Help
I’m being held hostage by Singaporeans. I have not had any time alone in days—every second has to be accounted for with food and alcohol and spas and clubs. It sounds like a great vacation, but I’M LOSING MY MIND. You’re going to have fun! Fun! FUN! even if it kills you! I’m groggy from lack of sleep. I got here Thursday just before lunch but I feel like I’ve been here a month. The media junketeers are in each other’s pockets 18 hours a day; it’s like we’re in a cult and were forced to marry each other. I feel like scrawling messages on the windows of the tour bus—Help! We’ve been kidnapped!—but goddammit the windows are too clean. Even relaxation time is enforced and regimented: Here is the spa. You have exactly one hour to refresh and have your spine rearranged. The masseuse gave me the Vulcan neck pinch: “I clack your neck lah! I clack your back lah!” Everything is orderly and pretty, like the contents of a snow globe without the snow. I actually miss Manila, which is just warped.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 22nd, 2006 at 10:43
Manila not bad. Warped, yes, but not bad. I think the anticipation of returning to Manila may outweigh the reality of actually finding yourself, bewildered, in its maw. Everytime the bus (or plane) hurtles itself into the city (from a trip out of town), I get tingly with excitement. I’m home! No matter how much better everything seemed elsewhere, I’m home. I know I will lose my cool trying to talk a driver out of overcharging me for a cab ride to where I live. I know the dense ugliness of Pasay or Balintawak will momentarily take my breath away. But all that means I am sadly but gladly home.
October 23rd, 2006 at 14:02
You mean you miss the disorderliness in Manila? Heavy traffic? Dismantling the billboards? Balasubas na driver? Basura sa sidewalks? Taong grasa?
October 23rd, 2006 at 16:24
“…I clack your back lah!†That sounds like a homophobic masseuse. hehe
October 24th, 2006 at 06:03
You’ve got too paranoid from the cleanliness and orderliness of Singapore. You’ve been so accustomed to life in Manila that you won’t call a day “yet another day” without seeing garbage, the crazy streets, the politicians, etc.
You’re always welcome in Manila. haha.
October 24th, 2006 at 08:40
I never experience the Manila Jonsaint describes.
Boo, call center whore, boo.
“I clack your back lah!”— LAWLZ.
October 24th, 2006 at 21:02
Here in Singapore, i haven’t seen any ‘taong grasa’ yet, but i’ve come across people talking to themselves (complete with emphatic hand gestures) courtesy of their blue tooth phones.
October 25th, 2006 at 17:59
cvj, taong grasa is the same minus the cp plus the usok foundation all over the body.
helga, you got to visit to believe it.
October 26th, 2006 at 01:28
just have to share this…while we were in singaproe for one day to renew indonesian visas for our work in aceh last year, we had a bit of time to do some speed shopping . rushing through the shops, we passed by a chinese-owned jewelry shop with a sign in front saying “pwede hulugan”. How’s that for accomodating pinoy buying power/
October 26th, 2006 at 19:06
wassup la? singaporians stinks la!
October 26th, 2006 at 19:07
haha