Ehem. To all dear folks sitting for exams soon, ALL THE BEST.

Toodles!

Well, the "gay" theme seem to almost always be a popular aspect of history...

Anyway, homosexuality isn't exactly something that's new. It seemed to have been quite a common phenomenon among the ancient Greeks. Anyway, speaking of all these repressed homosexual tendencies thing, there's an article that you can find over HERE about T.E. Lawrence and the rumour about him being a closet homosexual. It seems to have stemmed from the fact that he could write about being raped.

Sigh, does that mean that once a guy rapes another guy, the two must be non-heterosexuals?

If you folks had watched American History X, you'd notice that guys seem to get raped in prison but the rape itself has nothing to do with lust. Rape is a form of punishment that you inflict upon another to strip him of his dignity. I think male rape victims can actually wind up being more traumatised than female ones. It's sad, really.

Did You Know?

Singapore’s history as we all have been taught, seem to begin when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles set foot on our sunny shores. The other origin that we have been led to read and eventually disbelieve is that Sang Nila Utama (some ancient mythic king) was the one who named Singapore. The authenticity of such claims is never fully examined by most because that story has always been packaged and presented as a myth. I mean, how exactly do you account for raging storms that seem soothed by the throwing of a crown into the sea? Boy, that crown must have been really heavy is it had actually caused a ship (or boat) to sink. Sang Nila Utama must truly have had a very strong neck!

Another point of contention would be the whole storm thing when Sang Nila Utama crossed the seas towards Temasek. I’m sure dozens of other boats and ships must have crossed the seas, why was there no raging storm for them? Why did the Sea King specifically pick on his own descendant’s boat and leave other boats free? Does that mean that he knew that it was his descendant crossing the seas and that being old and rather mean, he just wanted his crown back? The crown was supposedly found among the treasures of King Solomon, after all. Even powerful, mythical Sea Kings can get greedy. Obviously, I’m committing an incredible number of fallacies and making personal judgments against others but so what?

Naturally, given the rather dubious characteristics of our early founding stories, Sir Stamford Raffles can then be clearly and doubtlessly hailed as the founder and Singapore’s history can happily begin in January 1819 and not anytime earlier than that. It saves most of us the dreary task of plowing through even more books in order to discover our past. Most countries do it anyway. History is always revised such that we study the most recent of happenings and neatly keep anything that came before that away or in the case of NLB, in the Repository Used branch of its truly incredible network of books. Or else, you could be more extreme and start burning books which is not uncommon if you were to study Chinese history. How else would you account for the “Dark Ages” that no one seem to be able to explain fully?

With time, almost everything becomes shrouded in myths as people (yes, people like you and me) come up with their own notions of what happened. Most times, facts and fiction become interwoven resulting in myths. From the mighty Hercules(or Heracles) in Greek mythology to the great Hang Tuah of Melaka, stories abound regaling in the glories of great, superhuman heroes and the blackest of villains. In a way, selective amnesia actually makes history all the more interesting, no? The epics that we have read are mostly loaded with incredulous acts that as a rationale and skeptical community of people, we choose to label as myths. However, aren’t these incredulous acts the very reason why we read and enjoy the myths to begin with? Hence, in a weird, warped way, we really got to thank the narrow-minded tyrants of the past. Thank you for shrouding certain parts of the past within a dark veil. To aspiring tyrants, if you ever have to resort to hiding something, leave a couple of clues behind so that future generations can get all excited and at least have some areas to base their speculations on.

Lest you think I’m propagating tyranny, let me say once and for all that I do not! I do not particularly like Hitler or Stalin or even Qin Shih Huang for that matter. Obviously, these folks had addled minds. Come on, one had an obsession with everything Aryan even though he didn’t seem to be one, another had agoraphobia while the last was obsessed with immortality, which interestingly enough led to his eventual demise. But, having said that, it must be noted that they too had their strengths, which would explain why they managed to rise to power. Actually, that is what scares me – the fact that these obviously disturbed people had the talent to and eventually did climb the ladder of power and cause a massive load of destruction in order to fulfill their personal ambitions. Worrying, isn’t it?

Oh well, I’ve digressed, haven’t I?

Now, we all know history is amazingly vast. There are just so many things that have happened and even more things that are waiting to happen. One of the things that has always fascinated me about history is the versatility with which it may be examined.

Most people seem to think that history can only be found within the weathered pages of thick, leather-bound books with a musty smell that reeks of age. Ok, ok, so I’m stereotyping but isn’t that what most conventional film-makers do whenever they want to create scenes whereby the protagonist is required to leaf through pages of old books as part of some great mission to uncover some unknown mysteries that have been buried in the past. (Think Gandalf as he was going over details regarding the Ring of Power.)

This actually brings us to a perspective of history that tends to be disregarded as historical crap – that of film-makers.

Ever so often, we tend to look at historical films and criticize the director for minor little things like whether or not the costume was truly reminiscent of the past that he is trying to portray or whether or not that little romance that the heroic character developed was a figment of imagination. In effect, we should really look at it from the context with which a particular film is made. It is interesting to note how films almost always reflect the attitudes of the society regarding the perceived past.

I could go on and on about it but hey, I’m not writing an academic piece here so my argument would end there. Yes, it is unsupported and unsubstantiated but let’s just say it’s a point of reflection. Why don’t you go and watch a couple of films and make up your minds?

Anyway, I like movies. I especially enjoy historical films. It’s interesting to note how a particular past is rewritten and repackaged to suit the ideals of the current society. Take for instance, the numerous movie plots that are contextualized against the backdrop of the Wild West. A movie in the 1960s would hardly dream of incorporating a Black or Asian character in any supposedly Western film but by the 90s and the new millennia, Will Smith AND Jackie Chan had found their way into the wild, wild west. Interesting, isn’t it?

Oh well, enough rambling on my part. Chao!

I just discovered an interesting little corner of cyberspace that might give you a deeper understanding of the Industrial Revolution. Usually, the little details that actually make history interesting are lost when we're rushing through the syllabus and cramming for examinations.

Well, this little space gives you a description of the social conditions that were supposedly prevailing in Britain during the times of industrialization. Well, see if you like it. Just click on the following link: Cotton Times

I'm all excited here. I've always known that even the littlest things can have the most profound of repercussions. Well, in the course of going through materials regarding the first world war, I came across a most interesting article about a fateful encounter between an English and an Austrian as the Great War came to a close.

Even though asking "what ifs" may be one of the most futile of actions, the supposed meeting of the two begs the question of "what if". Unlike major groundbreaking decisions that have an obvious impact on world politics, this seemingly simple decision may have changed the entire course of history.

I hope you'll take the time to read it. It's simply too tantalizing to ignore.

How A Right Can Make A Wrong

I have a problem with history.

Don't get me wrong. I love the subject. I love the stories and intricacies that tie things together. I love the fact that the world is ultimately a convoluted mess of a web that only begins to make sense when you look back on the past.

That still doesn't change the fact that I have a problem with history.

You see, I have a problem with the word - "history". Specifically, the first syllable that seem to imply that stories from the past are essentially stories of our patriarchs. Hence, I prefer to use the non-gender-biased Malay word for history -sejarah. However, given that not everyone is familiar with the Malay language, I would be giving some an advantage over others so I have thus decided to simply create a new word to describe stories of our past that would be free of racial, gender and whatever else bias.

Thus, Weestories is born. A tale of our times. A tale of us.

Welcome to Weestories.