Monday, December 9, 2013

Singapore Little India Riot

DISCLAIMER: this is solely my personal opinion and is my diary. This is a diary and you are reading my diary.


To understand why this happened, one has to understand India.

to understand india, one has to be there.

to be there, one really has to be with the local, do what the local do and understand how they behave.

We clearly understand how they behave.

Not traveling the whole country, we had been in Uttar Pradesh, Rajastan and Punjab. Thats enough. We wanted to travel the whole country from North to South but plan changed when we enter the country in day one from Nepal. Go straight to Pakistan.

We were being humiliated, we were cheated, we felt being in another world. You may say that we are not good traveler because we cannot suit to the local situation.

Talk to those travelers that been to India, ask them where the went to. Tourist place? hotel? they will tell you the best things in India they ever enjoyed.

One of them, he (usually is a guy) stop and look and quietly observe.

then the second one stop and see why the first is looking at.

then the 3rd one will be curious what this 2 are looking.

very soon, within 5 minutes, there will be more than 50 of them looking at us, touching our property, intruding into our personal space, looking at Samantha like she is wearing nothing.

Then, the road will be congested, because vehicles passing pass will stop and see what this crowd is looking at.

When the police come, the solution is to chase both of us out.

This is India.

Please, I plead, after the riot in Little India of Singapore, DO NOT HATE ALL OF OUT FOREIGN WORKER FROM INDIA. Treat them with respect as they are human too. We need them.

Also, please differentiate them from the Bangladeshi foreign laborer. Most of my good work mates are from Bangladeshi and we respected each other very much.

Ladies, how do you feel when you are sitting in a car of a traffic light, and in front of you, there is a truck load of Indian worker? Tell me, if never they are not staring at you. Also please tell me if you loved being stared by them this way because no man would want to look at you before.

One of them, they are quiet, shy and tame. 2 of them, would talk a little loud. 3 and more, they owned the whole world. Nothing is in their mind. when they have 5 or more of them, things will happened.

In India, it is not uncommon to hear story about the family pushing their old grandmother to the road when a luxury car pass by.

I heard of a story from a fellow biker. A little girl was hit by a vehicle, injured. People around would just surround and look. This white biker took the little girl to the hospital for emergency treatment on his bike. the next moment, he was captured by the police, handcuffed and treated like a prisoner for a few days. So why was he being treated like that?

think... think... you tell me.

human behavior... when one is angry, another one will come in to stir. These people would stir and stir, and the fire become bigger and bigger and unstoppable. This is in them.

TAKE NOTE, we have our Indian friends out there that brush teeth at the primary school canteen with us, play 'pa-sang' (hide and seek) with us, the Indian I'm referring to are not them. our indian friend has the same blood as me and will not do such things. We are Singaporeans, not the one that you are referring to. you know what i mean. I have very good Indian friends and we are like brothers.

For any ethnics, such behavior is the same. when it comes into a group, the fire will burn stronger and stronger.

It is so common in Bolivia when were were there for riots and strikes. But for me, it doesn't matter when we faced it almost everyday.

Such situation in Singapore is unacceptable.

Accident happen everyday in India and caused fatality.

Rule of thumb for right of way in India traffic: smaller sized vehicle must give way to the bigger sized vehicle.
Rule of thumb for the party that is in fault: the bigger sized vehicle.

so, often, when someone a bus hit a pedestrian, often the driver will run for his life because the locals will beat the driver to death and burn the bus.

Please, I plead, after the riot in Little India of Singapore, DO NOT HATE ALL OF OUT FOREIGN WORKER FROM INDIA. Treat them with respect as they are human too. We need them.

Our forces lack experience. Why? they don't dare to act until their boss give permission. they have not seen such incident before. they must not forget that they are dealing with the non-singaporeans.

we must maintain good relationship with India, and what we need to do to please them to make business?

my guess for the next move is:

1) alcohol sales control for foreign laborers or within certain area.
2) off days for the foreign workers in different day of the week instead of sunday.
3) investigation of workers at dormitory entrance on the next day.
4) more CISCO petrol in the area. Anyway, CISCO didn't do a good job. Paid and they just walk around. What these auxiliary police has been doing? sign paper and show presence? also, many of them are from other country too.
5) Relevant authority will make some changes in the number of labour from each country and open up new country to 'import' new sources of labors.

what else?

everytime i see the productivity of these foreign worker, i think its a waste of money for the bosses to hire them. If the boss are working with them, they will feel heart pain. sadly, no boss are working together with them.

Go travel, go travel india, not to taj mahal or any tourist places and you will understand.

by the way, we were at the door step of taj mahal and we did not go in. Why? you think, you think.


 

What can we do? I am not happy that outsider destroy my country and we should hold hands together to handle this now, and future.

























Sunday, December 8, 2013

Little india riot in Singapore December

It was late at night and I was doing my work assignment and received a text on the mobile from my friend.

Little India of Singapore on riot?

I am really sad to see this happen in my country. In India, everyday there is road accident with pedestrain and when there is road accident, the driver will run away because the locals will beat the driver to death and burn the vehicle. 

Our Indian friends that grew up together with us will never do this because we have the same blood. What upset me was these people are bringing their bad practices from their country and applied in my land, my people and my property. 

We need to protect.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Guess where. 2008 November

 In the North. 2009
In the South. 2009

Guess where.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Robbed in Jakarta part 2



At the square of the old town. We visited museum and we are able to touch touch the displayed items because they have replicated it. We noticed that 90% of the visitors were viewing the artifact through the screen of a camera or a phone.


There were stalls selling food. One big guy came over and commanded a few words. the hawker quietly shifted to another boundary line. This big guy doesn't seems to be from any officials but was wearing big chain around his neck. Then the ladies from other stall would flirt with him, end up they still have to move.




These are the prison cell balls... really heavy. Left by the Dutch. They have lots of uses...
For decoration,
For photography,
For a resting place,
For blocking road and restrict movement.

This little street sells interesting product but none of our attention except for the Keropok.



Scene from the old town.
 think its better to walk on foot.

In Singapore, it will be the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel. In Indonesia, it would be the Cafe Batavia in Jakarta.
It was once award the world best bar in 1996 by Newsweek.
with lots of interesting wall pictures to view at.

We wanted to taste the coffee luwak for a very long time... in Singapore, it cost about S$20-30.


We are not sure if we have to stir it, lots of powder.


World best bar.
@ the staircase.
In the toilet.
When sitting.

For a night's out.

Too much tourist! we decided to take a walk out of it, just follow the map towards some Mall. the streets are very hard to walk. lots of obstacle. Blessed Singapore that we have a very good walkway to stroll on, other than little india.

We saw a artist lane.

Along the way, we asked the locals for direction. All of them that we approached replied in a sincere manner.
Its odd to see big mall not operating on a sunday.

What caught our eye was the Novotel Hotel. It seems to be built above an old house.
Our guess was:
1) the hotel wanted to buy the land to built a proper hotel but the old house owner refused to move.
2) might be due to some 'feng shui' geomancy issue.

the wind chime was super big.

looking up the ceiling, it looks like the ancient coin of China.

M took us for a dinner on the eve of her wedding. We got to know her family better. It was the very first time for us to have a proper chinese food in Indonesia, thou we have traveled from Timor to Sumatra on Hope Too.
We were always lost while navigating. there would be kind soul coming up to us to check if we need any help. We can't understand any Bahasa Indonesia but from the feel, we could point to them where we are going and we observe their body language. Those that came forward to give us direction were usually the younger ones.

Simply to say, we love the the way how Indonesian worked. Pace are much slower when we arrived at the airport. We could really catch some breath out of Singapore. Time was never promised.

Seeing how a security guard deal with a local smoking in a shopping mall, it tells me that human relation is important. There were no big hoo haa, no arguement, no photo taking, no phone call to the unknown. both parties would quietly settle on the spot.

People are easy going and helpful. I ordered a beer, something else was served. I couldn't blame them because I couldn't speak their language. I learned and tried again.

Our favorite past time in Indonesia is to eat a Bakso and drink the Teh Botol. All the Bakso tasted so differently. There are rumors that the bakso from the roadside stalls were made from rats.

During our RTW travel, the nearest we got was to reach Bogor. The Indonesian friends came all the way from Jakarta to Bogor early in the morning and wanted to fetch us into Jakarta. We rejected them at that time because Hope Too was around. Thank you all our Indonesian friends. We love it! 

We learned to say:

Tidak ada apa apa
Hati hati