Yee Fong’s Blog

I have always been a faithful participant of Singapore’s National Day celebrations.

Watching the parade on TV was an annual affair. Since I was three, my dad would take me to watch the parade “live” whenever he could, especially when there’s a march past near our home.

When I went to primary School, I would be the first in class to grab tickets to whichever NDP rehearsals were available. I could even belt out every word of every single National Day song without a glitch (and, erm…until this day).

In my teens, I once put on a hot-pink lycra catsuit, complete with a sheer mini-skirt (courtesy of a Singapore designer), and ran across the field at the National Stadium with a huge piece of blue fabric with my schoolmates– we were supposed to be part of an “ocean” during a mass display depicting the beginnings of Singapore as a fishing village.

Never mind that we looked silly in the costumes, I had fond memories of those times. Honestly, it was a welcome break from the high-stress of school life, whiling away our time at the stadium as the choreographers decided on our display formations. The rehearsals were numerous, and hours were long, but it was the thrill of being able to spend some fun time with friends, rather than behind our school desks, that made them excursions to look forward to.

In my years reporting in Singapore, I covered almost every NDP. Going behind the scenes of the parade preparations, I began the quest of looking beneath the National fanfare, and tried to make sense of my identity. What does it mean to be a Singaporean? How does my race matter?

The answers to these questions began to emerge, albeit in bits and pieces, after I moved to China.

It was a strange feeling, to have “returned” to a place where my forefathers had come from. I felt detached and foreign, despite the familiarity with the language, food and culture.

It’s odd but I often find myself both embraced and discriminated at the same time despite looking and speaking Chinese.

It is easier to get around and make conversations with the locals - I get better discounts at the markets; I defended the “Chinese way of doing things” against a laowai who thought “China should learn how the world works.”

Yet, I was deprived of a chance to ask questions at a press conference despite being the first to raise my hand - the organizer apologized after the conference when he realized I spoke English and came from Singapore. On another occasion, my taxi was offered to the laowai next in line at a self-professed six-star hotel.

But it was in dealing with these challenges that I affirmed my identity as a Singaporean - one who comes from a diverse enough background to grasp the nuances of a foreign culture.

As cliché as it sounds, I’ve come to appreciate the cultural harmony of my homeland; the mixture of perspectives has helped make me a more discerning observer of the transformation of China, my ancestral home.

It will be a unique opportunity to witness China’s Olympics celebrations and toast to Singapore’s birthday, back to back, for those of us in China, even in Singapore.

It’s still a strange feeling, but an exciting one.

Think about it…Singaporeans do have the best of both worlds (or even more), to a large extent, don’t we?

Yum Seng!

So the no-no list for the Beijing Olympics spectators is out - no long umbrellas allowed in the Olympics stadiums, folks.

There are other items restricted or banned – liquid cosmetic, crossbows, huge banners, flags representing Tibet and Taiwan Island, and oh, nudity!

Why have I picked the most ordinary of the lot –the brolly as a subject of this post?

Well, cosmetics and liquids have all been said and done in airports; crossbows are obviously something absurd to bring to the games; big banners and flags with political content…bring with them even bigger questions that call for far too many blog pages to address; as for nudity – yes, it’s a sexy topic, but we are in China, excuse me, its all about subtlety here.

And now, back to why the umbrella.

Apparently, one of the reasons cited for imposing the umbrella restriction was this:

In view of foreigners who have a penchant for sunbathing, and the Chinese spectators who tend to avoid the sun, long umbrellas are not allowed in the stadiums to prevent users from blocking the view of other spectators during the Games.

Collapsible umbrellas are allowed, though, so that they can be used in the event of rain.

I was rather tickled by this contention of brollies.

As always, the Chinese have taken pains to try to cater for the needs of both their comrades and foreign guests.

The Chinese’s obsession with fair skin is evident in shelves jam-packed with sunscreen and whitening skin-care products at the entrance of every Watson’s store here.

I still remembered how some Chinese friends looked at me in horror when I raved about getting a tan from my tropical holidays.

On the other hand, foreigners, especially those coming from temperate climate, would grab every opportunity to get kissed by the sun, even if it’s from that one ray that sneaked in between the clouds.

Perhaps what is so telling about the guideline is the message embedded beneath: the respect for personal space.

Many Chinese tend to be less bothered by the infringement of personal space – they press up against your back in queues and even peer over your shoulder as you fill in your application documents.

Here, getting bumped into at train stations and on the streets is taken as a given, and without apology. Maybe it’s simply too crowded; maybe life’s so rough that there are more important things to rush for than to dwell into another person’s space. You are on your own, mate.

In cities like London, New York, Tokyo and even Singapore, where it can get really congested in the subways, chances of getting bumped into are comparatively less, from my experience, as these cities have somewhat established a standard “social speed”, if you will, such that everyone gets their space no matter how busy the streets are.

Perhaps China is so much a mixture of people progressing at such different speeds that it will be some time before it finds that order of space.

But what happens when people with such different concepts of space (and sun-culture, for that matter ) come under one roof?

It would really be a spoiler for anyone to have to stare at the tip of an umbrella shielding Liu Xiang as he charges towards the finishing line.

To find that delicate balance between such glaring differences, the Beijing organizers have stop short of imposing a complete ban on umbrellas.

The collapsible umbrella is perhaps the ideal middle-ground for now.

It could be a potential obstacle, or a flexible tool, depends on how you look at it.

“Do you report about Beijing getting good weather?”

I recently posed this question to two friends working in the media. After all, so much has been said about the pollution and bad air in Beijing in the mainstream media.

My logic for asking the question was simple. You see, if bad news, and for that matter, odd news, make good news, and if the bad air in China gets so much publicity in the media because of its “bad” factor, wouldn’t it be news that it gets the “odd” blue-sky day?

Both instances were met with an embarrassing silence.

In Conversation A, the friend said, “But Beijing has never had blue skies.

Now, I may not have been in Beijing for a very long time, but I do remember a few occasions during the last winter in which I was quite delighted to see sunny, blue skies.

In fact, I even have footages of the Beijing skyline with blue skies with fluffy white clouds filmed during those times.

(For those of you who really want to know, according to statistics released by the city’s Bureau of Environmental Protection, Beijing hit 246 blue-sky days last year.)

In Conversation B, the friend, a European, argued, “But we were brought up to be critical. We don’t report when something is good.”

Well…point taken. His beliefs are closely tied to the historical, social-political and cultural system of his country. He has his stand.

“Sure, you can be critical,” I said. “But if you choose to write about China, or any another issues, and highlight only the bad, then your readers will only see a negative picture of the country or issue. Is that fair?”

“Yes, we should include the good part in the story, but good news doesn’t make a story,” he maintained.

In both instances, I had to quickly switch the topic of discussion, for I had unwittingly treaded into a minefield, a topic that is close to the hearts of every passionate journalist – journalistic integrity.

I couldn’t get those conversations out of my head.

It’s easy to criticize China for its inefficiencies, inabilities, bureaucracies, and a whole lot of other problems. Even easier, to compare it with nations which have “done it better”, and usually, the US and countries in Europe are hailed as examples.

But often, we run the risk of judging our subjects at face value.

China was lauded for its openness during the Sichuan Earthquake. Journalists had never encountered such freedom in getting around for interviews. You could literally get into the thick of action. It was liberating.

The freedom didn’t last very long, though, as questions about the construction quality of the collapsed schools in the earthquake zone emerged even before the dust had settled.

The authorities are naturally put on the defensive.

Access to school rubble and interviews with aggrieved parents were blocked in the name of maintaining social order.

For about three weeks, the world was free to look into how one of the most populous provinces in China was wrecked and the grief of its inhabitants.

It is difficult to shut that gate now. The world will be left wondering, while its own citizens want  answers.

But for a culture that is accustomed to the belief that dirty laundry should not be washed in public, China is struggling to find a balance in the face of scrutiny by an increasingly vocal society, and the intricacies of the same social system that places so much emphasis on guanxi and face at every level.

So, it’s hard to fault any outsider who feels frustrated and slams the way things are run here. Teething problems here do bite.

The pursuit for the truth should continue, but we should not lose sight of the cloud with the silver lining either.

Change is already in the air.