Here's looking at you...
aka The (dragon's) face that launched a thousand hackles
I just can't seem to get away from dragons (in my postings, anyway). The Chinese government used this dragon motif above in its stamp series to mark the Year of the Dragon.
But the dragon's "fierce look" drew flak from China's own netizens, and inspired snide headlines from the (mostly) Western media hinting that its menacing look might well be a harbinger of things to come!
Here's one extract from the china.org.cn site:
"I was frightened at my first look at this dragon. Isn't it growling at someone?" wrote a netizen named "Summer" on her microblog.
"Dragons' main responsibilities in old times were to ward off evil, avoid disasters and bring good luck to people. It was therefore fierce," said Chen Shaohua, designer of the stamp.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal trumpeted this headline, "What does a new dragon stamp say about China?" while the Associated Press had this one, "China's dragon stamp breathes criticism, fear".
Britain's The Telegraph's version was "Chinese dragon stamp draws fire for 'scaring' the world". Its story threw in this comment:
The authoritarian Government prefers the docile, cuddly panda as the national insignia, and uses the iconic endangered species as highly successful soft power diplomatic gifts, with the most recent pair sent to Edinburgh Zoo.-------------------------------
The Chinese government may be finding itself in "fire fighting" mode over the stamp-ede of unexpected criticisms but here in Singapore, I'm having a hard time spotting fierce-looking dragons. Here are two docile ones, now adorning my condo's walls:
Then there's this friendly-looking and wolf-like dragon, courtesy of FairPrice supermarket chain's ad:
I finally found one that looked fierce (Marina Bay Sands' ad), but it turned out to be an ice dragon! Alamak, how to breathe fire, this one?
So, it does look like it is tough for most dragons of the Chinese variety to look, let alone act, tough these days. The day may come when they'll start looking cute, like this one:
Quantum of solace? (apologies to the 2008 Jame Bond movie)
The day after the release of the recommendations on political salary cuts, what has been the public's reactions? As expected, in the online realm, brickbats outnumbered the bouquets. And while most opposition parties were quick to jump in to say they were less than impressed with the proposals, the Workers' Party wisely said it would scrutinise the Gerard Ee panel's report before issuing any comments on it.
Already, one PAP MP, senior minister of state Grace Fu, has found her Facebook comment on this hot-button issue having drawn online criticism. Here's insing.com's comparatively mild story, headlined "Grace Fu creates online furore":
http://news.insing.com/tabloid/grace-fu-creates-online-furore/id-a9253f00
The one person who seemed to have come out of all this "looking good", PR-wise, and winning praise for his cool handling of the media questions at yesterday's press conference, was panel chairman Gerardf Ee himself. This quote below, taken from ST, was just one of his savvy ripostes to the media:
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