food for the mind and heart


just watched the latest jack neo's show " i not stupid too". what can i say but its brilliant stuff:)


the issues in the show really stuck close to home. guess i can personally identify with some - spacing out when my parents nag and doing badly for chinese. other things like the gang business and public caning..well no experience in those. but..im motivated to blog about the show[not spoilers per se] and my views/thoughts of it.


a major theme running through was the apparent lack of love between the parents and their children. the way the this 'problem' was depicted seems pretty accurate. perhaps its because of the strong asian, chinese in particular, culture that we are in. a culture where parental or familial love is hardly said explicitly or shown on purpose. instead, many parents rather express their love through the doing of things - buying what their childeren want and of course, through the scoldings that many dish out liberally. nothing wrong per se but a tad too many chidings can seriously irk anyone. it was so painful seeing the father in the show try to love his son in a way that his son could understand. yet, try as he might, his efforts were largely futile. in the end, he did so in the only way he knew, by beating up his son who got into big trouble. like said in the movie " he loved his son too much but he also didnt know how to love his son at all."


my personal thoughts on that: i come from a typical chinese family. what i mean by that, look above. i know that my parents love each of us alot but they are not forthcoming with the affections. that said, i admit to act in the same way. emotional stuff is not a hallmark of our household. [do not misunderstand, i do not say this to mean anything negative at all.] i was caned as a child, each of us siblings were. of course there was the usual anger and hatred at the various points of time but i know now that they did everything out of love.[i know this sounds really cliched but its the truth]


another thing that i think is so blog-worthy is all the hype on public caning that the show created. yep..the infamous sence when 'Tom' got caned. well..my own stand is that since it has been in the system for so long and the vast majority has emerged none the worse for wear, let things be. parents worrying that their children who watched who be emotionally scarred seems a little out of point to me. but..i have to admit that having been in a girls school for most of my education years has prevented me from witnessing an actual case. hence, i do feel a little inadequate to fully give an opinion on the matter. i know that my mom, a teacher by profession, personally believes that public caning is never the best way to solve things.


many other issues were covered in the show - the rift between generations, the lure of acceptance that gangs offer, the rigidity of systems and regulations, the struggle between work and responsibilties at home...i think jack neo really nailed it. there was a mix of the downright humourous and the poignantly heartwrenching that was tuned to sit well with the general breed of people[a 'rojak' of english, chinese and hokkien]. what i really liked was that the show was accessible and it really helped in bringing the show closer to the viewer. of course, the cast did a wonderful job:) at the expense of sounding as if i am a fan of him, i really think that jack neo has outdid himself this time.


yep..just what was in my mind after watching the show. go catch the show too, i think it is worth the money.