Little India (Draft 2)

Chinatown Way
Singapore 5609981

29th January 2014

Dear Susie,

 Hello Susie! How are you? I hope you're doing well and coping good with your studies now in Australia. Well, i think you should have heard about The Little India Riot in Singapore, now i am writing to elaborate more on the incident and express my thoughts in words to you about Singapore after what had happened.

  I was not exactly at the scene but i have a full idea of what happened in Little India due to the different reports on it. Apparently, an Indian national got ran over by a private bus and this triggered the riot. The opposing forces' strength resulted in a hell lot of damages to both the material things and to our people and also i consider this as a really severe riot.

  However, we can not prevent things like that from happening but we should not tolerate any false reports. Apparently Chinese and Singaporeans got maligned for that they attacked the Indian nationals and also driver got blamed for pushing the Indian national, who is dead now, out of the bus. Well, obviously these are not true. Singapore is a multi-racial country and has been practicing racial harmony every year. More ever, i can admit that all of us have different friends from different race but we still accept their races. Also, real reports is out, reporting that what has caused this riot so it is definitely not about racism or discrimination to the Indians. I was utterly shocked at how quick people could act to things like that, how could they? They seriously does not know the consequences of reporting false information. This could cause conflicts between people also change countries' point of views on Singapore.

  Even though false reports like this do happen, but i still think that people should think twice before acting. Just like this Little India Riot, the Indian nationals just acted quickly out of rage leading to their regrets now. Some got sent back to India and should never come back to Singapore again and a lot of bans are now set on the remaining Indian Nationals. What about you? After reading my letter i hope you could voice out some of your opinions on the report and riots like this. 

  

Your lovely cousin,
Agnes Ng Hui Gek.

LITTLE INDIA ( GIVE MD DAS)

Dear Susie,


  Hello Susie! How are you? I hope you're doing well and coping good with your studies now in Australia! Well, i think you should have heard about The Little India Riot in Singapore, now i am writing to elaborate more on the incident and express my thoughts in words to you about Singapore after what had happened.

  I was not exactly at the scene but i guess i have a full idea of what happened in Little India. Just to briefly start off, i will tell you about the so called "cause" of the incident. Apparently, an Indian national Sakthivel Kumaravelu, 33, got ran over by a private bus and this triggered the first riot in Singapore in more than 40 years. The opposing forces' strength resulted in 25 emergency vehicles being damaged with 5 of them being set on fire. 39 police, 4 civil defence and auxiliary officers were injured in the riot too. Even though i am pretty sure that there were more losses, however will not name them as these alone could already show clearly how severe the riot was.

  Even though now The Little India riot is a past and the public order are all back to normal i still feel a little unease about my surroundings. Firstly, slashing cases has been happening not once in a blue moon yet its almost anytime out of nowhere. The one in Cineleisure, the one in Downtown, the one in Geylang, the one is Jurong and the one at Ang Mo Kio. With these cases happening so often, how could i even be sure that no one around me or me myself gets hurt out of nowhere? And i could guarantee these cases were not caused by something major. It ight be some nutcases who couldn't maintain their health hence leading in homicides in these or some punks trying to act all rowdy and so on. Some causes of these cases are beyond ridiculous, probably it all started with a, " Y u Stare stare " and ends up with at least one dying. So in the future i would not be so sure if would i die at my block void deck just because of a small staring contest.

  However, i still doubt that The Little India riot didn't start off with just a death of their comrade. It could be the hatred that has been accumulated in those Indian workers' hearts due to long term ill and unfair treatments. Well, at least i know they only earn $2.50 per hour, and they have literally no "time awareness". They work all day long, sometimes halfway through late night, i could still see them working and even when the sun has notrise, they are still at it. They have no Overtime Pay, no extra pay, a day off in one week and with curfews and restrictions everywhere.Just a $2.50/hr to help them pay back their debt for coming to Singapore, send back to their homes and also ensure they get just a little bit less than enough for them continue working their asses off. Sometimes people just do not see it, the HDBs around us, the condominiums around us, the every single property around us are mostly built by them, yet sometimes we complain their odour when they sits the same train as us, when they speaks a little louder, when they look in your direction just a little while, but do we know that what hardships they were going through and how much contributions had they made to our daily lives? And just when a day off from their usual routine, they gets to "enjoy" just a little however gets dissed everywhere they went. Even though i am not very comfortable with the riot thing, but i still do hope all Singapore could slowly accept their way of living and tries to understand what they are going true.

  Susie, I am going to end my letter here. I hope my thoughts and feelings got through you. After writing this letter i feel a little more relaxed! Well, all the best in your studies!

Yours sincerely,
Agnes Ng Hui Gek.

Malacca Trip 2013 ♥

    Travelling makes me happy and it would be more exciting if i were to travel with my friends. Well, i have fulfilled my aim! This time, i went to Malacca with my group of awesome friends and caring teachers.
 
    On the first day, we somehow stopped in between the journey from Singapore to Malacca at Yong Peng(9.30am). We had breakfast there, it was rather warm and noisy, it makes me feel calm. Also their food there were rather similar to Singapore's local food. They had Mee Siam and etc. Of course, they are very spicy too. For someone who can't take hot food, i went to choose something rather simple, which is the Hokkien Mee.

    After my refreshing breakfast, we headed for the Rubber and Cocoa plantation. There, I have learnt how they collect rubber latex and also I tasted fresh cocoa. It was actually kind of sour. At the same place, they demonstrated how a traditional top was played. In Malay they call it "gasing".

   Right after visiting the Rubber and Cocoa plantation, we went for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. The food was slightly bland and dull, however I ate them to my heart's content as I was really hungry. After which, we embarked on a journey to a pineapple plantation. Awhile later, we reached there. They taught us about how pineapples were planted and how they can be of use for making their national costumes. Subsequently, we got to taste the pineapples and it tasted heavenly to me as i was those type who likes pineapples.

    The next destination was the coffee plantation. The distance between the pineapple and coffee plantation was quite short hence it didn't took us long to reach there. When we were at there, we got the chance to sample the coffee. The aroma of the coffee was really alluring, hence after getting myself a cup, i took a sip of it. However, it didn't met my expectations although the other students were indulging themselves in the coffee. Well, i guess it was not my cup of tea since i was aiming for things much more sweeter.

    We set off to the oil palm after coffee plantation. At there, Auntie Eileen told us about some uses of them and one of the worker went to cut off the oil palm and it pounded straight to the ground. After which we went to a small house where brown sugar are made. Although i did not get to taste them due to time constraints, overcrowding and bad weather, but according to my friends' remarks about them i could highly confirm that it was nice.

   After all these events, we finally headed to Malacca. The duration of the trip was rather long but once we reached Malacca, what awaits us and our hungry stomachs was a Nyonya restaurant. The food there are quite traditional and all tasted nice. Then, we finally went for the last event of the day, "Meleka River Cruise." The cruise was about 40 minutes long, it was rather noisy but actually peaceful. While on the boat, i felt cool breeze passes by me, and the soothing sounds caused by the waves were rather peaceful.

    Finally, after all the events that took place. We checked in to our hotel and had a debrief. Next, we went into our rooms to wash up and rest for the day.

_End of first day

    Awaken by the morning call, i went to brush my teeth and so on. Then went down to have my breakfast. After our refreshing rejuvenating meal, we headed to the local museum. Halfway through, i realized that the weather was really hot and windy. Awhile later i reached the museum, i came across different types of wedding cultures and how they dress up as.

    After visiting the museum for about 20 minutes, we proceeded to our next destination, St Paul Hill. There lies the body of this person called, St Francis Xavier. My tour guide told us about his short history and how people came to cut his body after a long time and blood still oozes out. I was actually quite amazed about it. We then went to the Famosa. It was an old building and one of the tourist attraction. Originally it was built by the Portuguese and used to call soldiers to watch the whole area. There, we also get to throw coins as a donation to maintain the historical building.

    Thereafter, we headed to Jonker street. We had a little shopping and i bought a few souvenirs there. It was quite a short while only. After shopping we then went to our last attraction of the day which is the Chinese Temple. It was the only Chinese temple in Malacca. I learnt that in Taoism there are 101 gods and each had to take care of their own aspect.

    We had our last lunch in a Chinese Restaurant. At there, it was really noisy as everyone were so excited about going back Singapore. Loud chatters could be heard and at our table, all of us kept laughing while trying to finish our food. I think among all the breakfast, lunch and dinner, that last lunch was the best and the food was the nicest. Afterwards, we then board our bus back to Singapore. The two days learning journey on Malacca was really memorable and awesome. I honestly hope that we get a chance to travel somewhere again as a school. The only thing that is regrettable was that 2E2 was unable to stick together as a class like how every other classes did.

_End of second day

The Final Solution

The term Final Solution refers to Nazi Germany's plan to annihilate the Jews during World War 2. And this Final Solution resulted in the death 6 million Jews. And they called it the Final Solution was because they wanted this solution to be the last plan of clearing the Jews.

Bird's Eyeview on "The Boy In Striped Pyjamas"

Literature. 

This is the bird's eye view drawing for The Boy In Striped Pyjamas. Hoho.  

Materialism

This post is targeting those teenagers who are materialistic. Does material possessions means so much to us? Well, let iPhone be an example of today's topic, Materialism. Nowadays, iPhone has became a common possession among the teenagers. Something like iPhone which is so expensive, can be bought by thousands and thousands of people. Even teenagers who are not in a well-off family are capable to purchase it, why? This is because teenagers these days are chasing the trend blindly. Despite knowing how costly an iPhone can be, they simply demand their parents to buy for them. With sufficient reasons like keeping up to trend, peers influence or for school purposes, parents will easily give in. However, all these reasons might sound reasonable to the parents but not to the ones who aren't in the situation. People like me, an outsider, could see that there isn't a need in buying an iPhone and it's a waste of money. Mobile phones were originally created for interacting purposes but the technology nowadays has became too advanced that could improve a mobile phone to a superb phone. What do i mean by superb phone? I meant that adding a lot more functions which are "essential" to the teenagers. For example, front cameras, internet function, playstore(where you get your interesting applications from, e.g. facebook, games, etc.) and a lot more. All these functions i listed are all attractive to typical materialistic teenagers. Nevertheless, i still see no need in buying an iPhone. Because parents' hard earned money would be spent immediately for buying such an expensive phone. You can always get yourself a cheap phone for contacting people or a average smart phone like Samsung or whatsoever, you don't have to buy an iPhone just because others has it, whether you can afford or not, try to stop your temptations, think about your future, think of your parents. If you continue spending their money thoughtlessly, financial problems could arise, or if you continue aiming for material things, in your future, you won't be able to save up a lot due to your wanting-s for them, and you would have to work extra harder. So i hope you could think thrice before spending your money on things which are unnecessary.