Having watched Japanese dramas for so many years, I grew interested in how they are broadcasted in Japanese television. Their structure and arrangement is quite different from that of Singapore, mainly due to the tough competition for viewership ratings between various TV stations. Here are some of the major differences.
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SG: Dramas are usually 20 episodes long, sometimes 25, or 30 for larger productions. There are also occasional long-running dramas, which are usually aired during the prime-time 7pm slot. Generally, dramas are aired every weekday night. Thus an average 20-episode long drama will complete its run within 1 month.
JP: Dramas are aired by seasons. January to March will see winter dramas, April to June will see spring dramas, and so on. This means at the start of every season, a set of new dramas will be introduced. As prime-time dramas are aired on a weekly basis, this explains why they are usually 11 or 12 episodes long. The short-and-sweet factor is what makes Jdrama so attractive. The plot is presented in a more compact manner, with few draggy moments.
A unique characteristic of Jdramas is that the episodes can be watched separately. Sometimes the plot in one episode may have little relation to the previous episodes. This is to attract new viewers even at the 4th or 5th episode. For example in a police drama, each episode will cover a different crime case.
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SG: At the beginning of every drama there will be an introductory theme song, presenting various scenes extracted from the show. A short clip flashing the title of the drama signals the start and end of the commercial breaks. At the end of the drama, the scene will ‘freeze’ and credits will start rolling, while the theme or sub-theme song plays in the background.
JP: Show starts right away. No introductory theme song. No short clip to mark commercial breaks. This can be quite abrupt though. However there is still a short few seconds clip showing the title of the drama, followed by acknowledgment of the main sponsors. This usually appears about 10 minutes into the show. If you happen to miss it when watching the show for the first time, you will probably be clueless about the title of the drama for the rest of the episode.
There is still a main theme though, usually played with the credits a few minutes before the show ends. This is interesting, because the credits roll while the show is still going on, at the bottom of the screen. The challenge for the editor is to insert the credits as well as the main theme at the most suitable time, so as to match the mood of the scene. After all the credits have rolled, the show may end at any moment haha.
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SG: Chinese dramas carries English subtitles, and vice versa. Subtitles may spoil the suspense at critical moments.
JP: No subtitles at all. That’s why fansubbers (drama fans who add subtitles) have a very hard time. The production team has no time to add subtitles anyway. Reason will be mentioned later.
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SG: Most dramas are 1-hour long, with 4 commercial breaks in between. (3 in the past) Thus the effective drama duration is around 46 minutes. Those who often watch dramas online should be familiar with this ‘common’ duration.
JP: Dramas vary in duration. Possible lengths are 30 min, 45 min or 60 min. (effective length: 24, 35, 46 min). This brings to another point.
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SG: Dramas (as well as any programmes in general), start on the hour or half-hour mark.
JP: Dramas usually do not start exactly on the hour or half-hour mark. They can have irregular start times like 9.03 or 8:56, a few minutes before or after the hour mark. This is primarily due to viewership competition. When a programme ends early before the hour, viewers are likely to switch channels and settle on one that does not show commercials. Hence dramas that start early tend to attract such viewers. As for why dramas start a few minutes later, this is to accommodate for programmes that end past the hour. Viewers are not likely to continue watching a drama from another channel after they have missed the first few minutes. The psychology of attracting viewers can be rather complex here.
However this can be really confusing to people who wants to catch a particular drama! Wouldn’t a drama lose more viewers if they cannot remember the start time?
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SG: A drama is aired a few months after filming ends. Long-running drama is an exception.
JP: Airing and filming is carried out simultaneously. An episode is aired a few weeks after its filming. This way, the production team is able to gauge the viewers’ response and make necessary changes accordingly. If the response is overwhelming, the drama can be extended by a special episode. If viewership is hopeless, the drama may be cut short, or simply axed.
Simultaneous filming can be rather risky (and stressful as well), in a way that the pressing deadlines must be strictly adhered to. What if an actor or actress is unable to commit to filming due to injuries or other circumstances?
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Since Mediacorp monopolizes SG TV, I don’t think we need all these ‘extreme’ measures adopted by JP TV to attract viewers. After all the competition does not lie between different channels, but between local and foreign shows.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Idiot Box IV
As some of you may know, I enjoy watching game shows, and have been doing so from small. I’ve always wished that I could participate in some of them, but I don’t want to appear on TV haha. Furthermore for some really good game shows, audience would rather prefer to watch celebrities participate instead of the general public. These celebrities can boost the atmosphere of the show and attract more viewership, so the producers tend to set aside their resources for celebrities instead.
What to do if normal people like me wants to play as well? Design the game on my own lor haha. But the bad thing is the game creator often cannot play his own game. =(
Here are some of the memorable game shows I’ve watched when small. I prefer those where the audience can join in and ‘play along’ as well, rather than games which are only fun for the player but boring to the viewers.
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One of the best classic English word game (Actually till now I still enjoy playing casual word games like hangman and Chinese 文字游戏, but too bad I can’t find a suitable person as interested as me to play with T_T)
I don’t like how most phrases and sentences are American-based, which makes it hard for people from other countries to play along. This explains why I like the RSTLNE part – short and sweet and ‘globalized’.
And oh, the most memorable thing about the wheel is the black ‘Bankrupt’ piece, which comes with an amusing sound effect.
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This show used to come right after Wheel of Fortune. So I usually watched both at once.
Looks easy? Not really, given the stress and time factor, which will often block our minds from the “simple and obvious”. I realized for this kind of games, it may be better to take some time to think of a good clue that your partner can answer immediately, rather than to bombard many (poor) clues and hope one of them strikes. Saves saliva also haha.
The final challenge, where a player has to describe many examples and the other has to guess the question or category, is not easy IMO especially when it can be very specific.
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This physical game show made me realize how wild Japanese are. The participants were sporting and didn’t seem to mind being bashed, pushed into mud and water, and ‘bullied’ by the rules. The show starts off with 100 over players, and slowly eliminates bit by bit, until the final showdown where players engage in a water gun (or laser) war with the emperor and his merciless guards.
I like how the design of the games makes it interesting to watch for the audience, though they can’t play along. Some thrilling games really make one sit on the edge of the seat. One of my favourite is the honeycomb maze, where players have to navigate to the other end while avoiding the roaming ‘monsters’. It is pretty scary from the player’s perspective.
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Ooh. I love mazes! Especially life-sized ones. I can’t remember the rules much but I think players have to enter an ice maze while their partners guide them.
I vaguely remember a section where players have to assemble connecting pieces while holding out a moving wall. Is this from the same game show?
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黃金傳奇
Players go around cities performing various tasks. I think they went to Singapore once. It’s like a small scale Amazing Race, focusing on one region at a time. The key is to solve the clues given at each station. They look very difficult but the ‘genius’ players seem to be always able to solve them correctly. When stuck, they can choose to summon the genie-like ‘forgot-the-name’ person for help.
I can't find any videos or images for this show. Weird.
As mentioned earlier, game shows nowadays seem to be evolving towards celebrity participation, to attract viewership, at least for the case of Singapore. Probably because Singaporeans are less expressive and hysterical, which can make even an interesting game show look boring sometimes.
What to do if normal people like me wants to play as well? Design the game on my own lor haha. But the bad thing is the game creator often cannot play his own game. =(
Here are some of the memorable game shows I’ve watched when small. I prefer those where the audience can join in and ‘play along’ as well, rather than games which are only fun for the player but boring to the viewers.
---
One of the best classic English word game (Actually till now I still enjoy playing casual word games like hangman and Chinese 文字游戏, but too bad I can’t find a suitable person as interested as me to play with T_T)
I don’t like how most phrases and sentences are American-based, which makes it hard for people from other countries to play along. This explains why I like the RSTLNE part – short and sweet and ‘globalized’.
And oh, the most memorable thing about the wheel is the black ‘Bankrupt’ piece, which comes with an amusing sound effect.
---
This show used to come right after Wheel of Fortune. So I usually watched both at once.
Looks easy? Not really, given the stress and time factor, which will often block our minds from the “simple and obvious”. I realized for this kind of games, it may be better to take some time to think of a good clue that your partner can answer immediately, rather than to bombard many (poor) clues and hope one of them strikes. Saves saliva also haha.
The final challenge, where a player has to describe many examples and the other has to guess the question or category, is not easy IMO especially when it can be very specific.
---
This physical game show made me realize how wild Japanese are. The participants were sporting and didn’t seem to mind being bashed, pushed into mud and water, and ‘bullied’ by the rules. The show starts off with 100 over players, and slowly eliminates bit by bit, until the final showdown where players engage in a water gun (or laser) war with the emperor and his merciless guards.
I like how the design of the games makes it interesting to watch for the audience, though they can’t play along. Some thrilling games really make one sit on the edge of the seat. One of my favourite is the honeycomb maze, where players have to navigate to the other end while avoiding the roaming ‘monsters’. It is pretty scary from the player’s perspective.
---
Ooh. I love mazes! Especially life-sized ones. I can’t remember the rules much but I think players have to enter an ice maze while their partners guide them.
I vaguely remember a section where players have to assemble connecting pieces while holding out a moving wall. Is this from the same game show?
---
黃金傳奇
Players go around cities performing various tasks. I think they went to Singapore once. It’s like a small scale Amazing Race, focusing on one region at a time. The key is to solve the clues given at each station. They look very difficult but the ‘genius’ players seem to be always able to solve them correctly. When stuck, they can choose to summon the genie-like ‘forgot-the-name’ person for help.
I can't find any videos or images for this show. Weird.
As mentioned earlier, game shows nowadays seem to be evolving towards celebrity participation, to attract viewership, at least for the case of Singapore. Probably because Singaporeans are less expressive and hysterical, which can make even an interesting game show look boring sometimes.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Toy Story II
Last entry I talked about boardgames. This time let’s backtrack a little and look at simpler games that I’ve played when I was younger.
Games Compendium (10-in-1 or 5-in-1)
A combination of many roll-and-move games, that came with pawns, chips and dice. The playing ‘boards’ were made of paper, so it was really budget. I remember how cheaply such sets were sold in provision stores. Games include the well-known snakes-and-ladders, racing game, star game, space game, chess (dumb) etc. These are the most basic boardgames I started off playing. The magnetic board version was also rather popular.
Othello (Reversi, or Black-White Chess)
The rules are pretty simple but the strategy may be complex. At one moment you might seem to be winning, and at another, the whole board can suddenly change colour. If the board is dominated by your colour at the early stage, it doesn’t mean it will continue as such. Placing of pieces at strategic spots is very important, and just trying to flip over as much of opponent’s colour every turn is not going to work. This game requires constant flipping, which can be quite a hassle, especially if it’s of miniature size and clumsy hands may mess up the whole setup. I used to confuse this with Weiqi (or Go), which also uses black and white pieces. Oh, there was once an arcade version (in big screens) and I liked watching how human players get trashed by the AI haha.
Chinese Chess
Up till this day I still don’t have a strategy in playing this game. I know how the pieces move, but I’ve totally no idea when is the best time, or what is the best way to move them. I used to enjoy watching others play, but I hate it when people take too long to make their moves =p. And my favourite phrase in this game is 双炮将死棋！
Mastermind
The procedure for each game is actually quite fixed, how fast you finish depends on your initial guess. Just like 933 醉心密码. Technically the game can be rather boring in this sense. Instead of playing the actual game, I always liked to play around with the colourful studs and create patterns out of them.
Pick-up Sticks
Another colourful game haha. You need a really steady hand to play this one. Unfortunately it gets boring pretty fast, without a clearly defined set of rules. At many occasions, I found myself unable to proceed with the game because the sticks cannot be simply picked without agitating the rest. I used to treat the sticks for other purposes, like toy joss sticks haha.
Uno
Other than the popular classic card game, Uno has many other variants like Uno Stacko, Uno Madness, Uno Dominos, etc. Uno Madness is my favourite, where you have to race against time to place the correct tiles before the entire board ‘pops’ up. Those with weak hearts may suffer a heart attack from playing this hahaa. Uno stacko is another tense game where you cannot afford to have butter fingers. Seeing (and hearing) the tower crash may be fun, but building the blocks from scratch is not. I was once a Uno fan and bought many related games, including a jumbo pack which consists of several Uno variants.
Misc Cardgames
Donkey, Old Maid, Happy Family, etc…who could ever forget these childhood games?
Popular games I’ve not played before
Battleship, Risk, Game of Life, Jenga, Twister etc.
Nowadays I see more kids playing with their handheld gadgets instead of these physical card/board/object games. Looks like such traditional games are gradually losing their appeal among the young. They might even not have heard about these games before. Hopefully these games, which have accompanied me through the joys of my childhood, will not just vanish into history in the near future.
Games Compendium (10-in-1 or 5-in-1)
A combination of many roll-and-move games, that came with pawns, chips and dice. The playing ‘boards’ were made of paper, so it was really budget. I remember how cheaply such sets were sold in provision stores. Games include the well-known snakes-and-ladders, racing game, star game, space game, chess (dumb) etc. These are the most basic boardgames I started off playing. The magnetic board version was also rather popular.
Othello (Reversi, or Black-White Chess)
The rules are pretty simple but the strategy may be complex. At one moment you might seem to be winning, and at another, the whole board can suddenly change colour. If the board is dominated by your colour at the early stage, it doesn’t mean it will continue as such. Placing of pieces at strategic spots is very important, and just trying to flip over as much of opponent’s colour every turn is not going to work. This game requires constant flipping, which can be quite a hassle, especially if it’s of miniature size and clumsy hands may mess up the whole setup. I used to confuse this with Weiqi (or Go), which also uses black and white pieces. Oh, there was once an arcade version (in big screens) and I liked watching how human players get trashed by the AI haha.
Chinese Chess
Up till this day I still don’t have a strategy in playing this game. I know how the pieces move, but I’ve totally no idea when is the best time, or what is the best way to move them. I used to enjoy watching others play, but I hate it when people take too long to make their moves =p. And my favourite phrase in this game is 双炮将死棋！
Mastermind
The procedure for each game is actually quite fixed, how fast you finish depends on your initial guess. Just like 933 醉心密码. Technically the game can be rather boring in this sense. Instead of playing the actual game, I always liked to play around with the colourful studs and create patterns out of them.
Pick-up Sticks
Another colourful game haha. You need a really steady hand to play this one. Unfortunately it gets boring pretty fast, without a clearly defined set of rules. At many occasions, I found myself unable to proceed with the game because the sticks cannot be simply picked without agitating the rest. I used to treat the sticks for other purposes, like toy joss sticks haha.
Uno
Other than the popular classic card game, Uno has many other variants like Uno Stacko, Uno Madness, Uno Dominos, etc. Uno Madness is my favourite, where you have to race against time to place the correct tiles before the entire board ‘pops’ up. Those with weak hearts may suffer a heart attack from playing this hahaa. Uno stacko is another tense game where you cannot afford to have butter fingers. Seeing (and hearing) the tower crash may be fun, but building the blocks from scratch is not. I was once a Uno fan and bought many related games, including a jumbo pack which consists of several Uno variants.
Misc Cardgames
Donkey, Old Maid, Happy Family, etc…who could ever forget these childhood games?
Popular games I’ve not played before
Battleship, Risk, Game of Life, Jenga, Twister etc.
Nowadays I see more kids playing with their handheld gadgets instead of these physical card/board/object games. Looks like such traditional games are gradually losing their appeal among the young. They might even not have heard about these games before. Hopefully these games, which have accompanied me through the joys of my childhood, will not just vanish into history in the near future.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Composition
Writing an essay is probably the toughest part of using a language. It is definitely not easy to organize our thoughts, which often spout out haphazardly in our minds, and pen them down in a smooth and coherent manner, while paying attention to grammar at the same time. The more we study a language and read widely, our proficiency improves and we are more likely to reproduce our ideas in words more accurately and fluently.
This brings me back to how we were taught to write compositions in primary and secondary school. To start off with the basics, we were told to write separate sentences, then group them together – thus the term ‘composition’. In response to a topic, for instance, “Describe your favourite food”, we could write the following sentences in this order:
1) I like to eat roti prata.
2) I eat roti prata for breakfast every morning.
3) Roti prata is an Indian food.
Somehow the flow of idea is not very perfect, or rather the level of introduction to the food seems to be inconsistent. It would be slightly better if Sentences 3 and 2 are swapped, though the difference is subtle. When the topic is narrow, this order may seem alright and acceptable. But when the topic is broad, such jumps in thoughts may appear significant and abrupt, which gives the impression that the writer is merely darting randomly about the topic, penning down directly what he thinks without much planning. For sensitive readers, this can be annoying too as they might find it difficult to follow the writer’s disordered train of thoughts.
In primary school, I do not recall learning how to arrange our sentences such that they read coherently. Forming a proper, relevant and grammatically correct sentence is already as hard as it is. Teachers usually do not correct them too. Either they find it taxing to read so deeply into the flow, or it is too complex to explain the differences to primary school kids. After all, the fundamentals should focus more on grammar, vocabulary, and correct use of words, rather than the context and readability, which is usually not a big concern at that learning stage.
One reason why organization of sentences is not emphasized in primary school is due to the type of compositions we write. From young, we are taught how to write short stories, or describe situations. The order of key sentences therefore comes naturally, since the incident happens in that order. The flow of the composition is based on how the story should develop, which is relatively easy to imagine and keep track of.
Even as we progressed to secondary school, things had not changed much. We were still told to write short stories, expanding on what we had learnt in primary school. The compositions we wrote were still pretty much descriptive. Teachers avoided spending time and effort teaching us how to write a proper argumentative or expository essay. We were strongly encouraged to write short stories in tests and examinations, with repeated warnings that we might fail badly should we not heed the advice and attempt to write argumentative or expository essays instead. This is precisely a vicious cycle. How can we improve if we are not taught how to? And who is the one failing our essays anyway? Consequently most of us graduated from secondary school without sufficient knowledge on how to write a proper argumentative essay. This left many struggling with GP in JC, and subsequently university essays and reports.
What is the purpose of honing our short stories writing skills when we hardly use it in our later education and future work? It is even more useless than learning sine and cosine functions, as what many math-haters have cited. Most of us are not going to be an author anyway. Furthermore many essays and passages around us, be it newspaper articles, commentary, descriptions and even blog entries, do not adopt the short story format of writing - introduce characters, develop plot, achieve climax, wrap up. Thus clinging on to writing short stories even in secondary school seems to be rather pointless. More effort could have been spent in equipping us with relevant skills in generating a proper argumentative or expository essay. Such knowledge can be further applied in our tertiary education and is definitely useful to our future jobs when writing reports becomes a norm.
I have lost touch with the secondary school syllabus for a long time and have no idea if such short stories strategy is still being adopted in the system. Bearing in mind that the ultimate aim of education is to obtain skills relevant to future applications, it would be better to leave behind short stories, which is hardly required anywhere. Introducing argumentative/expository writing at an early stage may help alleviate later fears towards essay/report-writing in one way or another.
This brings me back to how we were taught to write compositions in primary and secondary school. To start off with the basics, we were told to write separate sentences, then group them together – thus the term ‘composition’. In response to a topic, for instance, “Describe your favourite food”, we could write the following sentences in this order:
1) I like to eat roti prata.
2) I eat roti prata for breakfast every morning.
3) Roti prata is an Indian food.
Somehow the flow of idea is not very perfect, or rather the level of introduction to the food seems to be inconsistent. It would be slightly better if Sentences 3 and 2 are swapped, though the difference is subtle. When the topic is narrow, this order may seem alright and acceptable. But when the topic is broad, such jumps in thoughts may appear significant and abrupt, which gives the impression that the writer is merely darting randomly about the topic, penning down directly what he thinks without much planning. For sensitive readers, this can be annoying too as they might find it difficult to follow the writer’s disordered train of thoughts.
In primary school, I do not recall learning how to arrange our sentences such that they read coherently. Forming a proper, relevant and grammatically correct sentence is already as hard as it is. Teachers usually do not correct them too. Either they find it taxing to read so deeply into the flow, or it is too complex to explain the differences to primary school kids. After all, the fundamentals should focus more on grammar, vocabulary, and correct use of words, rather than the context and readability, which is usually not a big concern at that learning stage.
One reason why organization of sentences is not emphasized in primary school is due to the type of compositions we write. From young, we are taught how to write short stories, or describe situations. The order of key sentences therefore comes naturally, since the incident happens in that order. The flow of the composition is based on how the story should develop, which is relatively easy to imagine and keep track of.
Even as we progressed to secondary school, things had not changed much. We were still told to write short stories, expanding on what we had learnt in primary school. The compositions we wrote were still pretty much descriptive. Teachers avoided spending time and effort teaching us how to write a proper argumentative or expository essay. We were strongly encouraged to write short stories in tests and examinations, with repeated warnings that we might fail badly should we not heed the advice and attempt to write argumentative or expository essays instead. This is precisely a vicious cycle. How can we improve if we are not taught how to? And who is the one failing our essays anyway? Consequently most of us graduated from secondary school without sufficient knowledge on how to write a proper argumentative essay. This left many struggling with GP in JC, and subsequently university essays and reports.
What is the purpose of honing our short stories writing skills when we hardly use it in our later education and future work? It is even more useless than learning sine and cosine functions, as what many math-haters have cited. Most of us are not going to be an author anyway. Furthermore many essays and passages around us, be it newspaper articles, commentary, descriptions and even blog entries, do not adopt the short story format of writing - introduce characters, develop plot, achieve climax, wrap up. Thus clinging on to writing short stories even in secondary school seems to be rather pointless. More effort could have been spent in equipping us with relevant skills in generating a proper argumentative or expository essay. Such knowledge can be further applied in our tertiary education and is definitely useful to our future jobs when writing reports becomes a norm.
I have lost touch with the secondary school syllabus for a long time and have no idea if such short stories strategy is still being adopted in the system. Bearing in mind that the ultimate aim of education is to obtain skills relevant to future applications, it would be better to leave behind short stories, which is hardly required anywhere. Introducing argumentative/expository writing at an early stage may help alleviate later fears towards essay/report-writing in one way or another.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Toy Story
Toys are part and parcel of our childhood. As we grow and develop, the ‘toys’ we play also become more intelligent too. Boardgames and cardgames are examples of ‘toys’ which requires more thinking skills to play compared to the rest. (They may be regarded as toys since they are classified under the toys section in departmental stores)
Here are some boardgames that I started off playing when I was a kid. An inconvenience of such games is that you can’t play them on your own, you have to find someone else to play with, which can be quite difficult if you stay at home often or have friends who aren’t enthusiastic in playing such games.
Generally my first boardgames were the roll-dice-and-move type. Depends a lot on luck and it may get boring after a while. Unfortunately this has become the mentality that most layman have about boardgames. Just like how cardgames equates to gambling.
Monopoly
This should be the most well-known boardgame in the world, with several editions and variations. I used to have the ‘Lion City’ edition, where street names are based on actual places in Singapore:
For your information, Geylang and Serangoon were the cheapest properties (brown) while Nassim Road and Queen Astrid Park were the most expensive properties (purple). Check the street directory if you don’t know where these places are. However at present, people would regard Marina Bay and Sentosa Cove as the most expensive properties, thanks to MacDonalds.
The flow of the game will depend very much on your die roll, which determines where you land. At the beginning, everyone would compete to finish the first round as fast as possible so that they can start buying properties on the second round. The rule of thumb is basically buy where you land on, since you’ll never know how often others will land on your property and pay you rent. If you can manage to secure all properties of the same colour set, you’re lucky. Otherwise if others manage to buy away one of them, you’ll (almost) never get a chance to complete the set anymore.
I had played the videogame version of Monopoly before, and the AI gave in too easily. I attempted to trade for a property that completes my colour set. Although the AI rejected my offer initial, it eventually accepted when I raised the agreed sum. Then I started building houses and hotels, and finally killed off the AI muhahaha.
The latest Monopoly Deal card game introduces a new dimension to how this property game can be played. Looks like the Monopoly legacy will always live on.
Scrabble
One of the most troublesome boardgames I’ve played IMO. It can be a big headache to calculate the points of every word formed, so I omitted the point system when playing in the past. Because of this, the game somehow became meaningless. Another tough part is trying to form the correct word. With limited vocabulary, we were often stuck with our letters. There were also frequent doubts on whether a certain word exists or not. Looking up the dictionary every turn was a hassle. In all, I actually disliked this game.
I think playing this game via the computer is much much easier. (eg. Playing online thru Facebook) Points are calculated automatically and you can just type the word in a box to search the dictionary.
Cluedo
A game with good theme but boring gameplay. Basically you walk around the mansion, enter rooms, find weapons and guess the murderer. The game can end pretty quickly if a lucky guess manages to strike. Moving from room to room is really uneventful and boring.
MAD Magazine
I think the illustration of that boy is really ugly.
So ugly that I used to get nightmares of him when I was small.
Anyway back to the boardgame, it has some really weird rules, basically opposite to that of Monopoly. You’re supposed to lose all your money instead. You move anticlockwise around the board instead of clockwise. Drawing chance cards can be quite punishing too. Although I only played this game twice or so, the bizarre rules (and illustrations) left an impression on me.
Super Mario Bros
I really liked this game a lot. The concept is similar to that of the videogame – destroy bricks, get coins and save the princess from the castle. Didn’t get much chance to play however, as this game belonged to my neighbor and some game pieces were lost.
Careers
Felt like an adult when playing this game haha. The aim of the game is to become successful in your career, while balancing love life and gaining fame. Sadly this is not easy to achieve in reality. This game was fun to play, but jotting down the love and fame points every now and then can be quite arduous, and it kills the pace of the game.
Trouble
The game is not as distressing as its name. Another typical roll-die-and-move kind of game, just that the die is not rolled, but popped by pressing the transparent shell in the middle. There isn’t much to this game; it can even be played on paper. Bought this as I was attracted by the commercial. Now you know why toys are so expensive.
Boardgames now have a different meaning to me, thanks to my platoon commander who introduced those non-typical boardgames (which can’t be found in departmental stores) and changed my mentality of all boardgames being roll-and-move kind that gets boring over time. Those games are generally not meant for kids and require a great deal of analytical and planning skills. The mind-stimulating factor of such boardgames is what makes them interesting and differentiates them from typical luck-dependent games where praying to the dice is often needed.
Here are some boardgames that I started off playing when I was a kid. An inconvenience of such games is that you can’t play them on your own, you have to find someone else to play with, which can be quite difficult if you stay at home often or have friends who aren’t enthusiastic in playing such games.
Generally my first boardgames were the roll-dice-and-move type. Depends a lot on luck and it may get boring after a while. Unfortunately this has become the mentality that most layman have about boardgames. Just like how cardgames equates to gambling.
Monopoly
This should be the most well-known boardgame in the world, with several editions and variations. I used to have the ‘Lion City’ edition, where street names are based on actual places in Singapore:
For your information, Geylang and Serangoon were the cheapest properties (brown) while Nassim Road and Queen Astrid Park were the most expensive properties (purple). Check the street directory if you don’t know where these places are. However at present, people would regard Marina Bay and Sentosa Cove as the most expensive properties, thanks to MacDonalds.
The flow of the game will depend very much on your die roll, which determines where you land. At the beginning, everyone would compete to finish the first round as fast as possible so that they can start buying properties on the second round. The rule of thumb is basically buy where you land on, since you’ll never know how often others will land on your property and pay you rent. If you can manage to secure all properties of the same colour set, you’re lucky. Otherwise if others manage to buy away one of them, you’ll (almost) never get a chance to complete the set anymore.
I had played the videogame version of Monopoly before, and the AI gave in too easily. I attempted to trade for a property that completes my colour set. Although the AI rejected my offer initial, it eventually accepted when I raised the agreed sum. Then I started building houses and hotels, and finally killed off the AI muhahaha.
The latest Monopoly Deal card game introduces a new dimension to how this property game can be played. Looks like the Monopoly legacy will always live on.
Scrabble
One of the most troublesome boardgames I’ve played IMO. It can be a big headache to calculate the points of every word formed, so I omitted the point system when playing in the past. Because of this, the game somehow became meaningless. Another tough part is trying to form the correct word. With limited vocabulary, we were often stuck with our letters. There were also frequent doubts on whether a certain word exists or not. Looking up the dictionary every turn was a hassle. In all, I actually disliked this game.
I think playing this game via the computer is much much easier. (eg. Playing online thru Facebook) Points are calculated automatically and you can just type the word in a box to search the dictionary.
Cluedo
A game with good theme but boring gameplay. Basically you walk around the mansion, enter rooms, find weapons and guess the murderer. The game can end pretty quickly if a lucky guess manages to strike. Moving from room to room is really uneventful and boring.
MAD Magazine
I think the illustration of that boy is really ugly.
So ugly that I used to get nightmares of him when I was small.
Anyway back to the boardgame, it has some really weird rules, basically opposite to that of Monopoly. You’re supposed to lose all your money instead. You move anticlockwise around the board instead of clockwise. Drawing chance cards can be quite punishing too. Although I only played this game twice or so, the bizarre rules (and illustrations) left an impression on me.
Super Mario Bros
I really liked this game a lot. The concept is similar to that of the videogame – destroy bricks, get coins and save the princess from the castle. Didn’t get much chance to play however, as this game belonged to my neighbor and some game pieces were lost.
Careers
Felt like an adult when playing this game haha. The aim of the game is to become successful in your career, while balancing love life and gaining fame. Sadly this is not easy to achieve in reality. This game was fun to play, but jotting down the love and fame points every now and then can be quite arduous, and it kills the pace of the game.
Trouble
The game is not as distressing as its name. Another typical roll-die-and-move kind of game, just that the die is not rolled, but popped by pressing the transparent shell in the middle. There isn’t much to this game; it can even be played on paper. Bought this as I was attracted by the commercial. Now you know why toys are so expensive.
Boardgames now have a different meaning to me, thanks to my platoon commander who introduced those non-typical boardgames (which can’t be found in departmental stores) and changed my mentality of all boardgames being roll-and-move kind that gets boring over time. Those games are generally not meant for kids and require a great deal of analytical and planning skills. The mind-stimulating factor of such boardgames is what makes them interesting and differentiates them from typical luck-dependent games where praying to the dice is often needed.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Moonday
I always wonder why are there so many different names referring to the same day. Mid Autumn Festival, Mooncake Festival, Lantern Festival, etc. This means there are several meanings attached to this day, which makes it more significant than other non-public-holiday festivals. If it's not a public holiday, I doubt most people will look forward to it right?
Ok I used to look forward to Mooncake Festival (I prefer calling it by its associated food haha) very much when I was a kid. At night, I would go to the nearby park, 'chope' a place at the playground and start lighting candles. On every MAF night, that park would be bustling with activity. It was like some huge candlelight party. This seemed to be the only day when I can play with fire without getting weird stares from people.
Other than packs of candles and matchsticks, I would also bring sparklers and paper lanterns (those traditional ones where you've to insert a candle inside). Throughout the years, I began to feel that strolling around with a lantern is just too boring, so the poor lantern became a nice target to burn. I would shake the lantern vigorously after setting it up, so that the candle inside will fall a burn the entire lantern heh heh.
The main enjoyment, however, is still forming patterns on the ground with candles. How did I dispose of the candle boxes and other resulting rubbish? Burn them! Haha. Yea I dug a deep hole in the sand pit and threw everything inside and burnt them. Then I would just cover the hole up. How convenient. =p Is that considered as littering? Anyway now that most playgrounds don't have sand, this method doesn't work anymore.
The park indeed looked spectacular on that very night, but the next day it was totally in a mess, with waxes stuck on every corner, and ashes badly littered all over the ground. I pity the cleaners who have to deal with such debris that the 'tradition' has left behind.
Now that I've grown out of this fire-playing, the thing that keeps me attached to the festival is the food of course. Yum yum! Mooncake is tasty but fattening. Well, it should be fine since it's only once a year haha. Prefer those snowskin ones, but baked ones are fine with me too. I don't mind the egg yolk, though I always find it hard and tasteless after putting it in the fridge. Durian mooncake is not bad too, though it's a luxury. Haven't really tried those special flavoured ones, but some people say they tasted terrible haha.
There seem to be so many things you can do on this day, like moon-gazing. Sadly I can't see the moon from my room now. I'm still very amazed how the moon can shine so brightly even though it doesn't emit light on its own.
There is also this 猜灯谜 thingy, but it often ends up telling lame riddles. Those authentic riddles can be really hard to solve.
Occasionally Mooncake festival will coincide with my birthday haha (once in every n years, where n is a number more than 10 perhaps). This is especially a big affair in China where every citizen will celebrate my birthday in conjunction with the festival. =p
Ok I used to look forward to Mooncake Festival (I prefer calling it by its associated food haha) very much when I was a kid. At night, I would go to the nearby park, 'chope' a place at the playground and start lighting candles. On every MAF night, that park would be bustling with activity. It was like some huge candlelight party. This seemed to be the only day when I can play with fire without getting weird stares from people.
Other than packs of candles and matchsticks, I would also bring sparklers and paper lanterns (those traditional ones where you've to insert a candle inside). Throughout the years, I began to feel that strolling around with a lantern is just too boring, so the poor lantern became a nice target to burn. I would shake the lantern vigorously after setting it up, so that the candle inside will fall a burn the entire lantern heh heh.
The main enjoyment, however, is still forming patterns on the ground with candles. How did I dispose of the candle boxes and other resulting rubbish? Burn them! Haha. Yea I dug a deep hole in the sand pit and threw everything inside and burnt them. Then I would just cover the hole up. How convenient. =p Is that considered as littering? Anyway now that most playgrounds don't have sand, this method doesn't work anymore.
The park indeed looked spectacular on that very night, but the next day it was totally in a mess, with waxes stuck on every corner, and ashes badly littered all over the ground. I pity the cleaners who have to deal with such debris that the 'tradition' has left behind.
Now that I've grown out of this fire-playing, the thing that keeps me attached to the festival is the food of course. Yum yum! Mooncake is tasty but fattening. Well, it should be fine since it's only once a year haha. Prefer those snowskin ones, but baked ones are fine with me too. I don't mind the egg yolk, though I always find it hard and tasteless after putting it in the fridge. Durian mooncake is not bad too, though it's a luxury. Haven't really tried those special flavoured ones, but some people say they tasted terrible haha.
There seem to be so many things you can do on this day, like moon-gazing. Sadly I can't see the moon from my room now. I'm still very amazed how the moon can shine so brightly even though it doesn't emit light on its own.
There is also this 猜灯谜 thingy, but it often ends up telling lame riddles. Those authentic riddles can be really hard to solve.
Occasionally Mooncake festival will coincide with my birthday haha (once in every n years, where n is a number more than 10 perhaps). This is especially a big affair in China where every citizen will celebrate my birthday in conjunction with the festival. =p
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
From Tutee to Tutor
There is a recent controversy about the knowledge 'gap' between school textbooks and exams. As what many teachers would explain, the 'gap' is present so as to encourage students to read beyond the textbooks and do their own supplementary revision. However most parents interpret it as a need to engage tuition for their children.
To put it bluntly, the children are lazy and unwilling to study extra, that is why tuition is there to 'force' it upon them. But anyway which kid is so hardworking to spend his/her precious childhood mugging away? It's natural for children to seek enjoyment in things like games, toys and TV, which adults often see as 'trivial', 'waste of time and money'. This is especially so when children still cannot see how studying may affect their lives in the future.
In university, lecturers would say that including every piece of information in the notes would equate to 'spoonfeeding'. This word is so popular in the university context, as it can act as an ultimate defense against various complaints on badly organized lecture notes, boring lecturers and killer exams.
I used to have home tuition during my primary school days. That was my laziest period, spending tons of time on TV and being most reluctant to complete my homework. So my mum decided to hire a tutor for both my bro and me. It was twice a week and I remember we would dread those particular two afternoons (or evenings). The tuition was seen to spoil our fun and we always wished the tutor was sick, couldn't make it or something.
Along the years we changed several tutors. Most were young working adults around mid 20s. Fresh A-level graduates or NSFs seemed to be quite rare those days. My bro and I were quite a playful and mischievous bunch, so probably some tutors didn't want to 'babysit' us further. I remember making one tutor very angry and she quitted soon after. She was lousy anyway - she claimed that the past tense of 'put' is 'putted'. She must have played too much golf already. But anyway that was not the reason why I made her angry.
Then there was another tutor who looked like some mamasan, from the way she dressed. (I realised kids tend to look at adults older than they actually are.) Her perfume smell was terribly strong. Thankfully she didn't last long.
Until a point of time, we finally found a tutor that can tolerate us, and was someone we felt comfortable with. She lasted for quite a few years I think. She works at Singapore Science Centre and often introduced interesting exhibitions to us. Hope to meet her again but I've totally forgotten her full name, since we usually called her by surname only.
Despite having many years of tuition, I felt that I didn't really benefit much from it. I used the tuition time to complete my school homework, and often neglected homework that the tutor gave from assessment books. Moreover I tend to take tuition homework less seriously and did not make much effort in attempting the questions. Some tuition sessions became very unproductive as the tutor just sat there while waiting for us to finish our schoolwork. I guess the tutor didn't mind since she was getting paid after all. $180 for 8 sessions of 2 hours each. Sounds very cheap compared to now hor?
As we get more familiar with the tutor, we started to chit chat on various things, like simple social issues and scientific theories. I remember she took a whole session explaining how we can look into the past if we were to travel at the speed of light. When my mum noticed how the tuition session turned into a chit chat session, she became quite unhappy about it and eventually our tuition ceased ever since.
Tuition does not guarantee results yet many are willing to invest a lot on it. That's why it's a such a lucrative job for university students, with one of the highest hourly rates.
Hopefully MOE will not implement strict measures to control the tuition industry so that people like us can continue to earn a keep for ourselves.
To put it bluntly, the children are lazy and unwilling to study extra, that is why tuition is there to 'force' it upon them. But anyway which kid is so hardworking to spend his/her precious childhood mugging away? It's natural for children to seek enjoyment in things like games, toys and TV, which adults often see as 'trivial', 'waste of time and money'. This is especially so when children still cannot see how studying may affect their lives in the future.
In university, lecturers would say that including every piece of information in the notes would equate to 'spoonfeeding'. This word is so popular in the university context, as it can act as an ultimate defense against various complaints on badly organized lecture notes, boring lecturers and killer exams.
I used to have home tuition during my primary school days. That was my laziest period, spending tons of time on TV and being most reluctant to complete my homework. So my mum decided to hire a tutor for both my bro and me. It was twice a week and I remember we would dread those particular two afternoons (or evenings). The tuition was seen to spoil our fun and we always wished the tutor was sick, couldn't make it or something.
Along the years we changed several tutors. Most were young working adults around mid 20s. Fresh A-level graduates or NSFs seemed to be quite rare those days. My bro and I were quite a playful and mischievous bunch, so probably some tutors didn't want to 'babysit' us further. I remember making one tutor very angry and she quitted soon after. She was lousy anyway - she claimed that the past tense of 'put' is 'putted'. She must have played too much golf already. But anyway that was not the reason why I made her angry.
Then there was another tutor who looked like some mamasan, from the way she dressed. (I realised kids tend to look at adults older than they actually are.) Her perfume smell was terribly strong. Thankfully she didn't last long.
Until a point of time, we finally found a tutor that can tolerate us, and was someone we felt comfortable with. She lasted for quite a few years I think. She works at Singapore Science Centre and often introduced interesting exhibitions to us. Hope to meet her again but I've totally forgotten her full name, since we usually called her by surname only.
Despite having many years of tuition, I felt that I didn't really benefit much from it. I used the tuition time to complete my school homework, and often neglected homework that the tutor gave from assessment books. Moreover I tend to take tuition homework less seriously and did not make much effort in attempting the questions. Some tuition sessions became very unproductive as the tutor just sat there while waiting for us to finish our schoolwork. I guess the tutor didn't mind since she was getting paid after all. $180 for 8 sessions of 2 hours each. Sounds very cheap compared to now hor?
As we get more familiar with the tutor, we started to chit chat on various things, like simple social issues and scientific theories. I remember she took a whole session explaining how we can look into the past if we were to travel at the speed of light. When my mum noticed how the tuition session turned into a chit chat session, she became quite unhappy about it and eventually our tuition ceased ever since.
Tuition does not guarantee results yet many are willing to invest a lot on it. That's why it's a such a lucrative job for university students, with one of the highest hourly rates.
Hopefully MOE will not implement strict measures to control the tuition industry so that people like us can continue to earn a keep for ourselves.
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