Blog - Leigh Cunningham

Pedestrian Etiquette

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -1100

I love living in Singapore, as everyone knows, and have practically nothing to complain about, except for one major gripe—pedestrian etiquette. Since I do not have a car (I don't need one plus they are horrendously expensive here), this affects me every day. There is no pedestrian etiquette in Singapore, as there is in Australia, and in case you are not familiar with the protocol, I'll explain.

Sidewalks, or footpaths as we call them in Australia, are generally wide enough for two people to pass comfortably. If you are walking two or three abreast, pedestrian etiquette requires one or two members of your party to assume a single file during a passing maneuver ie while you are overtaking or when a pedestrian is on approach from the opposite direction. This is common courtesy, and in Australia, this is observed along with the customary cheery greeting to the passer-by. In Australia, Queensland in particular, if you approach someone on the street while out walking, a hello is expected, stranger or not.

In Singapore, the natural citizens ie the non-expatriates, walk two, three or four abreast and never make way for someone coming in the opposite direction. They will drive you into the terrain either side of the sidewalk or if you do decide to maintain your rightful position, striding on your fair share of the concrete, someone will walk into you rather than surrender. Similarly, they will stand in the middle of the footpath, or aisle at the supermarket, and chat away on their phones, completely oblivious or uncaring that others are trying to pass.

Understanding this behavior is a conundrum. Generally, Singaporeans are non-aggressive, polite individuals, who know and understand the importance of rules and procedures, for example, proper queue etiquette. There are queues to join a queue and there are queue officials who ensure proper order and conduct is observed at all times. Queue jumpers do not survive. I would therefore expect Singaporeans to similarly appreciate the importance of sidewalk etiquette.

It might be explained by kiasu, which is a fear to lose out to others, and always wanting the upper hand. Kiasu, and it's partner, kiasi (fear of death) are widely used terms in the local vocabulary. As an example, "Look at him so kiasu pushing people away to get a seat on the bus first."

If the government painted the sidewalk with a dotted line up the middle, there is a very good chance that behaviors would change since Singaporeans are conditioned to obey such ordinances, like those related to spitting, chewing gum, jaywalking etc. Is this the only solution? Must I write to the government to report this blemish on an otherwise almost-perfect society?

What is the status of pedestrian etiquette in your hometown? How should one deal with poor pedestrian etiquette, in a lawful way?

Regards
Leigh

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A River Somewhere

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -1100

The Citarum river near Jakarta in Indonesia, has the dubious honor of being the world's most polluted river. It was once a gently flowing river, where fishermen cast their nets, sea birds came to feed and the natural beauty of the area left visitors spellbound. Villagers collected water for their homes, and rice paddies thrived on its irrigation channels. Today, the Citarum is choked by the domestic waste of nine million people and the cast-off from hundreds of factories.

The refuse now covers the river like a carpet, and fishermen no longer scour the river for fish, but forage for rubbish they can salvage and trade—plastic bottles, cans, timber, anything. If they are lucky, they'll earn five dollars a week from their scavenge, but risk disease and death.

Apart from chemicals from factories, all kinds of human waste ends up in the river. There are no rubbish collection services or sewerage systems or treatment plants here. Everything goes into the river, and the filthy water is sucked into the rice paddies, while families risk their health by collecting it for drinking, cooking and washing.

The Citarum is just one example of the shocking abuse mankind has inflicted on our freshwater lakes and rivers, and there are examples anywhere you care to look, even in our westernized backyards.

We might have thought that after Erin Brockovich, factory pollution of water supplies would be a thing of the past, but not so. Dupont settled a law suit, without admitting responsibility, for polluting the Ohio river with chemicals that stay in the environment for up to two thousand years, and accumulate in the tissue of living things and beings, causing developmental and immunological problems.

But it is not just the chemical factories that are actively reducing our water supplies. We waste a lot of it with a mindset that water is free and freely available. Americans are the world's biggest consumers of water and water is now an emerging crisis in the USA.

Nature is also playing a role with more and more countries being declared arid. There are already 80 countries with serious water shortages and only 3% of the Earth's surface is freshwater. With six billion inhabitants, and asdemand for water hits the limits of a finite supply, potential conflicts are brewing between nations that share freshwater reserves. More than 50 countries on five continents will be caught up in water disputes unless they can formalize agreements on how to share reservoirs, rivers and underground water aquifers.

Water is the new oil. No one will care about gold, resources or commodoties because you can't stay alive drinking them. The nation that best protects its freshwater lakes and rivers will be the wealthiest, because well, they're alive for starters. And just as wars have started over oil, so we shall see a future where nations will fight for water.

Regards
Leigh

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Into the tunnel of darkness

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -1100

While in Viet Nam earlier this month, we visited the tunnels at C Chi just outside of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). I crawled through a 15 metre section of the tunnel, which has been enlarged to accommodate the bulky frames of westerners, yet despite this short distance, I could not wait to find the exit. On the way to the exit we passed the 'entrance' (ie a small hole) to another tunnel which would take you to the Saigon river. For several nights afterwards, I woke with imaginings of being lost within the vast 250 kilometre network and what it must have been like for the Viet Cong who fought a war in conditions significantly worse than the tourist-enhanced section of the tunnel I experienced.

Imagine fighting a war underground in the suffocating, sweltering blackness of tunnels, barely tall enough for a man to crawl, let alone walk, and where a wrong turn could send you plunging onto the lethal bamboo spikes of a punji stake trap. Elsewhere carefully placed trip wires were primed to detonate a grenade or release a box of scorpions onto their unsuspecting victim. In other places, the entire walls of the tunnel were covered with an impenetrable mass of spiders and stinging fire ants. Air, food and water were scarce and the tunnels were infested with ants, poisonous centipedes and snakes, and mosquitoes.

The Viet Cong would spend most of the day in the tunnels working or resting and come out at night to scavenge for supplies, tend their crops or engage the enemy in battle. During periods of heavy bombing or American troop movement, they would be forced to remain underground for many days at a time. Sickness was rampant. Malaria accounted for the second largest cause of death after battle wounds, and all who lived within the tunnel network had intestinal parasites of significance.

American officials recognized the advantages the Viet Cong held with the tunnels, and launched several major campaigns to search out and destroy the tunnel system, but these were, for the most part, unsuccessful. When troops did find a tunnel, they would often underestimate its size. The two main responses in dealing with a tunnel opening were to flush the entrance with gas or water to force the guerrillas into the open, or to toss a few grenades down the hole and "crimp" off the opening, however the clever design of the tunnels, along with the strategic use of trap doors and air filtration systems, rendered these strategies ineffective.

To penetrate this underground world, and overcome a determined but poorly equipped peasant army, the American military had to revert to the most basic form of combat - hand to hand. Tunnel rats - an elite band of volunteer soldiers selected for their bravery and small stature, were stripped to the waist and armed with just a torch and a pistol to spend hours inching through the humid, dark tunnels in a deadly game of hide and seek. The rats would search for anything suspicious that would trigger a carefully primed booby trap. Some died in the process, and many more were dragged screaming from the inky blackness.

The tunnel system played a huge role in protracting the war and resisting the allied forces, eventually culminating in their withdrawal. You cannot be anything but awe-struck by the grit and determination of those who built and fought in the tunnels in what was truly a David and Goliath battle. War is Hell at the best of times and indescribable at worst.

See photos from the C Chi tunnels.

Regards
Leigh

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Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -1100

I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of adults who have now read The Glass Table. One adult reader wrote to ask if I thought child readers might be disturbed by the fact that one of the characters, Faith, turns into a mass of bubbles and floats away on the river Kai, and I can say with certainty that I do not think so. It is a topical subject though—content and themes in children's fiction—and even more so since the movie releases of Where the Wild Things Are and A Christmas Carol.

In Where the Wild Things Are, 9-year-old Max is in constant danger: older boys collapse his igloo while he is inside; a monster nearly knocks him off a cliff; he barely escapes falling trees, flailing claws, and dirt clods; and the manic wild things want to hug him one minute then eat him the next. It's a lot for a young boy to manage and resolve, and the question arises—is it too much? Andrew Romano at NEWSWEEK says not.

According to Romano, "The greatest children's stories are about what happens when we become untethered from authority, whether by disobedience, disaster, or disregard, and the twinned feelings of freedom and fear we experience as we grapple with an autonomy we're not quite ready for. They are, in that sense, rehearsals for adulthood."

Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, says, "[Max] doesn't know what's to come next ... that's gotta be scary for a kid, but it's also gotta be what a kid likes most. It's that enticement of what might or might not happen."

The views of Romano and Sendak are supported by science. According to a recent article in the journal of Psychological Science, experiences that perplex or amaze "prime the brain to sense patterns it would otherwise miss—in mathematical equations, in language, in the world at large." So movies and literature that replicate the confusion of being a child can actually help children to navigate their way through childhood and beyond.

For younger readers, fairy tales we enjoyed as children, which incidentally did not cause us fear or irreparable harm, are now being abandoned for being too scary or politically incorrect. Here are a few examples:

Snow White - the wicked witch is too frightening, and references to the dwarves is politically incorrect;
Rapunzel is considered too dark;
Cinderella does not portray women appropriately because she is forced to do housework and sit on cinders;
Little Red Riding Hood walks alone through the woods and discovers her grandmother has been eaten by a wolf;
Hansel & Gretel are abandoned in a forest by their parents and forced to fend for themselves;
The Gingerbread Man because he is eaten by a fox.

There are plenty more stories about child abandonment in Harry Potter, The Cat in the Hat, The Secret Garden, James and the Giant Peach. For adults, the thought of a child left alone in the world is mortifying, but it seems less so for children, strangely. Stories of orphans and abandoned children are popular with younger readers possibly because as Romano suggests, "Fiction and fantasy let children indulge their primal desire to grow up—to be rid of rules and face a dangerous and exhilarating world alone—from the safety of their own bedrooms."

Before The Glass Table was published, I arranged a small focus group of four children ranging in age from seven to fourteen. The feedback was surprising. None of the four was disturbed or concerned by Faith turning into a mass of bubbles and floating away on the river. Three said that the scenes in Madam Aurora's parlor were favorites and especially the scene where Zeb was pulled into another dimension by evil spirits, although this is possibly because Zeb was the resident bully. I had thought that this storyline might be too frightening for children, but I was wrong.

I was also wrong about the witch's rules—I thought the rules might be too complicated and difficult for children to understand, but I certainly underestimated my readers. The children also liked how the child spirits found ways to leave messages for their family in the real world ie they liked 'watching' as other children found solutions to their problems. This is consistent with Romano's view that children enjoy stories where other children are untethered from authority, free and autonomous.

All four children in the focus group were saddened and affected by the storyline in The Glass Table where Jack returns home as a child spirit to discover that life has returned to normal despite his disappearance, contrary to what happened when his younger brother Colby died. I was hoping this might touch a chord with children, and it did. Later in the scene, it is put into perspective for Jack and he realizes how much he is loved and missed.

Dave Eggers, author of the screenplay for Where the Wild Things Are, told NEWSWEEK "we underestimate children's interest and taste in things that have a more subtle palette and face the truth head-on."

What do you think? Are children capable of handling and understanding a lot more than we realize?

Regards
Leigh

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Therapeutic chewing gum OK in Singapore

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -1100

I came to live in Singapore in 2004, which was the year the Singapore government relaxed its ban on chewing gum to permit the import of chewing gum that has a therapeutic value. And since chewing gum is allowed solely for this purpose (therapy), citizens like myself must buy our stash from the pharmacy, actually consult with the pharmacist, and sign the Chewing Gum Register. The Register includes your name, ID card number, signature and how many bottles of therapeutic gum were dispensed. If there is no pharmacist on duty at the time you happen by, you are connected by video to an on-duty pharmacist elsewhere who asks a few questions and checks you out through a camera lens before authorizing the puchase. Pharmacists who do not observe these rules could be jailed for up to two years and fined $2,940.

Therapeutic gum available at the pharmacy includes Wrigleys Orbit (for healthy teeth) and Pfizer Inc's Nicorette.

Since chewing gum is now imported into Singapore arising from the 2004 United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USS-FTA), there is a misconception amongst citizens that this means it is OK to bring your own stash in whenever you return home from overseas. Not so—even small quantities for whatever purpose are technically prohibited under the "Regulation of Imports and Exports (Chewing Gum) Regulations."

Singapore has a global reputation for being the cleanest, tidiest city/country in the world, and it is a well-deserved title. Chewing gum was banned because it was causing serious maintenance problems in high-rise public housing flats, with vandals disposing of spent gum in mailboxes, inside keyholes and even on elevator buttons. Chewing gum left on floors, stairways and pavements in public areas increased the cost of cleaning and damaged cleaning equipment. Gum stuck on the seats of public buses was also considered a problem.

In 1987, the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) began operations. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that vandals were sticking chewing gum on the door sensors of MRT trains, preventing the door from functioning properly and causing disruption of train services. Although the incidents were rare, it was costly, and so the ban was implemented in 1992.

Since 2004, street cleaners have complained about the return of spent wads on our pristine pavements, albeit therapeutic wads. Should this continue, those of us in the Chewing Gum Register might well be rounded up and asked to explain.

Regards
Leigh

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From vampires to witches

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -1100

Vampires in today's fiction are charismatic and sophisticated creatures appearing pale and gaunt with ruby lips and of course, red eyes. In contrast, the earliest vampires of folklore were bloated with ruddy or dark complexions. They wore shrouds and often visited loved ones to cause mischief or death. While belief in vampires has been around since prehistoric times, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula that is recognized as the quintessential vampire novel, and the foundation of modern vampire fiction. Then there is Twilight saturating every possible medium on the planet. This level of frenzied mania can often result in a rebuff, just as Abba's immense global popularity in the seventies led to an anti-Abba period which took three decades to abate. There is already a strongly-held view that the vampire phase in fiction has but a couple of years before twilight turns to night.

At the 2009 Singapore Writers' Festival, John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of the brilliant vampire novel, Let the Right One In, was asked repeatedly what he thought would supersede vampires. Naturally, he proposed zombies since they feature in his latest novel, Handling the Undead. With a similar stake in my own work, I would like to suggest that witches, witchcraft, and spells are making a comeback, particularly in middle-grade fiction, and there is some evidence to support this.

Keith McGowan's debut, The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children is a modern version of the Grimm Brothers' tale of Hansel and Gretel, which pits mismatched siblings against an ageless witch who has written a book titled, How to Cook and Eat Children.

In Scream Street 2: Blood of the Witch, Luke, Resus and Cleo must save Scream Street from the swarm of vampire rodents while searching for the second of the founding fathers' relics—a vial of witch's blood. One might even suggest Scream Street 2: Blood of the Witch is a transitional novel leading the movement from vampires to witches, since it includes both.

The Witches by Roald Dahl was first published in 1983, but it's back in a big way. In a household in Norway, an orphaned boy is told by his grandmother how to recognise witches, so that he might avoid them. She tells him stories about five children who fell victim to the evil powers of the witches, described as "demons in human form". The witches hate children and spend all their time plotting how to get rid of them.

Fed up with the annual onslaught of polluting holidaymakers, and noisy children in particular, the witch in The Glass Table casts a spell that condemns the twelve children swimming in Lake Como at that time, to live as spirits in the river Kai. Like the witches in Roald Dahl's The Witches, the witch in The Glass Table is an ordinary woman living an ordinary existence in an old shack at Lake Como. She is devoid of the stereo-typical traits of past, famed witches like the witch in Hansel and Gretel who is ogre-like in appearance. It's a modernization of the concept of a witch in the same way John Ajvide Lindqvist modernized vampires in Let the Right One In—he/she/it being a child living an impoverished existence, with no fangs, red eyes or glorification.

Regards
Leigh

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Singapore Writer's Fesival 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -1100

The Singapore Writer's Festival is over after an incredible ten days featuring more than 100 writers of various genres including horror, children's literature, and works based on forgotten histories and narratives of Asia.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in this year's festival as Artist Liaison for John Boyne (Ireland) and John Ajvide Lindqvist (Sweden) who, along with Neil Gaiman, led an all-star cast of critically acclaimed international writers.

A highlight of the festival for me was the screening of the Swedish film based on the hugely successful debut novel, Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I had not read the book since I am not a fan of vampires. I realize it is socially inept to admit to this at this Twilight obsessed juncture, however a childhood fear still has some influence. When I was twelve, I somehow managed to see Dracula on television and it scared me witless. I was convinced that vampires were real, and recall scrounging through our vegetable keeper in search of garlic to hang over my bedroom doors and windows. This was to no avail and resulted in many sleepless, fear-filled nights on guard. I now cook with garlic on a daily basis.

What I particularly liked about the film, was that it made the notion of a vampire very real by abandoning the stereotype, for example, there were no fangs, coffins or black capes with red silk lining. As a result, Eli, the vampire ‘child', was believable, and since the movie focused on the relationship between Eli and Oskar, it was easy to forget that it was in fact a story about a vampire.

Another highlight of the festival was the Meet the Author session with John Boyne, author of the global bestseller, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (or pajamas depending on your continent). The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is about nine-year-old German boy, Bruno, who lives at Auschwitz. He befriends a Jewish boy, Shmuel, who lives on the other side of the fence in the concentration camp. The book has been the centre of some controvery so I found it interesting to hear John address this in his own words. As he says, TheBoy in the Striped Pyjamas is a work of fiction and subtitled A Fable and, as is the function of a fable, Boyne is merely using Bruno to reveal flaws in our society, and this he achieves in the guise of a tale of friendship between two innocents. As it turned out, this was a common theme in both TheBoy in the Striped Pyjamas andLet the Right One In albeit one is about vampires and one is based on the holocaust.

Regards
Leigh

Photos from the 2009 Singapore Writer's Festival (more to follow)

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Environmental theme in The Glass Table

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -1100

I have just returned from a visit to my hometown of Rockhampton, Australia situated on the Tropic of Capricorn. The last time I was there, it was beautiful and green after the rains, but alas, this time, it was dry and desolate. A bushfire raged on the outskirts of town threatening to cross the summit of Mount Archer into the hillside area where my brother and family live.

Water is still a valuable commodity and none is wasted greening footpaths that are now brown masses of dried grass crisp enough to ignite a blazing fire. It is not how I remember my hometown. When we were kids, it would rain heavily during the school holidays. The creeks would flood and we would float down Moores Creek on tyre tubes, or swing from ropes hung in trees. I haven't seen flowing water in Moores Creek for a decade or more.

Water scarcity is a major issue affecting countries, communities and families all over the world, and it is not a problem limited to developing nations. Traditional rainfall patterns have changed, altering water-shaping ecosystems and magnifying the effects of pollution. In 60% of European cities with populations greater than 100,000, groundwater is being used faster than it can be replenished. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water-stressed conditions. This is a frightening statistic, and the basis of the environmental theme in The Glass Table, which promotes the conservation of our freshwater lakes and river.

In The Glass Table, twelve children are cast into a spell to live in the river Kai as spirits. The children learn that what humans do above, beside and near the river, affects their living conditions. I hope it is an interesting and fun way to convey the message, and all done in a fantasy setting to make it much less of a lecture and more of a suggestion which may influence later thoughts and attitudes.

Regards
Leigh

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Life in the Tropics

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -1100

I have lived in Singapore for five years now, and remain a staunch promoter of my country of residence. I love most everything about Singapore, including, but not limited to:

the weather;
the lush greenery everywhere;
it's neat and tidy;
there's peace and harmony amongst multiple races, religions, and nationalities;
people are civilized and respectful;
it's safe;
it's easy, inexpensive and super fast to get anywhere you want on a clean, safe and graffiti-free MRT system;
there's a brilliant system for queuing, including queues for queues, and queue officials;
shops are open from 10am until 10pm at least - until midnight some nights - and also open Christmas Day so no more panic shopping Christmas Eve;
it's a city that never sleeps - life is always 'happening'. People have supper at our local hawker centre (Newton Circus) at 2am, and you can walk the streets at any time of night, safely;
it has the fastest, most efficient airport arrival/departure processing in the world. I can disembark then be sitting in a taxi within 7 minutes, which is a blessing after a long flight;
it's a foodies paradise;
it's stunningly beautiful.

While the above list is not conclusive, nor in any particular order, the weather is a major positive for me. As you probably know, Singapore is just above the equator so there is no significant change in temperature from season to season. Some find the heat and humidity debilitating, but I find it invigorating, and it facilitiates an outdoor lifestyle all year round.

Have you been to Singapore? And if so, what were the highlights for you (and lowlights I suppose, if there are any).

Regards
Leigh

PS: see photos of the 2009 Singapore F1 Grand Prix, or have a lesson or two in Singlish.

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Kindle on Overtake

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -1100

The Kindle version of The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown) is outselling the print version, according to the Amazon.com mystery/thrillers chart. The chart, updated hourly, combines both print and Kindle sales. At the very least, says Stephen Windwalker of Kindle Nation Daily, it seems that Kindle sales of The Lost Symbol will equal, if not surpass, the hardcover sales.

Daniel Menaker, former Senior Vice President and Executive Editor-in-Chief at Random House, recently wrote on his Barneasandnoble.com Review, that electronic-book-text digitization will happen in a "financially and organizationally seismic way very quickly." This, "Gutenberg-level shift in reading culture will make the challenges of present-day hardcopy publishing all the more agonizing, immediate, and dramatic."

Menaker is not the first to suggest that publishing as we have known it will soon go the way of the facsimile. This observation sprouted some years ago when e-books were in their infancy, and many did not anticipate how quickly and dramatically readers would embrace the idea of reading a novel on an electronic device. While technology has enabled e-books, and pricing makes it a competitive and viable option, environmental concerns will surely give the movement even greater impetus.

While Kindle sales of The Lost Symbol do not sound the death knell for printed books, it is evidence that the touted new era in publishing is no longer on approach, it is here, now. Within a decade or two, e-books will be the norm and environmentalists will be busy lobbying for a ban on printed books in order to reduce our reliance on paper and the consequential destruction of our forests. As Daniel Menaker says, it will happen in a "seismic way very quickly." What else have we seen in recent times that prove this is so?

Regards
Leigh

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