Nyotaimori: eating sushi on a naked woman?

The recent controversy over a dinner organized by the Secret Cooks Club seems overwhelming..

Acording to Wikipedia, this is sometimes practice as a art, whereby a woman is usually laid on the table (usually naked) and food is served from it.

Okie, promoters of this activity deem it as nothing more than a art, where like-minder dinners can come together to have a unique dinning experience.

However, opposers of this activity see it as demeaning to woman, because it probably project the woman (in this case, as an object i.e a serving tray).

Personally, this is not something I would try (either as the server or a dinner) and eating sushi (delicious ones) off a normal plate in the company of good friends and family seems more enticing to me. In fact, I would think that it be awakward plus a tab too hygiene to even think of eating it off someone elses' body!

Competitive streak?

I read Sumiko Tan's article today saying that she is not competitive by nature and I feel like her too. Mostly, I do not have a competitive streak in me although I always seek to do things to the best of my ability.

Is it right or wrong to lack a competitive streak? Well, I think that there is not answer here because everyone is different.

Sportsman and woman plays games to win, no doubt about is as winning is ultimately the goal in all competitive sports and who will take part just to be second best? Perhaps for this group of people, winning spurs them on to greater heights of success.

However, for those of us who lack this competitive streak, we may not be worse off. Personally, I do not mind lossing to anyone....because so long as I have done my best, I will be at peace with myself.

Appaling caretaking service

I was appalled, shocked and flabbergasted by the recent news of an ederly being mistreat in a nursing home by its staff.

The old woman was left naked (for abt 30 mins) and thereafter was being thrown onto the bed like a "thing" that someone can just throw around. After that, she was beaten on the mouth (presumably because she has made some noise?

I think the authority needs to met out a stiffer sentence to the nursing home as well as the staff who has committed such atrocities. As Singapore aged population increased, we are often face with a dilemma of how to take care of the elderly while maintaining the pressure of working hard to earn a living. For those who opt to send their parents to a nursing home, I'm sure that they would wish for someone to take care of the elderly professionally in a humane way. It sadden me to hear of this case and I wondered if more cases are left unreported...

Divorce and the attractive woman

It seems to me an irelevant question to ask if the woman (in a divorce case) is more attraction, has better character in taking into account the amount of monthly maintenance or lump sum maintenance that she may be taking.

Although character and physical appearances are important, but shouldn't the maintenance amount be determined more on the time the couple had used to spent together, the effort taken to look after the household etc etc...rather than based on the assumption if one is more attractive or has better character (therefore, better chance of remarry?)

One in a million?

I use to think that it hard to be a millionaire....like its really one in a million type.

Wow...when I read that 15.5% of the households or 170,000 people in Singapore has more than US1 million, it bought to mind the fact that indeed, the rich in Singapore seems to be getting richer and hence, the income gap is widening more so in Singapore than in any other place in the world.

Saddly, I wonder what it would take and how long it would take the average Singaporeans to achieve that goal.

On another note, we probably need at least a million to retire on with rising inflation etc but sad to say, probably the 84.5% of us would not be able to retire comfortably. And the end result? Working endlessly to reach the minimum sum in our CPF ( a chunk of it is in our housing loan)...
and hoping that the minimum sum does not increase so much that we lose sight of the time it will take to reach.

In addition, it is always important that we have our own saving & investment and hopefully, keep our fingers cross that when we reach our retirement, we can still be able to manage a decent standard of living.

Crystal Mark

Was pleasantly happy to see that OCBC has managed to clich a "Crystal" mark for its effort in transforming "Bank-English" to "Plain-English" text for its customers.

Everytime, whenever I read technical jargons which put people off reading letters that they received from financial institution, I cringed as so much more can be done to simplfy the words used. Thus, I applaud OCBC's latest effort and hope that more financial insitutions will follow suit.

Home alone in Singapore

The Straits times reported that about 6 elderly die alone every month (ST, 30 May 2011). When I read the article, I wondered how the statistics will increased as the aged population increase and what can we do more for these old folks who may or may not have family but are left alone in their old age. Apparently, after their death, some are left in the morturary for about three weeks if no one turns up to claim them and give them a decent funneral. Some are said to be used for further medical advancement?

What a sad story...couldn't much more be done to contact these old folks when they are alive and ask how they would like to be treated after death? Social workers or even volunteers via community outreach could do more for them, I sincerely hope so before the number increase drastically.

Everyone should be treated with dignity, whether alive or dead.