Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

Why? No idea. Just do.

Coming down with a bout of mild depression? Perhaps.

Need booze…

Sigh…

One of the first culture shocks that an Asian student studying in a Western country would probably face is that shops close at 5pm on normal trading days here. A natural reaction that then flows from this is a sense of cultural superiority and machoism. “Fcuking ‘ell, why these angmohs so weak one, close so early for what?”, since in their own home countries, shops usually open till 10pm.

After being rostered onto the worst ‘third watch’ (night) shifts for the whole 2 weeks of this extended Christmas shopping hours (I think I might have pissed my supervisor off or something), I am now fully in support of the West’s 8-hour work day labour laws.

One thing that many NIE Asian countries haven’t gotten a hang of yet is the family-work balance. Or for unmarried people, the social life-work balance. Do you realise how bad 5-10pm shifts screws up your social life here? During these two weeks, I might as well just stay in Target. These shifts are like shackles, restricting your movement to either staying at home for the whole day, or going to places close to your workplace so that you’d be able to race to work later. I am also being deprived of my favourite night TV shows now. The negative effects of graveyard shifts to people cannot be underestimated. And regardless of what Del’s gonna point out, the penalty rates of 1.2 x normal pay still doesn’t really make it any better for me. Give me my free time instead any day.

What is so macho about the Asian 13-hour work day? The way I see it, it only restricts all those poor ah pek’s sex lives, or denies young people more time with their friends/significant other/family/pets. It’s just so inhumane. Money isn’t everything. What if you just suddenly die tomorrow?

As you can probably guess, I’m struggling right now with my shifts. I’m sick of staring at the entrance of the store for 5-7 hours, and I have to do that for another 6 days straight before this nightmare called ‘Christmas Shopping’ ends. Pray for me guys.

About to march off towards my 3rd stint in the Target ‘jail’ now.

I hate my job.

Will be back in 5 hours time at 10pm (7pm Malaysian time).

Fuck you Target.

For the people who don’t know, I work casually at Target, a budget retail chain that’s quite popular in Australia. Prior to working there, I have always liked the holiday season.

Now, I just bloody hate it.

Why? Because Target assumes all of its workers have no social life. And that they are happy to be placed in crappy 5-10pm shifts during the extended opening hours Christmas shopping weeks. Which entails this week and the next.

From last Tuesday till this Saturday, I have been placed in the last shifts of the day. Aka the ‘Crappy Shifts’, because it effectively prevents you from doing anything else for the day.

And my Malaysian and Singaporean friends complain that shops here close at 5pm (on a normal day). I’ve now seen the light, and bloody hell, I’m longing for those post-Christmas days again.

In the meantime, I’m gonna try getting all my Fridays and Sundays off from next week onwards. Because really, my work is really beginning to cramp my social life here.

Fcuk you, Target.

Just got back from the city of Melbourne last Wednesday. Went there with a couple of friends for a week. Pity no pics to show though, as my camera went kaput on the first day. Great…

Flew there by Virgin Blue. I love budget airlines now. Jetstar, Virgin Blue and Tiger Airlines makes cutting traveling time from 10 hours to 50 mins more affordable than before.

The 7 days I was in Melbourne was freakingly cold. Especially when compared to Sydney. Even though it was winter in both cities, the sun still shone in Sydney. Melbourne instead had hardly any sun, and a constant drizzle persisted during the whole duration of my stay there. The temperature hovered around 6-16 degrees Celsius then.

First impressions of Melbourne was that it was a ‘prettier’ city than Sydney. It is systematically made up of nice geometrical blocks. Unlike Sydney, which is more ‘here and there’. But some people would argue that that makes Melbourne more ’sterile’? Have your pick.

Melbourne is also definitely better for shopping. Considering that was what we did for the large part (or even all we did) of the trip, I should know. We went to Bridge Street, Chapel Street, Central Mall, the DFO beside the bus depot and the Queen Vic Market. Hell, didn’t even realise that there was a competition between Carol, Amy, Khym and possibly even Howard on who could buy the most clothes! Was coerced into doubling my wardrobe by the nefarious Carol… Is a guy not allowed to be happy with his original wardrobe of 7 shirts and 2 jeans???

Anyway, being the end of financial year sale then, I did get more clothes. 7 new shirts and a pair of jeans to be exact. Credit card is burned now…

Also, ate too much I think. Probably gained extra kilos now. Sigh…

P.S: Jeebus, sooooo many Malaysians in Melbourne! Malaysian accents were everywhere there! In trams, in trains, in the freaking casino… The Malaysian population in Sydney pales in comparison.

Over and out.

People not answering smses. Is it really so hard to answer those bloody things?

I have always had terrible experiences in buying jeans that fit me.

Recently, my old jeans died. Holes formed. RIP.

So I had to go jeans hunting. And man, was the experience shyt. I was hoping I would be able to quickly grab one in less than 15 mins, but ended up spending close to 45 mins trying them on.

I have a waist size of 32, which judging from the lack of them in many of the stalls which I have checkout out, seems to be one of the most popular sizes. Also, it seemed that many of the jeans had cuttings which didn’t suit me at all. Price was also an issue. Went into Politix after being attracted to its huge “30% Off” signs and came out shell-shocked. Apparently the original prices for the jeans in there were about AUD$200+, so 30% off doesn’t exactly make it that much cheaper.

I used to be oblivious towards the types of jeans out there. It was only recently that I learnt there were bootcut, flare, straight, skinny and loose jeans. Phew. Decided to got for either bootcuts or flares, as straights and skinnies would have made an already skinny me look even skinnier. And loose jeans just makes me look like some kinda rapper wannabe.

FINALLY, after 2 forays into shopping malls, I found a couple of clothing chain which suited my shape: “Just Jeans” and “Jay Jays”. Bought a pair of bootcut jeans for AUD$60 from the former at Broadway. “Jeans West” has nice and relatively cheap jeans too, but all of their cuttings didn’t suit me at all. Must have all been made from the same mould… They have nice shirts though…

Hey guys. Sorry for the loong interval sans new posts. Will get back to it soon.

Nonsensical observations: I thought a guy looked great in my class recently. Normal? Gay? Bi???

Cheers.

I just do, you know. Before coming to Australia, I’ve never seen or meet any Koreans before. But then when I arrived at Sydney, I was put in a class full of them

Anyway, if could have been the fact that I thought Korean chicks are hot, or the fact that I liked how Korea was portrayed in the movies that I saw, I was soon a fan of it.

It’s amazing how far South Korea has come since 1957. Back then, the Korean Civil War broke out, with the US backing the South and the Soviets the North. Back then, South Korea was so weak that the North initiated an invasion of it. It was defeated thanks to the US’s backing, but it left the South with destroyed infrastructure with nothing much to start with. Think about it, South Korea was at the state where most poorer African countries are right now.

With the preservation of free-market capitalism, South Korea then embarked upon the tremendous ‘Asian Tigers’ economic reform program to modernise itself, along with Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. All were ultimately successful, in record times to boot, and resulted in those countries now having first world economies, but usually accompanied by third world politics. It only took these nations 30 years, or one generation to completely haul themselves up from being a third world to first, unprecedented in history and previously thought to be impossible by the economic experts.

South Korea decided to follow the Japanese path to prosperity. With significant assistance from its government, it started up business behemoths called ‘chaebols’ where a select few business people were given generous financial and political assistance by the government to develop their business in targeted fields. These chaebols were fashioned after the Japanese’s keiretsus.

Despite some corruption and the inevitable cronyism and nepotism that usually accompany these companies, many still flourished. The best known chaebols now are Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, and LG. I still remembered when I was younger, like in junior high, brands like Samsung and LG were just newcomers to the electronics and telecommunications fields. People will admit that those brands were ‘ok’, but somewhat on the second tier. American, European and Japanese products were considered to be superior to these.

However, in just about 6 years from then, LG is now considered a first tier mobile phone manufacturer. Samsung is now competing head on with Panasonic and Toshiba, and Kia and Hyundai are carving a large niche for itself in the lower-end car market globally. Amazing. I salute them for their achievements.

On the people itself, Koreans are quite unique. They are a very insular bunch, preferring to stick to their own kind, or at least that’s what I’ve noticed. They’re a pretty nationalistic bunch too. Plus, they’re generally considered to be the most unruly bunch of the East Asians Something like the Irish of the East, if you want. Another interesting thing that I’ve noticed about them is their very ‘Confucius’ mannerisms. Due to Ancient China’s sphere of influence in times past, both Korea and Japan have adopted a lot of Chinese culture. Koreans actually bow to older Koreans. Even in high school. Haha, I personally think that’s pretty cool. I like to think that the reason why the Chinese are not as ‘Confucius’ in their mannerism as the Koreans and Japanese is because communism/socialism has touched China, but not those two other nations. As a result, egalitarianism and equality was initially the flavour of the day for the common Chinese people. These ideas were not compatible with Confucius’s teachings of age hierarchy, obedience to one’s leaders, etc. Hence the reason why Chinese PRC girls seem so much more ‘independent’ compared to their more submissive Korean and Japanese counterparts. Oh yeah, which brings me to another thing about those Koreans. They’re a very male-orientated society.

Anyway, just a short rant on them. Props to my Korean brothers then!

Hey guys. I realise that I haven’t been blogging for a while. So here’s a short update.

I am still alive
I am still single. Sad… sad… I know
I have just voted in the NSW State Elections today. How I voted? Like this:

Legislative Assembly:
1st preference: Liberal
2nd preference: Labor
3rd preference: Greens
4th preference: Australia Against Further Immigration (because I don’t wanna compete with more super-brainy PRC dudes for work and stuff. So sue me)
5th preference: Fred Nile ala Christian Crusader

Legislative Council: Pretty much the same as above, except I put the Democrats above the Greens.

Lastly, hitman, here’s the link to TheCicak (translated to mean: The Lizard), a Malaysian youth blog thingy. The editor asked me to post my IA vs TD thing there, and so I did. Attracted people from both sides again. Anyway, you can check out Swiftly, one of the anti-IA commentors there.