It's amazing how civilisation has evolved.
The introduction module to modern concepts of chemistry began with a history lesson on concepts like particle-wave duality. Seeing disputes on the very nature of matter kind of brought me back to my uniformed days when I was intrigued by the stories of daring scientists who made a different turn in their train of thought. After one of Michael Faraday's public presentations someone once asked him, "What use is electricity?".
Today even a 3-year-old can answer that question.
And then his 10-year-old sibling will teach you how to use your handphone.
I'm not a thinker myself, which might be the reason why I'm all the more thankful for all the brilliant minds out there, seeking to think out of the box (or looking for a way out of the box, for that matter).
One of the reasons why I still haven't signed up for the MOE teaching award was because I procrastinated (oops). Another reason is that while my decision to teach after graduation was more or less cast in stone, I see the possibility that after I'm trained to think more like a chemist (or just a scientist), I might take a different turn too.
But, just to piss Huang Peng off again, "We shall see".
The first lecture of my Japanese Studies module, on the developments of films in Japan after WW2, already showed me the difference between a Science module and one from Arts. And I'm not enough of an Arts student to be able to describe it now.
I probably should spread the word here, though, on the usage of the word "Jap". We all know it's a WW2 term, just that to most of us the derogatory tone behind the word was long gone and it's now probably used as an affectionate term.
Not in the academic circle, though.
And one look at the propaganda posters of World War 2 was all I needed to remind me that all was not the same back then. People can complain all they want about globalisation, but back then in the days when selfish stereotypes took the rightful place of mutual understanding, and ideas of expansionism was allowed to run rampant, it was as if mankind, as a whole, was throwing up a childish tantrum.
And the Japanese of today would still be convinced that the events in Asia in the early 1940s could be referred to as "Colonisation".
Anyway...
A quick look at early Japanese films and there once existed a trend of using films as an expression of public grievances about matters of the nation. So if they managed to get out of it, Singapore can, too.
Then, our films can be free of any mention of the gahmen and MPs (for goodness' sake!), and maybe they won't all be about ghosts or getai.
Then, we can make simple films like "10 Promises to my Dog".
