Mr Wang Says, "Huh?"

Sept 8, 2005
Action for Aids' probe dispels sex claims
Group's 106 volunteers deny any improper conduct with patients they were counselling

By Lee Hui Chieh

ALLEGATIONS that volunteers from Action for Aids (AFA) had been sexually intimate with people they were counselling have been found to be baseless, an investigation by the Aids awareness group has concluded.

The group's 106 active volunteers denied having sexual relations or engaging in improper conduct with the people they were counselling.

All the volunteers also denied having heard of other volunteers engaging in such behaviour, and most said they would inform their programme coordinator or AFA's executive committee if they found out about anyone doing so.

Ninety of the volunteers were interviewed face to face over five days, for about 30 minutes each.

Another 16 volunteers who could not make it to the interviews were asked to fill up questionnaires.

The interviews were done by two doctors from the National Skin Centre who are not AFA members - Dr Tan Hiok Hee, who heads its department of sexually transmitted infection control, and Dr Priya Sen, an associate consultant.

In their report, the investigators said: 'The volunteers are intensively trained and appear to maintain extremely high professional standards in their capacity as volunteers. They adhere strictly to the AFA volunteer code of conduct and it would seem that any allegations of AFA volunteers having physical or sexually intimate relations with clients were unfounded.'

For example, all the volunteers said that following AFA's rules, they would not give out their personal contact numbers to those they were helping, and do not lock doors during one-to-one counselling sessions.

The probe was sparked by a report in The New Paper on July 10, which said that five of AFA's volunteers had contracted the virus after becoming volunteers, and that there was concern that 'young male volunteers are coming forward because they see the MSM outreach programme as another avenue for them to meet other gay men'.

..............

For the Health Ministry, however, the matter now appears to be closed.

In a statement yesterday, the ministry said it 'noted that the investigations did not uncover any unethical conduct, and that AFA is strengthening their internal control by instituting a written code of conduct'.

So yet another silly episode in Singapore's war on AIDS comes to an end. But Mr Wang still says, "Huh?"

"Huh?" was Mr Wang's first reaction when he read the original report some time ago about this whole matter. Mr Wang's view was that even if the New Paper had got its facts completely right, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what AFA was doing.

You see, when a HIV-positive person has sex with a non-HIV-positive person, that's very high-risk sex. That's very dangerous. That's something which society should try very, very hard to prevent.

However, when a HIV-positive person has sex with another HIV-positive person, that's zero-risk sex. Both are already infected. Therefore there is no added risk of AIDS if they have sex with each other. Thus if a HIV-positive AFA volunteer has sex with another HIV-positive person, there is no cause for concern.

It is actually a good idea for HIV-positive persons to have sex with each other. The window period between getting the AIDS virus and developing full-blown AIDS is very long. It could be as long as five to 10 years. That's a very long time to expect an relatively healthy adult to completely abstain from sex. Most people are not designed for monkhood.

And complete abstinence is also unnecessary if there is nothing he can pass to his lover which his lover hasn't already got. Even a condom wouldn't be necessary (assuming that neither has other types of sexually transmitted diseases). If two HIV-positive persons become each other's sexual partner, it becomes much more possible for them to avoid seeking sex elsewhere and possibly endangering non-HIV-positive people.
"It's okay, dear. I have it too!"
Also I see nothing wrong with HIV-positive counsellors counselling other HIV-positive people. If anything, these counsellors will be better able to understand and empathise with the personal issues which the HIV-positive persons face. And surely there is nothing very unusual about this? I'm sure that if you go check up on, say, cancer support groups, you will find that some of the counsellors are also cancer patients or ex-cancer patients.

So what is the big deal, please?

______________

Update! See comments section for a brief discussion on HIV superinfection, something which Mr Wang didn't know about earlier. See, you learn something every day.

Blog of the Week!

Oooh .... Mr Wang has been so busy. So busy that he only just noticed that the Straits Times had mentioned him yesterday as one of its two "Blogs of the Week". See below for the article.

Well, Mr Wang would much rather be mentioned as "Blog of the Week" for his commentary on Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally or his critique on the Presidential Non-Elections. But never mind.

On an overall basis, Mr Wang feels satisfied with how this whole matter about privacy and Tomorrow's linking policy has turned out. Four out of 10 Tomorrow editors, namely Agagooga, Shianux, James Seng and Mr Miyagi, commented on Mr Wang's views right here on this blog. (Admittedly, Mr Miyagi's comment had no real substance - but are you surprised).

"I'm still in the dark, Mr Wang. Please enlighten me."
- Mr Miyagi.
Mr Wang may or may not have succeeded in changing all or any of the Tomorrow editors' minds. But at least Mr Wang has made them more aware of alternative perspectives on this matter. Even if Tomorrow does not officially revise its linking policy, Mr Wang is sure that the next time round, the editors will pause to think for at least Three Additional Seconds before they invade someone else's privacy.

Sept 6, 2005
Blogs of the week
Reactions to linking to blogs

The Singapore blogosphere was recently hit by a wave of discussions over popular aggregate blogsite, Tomorrow.sg's linking policy. There are those who feel that a little discretion is needed, and that permission should be asked before a blog is linked. But another argument is that blogs are public in nature and that if you do not want what you write to be published, then don't blog. The discussion has split the blogosphere into two, but hey, whoever said a little intellectual discourse is bad? MELISSA LWEE checks out what bloggers are saying.

......................

Did Mr Wang Say So?
http://commentarysingapore.blogspot.com/

EXCERPT:

"At one level, Mr Wang agrees with Tomorrow's position, for the reasons that Agagooga has stated. Mr Wang himself regularly links to other bloggers' posts without seeking their permission. Although 'Did Mr Wang Say So?' is on a much smaller scale than Tomorrow, the same principles ought to apply. On the other hand, Mr Wang uses his brain when choosing his hyperlinks. And Mr Wang considers it inappropriate for Tomorrow to take an overly cavalier approach to this task. It is one thing to say, 'Oh, YOU put your personal story on the Internet yourself, don't blame US for publicising it.'

This kind of excuse, while not entirely invalid, is a poor excuse for the Tomorrow editors to display bad editorial taste, to make bad editorial choices and to be lousy human beings.Tomorrow (or any other blog) is perfectly free to act as a screaming tabloid if it wants to. It doesn't necessarily follow that it is a good thing for Tomorrow (or any other blog) to act as a screaming tabloid. And the fact that people didn't stick 'Respect My Privacy' banners or buttons all over their own blogs doesn't mean that a Tomorrow editor can't exercise some good judgment on his own accord to do what's right.'

Short Takes

Mr Wang would like to comment more about Yap Keng Ho's police report against Channel News Asia. Time, however, does not permit. Similarly, Mr Wang would like to write about the White Elephants of Buangkok. Again time is not on his side. For the latter story, Mr Wang will simply refer you to Singapore Ink's commentary.

"Shh ....! The police are after me.
I'm a really endangered species now."

------------------

Jeff Ooi of Screenshots must be a fan of poet/blogger Gilbert Koh. Mr Wang notes that on 16 August, Jeff told the world about Gilbert's poetry blog on Global Voices Online; and then on 1 September 2005, one day after Gilbert won the Golden Point Award 2005 for Poetry, Jeff Ooi announced Gilbert's win on Global Voices Online again.

Or perhaps Jeff just knows how to spot an award-winning poet when he sees one.

"Over there! Hiding behind the rocks! The one
with the metaphysical metaphor and alliterative assonance!"

-----------------
Oh, and Mr Wang made it to someone's Blog Day 2005 list! Thank you, Kevin.

The Pleasure Principle

Did Mr Wang ever mention that he likes poetry? The Singapore Writers Festival is currently on, and one particular poetry event has caught Mr Wang's eye. No, he didn't attend it, but he read about it at the festival's official blog. "The Pleasure Principle" was a poetry reading featuring Cyril Wong and was unusual (in Singapore) for its explicit gay theme.

First, a little about Cyril's background. He is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Unmarked Treasure. He was a featured poet at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and the Queensland Poetry Festival and his poetry has been adapted to dance, drama, film and music in interdisciplinary projects that have been presented in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia, Germany and France. Cyril is also Singapore's Young Artist of the Year for Literature (for 2005).

Cyril is gay, and writes about it openly in his poetry. That makes him somewhat controversial (in Singapore, and to some people, at least). Mr Wang exchanged emails with Cyril over the weekend, and with Cyril's permission, reproduces excerpts here.

On whether Mr Wang can blog about him:

"Yes, sure you can feature me. I am very openly gay. And I think it is possibly immoral to even hide the fact when I am not exactly living in a place like Iran, where I would get killed for something like this. So with regard to being seen as gay very publicly, I do not mind at all. In fact, I kind of encourage myself to be as open as possible – it's my one-man ideological war."

About the Pleasure Principle:

"1 Sep at Pan Pacific Hotel, 10pm, The Pleasure Principle. I was the only featured poet for one and a half hours. Very tiring, but people liked me, so that was great. There were about thirty people who came, which was good for such an odd hour, and anyway it was a very intimate affair with me on a four-poster bed and loads of champagne and strawberries." [Mr Wang's note: Photo available at the official SWF blog].

How has the gay theme in Cyril's works affected his literary career?

"I started being incidentally explicit about the homosexual theme from the start, and NAC has written a letter to my publisher saying certain poems were to be taken out from my first manuscript. I was able to squeeze in more poems with the gay theme later on when I became more established. My publisher is the most intelligent, literary and open-minded publisher in this country, so he did not even bat an eyelid when he registered the gay themes in my work. But I still feel that it remains generally difficult to get my gay poems printed, unless I am very implicit about it. This does not bother me, however, as my 'gayer' poems get heard a lot in overseas festivals, performances and journals."

Is Cyril pushing a public agenda, or just being himself? What does he think about recent gay issues in Singapore?

"I am really first and foremost expressing myself as an individual. The gay agenda is just a bonus. It doesn't worry me if the agenda is successful or not. I care more about myself than about whether the world will be a better place if I were a semi-activist.

About gay issues, IndigNation, the Health Minister, Nation Party, or Yi Sheng's book project [on gays], well, I am glad things are happening, that's all. At least there are still gay men fighting this ideological war in one way or the other, and that's good. Most gay men are just plain complacent. The health minister...well, he makes no real difference really. Like one of the people behind Fridae said, if we cannot do Nation party here, we do in Phuket lor. Big deal."

Mr Wang asked Cyril to say something non-gay-related about poetry in Singapore:

"About non-gay things…you make it sound like it is such a conscious and deliberate thing, being gay. It’s a part of everything I do, in the same way one cannot help but be influenced by the fact that one is Indian or Chinese, Christian or atheistic…it’s part of the whole mental makeup. I have plenty of poems that do not have two men kissing or having sex, if that is what one means by non-gay poetry. This reminds me of how Thumboo tends to be misunderstood as just a political poet, when he is really very personal and even confessional in his poetry too."

On Singapore writers:

"There is a lack of urgency or edginess in local writings in general. When you read a lot of local poetry, for example, you tend to feel like nothing was at stake in putting the words to paper. Of course, there are exceptions. A lot of these exceptions do not win awards or get published. For these exceptions, I urge the poets to get out of Singapore."

About the recent Golden Point Awards:

"If you want to win the GPA, I do believe that the poetry to submit needs to be a little banal, because the judges are usually a little banal. Of course, Alfian Sa’at’s winning poems were the exception, but also they hinted at a lot of local/social issues, which is one of the key ingredients to winning the GPA. [Mr Wang's note: Alfian Saat won the GPA in 2001]

The kind of personal poetry that I admire deals with the self to the extent that anybody can relate to what is being expressed in the poem. For competitions, you will have to add more layers to the poem, layers that would surely make the poem look more ambitious but which may undermine the singular emotionality and vulnerability in the speaker’s voice. It’s like the difference between listening to Mariah Carey and listening to Stina Nordenstam. The former is full of vocal fireworks and bravado while the latter sings so intimately and quietly it is almost a whisper. A lot of people like to listen to Mariah Carey. I much prefer Stina Nordenstam."

Cyril is a classically trained singer and has been experimenting with combinations of music and poetry:

"I am very proud that I have been singing a lot recently. Chong Li-Chuan, a sound-artist, is working on certain melodies that I sung using text from my poetry. We hope to do a little album together. I am also performing LOVE SONGS at the Hong Kong Fringe Club in Feb next year. I will be covering popular songs and giving them a personal history that they did not possess before. I did this concert at The Substation in June this year and I was very proud of it. I even made some people cry, which was important. More at http://cyrilwong.com/lovesongs.htm."

Cyril Wong performed at the recent memorial concert for Shanmugam Murugesu, the man whose death sentence provoked much public soul-searching this year over the rights and wrongs of capital punishment:

"About Shanmugam's memorial concert, I sang for it for two reasons – I do not believe in capital punishment, and I hate the idea that you cannot speak in such events without needing to provide the police with your IC number. So I went up and sang a Chinese lullaby, a strategy to offer a very momentary reprieve in the midst of all that grief, all the political and personal frustrations, but also it is a gentle fuck-you to the ones who do not believe in free-speech."

___________________

With Cyril's permission, Mr Wang has reproduced one of the explicitly gay poems (The Neighbour) that Cyril read during the Pleasure Principle event. Mr Wang has kept this poem off his current main page so as to avoid alarming, offending or upsetting his more conservative readers. Please do not click here if you do not want to read Cyril's poem.

Mr Wang Speaks Mandarin

Some months ago, a new language school opened near Mr Wang's home. It offers Mandarin courses. There are courses for various different standards, such as conversational Mandarin, business Mandarin, and very advanced Mandarin for people who seek to be qualified translators.

For some time, Mr Wang has been toying with the idea of taking up a Mandarin course. Mr Wang can already speak Mandarin, of course. He can even write Mandarin (what little he remembers of it anyway, from AO-Level days). However Mr Wang would like to take his Mandarin to a Much Higher Standard.

Why? You see, Mr Wang is aware of the rising economic importance of China. China is just going to grow and grow in importance. Mr Wang is a lawyer, and he would like his Mandarin to be good enough for him to understand legal contracts drafted in Mandarin. If possible, Mr Wang would even like to be able to draft legal contracts in Mandarin one day.

Mr Wang thinks that having a strong command of the Chinese language can be a very valuable asset for a lawyer who regularly works on cross-border, international transactions. Why, that is exactly the kind of work which Mr Wang does.

Today, the Straits Times has a story about Singaporeans and the Chinese language. Let's take a look.

Sept 3, 2005
THE NEW CHINESE GROUND
Who's afraid of Chinese poetry?

Film-maker Jack Neo says that older Chinese-educated Singaporeans represent the last traces of the country's 'true essence'. Not true, says Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who cites the emergence of a new generation that's discovering their heritage. Who's right? Li Xueying and Ong Hwee Hwee find out.

THERE was a time when Mr Philip Lim failed all his Chinese tests with distinction.

His Mandarin was fractured. He could write only a handful of Chinese characters such as wo (me), ni (you), and ta (him). He put up with snide remarks about being a 'fake' Chinese.

But he did not care. After all, to him, Chinese was a language that was neither hip nor useful. That was then.

Today, the 31-year-old businessman speaks Mandarin with a Beijing lilt, and can even read Chinese legal contracts.

It's all about business.

Mr Wang is smarter than Mr Lim. Mr Wang never failed his Chinese tests in school. However, Mr Lim is one up on Mr Wang. Today, Mr Lim can speak good Mandarin and read Chinese legal contracts, but Mr Wang cannot. Hrrrrumph. Mr Wang admits defeat.

Mr Wang and Mr Lim, however, share one thing in common. Their newfound interest in the Chinese language is motivated by economic imperatives. If China were an economic slum today, Mr Wang would rather take a Time Management course than a Mandarin course. Mr Lim probably feels the same way.

But what does PM Lee Hsien Loong think of people like Mr Wang and Mr Lim?

Mr Lim is among a 'new generation' of Chinese Singaporeans described by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who are rediscovering their Chinese heritage and identity.

Educated, bilingual and well-versed in Chinese culture, they are riding the wave of China's economic rise.

Singapore's Chinese ground, it seems, is entering a new chapter.

'Over the past year, I have noticed a new mood and confidence in the Chinese community,' said Mr Lee in his National Day Rally speech on Aug 21.

Speaking in Mandarin, he added: 'China's emergence has strengthened our confidence in the future of Chinese language and culture in Singapore. More generally, Chinese Singaporeans appreciate their Chinese heritage and identity more, and understand the importance of learning Chinese.'

I am not sure if I agree with Mr Lee. Although I do understand the importance of learning Chinese, I don't know whether I can honestly say that I appreciate Chinese heritage and identity more than I did before. Most likely I think that my level of appreciation has stayed about the same, all these past years.

As I have mentioned, my newfound interest in Mandarin is driven by economic considerations. If it were Indonesia, instead of China, that was booming today, I think that I would be interested in learning Bahasa Indonesia instead. I would probably employ an Indonesian maid and make her teach me Bahasa for at least 20 minutes each day.

I think I would bring tears of disappointment to some Chinese cultural diehards. I like Jackie Chan movies and I eat Chinese food more often than not. But I have no desire to learn the guzhen and definitely, I am more likely to get lost in the streets of Beijing than, say, in Sydney. The latter has street signs in English. See this next part of the article:

... others like Mr Sia Yong, 79, founder of Singa-Sino Friendship Association, agree it is 'a lost battle'.

'It's sad when young Chinese Singaporeans are enthusiastic about their language only because there is money to be made from it.

'It's different from our generation, when we are genuinely passionate about our culture and heritage. In that sense, the better part of Chineseness is lost.'

Statistics seem to bear his observation out.

Well, I'm sorry, Mr Sia. But Mr Wang cannot tell a lie. How I feel about Mandarin is really how I feel about Mandarin.

"My Chinese, very good.
My Singlish, lagi best!"