Celebrations

It feels as if the celebrations season has started and it will take us right up to the end of the year. A bit early to my taste but thats how it goes. A boy in Beatrice's class had managed to convince his mom into holding a spontaneous Halloween party, so that filled our Thursday afternoon. Kids dressed up and especially the boys in their sceletton and Darf Wader outfits gave the people we passed by the pool and the taxi driver a good laugh. They live in a big house right around the corner from us. Both mom and dad work and travel a lot and the poor little boy has the huge house to himself for most of the time. We carved loads of pumpkins, kids played in the pool and by the sound of it took the house apart. But nothing got broken and everybody had a good time as usual with spontaneous arrangements I guess. That was it for Halloween. We didn't do trick or treat this year, because here we would have to buzz at the intercom in order to get to other people's floors, so that would kind of take the surprize out.
On Friday Beatrice had her Deepavali assembly at school. That was very pretty - all kids wearing beautiful Indian outfits, especially the girls. They did some good dancing to Bollywood hits and that spiced it up nicely.
From there we headed for the boys school the celebrate their birthday with a cake (that didn't raise unfortunately) and goodie bags for the classmates. That was very sweet. Also good to see the teachers. They think both boys are making good progress.
On Saturday we were invited to another birthday party in a condo next to ours. That was for two brothers who turned 4 and 6 and are an interesting mix of a Swedish mother and Indian father but born and raised in the US and Sing. That was absolutely crazy - over 50 kids and their parents. My kids still had a good time. A warm-up for the boys party on Sunday.
Well Sunday was nothing like that. We had BBQ and played some games and the kids played in the pool. Just a few boys from school and some kids from the condo. I had planned to play more organized sporty games but it prooved quite tricky to gather everybody in one spot and the 4-year olds are still not very easy to organize. (For their school sports day they had obviously practiced.) Hopefully everyone still had a good time. The house is full of transformers, power rangers, spidermen etc. Boys stuffed their schoolbags to brim this morning and Karl even tryed to take an extra plastic bag. Raoul got an advanced piece of Megablocks from Mia and Alex that meant Robert spent about 5 hours building this command station. He enjoyed it. I am still trying to work out these transformers. Don't really know how to do it next time. The boys like a big party but that creates too many presents. (And now Beatrice will have a party with the whole class.) They will not agree to the idea of donating at least some of the gifts. Will have to think about it.
Today there was an ad in the newspaper that puzzles me seriously. It covers the whole page and is basically a warning from the Department of Appropriate Behaviour not to watch a cable TV channel during their free preview this week because the programmes are not morally acceptable. If it was in any other country I would regard this as an ad by the cable operator to make people curious. But being Singapore it might well be for real. Also considering that Singapore was in the 144th place on the recent list of press freedom. (Whereas Estonia shared the 4th place.) I have become more and more amazed about this citystate. The argument that economic well-being brings about democracy and freedom simply doesn't work here. They all go around with their designer handbags but that's all that worries them - nice condo, big car, designer clothes, making sure the kids achieve beyond average. That there is no real political opposition because they get locked up or fined millions if they dare to speak publicly, doesn't bother many. A gathering of more than 5 people is illegal. When US invaded Iraq, there were 3 people protesting here. Now there is a speakers corner but you still need prior approval to use it. People are well behaved as long as the good behaviour is stated in laws - like you don't spit on the floor because it is forbidden by law. But you don't help a mother carrying a pram up the stairs because there is no legal obligation to do so. Etc.
Hopefully I will not be kicked out of the country for writing that. It is still a good place to stay with young kids as they can play outside and make friends in a really safe environment. Just a bit soul-less as an Australian friend put it.