More or less Singaporean

Most of my free time at ENPC is spent hanging out with PRCs. I guess it got to do with the fact that I'm the only Singaporean here (read: no other Singaporean to hang out with), that people of the same colour tend to flock together and perhaps most importantly, that my Chinese - though admittedly lousy - is still better than my French.

However, under my PRC friends' influence, my Chinese has improved, or so I would like to believe, rather significantly over the last one and a half year. I am now able to speak Chinese that the PRC Chinese are able to understand. For instance, when I'm speaking to them, I don't say 80% as 'ba1 shi3 ba1 xian1'. I say 'bai3 fen1 zhi1 ba1 shi3'. 'ba1 xian1', a direct translation of 'percent', is only understood by Singaporeans, and its usage has unfortunately not been picked up in mainland China yet. When I want to describe that a person is very 'qiang2' (strong), I will now say 'niu2 (cow) B(Pronounced 'bee', like we know it)'. If you ever need to impress a PRC, just find an occasion to say the word 'niu2 B'. Trust me that he or she will be impressed. This comes from personal experience - my PRC friends are usually really impressed when I use 'niu2 B'. Their reaction when they hear me saying 'niu2 B' is as exaggerated as their reaction when some ang moh says to them 'ni hao ma?'.

I have also become more versed in China issues or the mainland Chinese's way of life since arriving in France (irony totally intended). For instance, I have learned that the all-time most popular Singaporean drama in China is 'lian1 hua1 zhen1 ba4' (translated: "Lotuses compete for Fierceness") . The drama featured actors such as Li Nanxing and Xie Shaoguang but I believe other than Li Nanxing, Xie Shaoguang and me, no other Singaporeans would know that the show even existed. None of my PRC friends here have watched 'Shuang1 Tian1 Zhi4 Zhun1' or 'Zhui4 Hou4 Yi4 Ge4 Da4 Xia2' before. I wonder why TCS had not exported our best dramas.

Recently, my PRC friends had to deal with "questionings" from our French counterparts on the Tibet issue. One of them took the trouble to write an email in English - because understandably, the French can't understand Chinese, less understandably, my friend can't express what he wants to say in French, and so he finally settled for English - to explain to his French friends China's position on the issue. Most of my PRC friends feel that certain Western countries are planning to make China self-implode, like what they did to Russia about two decades back and that the Western media has been biased. Their views have been perhaps shaped by some Youtube videos that had been put up by their comrades. The Youtube videos I found come with English texts, but I believe similar videos with Chinese texts can be found on tudou or youku. The propaganda war has begun.

While I have no particularly strong opinions on the issue, because I am Singaporean (if you get what I mean), I don't believe that Tibet will be getting its independence in our lifetime. China will not let it happen because of various reasons of which the most important one is that if the Chinese government ever grants Tibet independence, other minorities in China will start seeking independence and the problems that China faces will multiply. China will self-implode.

People who made the videos on Youtube seem to believe that the main point in contention which will decide if Tibet belongs to China or not is how long it has been a part of China. The Chinese claims that Tibet has been a part of China since 1800s. The ang mohs say that China took over Tibet only about 50 years ago. I think they have all missed the point. The important thing is that the Tibet people do not want to be a part of China. Forcing them to be a part of China will bring happiness to no one. Separating them from China will bring happiness to the Tibetans but problems for the Chinese and since it is the Chinese that gets to decide if Tibet should remain a part of China, Tibet will remain a part of China for the foreseeable future.

I believe mian2 qiang3 shi4 mei2 you3 xin4 fu2 de4 so I am more inclined to 'Free Tibet'. I still would like to visit Tibet one day and I don't want to feel like I'm visiting Shanghai or Beijing when I'm there.

The Olympic torch was in Paris on Monday and I had wanted to be at Eiffel Tower for the fête. I knew that demonstrators against-China-for-Tibet would be out in numbers and they would be dressed for the occasion. Which screamed "good photo-taking opportunities!". But I spent more than 2 hours at a hospital that day waiting to get my eyesight examined - my glasses broke last week, spectacle shops in France don't provide eyesight examination services and I had to fork out a pocket-draining 42euros for warming the chair at the hospital for 2 hours and only seeing the optician for 10mins - and missed the torch relay. Ma de.

Since I was unable to make it to the event, I had to resort to taking photos off LeFigaro's website for your viewing pleasure. Hope you appreciate my copy-and-paste efforts.

The Handcuffs of Olympic banner hung from the Eiffel Tower.














Pretty girl with paint on her face.












See what I mean by good photo opportunities.














Rule No.5 of "How to get famous": If you ever get entangled with the police in a demonstration - you know you are going to be badly fined - make sure at least then that your face is captured by the photographers to make your money worth it. This demonstrator obviously didn't memorize the rules. Bad example.













Good example.














I should really have been there...














One of the many pictures on the official Olympic torch relay page. None of the pictures features demonstrators at the events.




















Anyway, I hope the Tibet issue will stop hogging the headlines everyday in France soon. People need to turn their attention to happier news, like Liverpool defeating Arsenal 4-2 to make it to the semi-finals of the Champions' League. Bring on Avram!=)