my translation had gone through two rounds of editting, and they want me to review the current proof.

Quite excited actually, like getting back my essay or college paper and see the "marks".

Not too bad - the editors shortened several passages which I would have done too, except I was bound as a translator to render as faithful a translation to the original Chinese texts.

Wasn't given much time, I was asked to rewrite a couple of passages to shorten further to accomodate more pictures.  Meanwhile, spotted some errors which I wonder how the editor missed it.

Sometimes, looking at it though, it's like having finished a sculpture, and then being asked to go back to refine it.  Spent so much time on it the first time round, I'm actually a bit reluctant to even look at it again.

Meanwhile, the subject of actual fee hasn't been brought up.  I have in mind to use it to buy a small laptop to do more translation assignments, if any were to come my way, or submit some of my own work for publication.

Then again, Snowylady wasn't too pleased with the late nights spent of my first translation assignment, and isn't keen for me to do more.

Last week, out of the blue, a colleague dropped in while I was lunching in the pantry.  She began talking about getting more out of life, and since I'm always reading something or other during office breaks, she asked me if I considered writing professionally.

Frankly, I had many ideas about being a writer and what I could write - almost all related to history, China, and, some detective stuff.  Another thing at the back of my mind is I would do well to nurture a sideline, an alternative career, something I do not need to worry about retirement.

But it is a daunting thought - doing something "original".

Perhaps I should get better learning experience first, and stick to translations.

Zhan Guo Ce might be possible - the only English translation published seems to be by Rev Bramwell S. Bonsall, and that was almost a century ago in the 1920s.  It was a rather straight forward translation though, without annotations or commentaries to the backgrounds of the events or the entities.

Why haven't they learned gifted is ... not always gifted ...

Came across this video from Yahoo! feed on a playschool in Issaquah (Washington State, US) requiring IQ tests for its "gifted" preschool class. http://www.yahoo.com/s/874463

Watched it and saw the school's official website http://www.bkplay.com

Point made in their favour - some kids are gifted, and should receive special attention, just as kids with learning difficulty should receive a different kind of special attention.

Well, it's all up to the parents, I say.

Having kids of my own made me wish I could start and run my own school to provide a healthy and holistic environment for their learning.

And one of the things I'm not going to do is segregate kids by the measured learning abilities.

Yes, for certain classes, it would be helpful.

But classes in general, what is more important is for children to learn to interact with and accept other children of diverse abilities, temperaments, and backgrounds.

To learn to communicate and express themselves effectively and humanely to those who think alike and to those who think different.

To learn to recognise strengths and weakness in themselves and in different people, and to work together to strengthen each other, complement each other, and bring out the best in each other.

I believe in the process of helping each other, they learn more important life skills than being able to master thousands of vocabulary words at a young age or other specific technical skills.

Not only should they learn to learn, learn discipline and tenacity, but they also learn to work with all kinds of people, those who are similar and those who are different.  It's EQ, and it's more than EQ.

I'm not against going to elite universities - I just feel that there're more important lessons and skills to learn when one is younger, or rather, especially when one is younger.