I have 15 minutes now, so this is a 15-minute blog!

I am currently reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a novel depicting the sad state of women in 19th Century China.

That’s why I went reading up about foot-binding, as mentioned in my latest Post-it Notes.

Several months back, I was reading a series of novels about life in the royal courts of medieval England, also highlighting how women were horrendously marginalised.

The gist of what went on in ancient times is that the only purpose of a woman was to give birth to sons (and secondarily to serve men and make their lives comfortable).

Not daughters. Only sons. If you gave birth to one son in your life, you have redeemed yourself, but only barely.

You would have to produce a handful of sons in order to be considered worthy of the food you’re being fed to keep you alive.

If you never give birth to any sons, you’re worthless and a waste of life.

I can’t stop wondering how ancient men ever arrived as such a formula. If women were so worthless, then exterminate them all. Let’s see how your damn species is going to survive, then.

I don’t know how a male who had emerged from his mother’s womb could even think that the very womb he had been created in could be the slightest bit inferior to him. He should feel inferior because he doesn’t have the same life-giving powers.

Men can be such idiots. I’m sure they still are, even if most of them now recognise that women are just as important as men, if not more, in the context of life.

Men are now idiotic in other ways.

Well, I don’t have any examples now because I haven’t been irritated lately by any man, but I’m sure I can give you a long list when I’m in the mood to.

I’m not a misandrist (one who hates men). I know some of you probably think I am because I occasionally write male-bashing posts. But I usually do it in good humour and affection. Just like how a mother might want to kill her kids when they’re being really bad but at the same time still feel an inordinate amount of love and affection for them.

Not that I would know about that since I’m not a mother. But I’m sure I can imagine. I feel that way towards my pets when I had them so I’m sure the feeling is roughly similar.

Okay, just a little bit. It’s enough to work on.

Oh, 15 minutes are up so I gotta run.

Till the next blog!

Just read in detail about foot binding in ancient China. I always thought they just wrapped up the feet during infancy to stop them from growing.

But, no! They wait till the girl is 4-7 years old, then break her toes and arch bones so that the toes can curl under the sole. Without anaesthesia.

After wrapping the monstrous creation tightly, the girl is then forced to walk on her broken feet so her weight can help crush them into shape. The feet are crushed and rebound daily for like two years! WTF is wrong with people?!

Only one day into the new year and I’d already forgotten my resolutions.

I was found out very quickly, too.

I think I’d better resolve to buy an extension cable, instead.

I wanted to blog yesterday but I was addicted to Everyday Genius: SquareLogic on my iPad. (Will do a review soon. It’s a great game that looks like Sudoku but is a lot more fun.)

I feel smarter already, after going through some 400 puzzles. Great way to herald the new year, I think.

The actual heralding at midnight on January 1st was a bit of an accident. By which I mean there were no specific plans to do celebrate the new year.

After watching a Korean war drama at home, Kay and I went to a restaurant near his place for dinner at 10 pm. He felt like eating black pepper crab so we headed for Jumbo at Riverwalk.

We weren’t even properly dressed because it was more of a “Hungry? Let’s walk out and grab dinner” thing.

The streets around the Clarke Quay / Riverwalk area were full of revellers, all dressed up in clubbing gear and wearing silly blinking horns on their heads, giving new meaning to the term “party animal”.

So I felt a little underdressed in my t-shirt and cargo pants with a plain ponytail. Kay was in t-shirt, bermudas and loafers.

But I’m sure it didn’t matter because everyone’s eyes were probably painfully drawn to the endless streams of blinking horns tottering down the streets.

I had underestimated our appetities. I had said to Kay, “Two people eat seafood very hard to order leh,” at which he’d laughed at my Singlish.

But we managed to polish off four dishes and dessert.

By the time we were done with our leisurely dinner, it was 11:40 pm.

As we were walking home, we saw people standing on bridges and camping at both sides of the Singapore River. The crowd wasn’t so massive as to give me a headache, so we decided on a whim to sit down by the riverside like everyone else was doing, to see what was going to happen.

We had a nice view of the reverse bungee at Clarke Quay.

You can’t really see it clearly in the picture (below) but the neon-lit bridge was full of people. We guessed there was going to be fireworks but we weren’t sure which direction it was going to come from.

People were playing on the reverse bungee all the way through to the new year, adding screams into the already noisy atmosphere.

And then it happened. Just around midnight, we heard cheers going off here and there (no countdown) and then, fireworks.

We realised then that we had cheap seats because our view of the fireworks was half blocked by a stupid building. Lousy people had been camping at the wrong side of the river all night and we’d followed the wrong crowd.

We found that Singaporeans are very easily humoured. People cheered jubilantly and applauded every time the fireworks exploded into bigger showers, as if they’d never seen fireworks in their lives.

After about five minutes of watching half a fireworks show thanks to the stupid building, we decided to make our way across the bridge to the other side to see it better.

In fact there was still a lot of space on the other side, so I don’t know why people didn’t go there instead of crowding around the wrong bank.

Of course, there were people who had the same idea as we did so it was pretty chaotic. The bridge was already full so we couldn’t cross it and had to walk by the side of the road.

Cars were horning literally nonstop (especially taxis) because there were crazy people running across the road to get a better view of the fireworks with scant regard of the oncoming traffic.

We didn’t cross the road. It was too crazy. We just wanted to get to the other side of the river.

Halfway through, though, we found we were able to get a full view of the fireworks, so we stopped there and watched because everyone else was doing the same and it was hard to walk any further without getting horned to death.

It was over after a few more minutes. We didn’t see any special fireworks. I mean every burst looked pretty much like every other fireworks show.

The crowd started dispersing and the cars on the road were happier without suicidal people getting in their way.

We were finally able to get on the bridge to have a good view of the Singapore River, which is always pretty at night with all the lights on the banks.

I caught the first 2011 reverse bungee ride on the upswing!

(During the fireworks display, a group of lucky people had been suspended high in mid-air in the bungee car so they could enjoy the show from a premium view. That was cool.)

And that was the passing of the year for me.

It still doesn’t feel like 2011 now. Nothing has changed and I’m still stressed and grumpy.

So I’m going to hit the iPad now and work on my genius a bit.

Happy 2011, everyone. May all your resolutions have better luck than mine!