New Year Resolutions

It the time of the year:

1. Stay healthy
2. See more of the world
3. Be less impatient with people who lack common sense
4. Be more helpful
5. Be happy

We've moved into our new house and settled down quite fast. Did some grocery shopping, hired a cleaning lady and set up our internet connection. I'm proud of what four of us managed to achieved so far, since we didn't have much help except for Edwin who helped us to find the house. The streets of Kathmandu don't look too overwhelming and confusing now, although the small roads still do. Zak cooked a superb fried rice for dinner last night, and after a bout of stomach flu I was only glad to be able to eat some. Pictures will come soon enough. The internet here is 256kbps, and there are four laptops, so uploads and downloads will be snail-paced. In the meantime, Happy New Year!

A foreign english term

Load-shedding. Is something that I have never heard of until Alex and co. told me about it. And even then it didn't become a reality until I came to know the dusty and noisy streets of Kathmandu. We in the developed world are too blessed with the comforts of modern living that we do not even know it. Even Indonesia is considered relatively modern in Nepali terms. Here, we are allowed only a maximum of 10 hours of electricity a day. Load-shedding kicks in at the most inconvenient times and there isn't much one can do about it. Offices run on generators and backup power or shut down. Journalists rushing for headlines and production go to sleep or cook (gas is still working). So we resort to candlelight dinners and reading beside the flickering flame. And it's ironic that Nepal has the world second largest hydroelectric resources behind Brazil but has to resort to load-shedding that only disrupts people's lives everyday. Which brings me to wonder at the effectiveness of the Maoist government these days.

http://www.nepalitimes.com.np/2008/12/25/139
On Sunday, senior journalists of Himalmedia (publisher of Nepali Times and Wave which YL and ZL will be working at soon) were attacked at their office in Hatiban by armed men who claimed themselves to be Maoist-affliated. The editor of Himalmedia was beaten up, along with some other journalists by these people (believe me if you have seen Kunda you will think that these people must be pros to be able to beat him up), and the office was vandalised. We went to Himalmedia on Tuesday, and saw for ourselves the scene of the crime and how determined journalists here are to fight for press freedom. We took part in a sit-in protest outside the main government offices along with the staff of Himalmedia and many other journalists. In a combined show of strength, press councils and journalists here condemned the attack and published blank editorials on Tuesday. I must say that the people at Himalmedia took it in their stride rather well, and saw that as part and parcel of the continual struggle for press freedom in Nepal. Not that I think the Singaporean press should start protesting in Hong Lim Park or wait to get beaten up, but sometimes as a journalist in Singapore you wonder whether it's really worth the lone struggle against press freedom in Singapore. After awhile, you just get bogged down by all the cynicism of others and doubts on what you can actually do to change the status quo. So yes, another lesson learnt, this time a much sobering one. Press freedom, or any freedom for that matter, is hard-fought and shouldn't be taken for granted. Neither is electricity and the modernities of the developed world.

Back to my candlelight dinner.

进退两难

Yen Lin and I found a whole new meaning to the abovementioned chinese idom. The traffic in Kathmandu is nothing short of amazing, since people and machines just weave in and out of one another effortlessly. We went to the Royal Palace and Thamel yesterday, a tourist spot with loads of shops. Within 10 mins of walking inside, we were lost. So we decided to hire a trishaw. The experience was really disconcerting, but pretty exhilarating. The young guy who rode us to Thamel wove in and out of the human plus machines traffic. There was a point where we got stuck, and there was no way to either go forward or back. So he went by the side. This is how it was like:

Riding on a trishaw along the streets of Thamel in Kathmandu

Stupa near the Royal Palace

YL trying to unlock the very-high lock of the door to our house, with varying success...

The gas heater that saved our life at night

I'm still very amazed by the lack of accidents here with the chaotic traffic. The Nepali drivers are a patient yet experienced lot, and I think hot-tempered Singaporean drivers should take a big leaf from these people. We have one of the best roads in the world, but what do we do with them? We hit each other on the streets everyday. World-class indeed.

Namaste!

Yes, here I am, in dusty Kathmandu. First thing that hit me as I was being driven through the city-horns and more horns. The lack of traffic lights and road markings means that drivers honk to others to warn them, and I forsee that this might need some getting used to. Next is the dust, as there are few tarred roads or trees so dust just flies around anywhere and everywhere. The weather here is not too cold in the day, maybe 20 degrees c, but during the night it drops to about 5 degrees. Thank God for the gas heater, and this made me realized how lucky I was in Mizzou to have 24 hours electric heating.

YL and I have yet to really explore the city, so that's what we intend to do today, do some orientation and try to learn some Nepali hopefully.

Most interesting revelation of yesterday: How Americanised Singapore is. We are half the world away from America and yet we are more comfortable in America than in a country less than 5 hours by flight away. Well at least for me. Ironic eh?

The mountains here are awe-inspiring by the way ;>

This time I'm ready to go

So almost all my bags are packed. You don't know how hard it is to squeeze everything into one medium-sized luggage and a hand carry bag. Quite a few favours to carry out by bringing things over to Nepal. You'll be surprised that one can always find Singaporeans anywhere in the world, in the corn-fields of Missouri where Sam is and in the polluted and poor city of Kathmandu. Not that I am complaining, and as long as I'm able to, I'm a willing courier. But with the airport customs being the paranoid administrations that they are supposed to be, I just hope my flight there will be as smooth sailing as possible (fingers double-crossed for Bangkok situation). Alot of people have been asking me if I am feeling excited. If you know me you'll know that the worrywart in me is not even thinking of excitement, but how to get there safely and promptly. I'll let you know my excitement level when I am sitting down in one of the internet cafes in Kathmandu sipping a strong cup of Darjeeling tea (boiled and water-purification tablet added). But I believe in accumulating good karma, so a good turn to others will not hurt me.

On another note, my aunt just brought me a bunch of newspapers around the world, courtesy of my baldy-pilot-cousin Fred (Ee-Lynn if you are reading this give Fred a big kiss for me ;>). Yes you may sigh at my strange obsession with newspapers, but I really can learn quite alot about a country just by reading its publications.

And you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to exchange Nepali rupees here. It's like searching for gold in the sands of East Coast Park. I walked around People's Park, Little India and Bugis and only managed to exchange enough Nepali rupees to last me less than a week in Nepal. I guess Nepal is not exactly the choice holiday destination for Singaporeans (I heard that most money exchanges had run out of Malaysian ringgit over the weekend...).

Well, 1 more day on our rainy island for me, some friends to meet, and I'll be off!

In the meantime, something which I finally got down to editing, although this was more than 9 months ago during Spring Break in March 2008. This brought back many good memories of funny French people and a certain Jamba Juice-obsessed Serbian.

Lost in New York Part 1


Lost in New York Part 2

What I learnt from photographing marathoners

In case you haven't heard or seen me, I spent the whole of last weekend running around town. Saturday to scramble around getting the right equipment, and Sunday sitting in a small stool in the middle of the road clicking away at marathoners running straight at me. And this is what I learnt:

Marathoners are funny people. I have no idea what compells them to run such long distances (unless you are one of those stick-thin African runners who are running for some significant prize money). I was sitting there pressing the shutter until my fingers were numb (try holding onto a D2X attached to a 70-200 on a monopod for 8 hours to know what I mean), and the pain and hardship I see on all these marathoners faces made me wonder if everything was worth it. On some occasions, I can even hear the marathoners muttering to themselves, edging themselves on (one marathoner went "comeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeon" as he ran past me). At the end of the marathon, I felt that I've ran everyone's races, seeing all the tired and exhuasted faces who don't even have energy to smile at the camera. Believe me if there is one thing I hate more in sports, it's running. I love swimming, tennis, table tennis, anything that has a game. But running is just so - boring. Singapore has no nice natural scenery to look at while running, it's too polluted with cars and the humidity just kills you when you run. I'm sorry to say that I'd probably ran more during winter in Missouri than my whole life in Singapore (hey I hit the threadmill quite often in Missouri ok...). So I think those marathoners who ran in the Standard Chartered race the past weekend deserved alot of respect. The funny thing was that the 42km runners seemed more relaxed and enjoying themselves than the 10km runners. Maybe they had trained more and are just more pro. Or maybe coz the full marathoners ran at an earlier time of the day when the sun wasn't roasting us poor photogs nicely into red lobsters. Whatever it is, I think those who took part in the race and enjoyed themselves caught the spirit of the whole event. Too bad I didn't managed to catch the annual spidey in action, although I managed to catch a glimpse of the group of runners who drag a tyre during the marathon each year, a runner without an arm, another with balloons attached to herself and some truly odd but interesting people.

Well I hope those who participated had fun, as I certainly did though I was there more for the money...haha. Don't ever ask me to participate in the running that is. I rather much prefer to sit in my small stool and click away, thank you very much.

My bookworm pet peeves

Does anyone has Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit that they can loan me for 6 months? I can't seem to find it anywhere in bookstores here and my library version expires this weekend. I checked Kino, Borders and Popular but to no avail. And no, I have no credit card and it's too late to order online. I would greatly appreciate it if someone has it and is willing to lend me to accompany me for my time in Nepal.

A side note, the Bangkok situation has been somewhat better after Somchai's court ruling. But I remain cautious, since it's not 100% confirmed when the airport will be fully functional again. Major Sigh.

Back to books, I really don't understand the fuss over the Twilight series. If you have started reading it before all this bigg fuss over it, then good for you and I have nothing against you. But if you are one of those 'let's-hop-onto-the-bandwagon' people (aka my irritating sis) who only read popular books, then I pity you. You have zero taste in good books. One of my pet peeves is when I recommend you a book which I think you will like then you say no thanks and then one or two years later when it starts to get really popular and then you come back and tell me it's really good. A good book is a good book, it dosen't need all the viral marketing to make it better. A lousy book sucks to the core no matter how much you promote it. And yes, I read Harry Potter in 1998 and Eragon when it first got published, when they were still relatively unknown and no one would believe me then that they were great books. And right now I am telling you Twilight sucks. Go read Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse series and you'll know that Stephenie Meyer basically plagarised the Sookie Stackhouse series, which first came out in 2001.

Find me Little Dorrit someone please. My second pet peeve is that I hate not being able to get my hands on books I want to read. I don't believe I can get my hands on a certain Rushdie banned book (sssh) and yet I cannot get Dickens' Little Dorrit. Sigh, it explains the state of Classics these days...

As I wander through this troubled world

Many thoughts flying around in my mind lately, as I get myself prepared for Nepal. In case you don't know, I will be transiting in Bangkok on my way to Kathmandu, so naturally when the PAD took over the airport I was worried. I have been closely watching the situation in Bangkok recently and I sure hope that the airport opens soon by the time I have to leave. Otherwise I'll have to reschedule my flights. One of the other alternatives it to transit in India, which is not exactly a safe haven either. The other is a direct flight by Silkair to Kathmandu, but that is way out of my budget and will only be considered as a last option. I really feel for the people in Mumbai, especially when I have friends who are from there.

I just read that the crazy people wo carried out the attacks were all Pakistanis. It's really sad that two countries with so much similarities have to focus so much on their religious differences. My Indian photojournalism professor told me it's a pity that they kept fighting over Kashmir, as having visited the place he found it to be really beautiful.

Isn't it ironic that half the world away while Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas our world here has become so troubled? Many people expressed their concerns about me heading to the Communist-run (aka Maoists) Nepal, but nay, you don't have to go all the way to Nepal to feel unsafe. And the interesting thing is Nepal is currently a much safer place to be in than Bangkok or Mumbai. It is precisely in this climate of fear that as journalists we need to head out of our comfort zone and try to understand the state of the world. Call me idealistic, but I really do think that journalists play a very important role in helping the people around the world understand one another. Let the "journalists" at SPH sit in the comfort of their work cubicles and report on scandalous domestic "news" for all they want, but at the end of the day, no man is an island onto himself, so let's see how Singaporeans remain xenophobic and closed-minded to the rest of the happenings around the world.

I don't care for what ideals the PAD or the crazy attackers in Mumbai stand for, because whatever they are, the fact that they harmed and killed so many innocent people is wrong. Whatever political and religious beliefs they hold, no legitimate group will harm others. I really wonder what the ailing Thai King thinks of his entire country being held hostage as he waits to celebrate his birthday this Friday. Will the protesters or Somchai give way? Since neither the army nor the police have proven to be effective, maybe the revered Thai King will.

An idealistic song by the Dixie Chicks. It's really that simple actually.

I Hope



Sunday morning, I heard the preacher say
Thou shall not kill
I don't wanna, hear nothin' else, about killin'
And that it's God's will
Coz our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us
So let's learn from our history
And do it differently

I hope
For love, joy and laughter
I hope
We'll have more than we'll ever need
I hope
We'll have more happy ever afters
I hope
We can all live more fearlessly
And we can lose all the pain and misery
I hope, I hope

I've gone identity mad!

ENFIN/FINALLY, the papers are done and the semester is passé! My feelings right now can be totally described in this song:

Grace Kelly-Mika (French Version)


I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like

Original version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtazsM8J4s&feature=related

Yes I like Mika, because he is such a genuinely-crazy but good singer. It's time to let my hair down, though I probably should cut it since everyone has been telling me that my hair is getting long (it's just their nice way of saying that it's becoming a lion's mane due to lack of taming...).

Peace out.

What's your excuse?

By now most of you already know that I will be heading to Nepal to do my internship for the next semester. But I still have people asking me why go to such a place for internship instead of staying here or taking well-beaten paths such as China, Australia, US or UK. So I figured here are my reasons:

Top 10 reasons why I choose to go to Nepal:

1. Why not?
2. I am sick and bitter about SPH's bully tactics.
3. The awe-inspiring Himalayas
4. To get out of this cold and unfeeling hell-hole
5. To alleviate the desire in me to see the world
6. To learn about different cultures
7. I want to do bunjee jumping (it's one of the things I have to do before I die or else I will die dissatisfied)
8. To have a more diverse journalism portfolio
9. To lose weight and toughen up for more extreme places in the future (i.e Africa, Kashmir, South America, Siberia, etc)
10. To search for the elusive happiness

I realised that most of them are push factors rather than pull factors. That is, I'm going to Nepal not really because I really want to, but because I'm running away from this miserable society. But that's alright, I went to Mizzou with almost the same reasons, and I think I left a piece of my already-holey heart there in the end. I'm almost sure I'll learn to love Nepal and it's friendly people eventually.

4 down, 2 more to go. Just let me get it over and done with exams already.