The Pianist - Piano-ing Out |3:59 AM

Just read the lamest article in the latest Sunday Times today, particularly pages 8-9 of the news section and NO by news I am not referring to the LIFE section.

Well, the article title says it all, “Pianist NS dues – 28 years later”. Its about this pianist M Tan who defaulted on his NS duties 28 years ago, by running off to some part of England and to study at the Royal College Of Music (yaya, its supposed to be damn prestigious). In rough hokkien terms, he “zhao2 lor3” or “ran away” when it was his turn to “serve the nation’.

28 years later (which is this year), he decides to return to our little red dot to see his mother, ‘reconnect with the local music scene’ and judge the biennial National Piano and Violin competition. Naturally, he would be stopped at the customs and served a letter to attend a court hearing on his offences and naturally, serve any punishments that our government has to dish out to him as he still refuses to give up his Singaporean nationality either for pride, honour, glory, patriotism or just plain convenience. This, we will never know. All citizens and in fact many non-citizens who know the tough stance that the government has taken on the conscription policy here and would definitely feel that he “hong4 gan3 liao” (hokkien term for dead meat, although literal translation means sodomisation). But guess what? The term of the punishments is only a BLOODY FINE of SGD$5000! THIS IS PEANUTS to most, if not all social classes here. To our supposedly WORLD FAMOUS PIANIST, this would probably translate to PEANUT SHELLS? or even lower, PHELGEM (from eating too many peanuts). BLOODY LAME! LAME CHICKEN SHIT! (Do note I had to curb a severe temptation to showcase my wonderful Hokkien vocabulary of Famous and Not-So-Famous Vulgarities).

2.5 years was how long we had to serve. (Currently, the conscription term is reduced 2 years). 5000 dollars for 2.5 years of my life, which are not entirely wasted, but not entirely productive either. Even working as a toilet cleaner who earns around 500-700 dollars can pay off that amount in less than 10 months. SERIOUSLY, what the F*** is this man? On one hand, there are people high up there in the political ladder constantly humming the importance of national service, national duties and military defense and here you are letting someone who went AWOL for 28 years to just get off the hook by paying 5k? WHAT the F*** again for those who have to serve detention barracks for going missing for a few hours when in service or for lamer things like repeated offences of smoking in non-yellow boxes and 5k for 28 years? This would also indirectly saying that its OKAY to run off to any other country to escape from this dreaded 2 years of your manly years, provided YOU RUN OFF LONG ENOUGH, don’t let me catch you after anywhere less than 20 years after you have ran off! FUNKY LOGIC ah?

There will definitely be some of you that claim that he is afterall some world renowned pianist with international recognition and has contributed to the Singapore in his own ways. Seriously, as a typical army specialist would say, WAKE UP YER BLOODY IDEA F***ING RECURIT! By making yet another lamer comment like that, it is equivalent to diminishing the contributions of far greater people who have served their term of conscriptions. What constitutes a “good enough” contribution to Singapore so that you are immune from serving the conscription term? Do seemingly lesser jobs like toilet cleaning and road sweeping not count towards as contributing to the country? Here is one suggestion then, every guy turning 18, prepare 5 thousand dollars, run off to some god knows where place and don’t come back until you have called back here and gained sufficient political clout or “satisfactory contributions”. If you don’t get that kind of “recognition” don’t ever come back! Simple? Afterall, its only 5k worth of peanuts, how hard is that?

For goodness sake, the conscription system is bad enough with so many bloody white horses galloping around. By white horses here we are referring to people who once again are seemingly large “contributors” to the nation and can take on slacker roles in the armed forces like clerks, which are usually reserved for people who are injured or have innate health problems. One wonderful example and personal experience of mine was during my Basic Military Training recourse or BMT ACT 2 for short. (I suffered a skull fracture in my ACT 1, went on MC and had to re-do it. SEE! FOR NORMAL people with “lesser contributions” WE WILL NEVER LET U OFF!) During that BMT ACT 2, I was surrounded by people with various forms of injury sustained during the army, fractured shoulders, knees, ankles, heart problems etc. One particular and very spectacular and even glowing example of white horse was a NATIONAL TEAM SWIMMER by the name of M C*h*a*y was there too! He was excused from every bloody thing and interestingly, even SWIMMING! HOW FUNKY IS THAT? On one hand you are arresting people for chao4 geng1 (pretence or faking of injury or sickness to avoid training) and on another hand you are handing out official SLACK slips to people who are so fit they will put your PE teacher to shame. LAME once again.

To end off this long and very LAME entry, I would say that this is the real reason for the declining standards of soldiers here. The HUGE problem of double standards is ridiculous. Just remember one thing from here, political clout or “contributions” can get you a long way or get you YOUR WAY. Its time to start teaching all your sons and younger brothers the official way to chao4 geng1 properly, ie. Pick up PIANO and prepare 5K to escape conscription. Sounds good eh?

PISS OFF F***ers!

Da Neo - Lamed
Music : Faye Wong - 暗湧
moo.
Daneo.

-got milk?-