<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>C'mon, let's celebrate our roots in a better way
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I HAD the misfortune to sit through part of This Is My Home on Channel 5 on Thursday night. I accept that the programme was trying to send a message emphasising that Singaporeans should stand and work together as well as the importance of our roots, which I accept and applaud. But it was riddled with mistakes and misconceptions that robbed it of any merit or credibility, especially the lead character Grace.
For example, Yosemite in the United States is not pronounced Yo-se-MAT-tie as our pouting princess would have you know; it is pronounced Yo-SE-mi-te. And how is Bedok mangled into Bare-dork by an American accent? It seems in her quest to distance herself from her Singaporean friend, she also managed to distance herself from her brain.
The portrayal of the dynamics of the relationship was also amateurish to the point of nausea. When her on-off boyfriend leans over for a kiss, she stops him with 'What are you doing?' and 'I want to wait.'
For prude's sake, he was leaning over to give her a kiss. This is the girl who moments earlier was clad in a bikini and telling Singaporeans not to be so stuck up. No wonder they broke up, though I have trouble believing that she dumped him.
Or when her boyfriend, a Filipino trying so hard to be the all-American boy next door, says after her rejection of his 'advances': 'I should just date white girls.' The insinuation is in poor taste in a multiracial country.
I have lived most of my life in white majority countries and am married to a Caucasian girl.
Julian Teoh
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I HAD the misfortune to sit through part of This Is My Home on Channel 5 on Thursday night. I accept that the programme was trying to send a message emphasising that Singaporeans should stand and work together as well as the importance of our roots, which I accept and applaud. But it was riddled with mistakes and misconceptions that robbed it of any merit or credibility, especially the lead character Grace.
For example, Yosemite in the United States is not pronounced Yo-se-MAT-tie as our pouting princess would have you know; it is pronounced Yo-SE-mi-te. And how is Bedok mangled into Bare-dork by an American accent? It seems in her quest to distance herself from her Singaporean friend, she also managed to distance herself from her brain.
The portrayal of the dynamics of the relationship was also amateurish to the point of nausea. When her on-off boyfriend leans over for a kiss, she stops him with 'What are you doing?' and 'I want to wait.'
For prude's sake, he was leaning over to give her a kiss. This is the girl who moments earlier was clad in a bikini and telling Singaporeans not to be so stuck up. No wonder they broke up, though I have trouble believing that she dumped him.
Or when her boyfriend, a Filipino trying so hard to be the all-American boy next door, says after her rejection of his 'advances': 'I should just date white girls.' The insinuation is in poor taste in a multiracial country.
I have lived most of my life in white majority countries and am married to a Caucasian girl.
Julian Teoh
