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Food for Thought One meal during Chinese New Year can easily cost twenty times more than what we spend on a normal day. A table filled with abalone, prawns, fish, roast meats, and bottles of drinks. Laughter. Photos. Prosperity tossed high in the air. It is celebration. It is tradition.
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I don’t quite understand this. It’s dinner time. The café is packed. People are walking around with trays, scanning for seats like it’s a competitive sport. Seats are limited. Every table matters. And yet, a laptop is open on a table. One drink. One person. The dining
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Boom. That’s the question. It arrives before the bak kwa plate finishes one round. Before the pineapple tarts settle in your stomach. Before you even sit down properly. “So… where are you working now?” And just like that, you become the reunion dinner entertainment. The spotlight switches on in
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Confession. Chinese New Year is the only time of the year where you can gain three kilos, lose one month’s salary, and question your entire life direction within 48 hours. In the 1960s, we lived in kampong. We wore the same clothes every day. Chicken and bottled drinks were
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A few years before Covid, a minister shared that when he stepped into a lift, he heard people around him speaking in a language not his own. He said it was the first time he felt like a foreigner in his own country. Back then, I was working in the
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When I was in the military, I used to compare a lot. I was a tiny low-ranking fly buzzing around rooms full of shiny high-ranking officers. Everyone had badges, stars, deep voices. I had… a name tag. Naturally, I felt small. Until I discovered my superpower. I knew something they
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In the army, I discovered the most powerful productivity hack ever invented. It’s called Act Blur. Not lazy. Not incompetent. Just… selectively unclear. When I was a recruit, my corporal had a favourite line. “Don’t be a smart aleck.” Translation: Don’t volunteer brilliance. Don’t improve the
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If there is one skill the army trains to Olympic level, it is waiting. The camp commander says, “All men assemble at 8am.” The OC says, “7.30am.” The platoon sergeant says, “7am.” By the time the message reaches you, you are standing in formation at 6.45am, fully dressed,
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There is one word in the army so powerful that I cannot even spell it properly. Let’s just call it “Fcuk.” Parents worry that their innocent, wide-eyed sons will come home brainwashed by the military. They are right. But not in the way they think. The first sign is
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In the army, there were many kinds of standby. Standby bed. Standby area. Standby for instructions. Each one had its own unique way of wasting time. But the one every recruit remembers most is Standby Bed. Standby Bed is an inspection of your bunk, locker, and personal belongings. It usually
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Probably for the first time, officers and NCOs were thrown into the same batch and trained to become SAF Boys’ instructors. No rank buffer. We were trained by the commandos on top of a small hill in Changi, living in an two-storey colonial bungalow. Before every meal, we did pull-ups.
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Drills never made sense to me back then. Under the blazing sun, I learned Malay words I still remember today. Kanan pusing. Kiri pusing. Left turn, right turn, repeat until your brain melts before your body does. At night, we polished our boots until we could see our teeth in