Storewide sale in a narrow store

Far East Plaza is a warren of small fashion shops (and, sadly, fewer bookstores than it was when I arrived in Singapore in 2008).

Whenever I read the signs advertising promotions and discounts, I always laugh because there’s always at least one that says “storewide sale” in front of a narrow little shop.

I’m thinking, “Your store is—what, ten feet wide? So it’s not a very wide sale, is it?”

One could deploy the same pun in the context of discounts offered at “all outlets islandwide”. It’s not a very wide island, in the scheme of things.

Sakura Cuisine’s Saliva Chicken

I posted a photo of this restaurant before because the name seemingly advertised so many kinds of food. They’ve simplified the name—presumably not because they saw my blog post, but who knows?

Now they are promoting a dish they call “Saliva Chicken”.

The Chinese name of the dish is three characters (that’s the traditional one for chicken, not the simplified one):

口水雞
mouth water chicken

Note that there is no sure-fire way to determine how many characters in Chinese correspond to a “word” in English. If you take the first two characters together, they mean “saliva”, because that’s what “mouth water” is.

口水
saliva

The restaurant seems to be offering a chicken dish cooked with saliva (?!), but actually it just wants you to order the chicken dish that makes you salivate. If they’d named it “mouth-watering chicken” in English, the name would have been perfectly unobjectionable.

In my opinion, the problem is not that the Chinese language is hard, or that English is hard, just that translation is hard. All languages assign meanings in arbitrary ways. Why, after all, should we English speakers think that “saliva chicken” sounds gross, but “mouth-watering chicken” sounds delicious? This distinction is not meaningful in Chinese, any more than the distinction between “cow meat” (eew) and “beef” (yum).

Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie

Yep, that’s the name of the famous book. It’s not actually called Peter Pan!

I saw the play at least once long ago, and the Disney movie at least once not so long ago. I was curious to read the book. When I did, several things surprised me.

  • Disney didn’t change the story much; in the book as well as the movie, Nana is a dog, for example, and many other character, setting and plot details line up surprisingly well.
  • The Lost Boys and Peter Pan actually kill pirates. Descriptions of the fights aren’t particularly graphic, but the idea of orphaned children using sharp, deadly weapons on adults—on anyone—is disturbing.
  • The narrator is rather intrusive. Sometimes the effect is humorous, but sometimes it’s just annoying. Children’s books aren’t often written this way anymore.

More on characterization of Peter, Tinker Bell, Mr. and Mrs. Darling, and Hook below.

Continue reading Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie

Signatrer Dishes

Well, the photo is gorgeous, and the restaurant should definitely get credit for correctly pluralizing “dishes”, but that is not how to spell “signature”.

I think the mistake is a phonetic spelling mistake and not a manual typo. The consonant combination “tr” often sounds like “ch” (listen to yourself saying “treasure” or “train”), so I can imagine someone coming up with this by trying to spell what the word sounds like. The “tu” spelling pattern found in words like “nature/natural”, “picture”, and “adventure” is not all that common.

I took this photo outside a restaurant on Mosque Street in Chinatown. I think the restaurant was Chong Qing Grilled Fish. These onions are probably for flavoring the grilled fish.

In one corner of the menu were a bunch of Chinese characters and the English brand “Classical aftertaste”. I think “Classical flavor” was probably more like what they were aiming for. Or “Classic taste”, maybe.

Chinatown Stroll

My husband and I went with his brother and his brother’s wife to The Loft on Smith Street for coffee and to Tiong Bahru Boneless Chicken Rice, also on Smith Street, for lunch. We also strolled around the area a little.

All the stalls are selling red and gold things with a rooster theme, since fairly soon Singapore will be celebrating the start of the Year of the Rooster.

lucky trinkets for sale on Smith Street
This Singapore hawker stall in Chinatown Complex Food Centre was awarded one Michelin star in 2016.
These probably aren’t Chinese New Year decorations. They’re the “double happiness” character used for weddings.
South Bridge Road decorated for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year)

I don’t have any photos of the rooster lanterns on New Bridge Road. The day was a bit rainy!

125 Ways to Make Money with Your Typewriter by David Seltz

The 126th way one can make money with one’s typewriter is, presumably: Write a book about ways one could make money with one’s typewriter.

I bought this book at a rummage sale in part because it was well made and thus physically pleasing: It’s a cloth-bound hardcover (those are rare these days); it’s in good shape for its age; the typography is charmingly old-fashioned. The book was produced in 1939.

I also bought it because I wondered whether the ideas were still relevant more than 70 years later, in an age when there are more personal computers than there ever were typewriters. What’s changed and what hasn’t? See below for examples, as well as when and why I read the book.

Continue reading 125 Ways to Make Money with Your Typewriter by David Seltz

Things that Suck by Jason Kaplan

Things that Suck is utterly charming, from the visual pun on the front cover to the sarcastic marketing text on the back cover. (A starburst on this Andrews McMeel edition, comparing itself to its self-published predecessor, claims: “We guarantee it sucks 20% more than ever!”)

The list of things that suck and the flip-book illustrations (of a mosquito that ultimately gets squashed by a tomato) are printed only the odd-numbered pages, leaving the pages on the left-hand side blank. If the list were alphabetical, it would be boring, but surprising juxtapositions give the content an entertaining ebb and flow. Some of the items are arranged in little groups; some are given in pairs of opposites; some tell a story that goes from bad to worse to terrible; some are meta (self-referential).

Whether you’re a victim of injustice or dandruff, there’s something here you can identify with, and something even worse. Far from being depressing, this book will cheer you up.

When and Why I Read Things that Suck

This is a short book that consists entirely of a mosquito-themed flipbook illustration and a list of life’s large and small annoyances. I saw it cheap at an atrium remainder sale and snapped it up.

Genre: non-fiction (humor)
Date started / date finished:  30-Dec-16 to 30-Dec-16
Length: 160 pages
ISBN: 9780740797606 (paperback)
Originally published in: 2008
Amazon link: Things that Suck

Popular atrium sale at United Square

I bought the 20 books shown above and listed below for S$2 each at a sale hosted by the United Square branch of the Singapore bookstore chain Popular. Two Singapore dollars is a tough price to beat, even for used books in the US! These books were new but remaindered or noticeably shopworn in some cases.

I think the one I was most excited about finding was China in Ten Words, which was on my Amazon wishlist. If I’d bought it new on Amazon, it would have cost what ten of these books cost me.

Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle
I already have an old mass-market paperback but I wanted a trade paperback version.

Find Your Strongest Life by Marcus Buckingham
I wanted a trade paperback version to replace the bulky hardcover I already have.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
I wanted this 50th anniversary edition for the cover. I have lots of different editions with different covers.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
I have already read it, but I didn’t own a copy.

Literary Singapore by The Literary Arts Team of the National Arts Council
As a member of the Singapore Writers’ Group, I wanted to learn more about other Singapore Writers.

Things That Suck by Jason Kaplan
So funny!

10,000 Extraordinary and Puzzling Words by Robert H. Hill
When I saw the word ‘coelacanth’ on the back cover, I had to have it.

We Love Toa Payoh by Urban Sketchers Singapore
I’ve admired these sketchbooks for a while but been unwilling to fork over the full price.

H Plus by Edward de Bono
As stated previously, this guy is a master of the short-but-expensive book, so I grab cheap copies when I can.

China in Ten Words by Yu Hua
I have wanted to read this for a while!

Stylized by Mark Garvey
This is a book about that much praised and maligned touchstone of writing manuals, Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

Tiger Babies Strike Back by Kim Wong Keltner
This book is an answer to Tiger Mother Amy Chua.

A Good Talk by Daniel Menaker
This is a book on an intriguing pop-psychology self-improvement topic.

How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
I have one of their other books.

The One Thing You Need to Know by Marcus Buckingham
This is another strengths-based management book.

The Truth about You by Marcus Buckingham
This is another strengths-based management book.

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn by John C. Maxwell
Learning from mistakes is perhaps not just the best way to learn; maybe it’s really the only way to learn.

Bright Side Up by Amy Spencer
Positive psychology strikes again.

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I have his other books.

Bounce by Matthew Syed
This is an attractive green hardcover about competition, success, the importance of practice, or the myth of talent. Or something. Could be a rehash of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers but with even less science.