Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

Last week, almost every taxi driver I met asked me where I placed my money. Spain or Holland? Just to keep the conversation going, I told them i placed my money on Holland. Almost every one of them agreed with me. That’s where they placed their money. I didn’t tell them that not only did i not place a single peanut … oops, I mean cent betting on World Cup results, I didn’t even watch a single match of the World Cup. It doesn’t take too much to guess how I know which teams were in the final. Everyone was talking about it and it’s impossible not to know.

The results are out. Those taxi uncles must be driving really hard to recoup their losses now. Almost everyone I know bet on Holland winning the World Cup. Why? I have no idea as I still haven’t figured out what the game is all about. I’m sure these guys came to a rational decision after comparing the relative strengths of the two teams. Using the same principles, our local experts predicted that Germany would win the World Cup not so long ago. As usual, they were wrong. And some people really deserve it for listening to the experts.

I’m not sure if Paul the octopus watched the World Cup, but this slimy creature predicted that Spain would win and it did. Nobody would consider Paul an expert on the game and when it comes to soccer bets, people still trusted their own intelligence over that of a slimy eight-limbed creature.

Holland. Holland. Holland.

Turned out to be Spain, Spain, Spain.

Paul the octopus was right! So what did people do? Did they blame it on their poor judgement and admit defeat? No. They all wanted to “take revenge” (as if it’s the octopus’ fault) by eating octopus.

So much for human rationality. Wouldn’t it make more sense to beat up the Spaniards or Dutch?

Those of you who buy a particular brand of air-con had better be sure you don’t do naughty things. That’s because this brand of air-con obviously have an important image to upkeep. These folks actually dropped their spokesman for having an affair. Or are they dropping him because his affair was exposed?

yao mo gao chor ah? What has Jack Neo’s affair got to do with air cons? Are people who buy that brand of air con so squeaky clean that they would be too disgusted to support the brand if it’s promoted by a celebrity who has cheated on his wife? Actually, he didn’t even bother to cheat. His wife knew about it all along. She just decided to close one eye and here comes a bunch of moralists telling everyone that he should neither be forgiven nor be allowed to promote energy-saving, easy to clean air cons.

I’m glad mine is a Fujitsu.

Now let’s talk about the women. Singapore has indeed come a long way. Our women have won us Olympic medals and fought their way to the summit of Everest. For the sake of diversity and forgetting Annabel Chong who is no longer in business, we now have our very own Monica Lewinsky. In fact, I think Wendy Chong has surpassed Monica Lewinsky in more ways than one.

OK. So Jack Neo was more careful than Bill Clinton. He made sure there weren’t any hairs left in his car. He didn’t give Wendy Chong a chance to keep a stained dress unwashed for 2 years. Even without DNA or potential YouTube video evidence, this young lady had dared to go public with their affair. Amazing.

Even more amazing were the young ladies who jumped on the bandwagon to claim that Jack Neo has made advances at them. Which attractive young lady hadn’t have horny guys making passes at them? Why didn’t they complain about the Ah Pek at the coffeshop who kept staring at the butts? Why didn’t they complain about the foreign worker on the crowded MRT who tried to elbow their breasts? What about the guys on MSN and Skype who keep asking them to turn on their webcams? Does it really make sense to complain about these folks and warn other girls who probably faced even more nuisances and harrassment than they ever did? They think our girls are so stupid that they need them to play martyr, expose their own affairs so that others can learn something from it? As if our pretty girls who are so used to unwelcome advances, don’t already know how to protect themselves.

But it’s Jack Neo! That makes all the difference. Luckily I’m not into show biz.

“What? $5 for the soup? Steamboat is supposed to come with soup. How can you charge me for it? It’s not that I can’t afford to pay for the soup. It’s just that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.”

This was the argument I overheard at the next table. It was between an angry woman in her late 50s and the poor waiter trying hard to explain company policy. You might think that she was shocked by the bill when the waiter showed it to her. But no. She had not even started yet. The waiter was just informing her upfront that they would be charging $5 for the soup.

I was having steamboat dinner with my friend Tsun Han at Fat Fish Restaurant at the Admiral Country Club on a Saturday night. They serve steamboat which included a generous spread of seafood and sliced meat buffet style. Like one reviewer said, “the prawns were so fresh that they squirm”. The staff was also friendly and attentive. The ambience was pretty good without being packed with noisy crowds. Well, at least it wasn’t noisy until Madam Soupless turned up and complained about the $5 soup even before she started.

Let’s see. The restaurant charges $22.80++ per person which was cheap. Adding $5 to the total bill would mean an additional charge of only a little more than a $1 for 4 people. So would Madam Soupless be happier if she were charged $25 (2 people at her table) with no mention of soup cost?

The restaurant’s policy is just an example of itemised charges promoting “transparency”. If charging Madam Soupless $5 was enough to freak her out, I wonder what would happen if the restaurant gave her a bill which looks like this:

Food $18
Soup $5
Utensils $1
Gas $1

$100 + $7 GST is ridiculous? $107 no GST is good? Look who is being not just ridiculous but also stupid.

OK, so now we know that Tiger Woods is as champion with golf as he is with womanising. We’re certainly going to see a lot of finger-pointing, condemnation and jokes related to this latest discovery. A star he is, but Tiger Woods doesn’t control the media like some governments. He’s certainly going to get a hard time from the public - especially from the wronged women and envious men.

Of course, stories like Woods’ are hardly new. Some years ago, Chinese superstar Jackie Chan was embroiled in a scandal involving an illegitimate child. A blow from this guy would send a man crashing through doors and walls, but the public, far from his lethal blows, were giving the kungfu superstar more pointed accusations that he could deflect. It doesn’t matter how big or how deft you are. Public opinion reduced poor Jackie from superhero to gutter rat in cyberspace.

The excuse for all this condemnation, especially within conservative Asian societies, is that these folks are supposed to be role models. Our children learn from them, drink the same brand of green tea they drink, use the same brand of shampoo they use, so we must also keep minor wives or sleep with someone else’s husband if they do.

In the Land of Sheltered Walkways, exposure to any form of bad influence is not acceptable. Hence, if a role model ever does something immoral in the eyes of the righteous public to whom similar temptations are totally out of reach, he/she must be brought down. It’s already so unfair that these folks get so many temptations. How dare they succumb? Fortunately Jackie Chan doesn’t depend on Singaporeans to earn a living.

It’s not difficult to see that being a role model can be very tiring. You’re not perfect like everybody else, but you not only have to put on your best behaviour whenever you go public, you’ve got to make sure that anything unpleasant or sinful that you do in private doesn’t get exposed either. You can’t control the exposure. You don’t own all the newsPAPers.

It’s quite understandable that Hongkongers, Taiwanese and even Americans who voted for Bill Clinton are against adultery. Singapore has higher moral standards. Beauty queens are not supposed to steal things, speak bad English and have breast “enhancement”. Wait a minute. I understand the need to make sense and be honest. I may even agree with the no “naughty” photos rule. But no boob job?

It’s deception, they say. Those who “cheat” viewers into paying 20 cents to vote for them with their phones, cheat judges into giving them good points and cheat dirty old men into drooling over their artificially enhanced mammaries are dishonest and must be stripped of their crowns. Future beauty queens must all be examined for surgical scars and xrayed for butt and breasts implants.

Picture of Rachel Kum taken from the New Paper

yao mo gao chor ah? Are they going to xray contestants for dental implants as well? For dentists, dentures, crowns, bridges etc are all supposed to look like real teeth. Does that make me an accomplice to all this “cheating” if I make a replacement for a missing tooth that looks real and helps the contestant win the title of beauty queen? Or must the contestant go on stage with her missing tooth/teeth just to be “fair” to people who can’t win even with a full set of teeth?