This is a true story with some of the details changed/invented. I first met F when she was a little girl in P5. She was my neighbour’s daughter, a cocky, wilful and mischievous child who was always making fun of the other kids at the playground. Her mother worked long hours as an assistant at […]

It has been a little more than 2 weeks since our return from Incredible India. The kids are back in school and still recovering from the harsh assault on all their senses. Even I can’t help feeling that I’m still in India when I walk past a playground here in Punggol. So why India? Quite […]

It’s finally 2019 and as a custom, I’m writing another installment of Looking Back in Wonder. There is always something to say when we bid farewell to one year and usher in a new year. Some will say that time flies and I’ve always thought that people say that when they don’t have anything memorable […]

I was one of those who sympathised with Amos Yee when he was taken to task for “insulting Christians” in that first video that brought him worldwide fame. I was also happy for him when he was granted political asylum in the US. It does not mean that I agree with what he said in […]

Images like this are still captured for advertising purposes, but the ones who are driving the advertising industry nowadays are young ladies who document their spending sprees and share their indulgences on social media. Some have even been granted freebies to say good things about luxury goods and services. Apparently, this sort of hype does […]

The Mughals were originally Central Asians who migrated to northern India where they defeated the Delhi Sultanate in 1526. Once settled in India, they adopted Islam and Persian culture. The kingdom grew into a prosperous and powerful empire when Akbar the Great ascended the throne. India was an open society with inter-marriages occurring between the […]

I’m not sure what they call this in psychology, but if unmet expectations are the biggest cause of disappointment, then exceeded expectation must bring about something close to elation. I first had a taste of this phenomenon on the streets of Kathmandu some 20 years ago. My friend Jason and I were walking down the […]

As someone who doesn’t read newsPAPers, I’m often slow to react to what’s new, trendy and stupid, but thanks to all the sharing from my Facebook friends, some of the juiciest bits do eventually end up in my IN tray. Here’s a letter to the Straits Times written by one Kelvin Hong. While Professor Linda […]

20 December 1954. Chicago, USA. A group of devotees gathered at the home of their prophet, Dorothy Martin. They sang fervently and they waited for the arrival of aliens in a spacecraft that would take them away before 21 December 1954 – when a great flood would drown out everything on earth. Earlier that year, […]