by Mitja on March 12, 2010
After all of the effort looking into kindergarten for our daughter next year, it looks as though we have come full circle back to her current school.
The international schools are good but I think that we may have confused cost with quality. In the end we really want a school that will continue to help her learn Mandarin and we also want a half-day program. Only her Singaporean school provides both.
There is a lot of talk out there about how kindergarten is now very focused on academics, supposedly a major change from when we went to school but I have not seen a dramatic difference. Sure, we had story time, nap time and play time and now there is more of an effort on preparing children for first grade. Which mainly means they start learning to read and can count to 100 by 2, 5, or 10. There is also a limited amount of homework which encourages parents to be involved but it is hardly a grueling regimen.
The curriculum for next year includes a class activity to make apple sauce in order to learn how to measure and count. I cannot foresee the day that we will have to tell other people that our daughter was held back because she failed apple sauce.
I remain very convinced that the move to all-day classes has much little to do with helping children grow and much more to do with the fact that few families have a stay-at-home parent who can pick up a child at 1 p.m. My first preference would be to home-school Citrus for kindergarten but it appears that we have reached a compromise with the half-day class. I will have time alone with the baby in the morning and then can do fun activities with my kids in the afternoon, instead of a teacher doing similar activities a half-hour drive away. Plus, Citrus will continue to learn Mandarin through school and a weekend class, something that I cannot teach. Fortunately Elysia can help her with the workbook.
Our daughter may not have access to a synthetic ice skating rink at the Stamford American International School or Indonesian gamelans for music class at the Singapore American School. Instead she will continue to have Singaporean classmates and the daily lunch of porridge with fish, tofu and vegetables. She also will not spend 1-2 hours per day in transit on a school bus. Sounds good to me!
School friends 2009, Level K1
by Mitja on March 11, 2010
An embodiment of the parade's theme song, "Let Us Celebrate, We Are One."
When we moved to Singapore we were warned that gum is banned, drug distribution is punishable by death, and criminals can be caned. We also heard that homosexuality is illegal.
So who was the lone man with pink wings and a gay pride flag in the middle of the Chingay Parade? The only person to march without being surrounded by dozens or hundreds of a backup dancers.
Apparently, Singapore had a few gay pride marches called Nation that were banned in 2005. The celebrations moved indoors and became private events that did not require a permit.
So is it illegal to be gay? Law Minister K. Shanmugam stated last year,
We have the law. We say it won’t be enforced. Is it totally clear? We, sometimes in these things, have to accept a bit of messiness. And the way the society is going, we don’t think it’s fair for us to prosecute people who say that they are homosexual.
Greater acceptance of gays and lesbians may be coming to Singapore but I doubt the law will be changed while we are here. I suspect the U.S. military will get rid of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell first.
In the meantime, GLBT Singaporeans continue to celebrate pride events as part of IndigNation, the successor to the pre-2006 Nation events. And incidentally, the naming of IndigNation was even less glamorous a moment than when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn in 1969:
Up to a week before the start of the pride month, the event still did not have a name. Then one night, a motley group of 4 gay individuals, who sat past 11:30pm in a prata shop near Rowell Road sipping coffee and tea while one of them struggled to eat some fat-encrusted mutton, was hit by a bolt of inspiration and came up with a shortlist of candidates. Brainstorming further whittled down the choice to a final 2 and it was eventually decided that the celebration should be called “IndigNation“, rather than “InsemiNation”. The latter label was preferred by all 4 but thought to be terribly unwise.
by Mitja on March 8, 2010
It has been a hectic week and a half. I taught seven financial education classes to the community during Military Saves week, we visited Kuala Lumpur for four days, we are still unpacking from the move into our new house, we are going to Vietnam in a few days, and the car battery died.
In other words, a perfect time to squeeze in a visit to the United States Embassy in Singapore.
I admit that I do not hold United States embassies and consulates in high regard and do so with scant evidence:
- I saw Missing in 1982 and remember that they lied to Jack Lemmon when he was searching for his son in Chile, who disappeared when Pinochet took over and murdered all of the leftists.
- It is rumored that the State Department only hires lawyers from Top 5 law schools.
- In the waiting room of the consulate, ex-pats pass the time by telling horror stories of being treated with contempt by U.S. consulate and immigration personnel throughout the world.
But I had to visit. In eleven months we have plowed through the pages in our passports, leaving only a few pages remaining for immigration stamps and visas. Until last week, when our daughter snuck the passports off to her bedroom and wrote in one of them with a pen.
She made very nice little boxes and triangles, carefully positioned inside the lines. A very good imitation of the official immigration stamps that left Elysia with only one blank page in her passport.
After dropping Citrus off at preschool I raced to the Embassy yesterday only to find that they would not let me submit my wife’s passport even though her signature on the form matched the one in her passport. I needed to get a letter of authorization, something that is not required when you are in the States. A bureaucratic roadblock that required an extra round-trip and US$35 in cab fares.
Back at her office, Elysia drafted a letter authorizing me to drop off the passport, authorizing them to add pages to the passport, authorizing me to pick up the passport.
We were tempted to add “P.S. Please stop buying all of the canned corn.”
Embassy staff shop at our small Navy Exchange and on the weekend there is a small parade of shopping carts unloading into the ice chests in their cars. Canned tomato paste disappears and it can be months before a new shipment comes in. In the States, addicts try to buy bags full of decongestants to turn into meth. Here, they had to put signs at the cash register announcing a limit on cheese purchases.
I will not say that it bothers me to not be able to find regular sugar for months at a small store meant for active duty military personnel and those directly supporting military missions. Or that even disabled veterans in the United States are not allowed to shop at the Navy Exchange on base, let alone other agency personnel. The truth is I mind because I am too lazy to shuck my own corn and I want to buy Ben and Jerry’s for US$4.50 instead of US$8 at Singapore grocery stores.
I visited the Embassy again today to drop off Elysia’s passport and will be back tomorrow to pick it up. As I left, I swear that I saw consulate staff eating tomato paste by the spoonful, right out of the can. That’s how they are.
I know what you are thinking and you are absolutely right:
Jack Lemmon never had a chance.
by Mitja on March 8, 2010
The Chingay Parade, “Asia’s Grandest Street & Floats Parade,” was two weeks ago and I have been culling through 300 photos. I think about fifteen of them are worth viewing, a major disappointment even though I do not think there is a way to truly capture the spectacle of 7,000 performers and fifteen floats moving along a portion of the Formula 1 track.
Five of about 27 dragons dancing through clouds of smoke from firecrackers.
I have never been to Mardi Gras or Brazil’s Carnival but this was the clean and controlled family version. It was planned and carried out with perfection. Hundreds of volunteers whose sole job as “motivators” was to stand outside the entry gates to welcome and cheer people as they arrived. Not a scrap of garbage on the ground. The most polite energetic audience you have ever seen, including a couple busloads of Navy families.
Chingay culminated with a crowd sing-a-long called “Let Us Celebrate, We Are One”. A very Hands Across America-like song except that it was preceded by about 27 dragons dancing through a cloud of firecracker smoke, followed by close to fifty lions and fifteen floats celebrating everything from the Lion City, Harmony in Diversity, families, Star Wars, and public housing. Yes, public housing. It was surreal.
I see a river flowing
Moving past the boundaries
And crossing lands
Linking people as one
* * *
And with friends and family
Passion and harmony
A parade for everyone
A parade for everyone
Let us celebrate
Cos We are One
About 85 percent of Singaporeans live in public housing!
A parade for everyone / People's hearts together as one / Let us celebrate /Cos We, we are One
Vader's Fist, 501st Legion. But of course.
Naturally, of the 300 photos I took these were the ones in focus. A few others may be seen by clicking HERE or on one of the photos. Next year I will bring my tripod so that I do not have blurry pictures of 7,000 costumed performers and dancers. If you want to visit Singapore, I highly recommend February 11 and 12, 2011.
by Mitja on March 4, 2010
Hello Kitty backpack
Citrus and I head to the airport early tomorrow morning for a very short father-daughter trek. We are flying one hour north of Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.
Elysia just wrapped up four days of work in Malaysia so we will meet up with her in the capital for an extended weekend vacation. No real plans other than to explore the city. I borrowed a book of walking tours from our local library and hopefully Elysia will feel up to it.
She sprained her ankle the previous week in Bangkok. You know, parachuting out of an airplane as part of a joint operations exercise with the Royal Thai Navy. Either that or she missed a step when boarding a shuttle van. She leads a life of mystery and adventure.
My daughter and I are packing light, carrying only her new Hello Kitty roller backpack for our clothes and my camera bag. As always, traveling with Citrus means that it is much easier to have casual conversations with people we meet along the way. Everyone loves to chat with her, and they put up with me.
After all, imagine me without my daughter. A 41-year-old white male trekking around Southeast Asia wearing a Hello Kitty backpack. Not a pretty picture.
We will be back in Singapore on Sunday and, for the first time in several weeks, Elysia will not be going to another country for work. After all, in the last five weeks she visited Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
That is enough travel for work. We leave at the end of next week for a 10-day trip to Vietnam.
After all of the effort looking into kindergarten for our daughter next year, it looks as though we have come full circle back to her current school.