Clever, and good for them. Bad for me.

I am not getting tired of saying it – the media industry has completely missed the turn of the century, and they are completely unaware of the opportunities and the necessities the internet brings. I would love to watch my TV series legally (and therefore always available) but where can I do that? Sure, there is Hulu, which once was praised as the future of media consumption. There are others that followed this example. But it is all in United States. Here in Singapore, as in Europe, or wherever, one still has to rely on pirated content. Fighting piracy without replacing it with a legal alternative is majorly unfair, and even more so it is fruitless. In June last year, the German government took down a very successful website that collected links to illegal movies and series. Two weeks later, it was there again. Not that Germans love the illegal, in fact we tend to stick to laws and rules more than most other countries, but what is the alternative? Especially in my home country the big TV companies can not be counted on. They do have online portals where you can watch their content – but it is all crappily dubbed and only available years after the original aired in the US (which is typically the home country of the series we are watching) No alternative, so what can you do? For some reason I still don’t understand, the big media and production companies still fail to see this. They should fire their marketing staff, every single one of them.

It’s not that it doesn’t work. Of course a company must generate profit, and they can, very well. For years already, the producers of South Park have put the show’s episodes online – for everyone in the whole world. Even in Germany they are available in English, besides the dubbed version.
Obviously this works, and obviously they make profit with it. Of course they have some commercials, but still far less than they do on TV. It’s only fair to have commercials.
Secondly, try to find South Park on those illegal streaming sites – you won’t. There is no need to host them illegally as they are available legally. Even on YouTube you have a hard time finding anything.
And last but not least, I believe that the popularity of the show has increased ever since it was available online. Of course it has – just today, after trying in vain to watch first Family Guy, then Big Bang Theory, The Office and How I Met Your Mother, I went to my last resort: South Park. Even though I have seen every episode dozens, if not hundreds of times, I keep watching it, simply because it is the only source of this form of entertainment available at this time.

I am simply amazed that no other film company has tried to follow this obviously good example. Not a single one. I just don’t understand why…

“We all know you here; you are famous sir!”

A few months ago the cute Filipina girl had used “you always get the Super Star, it’s good right?” as an ice breaker to flirt with her regular customer.

When I moved to Serangoon almost seven months ago I moved to a place only 2.5km away from a Carl’s Jr. I had had their food maybe once or twice before, on my visits to California. I remembered it was good, and the two burger chains we have in Germany – McDonald’s and Burger King – were no match for it. But then again McDonald’s is much better in the states, and in general I didn’t have any special feelings for CJ. While settling in in Singapore I frequented places that sold chicken rice or mixed veggie rice at first. I was determined to adjust to the lifestyle of the foreign country I lived in.
Now, people tend to be drawn to food they are familiar with. And that is why after a while I did not get rice and noodles every day, no, instead I started a strange ritual: walking 2.5km every day just to have some “real” food, with carbs and meat and TASTE. I started eating that stuff every day. Burger every day! Things like our parents and Supersize Me have warned all of us from doing that. But what could I do, I was hungry, craving western food and Carl’s Jr. is just way too damn good! Nevertheless, I kept losing weight constantly which continued to astonish me.

For a brief period in November last year I remembered that burgers are bad for your health – or at least are supposed to be bad for your health – and stopped eating Carl’s Jr. every day. A week later I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I had gained weight. I, more as a joke, blamed my weight gain on not having my CJ anymore, and started going again. Sure enough, my body fat decreased. At another occasion I reminisced about trans fats, fats in general, glutamine, artificial flavors etc. in another attempt to get me off my addiction. The result of my considerations however was that Hawker Center food is probably much worse for your health – hawkers are no experts in sanitation (just look at one and you see what I mean), nobody knows who their suppliers for ingredients are, how they store their ingredients and how often they wash their hands. The international food franchise outlet has the A label for sanitation and world-class know-how. So health is not really an argument to go to a dirty, cockroach-infested

Super Star, photo by Carl's Jr.

hawker center instead of Carl’s Jr.
And talk about a balanced diet, yes I have even considered that, you still can’t win the argument. At the hawker center I sometimes go to, I always get the chicken cutlet that comes with fries and ketchup – not very healthy either. At least a good burger has nice fresh bread, salad, tomatoes, cheese and onions on it. Just get Iced Lemon Tea instead of Coke at the drink fountain and who is eating unhealthy? Of course Carl’s Jr. has a burger for when you feel you need something worthy of a real man as well – Bread, bacon, beef, cheese, BBQ sauce. Called  the Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger – the name alone makes me melt. Suck on that, McDonald’s with your line of salads.

Then there is price – towards the end of last month I ran out of money big time. I could simply not buy anything from Carl’s Jr. anymore. Sometimes I treated myself to McDonald’s or Wendy’s. Both sell combos at about 8 dollars, while Carl’s Jr is around 12. But, when you are used to CJ and then open the box of your “Big”-Mac, you know who gives you value for money. The Big Mac, the by name largest thing McDonald’s sells, is just ridiculously small compared to ANY burger at Carl’s Jr. On top of that it tastes like a stack of cardboard with a little, but careful not too much, sauce. And Wendy’s, let’s not talk about that. It is nice around two times in your life, but it quickly wears off and just tastes cheap. So I am back, back to my routine at my local place, and nothing can drag me away from there. And hell yeah I like it.

After last week’s three MRT breakdowns, SMRT Corporation has still not been able to return to normal service. So when I had to go to my school today, I decided to take the bus instead of the North-South Line. However, going on from there I took the train from Toa Payoh to Bugis. Side note: it was far off from any peak hours. During peak hours, trains don’t operate at all lately.
I waited more than five minutes for my train, which was unbearably packed and moved ridiculously slow (this is because the operator still hasn’t found the reason for the breakdown so they are carrying on with care) taking more than three minutes for the <1km journey from Orchard to Somerset. I transferred at City Hall interchange, where I had to wait another six minutes for my Green Line train to arrive, which was equally slow and packed already and now became a squeezing nightmare because in the meantime another red line train had spat out lots of people who wanted to transfer. I got in last, and got off at the next station, Bugis, where the doors open on the opposite site as where I had gotten in – Jackpot! So I had to squeeze past all the usual retards who cling to the pole in the middle of the doorway like Mufasa clung to that tree, and who look at you like nothing pisses them off as much as you getting off while they refuse to ‘move to the center of the train’.

Getting out of that horrible train was only  part one for my destination was Bugis Street – which is actually not a good place to be if you are pissed off by crowds. I squeezed along through the fare gates with what felt like half the population of Singapore, squeezed past the Downtown Line construction site (which I can remember being there unchanged since 2008, by the way) and across the always-crowded traffic light crossing to get to Bugis Street. In there, the light suddenly went out and someone grabbed my ass (Mi Scusi!) before shortly later I queued for food and a whole bunch of – I won’t say the nationality, Ch..se – people cut the line in front of me.

Thinking is poison, actually. Especially if you do not have enough input, this is when the popular ‘thinking too much’ occurs. Just like when we see a fragmented shape, the brain will automatically try to supplement what we see to form a shape that makes sense to us, just like this picture shows four 3/4 circles, but we actually see a square. Same applies when we hear or read things. Only this time it is not a shape, it is content, ideas, complex stuff. The more complex the stuff your brain has to complete the more wrong it can get.
I am one of these people who never stop thinking, taking bits of fragmented information, little incomplete purple circles, and trying to figure out what could be missing in between to form a shape familiar, or pleasing, or that at least makes any sense. It’s a very bad thing that causes lots of sorrow.

I think stupid people live happier because of that. They just take what they see and don’t try to make sense of it. Of course, sometimes that prevents them from seeing the big picture, or coming up with visions and plans, but it also means their brains don’t send them on wrong paths by trains of thoughts going on the wrong track. Hence, their lives must be easier (in this aspect) I have seen many stupid people in my life, extremely stupid ones, some literally dumb as shit. I have also seen many smart, very smart and highly intelligent people. The intelligent ones are usually the ones who are more unhappy and have more emotional trouble.
And even I, though not particularly intelligent, constantly find new reasons to be unhappy, mostly caused by long nights of lying awake and thinking about things I have no business thinking about because I simply have not enough input. Caused by little events and emotions being put into a context of reasons and outcomes, making the whole big picture look bad. Caused by over-analyzing everything. And then it actually costs a lot of brain energy to actively see the good things (and at least in my life there are much more good than bad things), include them into the considerations to relativize the complex of reasons and outcomes of some little bad thing.

The thing is, for many years I have wondered what it might be like to be stupid. Plain stupid. Eat to be fed, sleep to be rested, work to get a paycheck, then take it from the top. No analyzing and creative interpretation of things you know so little about. It must be so easy.

Der gegebene Anlass sind zwei Artikel die ich heute dank Twitter gelesen habe. Der erste, von der Süddeutschen Zeitung, thematisiert die Youtube-Sperren. Offenbar hat Lou Reed auf Facebook einen Youtube-Link zu einem seiner eigenen Lieder gepostet. Das verlinkte Video ist in Deutschland jedoch gesperrt, was den Verfasser des Kommentars dazu gebracht hat, darüber nachzudenken woher die GEMA wohl das Recht nimmt das Lied zu zensieren wenn der Künstler selbst es verbreitet.
Der Zweite findet sich auf Basic Thinking und thematisiert einen erregten Facebookpost von Jan Delay zum Thema Abmahnungen. Laut Aussage des Künstlers bekommen die Musiker von den durch Abmahnungen verdienten Milliarden keinen Cent.

Und jetzt mal die historische Sicht der Dinge. Wir stehen dank des Internets gerade an der Schwelle zu einem neuen Zeitalter. Das Internet ist  meiner Ansicht nach mindestens eine so bedeutende Erfindung wie das Rad oder die Dampfmaschine. Es verändert unser Leben radikal, es verändert unser Zusammenleben radikal, es verändert unsere Welt radikal.

Wenn man auf ähnliche Zeiten zurückblickt findet sich im Schatten derartiger technologischer Revolutionen immer eine Reihe von beinharten Veränderungen. Die Schrift ermöglichte es erst, Wissen zu transferieren und aufzubewahren oder über große Distanzen zu kommunizieren. Im Zuge dessen veränderte sich die Gesellschaft – aus kleinen Stammesgemeinschaften wurden Territorialstaaten und Reiche, aus einfachen Hütten wurden Paläste und aus einfachen anarchistischen Gesellschaften wurden zivilisierte mit Gesetzen und einer festgelegten Ordnung
Die Dampfmaschine ermöglichte schnelleres Reisen und automatisierte Industrieproduktion. Die Folge waren politische Veränderungen wie etwa das Zusammenwachsen der deutschen Kleinstaaten oder die enorme Ausdehnung von Imperien wie dem Britischen; die Industriegesellschaft funktioniert(e) nach ganz neuen Regeln die am Ende zur Herrschaft des Geldes und derer die es besitzen führten.
Das sind zwei spontane Beispiele die zeigen, dass eine enorme technologische Veränderung auch immer eine Veränderung in Gesellschaft und Politik bedeutet. Wir stehen an der Schwelle dieser Revolution, doch sie zeichnet sich ab: der Arabische Frühling wäre ohne Internet undenkbar gewesen, Wikileaks und unabhängige Blogger verändern den Informationsstrom zwischen Regierungen und Bürgern, der jetzt über zahlreiche ungefilterte Kanäle fließt. Die Zeit der globalen Vernetzung ist auch die Zeit der globalen freien Rede und das Ende der Geheimniskrämerei. Es bedeutet für viele Länder einen notwendigen Quantensprung, der am Mittelmeer blutig herbeigeführt wurde. Die neue Zeit fordert eine Neuausrichtung, manchmal eine Neuerfindung des Systems. China weiß das, und setzt alles daran seine Bürger im Internet vom Rest der Welt abzuschirmen. Das geschieht beispielsweise durch eigene Dienste (RenRen als Facebook-Ersatz, Weibo statt Twitter, Baidu statt Google) und das Aussperren der ausländischen.

Was wir gerade erleben und noch vor uns haben wird unsere Welt nachhaltig verändern. Die Gesellschaft ist bereits verändert: Wissen ist Macht und dank Google, Wikipedia und Wikileaks ist Macht jetzt quasi jedem zugänglich, es fällt herrschenden Eliten schwerer ihr Machtmonopol zu sichern. So bereits geschehen vor knapp 200 Jahren, als das Zeitalter der Aufklärung immer mehr Menschen das Lesen, das Wissen und die Bildung ermöglichte. Letztendlich wurde das herrschende System, der Absolutismus, in Frage gestellt und nach und nach durch neue Systeme ersetzt. Heute haben wir in ganz Europa freie Demokratien, das Endergebnis des damaligen Umschwungs.

Und jetzt erfordert das Internet einen ähnlichen Umschwung in Ländern die bisher noch nicht auf der Endstufe angelangt waren. Doch denken wir in etwas kleineren Dimensionen stehen wir auch in Deutschland vor einer Art Revolution. Die GEZ hat schon lange ausgedient, und viel zu spät reagierte man mit der Einführung der Haushaltsabgabe statt der Gerätegebundenen. Die GEMA allerdings sorgt weiter für Frust, und ich habe das Gefühl, dass dieser Frust sich immer weiter anstaut und die Worte langsam härter, deutlicher werden. Vielleicht wird Jan Delays Äußerung irgendwann in Geschichtsbüchern erscheinen, wer weiß. Revolutionen haben sich schon an weniger entzündet als an der konsequenten Verarschung und Aussperrung von Millionen.
Fakt ist, dass in Sachen Medienkonsum ein großer Aufholbedarf besteht. Vor einer Weile habe ich schon einmal die Kino.to-Schließung thematisiert. Die Technologie, vor allem aber die mentale Situation der Menschen ist den Gesetzen und dem gesamten System um mindestens Jahre voraus. Repressalien helfen in so einer Situation nicht, und wer zu lange an Verlorenem festhält muss letztendlich um seinen Kopf bangen. Wer das nicht glaubt kann sich in die französische Revolution, den arabischen Frühling oder die vereinzelten Proteste in China einlesen.
Wir stehen weniger vor einem politischen Problem als vor einem Gesellschaftlichen, und die GEMA ist das große Feindbild der Masse. Wenn sich allerdings die Gesellschaft bzw. der Markt irgendwann ruckartig an der GEMA bzw. an der Industrie entlädt könnte die Explosion die Politik mitreißen und weiteren großen Schaden anrichten. Was da genau passieren könnte, darüber kann nur spekuliert werden. Aber es könnte vielleicht sogar zu einem politischen Rückfall führen. Mit der Meidenindustrie – und zeitgleich ja auch den Banken, was wir nicht vergessen dürfen – als Feindbilder der Masse ist eigentlich idealer Nährboden für radikalen Kommunismus da. Ist auch nicht das erste Mal.

Der sich spürbar aufbauende Druck kann leicht entlassen werden, nämlich durch eine radikale Umstrukturierung der gesamten Medienkonsumlandschaft und vor allem der Denkweise der Industrie. Wenn Kunst nicht mehr als kontrolliert handelbare Ware sondern als gesellschaftliches Gut angesehen würde könnte eine für alle Seiten zufriedenstellende Situation geschaffen werden. Natürlich wäre die Konsequenz weniger Profit für die Firmenbosse, und genau daran wird es scheitern. Die rennen lieber offenen Auges ins Verderben und setzen sich dann, wenn der Schaden komplett angerichtet ist, einfach in den Ruhestand ab. Doch das Land könnte heruntergewirtschaftet, gesellschaftlich gespalten und politisch ruiniert daraus hervorgehen.

Dass das Internet uns zu gesellschaftlichem und politischem Fortschritt zwingt ist keine Frage. Die Frage ist nur, ob man es als natürlicheKino.to-Schließungn Prozess ansehen möchte dem man folgt und sich so langsam aber sicher an die neue Situation anpasst oder ob man so lange mit dem alten Weg weitermacht bis es gehörig kracht. Eine Frage, die sich alle Parteien selbst beantworten müssen. Fraglos ist jedoch, dass die GEMA ausgedient hat und jetzt nur noch als Krebsgeschwür in der Mitte des gesellschaftlichen Körpers sein Unwesen treibt, die Gesellschaft und den Staat von innen zersetzt. Ähnlich ging es auch mit Ludwig XVI und Muammar Gaddafi zuende.

Not that I think this is worse than my old home – no way – but it has become a home, and a home is never as good as a travel destination. When you see a city with a tourist’s eyes everything is exciting, new, foreign, virgin. But after a while the landmarks and sites become the turf you tread on safely. You start avoiding the ‘touristy’ places because you happen to know some side road that leads you around the crowd. The giant towers that are the home to banks and trading corporations, standing tall against the tropical sky and shining bright in the darkness, they have become a familar background. What is the world’s largest ferris wheel but a big blue circle in the background while you roam the streets at night on very un-touristy missions? What is Marina Bay Sands but three very familar sisters the sight of which does not excite but reassure you – yes, I am still home, I am still me, I am still alive. What does Orchard Road mean to you other than a place that has some nice restaurants and movie theaters, a place you can go to hang out every once in a while while thousands of others gaze in wonder on the luxury this place is full of. But it’s more than just being familiar with the things others travel so far to see. It is the way every corner suddenly holds significance, how you can’t go anywhere without thinking of some long-forgotten incident when you happened to come by here before. When I come to Clarke Quay these days I think of how I spent my first club  night with my school friends here, and how our bags were locked in a locker the key to which somebody had taken home. I go here, I go there, all these places I knew after having been to Singapore a few times but which were just places, just corners. Now they are silent witnesses of times gone by, of the people you went with. This is where I waited for my date this one night, that is where we studied for our exams back then, and there I threw up after getting roaring drunk one night. Here we went on a study trip, there we ate and let me tell you about the food they serve there…Stories. It is what makes a place your home. It is like the whole place gets loaded with stories, with memories, and thus with significance. After a while you can’t turn a stone without finding some memory. This is what made me leave my little hometown after 21 years there, coming to Singapore. But then I didn’t think about how Singapore itself might become loaded with significance.

After almost five months I have experienced a lot. Barely one of the common places I can go without thinking of somebody, of one moment out of those five exciting months, of the feelings it gave me. Here I sat with Wylie, outside Dhoby Ghaut station, waiting for our friend to arrive because we were going to study together. The sight of her coming up the escalator, a beautiful angel in a white shirt ascending out of nowhere smiling radiantly when she saw us, is a vivid memory that comes back every time I myself pass by. Just across the street, months later, three of us sat in the pouring rain waiting for our friend to finish his doctor’s appointment. Right next to it is the staircase I just recently walked up with a good buddy talking about the significant things in life. Shortly before I had walked the same staircase while showing a German friend around the city, and later with my two oldest local friends on the way to a concert together. That is only Dhoby Ghaut. There is Toa Payoh, there is Novena, there is Raffles Place. Marina Mandarin Hotel will always be the place I returned to to pick up the student pass my friend had lost there during a party night. And of course Clarke Quay and Geylang are full of – fragmented – memories of good times and bad times. Ever showed you the spot where the Lamborghini was parked that I considered to be my little yellow car? I can show you, it’s right here…

So yes, Singapore has become my home. I hadn’t considered that possibility. I actually came here thinking that I could just do six months, an experience similar to the year in Australia every German who is too lazy to sign up for university already does. But this is more than a ‘work and travel’ program or gap year. I study here. I immersed. Sure, every experience abroad is fun and exciting, every time you travel brings you home with more experiences than you can ever share in your lifetime. But if you study abroad something else happens: you become a part of it. Your classmates become your friends, they become your wingmen, they become your lovers, some become your enemies. You are a part of something, something that would not be the same without you and of which you can not just drop out like that. Because this is home. And leaving home ain’t ever easy.
Yes, I thought I could just wing some six months in a tropical island paradise, maybe get some girls on the side – nothing too serious – and then leave with some nice stories to tell and some new facebook contacts but without much regret. I thought it would be a vacation. But what I found is much more than that. It is a home, and it is an existence, a life. What I found was not acquaintances and facebook contacts – what I found was real friends and bros. What I found was not ‘some girls on the side’ and conquests to boast about – what I found was what looks like it has potential to turn into something way serious.

Thus, thinking about leaving in little more than one month time places a deep sorrow, sadness and pain in my heart. It all turned into more than I ever expected or wanted it to be. I underestimated everything, and most importantly: I have never been more happy than here, now, with those people. We all started university year one (which only lasts six months here) together, we have walked a big chunk of the way together. They will all continue to the degree. And if I leave, less than one third of the way through, it will feel like dropping out too early. It will feel like not having completed the mission, even though the mission was only to do year one and get the Diploma. And it will feel like leaving my friends behind, dropping out of a functioning group. What would the class be like without me? Will Wylie be able to manage the work group all by himself? Who will he go to that German pub with once a week? How about all of them, how would their lives be different without me, would they even miss me? Probably they would, but they would carry on, I would read on facebook about all the things they did in all the places I am familiar with and I would sit some ten thousand kilometers away with that nostalgic sorrow in my heart.
You know what? I experienced the very same thing just one year ago, when I had to quit my Air Force service way early, leaving my comrades behind at the base. It didn’t feel good. To this day I hate having had to leave, I still hate missing out on completing the mission. We had started that together, and we were supposed to finish it together. I couldn’t finish it with them and it will make me feel bad for the rest of my life. That was missing out on four of six months – now we are talking about missing out on two out of two and a half years! One day they will all graduate, step up there to receive their Bachelor’s certificates, proud and happy. And I would not be there, and if I was then only as a spectator. Just like last year, when I drove all the way to Berlin to stand at the side watching my comrades pledge to protect the country. At that time I was a dropout, not part of it anymore. My comrades were happy to see me but we could not finish the mission together. Knowing me, I would probably fly down to Singapore to attend my classmates’ graduation in two years time, but only as a spectator. Watch the team finish the mission we had set out to finish together. I do not want to have this feeling.

And don’t talk about the personal side of it. Friendships, still young but strong, left behind. People you had so many laughs with you will probably never see again in your life. And then that serious thing – it is just a notion but it feels like it’s bigger than words, for sure bigger than a fling. Leave that, before it has even really started? How? Tell me how could I ever do that!

Yes, Singapore has become my home, and it will never be the same. When I visited three times between 2008 and 2010, even when I first moved here in June, it was pretty much the same. But after five months here, it will never, ever be the same. If I leave and only come back in twenty years time all the places will still remind me. I will walk the old streets and wonder what has become of ‘my’ Singapore (because they keep changing stuff). I will go to our old hangouts and remember, remember the ‘good old times’. The time we took a cab from Clarke Quay to Balestier and back to get the key for the locker our bags were in. Time time I wondered what my yellow car was doing in Singapore and why it was so flat all of a sudden. The time my friend ascended like an angel out of nowhere. The time my new years resolution of not puking from alcohol  was broken in the wee morning hours of August 28, 2011, in a coffee shop washroom in Geylang. The many times Wylie and I went for Erdinger in Holland Village. Then time when this, the time when that…
I hated home. My old home. Because there were too many stories. My life was not always awesome – and it still isn’t, btw, even though it improved a lot since my father threatened to kill me and my first love left me at the same time – and there was just way too much. Too many stories on every corner, and it is a much smaller town than Singapore. So i had to get out of there, after 21 years. Plus, it was a crossroads in life where my high school friends and I went different ways anyway. The old life had been over, and so it was easy to come to Singapore. But my purpose in Singapore is not served. I need more time, I need to stay, I need to finish what I started. Given, what I started was much smaller than what I need to finish now, but that is no concern for me. I love it. I love my life. I love having Singapore as my home.

Our year one, and therefore my initial mission, will be finished soon. I have applied for bursary because if I stay, I can not pay the school fees. All my savings went into paying the school fees for the six months tropical island adventure. Now it has turned into a whole new life. But I can not finance it. Still no answer about the bursary, but I need one soon. My deadline for deciding to leave if there was no answer by then was originally in early November. Then it was late November. Now it is Christmas. I keep postponing the deadline because I dread, I absolutely dread the idea of having to leave. But soon, very soon, I will be facing the student contract for year two. If I don’t face a scholarship or bursary at the same time I will have to do the hardest thing I had to do since putting my old dog to rest – get up and leave without a signature. And I will leave more than just a school. I will leave friends, very good friends. I will leave love, or what is supposed to turn into love. I will leave the body I am a part of and which will continue living without me, with a scar left but clearly without me. And I will be facing a new beginning yet again. Returning to Europe does not mean returning to my old life. My old life has been gone since my old friends scattered all over Germany to universities, starting new lives just like I did in Singapore. I will have to start over again, most likely the way I planned, by attending a pilot school in Austria. I can’t wait to start flying already, which I have known is my purpose in life for so many years. But now I feel it has time. Time until I finish my purpose in Singapore.

And I hope to god I will be able to finish it.

I ran. I ran from boredom, from repetitive patterns, from nothing new ever happening. I also ran from heartache, from streets and places, people and buildings filled with memories of broken promises, disappointed hopes and dead-end paths. I ran far, I crossed oceans and mountains, rivers and deserts. I found a little island that promised salvation, promised a new beginning. I went and it was indeed a new beginning, the beginning of the best time I ever had in my life.
But the truth is, light will always cast shadows. And the beautiful tropical island that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes, while giving all the salvation and happiness it does, does not make you tranquil as you think when you are a little country boy dreaming of the tropics’ lustful fruits and the shallow bliss promised by the big cities of this planet. After all, some people sail to tropical islands and end up being hacked to pieces and cooked, even in our days. True story, it just happened to a German adventurer in French Polynesia two weeks ago. I’m glad it’s not that bad for me, but the problems I ran from seem to have brothers and sisters that wait in every corner of this world, wherever you go. They will be there, lingering in the endless black of a pretty girl’s eyes and in the leaves of the palm trees you take a stroll under with her in your arms. They linger under way too short sundresses in October and in the fabrics of the new shirt you had tailor-made to impress; in the dark under your two comfy seats in the movie theater and on the dance floor you shuffle your feet on. They are dissolved in the raindrops that fall on the umbrella you and her are trying to both fit under and the drinks you gulp down together. They hover over your head when you stand at the bus stop alone hoping a yet to be met soul mate will have reserved a seat for you. These problems are ubiquitous. They are deeply engraved in the very thing that makes us human.

I’m not saying the glass is half empty but I found that it is just not that easy to run away. Lately I have been feeling like running away again, running back, starting over again. Hopes of blissful shallow happiness have been disappointed, the vulnerable young flowers of mutual affection are brutally chopped back as they begin to blossom, requiring more time and nutrition to grow back. But I know I shouldn’t run again. Not for the reasons I am giving myself for it. Stay and fight, fight destiny, fight stubbornness, fight anyone and anything that stands between you and happiness. If you run away from your problems once and find that it’s no better on the other side, and in turn you run away again, you might end up being on the road for the rest of your life, never truly happy, never satisfied.
Enjoy the light you are standing in, try to forget about the shadows it casts, but bear in mind that they will always follow you. Move around into brighter light but remember that it only casts darker shadows. Most importantly, enjoy the light you are currently in instead of trying to find a brighter one of which you hope it might drown the shadows.
Because it doesn’t.

What initially happened is that due to a chain of events I managed to score lots of sympathy points with this one special girl.  Of course this has nothing to do with me getting the hang of the original problem, but that happened at the same time.

For months, my wingman kept telling me to play it slow, be patient. “Talk to her a little every day,” he kept saying, “until she is comfortable enough to go out with you.” My western mind didn’t really understand what that meant or how this could possibly lead to positive results though. After all, a few times in the past I played it slow with a girl until someone else snapped her away in front of my eyes. Ever since then I have been trying to forge the iron while it’s hot. But in Asia, many things work differently. In Asia, nobody does one-night stands (at least nobody I have ever met…) which lets me conclude that relationships are taken much more seriously. Only natural that a girl will not make it easy for you then. You have to earn her, even if you are the handsome white guy. You have to earn her, and it’s not easy.
So, while trying to forge the iron while it was hot I kind of burned myself two weeks ago, leading to a cooling in my relations with that particular girl. Apparently my insisting on the date she had practically said yes to threw her off a little, and threw me back a few weeks. I already deemed it the newest addition to my Failbook when last weekend those random events came in motion which brought the game back to my home turf – truly caring for a girl, being helpful, trustworthy and nice. I took her home that night, I took her out the next day, I took her out once again, all because of that little thing I managed to react to accordingly, of course not without big help from my wingman. Bingo.

However, I am still far from truly understanding what goes on inside a Chinese brain, but at least I have been gaining knowledge, experience and a feel for how to handle it. It is going well. And all of a sudden Chinese girls do not seem to be a pain in the ass anymore but rather a big challenge.

What do they do? Well, most of the time they say no. Or maybe, which also means no. Reasons for that may be shyness and misunderstanding. I learned that Asian guys only ask a girl out on a date if they are really serious with her – we Westerners ask a girl out casually because we want to get to know her. Trying to find a middle ground between those two completely different approaches is not easy.
Even if they like you, they will not take the slightest step towards you. You have to observe them closely and find out how they feel about you, and then carefully (not, like me at first, with a Blitzkrieg mentality) feel your way towards her heart. She will not talk, that is a lesson my wingman keeps repeating; she will not talk, but she is waiting for you to talk to her. Not really being a man of the spoken word, this alone is a challenging task for me. With basically non-existent Mandarin skills on my side and little confidence in her own English skills on her side, communication is not necessarily so easy either. That is why the Chinese prefer sticking with other Chinese, inside a little Chinese parallel universe where they don’t have to face any cultural challenges like we other foreigners do. They have a piece of China away from home in which they comfortably live. Speaking to someone in English means leaving that comfort zone, and thus for me it is rather difficult to get them to be comfortable with me. Recently someone even told me that many Chinese were scared to talk to foreigners, and for sure I have noticed they are shy. That includes the guys, too. A while ago I ran into a male classmate on the way to school and we walked alongside each other for the rest of the way. It took him quite a while to find the guts to ask a simple question and start a conversation with me, while at the same time I could see he would not have been comfortable if I had started to talk. With girls it’s even worse. I have yet to develop a golden way to overcome all these problems. But my wingman’s suggestions are definitely part of it: keep it slow, make them comfortable around you, take the right opportunity to score beyond friendship.
We’ll see how it goes.

The village with the name underlined in blue is my former town of residence, where I lived all my life. According to Wikipedia it now has a population of 4,908. The town underlined in red is where I was born (because it has the closest hospital) and where I went to high school for nine years, population: 28,217. If by some freak space-wormhole accident these two places overlapped I would have gone to school in Sembawang and lived near Vivo City, with my family on my dad’s side living near Queenstown (village name not in map) and on my mom’s side in Jurong (indicated by green underlining.)
Not that this map almost exclusively shows one county, my county of Rendsburg-Eckernförde is actually three times the size of the nation of Singapore.

My commute to school (and to my friends, the cinema or any leisure activity) for nine years spanned between these points. In Singapore, this would mean taking the bus from Vivo City to Sembawang every day. My commute to school in Singapore is indicated by the red line, which in this map would span between two neighboring forests, bypassing only two villages. The funny thing is: getting to school in Singapore takes me as long as it used to in Germany.
On a side note, a few times I cycled to school back then and during the summer I would cycle a quick round equalling a Vivo City-Bugis-Orchard turn every other day for fun.

My orthodontist would have been around Bedok Reservoir, the nearest bus interchange (if you want to call it like that) along the banks of MacRitchie Reservoir, the nearest party locations (both do not deserve the name club) would be in Bukit Timah and Sembawang. Sembawang would generally be the place to go to for specialist doctors and the hospital, the movie theater, nice restaurants, the closest McDonald’s or higher secondary education.

Buses would generally only operate along the line between VivoCity and Sembawang, with diversions from the trunk via Toa Payoh and Little India, and with branches from MacRitchie via Bukit Timah to Jurong and via Queenstown to West Coast Park. Other than that, there would only be a handful of scarcely operated bus services throughout the island.
Rail transportation would be virtually nonexistent. My hometown does have a railway station, but the train would run out all the way into the sea before connecting to the trunk line running through Bedok towards Sembawang.
The only expressways available would be in Tuas and in Tampines/Changi.
The next airport, Hamburg, would be located on the Indonesian island of Batam.

The only similarity: the northwest of the island being deserted wasteland nobody ever goes to.

I hope my urban and especially my Singaporean friends will find this quite interesting and understand why I don’t mind walking the 1.5km to Nex to catch a train, and why I am the only one around who does not consider Serangoon being far from school.
I hope my friends and family back home gained some insight into the dimensions of Singapore, and how densely packed the six million people and x-million opportunities for adventure are packed here.
Actually, the area covered in this map holds less restaurants and venues than the greater Serangoon area, or any quarter of Singapore.

I don’t have A/C at home, and so I always sleep with my window wide open hoping for at least some entropy to go away when the temperature drops a little over night. But last night it was raining. Every once in a while it rains so hard that the sound wakes me up, and the raindrops bounce back from the ground and into my window (which itself is under a little roof.) I moved the slide elements of the window a little to block out the raindrops and continued to sleep to the somewhat soothing sound of heavy rain outside. However, this morning when I stepped out of the shower I was shivering quite a lot.

My digital alarm clock has a thermometer built in, thanks to which I can state precisely and correctly that the temperature in my room never exceeds 29.6°C and never drops below 28.5°C. Of course the unexpected and uncommon sensation of shivering after a shower made me look at my clock immediately, which revealed that the temperature was down to 27.2°C!

What does this mean though? First of all, it means that rain can have a big cooling effect on the air around, which is nothing new. What is further to be taken home from this event is that stepping out of the shower and not shivering is a privilege that should never be taken for granted. But most importantly, the events of this morning reveal that I am turning into a little sissy. I am 99% sure that back at my house in Germany there was never one incident of me coming out of the shower and stepping into air that was warmer than 27.2°C, in fact the days when the temperature exceeds this are rare in the year. Furthermore, back there I always opened the window when showering to let the steam get out (and make the air colder), even in winter when outside temperatures are below zero. I never complained, in fact I never noticed a difference. And now I shiver at 27 degrees. Makes me wonder…