Monday, September 13, 2004
Things That Show Your Age

I am,right now,watching the most irritating show I have ever watched in my entire life.It's a Korean serial on cable TV called 天堂的阶梯(I gather the translation is Heaven's Ladder?Or is it Staircase?)and it stars the female lead from Winter Sonata,崔智友.The girl,you know,who always looks like she's about to die or on the verge on tears.Take your pick.She maintains these 2 looks for the entire duration of each episode.It's amazing how she keeps it up.It's also very draggy but strangely absorbing.I think it's simply because I have not seen two less thick people falling in love.If you thought Taiwanese weepies are idiotic,this still takes some beating.The two leads are forever going back and forth,deciding one moment that they love each other,the next they don't.MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MINDS!!! How many episodes do you take to do that?

Back to the topic of the blog.Are you getting or feeling old?Do you suddenly feel out of synch with the current generation like the things they do,the goals they pursue,the values they hold?Have you felt old when you are working with fresh new colleagues who have just come in,full of fire and brimstone,who thinks they can change the world?Well,those are naive people anyway but that's not the point.I have felt old for a long time now and there are so many tell-tale signs that warn me that my generation(or just me)is now entering into our middle-age period and that is so scary.That the new generation is as different from us as we are from our parents.That the change has occurred so quickly over a matter of a couple of decades is surprising.Is that a different generation already?Wow,amazing.It's just passed us by.Anyway,the following are things I've observed,which say that HEY,YOU ARE OLD.

The kids selling flags calls you 'Uncle' or 'Auntie'
Guys seem to get that a lot,I don't know about girls.The moment you hit your mid-twenties,then hey!You are now a certified uncle.Quick,go get yourself a certificate that certifies your new found status.It's especially hard to take when those secondary school kids are the ones saying it."Oi,who did you call uncle?I am not much older than you,ok?!"In all honesty,I've actually seen some people dating upper secondary school girls so I guess that means we are not that old after all,right?Those guys just got to wait a half dozen years or less and they can legally marry their little partners.Ooooh man.So stop calling us uncles.We don't appreciate it.It wasn't that long ago when we were the ones selling flags...you know,the early 1990s.

You can't give away your Enid Blyton books or your old toys
Look around.Do kids still read Enid Blyton?Or the Hardy Boys?Nancy Drew?Those Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks?Those Avenger(the ninja guy)gamebooks where you throw dices to determine whether an attack is successful or not and then throw again to determine the damage done?It's all Harry Potter now.Plus a lot of other stuff I have no idea what.Actually they don't even read nowadays,do they?It's all computer games.Now,you also try giving your playing marbles away to your nephew and teach him to play them but later, find them all lying at the bottom of your nephew's fishtank.And your bottlecaps too.In fact,the most sophisticated stuff you had, yourNintendo handhelds, you try to show it to your nephew.Those primitive Manhole and Popeye games.Remember?Turns out your nephew has a calculator with higher resolution than that.

The idols are TV are younger than you
Nicholas Tse is,gasp,21 or 22.Boa is,gasp,17 or 18.You are,gasp,29.When in the world did they starting getting these kids to become idols?Where is our Chow Yun Fatt?Our,erm,曾慧芬.Who in the world is that?You ask.Well,she was the Zoe Tay of our time,you know.When Fann Wong was just still just that irritating 高中老师.Now everyone who's on TV is younger than you now.And Wayne Rooney earns in a week more than you earn in a year.He's bloody 17.How did that happen?How?

The people you fancy are now younger than you
You first started having a crush on your English teacher,who is about 2 million years older than you.But progressively your crushes become closer and closer to your age until zooom,they pass you by to become younger than you.So you now fancy Vic Zhou or Jerry Yan instead.They're 24 or younger.You are erm...what's your age?Guys ain't no better.We are lusting after Boa,who's 17 or 18 or whatever or some ex-Katong Convent schoolgirl called Fiona Xie who's approximately 19.Jesus,save us.

The frumpy primary school girl neighbour is now a babe
You used to laugh at her silly pigtails and "dress-sense".Now she's got flawless skin,an hourglass figure,looks like Zhang Ziyi and is 1.78m tall.You wish you never laughed at her...then you might have had a chance.She doesn't even look at you now because she remembers...

You go back to your alma mater and cannot recognise the building
Actually your old school shifted to another part of Singapore six years ago.Of which you have no idea where of course.Oh and probably all your teachers are retired by now so you can't even see them even if you made it back.So now you've forever lsot touch with your alma mater.By the way,your old school compound is now an old folks home.Nice.Just the place you can retire to.

You talk about the Malaysia Cup winning side and kids think you are talking about S League
Fandi Ahmad,V Sundramoorthy,Malek Awab,Abbas Saad,Jang Jung,Kadir Yahya,David Lee and all those famous football heros.The great 1994 side which trashed Selangor 4-0 and lifted the M Cup after 10 years in the doldrums.How can we forget?These guys were the stuff of dreams.Ask the kids.They'd really think you're dreaming or hallucinating.What M Cup?As for the heroes of yesteryears,they think you are talking about a bunch of kopitian owers,some S League coaches and David Lee?Si mi lang???

Relatives stop asking you when you are getting married
You know...this is one good thing that comes out of becoming older.We can't have it all bad.

Sleeping is your main pasttime
This may not necessarily be true because my cousin J loves to nap and she's 16.Or maybe she's an old soul.But more because there's nothing to do where she lives.As for the rest of us.we can just sleep the day away or maybe half of it.The things we used to do...we don't do them anymore so that's no football,no late night clubbing,no erm skydiving but instead it's Seahorse we keep company with the most.

You start commenting that kids nowadays have loose morals
They have STDs nowadays(read the papers).You are still celibate.Which is a good thing actually.Better celibate than STD anyday,anytime,anywhere.