Vandalism & semen: They work in mischievous ways

Funny how the meanings of certain words change as you grow older.

For instance, when I was a boy, I enjoyed going to Gay World.

Nowadays, that could be taken to mean that I used to enjoy going to a world of homosexuals.

Which may be true, but that’s not what I meant.

“Gay World” refers to the now-demolished Gay World Amusement Park, originally known as Happy World.

Of course, it has been a long time since “gay” just means “happy”.

Just as it has been a long time since I can be accurately described as a "boy", although I was described as “childish” by a reader as recently as three weeks ago.

When I was an actual child many, many years ago, the sternest admonition I could receive was to be called “naughty”.

As in “Why did put glue in your sister’s hair? You’re a very naughty boy!”

“I’m sorry. Please don’t punish me.”

More or less synonymous with "naughty” is the word “mischievous”.

I would’ve preferred to be called “mischievous” as a boy because “mischievous” sounds less naughty than “naughty”.

“Mischievous” evokes a sense of playfulness, a twinkle in the eye, as opposed to the bratty misbehaviour of “naughty”.

But now that I’m an adult, “naughty” has taken on a more, uh, adult connotation. Being called “naughty” is almost sort of a good thing.

As in “Why are you wearing edible underwear? You’re a very naughty boy.”

“Yes, I am. Punish me, please.”

On the other hand, it seems less acceptable to be “mischievous” as a grown-up because you may be charged with “mischief” and go to jail for it.

Last week, Samantha Lo Xin Hui, better known as the “Sticker Lady”, was charged with 15 counts of mischief for offences included pasting stickers with the words “Press until shiok” on traffic-light control boxes and spray-painting “My Grandfather Road” on public roads.



If convicted, Lo, 26, could face a fine or up to two years’ jail, or both.

While there was certainly playfulness in what Lo allegedly did, this is “mischief” of a different kind.

According to the Penal Code:

“Whoever, with intent to cause, or knowing that he is likely to cause, wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person, causes the destruction of any property, or any such change in any property, or in the situation thereof, as destroys or diminishes its value or utility, or affects it injuriously, commits ‘mischief’.”

If I read that correctly, it means that you could actually go to jail for putting glue in your sister’s hair but not for wearing edible underwear.

The Penal Code doesn’t say anything about playfulness or a twinkle in the eye.

It does give the example that if you have “joint property” in a horse with someone named Z and you shoot the horse, intending to cause wrongful loss to poor Z, you would have committed “mischief”.

Well, there goes my plans for next weekend. I must remember to inform the folks at Ikea I won’t be sending them the horse meat after all.

Let me give you another example of “mischief”.

In February 2008, a man masturbated to a photograph of a female colleague and collected his semen in a small container.

The man, who worked as a civilian officer in the police force, then went to his office in the police headquarters at Irrawaddy Road and waited for the colleague to leave her desk.

When she did, he mixed his semen with the water in her water bottle. When she returned, he struck up a conversation with her and secretly recorded her drinking the tainted water.

Two months later, he did the same thing with another female colleague.

The videos of his colleagues drinking the tainted water were stored on his personal computer at home.

These and upskirt videos were discovered in a police raid after a third female colleague caught him taking upskirt photos of her.

Although he had clearly been a very naughty boy, he wasn’t charged with naughtiness.

In December 2010, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to eight counts of taking underskirt videos and two counts of mischief for putting semen into his colleagues’ water.

Yes, that counted as mischief.

So the Sticker Lady, who allegedly vandalised public property, is facing the same charges as the guy who “vandalised” someone’s drink.

It brings a whole new meaning to “Press until shiok”.

I would almost rather be charged with vandalism - especially if I’m a woman and exempted from being caned.

And I believe the Sticker Lady is a woman even though she did not look like one in court last week.

How I long for the days of my grandfather when women looked like women, “gay” still meant “happy” and “mischief” didn’t mean putting semen into...

“Wait, that is glue in your sister’s hair, right?”

- Published in The New Paper, 31 March 2013

What is art? (And the meaning of the movie Prometheus?)

Since today is Father’s Day, I should mention my father, who died in 1993.



He was an artist (spelled without an “e”) and not, say, a MediaCorp “artiste” (spelled with an “e”).

Although he was best known as a cartoonist, he also painted, held exhibitions of his work, taught art, wrote books about art and was the president of the Pachui Art Society. (Never heard of it? Don’t worry. No one has.)



He was friends with Cultural Medallion-winning artist Tan Swie Hian, who described my father as “a significant political cartoonist and probably the only one” in Singapore during the 1950s and 1960s.

If he were alive today, my father would probably be really good at Draw Something.

While I don’t care about art as much he did, I was interested enough in the subject that as an undergrad in the US in the late 80s, I took a philosophy course called Social Problems Of Contemporary Art.

Naturally, before going into the social problems of contemporary art, the class had to first address the eternal question: “What exactly is this ‘art’ thingy anyway?”

And just my luck, it was one of those classes where if you asked the long-haired bearded professor anything, the old hippy's likely reply was: “What do you think?”

Hey! The professor could be a deputy prime minister of Singapore - that is, if he cuts his hair.

And shaves. And becomes a Singapore citizen. And is a former Chief of Navy.

Anyway, regarding the “what is art?” question, I think I may have finally found the definitive answer last week – after over 20 long years!

Last Tuesday, at the “town hall” meeting to discuss the impact of Sticker Lady's arrest on the local art community, the director of the Intercultural Theatre Institute, Mr T Sasitharan, said:

“The whole issue then becomes some kind of cognitive dispute: ‘Is this art?’ That’s not the point. The point is, we think it is art.”



And there you have it: Art is whatever “we” think is art.

I assume “we” refers to the art community, represented by the people at the meeting, whoever they were.

Next, I’m asking Mr Sasitharan about the meaning of life and to explain the movie Prometheus to me. (Why didn’t Charlize Theron just run perpendicular to the direction the alien ship was falling? Hello!)



Is it just me or did anyone else detect the odd mix of self-aggrandising, siege mentality and everyone-is-against-us-because-no-one-understands-us paranoid pity party at the meeting?

It kind of reminds me of my father. What is an artist without a little persecution complex?

I wonder what he would think of all this Sticker Lady stuff. Probably not much, since he’s been dead for almost two decades.

A few years after his death, my mother organised a posthumous exhibition of his work to get rid of... I mean to sell the art pieces he left behind.

I berated her for printing too many invitations. Think of the planet!

Afraid no one would attend the exhibition, my mother desperately handed a bunch of invitations to my wife to give out to her friends.

My wife dutifully gave out the invitations to her colleagues in her IT company and even told them there would be free food at the exhibition, but secretly hoped they wouldn't go because she was afraid they would see how much my father's art sucked.

But like me, her colleagues were suckers for gratis grub. My wife was shocked by the number of colleagues who turned up at the exhibition.

And while they were chewing, they took the opportunity to view my father’s works but decided not to buy any.



Some time later, one of my wife's colleagues finally found the courage to tell her how much they thought my father's art sucked.

Some time after that, my wife finally found the courage to tell me how much her colleagues thought my father’s art sucked.

I just shrugged.

Having grown up with my father’s art, I don’t have an objective perspective of whether it sucks or not.

It was just there.

My father’s art was part of the furniture in my home (although some may argue that furniture design is also an art form, but that’s not my point).



So while the art community during my father’s time might have determined that his work was art, the community of IT workers in my wife’s company determined that it was sucky art.

So the issue for me is not whether something is art, but if the art sucks, is it still art? In other words, is sucky art an oxymoron?

If I asked my philosophy professor this question, he would probably say: “What do you think?” I would then curse him in my blog and later apologise.

I got a B for the course.

I better be getting fantastic Father’s Day presents from my kids today or I’m forcing them to watch Prometheus.

By the way, anyone wants to buy some sucky art?

I can give you my mother’s number.

- Published in The New Paper, 17 June 2012

Sticker Lady not a stickler for grammar (Free Oliver Fricker!)

My grandfather's grandson.

That's me.

This is the extent of my contribution to something called My Grandfather Singapore on Facebook where Singaporeans are asked to take a photo of themselves "all over Singapore, ala Sticker Lady, with a sign reading 'My Grandfather Road/Temple/Stall/etc' to show Singaporeans can be creative and that we have ownership of what we love in Singapore".



No, wait, I wrote it wrongly. It should be "My grandfather grandson".

Actually, I wrote it correctly the first time, but in this case, being right is wrong and wrong is right.

As the people behind the My Grandfather Singapore Facebook thing pointed out (in parenthesis): "Yes, it looks like a spelling mistake, but it's how some Singaporeans tend to drop the possessive when speaking in Singlish."

Actually, it looks more like grammatical error than a spelling mistake, but I quibble.

But you know who is one of the people behind the My Grandfather Singapore Facebook page?

Catherine Lim!

Fortunately, it's not the Catherine Lim whose books are taught in Singapore schools. How can a Ministry of Education-approved author be encouraging us to use broken English?

Did I send Phua Chu Kang to take English classes as instructed by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong all those years ago for nothing? Were 13 years of the Speak Good English Movement for nothing? Did I do a spellcheck for this column for nothing?

What hath Sticker Lady aka Samantha Lo wrought?

Lo was arrested last week for painting "My grandfather road" on public roads. She is also allegedly behind the black stickers pasted on traffic lights around Singapore.



On Facebook, MP Tin Pei Ling, Nominated MP Janice Koh and non-MP Nicole Seah have written in Lo's defence.

Lo has since been released on police bail. So why are slacktivists stepping over themselves to jump on the "Free Sticker Lady" bandwagon when she is already free?

Why are Sticker Lady's supporters pre-emptively sending her to jail?

Forget Banksy. Sticker Lady is treated like she's Nelson Mandela. (I'm still singing along to the Special AKA's Free Nelson Mandela, even though I know he has been free for a while.)



But where were these "let's support creativity" types two years ago when Swiss Oliver Fricker was arrested for spray-painting graffiti on the MRT train?

Where were Tin Pei Ling, Janice Koh and Nicole Seah back then? No, wait, Koh wasn't NMP and no one heard of Tin or Seah back then.

Why wasn't there an online petition for the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (Mica) to recognise Fricker's work as "art, not vandalism" (like the petition to Mica to "review sentence" of Lo, even though she hasn't been sentenced yet)?



Is it because Fricker is a foreigner? And not a cat-loving 25-year-old Singaporean who worked for the National Art Gallery?

It's probably also a good thing Lo doesn't drive a Ferrari or wear a scarf on the bus.

And being a foreigner, Fricker would've never thought to spray-paint the train with "My grandfather train" - or even "My grandfather's train" (with the possessive).

(The 1994 Michael Fay incident doesn't apply because that happened long before people could put black "Anyhow paste police catch" badges on their Facebook pages.)

And unlike Fricker, Sticker Lady has also sparked more intense discussion about art than the recently-concluded Singapore Arts Festival ever did, just as the festival organisers announced last week that the festival is taking a break next year for reassessment.

Perhaps if they want to avoid low attendances like for last year's festival, they should resort to vandalism too.

But don’t do what the Singapore Post did in 2010 when it had post boxes around Singapore spray-painted with graffiti for a publicity campaign. That just upset people.

In this case, wrong was not right. Wrong was just wrong.

SingPost's gaffe was that the graffiti wasn't in Singlish. It should've had the post boxes spray-painted with the words "My grandfather post box". Remember to drop the possessive.

Which brings me back to Catherine Lim's (but not that Catherine Lim) My Grandfather Singapore project on Facebook to get Singaporeans to show that they can be creative by following her instructions to basically copy what someone else did.

Do what you're told and copy.

And that, ladies and xenophobes, is the state of creativity in Singapore in a nutshell.

By the way, why is Lo called Sticker Lady and not Grandfather Lady? I guess it's all relative.

Spellchecked.

- Published in The New Paper, 10 June 2012

COLUMN: What is art?

UPDATE: 'Sticker Lady' and her accomplice charged with mischief

Free Samantha Lo! (Or 'This is not your grandfather's vandal')

She has been arrested for acts of vandalism that included painting “My grandfather road” on the road and placing "humourous" stickers on public property.





And suddenly, Samantha Lo aka skl0 aka Sticker Lady, 25, is the latest cause celebre online.

NMP Janice Koh and failed political candidate Nicole Seah as well as many others have come to her support.

I wonder if Singaporeans would be jumping on the Free Sticky Lady, I mean Free Sticker Lady bandwagon if she were a foreigner.

Or a Ferrari driver.

Actually, I don't wonder at all; no, they wouldn't.

But then a foreign Ferrari driver wouldn't be able to win over Singaporeans' hearts with Singlish phrases like "Press until shiok" and "Your grandfather road".

Free Sticker Lady with every purchase!

I'm disappointed she isn't called the Grandfather Lady. That would've been more "humourous".

As for the “Vandalism or art?” question, I've written about it before, so I'll just leave you with the video below.



COLUMN: Sticker Lady not a stickler for grammar (Free Oliver Fricker!)

UPDATE: 'Sticker Lady' and her accomplice charged with mischief