How Papers, Please managed to create more memorable characters than Naruto: Characterisation and its relation to Plot and World Building

I recently completed Lucas Pope's Papers Please, thrice, to unlock all endings, and I'm convinced that it is probably the best game I've played all year. Many have praised the plot, but I think it is the narrative and lore that really makes this game exceptional as compared to cutscene-reliant triple As that are still hopelessly trying to imitate film.

2 weeks after completing it, what surprises me is how memories of the characters still linger, and it is even stranger when anyone who has played the game knows we, the Inspector, sometimes have but a few lines of exchange with these people. The more major characters, Jorji and Sergiu, are probably characters I will never forget despite their design being so plain, and their chracterisation and lines they say supposed to be nothing unique and unmemorable. The many side-plots, the prostitution ring, the couple escaping from war, the child murderer, and Elisa, oh Elisa, are epsiodes that will stay in my mind for a long time, ones that will make me exclaim "Ahhh..." when someone mentions them. What works, I think, is the consistency of characterisation, plot and world building (or lore, in some cases). In Papers, Please there are no backstories, flashbacks, because they will be redundant. Stories are opened to interpretation and imagination but I believe any human with a beating heart will imagine a tale that is grim and hopeless within each character and the plot in its entirety. The aesthetics with its gridded, grey and unpolished sight is intentional to create that impact, the lack of music to simulate the laborious work environment (and this world, in general) in all its dullness and sadness, and that mundane work that punishes you with the gritting sound of the fax machine citation at every mistake are all part of the world building. What the characters say do not have to directly relate to what is happening, but there is a strong consistent in the narrative between the characters and the world when someone tells you, please let me through, they will kill me if I go back to my country, or this man promised me and my sister work, but I think he is trying to sell us as prostitutes.

The manga in this article's title can be One Piece, Bleach, HunterxHunter or any long running manga series for all I care, but I chose Naruto because I hate it the most passionately. The majority of characters in many of these series are very much similar to each other, flat, typical and honestly falling into one "manga-character-trope" or another. That is not to say there are no interesting characters in these mangas, but even they suffer from how the ever expanding world that loses consistency with itself slowly detaches itself from the characters. To mitigate this issue, flashbacks are often used to reattach important characters to the world; but mangas have became overly reliant on this single method in introducing characters and their relation to this world. Sometimes the flashbacks do not even make sense, and other times they are just a dread to read as they drag out stories way too much. In recent One Piece chapters, I resonated with the backstory of Senor Pink and Law because their stories melded well with the circumstances they were placed into, but it was Bellamy, the character that did not have his own dedicated flashback chapter that left the greatest impact because his words and action was not only consistent with the current plot, but also previous plotlines in general and even the story of the main character. He became the anti-hero that Luffy did not become because he followed a different role model. In Naruto I had no idea what was going on from Shippudden onwards and everyone that appeared can be classified into a typical manga character category, and the story kind of got way out of hand to make any sense. Random characters get dropped in to supposedly incite emotions or something but I honestly didn't care because their existence made little sense in that world, they were equally uninteresting, and felt less like characters prepared for the story than last minute ass-pulls.

None of the characters in Papers felt like ass-pulls. If I had one complain, they could have been more often, more mixed around like having prostitutes from other rings pass u their cards later in the game (after the first ring is dissolved) without having any actual subplot relating to these special border-passers. Other than that, all the characters felt genuine and fitted well into the world without needing to say much. Elisa for me was the most surprising character. As the Inspector we were expecting to see her for days after Sergiu passes you the locket, she arrives shortly after without the proper documents to enter Arstotzka, but throughout my three runs I was never able to steel my heart to reject Elisa because of one line of dialogue she said. "Please, my family is dead, I only have Sergiu." I remember reading this line on screen and having to walk away from the computer immediately in attempt to dispel the heavy emotions brought out by this line. In the game we are about a month from the end of a long bitter war between two nations, the premise makes clear the circumstances Elisa was in, and there was no need to explain more. 

What worked in Papers is how world building and characterisation perfectly complemented each other - characters can still be wacky and unique like how Jorji is in the game, but even he made sense in the world that Lucas Pope had set up and helps to strengthen the grim and grey theme holding the plot and world together. Such a world makes even the plainest of stock characters, the everyday person holding a forged document, feel understandable, believable and sometimes even relateable It is certainly not a lively world, but it certainly feels more alive than the Narutos out there.

I have an endless list of praises for Papers, Please I hope to post on this blog one day, but it will have to take time; the list is simply too long. 

Valiant Effort: The Great Failure - A Review of Valiant Hearts: The Great War

I try go into every game with the exact same attitude, I will try my hardest to love the game, but at the same time not get blinded by the obvious flaws that impedes the experience. A few years back I forced myself through a school term of work knowing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity was at the end waiting for me during the holidays. I had every reason to love the game, I love Pokemon, loved every Mystery Dungeon up till that point, and that game was the pillar of inspiration I held onto the entire term. I lied to myself for a good 3 days that I was enjoying what the game was putting out for me, but after those 3 days I broke and stopped playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon ever since. From that day onward I refused to get hyped for any game, and I feel that skepticism is well justified considering how disappointing many titles I looked forward to failed so terribly in recent years.

So on came Valiant Hearts: The Great War. I was quite excited to play it, and for the first 4 hours all so I honestly quite enjoyed it. But when the puzzles started repeating themselves, all the problems started becoming obvious to me.

This game is terribly dull - not a single puzzle can be considered fun and some like the button QTEs are overly simplistic and annoying. The puzzles are very, very brainless, consisting of mostly QTEs, fetch quests, and reaction puzzles. Any puzzle you are unable to solve is probably due to bad game design; for instance, there was one puzzle in Chapter 3 where you needed to create a diamond shaped object, I handed in a square and was denied, and only the diamond is accepted. The characters' individual 'powers' make little sense, because apparently only the old grandpa with the big ladle can dig through mud but the muscular soldier cannot pick up a shovel and do the same, or why does one character has a pair of pliers that never breaks while all the others can only pick up one use pliers to force the problems unto the player instead of presenting interesting puzzles. This necessity for detailed solutions shows how lack of attention to details game designers gave it. Thankfully the game is very forgiving with checkpoints, and frequent deaths due to unfair situations can be forgiven. Simple and forgiving however, makes a good game for children. 

As a student of history myself, the factoids and trivia is interesting to look at, but honestly does little to the story but you can argue it is there to sell the anti-war message. It gets a little annoying when the aesthetic choices used for the game and the 'facts' section are different, but overall the choice of style is much appreciated. The music is mostly spot on, but when an upbeat tune plays when I'm the Frenchman bombing the Germans I'm not really sure whether I'm getting the anti-war message or not. With remixed classical tunes and some well composed new tracks, I have to say I am a fan of the music in this game.  

The characters are likeable, they have some nice backstories and developments throughout the game but there is nothing exceptional and memorable about any of them. Sometimes the use of French, English, German and Belgian in certain situations between certain characters makes sense, but sometimes they don't. And it will make you wondering why two particular characters are not communicating in French instead of English considering the setting. The Diaries section is an interesting addition, but I would have liked to have more entries for more interesting character development. They are mostly there to summarised what happened, in case you put down the game too long and forgot - I think they would have served greater purposes in storytelling if better implemented. I can't comment much about voice acting, but I really liked how Emile's lines were delivered.

The collectibles contribute absolutely nothing to the story, and I feel they are just added to pretend that there is a replay element when there really is not. If you need a game that has a lot of padding to distract your children, tell them they have to collect all the collectibles and remember some of the factoids to get a present. Sometimes, these trinkets you collect are immersion breaking too - why would you bend down and collect a small trinket amidst gunfire, or running to save someone crying for help? For a 'completionist' run one would have to ignore all logic in situation and try to search for places that these meaningless items are hidden, why such an option is added is puzzling. All it is, I think, is useless padding to make the game seem longer.

The story, love it or hate it, is completely devastated by poor game design. Emotions sessions are padded with boring puzzles that breaks up continuity, and doing the same old chores simply makes one feel frustrated, but not frustrated in the way the story wants you to feel. Bugs and the distraction of collectibles aside, the lack of attention to scenes, characters and puzzle design is especially disruptive to immersion because that makes up the bulk of the game. There is a part where your character is supposed to pick up the pliers from the floor at the midst of battle, if you press the action button but miss the sweet-spot you have to stand on to prompt the action, your character will scratch his chin and think - all in the midst of heavy gunfire - like he does during other puzzling moments. Why was this overlooked? How could this have been overlooked? This constant immersion breaking experience is probably the worst sin this game has committed. I tried killing the dog, throwing grenade at people, but the world seems to ignore it and never had I gotten a gameover screen other than getting the character you control killed. You can't kill anything in this game. Drive the tank in chapter 3 and do the logical thing and fire the cannon at the German soldiers - guess what - nothing happens. Good games send anti-war messages by forcing the player to make painful decisions that would not have been necessary if it was not because of war, and make players regret the decisions they make, make them feel pain for the people they killed and the buildings they destroyed. Turning everyone invincible to the devastating elements of war and battle, or making the characters unable to pick up weapons and gun down enemies to save their own lives when it makes perfect sense to do so, is not the way to deliver the message.

The narrative in this game is so atrocious that the game feels like an afterthought than an integral part of the plot. It seems like the developers were thinking, how do we make this game an arbitrary length long so that it can justify the price tag, instead of thinking of how the game-play can help to complement the story. There is so much wrong with the narrative that I don't think the game should have been made in the first place. It was a very disturbing experience for me, but probably not in the way the developers wanted. I wrote this review concurrently while playing the game, not because I wanted to write a review, but I felt the need for a rant every time the game breaks me out of the immersion. As for the story, I think it is good, the message is good, but it is honestly nothing exceptional and I would have rewritten some parts of the ending just to knit together some game-play elements and the story to better create that devastating sensation felt from the quote uttered at the end "War makes men mad". The game has a message, but it is as though the developers did not understand that message themselves at all. Chapter 4 is probably the best chapter, but the whole game could have been condensed into a much shorter experience to make Chapter 4 feel more impactful - because a bored man can't feel any other emotions, he just feels bored.

I applaud the team for trying to do a non-FPS war game, but as the game stands now it should have just been at most a graphic novel and not a stealth-puzzle game. The puzzle style can work, because there are parts where the interactive elements of the game actually contributes to the narrative, such as the final battle in Chapter 4. Having a good plot is important, but having little to no game-play elements to support that plot almost makes this title a non-game. The experience feels toned down and censored, prepared for mass consumption but cannot be considered a breakthrough because of the extremely poor narrative. Valiant effort, but still not enough effort. 

FFXIV and the changing nature of summons

I have not played this game, largely because it is not out yet. Currently writing a review on Minecraft: Story Mode and I think I should totally turn this " I have not played this game" into a seried on this blog.

So on to Final Fantasy 15 and the Ramuh summon that was revealed earlier this year. As a fan of jrpgs I played many of the classics, like the old FFs and the Tales series, with Golden Sun 1 and 2 being the ones closest to heart. Many of these games lets the players' character summon gods and beasts from various mythologies as their most powerful attacks to deal good damage, and the Golden Sun series' djinn setting and summon system makes it very unique within the sea of jrpgs. But here is the issue I have, these summons don't seem to FEEL powerful. Yes the summons do destroy the sun and earth and solar system in the process of the summoning animation (You know what I am talking about), but in the end the damage shown done by these powerful summons is merely represented by damage on the opposing player. FF15's open world style and way superior graphical fidelity, I feel, has allowed it to let summons mean something. Here are a few things that I think it did right:

Firstly, the use of contrast. Noctis being picked up by Ramuh during the summon shows to us the size of the summoned creature. I remember Ramuh being just a tiny old man when playing FF4 and for whatever damage he does the summon itself doesn't feel powerful. The contrast between the epic summon music and the quiet atmosphere during the summon charging time gives one the sensation that shit is going down when Ramuh appears on the field. Golden Sun does have specific summon animation, but the same tune playing just makes the summon a part of the battle that is nothing special, instead of the "Man invoking the power of Gods" sensation FF15 gave.

Secondly, the use of space and more specifically environmental destruction. In a classic rpg style summons can't really do much to show impact because of the nature of battles, and most of the time when a summon destroys the world and yet your character is still standing there simply breaks the immersion than making it feel epic. In FF15 nearby trees are burnt and the game environment in such an open world setting allows for such an implementation. They need to work a way out on how the summons don't hurt the teammates not picked up by the summons, though.

Now a caveat to this is the reasonable assumption that one will get bored of long summon animations after a few watch. And the way to mitigate this is to switch off animations, but I suspect this game has another trick up its sleeves. And that will be item number three, the use of conditions. Noctis seems really injured before being able to perform the summon, so it may be that summons can only be invoked when certain conditions are met, such as being of low health, or can only be used once per a certain period of time. Firstly this resolves an old problem I have with summons in the old games, how spending 10mp gives you small ball of fire and maybe 50mp gives you the roaring God of Thunder bringer of storm and destruction. The God of Thunder feels nothing more than 5 fireballs, and probably took up that much sprite space on the screen too. Making it hard to call upon summons allows them to feel special, and justifies the use of over the top music, animations, and dealing way too much damage to the opponent and the environment. Making them not so much a part of core gameplay mitigates the problem of seeing them too frequently, and perhaps it can be a thing to fight with normal spells and finish off with a chain of summons (it will be cool if one can use multiple summons and have them animated at the same time too!). Dedicating a specific summoner in the party in the Tales and FF game does help, but when they are just dealing the same damage as other characters are it diminishes the power of the summons so much they become pointless and boring. Summoning, if FF15 manages to pull this off, becomes something that is special again. 

If any other game has already done this, then good for them. I'm simply excited for FF15 and maybe I'll buy a console just for it. 

Beauty and Gym

When I'm not lying around being fat, I go to the gym. The trip is enjoyable, less physically and more mentally. That's because the gym is a microsm of our modern society in its own - it has its beauty and ugliness that is unique within this enclosed space.

On one hand, there is the beauty, the aesthetically pleasing to the eye, or working hard to become healthier. On the other, there is the mindless pursuit of constructed masculinity, pretence beauty, and our topic today, irresponsibility.

Anyone who has been to the gym woulf have seen these strange creatures that have somehow disguised themselves as humans. The 'Octopus', who requires 8 dumbbells at every moment to work their two arms. The 'Groaner', who squeals in pain like animals in heat or make sex noises while pressing the lightest of weights. The 'Narcissist', who only uses one equipment in the gym - the mirror. The 'Friends', who is here to sit on benches and chit-chat with friends. The list is by no means exhaustive and can go on. There is one I hate the most, and I encountered one today, who is the creature whom I have no fancy name for, but is unique in the way they do not put back the mobile equiments, such as mats, dumbbells and weights after using them.

I used to wonder why they don't try to make the lives of others easier by simply returning those equiments to the rack after using. Today I realised why. It is because these creatures are weak, both physically and mentally, compared to normal humans. Whether it is the need to take 4 sets of dumbbell or hoard the weights to reduce the hassle to change them, or needing to let out noises of pain, or needing the self assurance that one's exercise is making progress, it is a sign of weakness. In the end, you are only as strong as the weights you bother to put back, because there is nothing heavier in this world than responsibility.

Why One Piece's ending will be not as epic as it should have been

I adore One Piece. Granted the anime (done by Toei) is a load of crap that is made for the sake of milking as many episodes out of the franchise as possible, the manga is aesthetically superior to many other long series out there and the story is still mostly interesting, mostly. I've read a few older, completed mangas series recently, and I'm starting to understand why some work, and some don't. HunterXHunter was a load of filler crap by its end, and of course it is technically uncompleted, but unlike Tokyo Ghoul that was screaming for continuation it seem to be on infinite hiatus. Gantz started terribly, but in the end it told an interesting and insane love story that I quite enjoyed, hidden beneath a main plot about an evolving hero whose devlopment became nonsensical after the 'train scene' in the middle. It should have stopped there. I finally read Shaman King's extended ending which gave it rather acceptable closure, just to have that spoiled by the axed Shaman King: Flowers (I guess we have to wait for that to continue too). But no closure from these came as close to what we got from my favourite manga of all time, Konjinki no Gash (or known as Zatchbell in English, which had a terrible and incomplete anime, I should probably study and see how they screwed up such good source material next time).

So that's the problem we need to discuss today - closure. It is not uncommon when mangakas start a story with a certain ending in mind, but sometimes are forced to continue drawing because of the series' popularity. Like the rumour with Bleach of course. *Spoilers for One Piece will follow* The main story of One Piece is about the empty 100 years, and why Robin's home was devastated in the first place; and I guess we more or less deduced Roger's one piece is relating to that. This theme about lost history and the government hiding information, altering public memory would have been an interesting trope 15 years ago when One Piece just started, but by now it just feels so overused. This is the same problem I have with Shingeki no Kyojin; using this trope will require that final exposition, that much-awaited revelation to be epic and worth all our time, if not it will just be another of those series again. I have no doubt of Oda's ability to tell stories, and part of whether a story is good or not depends on how it is being told, but for me this trope's excitement factor had ran dry long ago, with movies, games and mangas incorporating it continuously.

Oda does continue to deliver from time to time, such as the recent telling of Corozan's story, and Bellamy's development. But these moments seem too sparse in between boring narratives that exist purely for filler sake to thin out a story that had been tight for the pre-New World arcs but are starting to fall apart post-New World. Perhaps it is in reaction to us expecting the rest of the story to be as long as the pre-New World arc, since this marks half way on the Grandline, but what Oda seems to be doing is raising the expectation and hype for the end plot so much and leading onto an idea that would have been better if it was used 5 years ago. The entirety of Dressrosa, especially, has been so dragged out and even fails to link back to the main plot like the end of Fisherman Island, where Shirahoshi is revealed to be Poseidon, and that leads to my second problem - I sometimes feel I've stopped caring about that main plot already. It is not helping that One Piece goes on hiatus every other week this year.

To keep it short (unlike One Piece), I think the problem lies with how long the entire project and enterprise has grown over the years. If you need a literal comparison, I think many will agree that How I Met Your Mother would have been perfect if it ended in Season 8, or even Season 1. The length of HIMYM and One Piece distorts the experience and destroyed any possible sensation one would have felt if the story was better paced. In HIMYM I will agree to a small extent it is reasonable due to the main character's characterisation - but we can all agree that some of the seasons were just there to milk the franchise. In Bravely Default I just got so bored that I didn't even bother, the idea was great, the frustration is real, but the presentation was bad causing the experience to be terrible. Let's hope One Piece surprises.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

I have not played this game. But by the looks of it, it looks ridiculously good. And this is not coming from a gameplay or technical perspective - since technically I have not even played it - but the theme, the sensation and the concept of it is simply ingenious. It is no secret I am a fan of structures and symbolism, and here are some thoughts that came to mind when I watched reviews and let's play footage of the game. 

There is not much plot to spoil here, but anyway the basic idea is that this is a co-operative game where you will need someone to play with you. The two of you pilot a spaceship through space, rescuing bunnies, while fighting off anti-love aliens, avoiding obstacles and exploring the uncharted universe; that's about it. The magnificence of the game comes within the concept. 

From what I can see, there are essentially three things the two players have to do: Attack (By firing cannons or the special weapon), Defend (By rotating the shield to block off enemy attacks), and Move (with the ship's booster). What this means is that players are no longer independent of each other, and more importantly players cannot stay at the same posts as there are only two pair of hands for three jobs. Coordinating your path through the loveless spacetime requires real coordination between players in real life - one piloting and the other defending, and when facing a horde of enemy to booster and run while shielding, or back to one corner, throw up the shield and have both players fire the guns. The anxiety and excitement generated from these three tasks, I feel, can only be experienced when you play the game. Which I really should, but this brings me to a next problem.

The theme here is 'lovers'. The game currently does not have a online multi-player mode, and game reviewers have cited this as one of its greatest weakness. For me, as much as I agree having the online mode turns this into a better game, it downplays the theme of 'lovers' - the idea of having two person sitting on the same couch, talking to each other face to face and not through headphones, and going through a series of dangers together. What's more, the threat here is Anti-Love, and this is essentially two person journey to find the path of love together - this is not a game to play with a friend, your brother and especially not some random person online. The current state of the game, I feel, places the game right where it should be. 

And as I watched my second video on gameplay footage, I felt a sense of tingling... loneliness. The longing for such a partner to play this. It is kind of like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - but that of course is about a relationship between brothers, or your left and right hand. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a co-op game that calls for lovers - to undertake this journey together against whatever that is stopping you from bringing Love to the entire universe. And on this journey, there will be quarrels, there will be moments you fume up as your partner fails to support you in the way you want them to, there will be disagreements on where to head to next, or what to do together, or who to play what roles. But like love, there will be joy, moments of dancing together to celebrate a mission well done, moments where you are thankful that you are not on this journey alone, and moments where, you think, you realise that this person beside you may just be the right one, to travel to the edges of space and the ends of time.

I haven't felt so much doubt about singlehood ever since I watched Her by Spike Jonze. The feeling that something is missing, after seeing such a perfect game yet not have someone right to play it with - it just feels like I'm looking at a loving couple at the altar, burning with envy and wondering why can't I have a life like that. What this shows, I guess, is that Games, truly can be and should be considered Art forms, especially something like this - and most importantly, an Art that is not like films or dramas. A game shouldn't need long cutscenes and plots filled with twists to pretend it is a movie or anything. Instead, I think a Game can only be considered Art when the interactive, the 'playing' of the game, is invoked, It makes the player not only immersed in the experience but also involved in how the game is played out. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is truly a stroke of genius, a work of Art. I hope the studio continues to make such games in the future.

Post GE2015 thoughts on snobbishness and freedom of speech

As with all my writings I'll start off with this disclaimer: This is not a complete analysis, because it is especially impossible the shorter essays go, but I'll try to say as much as possible.

I have lost a lot of sleep over the past few days, mainly trying to juggle work and political enthusiasm over the 2015 Singapore General Elections. I go to rallies, read stuff online, and made fun of people who were simply making baseless criticisms that were completely lacking in self-awareness. As the elections draw to a close with PAP winning an almost 70% majority - the hardcore opposition supporters are making themselves look like heroes of a new world that was supposed to come, but was hindered by the still dormant and un-awakened 60% joined by another 10% of traitors and defectors. All over my facebook wall are these people of this lot chiding at Singaporeans who voted for the PAP, how they better not complain about problems in the next 5 years, how they only did so because they were drawn in to the lies of a freak election, how the PAP's dominance of the mainstream media helped to stop these people from leaving their opiate fantasy.

Many a time the political candidates are complete fools, and in this round we had people like Cheo Chai Chen, Lawrence Wong, and that pathetic son of JBJ... but I think most of the time the fans make them out to be worse people than they are (or they really are). These people, who also happen to be the vocal majority (on the social media platforms I am exposed to at least), are fashioning themselves as a bunch of snobs who think they know of that better world with their 'democracy', and 'freedom of speech' and whatnot. The 70% to them, are people who cannot accept their opinionated ideals and therefore should be criticised.

There are a two things I want to discuss here. Firstly, the idea of snobbishness and elitism. Elitism, to me, is a feeling of superiority that is for the most of it baseless because it is based on the claim that you are intellectually and mentally superior to another, for your supposed wit and erudition above all because of a paper degree, or you simply are because you can see things better or something. For instance, you are student of the pseudo-sciences and you can analyse things with your pseudological imagination, or you are the supporter of an opposition to a party that has been in power for 55 years and therefore that makes you the hero of the democratic dawn of some sort. Elitism plunges into pure snobbishness when people in these elite circles refuse to explain why they are better, or are unable to explain, because their stance was never based in logic nor reason. Some of these people have never read a word of policy recommendation from the parties they support, and join the fray because they are unhappy their selfish needs cannot be fulfilled by the establishment. Leaving the debate on first past the post aside for now, and assuming democracy is the most system that we all trust in, is democracy not about the mandate of the majority? If the majority does not vote in a way that you desire, I think it is more reasonable to question who is the lot who is deluded here, the people who sided with 70% of the population, or those who sided with the 30%? If all you are saying is that you are more awakened and more knowledgeable than the potatoes that sided with the PAP, is that not the elitism that you chided PAP candidates and supporters for? If you accept democracy, then please also accept that your opinion is simply not shared with many, many out there, including me. We can have an endless debate on who is more deluded, with theories and history and pretty words till the cows come home and no conclusion can be drawn unless one of us starts beating the other up, because there simply isn't a better opinion. Democracy is not a system that elects the better opinion, but only the thoughts of the more, or to use that recently dirtified word, the opinions that are popular.

Secondly, the idea of democracy and freedom. This is where I flash out my elitist side - I will not go in length to discuss why I think these ideas are relative and should not be enshrined as some natural and moral good - because you should really be reading more, and other people would have explained this point better than me. I will just like to throw in a few questions in relation to this context. Does letting the Worker's Party take all 20 seats they contested in in Parliament mean democracy? Are there no problems with other two-party systems in other 'democracies'? Is Singapore the only country using the first past the post voting system? And in general, what is this, Democracy? The point that is less discussed and meditated upon is the idea of 'freedom of speech'. I will argue that we absolutely have freedom of speech by my understanding of the term - and this is not about Hong Lim Park, but about Low Thia Khiang and the WP's debate with PAP members in Parliament (and amongst the PAP MPs also), this is about the Internet, EDMW, HWZ where people can throw distasteful comments at Mdm Halimah Yacob after her mother passed away yesterday, and still get away with it. This is about all the more opened discussions we have seen in post-LKY Singapore for the past 4 years - not national conversation but the discussions on different pro- or anti- establishment websites, MPs and statesmen's social media pages, news sites and forums. You can argue that the Amos Yee issue is a case where freedom of speech was suppressed, but although I would agree that the punishment was rather uncalled for, whether hate speeches are a good thing is high debatable, and frankly speaking I don't think the government was doing this oppress freedom of speech considering the backlash from the general public afterwards. People are allowed to overreact over the death of LKY by spouting lies about how Singapore was a fishing village in 1965, and people are allowed to overreact over the case of Amos Yee by claiming that the government was containing free speech over his capture, that's freedom of speech. People can act like snobs and claim the PAP is deluding the masses, and not be hunted down like poor Marx was over his Manifesto, that's freedom of speech. Where debates are allowed to exist, freedom of speech exists - and you are allowed to disagree and debate with me on that.

My recommendation for all this is really to start your meditation with the idea of democracy and governance, and not start by assuming that majority votes are good thing. If you wish to talk about how our system of democracy is not good, and should be fashioned after another system existing somewhere else in the world or in some theory, we can have that debate but I am quite sure I will win that too. But we should still have that debate, we should always have debates.

Laments: Authority over Memory

This is a scrapped section of an essay on an Autobiography that I felt was pretty interesting, posting it here so that I know where to find it if it becomes useful again. FYI: The book is Sold for Silver by Janet Lim. Maybe I'll post it here if it turns out as an acceptable read.

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Who are we to judge whether a piece of writing is authentic or not? Who are we to judge whether the author is lying or not? Who are we to say whether the author is writing with specific intentions or not? And to that I answer, why not? 

When a piece of writing calls itself an autobiography, memoir, reflections, it becomes impossible (unless if one is a mind reader) for an outsider to grapple with the ‘truthfulness’ of the information conveyed – memory has a special kind of authority that is hard to topple because memory is personal and inaccessible without first being filtered through the mind of the person who holds those memories. Memory grants the autobiographer or memorist almost absolute power over the reader and it intimidates us into not judging – because we are unable to create an equally authentic alternative, due to the fact that we did not physically live in the world the author has reconstructed.

I will like to present two counterpoints to rethink that position. Firstly, memory is imperfect. Memory can be altered, fragmented or lost through traumatic experiences or simply due to aging. When one tries to reconstruct a coherent picture from incomplete memory of a lost time, he takes the fragments and clues left within the memory to piece out a complete picture that at least makes sense to him. Secondly, people can lie and more importantly not lying is not the same as telling the truth. As authentic an account may be, the author may choose to communicate to us only part of the memory and conceal other parts, again consciously or unconsciously – there is a high chance that the eventual portion of the memory being conveyed to us through the text is incomplete and far from a certain ‘truth’ that gives the person holding those memories the authority over outsiders in the first place.  

Changing nature of Prostitution in Geylang

Keywords: Power relations, control, organisation, social backlash, shifting patterns, negotiations

Practical tools to clamp down on freelancers - use of security cameras at every corner, brighter lightings (?) to shy away illegal freelancers. Symbols of the state's power to observe and control? Foucault?

Clandestine prostitutes forced into bars, karaoke lounges, or under the control of a pimp to continue to sell. Turning prostitution into an organised activity that is easier to monitor and control.

New third party (bar owners, karaoke owners, new pimps) now involved between this once solo-operational freelancers to use as point of contact/ control. Also a figurehead to blame if issurs pertaining eg. moral, std, pop up.

Does this prove my previous point that the state is not inherently concerned with social issues, but more of social backlashes from people? Populism sentiments rising within the party-state?

What is the relationship between the state/police and these third party figureheads? Wary frienemies? Marriages of convenience?

What can we read about the state? Power seeping into every crook and nanny of society - confining a vice to a small area and impose newer ways to futher control it.

Double whammy of vice control in same time period? Anti-prostitution + anti-alcohol. Common area of confinememt also?

On the economic side - how will this affect Geylang's economy? More businesses at bars, karaokes and legal brothels going into accountable GDP? Or banning reducing the general crowd to geylang (together with alcohol ban).

Who does this benefit? If this diverts business to organised prostitution (both legal, illegal; and both direct and indirect), the people with the economic and social capability to control such organisations will definitely benefit. Secret societies rising in power? Why? Through negotiation of power with the state? How is the police/ state involved in all this? (Not implying corruption, simply negotiation and changing power relations).

[I don't have time to write these into proper arguments now. Will do so when I am free.]

Two stories of Bangladeshi workers while walking home from Fajar

These are recounts from my Junior College days (the context is pretty important here, at least for one story), and they both involve foreign workers whom I am quite sure are from Bangladesh. I apologise if I got that wrong, but this is really a post about foreign workers in general.

The first story is a funny one, and this is where the context comes into play. My school uniform was a grey top and dark blue pants, pretty darn ugly if you ask me, and us in school always mocked it as a uniform for ‘factory workers’. My school, famous for students’ capability in ‘mugging’ – memorisation and regurgitation of textual knowledge – so the factory uniform is actually quite symbolic of who we are and how we are perceived in society (Think Lego Movie). Perhaps we are who we look like, just cogs in this grand scheme of things and there is no such thing as individualism and personal achievement. And it came this faithful day, I walked home from Fajar LRT station. This particular Bangladeshi worker walking in front of me… was wearing a grey top and dark blue jeans. I looked at him, and looked at me: THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

There he was, on his 6 year contract to do nothing but serve a foreign nation and help build their nation; this is one who is most definitely nothing more than a cog, but does that bother him? I doubt it. To be willing to leave his homeland and work abroad to build someone else’s nation, means there is a greater drive behind him than seeking individualism. Maybe individualism should not be a thing at all. Maybe individualism is not a means to an end. In my field I study prostitutes; and many of them willingly sell their bodies in hope of saving enough money to start their own businesses (not always in the same field). Maybe the sacrifice of oneself’s individuality in the present is for greater pleasures in the future – it is not wrong to hope after all; maybe individualism has to be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’ of the society (read my views in posts that discuss Unicorndia); but what we should all agree that the form of individualism we believe in needs to be modified to suit realistic standards.

Being individualistic does not mean you should do what you want. I’ll develop this in another post, but the general idea is that we should do what we want, as long as we remain courteous to one another. This is an ambiguous word, and I’ll try my best to define it when I write that post. The point here is that regardless of whether we like it or not, we are all cogs of the grand mechanism of society, of history, and we are all in service of one another. Offend the fellow who picks up your customer service call, tomorrow he may be your customer on your cab or your restaurant.

It was really a strange sight with the Bangladeshi worker, but it made me realise, if only a little, what I mean to this society, this time in history… I don’t mean anything as of now, and if I really want to be one of the greats I need to find something else to drive me than grades and academic achievement, unless I wanted to stay in the academia that is. I went on to pursue a dream to become an Academic, and at this point in time that dream just died, and that’s the reason why I felt it is time to pen this story down. I am finally ready to strip naked of all my past glories and move on to new projects in search of myself again, I don’t know where this will lead to, but mystery is part of the journey too, I guess.

And on the foreign worker himself, it also made me realise how similar we are, we are both working for the sake of an unknown future, we both understand that we are nothing but gears in the grand scheme of things, and we are not doing what we are doing to claim we are contributing to the nation building of this nation. We are all selfish cogs in this pretentious society. We are both working for our own individualistic benefits, and if it just so happens to aid nation building, so be it. It does not matter. So who are we to act high and mighty in front of these people? I am glad to say that our society as a whole has learnt to deal more kindly with these people, at least in public places, and there is often public outrage if we see displays of discrimination against foreign workers. This is a big step for the Generation Revolution. 

The second story is a rather depressing one. This was the time when Fajar was getting an overhead shelter; not surprisingly, it was being built by foreign workers, where the majority are from Bangladesh. So one day, it rained, rather heavily. The shelter was not quite done, so I walked home with my umbrella. In the distance, I saw 3 of these Bangladeshi workers trying to get shelter under a metal board. Then it struck me: “These people are building shelters for us, but who is sheltering them?”

We have all heard those horror stories about how employers exploit these people, delaying their pays, making them pay for CPF contributions of shadow workers; in a perfect world, in Unicorndia, these cruelties will not exist. Similarly to the previous post, this will not be a problem if we learnt how to deal more kindly with one another, be individualistic and selfish and yet know how to extend basic courtesy to each and every other being in the society. We need to stop donning those labels, I don’t want to be seen as a local Chinese middle income student youth, these labels are not important for our social interaction. It is important to acknowledge differences and diversifications, but it is exceedingly detrimental to base our actions and behaviour towards one another according to these differences. Why can’t we just treat each other like human beings? This is something that happened almost 10 years back, again, I am sure if they took shelter under the flats these days the residents should be ok with it now. Shame on those who lodge complains on foreign workers just because they are just trying to say, get away from the rain, or get some rest at the void deck benches.

I’m not a person with much empathy. However, it saddens me to see human beings causing harm to other human beings when they do not have to. Perhaps it is just because I am young and have not seen enough cruelties of life, to be so ignorant and hopeful that we can arrive at an utopia where people love and assist each other. But so what if the world is fucked up? Is there really no way to change how this cruel world is? Why must we conform to these world’s laws and not resent them. If we compare the nation’s situation now to a decade ago, I’d say at least for the visible parts of society, people have changed for the better. Maybe this is my optimistic observation, maybe I am deluding myself, but if the situation is as I have observed, maybe we have already kicked start a series of change for Bangladeshi workers to be seen as equals in the far future.