I am finally enlightened.

All these years, I have celebrated Valentine’s Day feeling like a fraud because there’s this part of me rebelling against the idea of having to set aside a special day to love someone.

Some years, I’m like, yeah okay, let’s go to McDonald’s and then let’s go home and forget about it.

But now, I have broken through the cynicism and finally understood.

Valentine’s Day is like any other “special” day. Birthdays, anniversaries, Teachers’ Day, International Women’s Day, World Turtle Day. In the sense that there is a reason and purpose for each designated day.

Although there is merit in the school of thought that goes, “We do not celebrate Valentine’s Day because we believe one should be loving every day of the year, and not just one day in a year,” the theory is not entirely sound.

Yes, one should love every day of the year, but that doesn’t mean one can’t also specifically celebrate love on a particular day. Valentine’s Day reminds us to be appreciative of our loved ones and that’s always good.

At the very least, it’s an excuse to eat, drink and be merry. And any excuse to eat, drink and be merry is a good excuse.

But I do not support commercialism on Valentine’s Day.

Boycott overpriced roses! Boycott overpriced restaurants! Boycott retailers who try to teach us how to celebrate when it’s actually they who are celebrating the sudden incoming cashflow!

The one-day price inflation is ridiculous. Retailers are smart to take advantage of the fact that many men are willing to pay the moon and the stars to impress some lady. But I’m not out to impress anyone and no one is out to impress me, so us plebeians will just drive to the nearest McDonald’s for some very unhealthy but very cheap indulgence.

Nobody said you have to celebrate with roses and fancy restaurants.

And I will celebrate with little Scruffy tonight by giving him all the belly rubs he can tolerate. He is clean and fluffy now because I gave him a bath last night, on the assumption that clean dogs are easier to love.

In fact, clean anything is easier to love, so remember to shower regularly.

And now, let me share with you a homemade digital “card” I received from someone who wants only to be known as “secret admirer”.

Thank you! Extremely sweet of you!

I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day, too, and don’t forget to tell your loved ones that you love them!

Categories: Regular Blogs
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Still in the spirit of Chinese New Year, I decided to do another CNYish thing: Buy a Hongbao Toto ticket.

This will be the very first time I’m buying the Hongbao Toto so it’s an event for me. Besides, I need to get a ticket for the Goonfather if I want him to win $10 million for me (since he’s not free to go queue up).

I decided to go to this Toto outlet in Yishun, listed in the Singapore Pools website as the top winning outlet in Singapore, having produced something like 18 winning tickets in all.

Yes, there are some theories on how winning outlets get that status only because stupid people like me flock there in the hopes of getting “luckier” tickets. This increases the outlet’s sales, which in turn increases its winning chances.

Balls to that, I said.

I want to be where all the kiasu people are!
I want to soak in all the kiasu CNY atmosphere before CNY ends!
And I am very prepared to queue up for it in true Singaporean fashion!!

But…

I WAS NOT AT ALL PREPARED FOR THIS.

Where the heck did all these people come from?

This was 3 pm.

You all don’t need to work one ah??

Here is what the queue looks like from a bird’s eye point of view (not to scale):

I gathered, on a very modest estimate, that there had to be at least 200 people in the queue. Maybe 300.

I really underestimated Singaporeans. I had expected maybe 50 people in the queue. The Hongbao toto is on sale for nine days altogether, so I thought the queue would be reasonably spread out over nine days, and over the thousands of outlets in Singapore.

But it seems like the whole world decided to buy tickets from this particular outlet. No wonder it keeps producing winning tickets!

Of course, the Hello Kitty queues in the year 2000 were much, much worse. But I make allowances for that because those were once-in-a-lifetime kitties. $10 million? Pfft. You get a chance to win that every single year. Big deal.

Anyway, I didn’t join in the queue. It was simply too intimidating.

I wouldn’t have minded if I could have read a book while queuing. I’m perfectly willing to stand around for hours waiting for nothing as long as I have a good book.

But because Singaporeans (especially Toto-buying ones) are a superstitious lot, I was afraid the people around me would give me the evil eye for doing an “inauspicious” activity while standing in the fortune line with them.

(For the benefit of my non-Chinese readers: “Book” in Chinese is “shu”. And “shu” also means “to lose”. So any word sounding like “shu” is automatically inauspicious.)

I had consulted the Goonfather early this morning.

I said, “Later when I go queue up for Toto, do you think if I read a book while queueing, the other people in the queue will keropok me?”

His reply was, “Why you wanna do such a thing?!?!?”

Sheesh.

So I didn’t bring my book and I didn’t get in the queue and I didn’t buy my ticket to win $10 million.

I think I shall forget about soaking in the kiasu CNY atmosphere. Looking at today’s queue was plenty enough atmosphere for me.

Tomorrow, I will just go buy tickets from the most ulu outlet I can think of.

Categories: Regular Blogs
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Something strange is happening to me. I swear I’ve gone nuts.

I have been really excited over this year’s Chinese New Year.

I mean, really.

The last time this festive season truly excited me was when I was, like, 12 years old.

As I grew older and the novelty wore off, CNY became an annoying routine. The noise and festive mood in the streets frightened me. The exchanging of oranges seemed crazy to me. The CNY countdown on TV irritated me.

Of course, I cannot deny that I love the ang pows and bak kwa and yusheng. But that doesn’t equate to liking CNY, does it?

This year, I felt the excitement about a week before CNY. I actually started looked forward to it. How freaky.

Two days before CNY, I had my first yusheng with my friends. After dinner, I wanted to go to the River Hongbao, but half the group didn’t want to. I can understand why. For as long as I can remember, I have avoided the River Hongbao like the plague. I have never been able to understand why anyone would want to squeeze about with sweaty bodies and have their eardrums violated by noisy ching chong music. What’s the fun or benefit in that?

So why do I suddenly want to go this year?

On New Year’s Eve, Elyxia and The Goonfather dragged me to Chinatown in the afternoon. They claim that it’s a yearly ritual for them to go check out the CNY bazaar. For me? Survival instinct dictates that I avoid Chinatown like the plague during the entire CNY period.

So why did I willingly go this year and even get all excited there?

After reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve, I went to the famous Loyang temple with my friends to welcome the Fortune God and to count down to the CNY. I never liked going to temples because the suffocating incense and the crowds really bother me. And I already mentioned that I hate CNY countdowns.

So why did I organise a trip there this year?

On New Year’s Day, we all woke up at the break of dawn to get a nice headstart to the new year. For the past several years, I’ve had to wake up at about 8 am for CNY visiting and I’ve always hated that.

So why did I happily wake up at 5 am this year, and with only three hours’ of sleep before that?

This year, the Goonfather took me along to visit all his relatives. And we’ve been having dinner at a different relative’s home every night since the second night of CNY. I’ve always hated socialising and wild horses couldn’t drag me to my own relatives’ homes past the first day of CNY, much less somebody else’s.

So why did I actually enjoy all the visitings and dinners this year?

Last night, the Goonfather’s uncle hired a lion dance troupe to perform at his house, where a whole load of relatives was gathered for dinner. I also usually avoid lion dances like the plague because they’re noisy and it’s like, you seen one, you seen ‘em all.

So why did I get all excited over it last night and watch it like I’ve never seen a lion dance performance in my life?

For the past many many years, CNY has meant doing the mandatory first-day visiting and then it’s stay home and eat bak kwa for the rest of the 14 days. And that was the way I liked it.

This year, I find myself doing everything I possibly can to milk every single day of the Chinese New Year for its worth.

Yes, I am absolutely nuts.

I don’t have any answers to all my “whys”, unfortunately, but I do have some theories:

1. I’m getting old and senile.
2. It’s the dog year this year and I love dogs (lame).
3. My new cheena name has turned me into someone else. I have suddenly become proud of and patriotic towards my Chinese origins. Huh?

Honestly, I don’t know why.

All I know is that I’m having the time of my life celebrating CNY this year. This change in me is freaky, but it’s also kind of nice. As much as I admit to being a cynic, I have to declare that being the excited child always always beats being the cool, unaffected teenager.

After all, what’s the harm in embracing life and living every minute like it’s your first?

None, I think.

The Goonfather wants me to blog about the fact that he’s going to win this year’s $10 million Hongbao Toto by the power of wishful thinking.

Because it’s CNY, I shall be nice and not tell him to ”go blog yourself lah, shen jing bing”.

Because if he wins $10 million, he is going to give me a million to make a low budget movie. And another million to go shopping.

Or else.

Categories: Regular Blogs
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I am being spotted everywhere (list here).

But I am still very unknown, so I can still go out in shoddy clothes and no makeup, which is something I quite enjoy.

As much as I want fame and fortune, I am scared of having to dress up just to go to the neighbourhood market.

Even non-good-looking celebrities have to look glam all the time, don’t they?

Another one of my commercials (Toyo correction tape) just went on air.

And I saw my EyeRelax video playing in an endless loop outside Guardian Pharmacy at Marina Square. I don’t think anybody watches it.

But please go and buy one because if the response is good, they’ll make it a TV commercial. It’s very expensive, though.

I saw my Carlsberg commercial in the cinema two nights ago and, boy, do I look like a tart.

Okay, I shall stop criticising myself now.

On a totally separate note, Chinese New Year is a beauty hazard. I ate too many Japanese peanuts and now I have a pimple on my nose. I haven’t even started on the bak kwa yet.

This is really sad. Peanuts are evil!

I’m going to bed to sleep the pimple away.

Categories: Acting Journal
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