AdLIBBING

There are some quarters who say that we should stop picking on and penalising Ris Low. She’s made mistakes. She’s human let her move on.

Well, sure. The only thing is Ms Low needs to want to move on too. If she stops giving media interviews, then perhaps there won’t be too much fodder for dinner conversations. But she continues to be “in your face” and with every interview, she just ups the ante on the intelligence quotient or rather the lack of it.

I guess some day people might get bored or find another controversy to critique on, but meanwhile, you can’t say that your funny bone has not been tickled.

Forget about “Singlish” and the fact that every other Singaporean, Tom, Dick, Harry, Zoe, Fann, Mary speaks the same way. It is not about that. It’s not a debate between “Singlish” and grammatically correct English. It is not a choice. We need to be English literate and competent. Then if we want to add the “lahs” and “lors” and do a literal translation between Hokkien speak into Singlish phrasing, You eat oredi or not?, we can. The difference is knowing the rules and being able to apply them and knowing when we choose to lapse to the less formal, Singlish. There are no two ways about that. If not, we run the risk of having subtitles to translate Singlish to English! Bizarre.

The underlying issue, I think, with Ms Low, is her lack of self awareness and others awareness. By that I don’t mean that it has to be about “me”, “me”, “me”… “I rrrrr care what they think [of me] strurting down Orchard Road wearing a naughty, LOUD, BOOMZ, RAT bigini and jiins. It’s about me. It’s all about how I think… yah.” News flash MS Low, the world is not about you. The world does not revolve around you.

It’s about understanding and correctly reading verbal and non verbal cues and setting correct boundaries knowing what’s expected and what’s acceptable. Even living with apes require adapting to their social environment and behaviour.

Her lack of awareness is almost naive. Is there another adjective to use? It’s so much so that when asked a question, her answers, belie to me, a warped notion that she is being sought for her expert opinion!

She is after all studying…”erm….. (now what was that again)… oh yes …”natural sciences… and horse-pee-ta-ta-telly-tee and tourism”. Really? There’s such a course? That’s why she can strate-te-gise on how to win. How erm…the fashionis… er fashion style dictates that khaki green teamed with leopard and “zibrraaa” “preens” will totally take thrash out of the trashy. Yah…you know. A style so totally hers based on her persona-na-la-la-li-ty. You know, you know… BOOMZ! “My style cos it’s not your style, so it’s my style. Not your style. My style.” So goes the PCK spoof of the infamous Razor TV interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UrQfbXPhEI&feature=youtube_gdata

There you have it. A circuitous route to a winning tragedy… I mean, strategy.