on the issue of loo scholars.

i've heard tales of loo scholars.

you know, the writers of them poems and other sorts of meaningful texts on the back of toilet doors?


i can't help but wonder why our local loos rarely, if ever, have nothing more than telephone number scrawled over them complete with promises of sex. those numbers are ladies' numbers - and if you're in the ladies' and you're writing another woman's phone number onto the door - what makes you think that woman would be called? hello, think of the audience!

so, WHAT scholars? (yeah yeah the possibility of lesbians. even if you're a lesbian - heck, even if you're a MAN - would you call random numbers markered upon some random loo door?)


but i digress. i was wondering about our absence of loo scholars (loo scholars meaning people who write meaningful thought onto random places like pillars and liftwalls, not just loo doors). how do people overseas find it in themselves to write such things and have others respond to it as meaningfully? may not be thoughtful, but it's meaningful. see the difference?

is it the kind of upbringing (an example being kids overseas start prattling like grown-ups when they're four - alright, five - but here, kids that age still babytalk and seem to hardly understand language) we have over here?

is it the culture (asians' seeming stricter adherance to 'children should be seen and not heard')?

is it the educational system (you listen, i talk. information beign fed fed fed and not much need for the little students to talk? maybe those kids don't know what kinda questions to ask, the same way it's hard to ask about something you don't know exists)?


as i recall, a certain someone was telling me about some scrawlings on a pillar near his place - it reads: 'fu_ck you. fill in the blank, what does it say'

and if memory serves me well, that self-same someone was sorely tempted to write in reply: 'i don't know, you tell me!'

what, not even a proper advertisement when the number's already there?

..another encountered chinese poetry in the loo in taiwan. the first line read: 人生自古谁无死。then some smart aleck added, in bright blue ink, 谁能大便不用纸?

which, translated, means ‘man cannot escape death since e dawn of time; none can forego paper for his behind.’


humourous encounters, but see where this goes? are our thoughts mostly veered towards those 'basic' (as in 'base' - vulgar-'base') issues without maybe not deep thought but at least, meaningul thought? heck even the hate-scrawls overseas hold more than 'slut: whatzername, call 1234-5678' - they have correct punctuation and 'for a good time!'

..maybe i'm going about it with a magnifying glass. maybe.


some may argue that our scholars use paper instead of walls - true. but isn't the point really about the general public? correct me if i'm wrong here but isn't it a fair statement to make to say that if you pick two malls here in singapore and two malls somewhere else overseas in the same standards (meaning similar standards in location, crowd and suchlike; to be ah lian about it, is not one two-star against fie-star) - chances are you'd get more meaningful scrawlings overseas than here.

maybe because our cleaners are more conscientious and vandals are more gahment-(fine) fearing - but try telling a tourist that when the messages aren't there but they have to attempt the traditional chinese 'horse stance' to avoid having a ring of ugh on their butts - not that they complain about the lack of vandalism though.

the same way it won't convince the tourist, it won't convince anyone else.


..of course, we're talking possibly-seedy places and not some funky hotel where there are chandeliers and a centerpiece in the main lobby, wherein the toi - lavatories, excuse me - are places where women powder their noses and make small talk in.


heck, since we're talking about people, just pick say, five random people on singaporean streets. how many can and will answer you properly? even the tramp sleeping in parks overseas can offer you a strong opinion instead of smiling and proceeding to say timidly, 'nor sure'. and i'm not talking about solely about the americas. i'm talking global.

so WHAT is it about us, that makes us this way? somewhat more staid, a tad more square, a pinch slower than the rest?


som may say that no, it's not true. the people I know aren't like that. that's right, the crowd that you mix in aren't like that. but what about the crowd that you don't mix in? not meaning to encourage another to be judgemental on appearance but just take a look about you sometimes, and try guessing who will be the hemmers and who can give you some semblance of an answer.

and what do you see?


i know what i saw. heck, i tested it often. i asked for directions and people who seemed to live in the area actually don't know where block 156 is when i'm at 150. not to say that i'm not guilty of that myself, but that's what i'm trying to get at: do we merely confine ourselves in our own little boxes and 'mind our own businesses' and therefore not wonder about, well, stuff?

is that the reason why we hardly know about what happens elsewhere, because we're more focused on the gravel underneath our feet than the flowers on the sidewalk? is that why we are 'slower'? more workers than leaders, because we're used to being led? a 'hawer'?


is it possible that we happen to be on the world's top ten list because we have the good luck of being led by people who are genius and are good at manufacturing their first few generations of kambings (lambs) and are now manufacturing leaders?

or is that why we are able to prosper, for if we were to be a 'thinking' people, we would have rebelled a long time back and we'd be too disparate to ever get to where we are now? because we worked as a team, because there were leaders and there were followers and not forgetting, ironfists and chicken hearts?

(though i find the fowl-heartedness understandable - who wouldn't be, after the wars and invasions?)

so what is it, really? why do we lack in loo scholars? do followers mean non-thinkers?

why do we lack them scholars?