Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Japanese perception of Singapore...

Well talked to a couple of profesors in school, and you would never guess the most interesting perception of singapore...not the merlion, not the weather, and not the amazing number of trees we have there compared to tokyo

Well, let's just leave that dangling for a while, and I would talk about other stuff... I took the business module and we ended up having to do a project about the Shotengai(商店街) just outside the campus. The shops change there regularly, so we were asked to check out what's the population there like... what sort of people actually go there and eat.

So I met up with the rest of the project group, 1 cute girl, 1 quite cute girl, and 2 other guys, all japanese. Went into the longest staying shop along the area. He's been there for 35 years, operating a tea/coffee house. It's even longer if you consider that he was selling caps and hats before that. As you would expect, it's the usual customers who come. The place is something like "Prince" in Coro. (Sorry for the non Chinese high and Hwa Chong people.) Rustic, nostalgic, relaxing feeling, and it also plays those old tunes like in Prince... total contrast with the super busy street just outside it. And then after staying inside for 4 hours, discussing and talking to the boss... out of nowhere... A rat fell from the ceiling, it caused a major uproar among us, the girls were screaming... luckily we were the only customers in the shop, but it was really funny. The boss said that it's the first time it happened in many many years... Maybe we were bad luck or something.

Ok back to what I was saying... The most common thing that my teachers ask me about Singapore...

Teacher: "Is it true that Singapore has a government matchmaking agency for graduates?"

Me(Sheepishly): "Yeah, how did you get to know about it?"

Teacher: "Oh, it's pretty interesting.... and it was something that caused a stir when we first got to know about it. Is the situation for graduates that bad?"

Me: "Yeah, Singapore graduate girls just hate Singapore guys... The girls in University all hate me..."

Teacher:" Really?"

Me:" No, just joking..."

Well, I haven't spent some time explaining to them what the whole freaking SDU is all about... apparently they take interest in it, and seems like they wanna know more... whether it really works, how is it carried out and stuff like that.

Amazing huh.. bet you guys didn't know that foreigners would actually know about the SDU shit...

Anyway for Japanese Drama fans (Yes, Youreng, I am talking to you) 竹内結子 (Takeuchi Yuko) is getting married. For those who don't know her... if you have watched 婿殿 (Mukodono), ランチの女王(Queen of Lunch), Kimu Taku's (short for Kimura Takuya 木村拓哉) partner in the show "PRIDE"... she's the main lead in this 3 dramas...
No.. she's not pregnant, at least that's what they claim, we shall see... and yes, the guy is also an actor, rich and respectable family cos' their family line is a famous kabuki 歌舞伎(famous japanese traditional entertainment) Clan. That guy is not that wonderfully handsome, but he's a well like actor in Japan. And one lucky son of a bitch too..

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK...I admit, I am one of those who are interested in this freaking SDU???

10:22 AM  
Blogger Jiankai said...

Wahahaa thanx for reading, I shall explain it to you in class... Think Suzuki sensei was also interested too. Because she was teaching japanese in singapore for a few years in 1980s, and 1990s

2:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Correct me if i'm wrong? Matchmaking is quite normal in Japan and I dunno from where I got the impression that they have exactly the same problem as us, the Career Women have a hard time finding suitable partners, perhaps its even worse for them. Maybe bcos while it would be unusual for the wife to have a bigger career than her husband over here, it would be almost unthinkable in Japan.

Oh yea, am I right to say that currently, the initial matchmaking filtering/selection process is carried out by the parents of the parties. So naturally they would be interested to see whether a Government-run Matchmaking agency would be more efficient. Sorry if I have made any generalisations, but thats just my impression.

Haha izzit.. hmm she getting married but hope she wun lose her cuteness haha.

3:54 AM  
Blogger Jiankai said...

Well ya... but the thought of a GOVERMENT organised, and government run agency to handle this sounds weird and hard to accept for them.... like the government meddling with ur life like that...

Japanese women still hardly has great success in the business world, their culture still tells them to stay at home. It is true even up till now...

Matchmaking is normal here, but not from a government initiative, not to say that the government actually sets up one whole branch to deal with it...

Shotgun marriage, don't these celebrities know contraception?

7:52 PM  

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