Rant 040 / In The Land Of The Blind, The One-Eyed Man Gets All The Chicks

There are those who believe kids these days are growing up too fast.

There are those who believe kids these days are getting too much work.

There are those who believe kids these days don't get a proper childhood.

And, of course, there are always those who believe kids these days should just drop dead.


Where did they learn all those bad language anyway? I remember when I was in primary school I learnt the phrase " What the Hell.." and "Where the Hell.." and kept using it till one day in a class visit to some boring place when I pointed at a dried sea cucumber and loudly asked," What the Hell is that?" And the guide, probably annoyed by my efforts in making my language more colourful, replied," That's not from Hell; that's from the sea."

Humiliating as it was, it did serve to remind me that grownups prefer to hear good ol' vanilla English. And it worked all the way till the Army, in which we were taught a completely contradictory lesson: that people want the foulest, crudest and most disgusting language from you, be it Mandarin, English, Hokkien, Malay, Tamil or Punjabi.

So we learnt all sorts of exciting new phrases to enliven the atmosphere, and through the process, gained new insights into the different cultures of our new friends.

But back to children. I once met a 10-year-old kid who's married with 3 children, all because his birthday falls on the 29th of Feb. He still lives with his papa and momma.

But back to children. We must admit that times have changed, just like the size of Big Mac. Once upon a time the burger was too big for any Asian mouths. These days, it's just... puny.

But some changes are pointless. Like the piano lessons all parents want their kids to attend. How many of them will still remember the things they've learnt when they truly need it in the future? Whether it is to play for bands or choir, or to impress girls, they will most likely have forgotten most of the things that are necessary by the time they are given the chance to use it.

And the easy access to pornography does nothing beneficial for any children. And we all know how some kids do look up such filthy stuff even when they're only in primary school. Or, in the case of countries with TV porn, even younger than that.

Some negative effects of such early exposure are already visible. Women have complained that their ex-boyfriends change their positions very frequently during sex, just like the actors do in the bongo films.

But of course, there exist some parents who do not expect anything from their children. These parents are satisfied when their kids graduate from any school. It is perfectly acceptable, to these parents, for the children to put no efforts whatsoever in finding a job after graduation.

They may be in the minorities, though I'm not too sure about that. In any case, kids who do not grow up will learn to do so some day. If they want to survive anyway.

I cannot deny I'm no expert in kids. I'm not goods with kids. Kids fear me. It seems I have this Children-Repulsion Aura which is always present around me. I may smile at them or something, but generally the response I get is not encouraging.

I really like it, since I get annoyed by noisy children easily. Like my neighbour's grandchildren who play at the lift lobby every evening. It's not really their fault for being noisy; most of us were noisy at that age. Probably the genes.

But to hear their shouts and loud laughter while I'm busy concentrating on my games, especially HOMM V, sometimes ruins my train of thoughts. It is merely annoying, but I believe it'd get useful someday.

There was once when a TV actor admitted during an interview that his way of dealing with noisy children on night flights is to throw his pillow at them. It works most of the time, he claims. And when it doesn't work, he stands up and shouts at them. Works perfectly. I've got to try that the next time the noise gets on my nerves.