just came back from esplanade after watching the above musical (starring a bmt mate) with a bmt mate. it was written by declan ee, a sporean UCL law student and was such a hit over at west end, london, that he desided to re-stage it here in spore, this time casting students from rj and nus. the plot centred around this guy paul who owns a restaurant and shophouses at pagoda street. he has this girlfren ( rosalind pho!! shes really hot )who connived to sell away his assets for personal gains and blah blah... with a motley crew of an ah beng debt collector, an indian barber and a malay caretaker, the musical takes on a true-blue sporean identity, replete with racist insults and spouting of hokkien/singlish; and at the same time it explores the poignant vignettes of sporean life, issues that may be close to young peoples hearts today such as family, life and identity. absolutely fantastic. the only bad thing was the singing, which at times couldnt be heard above the music. but i heard that the london performance was much better, so hopefully the londoners have been impressed, tho personally i feel the sporean season held in uk earlier this year was just an over-amibitious attempt by spore to catapult herself into the international arts scene. this reminds me of the IOC session abt 1 month ago,there were 2 sops and 1 tenor ( smth like tt lah ) chosen to sing some anthem and followingly, was mocked at by the british press left, right and centre the next day for their attire and their massacring of the anthem. oops.

anyway, this musical has made me realised tt i've come to embrace singlish so much; just a 'huh...', 'wa lau' and many other platitudes that have miraculously found their way into sporean parlance are able to convey so much meaning and capture the nuances of the situation so well...

eg, imagine the scenario below:

A: oei, help me print all these notes by tmr morn can?
B: huh..../wa lau eh....

just by that marvellous utterance, you can tell that B is not really keen on helping A, and the best thing is that he doesnt even need to spell it out in full. so with singlish, theres no need for superfluous words. tact may be compromised, but hey, you cant have ur cake and eat it too.

another amazingly versatile word thats perhaps slightly overused is the f word. more vulgar but at least this is more internationally recognised lol.brings to mind this forwarded email attachment a long time ago that illustrated how useful e f word is.

A: oei, today can treat me lunch not? i damn poor now.
B: f you.(normal tone) you think i charity ah? ( telling a person off, washing your hands clean of him, expressing nonchalance?)



PC in army: eh guys gather, all the stores from MT line that you all draw just now draw wrongly... is supposed to be bravo coy one, can you all bring back to there? chop chop, i give u all 10 mins...
soldier muttering under his breath: fffffuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkk.......( long and drawn out, expressing vexation/chagrin )



A: ( humming to oneself while doing math homework, lalala, meticulously using rough paper for working so as to be tidy)
*5 mins later*
A: FUCK! i accidentally used my lecture notes as rough paper!!! ( short and with a slight lilt at the end, expressing shock/dismay )



A to B: wa lan eh, damn suay one leh, everytime kenna arrow do weekend guard duty, i dun care liao lah, im gonna ask sgt to change to u lah. you damn blardy chao keng, last 2 route marches siam, outfield also siam, so now u shld do ur turn.
B:FUCK OFF lah! you go downgrade already still kao pei kao bu... ( strong and vehement, expressing slight anger/discontent )

and there are countless other occasions where the use of the word wld be just right, w/o coming across as too harsh. perhaps its the way you say it, and all the connotations the word has, but the word really has the punch and oomph factor to it haha..