Servicing Service

When I first moved into my flat, I got to know that the previous occupant was an American who went back to the US in December. I didn't enquire too much of landlady's dealings with him, as he had left the flat in a clean and tidy shape, even leaving some household cleaning items that I could use.

Within a few days, I started getting calls to my landline, asking for some Fast Global Supplier company. After a while, it became clear that not only were these people not getting the wrong number, or that the telephone lines had crossed, but my number was actually the published contact on the Fast Global Supplier website, for their China Shanghai branch. One of their prospective clients was actually kind enough to email them notifying them of the invalidity of the number, and on top of that, phoning back to tell me he had done so.

So I Googled my own number. And came across their website. Filled in a contact form, and wrote them a beautifully polite request:

Hello, I'm the current resident of the apartment that is listed as your China Shanghai Branch. I'd like to remind you that your previous manager here in Shanghai has already returned to the States in December. Please remove my address and telephone number from your website listings as I have been getting a lot of mail and telephone calls looking for your company. Many thanks.

It's two days before I get a reply, wonderfully concise and pithy:

This number is all over the website. It is hard to remove this number. You must cancel this number or change to a different number with your phone company.

Can't say they left me with much choice but to reply thus:

Your company obviously thinks it is harder to remove a number from a website than for a foreigner to request for a change of telephone numbers in China. Please be aware, then, that whenever any of your prospective clients telephone my number, it is within my complete power and discretion to say what I wish about your company. Imagine what kind of image and reputation you are projecting, if your clients found out that your company was so lax about providing up-do-date information on your website. Also, you will be interested to note that I have been getting on average one phone call a day. That adds up to a considerable amount of clients, current and prospective. Current clients can become ex-clients, and prospective clients may remain forever prospective. Remember, word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool. Have a nice day.

How would you have dealt with the matter?

Made in the big U.S. of A.

What is everywhere, on everybody's minds, instrumental in affecting the quality of of people all around the world, and Made in America?

Why, our current 经济危机 dung heap, of course.

Now that their once free-flowing coffers are bust and they are effectively living on borrowed time and money, the greedy, grasping eyes of the West turn to China and its $2 trillion of foreign reserves, like Bilbo's beleaguered dwarves slinking towards the Lonely Mountain and the dragon Smaug with his stupendous treasure trove and jewel-encrusted hide. Of course, the supreme irony of the situation is that just like how the denizens of Middle-Earth shunned Lonely Mountain for its desolate landscape and fearsome inhabitant, the West once sneered at China's primitive, unwieldy financial systems. Even now many Westerners and Western-centric Asians still look contemptuously at anything Chinese, disparaging them for being nothing more than just... Chinese. Now it is this backwardness inherent in many fledgling nations that have protected them from cutting edge folly.

All this, because of Greed, and that wonderful cornerstone of Western civilisation called Individual Rights. With a constitution that places individual rights and individual freedom above all else, the USA sold to the rest of the world that paragon of Western capitalism, the American Dream. And because humans are by nature greedy and selfish, that evocative call of the American Dream, complete with hot apple pies sitting in picturesque houses with white picket fences, became too seductive for many people to ignore. With the droves of people settling down in America over the decades, so grew the public conviction that everything belongs to them by right, and if they haven't got something, well, they could just sue somebody for it. With the intense drive to own everything that your neighbour has and more, the American household became the main source of capital for the US economy.

Think Singaporeans are the ultimate kiasu people? Think again.

So all was hale and hearty until 1999, when the American household quietly upturned from being lenders to borrowers, and foreign capital became the only source of money for the USA. But even so, this was all rather hush-hush, and with the distraction of Sept. 11 and Iraq, nobody really paid attention to the fact that the whole of America was starting to survive solely on credit.

But even so, the greed and covetousness kept on escalating into the 21st century, and even though foreign investors were silently buying up low-risk investments and American debt, the influx of capital and borrowed affluence were not enough. Hotshot bankers and financiers who knew too much for their own good but not enough for everybody else's good started playing around with their magic numbers and spreadsheets so that everybody could get their American Dream for a dollar, minus the fine print of course. And because no sane foreign investor was willing to pick up the high-risk investments, they swapped dicey financial products amongst themselves like a game of high-stakes mahjong, where everybody picks up someone else's unwanted stuff until the whole system is interreliant and there's no more accountability.

And we all know what happened after that.

2008 has been the worst year to graduate in so far, and 2009 might turn out even worse. From a solid track record all the way until university, and a formerly bright future wherever I chose to go, I'm now saddled with no substantial work experience and unemployment rates soaring higher and faster than the Burj Dubai everywhere I go. This was supposed to be a year where a management graduate from one the world's top business schools could pick and choose and negotiate any job she wanted, and all I'm left with is mounting debt and new furrows on my forehead and that perpetual sinking feeling in my solar plexus that I'm sure most of you enjoy too. And statistics have shown time and again that people who graduate into a downturn do distinctively worse over their entire lifetime than their peers who graduate when the economy is stable.

Why such bitterness, you ask?

Well, when one really takes a step back and looks at the overall picture, there seems to be pointed lack of anger and blame in the world towards the USA for ruining everybody's lives for at least a few years. Indeed, the USA has indirectly caused people to die who otherwise wouldn't have, had this crisis never come about. Whereas when the rest of the world does something the US doesn't agree with, there's a massive outcry, a public upheaval, and the US will use all its financial leverage and political clout to get its way. The US has always appointed herself upholder of the world's ethics and morals precisely and only when it suits her, insisting that other nations apologise when they appear to slight the US or contravene with her so-called values. But now when the shit has hit the fan, and we all know where the shit came from, the culprit escapes blame once again.

Japan's humiliating defeat at the end of WWII left an indelible stain on the national psyche of the Japanese that has lasted until this day. Their contrition at having caused such a global catastrophe is etched forever within their society's subconsciousness and manifested in their taking extreme responsibility for mistakes large, small, and imagined, and a rigid unwillingness to inconvenience anybody.

Japan has her honour, and because of her greed for territory more than half a century ago, Japan and the Japanese are still apologising to this day.

America has no honour, and not a single American has apologised. Will it take half a century for America, once the golden land of opportunity, to say sorry?

Shanghai Crib

So, it's been just over a month since I moved into my Shanghainese home sweet home. It's in a sizeable gated community called "锦苑" ( Jin3 Yuan4 roughly translates into "Brocade Park"), which maintains a rather prestigious-sounding epithet of "文明小区" ie "Model Quarter", presumably awarded by the Shanghai municipal council for err.. being a model example of a housing community.

I'm at the 56th block which indicates I have to (yes, you guessed it) walk rather far from the entrance to actually reach the block. The good thing is it is relatively quiet in my corner, and less polluted. Less dusty = less housework to do! Anyway it's 6 flights of stairs for me everyday, resulting in some nice toned thighs and bum. After months of inactivity due to my foot surgery, my posterior looked more like a deflated water balloon than a grope-worthy ass, but with having to climb those stairs at least once a day, I am now the relieved owner of une derriere par excellence. Hehe.

So here are some photos of my flat, taken after some frantic cleaning up and surreptitious chucking of clothes into the cupboards. They'll have to do for now until I bother to actually take some better angle-adjusted ones.

The central dining room area, first thing you see when you step in through the front door. Basically there are 2 doors on either side. On the left, the nearest door is to the kitchen, the farthest one to the bathroom. On the right, the first door to the sitting room, the second to the bedroom.
Better angle of the furnishings and bathroom door.
From left: front door, kitchen, bathroom.
Small drawer and water dispenser on the left.
This one's taken standing in the bathroom. You can see the doors leading to the bedroom on the left and sitting room on the right.
Kitchen from the outside. Having a convention cooker at home, it's been simply years since I last used a gas stove.
And from within. Rather sparsely furnished thanks to my incredibly generous landlady, who couldn't even bother to provide a microwave oven. She said the microwave would be too heavy for her to carry. And obviously she thinks it wouldn't be a problem for me, heh.
Bathroom, with toilet, washing machine, shower and sink. According to TingTing, this is considered quite sizeable for Shanghainese standards.
Sitting room. I'm currently living entirely in here at the moment, with the sofabed opened up. When I first moved in it was still pretty cold and this was the room with the best heating.
From another angle. It can be a bit of a squeeze getting in between the bed and TV, but when you're my size, small is nothing.
Closed balcony, great light for studying by during daytime.
Bedroom, uninhabited at the moment. Note the spare mattress leaning against the wall.
You can't see it, but there's plenty of wardrobe space for clothes. =D

In short, this space is my home away from home until August. With most of my day spent at ACLS, most of my time in here is taken up with doing homework and sleep. Kinda seems a waste of space and rental when the flat could easily accommodate another person. In comparison with some of the cupboards I lived out of during boarding school, this is like a mansion! Heehee.. actually boarding school wasn't that bad. Anyway when the weather is a bit more accommodating I will take the camera out and get some photos of the main entrance, and the downright ugly housing buildings here in Shanghai.

On another note, now that Spring is creeping in, some residents here have taken to walking their little trophy dogs in the mornings. So far on the way to ACLS I've seen: a Pomeranian with a massive fluffy winter coat, a pair of grizzled Schnauzers looking very much like Tramp from Lady and the Tramp, another large brown dog, and cutest little terrier puppy with a pink ponytail! Oh man, how I miss Muffin. Mum, if you dare give her away before I get back to KL, I shall be eternally upset with you! And never cook for you again, ha!

Muffin says, see, I have my own crib too!
Says, because you see, she's much too refined and proper to actually bark that.

Shanghaied into Shanghai

I woke up this morning to a faint sound, something I must've heard dozens of times before, but rather bizarre and baffling in this setting of thousands of Shanghainese crammed into their sardine tin apartment blocks.

It was a cockerel, crowing lustily into the dazzling sunshine of a crisp Shanghainese morning.

I guess someone's having some rather good chicken soup for dinner this week.

So anyway I get out of bed, and it is the most gorgeous, brilliant spring day since I arrived in the midst of bleak and dreary post-CNY Shanghai. Birds everywhere are crooning the spring buds into waking, the city is rubbing its sleep-heavy eyelids, and that cockerel is loud enough to raise up anyone and anything still in hibernation, including my photography bug. Outside, the sudden proliferation of pink, white, and red blossoms infuse the lanes and paths and spaces with an invisible mist of exultation. The sunlight glistens off every surface as the city shrugs off its winter mantle, and the very air is evocative of magic and the promise of life.

After the initial weeks of settling-in stress, homesickness, loneliness, acclimatising, and cold, it is transcendent moments like this that make all that difficulty and discomfort so worthwhile.

La dolce vita, entirely in Chinese of course.

One Week to Go

After being cut off from the WWW for the 3 whole weeks I've been here, it's time to resuscitate the bloggy. I dug up from the various drafts languishing on the Blogger Dashboard this post which I'd started just over a month ago. Understandably enough, this post has become even more relevant to me now that I'm actually here, as well as the number of times I've been asked that question that occurs a short way into the post. It would take a whole day of writing if I were to completely lay out my reasons for leaving England, but here are a few that relates to living in England in general. Sometimes the grass really isn't greener on the other side, but sadly enough life requires us to lose some things before we can truly appreciate them.

*****

It's one more week 'till I take off to Shanghai, the lustrous pearl of China, the land from whence my ancestors came from. I've never been there, even though a couple of my cousins were fortunate enough to be around to follow my maternal grandfather back to his hometown, where, a long time ago, his 7-yr-old self was the treasured youngest grandson of the local village bigwig. Where once that pampered little boy was even carried across the mansion's courtyards so his would not be dirtied by the earth, now stands a sprawling derelict ruin that nobody has claimed.

But such far-off origins, however interesting, carry only sentimental, wishful value to us. These places that we might return to visit are too changed, the long-lost relatives too foreign, to stir up any real deep-seated attachment other than those that arise from our own idealistic, romantic longings of our ancient heritage. Such is the fate of an Overseas Chinese. Our roots were cast too far away, partially severed by the journey undertaken by those ancestors who chose to seek new fortunes, and the lineage now far too imbedded in this adopted land to resurrect any dormant recognition of the past toils and triumphs from just a few generations ago.

Far more potent to our cultural identity is, of course, our own more immediate origins, the places and times that shaped us to what we are today. Over the last 6 months, many people have asked me why I chose not to stay on in England, despite (or perhaps, because of) having already committed 7 years to that country. They ask with undeniable interest and sometimes incredulity, as if by not remaining there I am somehow "wasting" all that time, by giving up on some benefit or opportunity that must have been my goal at the start of the 7-year commitment.

In the last post, I wrote about the places that have been my home for a while, of the nostalgia that arises every time I recall the feel and sensation of those spaces. Now my thoughts have moved from wondering about the physical place I am going to, to the people and culture I will encounter, and of course reflecting on my experiences from the past.

In the 7 years I have spent there, the UK, and Western society in general, has markedly changed from a culture that was a paragon of modern civilisation, to an environment that is unfriendly, self-serving, irresponsible, and makes one feel sick in the heart.

It has become a "surveillance state", where CCTVs follow your every move, and you can be held liable for actions you never realised were being recorded. It has become a nation obsessed with tests and rankings, much like the way Singapore is, and adopted much of the same kiasu mentality in that often the most important factors in making decisions, especially those pertaining to education and career, are test scores and league rankings. It has become a state bordering on socialism in certain aspects, and one so terribly afraid of offending, insulting or unintentionally discriminating against anybody and everybody. These two factors are invariably a hugely problematic combination, especially when needy or unscrupulous individuals can easily claim 'offense' if they are not given certain special rights or benefits from the state.

Prevalent among the worst of those living in Britain is the opportunistic, chip-on-my shoulder, denial-prone mentality that drives the individual to act only if there's something in it for them, and claiming indefinite inability to function due to some past, played-up mistake committed by somebody else. It's never their own fault, everybody owes it to them, and it is their prerogative, ie, "right" to be accorded special treatment even though they couldn't possibly deserve it in the first place.

Even worse is the now-rampant celebration of trash culture and anti-intellectualism, which has found its fullest expression in TV shows like Little Britain. This, coupled with the British nonchalance for a surveillance state, first gave rise to the "reality TV" of Big Brother, and now culminates in the very public dying of Big Brother's favourite prodigal daughter, Jade Goody. That a culture could denigrate so far, so low, that a sizeable chunk of its people will devote time to follow, in various forms of media, what should be a very private, dignified last act of a person says enough of the current and future state of this civilisation.

England was a place I called my "home away from home" for 7 full years, and never again will I call it "home" unless something happens, change extreme enough to divert this country away from its inexorable path to intellectual and spiritual destruction.