Dance like no one's watching

Don’t worry.  It’s still me.  After visiting the Fairy’s Inc website, I was very inspired by the light colours and did a search for any "fairy" related theme.  Been wanting to do an image overhaul of the blog for some time but never saw anything I liked… till today.  So viola!  Behold the new look.  (It’s been a year since the last major make-over!)

🙂

Everyone knows I don’t cook, can’t sew and I don’t do housework.  I don’t like to cook because I find it difficult to wrap my mind around how spending 1 hour to prepare a dish that will be gobbled up in 15 minute can be fulfilling.  I think it’s much more efficient to pay $5 for a cheap dinner at a coffeeshop.  (Plus, there’re no dishes to wash too!)  I don’t like doing housework either because the dust from cleaning the house makes me sneeze non-stop.  It used to trigger many near asthma attacks when I was a kid and sneezing makes me irritable.  I’d much rather spend more time earning $$ so I can outsource the cleaning to a maid.  At least I enjoy my work.

In the past 2 weeks, I observed that some married couples I know do not have an equal sharing of household chores.  (See?  It’s a CHORE).  I know of 2 wives who work AND do all the household chores in the family.  I’m disgusted that their husbands can watch TV while their wives are slogging to finish the chores.  As though their wives’ jobs were any less tiring than theirs.

It’s this differential expectation of a man and a woman that pisses me off.  I find it extremely derogatory that a woman is expected to do all the housework as though "her place is in the kitchen".  I would never be able to bow to such unfair expectations of a woman.  Why should a woman be expected to do all the ironing or cleaning or cooking? 

I also recall that a friend, while growing up, had to help clear the dinner table and do the dishes while her brother didn’t have to lift a finger to help.  Her brother didn’t even have to cook instant noodles for himself if he were hungry.  Her mom would do it for him but my friend would cook her own instant noodles.  Yucks.  That always made me extremely glad that I don’t have any brothers.  I would never be able to accept such double standards just because I am female and based on my character?  The more someone forces me to do something, the more violently I will refuse to comply.  (It’s just like when my mom nagged at me to do my homework, I will refuse to do it.  But if she left me to my own devices, I will willingly finish my homework).

I’m glad that Iceman doesn’t have such backward expectations of me.  I’m happy to do my share of work (though it’s limited to the occasional washing of dishes now) because he always helps too.  Most importantly, he doesn’t take it for granted that it’s "my job".  I think all boyfriends/husbands should be like that.  Slap the ones who don’t.  Idiots.

Went to check out Fairy’s Inc after I found out that a friend got her wedding bands made there and they weren’t as expensive as I thought they would be! 

The 2 bosses, Sandra & Evelyn were very nice.  Sandra served Iceman & me and showed me many designs that I liked!  All matched the proposal ring.  Best of all, they all fit into our budget!  Woohoo! 

So for anyone else looking for customisable wedding bands in the range of $1k & above (for 2 bands), check out Fairy’s Inc at Delfi Orchard, #03-03.  Tel: 6235 5570.

I’ve been waiting for 2 weeks now for the issuance of Standard Chartered’s Manhattan card.  I was going to pay the deposit for Hyatt tomorrow with the card but I’ve since postponed the deposit payment till next week as the card application is still "in process".

I couldn’t take it anymore… and sent this feedback to SCB via their website:

For the past 1 year, I’ve been spammed non-stop, sometimes even twice a day by SCB’s telemarketers trying to sell me bank products.

Finally, I decided to be SCB’s customer by applying for the Manhattan card on either 25/6 or 26/6/08.  It took SCB 1 week to inform me that my NOA was needed, although I allowed SCB access to my CPF online account.  I told your processing officer that I needed the card urgently for a big payment on 10/7/08 but when I called SCB 2 days ago, I was told approval will take another week. 

Today, I got a letter from SCB saying that I’m now your Personal Credit customer. 

It sure is tough to be your customer.  I have unwanted products stuffed down my throat – & am denied the 1 & only product (i.e. Manhattan card) that I want.

Could SCB please have mercy & expedite the ONE product I need, & stop harassing me for all the others I don’t?

Thanks.

Sigh.  I hope I get the card soon.

Sigh.  Don’t know why but my modem suddenly lost my Singnet broadband password and I just couldn’t log on.  Tried calling for help but couldn’t get anyone at the helpdesk to help me (everyone was sleeping!).  Thankfully, Singnet helpdesk allows users to reset their own passwords now.  First, you need to use the telephone line that your Singnet broadband connection is on to dial into the helpdesk no. at 1800 848 6933.  Then follow the instructions to reset your password and try logging in again.

Some years ago, when an ex-colleague from Anyhow Insure Anything got married, our manager gave her $60 for the wedding dinner, which was held at Raffles Hotel.  At that time, the table price for Raffles Hotel was about $900+… and most of us gave her $100 to ensure that she didn’t lose money.

What’s worse was our manager, in what I assume was a display of pure ignorance of "market price" passed a comment to her the following week when she returned to work… he said, "Wah… must have made money from your wedding right?"

When my ex-colleague heard that, she wanted to roll her eyes and say, "If everyone gave the amount you gave, I would be bankrupt".  But she bit her tongue of course… and complained to us instead.

That was in 2002.

Recently, I’ve been similarly alarmed at how ignorant (I choose to believe it’s ignorance rather than stinginess) some guests at Chinese weddings can be.  Take Iceman’s ex-colleague for example.  She told Iceman that she gives a standard $88 for weddings she attends, regardless of where it may be held.  So if you invite her to your wedding at Shangri La for example, woe onto you because that would have been a loss of about $40 for you.  Just imagine… if you had 300 guests and they all gave $88, that’s a write-off of $12,000!  That is as serious as a sub-prime loss to me! 

Even more recently, a good friend of Booze Queen’s got married and when they were counting the angbaos after the dinner, they noted that some of the groom’s friends gave $60!  $60 again??  Gosh… if you talk about time value of money… if $60 in 2002 was bad, $60 in 2008 is disgusting!  Hey, there’s a huge liquidity premium nowadays all right!

Frankly, I think Iceman’s method of giving angbao is the most practical – he does a quick check of the hotel’s banquet price on the website (most have prices available) and he gives an angbao accordingly. 

For me, I take the lazier approach – $80 for people that I’m not close to, $100 for average friends and $120 to $160 for close friends.  I guess you could say I translate the extent of my well-wishes into a certain dollar value, measured by how close I am to that person.

At the end of the day, I don’t think any soon-to-be-married couple plan their wedding dinner around how much profit they can make.  If dollars and cents were all they were thinking about, then they would choose the cheapest possible venue with total disregard for factors like good food, service, ambience, etc.  That said, I’m not saying that guests who give an amount below market rate should be condemned to wedding dinner hell.

Be a cheerful giver… but don’t build your happiness on someone else’s pain.

Haven’t taken photos of the bunnies for some time.  They’re quite happily resettled at the side of the house… with Peanut & Coffee occupying 1 longish enclosure and Pinky & Horlicks occupying the other. 

Peanut, Coffee & Horlicks have maintained their looks and size… Pinky, like his late father, suffers from the scourge of the bulge.

It’s amazing how Pinky bears his daddy, Muah Chee’s features but yet his mom’s fur colours.

Photo of Pinky & MC – taken a few days before MC’s death.

Pinky’s on the right, Horlicks’ on the left.  Don’t you think Pinky has the same facial features as his dad?

Horlicks – eyes closed ‘cos of the glare of the red camera focus light. 

Pinky – he loves taking photos.. see he’s all prepped!

Peanut is really curious about the red focus light.

Her ears perk up as she hears me shuffling in a squatting position across the floor…

I was trying to get to the other side of the bunnies… wanted to get a clearer shot of Coffee.  His dark fur makes it really tough!

I’ve been trying to convince my dad to feed the bunnies (Pinky in particular) more healthful food like hay.  My mom cut out an article in the papers that talked about how pellets should only be fed as supplements because they are very fattening.  So my dad has reduced the amount of pellets he feeds them.  However, he increased the amount of grains!  Which are also fattening and should be given as treats!  Not on a daily basis!  But he refuses to listen to me.  SIGH!  🙁

Had a short chat with my Qingfu just now… short because he suddenly went offline and didn’t log back.  Talk about rude.  Tsk tsk.  But I will forgive him ‘cos today’s his birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY QINGFU!!

After reading about the Southern Ridges in Singapore and seeing the nice pics of Henderson Waves in the papers, Iceman and I decided that we would visit it this weekend.  We drove and parked at Telok Blangah Hill… somewhere along the middle (I think) of the 9km Southern Ridges.  Took a short walk to scout the surroundings and some saw some scenic spots that would make for a good backdrop for wedding photos.

It was about 6:30pm when we reached… and we figured we probably wouldn’t be able to cover the whole 9km stretch.  We decided to take a walk to Henderson Waves and it was a nice walk.  Nice cool evening, a few mosquitoes but luckily they were feeding off other people and not us…

Here’re some pics we took… it was difficult to get good shots ‘cos the park & bridge (Henderson Waves is essentially a super high – 63.something metres above sea level – overhead bridge) were teeming with people.

Somewhere atop Telok Blangah Hill.

Henderson Waves… I read somewhere about it being built based on a mathematical formula.  Talk about a nerdy origin…

The colours of the sunset were really pretty.

Good looking people to match the great backdrop.  HAHAHA.  *Surging ego*

We intend to make a couple more trips to check out the entire length of the Southern Ridges.  Lovely place for a stroll.  🙂

I was working on the renewal of my client’s Political Violence Insurance policy recently and noted that since the last renewal a year ago, quite a number of insurers from western countries have set up offices in Asia (namely Hong Kong and Singapore). 

In theory, this is good news for us brokers because it means we have more markets that we can approach so that we can get better terms for our client.

The reality however, has proven otherwise.  Some of these Caucasian underwriters seem to have relocated with the mindset that they are God’s gift to Asia.  While the inflow of these underwriters should provide a transfer of technical knowledge in risk assessment to the Asian market, the unfortunate part is that the knowledge that they bring with them may not be applicable to Asia.

For example, when I showed some of these underwriters my client’s loss incident history – my client gets attacked by terrorist groups every other month – they freak out when they read of bullets being fired at the client’s assets, or a grenade being thrown at the assets. 

Almost immediately, some of these underwriters will write off the client as an uninsurable risk.  What they don’t understand unfortunately, is that while bullets may kill a person, shooting bullets at a generator set and throwing a grenade at a concrete wall doesn’t really do much damage to the property.

I tried to explain to these underwriters that the important assets of the client are well protected by armed security forces and it’s the unmanned low value assets at remote regions that are always under attack.  However, these underwriters just don’t get it.  Maybe it’s the lack of military training (kudos to Singapore’s mandatory military service) that results in them equating a bullet riddled generator set or a pock-marked concrete wall to an aeroplane being flown into a skyscraper.

What’s worse, some of these underwriters have extremely condescending and snobbish attitudes.  They expect to understand spreadsheets and graphs without reading the accompanying explanations and legends.  Just like the Asshole who complained/questioned me about why the client’s assets are valued in USD whereas the client’s revenue projections are expressed in the local currency.

Well the obvious, common sense answer would be that the valuation report was done by an international valuation firm, and thus, USD, a hard currency, was used.  However, given that 100% of the client’s business takes place domestically, obviously the revenue projections are in the local currency right?

But no.  The Asshole underwriter, typical of some of these Caucasians who have relocated to Asia only recently, think that the world revolves around the western world, and that all financial projections ought to be done in USD or GBP.  What a load of bull!

Another thing that Caucasian underwriters need to learn is that in the Asian insurance market, the way you conduct yourself is very important if you want repeat business from clients or brokers. 

In the course of doing this same renewal, a Caucasian underwriter (known as the Beast) provided me quotes for a (e.g.) USD 100 mil policy limit in this form:

Section 1: USD 600k for the first USD 20 mil limit

Section 2: USD 700k for the next USD 80 mil lmit

These terms were also discussed in a meeting between myself, the client and the underwriter.  However, 1.5 weeks after that meeting, the underwriter suddenly claimed that he had no intention and will not provide a line for Section 2!  He said, if he was going to do the primary layer (i.e. Section 1), it would not make sense for him to do the excess layer (i.e. Section 2) as well.

My question to him then was, "If you had no intention to do the excess layer, then why did you provide a quote for it?"

His reply was, "I gave you that pricing for you to find someone else to sit behind it."

Now, this is really illogical to me.  Would you provide a quote to someone saying you will sell your house for $500k and when someone takes up your office, you reject it by giving the reason that the $500k price you gave was for the buyer to find your neighbour to sell his house at that same price?

I mean, why give a price if you had no intention to provide the insurance coverage in the first place?

My boss was also livid because the underwriter said in front of the client and us that he would not be able to reduce the price on the excess layer because given that he was covering the primary layer, if a really big loss happened, he would be hit twice – in both the primary and excess layers.

Now, when you say something like that, doesn’t it mean you were willing to provide coverage for both layers?

After that incident, I’ve concluded that unless I am forced to due to lack of capacity issues, I am never going to give this underwriter any new business.  Herein lies another lesson that Caucasian underwriters need to learn about Asia.  In Asia, your relationship with the customer is very important.  (In this case I would be the underwriter’s customer).  Play your customer out once and you can expect all relationships to be severed.  Conversely, if you build a strong rapport with your customer, you can expect strong business support from the customer. 

So my point to these Caucasian underwriters is this – come down from your ivory towers.  If your senior management is enlightened enough to spend a lot of money to invest in an office in Asia, it shows that they know that they need to grow their book of business in Asia.  Some countries in Asia may have once been your colonial conquests but wake up buddy.  The good ol’ colonial days are long over.

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N.B. There are some very nice Caucasian underwriters (those who entered Asia earlier) who treat Asians as equals and it is enjoyable working with them.  But hey… I’m sure they know that we support them because more often than not, we are their biggest source of premium income.  🙂