My Itch: Conflict Diamonds

There is a new movie coming out. It's called "Blood Diamond" and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou.

No, I'm not doing a movie review. I'm not even sure when it is going to be released here in Godzone. What I am doing is scratching my itch again.

I have a diamond ring. It's my engagement ring. I have absolutely no idea if it was a conflict diamond. When we looked for a jeweller to make or buy a ring from it never even crossed my mind that such things as blood diamonds existed.
I hope to encourage this not to happen to others.

What is a blood diamond you ask?
Here's the UN's definition:

Conflict diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.

And here is the Wikipedia version:

A blood diamond (also called a conflict diamond or a war diamond) is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army's war efforts.

So, basically this is kind of like the old ivory trade only the money is used to fund rebellion and political instability in countries that really, really could use a bit of peace and prosperity!

But don't think it is all about money. Because it isn't.
You might want to see what conflict diamonds can do to children living in these war zones. First take a visit to the World Vision website and scroll down this entry to the image of 14 year old Adaman. And if that's not quite enough to make you ask questions at your next visit to the jewellers, perhaps a visit to the UN's webpage about conflict diamonds and the photograph of the child with no hands might.

I didn't know any better. It isn't really a great excuse, but it is the truth.
If like me, you have some sort of social conscience, don't repeat my mistake.
Ask questions of your jeweller. If they can't answer your questions, move on.
The World Diamond Council even addresses this issue on their website. It can be quite fascinating reading to see what has been implemented in an attempt to curb the access to market of blood diamonds. Even though there is good work going on, it is always a good thing to be vigilant if Amnesty International's statistics are anything to go by. Apparently 67% of the stores visited were unwilling to discuss if they had guarantees in place for the diamonds they sold. What the??

If you are looking for a piece of jewellery, you can always read Amnesty International's Buyers Guide, and follow their suggestions.

Personally I have rummaged through my files and found the original guarantees / valuations and sundry other things to do with the engagement ring. There is nothing to say where the diamond was sourced or what its country of origin is. But I have found the website of the diamond's "trademark" and have sent an email requesting information.
I'm not particularly hopeful, but New Zealand is a participant in the Kimberley Process and I am pinning my hopes on that meaning there will be a trail for my diamond and that I can not only smile at my ring with fond memories of being presented with it, but also smile with a clear conscience that no child was maimed to have it sitting on my finger.

I'll let you know if I make any progress.

In the meantime, if you are lucky enough to be shopping for a diamond, remember to ask questions about origins, guarantees, and the Kimberley Process. Then happily take home your guilt-free diamond and enjoy that wonderful sparkle.

 

Singapore: Shopping

What to do? What to do?

Such a city, and so many places to shop.
Okay, so that was a bit of overstatement. But you have to cut me a bit of slack.
I live in a city of 1 million people at the end of the Earth. There really isn't that much variety, and we aren't close enough to take real advantage of the Tiger economies. At best we've been invaded by a few chains of the Kangaroo economy (pun intended).

Where should you shop in Singapore?
That's kind of like asking "how long is a piece of string?"

If you have the world's largest bank balance, then feel free to wander the big name designer boutiques in the shopping malls along the tourist strip known as Orchard Road. My Visa card may be my "flexible friend" but it doesn't flex that far without snapping, so I am a poor source of informative comment on the value you may get from visiting such plush outlets.

If, however, you are of more modest means and are willing to do a bit of 'tourist time' as well as 'local time' then there are quite a few places to visit.
First things first, before I start.

Rule 1: Know what you want to buy and why. (Especially electronic goods.)
Rule 2: Know what is "fair value" for what you want, in your home market.
Rule 3: Don't trust me, I almost always shop under duress. ;)

I hate shopping. I mean it. I really hate shopping.
But when I go overseas I can't seem to help myself.
It is almost like a compulsion. I must shop.
I mean, I must at least window shop.

I'd like to pass it off as something akin to "being interested in the local culture". Sadly, I don't think that fools anyone.
The reality is, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. Being the poor retail deprived soul that I am, it is like a whole new and wonderful world is opened up.
I can actually see myself prising open my wallet, evicting the resident moths, extracting my dusty but faithful credit card and actually buying something. And not just any old stuff, but nice things. Things I might actually enjoy buying, wearing, using, displaying and generally bragging about from my trip to Singapore.

So, what do I recommend?

If you are looking for electronics, computers, cameras and the ilk, take a visit to Funan DigitaLife Mall mentioned in my previous entry or make a trip to Sim Lim Square for a much more "local" electronics and IT experience. Or, if you really must, visit their website directly for more information. I am reliably informed by a friend who was an expat working in Singapore that Sim Lim is actually the place to go, so for geeks, this is your stop. But don't forget to walk down the street to Little India for more shopping and yummy food experiences ! Your life must not revolve around your iPod, okay!

Now on a slightly more girly topic, clothes and shoes.
Where should you go? Well, that depends on your taste and budget. Despite what I said earlier about Orchard Road, there are possibilities for those of us not quite so label addicted. But you must be patient. If you have a black belt in shopping, you will manage this without any great trials. If your attention span is a little bit shorter however, you might want to take a shortcut to this website and get an overview of what there is and what is going to suit your taste. Personally I have visited Parkway Parade, Marina Square, Millenium Walk, Suntec City, North Bridge Road, Orchard Road and Chinatown. I have my favourites, but I imagine yours will be different, so taste test as many as you feel you can stand.

This trip ended up being a bit about shoes for me. Here in NZ shoes can range in price from $40 to anywhere over $100, depending on what they are and where you're buying them from. If you want really nice shoes, in my not-so-humble-opinion, you need to be looking nearer the top end of that scale than the bottom. Imagine my joy when I discovered that I could buy shoes that were actually very nice, stylish and/or comfortable for S$50 or less.
Now, I don't own an Imelda Marcos collection of shoes, but I did succumb to the lovely designs and even lovelier prices and have taken my very first steps into that dark world of fashionable shoe ownership. In this instance my shoes came from Marina Square and Parkway Parade. This pretty much applied to my meagre clothing purchases as well.

I must make a note about clothes shopping, before moving on.
[Generalisation Alert On!]
Okay. I'm a fairly average woman of European stock. I don't rate an anorexia alert, but (hopefully) I'm not on the verge of requiring a muumuu to hide my faults either. Unfortunately for me I am probably in the muumuu wearing range for your average Singaporean woman. Don't visit this country and expect to buy "Medium" anything. If you share similar heritage/shape to me, expect your ego to be badly dented by an "L" and "XL" debacle or possibly a size "16" through "18" and on upwards nightmare. And be grateful that you were lucky enough to actually find them!
On the shoe front though, you might find that lo and behold you are the display size like I was with a size 37. No problem getting shoes then! ;)
[Generalisation Alert Off!]

On other shopping matters...
I fell in love with a shop.
I know, it shouldn't be acceptable in polite society, but I did.
If you haven't visited Oh Waily before, it is possible that you don't know that I am a bit of a bookaholic, but I am. In addition to this I am also something of a paperaholic - clearly a distinct sub-category of addictions to printed paper materials like books.
Therefore it should come as no surprise that I struggled mightily with a visit to the Prints shop in the Raffles City Shopping Centre. I was strong though, I came away with only one A4 size blank journal, but a horrible urge to request franchise details so that I can have my very own den of iniquity and constant fix of things paper and bound. Their site is partially complete, but if you visit the "Shops" tab you will get a small idea of what I was up against.

Now, on to the touristy stuff.
What are you going to take home as a "tourist" momento?
I'll own up to pilfering a coaster from Raffles' Long Bar. It was pretty, okay?!?
Then there is the choice of general cultural options. Pretty much everyone takes home a Merlion something from their first visit. After that, it takes a bit of thought. On the funny side, you can take home the "It's a Fine City" t-shirt that takes the mickey out of Singapore's stringent laws and fine system.
But it you feel that you want something a little less obviously touristy, then you might need to think about it a little bit more. Personally this has never been a problem for me. I have always had a fondness for Chinese culture, (don't ask me why - I have no idea), and their various art forms. This makes shopping for a unique take-home item that much easier.

Last time it was a nice little scroll of Fu Lu Shou calligraphy.
This time it was a dirty great scroll with a One Stroke Brush Painting by Siong Shi.
We took the usual pilgrimage to Chinatown and I was very disappointed to see the changes since my last visit about five years ago. The main shopping street, Pagoda Street, was absolutely full of stalls. They weren't restricted to the shophouses as previously, and the entire street was just jammed full of cheap and nasty tourist junk. It was such a let-down.
Fortunately The Red Peach was still there, and it is truly an oasis of taste amongst the cheap and nasty. And after a long deliberation we came away with our scroll.

It is a "Fish Painting on Rice Paper".


Here is what is all means.
The calligraphy means "good fortune, abundance and blessings".
The fish is symbolic of abundant good fortune, prosperity, peace, happiness and success. A pair of black and red fish is symbolic of good things coming in a pair - blissful union.
Black is symbolic of warding off bad, negative forces or influence.
Red is symbolic of inviting all the good, strong positive forces, influence and luck.

Oh, and I guess I should mention that the entire scroll is just a touch over five feet long top to toe - so it's only just slightly smaller than me!

So now I am looking forward to Christmas and the New Year as I'm sure to have more good fortune, happiness and abundance of all sorts. Go the Fish!

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

This is another of the films watched in-flight on my recent Singapore excursion.

I like Uma Thurman, she can act and somehow manages to look good in vinyl.
As for Luke Wilson, I can watch him for hours without getting too badly bored.
I even enjoy tongue-in-cheek, mickey takes of genre. But this one unlike the title character, G-Girl, just doesn't fly.

The idea at its most basic has a lot of potential. A neurotic superheroine whose clingy, needy, suspicious nature drives her normal guy boyfriend to dump her. She then sets about exacting her revenge for being thus treated, using her superheroine skills. Opportunities for humour appear to be highly likely.

Sadly, though there are cute moments, it just doesn't deliver on its potential.
The best part of the whole movie is Eddie Izzard's portrayal of Professor Bedlam aka Barry.

He camps it up a bit and I mean that strictly with regards to the nature of the character. He takes the idea of a spurned first love becoming an arch-villain to his young-love's superheroine and runs with it. He plays it camp, yet subtle. Jealousy and possessiveness done with a deft super-villainous touch.

My advice:
Only rent this if you've seen every fun movie in the video store, or better yet, if it's free on TV and the rest of the channels are rubbish.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 (Eddie is worth 1 point, looking at Luke Wilson is worth 0.5 point).

Singapore: Raffles

There are many Tourist Spots you are encouraged to visit in Singapore, but none more famous than Raffles Hotel. It is so famous that if you Google "Raffles Hotel" you will find it has two websites, one here and the other here. The second encapsulates a whole chain of hotels based on the Singaporean original. Third on the same Google list is a very short, but pithy history of the great white ediface found at Wikipedia.

Now tell me... how many hotels do you know that have a museum of treasures about themselves on display for the public? I'd guess that you'd be able to count that on one hand, if not one digit. Yes, it is fair to say they take the heritage of this hotel fairly seriously. And after the mega-bucks renovation that was carried out a few years ago, I can understand why.

There are no ifs, buts or maybes about a visit to Raffles Hotel while you are in Singapore. It is pretty much central city. Just jump off at City Hall on the MRT, or take any number of buses stopping along Beach Road or North Bridge Road.

Personally I have my own tradition of each visit to Singapore including a pilgrimage to the Long Bar for a Singapore Sling. I guess it's one of those things - I don't even like cherry for goodness sake nor am I a pink girl. And considering the price they charge, I really should force myself to like the darned drink !
In the end however, all that matters is that I feel like I have stepped into a small part of Singapore's colonial history, almost hobnobbing it with such luminaries as Noel Coward, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham and Liz Taylor.

So from this last visit I have uploaded a 30 second video clip of the Long Bar at Raffles. It's my first YouTube moment, so I'm hoping it works. If not, I'll set to work on it shortly. You should see a couple of Singapore Slings followed by the remnants of multiple peanut shells on the floor, followed by a scan across the Long Bar and up to my favourite feature - the fans. I hope you enjoy. (Better yet - make the time to visit, "tourist trap" and all.) And if anyone knows, I'd be interested to find out how they manage to roast and salt the peanuts in their shells.



If the video wasn't enough, I have loaded some still photographs to my Flickr account here if you want to take a look around. It's a pretty nice job they've done on the renovations, I have to say.

For reference, Raffles is across the road from a very nice shopping mall that I particularly like (Raffles City Shopping Centre which I will talk about later), next to the CHIJMES, just down the road a bit from Funan DigitaLife Mall, a short walk to Suntec Convention Centre (the Fountain and a couple more shopping malls - in case you were feeling bereft of yet more retail therapy), and if you are in hearty health and are willing to do your best despite the heat, you can walk to the Singapore River passing the following historic and/or interesting features:

• St Andrews Cathedral,


• Old Parliament House,


• Cavenagh Bridge (great place to start for the public art/sculpture viewing),


• The Fullerton Hotel (the old GPO and my next stop after we win the Lottery), and


• The Merlion

This is a particularly nice part of town, so it's worth making the effort to spend a bit of time here. Don't just fall for the hype of Orchard Road - take a wander through this area for a feeling of the old merged with the new. It really is one of my favourite parts of Singapore.