What the...

"e" in place of "the". I am chatting with my reception officer at the moment and he's telling me about the shortening of words and even phrases in Singlish. I noticed that "e" is put in place of "the" - even in writing, not just sms(!) - and I thought...maybe it's 'cos the "th" is a little hard to pronounce - hee.

Little did I know it's because "d" is already used for another abbreviation, that being "already". Yes, it's true. For those of the Singlish uninitiated and hard of imagination, the phrase "have you eaten already" can be more efficiently phrased as "eaten d". Voila.

That's my 5 min for today.

Oh and culture shock hits us in the most quiet ways... plays with your state of mind about everything. Slowly all woes become "it's Singapore!" even when it's totally unrelated and could happen to you in say Eastern Europe :S more on that point later.

Bananas...

That's the term to describe an Asian person who has grown up in the "West" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Eww! What a horrible term...but even my fellow Asian Kiwis have started calling themselves that. I don't think I would call myself that...

Anyway, I just finished watching "Banana in a Nutshell" a very light but serious look into the way traditional Asian parents see their children and want them to behave.

It's about a girl who wants to marry her boyfriend of 8 years. Sounds simple enough - except the fact that he's a European New Zealander. Bum bum queue dramatic music here.

It's one of those things that doesn't gel with me - I believe love transcends culture and ethnicity, and of course skin colour! But it does play with the fact that despite growing up in New Zealand... I still hold a lot of Asian values and one of them is filial piety. Roughly speaking, it's respect for your parents.

So, would I marry someone who was not Chinese if my parents didn't want me to? Yes, but not without a lot of deliberation and angst I would imagine! It's not because I don't believe in cross-culturalism, it's because I still have yet to educate my parents on it... maybe if he learnt Chinese? What would you do?

Anyway, this is a New Zealand film, but if you ever get the chance to watch it, it's highly recommended.

p.s. why are all the ex/AIESECers around me getting engaged???