Uniquely Singapore! TV

I cannot resist making cross-nation comparisons when its comes to TV Dramas and when comparing Singaporean “dramas” with those of…basically, every other nation, one “Uniquely Singaporean” characteristic inevitably surfaces. It’s that the characters spontaneously break out into horrifically arbitrary and criminally stilted, incongruous conversations about Central Provident Funds and Baby Bonuses and other such Government Initiatives with unnatural and uncharacteristic precision of details and wealth of knowledge on the subject. I want to say that I’m being biased and subjective and anti-Singaporean but this is all true okay. I was surfing channels just the other day and stopped at some Channel 8 drama which was all blah until the characters had the following conversation, I kid you not…and then it just got friggin’ hilarious – not in a good, intentionally hilarious kind of way.

Man: I heard the Government is stepping up on measures to raise the declining birthrate!

Woman: Yes, they are issuing ________dollars worth of Baby Bonuses/ Tax deductions.

Man: Wow! I think that must be a good move – aren’t you convinced to have a baby now?

Woman: Hm, but I think there is more to raising a child than money – what about my career?

(Okay, obviously I can’t reproduce it verbatim since I wouldn’t waste my brain matter on such complete banalities but this is true to screen as possible).

Also! Call me cynical but I am highly suspicious about the sudden flourishing of Peranakan culture shows – first there was Channel Five’s Sayang Sayang and now there is Channel Eight’s Nonya Something show. (incidentally, I saw them filming the show in my neighbourhood – Jeannette Aw’s such a diva snob.) And in between the two shows, some very heavy publicity about the opening of the new Peranakan Museum or somesuch tourist trap. Not that these shows are bad, but again I see the hand of some wealthy sponsor trying to play up some Uniquely Singapore! traits like…Peranakan culture – which isn’t even unique or native to Singapore, but what the heck. I don’t know when we’ll ever have a drama that’s good, honest and not some attempt at playing up nationalist sentiments or persuading people to donate their kidneys and love lepers or something.

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In other news, TODAY provided another textbook example of Journalism ala Uniquely Singapore! style when just the other day with their feature article on Euthanasia in which they unabashedly proclaimed how an incredible 100% of doctors interviewed are against Euthanasia. And then you flip open the paper and like, seven out of ten doctors interviewed are (very representatively) in the business of palliative care or run hospices or some such venture in which they might have a potential commerical interest in keeping the law AGAINST euthanasia.

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Less depressingly, I managed to watch and understand a raw, unsubbed episode of Cartoon KAT-TUN (Japanese variety show)!!! Then again, it was just Nakamaru inarticulately screaming in primary-school japanese “ah! this is scary!”/”I really don’t want to do this!”/”My greatest phobia is of heights!”…I guess you can’t expect somebody to climb 24m up to the Bungee Jumping place and start reciting haikus. That would be…weird. Unless it were a Singapore drama. Then you’d have some actress climbing up to recite the 20th clause of the Singapore constitution or something just before jumping and it’d be perfectly normal.

I finally found my true calling and the purpose for my having spent four painful, painful years studying Japanese in a MOELC eons away from my secondary schools – to watch raw, unsubbed episodes of Japanese telly. It’s so sad the fruits of my education are turning out like that…hurrhurr.