Public Target

 I wrote the piece below for Today newspaper in Singapore. I wrote many articles for them during my time there and most of them were humourous or tongue-in-cheek.  People often responded to my articles, and the editor would publish some but the more bizarre she would send to me. The following piece generated great response from people who berated me for not loving my husband enough…I had reams of advice from men and women telling me of my duties towards my husband and lecturing me on how I didn’t deserve him. I was astounded by the strength of feeling and the time and effort people had gone to in order to make me see the error of my ways.

I showed my husband and he couldn’t help but laugh at the picture they had painted of us in their minds and how far removed it was from reality. It taught me a great lesson about how once you put yourself in the public eye, in whatever form, the crazies feel obliged to tell you how wrong you are and what you should do to correct your sins.

I found this copy via the net and a blogger:

http://my.opera.com/ironsink/blog/show.dml/310369

An interesting real story about Singapore. This is a writing from an England-born lady who has ben staying in Singapore for quite some years. Her name is Kate Smith. This is her story, taken from a TODAY daily newspaper, Tuesday 20, 2006 page 18:OH, YOU LUCKY S’POREANS

“Last Saturday, I found myself in a Japanese restaurant in Pattaya, Thailand crying like a baby. My husband groaned with embarassment as thick, lumpy trails of black mascara made their way down my face.The locals looked at me as if I were an escaped mental patient (very astute people, the Thais!)

The cause of my uncontrollable grief? My husband’s company recently relocated him to their plant in Pattaya. After three years of living in my beloved Singapore, I found myself in an environment as alien as the moon’s surface, and so began the most bizzare conversation between my husband and myself… “I’ll stay in Singapore and you can work in Thailand,” I offered. I was not swayed by the look of horror on his face.“You’d rather be apart than leave Singapore?” he groaned. I ignored the hurt look on his face and continued: “You could fly back on weekends.”His head now in his hands, he slowly and patiently explained to me that my green card in Singapore was dependent on him actually working there.Not one to let legal trivia stand in my way, I told him I would claim political asylum. I would claim refugee status. I would chain myself to the Merlion until I was given permanent residence. I would ask a local family to adopt me. I would…

“Enough!” he shouted.

The waitress the approached us rather gingerly and asked us to leave as I was putting people off their sushi. And besides, my mascara was staining the white, linen tablecloth and would be very difficult to remove.

In his brilliant and profound bestseller The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton gives some insight as to why I sat crying in front of an incredulous hoard of raw fish eaters.

He highlights French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s philosophy on nationality, which is that nationality should be determined by where your heart feels at home, not by where your body happened to be born.

For him his native country is “the one that I love, the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well.” I read that passage alone in restaurant on Beach Road, here in Pattaya, and once again the tears began to fall.

As heads turned towards the sound of sniffing, I casually explained I had alergies and dabbed my eyes dramatically with the napkins. A waitress approached and asked is I was going to pay for the white linen napkin, as mascara was very hard to remove.

Singapore is the country that I love, the one that makes me dream, the one that makes me feel well. It is my native country. The fact that I happen to be English, of Irish parentage, is just a small technicality…an accident of geography, a joke on God’s part.

Sometimes, we find it hard to appreciate what we have and I just wanted to tell you how lucky you all are to be able to live in one of the best countries in the world. I want to say thank you for three wonderful years and ask that if anyone is thinking about adoption to, at least, consider me?