The Skeptical Optimist

Now and then I sit in on the morning shift for Suzanne Jung. It’s a different beast from the half-hourly bulletins that we usually do as rostered readers for the day shift. Primetime Morning is a 3 hour, non-stop breakfast programme that has 2 presenters and distinguishes itself from the rest of the bulletins with its varied segments and live studio interviews.

It’s really good fun, Steve and I get along fine and come up with some ok repartee (I hope). In any case, the first question people always ask after they see me on that shift is, “what time do you have to get up?” Well the short answer is just before 4am, for the show that starts at 6.30am. Basically I try to wake up before my alarm so the kids and husband aren’t disturbed. I pad quietly to the kitchen to fix my tupperware of breakfast which can be eaten either before the show or during particularly long commercial breaks or prerecorded segments. Then I drive to work, getting there around 4.30-5am to do my hair and makeup (eyeliner at 4.45am is always a little tough) and spend the rest of the time before the show making sure I know what’s happening for the interviews that day, checking the news updates and prerecording segments that go out later in the bulletin.

One of the things I really love though, is driving at 4.30am. The streets are almost empty except for the taxis on the night shift, and there’s something about the smell of the early morning air that takes me back to my childhood and the times I had to wake up before the sun rose just to go to school. That stillness of the early morning air feels like it’s waiting for someone or something; there’s a great sense of anticipation in the sleeping city and suburbs. Just a few more hours and minutes and the roads will be jammed with cars, the pavement lined with people waiting for buses and cabs and the trees full of birds.

Funnily this always makes me acutely aware of being in Singapore, this waking before dawn and before your circadian rhythms tell you to. Also, the way the sun rises like clockwork at around 7 and sets 12 hours later is also something that I feel is associated with being home in a way. When I went to the States to study or visited my in-laws in Italy for long periods at a stretch, it always seemed unnatural for the sun to set at 4pm in the winter and 9pm at night. My husband on the other hand is a little weirded out by the regularity of our days. His clock is wired to the turn of the seasons, how summer seems more languorous while winter days are short.

It’s funny how one gets accustomed to things as a child and then sees that as the norm for the rest of the their lives. But I’m also glad I experienced life in another country - it gives you a richer more complex perspective on how other people see things. And reminds you that this fairly ensconced and comfortable life isn’t the only one that exists.

These days doing the early morning shift now and then and waking up early to the quietness of deserted streets, I get a funny sense of belonging to the slumbering city. When the autocue in the studio comes on and the studio director counts down through my earpiece, I imagine students switching on their tv sets, bleary eyed like I was so long ago, starting their day before dawn and leaving the tv as background or foreground. I imagine all the workers ending their night shift and going with relief to their unslept in beds, the commuters in the crowded buses who watch us on the go and all the people who start their day as early as I do or in the last hour of the show. The television camera is a strange thing, because sometimes you don’t stop to think about how it brings you into the lives of people you might never meet. I hope though that we somehow inform and add to their lives, to your lives…

Tags: memory, morning news, seasons, time zones

Kermit was right - it’s not easy being green. And before you think I mean that in some flippant way, let me assure you that I’m dead serious about it. When I first met my husband in the States, he was vegan and as an omnivorous Chinese woman in her early 20s, I thought he was quirky, slightly mad and definitely a little bit too committed to the cause. Some 7 to 8 years later, he’s now living in Singapore with me and he’s a less than reluctant omnivore. Definitely, it’s my fault - from the ricotta cheese and gelato in Italy to the scallop in New Orleans - he says watching me eat was just too much! Plus my mother-in-law is an amazing cook, and my father-in-law likes to barbecue! mmmm… sausages!

But recently, I’ve been giving some serious thought to becoming at least part time vegetarian (yes, that term exists!) and maybe even extending this to my boys… This is really difficult, because it’s one thing become vegetarian yourself but it’s another thing figuring out how to give two energetic growing toddlers enough protein, calcium and nutrients.

Plus, I really do love meat! I’m not a bleeding heart vegetarian, I believe in the circle of life philosophy - but with responsibility and humanity. So that means that while I don’t think it’s unethical to kill a cow, fish, chicken, pig, etc to eat it (although I respect the beliefs of the ethical or religious vegetarians)- I do believe that it’s completely unethical to industrially farm these animals and subject them to cruel and unusual forms of housing and death. Industrially raised pigs, cattle and poultry live in abysmal conditions, often overcrowded, overfed and injected with antibiotics to prevent diseases that are a result from these conditions.

Sticking to this view, it makes it really hard to eat meat unless it’s free range and organic, something that’s almost non-existent in Singapore unless it’s for a very high price, which basically makes it untenable. Honestly, I can’t afford to pay $60 for a piece of grass fed steak and shouldn’t have to. Which makes the alternative? Well, going green in the most fundamental sense.

To add to that, there’s the environmental imperative. Recently I interviewed a Geography professor who had done extensive research into lifestock and he confirmed my suspicion that one of the easiest ways for you to reduce your carbon footprint is not just to ditch that fuel guzzler of a car, switch off the lights and airconditioning unit and use less plastic - it’s actually to eat less meat. Cattle produce the most greenhouse gases! More than cars apparently… and that’s not taking into account their waste which pollutes waterways. Plus, they actually use up arable land that could be used to grow grain and vegetables to feed parts of the world populations that isn’t getting enough food. It’s quite a serious situation.

But how to run on this campaign in a food loving, food crazy country? No one is going to be able to tell you not to eat that plate of ba chor mee, black angus steak, panfried foie gras, pork knuckle or ba kwa. Not to mention mutton soup, ayam penyet and beef rendang. There would be riots! And don’t think that bento box of sushi is immune too, research shows overfishing could lead to a total depletion of oceanic fish in twenty years or so. So it’s quite a conundrum and really sometimes thinking like this can make your head swim, because how are one person or one family’s choices going to make a difference in a situation that seems like it’s headed to the dogs anyway? A more appropriate response might be: eat all the foie gras that you can right now because it’s all going to pot anyway, and you might not be able to afford it 10 years from now!

Right.

So in my household we are making simple decisions - red meat once a month, chicken once a week, farm raised fish or seafood twice a week and vegetarian pasta dishes or stews and stirfries with rice the rest of the time with added protein from cheese (not completely innocent I know, but hey my kids are under 5 and their bones are growing), eggs, tofu, lentils, beans and chickpeas.

It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s working for me. Although when we eat out at the hawker centre we do eat the normal wanton mee and chicken rice.

Still I’ve discovered old dishes that I used to cook to impress my once vegan husband, drawing out of the veggie cookbooks I bought for romance. It’s an uphill struggle, I’ll admit, I’m a sausage-bacon-lobster-foie gras-steak-otoro sushi-hamburger kind of girl… but hey, it’s not just the health of the planet and the humane treatment of animals - it’s after all also our health as well. Still, I have to admit, once a month we’ll go on a date without the kids and just have a steak or hamburger or plate of wonderfully expensive sashimi. After all, you only live once! What do you think?

Tags: feeding children, good food, omnivorism, vegetarianism