Greasy Fun

J kept saying how decent OBBA BBQ is. So the gym-mates made a date to mark N's birthday, and we all toddled down for a bite at its 63 Tanjong Pagar Road location. I realized that this brand has outlets that included the name 'Jjajang'. I'll skip those. I've no interest in Korean jjajang or Chinese zhajiangmian, or even Kuala Lumpur style dark Hokkien noodles. They're same-same to me. 

Somehow we end up with Korean cuisine as a choice. Can lah. When we eat in a group, each of us have got our preferences; I don't need to eat things that I don't care for. Beef and rice is always a great combo. I can't ever order pork because Korean restaurants keep trotting out pork belly and super fatty cuts. Luckily, nobody at this table likes fatty cuts of meat. 

We got tiny room and felt like VIPs. Hahaha. Well, the open hall isn't any more well ventilated if you ask me. In the room, there's an air conditioning unit and two ceiling fans. With the two exhaust, our eyes didn't smart too much. But we all left stinking of meat grease and oil.

Don't bother with a la carte orders here. Just get a meat set or two if you want. The meat cuts were okaaaaay. But it's certainly nothing fancy. This is a casual place. The meats are over-marinated and too salty. The flavored rice balls (jumeokbap) were really tasty. They cleverly rolled up several balls in a giant steel bowl of rice and ingredients. That sort of salt, I couldn't resist. 

It was a fun time catching up. We hadn't sat down like this for a bit. We only zipped in and out of classes and get in a few quick lines. Sure, we're on the group chat, but with these mates, it's always nice to chat a little more outside of our classes. The icing — no pressure to have alcohol. We adjourned to a cafe, and had super refreshing coconut water thingies to cap off the night.

Queuing for Bread Can Turn Into A Major Crime

This sounded a tad heavy and I didn't feel like reading. But I had a window of time to digest, so I read it anyway. This is 'Narrow Escape', an excerpt from 'Love the Revolution', an unfinished autobiographical novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1948 while imprisoned in the Soviet gulag system's Marfino sharashka (a prison research laboratory).

The Russian text was published in 1999. The English translation done by Alexis Klimoff and Michael Nicholson is slated to be released later this year. This English excerpt is published in The New Yorker on September 27, 2026.

In 1941, protagonist 23-year-old Gleb Nerzhin is living life under the stark realities of Communisim, the start of the German-Soviet war, insufficient food and jobs, and bread queues. He has no idea what's going to hit him or what's coming. I can only imagine that the young people of that time would grow up really fast, and be disillusioned. When war and conflict hit society, then there can be change and civil movements. 

All Gleb wanted was his share of the bread. He didn't join the others pushing and shoving. He stuck to his place in the front of the queue, waiting quietly against the wall. However, he was picked on by the policeman, hauled back to the station and charged with "inciting panic". And apparently, in this era, this could mean spending ten years in the camps. 

He attended a dinner party with his wife Nadya, at his good friend from school, Ella Dovner's home. Ella's father is someone in the Russian leadership. He is Dr Dovner, someone with a remarkable skill at combining the functions of doctor, medical administrator, and devoted Communist. He is also Lieutanant-Colonel Dovner. He learnt what happened to Gleb. He picked up the phone and called the chief of the precinct that Gleb was detained at. Dr Dovner easily requested for the hearing scheduled for the day after tomorrow to be canceled, and the entire case to be dropped. Just like that.

And Gleb looked at Lieutenant Colonel Dovner in wonder: the feelings this man aroused were strangely ambivalent. From every theoretical point of view, Dovner was transforming the Soviet system, which had been conceived as something of perfect, crystalline purity. Yet whenever Gleb saw Dovner’s broad smiling face, his quick gaze, expressing not exactly a lofty intellect but a sharp, vigorous, and commodious mind, he could imagine all those disarming, mutually advantageous deals, which always benefitted specific individuals, not so much in terms of enrichment but, rather, in terms of evasion, exemption, dodging responsibility, and Gleb wondered why Dovner, rather than seeming a reprehensible character, could still appear so likable.

“Well? . . . You’ve found it? And the hearing’s already set for the day after tomorrow? Just drop the case, then, all right? So long, then. . . . Yes, yes, we’ll fix it.” 

Dovner gently replaced the receiver.

“D’you understand?”

No! Right to the very end, Gleb had not truly understood or sensed the danger he’d been in. Those sensible decrees against panic-mongers that he’d so recently welcomed could not affect him, after all! It had so easily passed him by, as if nothing had ever happened: the gigantic wheel had rolled by, almost squashing him to a pulp—yet Gleb could not even grasp that the wheel existed and that it was in motion.

Gleb didn't understand how he would be charged for a major crime when he did nothing. This young mana didn't understand how the system worked. I can't call him innocent. He's very naive. 

Are these works relevant to us? Yes. We live in a society, well, Singapore, in which is career and life suicide if we so much so as protest in the streets. We could be one person holding a placard, and if we had written something political, or even an emoji or a sunflower or a watermelon, that could be counted as an 'illegal assembly'. This is not even just a slap on the wrist, it's punitive fines and jail-time.

I dislike people talking about civil activism as if it's something great and altruistic. It cuts both ways. How do we work within the laws if you intend to protest the laws themselves. Democracy and free speech as some demand it, don't quite exist here. However, we aren't exactly oppressed. When you urge activism in Singapore, it's not about rocking the boat. You're urging actions that lead to potential or eventual jail. If you support that, and be ready to sort out bailor duties and finances for all that you're advocating, then sure. It's not a path for everyone, and it's not the road to get on for a sense of community or to be at the forefront of change. There, I said it. 

I see some acquaintances and friends sit on their comfy couch and criticize fellow Singaporeans for being apathetic and not supporting certain causes. Stop being so self-righteous. Are you saying that it's okay for these people to go to jail? Don't be an idiot. You get out there then. It's not about getting out of your comfort zone and having an opinion — it's about the destruction of your career and easy life with wifi as you know it, and a long road of angst. This is not what I want.

In a conversation with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s son Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Deborah Treisman at the journal asked if his father regretted anything.

“Narrow Escape” is, in a sense, a loss-of-innocence story: this twenty-three-year-old believes that he can prevail by being reasonable—which is no longer a reasonable belief. Do you think that your father, six years older than Gleb, incarcerated, and soon to be sent into very difficult conditions, was looking back regretfully at his own mistakes?

It’s more that Gleb’s blindness to the ruthless truths of the Soviet experience sets up the predictable actual outcome in my father’s life: he’d only just missed being “squashed to a pulp” by the revolutionary wheel—but hadn’t understood, hadn’t taken notice, hadn’t adjusted. Inevitable, then, that his continued naïveté—in the form of barely veiled criticism of Stalin in correspondence subject to censorship review, as all correspondence in the U.S.S.R. was—should result in his arrest and conviction under that catchall of thoughtcrime, Article 58.

Gotta Turn On the Air Purifiers

I have no brilliant comments about the haze. It's not as if I can do something about it. This happens every year. The same words are uttered by the politicians every year, and it seems that Singapore and Malaysia will just have to suffer what Indonesia chooses to do/ignore. 

It feels like haze returns yearly, and it's simply a matter of horrid, not too bad, eeky or terrible. It's a great inconvenience that we have to bear with. It doesn't just go away in a week. We've gone through the glitzy F1 weekends shrouded in haze in both Malaysia (Bahrain moved theirs to the Sepang Circuit) and Singapore It's been weeks now, and we're looking to have haze all the way till December. THAT SUCKS.

I didn't even bother laughing at Indonesia's statements. COME ON. I have no idea what concept or attitude they take about the haze, but if this is it, and it's been done so every year, I wonder how delusional they are. I doubt the Indonesian government actually care. They're like, 'Oh if you people want to slash and burn and live in smoke, y'all go ahead. Oh it blew over to other countries? That's just too bad. I can't control the wind. Tidak apa-apa.' 

This year, the words uttered by Syahganda Nainggolan (Head of Indonesia's Government Communications Agency), suugested that he isn't just delulu; he has no concept of science either. The Indonesian government really win liao.

In a report by Kompas, Syahganda said the fires are "beyond human error" and a natural phenomenon.

"We hope our neighbours understand that this is beyond human error; this is truly nature," he said to the media on Oct. 10.

The government continues its efforts to explain the haze situation to both Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the measures being taken to address it.

"When there's no haze, we send oxygen" "We're not just sending over the haze. When there's no haze, we send oxygen. The oxygen from Singapore and Malaysia is from our forests, right?" he added. 

Immuno-compromised people and those with respiratory issues aren't going to be comfortable at all. Accumulated particulates mean that the healthiest of us will feel it too. Air purifiers are a staple in our homes anyway. While I use air purifiers throughout the year, I hadn't turned on mine this haze season until last week. Mine are working extra hard now. The dog gets one of her own. They run two hours a day for sure even as I keep my windows and doors closed. I still air out the flat when the PM2.5 is low on some mornings. 

Haze notwithstanding, my dog still needs to toilet outdoors. And walk. She needs some sun. But I ain't complaining about the lower UV. She doesn't seem too affected by it except with occasional obvious eye irritation that I can soothe with eye drops. We simply reduce outdoor time. On the nights when the haze rolled in and we didn't make plans with anyone, we would eat in rather than sit outdoors with the dog.

Here, this is an oldie that has been floating around social media; it won't ever go out of fashion. I love it! I couldn't stop laughing each time I see it. VERY APT LAH. So clever.