Accented Deliveries

Teresa Teng  邓丽君

When we returned to New Zealand one of the our more pleasant discoveries was that two television Chinese channels had sprung up in our absence.

In recent weeks we have been watching the CCTV4 stage shows from Taiwanese television which feature a range of singers giving their rendition of popular Chinese musical hits.

Lately the theme for these shows has been movies, starting with the films from the old Shanghai studios, before the Communists took over, and moving towards the present.

Last night the focus was on the films of the Taiwanese actress Lin Chin Hsia who retired in 1994 and is married to Esprit Clothing billionaire Michael Ying.

I have written before that I have been a big fan of the music of the late Teresa Teng& for many years and have a large collection of her CD's and music. But before any reader accords this Ang Mo the kudos for an in-depth knowledge of the Mandarin language or Hokkien dialect I must point out that I am woefully deficient in both.

Lin Chin Hsia  林青霞 

This has not prevented me from appreciating the artistry of great Chinese performers and many of the older Taiwanese singers of both sexes fall into this category.

It is my personal opinion that many of today's Taiwanese performers are more costume than substance and I suspect that the older singers received better training through a more classical regime? Their pronunciation and delivery contains none of the breathlessness of today's generation.

Which bring us to English premier football, or more particularly the BBC's Sportsworld Have Your Say, which warbles from my radio each Sunday morning. "Warble" may be giving the programme too much credit as I find the accents of the British premiership coaches almost indecipherable.

Comments from the English coaches on the performance of their respective teams bare no resemblance to the 'Queens English' which was drummed into me as a child.

For the most part I simply cannot decipher what these excitable folks with their strong brogue are talking about - the rendition is a speech impediment on steroids.

Give me the sultry sounds of Cantopop any day.

General Election 2011 - NZ Style

Image via WikipediaI have just discovered that all of Mediacorp's radio stations now stream their programmes online so I have been enjoying the classical musical programme from the Singapore studios today; Symphony 92.4FM to be exact.

Yesterday I listened to Love972, the Chinese contemporary channel but today I was out of 'love' and more interested in soothing melodies.

The New Zealand election is next weekend and the shenanigans of the politicians and the media are less than edifying.

Much of the past week has been dominated by the Media trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, or more correctly "a mountain out of a teapot".

After a journalist has broken the law by hiding a tape recorder in a cloth bag and secretly recording the conversation between the Prime Minister and a candidate from another party, the media then got on its high horse when the PM refused to answer questions about the conversation.

To his credit he put the matter in the hands of the police which means that the contents cannot be revealed.  But frankly, who really cares about this sorry saga except for the media themselves?

Here we are in dire financial times, recovering from a major earthquake and all the media seem bent on covering are the so-called "illegal tapes". Even our Inland Revenue Department has resorted to issuing bad cheques so times must really be tough.

Such a load of rubbish would not be allowed to occur in Singapore and while there may be some who may decry the government control of media in the Republic, at least the larger issues confronting the country get air time.

The freedom of the press comes with responsibilities but too often in New Zealand the media gets caught up in its own hype and forgets that the public want substance, not dross.

In addition to the election next Saturday we also have the opportunity to vote on a referendum which will determine whether we wish to keep our proportional representation system, MMP, revert to the tried and true First Past The Post, or adopt a new system of  proportional representation.

Having observed in recent times how minor parties of little consequence can hold the country to ransom, I shall probably opt for a return to our older system of First Past The Post.  I stress that not all minor parties fall into this category, but a number do.  This election campaign the Greens have impressed me as have the Maori Party, although I will be voting for neither.

National will hold on to power with an increased majority if the polls are to be believed. The Labour Party will suffer even heavier losses that the last election and the Greens will capture their largest chunk of the vote ever.

Which all goes to explain how the soothing music from Singapore's classical music station will help bring my blood pressure down over the next seven days. Now if I could just get to walk down Orchard Road and view the Xmas Lights I would be even happier.

Related articles

• 'Illegal tapes' row erupts in NZ (bbc.co.uk)

The Pobble Who Had No Toes

Image via Wikipedia

Edward Lear

One of my favourite child hood stories from the pen of Edward Lear was titled thus.  The opening verse included the words:

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"

Maybe they should have read this out to swimmers in Western Brazil before they went for a quick dip, as several of them have lost their appendages to flesh-eating piranhas.

As the old business saying goes "those who swim with the sharks deserve to be eaten", or in this case, "those who knowingly swim in piranhas-infested waters deserve all that they lose".

Related articles

• Piranhas take toes at river beach in west Brazil (sfgate.com)

If It Itches, Scratch It

The joys of travelling in Zimbabwe

Inspiring Stories and Lifelong Abilities

I read two interesting blog articles by Singaporeans today.  Both tackle the subject of retirement but from different ends of the spectrum.

As a person who received their Singaporean Senior MRT card a couple of years ago I have more than a passing interest in the subject, even though I do not qualify as a 'senior citizen' back here in New Zealand.

The first article is by Wing Lee Cheong, a Singaporean who, by his own description, was born in a toilet in Klang, Malaya to a  seventeen year old mother out of wedlock. She was an uneducated and naive young girl who immigrated from Guangzhou and raised him in the slums of Chinatown in Singapore.

He had the distinction of being expelled from high school in 1963 due to poor academic performance but made good through diligence, hard work an an element of luck.  He has now retired and lives in British Columbia in Canada.

His 'Working my way out of poverty' article I found to be inspiring in its single-mindedness of purpose especially when it came to facing life's hardships and to finding and keeping a job.

For example, lacking a university degree proved to be no impediment to Mr Wing as he was prepared to work for free for three months to demonstrate his worth to a prospective employer.

Within two years of getting this job at American Marine building yachts he rose to become head of department overseeing a workforce of 1,800 workers.  Quite an achievement by any standards, but his luck was to change again when he witnessed a union fracas that led to his persecution and eventual migration from Singapore.

The second blog article dealt with the obsolescence of retirement, putting forward the case that compulsory retirement was out-of-step with the realities of the 21st Century.  As the writer states "When someone hits the socially-dictated retirement age, they bring with them out of the workforce, years of experience, skill and wisdom.".

I confess that I found it difficult to understand why Singapore persists with a mandatory retirement age when it faces severe skills shortages in some areas?  Many of the older Singaporeans I met and worked with were at the top of their game and losing such a talent pool has got to be to the long term detriment of the country.

There is also little incentive to work on after the mandatory age if all you are offered is a proportion of your original salary, unless of course your financial reserves (or lack thereof) makes this a necessary course of action.

The ideal situation is be semi-retired in an environment that is supportive and climatically tolerable,with sufficient security to cover the day-to-day outgoings of life.

It gives one time to reflect that however hard one's own life may or may not have been, there are always others who have had to surmount greater obstacles in their path and have succeeded in doing so.

But let it not be said that all is doom and gloom in the Republic; there are some very talented and fluent writers in the Heartland; take this article on the joys of having a neighbour who texts you at all hours of the day and night - Nincompoop & Unlimited smses.

The SMS fanatic in question is a obviously not a retiree.

Reference:
Daily Breaks
SG Quitters
Gintai