If you stuff a female horse with wax, what would you get?

Yesterday, I lampooned silly Chinese New Year ads that heralded the coming of springtime here in all-year-round sunny, humid Singapore. And, for good measure, I mockingly suggested that the "season" about to make way for spring must be winter. As if to test my assuredness, along came this even sillier ad in today's ST:

Okay, okay, it must be winter still... And Hell freezes over, of course.

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It's the real thing, huh?

Still on ads, I came across a website which gave this interesting nugget about Coke:

When Coca Cola was first introduced into China, the company named it Ke-Kou-Ke-La. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect.

Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent: Ko-Kou-Ko-Le, which is roughly translated as "happiness in the mouth".

Spring? Here in S'pore? And a hare-raising moment...

The weather's been playing tricks in tropical Singapore -- "gone troppo", as Australian slang would have it, for "crazy behaviour".

First, we were told by national water agency PUB that all that heavy rainfall in the past few months had led not to flash floods but "ponding".

And now, while it is true we have been getting very pleasantly breezy -- that is, balmy -- weather these past few weeks, ads are springing up in the newspapers proclaiming that spring is about to be sprung upon us, to coincide with Chinese New Year!

Since when have we had the four seasons? Are we having winter now? Truth is, we probably have the most unexciting weather in the world. Here's a 10-day forecast:

http://weather.xin.msn.com/tenday.aspx?wealocations=wc:SNXX0006&q=Singapore+forecast:tenday

From the link above, I learnt a new term from the weathermen... "sprinkles"! I guess this word describes "precipitation" that is not quite a shower, ie, it's a situation when you can't decide whether to open your brolly or not.

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I recently came across this "hair-raising" ad which I found amusing:

Okay, it makes a lot of the usual claims... look 10 years younger (but what if a 10 year old starts on this treatment? A five year old?), etc.

But what about the claim that it "will shock your partner"? Hmmm, if you read the ad carefully, it does not say where exactly this lush crop of hair will sprout. So, partner, get ready for the hairy-scary shock of your life!

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Anyway, I'll use the occasion to retell this joke that Nick sent me:

A man is driving down a country lane and spots a hare hopping across the road. Unfortunately he brakes too late and hits it. The man loves animals and is distraught as he watches the hare slowly dying.

A priest comes along on his bicycle. The man stops him and pleads, “I ran over this poor animal and he’s dying. Please, would you give it the last rites?”

The priest looks at the hare and says, “I think I can do better than that.”

He takes out a small bottle from his bag and pours the liquid down the animal’s throat. Suddenly the hare jumps up waves at the priest and the man and hops off. He then stops, waves again, and carries on hopping. The hare continues to stop after a few metres to wave before carrying on and eventually disappears into the distance.

The man was amazed. “Wow, what was that stuff? Holy water?”

“No,” said the priest, “it’s Hare Restorer with a Permanent Wave!”

Reading between the lines, and an expletive moment shared...

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Reading
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That's right. What you see above is "reading between the lines". Then there's this sign at the entrance of a school in the Toh Tuck area:

What does it say? "Stop. Security check"? You sure? There's no punctuation mark anywhere on the signboard, so what I see is... what I see, ie "Stop security check"! There's no need for such checks, I guess... just drive through.

Punctuation marks are of course important; they dispel ambiguity. There's this anecdote about a manager named Dick. He had the usual IN and OUT trays. But the label on one tray read "Dicks Out Tray" and the other was "Dicks In Tray".

I also had to read between the lines of this sign at an MRT worksite:

What in the world does "I safe! You safe! We safe!" mean? It is not helped by the graphic of three hands grasping at each other, or maybe pulling each other down ("I'm gone, You're gone, We're gone"?).

Since it's a workplace safety sign, and the worksite being that of a Japanese contractor, I guess it's Japlish for "Safety at work... We all have a part to play" (I still can't figure out the hands, though).

More whimsically, I vaguely recall hearing the following refrain -- from the adults! -- when I was a child: "I say, you say, kah chng boh sway!" If you don't understand Hokkien, you'll have to get someone who does to help you there. It's scatological nonsense.

I also remember, from way back, that there was a putdown for someone who keeps uttering "Oar" (or "Oar, I see...") in a conversation. The putdowner would snap at him or her: "Oar? Han zher, lah!". Again, it's simply nonsensical wordplay. In Hokkien, the tuber yam has the "oar" sound while the sweet potato sounds like "han zher".

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An expletive moment shared

There I was, waiting at the slip road's red man/green man crossing near that aforesaid MRT worksite. Together with me was a group of South Asian workmen from the site. The green man came on, and we started to cross. But a car came screeching through, ignoring the red light for the driver. We were all forced to step back.

In a flash, one worker -- I am very sure he's not Chinese, they all weren't -- spontaneously yelled after the stupid driver: "Kan nee nah...!"

What could I say? But of course, "Kan nee nah...!" as I too yelled after the idiotic driver. Then my fellow traveller and I exchanged smiles. It was an expletive moment shared.

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Again, I will not try to explain the Hokkien swear words above. But someone has "kindly" compiled a list of local, er, sexual slang. If you are curious yellow and insist on trying out any of the profane utterances in the link below, and you then get whacked by someone bigger than you, that's your parsar (own fault):

http://knol.google.com/k/singapore-sexual-slang#
   

When things go wrong: How DBS did all the right things.

How SMRT (and the other agencies involved in managing public transport) bungled in the recent train crisis and how DBS Bank acted swiftly on all fronts -- especially in keeping customers in the loop -- when it encoutered serious incidents of unauthorised cash withdrawals from ATMs in Malaysia, should be a classic management case study.

DBS' CEO apologised unreservedly today (11 Dec) and sketched out further steps to enhance the security of its ordinary banking services. All in, about 400 customers were affected by the largest ATM fraud in Singapore's history and about S$500,000 was stolen from the accounts over two days on 4 and 5 January.

ChannelNews Asia's story is here:

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/singapore/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5750039

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Going further on the issue, I found a law professor's take on what legally happens to your money after it has been deposited in a bank, rather interesting.

Associate Professor Kelvin Low from the Singapore Management University wrote a letter, headlined "Understand the legal nature of bank deposits" (ST, 9 Jan, page A23). Here are extracts:

When someone deposits money with a bank, he is in effect lending the money to it. Property rights to the money pass to the bank. In return, the bank owes its customer a debt. At that point, any money stolen or pilfered from the bank is its money, not its customer's (emphasis mine).

The bank continues to owe its customer the same debt unless there are special contractual stipulations allowing it to transfer the loss to its customer. This usually takes the form of a contractual stipulation that customers are required to check their monthly bank statements and object to any unauthorised transaction within a stipulated time.

It is only at this point that the loss is "transferred" to bank's customers.

If the news reports are accurate, it is not likely that sufficient time has passed for this point to have been reached, unless DBS' terms are particularly harsh. It is therefore also not technically accurate to speak of the bank "reimbursing" its customers. All it has done is correct its accounts to accurately reflect the state of its indebtedness to its customers.

There should be cause for concern only if the fraud is so significant that DBS' solvency is in question, as customers are unsecured creditors...

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Moral of the above? Go live on an uninhabited island paradise (ok, maybe with a dog as a companion) where food and water are aplenty!

If Romney becomes the next US Prez, this man's thots on China are worth a read.

ST's Cheong Suk-Wai interviewed Princeton University's Professor Aaron Friedberg and picked his brains on the state of international politics in the Asia-Pacific (ST, 10 Jan, "US keeping up Asian balancing act," page A27). China was of course centre-stage.

Several of his publications were on my courses' reading list when I taught at NUS.

Prof Friedberg is a key adviser on Asia-Pacific issues to Mr Mitt Romney, the frontrunning candidate for the US presidency in the Republican camp. So this well-known academic's views are worth noting. Here are extracts from the interview:

How would you advise Singapore as it continues to pursue its already warm ties with both giants [ie the US ad China]?

Singapore has been very far-sighted and successful thus far in walking this line. In the 1990s, well before the rest of the region, its leaders recognised the desirability of developing a closer relationship with the US, in part to make sure that the US remained fully engaged, so as to maintain the balance with China. At the same time, obviously, Singapore has deep economic interests with China and does not want to antagonise China. Thus far, it has done quite well in that balancing act...

Other Asian countries are now recognising that they need to maintain very close security cooperation and economic relations with the US, while at the same time avoiding conflict with China.

But why would there be conflict with China now, if China has, as you have said, been adopting Sun Tze's strategy of winning without fighting?

There are two views out there on China: The first suggests that we should expect a more moderate, temperate China, which would be stabilising. But there are reasons indicating that we are beginning a transition into a world where China feels freer to throw its weight around...

Can the US [reassure Asia], given that it's in decline?

Perceptions of American decline are exagerated and inaccurate. Our problems at the moment are mostly fiscal; they have to do with an imbalance between spending and revenue, which is partly the result of fighting two wars, the tax policies [of the Bush years] and also attempts to stimulate the economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown. But these are serious and temporary, not fundamental, problems -- unless these are not resolved.

...the notion that China is going to continue to grow strongly indefinitely is simply mistaken. Its growth is going to slow and the question is how fast it slows. It will slow more quickly than some imagine and show China's problems to be deeply rooted... Due to its one-child policy, the flow of young people from the countryside into the cities to work in export-oriented industries is going to dry up dramatically in the next 10 years. The ratio of older to younger workers is going to be inverted and create serious constraints on growth and the environment... Many people are understating America's enduring advantages and overstating China's capabilities.

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Meanwhile, did you know that there is a Tea Party "presence" in Singapore? Here's proof:

This cafe is along Bukit Timah Road, near Sixth Avenue.          

 

Read my lips, 'Flooding, not ponding', a 10-cm poser about MRT trains, and another of 'those studies' (this one on women drivers)!

On a day when big news stories were breaking out left, right, and centre -- Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's surprise acquittal from sodomy charges, Britain's PM David Cameron taking up the populist charge to begin curbing excessive senior executive pay, Iran ratcheting up its threats to close the Hormuz Strait, etc -- I am glad insing.com provides us with news we can be amused with, or in the case of the MRT train door item, something to ask further questions about.

Hello, it's official... flooding, not ponding!

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/floods-should-not-be-called-ponding/id-c4263f00

The Environment Minister said in Parliament Monday (9 Jan) that national water agency PUB should not have used the word "ponding" during the December floods. On 23 Dec, heavy rains once again flooded areas in Orchard Road, Bukit Timah and Thomson.

The PUB later announced that "there was no flooding at Orchard Road".
Instead, water had "ponded" at the open area of Liat Towers, at the underpass between Lucky Plaza and Ngee Ann City, and the basement of Lucky Plaza.

Many netizens reacted with incredulity, and "ponding" quickly became the butt of jokes and ridicule on the Internet.

Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said, "As far as I am concerned, PUB should not have used the word 'ponding'. I call a spade a spade. A flood is a flood."

My comment: Er, minister, got one more funny term from PUB, leh... "detention pond". Can you tell the PUB's "wordsmith" that people -- not water -- get detained, like I kena (got landed with) detention class in my schooldays. Or pai kia (gangsters) are detained by the mata-mata (police), And since "pond" is out, let's use "retention pool". Can, meh?

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About a "gap": SMRT's reply leaves a further gap

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/netizen-mrt-train-doors-opened-30cm-while-inside-tunnels/id-c5263f00

A netizen recently posted that the doors of a Circle Line train opened -- leaving a gap of about 30cm -- while it was travelling between stations. The netizen and his friends said the affected train doors suddenly opened after a passenger leaned on them.

Strong winds were felt blowing into the train from the tunnel.

SMRT, responding to reporters queries, explained that there is a "push back" mechanism in the train doors that allows passengers to push the doors open by 10cm when necessary, such as if passengers' clothes or bag straps got caught between the doors.

The SMRT spokesman emphasised that the train door cannot be opened by more than 10cm unless they are pulled open by someone who is very strong. And if train doors are pulled open by more than 10cm, the affected train and nearby trains will pull to a halt to ensure the safety of passengers. (Source: Shin Min Daily News, 9 January 2012.)

My comment: If indeed there is a "push back" mechanism, why was this not told to the stranded train commuters on 15 and 17 Dec, so that fresh air could be ventilated in? The guy who had to break a train window with a fire extinguisher could have been spared doing so!

Also, I noticed while on the trains today that the front car (and presumably the rear car too) has an emergency exit door which can be opened by breaking a sealed glass plate (to get to an access handle?). Again, why was this not done by SMRT staff on those two occasions?

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Why are women (supposedly) bad drivers? Cos they're shorter than men?

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/study-women-make-poorer-drivers/id-85263f00

An American study has found that women are poorer drivers than men.

The study, conducted by Michigan University, analysed data from 6.5 million traffic accidents in America from 1988 to 2007. It found that 31.9% of traffic accidents involved two male drivers, a number lower than what researchers originally forecast.

Accidents involving two female drivers were 20.5% and higher than forecast. Accidents involving one male and one female driver took 47.6%, close to the forecast numbers.

The study concluded that female drivers have a higher rate of traffic accidents than men.

Reporters spoke to some Singaporean men and found that they tended to agree that female drivers are more dangerous and have poorer driving techniques.

Taxi driver Mr Zhuang, 45, said he once saw a female driver causing a traffic accident while texting on her mobile phone. He said, "This woman driver was texting at a red light. When the light turned green, her car started moving because she did not seem to realise that the car in front was still stationary. As a result, she crashed into the car in front."

Female drivers, however, disagree.

Ms Wang Pin Qing, an image consultant, felt that female drivers tend to be more cautious. She also believes that women do not drive faster than men and are often more concerned about safety.

Researchers attribute a higher accident rate among female drivers to a number of factors, including a lack of experience, shorter height, and being unable to deal with road situations. (Source: Lianhe Wanbao, 8 January 2012.)

My comment: Yet another amazing statistical study. The Lianhe Wanbao story did not say if the "researchers" quoted in the last paragraph were from the US study or were local "experts" the newspaper spoke to. The so-called factors cited were silly ones but the "shorter height" one took the cake!

Clever word play, and not so clever...

It is always a joy to see stuff in print that has been cleverly crafted, such as when a headline exquisitely "teases" a story, or when a creative copywriter makes an ad shine out. Here's one example in the sports page of today's Sunday Times (8 Jan). I'll let the headline and first few paragraphs speak for themselves:

This time, Elin's the home wrecker

Tiger Woods may have got off lightly when ex-wife Elin Nordegren took only a golf club to smash his car when she found out he had been cheating on her on Thanksgiving day three years ago.

This time, the former Swiss model has taken a wrecking ball to the US$12.3 million ocean-front house in North Palm Beach, Florida, which she bought last March...

She wants to replace it with her dream 1,760 sq m three-storey home...

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Going through my "collection", I found other examples of stuff that works, and of those that don't. First, the well-crafted ones:

Context: This headline above makes reference to the huge A&F wall poster ad which showed a hunky male model, abs and all, and striking a provocative pose. The ad had the approval from the relevant authority but there was a public outcry over it.

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And here are just a few bad ones, those that I think didn't work...

Context: This ad above (by a slimming company) is yet another statistical licence! The ad below touts a beauty cream.