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The Esplanade is epic fail.
written: 4:09 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 08, 2009

First, I'm officially out of mourning. I'm so listless with no Roger tournaments to follow that I'm actually half-watching some random Johannesberg Open, just because I need to watch tennis or I'd feel like there's something missing in my life. I don't give a shit about Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (despite him being one of the three male tennis players that I like to watch) or even Jeremy Chardy whom I've never seen before, and yet I'm going to watch the final tonight - BECAUSE I NEED TO WATCH TENNIS. I even watched some crappy France v. Italy Fed Cup match a while ago and turned it off after the first set because...women's tennis is unbearable. Sorry to all womankind, but it's really, really impossible to sit through an entire women's match without cringing every other point. The Italian woman - er, man? - played single-handed backhand which was interesting for three seconds before I involuntarily started making mental comparisons to Roger's gorgeous single-handed backhand. Totally unfair, I know, but I can't help it. More importantly, I never knew tennis could be played in such an ugly fashion. A shame, really; Alize Cornet is really pretty but the way she plays tennis can only be described with one word: Ugly. I won't even get started on the Italian woman whom I suspect is actually a man; her butch-ness, most unfortunately, unnerved me. I generally think of tennis as a sport that both sexes can play without one sex feeling more like the other - in other words, female tennis players still feel feminine the way female basketball players, for instance, don't feel feminine at all. And yet, this Italian woman looked like man, had thighs shaped like a man's, and played like a man - and I don't mean this in the "Dinara Safina plays like a man!" positive sort of way. Is there a rule that all female tennis players have to play in skirts? I think the Italian should've worn shorts instead. Putting her in the skirt scared the living crap out of me.

I absolutely cannot wait for Dubai. I seriously cannot. I'm totally dying without real tennis to watch! Actually, I might watch the Rotterdam tournament, just to laugh over a possible Nadal/Murray match-up. At this point I'd rather Murray win a tournament than Nadal, but I keep flip-flopping who's the lesser of two evils so it doesn't really matter what I say. I'd be happy to see one of them lose tragically to the other; it's just a matter of who I dislike more at a given point in time.

***

I watched the Stan Lai/Wang Wei Zhong production - The Village - last night. Although it didn't speak to me the way the Sylvia Chang play did, I enjoyed it more. It was funny - hilarious, actually - and it presented a completely different side of the KMT/mainlanders than what I was used to. For some odd reason I was under the impression that all mainlanders were rich and lived comfortably in Taiwan because they all belonged to the KMT and therefore were treated better than the native Taiwanese. Apparently, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, my impression was completely wrong. They suffered, and were forced to build a home in foreign land, away from their own homes.

Above all else, and although I tried really hard not to read anything political into the play, I think the resolution said it all: Even though the villagers came to Taiwan from China, they have settled in Taiwan. Their children were born and raise in Taiwan. Therefore, Taiwan is their home, no matter where they came from before. The play isn't political at all and it doesn't try to embed a political message; all it does is to tell the story of the KMT solders who lived in these scrappy villages, nearly forgotten by the present generation (I never knew they existed until now).

But still, implicit in a simple story with tremendous heart at its centre is a very profound truth that inevitably (for me at least) has some political implications. Taiwan is their home, and a "reunification" with China would be an artificial construct at best.

On another note though, it was really interesting to see what life was like under the KMT's draconian emergency rule. Confiscating records, arresting people suspected of espionage, and the KMT soldiers holding out hope that they'd return to China one day. The scene where Chiang Kai-shek died in a thunderstorm was met with collective sobs from all the villagers and it was quite jarring for me because I'd never thought of it that way. In fact, I'd never really seen or thought of Taiwan in such a manner. I don't really know how to describe it but suffice it to say that it was a refreshing new perspective.

The script, too, was super funny. I especially loved the line about Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong playing mahjong together and the squabble two neighbours had about who should pay for the broken window with the eventual conclusion that they should blame it on the people that forced them there in the first place - namely, Chiang and Mao. HAHAHA.

***

On another note, I must say that I continue to be appalled by the Esplanade's lack of standard. First, I am staunchly of the opinion that they HAVE to enforce a dress code. I think it's utterly disrespectful to the performers and to fellow audience members, not to mention theatre as an art form in itself, when members of the audience saunter into the theatre dressed in shorts and flip-flops. I absolutely hate the Singaporean dress code and I cannot bloody understand, for the life of me, how it is that Singaporeans have the gall and the audacity to wear flip-flops to watch a play. Even worse, I saw some woman dressed in this shiny off-white spaghetti-strapped top and seriously short shorts that had me thinking she wasn't wearing any pants at first until I noticed the shorts. It was horrendous.

It's not even an elitist thing because there is nothing elitist about wearing proper shoes and pants and not wearing shorts to watch an artistic performance. The Esplanade is not the beach. I just don't understand why stupid Singaporeans think it's okay to dress sloppily to watch a performance at the Esplanade, because it's not okay. It reflects poorly on Singapore as a society and I find it utterly appalling. It's really not that difficult to wear shoes; I wear shoes every day. And I just don't bloody understand the appeal of slippers and flip-flops because they look absolutely sloppy and unkempt to me. I mean, come on, we're not going to the market here. Have some sense of decorum, for fuck's sake.

Even better: I also don't bloody understand why it is that stupid Singaporeans can't stand up for three seconds and let other people walk to their seats without risking the danger of tripping and stumbling and falling. It's not like there is a lot of leg room to begin with, and would it really kill you to stand up? Is your arse so glued to the chair that you can't put aside your discomfort for three seconds and spare a thought for others? The Singapore society is so ungracious, even crass, that it honestly baffles the shit out of me. I just don't understand these people.

Speaking of not understanding these people, the Esplanade seriously pissed me off yesterday. There was a post-show dialogue session with the cast and crew of the play and everyone was required to move to the stalls. My mom and I were at Circle 2 and I was okay with moving down as I couldn't see much from up there anyway.

But guess what? Instead of letting people walk down the stairs and straight to the entrance to the stalls, they made everyone take the escalator down to outside the theatre, then made everyone have their tickets checked before entering the theatre - and by the time we managed to get it, the dialogue had already started. What the fuck kind of shit is this? I was so pissed that I went to yell at the usher, who had the gall, the audacity, to talk to me impatiently and practically demand that I showed her my ticket. What the fuck? No apology whatsoever. If I'd remembered her name, I swear, I will find a way to get her into trouble.

The Esplanade is a fucking joke. Absolutely no class, no standard. Baoyue also told me about some technical snafu the Esplanade people brilliantly executed when she watched the Sylvia Chang play last Friday. It was opening night, and at one super dramatic scene, the lights didn't work. The effect was obviously gone and they took like two intermissions or something. The Esplanade brilliantly thought of a great compensation plan: Drinks on the house.

Yeah, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What if I didn't drink alcohol and didn't care for soft drinks and fruit juices? I don't, in fact, and if it'd happened to me, I'd demand a refund. The best part was, they didn't even have people standing around passing out drinks; people had to queue for the drinks. As if I could be bothered to queue if I was in that position.

I think I'm never going to stop being irritated whenever I'm out in public. I seriously don't understand why Singaporeans love their stupid flip-flops so much and why they can't stand up and let other people get to their seats comfortably and why our stupid arts centre is so incompetent and inefficient, and just plain stupid sometimes. And whoever did the proof-reading for The Village's programme ought to be fired, unless someone can tell me what the fuck a "flat bearer" is. The typo didn't appear just once; it appeared twice. Utterly unbelievable.

One last thing: I find incredible that they actually allow people in "at suitable intervals". There is no other suitable interval other than the intermission. If people are late, too fucking bad, wait for the intermission to enter. I don't see why people that paid good money for a performance, and respect the performance enough to be on time, have to have their enjoyment of the performance interrupted by idiots who can't be punctual. Besides, it's not like the performances start on the dot anyway; it usually starts at least five minutes late.

Okay, I'm just going to stop talking about the Esplanade altogether. It's not worth being all pissed off over it.

***

On yet another note, I must say this: I went to KR for Nation Building tutorial on Friday and the place scared the crap out of me. It was huge and full of people, and I lost count of the number of stairs I had to climb from the car park all the way to the tutorial classroom which was on the fifth floor of a block situated on top of a hill.

Seriously. Have they not heard of lifts? I understand KR is old and shit, but have they not heard of upgrading? I'm sorry if I'm spoiled but I'm used to having the option of taking the lift in BTC. I'm so spoiled by BTC, in fact, that I couldn't help but balk at the size of the tutorial classroom. It was maybe a quarter of the level two seminar rooms in BTC.

Having said that, the tutorial wasn't too bad. It was actually quite fun, barring this bizarre moment when one girl couldn't answer the simplest of all simple question (basically, all she needed to do was to read out the last part of the tutorial question to answer the tutor's question but she couldn't even do that) which made me want to just shout out the answer to hurry things along; it was rather refreshing to sit through a class in which you can get away with generic answers that don't really say anything.

On second thought, I'm glad there are only four tutorials. I'm not sure I can take more than four classes of things like "the Singapore nation is still relevant in a globalised world because we need Singaporeans to stay in Singapore to remain competitive", whatever that even means. Strangely, or not, when the tutor was asking the class about whether or not it's true that the Singapore nation is irrelevant because borders are more porous in a globalised world or whatever, the first thing that came to my mind was this: The suggestion is crap because countries still hold on to their sovereignty for dear life and no one is going to give it up for some fluffy world citizenship or whatever. Sovereignty is still a fundamental principle of international law and the international order.

Okay, I'm going to stop talking about it now before I start unfairly mocking people. I can count on one hand the number of comments I thought were intelligent (one finger, to be precise) so I better stop here.

I kind of have to tidy my room today but I'm too lazy, and I need to do my Intelligence Law readings. And wash my clothes. SIGH. I don't like Sundays very much.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010