SISF!!

I just attended the Singapore International Salsa Festival 2006 last weekend.
One word sums it all : AWESOME! :))

The SISF is organised by my salsa instructors, June & Jackson, from JJ SalsaRengue. I was unable to attend the workshops so I only went for the 3 nights. Every nite, there would be performances and then social dancing. I missed the first nite of perfomances since I had to go attend my little nephew's 3-yr-old bday party.. He's too adorable for me to miss his party :p

Anyway, I was just recovering from a sprained ankle.. only took off my bandage on Thu & I was off for 3 days of dancing. Thanks goodness it was only a slight sprain & I took care to go see the sinseh before that. Can't imagine having to miss such a great event!

The performances were fantastic. Various local salsa schools performed and there were many overseas teams too. Personally, I liked the performance put up by Salsaeros Indonesia the best. their costumes were beautiful and they managed to incorporate their traditional indonesian dance, salsa & rueda into their performance. It was a refreshing change from the traditional salsa performances. The other performance that I really liked was the team from my alma mater, JJ. Though their costumes were standard and their presentation traditional, they wowed the audience with their techniques and synchronisation of the entire team.

Of coz.. the international instructors put up brilliant performances too. I especially like the one done by Eddie the Salsa Freak and Brandon. Though it was a short performance, I was amazed at the skills and techniques.. Eddie is a world-renowned performer.. so nothing much needs to be said about her. But for Brandon, a cute guy who is only 21 years old, his techniques were fantastic. He hopped, flipped, turned and do everything that I never thought is possible.

I managed to dance with a few foreigners on Fri. On Sat, I danced with the big guys such as Milton (Cobo Brothers), Brandon, Gino, and a few others. However, I was not on top form and din really enjoy the dances. I was also trying to get a turn to dance with Super Mario but he was running away & screaming "can't a guy get a rest?" :p Guess the poor guy was really tired after an entire day of teaching at the workshops and endless requests from the ladies... LOL.. guys really can't be too popular..

Sun was the most fun of all 3 nites for me. First, I took part in the attempt to break Guinness World Record for the biggest Rueda.. & we succeeded!! It was nothing short of a miracle.. Initially, we had only 140 odd couples, short of 30 couples to break the Miami record of 173. However, with much efforts and encouragement, we managed to do it & with 10 calls instead of 3! A sense of exuberance swept through all the participants and we were all proud to be able to form part of this world record.

Besides the rueda record, I had the most fun on Sun as I was in good form and was able to dance to my utmost. I thought I had no chance to dance with Super Mario or Brandon anymore.. since all the gals were flocking to queue up to ask them. I needed to go off earlier as I was unable to get leave for Mon since my boss was already on leave. I saw the 2 of them dancing with 2 gals and the people were surrounding them in a circle to watch them. I walked in too & stood to admire their performance. Just then, Brandon came over and placed his hands on my shoulders... I was shocked.. and he led me out to the dance floor & we starting dancing.. An extremely playful guy who has an absolutely charming smile... & of coz.. superb dance techniques & great lead. Half way through the dance, both of them swopped partners & I fulfilled my wish of dancing with all the top dancers!! Super Mario's lead was fantastic... it was definitely an enjoyable experience dancing with him. Just when he started doing his tricks of entrapping both of my hands & yet askg for one, Brandon came to my rescue... It was such an excellent experience being able to dance with both tip-top dancers in a single song... If ever there is such a thing as a limit to happiness, mine would have shot right to the top & off the cap! It was such a sudden gesture on Brandon's part to pull me in to dance that I din even think about the entire crowd who were watching us... *phew... luckily not.. if not, I might have cold feet :p

Subsequently, I danced with Gino again.. this time round, I managed to get him to smile.. guess I must be tramatising him with my terrible dancing on Sat :p It was again, a superbly satisfying dance...
I even managed to dance with a salsa instructor from KL. He was this huge guy who was amazingly light on his feet... & coz of his sheer size, he literally swept me off my feet... a great dancer but a pity that I never got his name... :(

All in all, I managed to dance with all the best dancers on Sun... Thoroughly enjoyed myself so much that I almost din wanna go home even tho it was 12+. Even after I reached home, I was too pumped up with adrenalin & couldn't sleep till 4am! I also couldn't resist sending out an email to my instructors & one of the organisers, Webster, to thank them for organising SISF & gave me such a fantastic opportunity to dance with world renowned dancers...
Thought I would really die at work on Mon.. but surprisingly, even though I had to do OT till abt 8+, I was still in good shape..

Hmmm... the power of salsa :pp

Somethg to share....

One of my gal friends, Jo, wrote the following...
I like the way she juxtaposes night & day. It also shows a deep sense of loneliness, a little desperation and the want for companionship. Though it is done through a narrator mode, it would seems that the description is a reflection of the narrator's own predicament.

My gal fren very talented hor??? :))

黑夜

当黑夜笼罩着大地时
当人们都在睧睧欲睡
唯有我在感受这世界

我仿佛听见黑夜在说

没有人会理睬我, 我是孤独的
没有人会注视我, 我是寂寞的
没有人会了解我, 我是可怜的

我和白天不曾见面
时间把我们分隔

为了让白天灿烂,
我牺牲了色彩

为了让白天休息,
我在黑暗活跃

有谁来拯救我...

Below is a nice story that my fren sent me and it's rather true to a certain extent...
But read on and see my views to how this whole thing shld be...

Enjoy the Coffee
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups made of Porcelain, Plastic, Glass, Crystal, some ordinary looking, some expensive, some exquisite. He told them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in their hands, the professor said:
"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap looking ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and worse, you were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee , then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain. Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."
So folks, don't let the cups drive you..., enjoy the coffee instead.

At times, it's the whole package.. Drinkg coffee can be seen as an experience rather than just the commodity itself... other than the aroma and taste of the coffee, the container can also put you in a good mood and hence, enhance the experience..Similarly life can be interpreted in the same way...Life should be the experience of drinking coffee & while the coffee itself is the essence, there's no reason why we cannot enjoy the "by-products" of having a nice cup... (of coz... subject to a certain amount of reasonableness... since some ppl might enjoy the process of obtaining the cup while others might be obsessed with it

Soulmates

I always wonder... are there really such things as soulmates in the world?
I believe that no one is indispensable... there're many people out there who might fit the bill of a particular "type" of soulmate... it is just whether you can meet the person (s) in your lifetime or not.

I never really thought abt relationships where both parties are from different races, countries, etc. To me, it's almost a given that my other half has to be a Chinese.. Though I do not seem to have any expectations, but perhaps due to the influence of the frens around me, I guess I've come to accept that my other half has to be fairly educated too... at least a diploma for I believe that communication is every important.

Recently, realisation hit me. Though there are many educated people around (especially in Singapore), there are more of others who are not of the same "level". Does it mean that they might not be able to communicate with me (or others who are tertiary educated)? I certainly do not believe so... I've frens who are in relationships with people of different nationalities/races/wide age gaps/etc but most of them are of similar education background/level. But what happens to those who are not?

I really do admire the courage of those who can take the plunge and accept their partners who are so different from them (especially if there were ppl who do not 'think' that their relationship will work). You might enjoy the company of a person tremendously.. but when it is to go deeper, such factors cannot be ignored. When I was presented with a chance to get to know someone better, I chickened out. As frens, anything is fine. But as future partners, I do find it hard to accept someone from a different background (be it education, cultural, living style, etc), different nationality and a significant age gap. Sometimes, certain things are best left alone.. Not everyone can be frens...

Sounds cryptic?? :pp

R&R : Religions & Relationships

I always wonder... I've seen quite some people who converted their religions due to their partners. Do they really do so willingly? Did they realise the merits of the other religion? Or was it simply coz they do not have any strong views of religions?
I once knew a guy... who used the excuse of "coz u're not a Christian, u cannot be my girl fren". Then, he should not have got close to e gal in the first place! It's true that certain religions do not accept other religions since they teach that theirs are the only true ones. However, at times, some ppl are merely using it as an excuse.. Why can't we ever take the chance to learn the other person's religion? You do not need to embrace it.. but simply to recognise the fact that the other person has his/her own belief and respect that..

I found an excerpt that expressed my views abt religions...

From a Buddhist mailing list:
Quotation from an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh:

I would like to tell you a story. Thirty five years ago I had a student who fell in love with a young man who was Catholic, and the family of that young man required that the young lady abandon the practice of Buddhism in order to be baptized as a Catholic. That was the basic condition for the marriage, and she suffered very much. Her family was also opposed to that. She cried and cried, and one day she came to me.

I said that Buddhism is not there to make you unhappy. Buddhism is not an obstacle, so I think in the name of the Buddha I can tell you that you can become a Catholic and marry him, but I would like to make a recommendation. You have received The Five Mindfulness Trainings; you should continue to look on them as the guidelines of your life. You don't have to be called a Buddhist; you only have to be a true Buddhist within yourself. Live accordingly and practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and that would make me happy enough. She was so joyful that she was allowed to marry the person she loved.

But she did not sleep during that night, and the next morning she came very early, and she said, "Thay, a tradition that is so embracing, so tolerant, so open, if I abandon it and turn my back to it, I am not a person of value. A tradition that is so strict, that has no tolerance, that is not able to understand, how could I formally identify myself with it?" So she just refused to get married to that person. I thought that I would help her get married to that young man, but I caused the opposite to happen. Today, thirty five years later, she is here somewhere in this Sangha.


When I was in Korea a few years ago, I participated in the first dialogue between Buddhists and Christians, and I said that many young people have suffered due to being caught in that kind of situation. So I proposed that we should be able to allow Buddhists and Christians to marry each other, with the condition that the young man would learn and also practice the tradition of the young woman, and the young woman would also learn and practice the tradition of the young man. Instead of having one root, you have two roots. Why not?

If you love mangoes, you are free to continue to eat mangoes, but no one forbids you to eat pineapples or oranges. Your favorite fruit is the mango, yes, but you don't betray your mango when you eat pineapple. I think it's too narrow-minded, even stupid, to enjoy only mango, when there are so many different fruits around in the world. Spiritual traditions are like spiritual fruits, and you have the right to enjoy them. It is possible to enjoy two traditions, to take the best of two traditions and live with that. If you like to eat Italian food, you can still enjoy French and Chinese cooking. You cannot say, "I have to be faithful to my Italian cooking", that's too funny.

Dating around the world

My gal fren sent this to me...
And I thought it gave me such a good laugh that I should share it around.

Ok, so there's a lot of stereotypes here, but still funny.....Dating...

WHITE WOMEN:
First date: You get to kiss her goodnight.
Second date: You get to grope all over and make out a bit.
Third date: You get to have sex but only in the missionary position.

IRISH WOMEN:
First Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex.
Second Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex.
20th Anniversary: You both get blind drunk and have sex.

ITALIAN WOMEN:
First Date: You take her to a play and an expensive restaurant.
Second Date: You meet her parents and her Mom makes spaghetti & meatballs.
Third Date: You have sex, she wants to marry you & insists on a 3-carat ring.
5th Anniversary: You already have 5 kids together & hate the thought of having sex.
6th Anniversary: You find yourself a Mistress.

JEWISH WOMEN:
First Date: You get terrific head.
Second Date: You get even more great head.
Third Date: You tell her you'll marry her and never get head again.

CHINESE WOMEN:
First date: You get to buy her an expensive dinner but nothing happens.
Second date: You buy her an even more expensive dinner. Nothing happens again.
Third date: You don't even get to the third date and you've already realized nothing is ever going to happen.

INDIAN WOMEN:
First date: Meet her parents.
Second date: Set the date of the wedding.
Third date: Wedding night.

BLACK WOMEN:
First Date: You get to buy her a real expensive dinner.
Second Date: You get to buy her and her girlfriends a real expensive dinner.
Third Date: You get to pay her rent.
Tenth Date: She's pregnant by someone other than you.

MEXICAN WOMEN:
First Date: You buy her an expensive dinner, get drunk on Tequila, and have sex in the back of her car.
Second Date: She's pregnant.
Third Date: She moves in. One week later, her mother, father, his girlfriend, her two sisters, her brother, all of their kids, her grandma, her father's girlfriend's mother, her two cousins, her sister's Boyfriend and his three kids move in and you live on rice and beans for the rest of your life in your home that used to be nice, but now looks like a home along the Tijuana strip.

ARAB WOMEN:
First Date: Mother, Father, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Friends and entire arab community finds out.
Second Date: You are shot dead.
No third date.

Guys, listen up!

For those who knows me, you will know that one of my hobbies is Salsa. Yes, I enjoy the movement of my body to that Afro-cuban-latino music. I try to be regular too.. at least once a week at the salsa pub to dance.

Imagine this:
Just when you're having a great evening dancing & having fun, a guy you dun really know came up to you to invite you for a dance. Sounds like the typical romance story of "both of you have a good time & you fell for each other"???
Pls dun be fooled... It does happen... but not often enough.
Well.. some scenarios:
1) The guy is cute & is such a fantastic dancer (well... a bit rare loh..)
2) The guy is not so cute but still a fantastic dancer (that's pretty fine.. at least you get to enjoy the dance)
3) The guy is a fantastic dancer but his attitude sucks (ok...that can lead to 2 outcomes: 1 being that you still enjoy the dance but you tend to look elsewhere instead of his face whom you'd love to punch, 2 being he thinks he's simply great & you're not up to his level & you regret ever setting eyes on him)
4) The guy is an ok dancer (that's perfectly fine.. other positive attributes are bonuses)
5) The guy is a beginner & is a lousy dancer (no prob! everyone's new once! I used to have 2 left-feet too)
6) The guy has been dancing for quite sometime but is still a lousy dancer (sigh.. not everyone has the aptitude.. I took a long time too.. so endure a bit. some are just slow starters..)
7) The guy has been dancing for quite sometime, is a lousy dancer & has an attitude problem (do I need to say anymore???)
8) The guy can be bad/excellent dancer but it doesn't matter.. coz his hands are busier.. groping elsewhere (harlow.. not all gals who dance are that casual!!!!)

Honestly, I do not deny that it's definitely more enjoyable to dance with a guy who has fantastic rhythm sense, excellent lead, etc. However, it's also ok to dance with guys who are not too good.. as long as they've an excellent attitude. I'm not that fantastic a dancer too.. we all make mistakes, then just laugh it off loh. But good or bad dancers alike, it becomes a torture to dance with once they have that stuck up attitude. And of coz.. for those "octopus", gals will have to take extreme measures of stepping on their feet with their heels or jerking up the knee. Of coz this is rather extreme.. the usual thing I do is to apply pressure on the guy's shoulders & to keep my arm locked when he tries to pull me close (so that there is a gap in between).

I met 2 irritating dancers yesterday.. one of them is a Japanese guy on holiday here. A bit old but still rather suave-looking. He invited me to dance & asked if I'm local.. coz I looked like a Jap. (sigh.. wat kinda pick-up line is that???) He's one of those octopuses & kept inviting me to dance.. I had to reject & even went to hide! :p
The other irritating guy.. he's guilty of scenario 7. I've danced with him a couple of times & though he's really quite bad, I thought I must still give him bonus points for mustering up the courage to invite people to dance. Hence, I always agree. This time round, I asked him how long he's been salsa-ing, which school he's from & the level he's at. He shocked me with his answer... he has actually taken lessons till intermediate level & this also means that he would have been dancing about a year or so.. however, he's worse than some beginners!! He tried to turn me a lot of times at the wrong timing and thks goodness there's not much lead from him (otherwise you will see a litter of bones around the area where we dance). So I just gently commented that you have to lead at the correct timing so that there's enough time to turn.

He looked at me & said," Well, you also have to look at the flow of the dance.. so that it's smooth & graceful." My jaw dropped. The remainder of the dance was spent in silence. It wasn't even criticism.. merely pointing out that there's somethg he could have done better.. but this guy, he actually thought that he knew better with that superior tone of his. That's it.. that's the last time I'm dancing with him. He actually have no idea he's doing it all wrong & when someone commented, he went ahead of his stick-in-the-mud attitude!

Sigh.. guys... pls do yourselves a favour. I'm not saying that only guys are at fault. At times, the gals can be a terror to dance with too.. but do remember that because you're the ones leading, we will feel the pain when you "twist" our arms.. It is also possible for us to sprain our legs, fall, etc. And, PLS LISTEN when others try to keep constructive comments!! Especially when it's our arms that you're handling!! You can definitely choose to shrug off the comments you get, sift through & take out the ones which you think are worth improving on.. But pls do not have that awfully stuck-up tone or face when you hear comments! (well.. unless they're from those super complain non-stop bitches, then they totally deserve it :p).

Going Ga Ga!!

I declare that I'm now mesmerised with a married man. Yes, I know it's pretty shocking.. but I'm not the only one.. There're hundreds or thousands out there who are just like me.. & we're all captivated by Park Shin Yang. Sigh.. the power of a drama serial.. it can project an ordinary looking guy into stardom. His role in Lovers in Paris has effectively swept me off my feet. I went a little crazier & googled a bit on him & learnt that he's happily married to a pretty lady 12-13 years his junior & they've a daughter. And of coz... the website has more of his pictures lah..

I must defend myself that I've never exactly gone crazy over any idol since my teenage years. I'm a superbly passive fan.. enjoy the song/movie/serial, think how cute/charming/charismatic the actor is and that's about it. The last actor I was "in love" with was Jang Dong Gun for his role in All About Eve. Again, another charismatic actor. I guess the kind of actors I like are more of the mature, not too good at expressing feelings but extremely charming type. Tony Leung is another of my favourite actor.

Back to Park Shin Yang, for those who have yet to watch Lovers in Paris, it's going to show soon on TV. But guess wat??? It's showing at that ungodly hour of 7pm!! Harlow??? Who's home to watch it except those ah mahs & ah pehs?? Can't u guys schedule it at 9pm?? A time when people who would appreciate such shows watch the tv?? So no more catching the suave Park Shin Yang for me loh.. *pout*

Glued!

Recently, "thanks" to my mum, I've been returning home earlier than normal & even not going out with my frens after work. For those who know me, you will know that this is rather unusual.. that I'll even choose not to meet up with frens just to go home??? Unheard of!

Well, it's coz my mum started off with renting some VCDs and subsequently borrowing some from her colleagues. The first set she rented was a HK drama serial 我的野蛮奶奶 (My Unreasonable Mother-In-Law). It was extremely hilarious.. how an unreasonable mother-in-law who was born as a princess tried to "curb" her rash & direct daughter-in-law. Add in a husband who's a mummy's boy and you've a successful comedy in the making. All the conflicts of how the mother-in-law tried to torture the daughter-in-law and how cowardy the son is. A rather relaxing and fun comedy that soon became serious as the son turns out to be a chivalrous hero who goes round robbing the rich to save the poor in secret. Still not too bad overall.. could be improved if the relationship between the son & daughter-in-law is played out in more details.

The second set of VCSDs she borrowed from her colleague is a Korean drama serial. I've not finished watching it yet.. 巴黎恋人 (Paris Lovers). Sounds sleazy?? Actually it's a romantic love story of how 2 men (an uncle & his nephew) concurrently fell in love with a compassionate, blur & comical gal. The uncle is a rich & successful heir to an automotive family business, who's love life is extremely lacking till he met this girl. The nephew (age difference with the uncle is only a few years) happens to be an extremely good-looking guy who is rather playful but caring. Add in the fact that these 2 men are very closely-knitted, a domineering father, an arranged marriage and the drama of the uncle turning out to be the nephew's brother, this serial got me hooked! I've not finished watching it yet the plot thickens.. Intending to do so over this weekend.. soo exciting!!

By the way, those good-looking Korean guys like Jang Dong Gun, Won Bin, Bae Jung Gun, etc. that you see on screen are rare & few in real life. The average Korean guy has small eyes, thin lips & is definitely not too suave looking. In the initial part of the show, I was wondering why on earth did they choose such an uncle-looking guy to add as the lead (well.. though he's indeed playing the role of an uncle, the lead actress is a sweet pretty thing.. so..erm..must be matching a bit lah...). But as the show progress, his looks does grow on me.. Especially the scene where he was playing ice hockey & he removed his glasses... Woah!! I'm falling in love with the character too! In comparison, the nephew who can make all gals swoon at his feet, pales in comparison as the show proceeds. Well, this kinda testifies the acting skills of these men since the average-looking guy can start to look good after awhile! :p The actress also starred in another serial.. in that serial I watched, she is beautiful & has a dignified look.. however, in this show, she appears to be the girl-next-door & is rather hilarious...

I do enjoy watching Japanese drama serials too.. However, recently I've started to turn more towards Korean ones. Koreans are by nature more subtle in expressing their feelings & there's much lesser of smooching on screen. There could also be long periods of silence where the characters in the show undergo some emotional trauma (more of undercurrents). The Japanese serials are more "modern" & depict more of love-hate relationships. Some people might find the silence & subtlety of the Korean shows unbearable, but I'm beginning to like it as it really tests the skills of the actors and presents another style of acting.

I'm praying that my mum does stop borrowing such drama serials for awhile.. It's quite killer to be watching it till rather late in the nite & I've to work next morning! Yes yes.. I know, shld be more disciplined.. but the episodes always cut off at the most exciting moment that you can't help but insert one more into the VCD player to watch!

Double standards???

It's been eons since I last blogged... during this period, I've been busy with the preparation of the games for a fun fair, work, books, fun, etc.. all except the time to blog.
Simply put, I was just plain lazy:p The thought of switching on my home PC after having stared at it at work for more than 8 hrs simply put me off. I was also too busy out playing on weekends :p
I've been spending much time reading the blogs of others & they were so interesting! That of an extremely witty doctor, Dr Bl Og, that of a civil servant, etc. Alas! Most of these blogs have been "closed" down. Was thinking of closing mine too.. since I'm such a lazy person despite the support of all my frens.. but then again, sigh.. decided just to hang on for awhile more..blog as & when I feel like it loh..

Anyway, on the extremely "hot" issue of Nguyen Tuong Van, the drug smuggler, I've some views too.. Being a Buddhist, I do not advocate killing or the taking away of life from any being. However, I'm also not totally against capital punishment.. especially when the person being executed will bring more harm to others if not so. However, this is not the first convict that Singapore is executing. Why should this case be any different from others? Simply coz he's an Australian? Simply coz it's Singapore & not other countries? There're many other countries which carry capital punishment & not much juicy news evolved from those... Does it also mean that certain "lives" are more valuable? I fully support the fact that as Singaporeans, we should not deviate from our normal practice & succumb to political pressure. Once a precedence is set, we can no longer stand firm on future cases.

If we can execute our own people if they commit such a crime, why should we practise double standards & spare others just coz they're of a different nationality?

Australia's PM John Howard said this:
'It is beyond belief that any Australian could be so stupid as to carry drugs into any country in Asia. We have told Australians - young Australians - again and again, do not take drugs out of this country, do not take them into Asian countries because you cannot expect any mercy. Now, we will keep pushing that message, but people have to understand that if they defy that and they get caught with drugs, they cannot expect the government to bail them out.

What kind of message is the Aussie PM putting across??? Is he telling the Australians that you shld not carry drugs to Asia but it's ok to do it in Australia or Europe since there's no capital punishment?? With such an attitude, can he expect the people to stop taking or trafficking drugs??

The matters on Nguyen's twin brother was also kept a secret as the judge handling the issue deems his case as being sensitive & might have an impact on his brother's case. For this, his punishment was delayed & even lessened. Does this make sense?? As long as a crime is committed, no matter who you might be, a prince, a king or whoever, you should not be given any special treatment: The reason being that your criminal act has void you of all your status.. you're simply just like any other criminal.. & both cases are separate issues.. how could they be lumped together?
I do not understand why a minute of silence should be observed for a criminal.. has he made any huge contribution to society? Is he of outstanding character or of some commendable traits? Just coz he's a criminal who was caught in another country & given capital punishment? Why should some of the Australians call us barbaric & boycott our products? We've always held firm to our decision especially in matters such as criminal punishment.. They've never done so till we decided to carry out our normal procedures & execute an Australian. Should we command more respect just coz we succumb to pressure & decided not to execute Nguyen? It makes no sense for me. Would we then not be seen as a weak nation with no principles? No ethics? Double standards? If we've to pay for executing a criminal of heinous crimes, so be it.

Pls note that it's not that I'm advocating political insensitivities here & neither am I against all Australians. I'm just giving my comments based on the issue. The issue here is no longer "Singapore carries out capital punishment & is capital punishment right?". The issue has become "Singapore is executing an Australian."