SODEVE

Today a friend of mine went for vacation to Japan. During lunch yesterday, many of my female colleagues passed him money as they want to buy cosmetics from Japan. These made-in Japan cosmetics are quite popular among the girls. Then he asked me whether I want anything from Japan. Hmm… though question. The only answer I can come up was T-Shirt

So yeah.. I kept thinking about what kind of things that are interesting, can only be found in Japan, and not cosmetics ? I mean, what do guys want to buy from Japan?

So preparing for my next colleague (I am yet to found out who he or she is :P) who will go to Japan, I googled for some interesting things to buy from Japan. Ok, let see what we have ..

1. Phallus-shaped foods, candy, key-chain, bookmarker and vagina-shaped sake pitcher. Interesting …. Too bad the festival is only held every 15 March
2. If I am an Otaku, I might buy manga, anime and Gundam toys. But I’m not, so it’s a no
3. Gadgets? Too bad I am kinda short in cash a cheapo (Russel Peters said, “It’s in your blood man…”). And beside, I have my own way of shopping

Hmm.. so yes.. I think I am settle with T-Shirt Unless you have different opinion?

Hardono Arifanto :: Feb.23.2008 :: Life :: No Comments »

ac‧cent / ˈæksent /
the way someone pronounces the words of a language, showing which country or which part of a country they come from

di‧a‧lect / ˈdaɪəlekt /
a form of a language which is spoken only in one area, with words or grammar that are slightly different from other forms of the same language

English is not my first language. I formally started to study English in my secondary school. The learning process was helped a lot by the TV series that was dominating most of the prime time hours (7 PM - 9 PM). Most of the time, if you asked any Indonesians of my generation (22-28 of age), they will surely know those TV series such as Knight Rider, Airwolf, Shaolin….(thanks for the correction Tha) Kung Fu (I forgot the title, but the main star was David Carradine), McGuyverMacGyver, Dark Justice, Misfits Of Science.. hmm what else.. Oh yeah.. Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place (they did show these two series at 4 PM, but after many complaints from parents, it was moved to after 9 PM :P)

So back to the English accents and dialects, above paragraph might explains why when you converse in English to most Indonesians, usually we will use the American dialect Being used to the sound of American accent, I was impressed when I listen to the British accent for the first time (which is sadly, also from another American TV series, Remington Steele :D). Later in life, I fed my curiosity of English accents by trying to imitate the British English accents (mainly from The Fast Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus) and French English accents (mainly from Monty Python and The Holy Grail :P). Actually, I lied. I imitated them because they’re so damn funny :P.

Looking here at Singapore, I can’t help not to notice that in this metropolis island we have so many accents. Singlish maybe is the main accent because regardless the race (or foreigners’ country of origin), every person in Singapore will definitely able to show their flair in Singlish. Well, maybe every person except the ang mohs, I have yet to see ang mohs speak Singlish (Will the real ang mohs that speak singlish please stand up? :D).

Making things more interesting, Singapore has a huge number of foreigners influx (which includes me :D). Here, Indonesian foreigners will have their own English accents (which is often wrongly identified as Philippines), Vietnamese, Thais, and mainland Chinese have their own English accents. The Indians also have their distinctive English accent. Personally, I found that Singlish and Indian accents are the easiest to practice. I think we can attribute that to the fact that Singlish is affected a lot by Malay language, in which Indonesian language takes its root. While the Indonesian language itself, influenced heavily by Javanese language which has its root in Sanskrit.

Anyway, if you are interested to learn the English accents and dialects, I found this website where you can listen to many English accents and dialects. To my amusement and surprise, Britain itself has so many accents. Does anyone know the so-called British English, is actually based on which accents?

Hardono Arifanto :: Feb.14.2008 :: Life, Singapore :: 1 Comment »

The building next to my office is Singapore Art Museum. Although I’ve working in my office for almost 1 year (8 months to be exact), I never visited the museum (^_^)! . Btw, if you never been to the museum before, you can view the map at StreetDirectory.com or at Google Maps.

FYI, free entrance is on every Friday from 6 PM to 9 PM. Which is why last Friday I visited the museum. The current main exhibition is featuring the works of Feng Zhengjie.

Quoted from Wikipedia:

Feng Zhengjie (born 1968, Sichuan Province, China) is an artist based in Beijing. Originally a high-school and college art teacher in Sichuan, he came to Beijing in 1995.

His best-known work is his Portrait of China series, very large Warhol-style oil portraits, in a red/turquoise palette, of Chinese fashion model faces with vacant diverging eyes (his signature style). Critics view his work as a critique of contemporary consumer society. His early paintings were inspired by 1930s Shanghai posters. His more recent work is based on the red and green of traditional Chinese New Year art, the colours made “more acid, a representation of the flashy, commercial nature of modern China”

When I looked into his paintings, especially those from “Portrait of China” series, I sensed a strange mixed feeling between glamor and emptiness, or perhaps sadness. I also admire his painting techniques. Especially his usage of subtle color that cannot be differentiated from close-look, but from distance it will be visible and make the painting looks like 3D. I recommend you to look closely, especially in the eyes of the person on the painting. It’s really beautiful

You can view other examples of his works here:

1. Feng Zhengjie – Geodhuis Contemporary
2. Feng Zhengjie – Painting – Saatchi Gallery
3. Feng Zhengjie at Marella Gallery
4. Feng Zhengjie at Willem Kerseboom Gallery

I think you can enjoy his works best by seeing the real thing. If this Friday (8 Feb 2008) the museum is not closed because of Chinese New Year public holidays, I will surely visit the museum again. Let me know if you want to tag along

Hardono Arifanto :: Feb.05.2008 :: Life, Singapore :: No Comments »

I discovered a new term today. It’s NNT (Number Needed To Treat).

NNT will helps you to avoid consuming unnecessary drugs. It’s good for consumer, maybe bad for those Pharmaceutical Companies which making profit from FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).

For example, consider a hypothetical drug which reduces the risk of colon cancer by 50%. Even without the drug, colon cancer is fairly rare, maybe 1 in 3,000 in every 5 year period. The NNT for a 5-year treatment with the drug is therefore 6,000: by treating 6,000 people with the drug, one can expect to reduce the number of colon cancer cases from 2 to 1.

So next time you see advertisement of a particular drug which boasts a whooping numbers like ‘Reduce .. bla bla bla… by 60%’, please consult with your physician to find out the NNT of that drug.

Hardono Arifanto :: Jan.24.2008 :: Life :: 1 Comment »

This research concludes that a bad sleeping habit might expose yourself to diabetes.

So in short, there are two effects of bad sleeping habit to your Diabetes risks:

1. Direct effect. The research found that the insulin level in your blood is reduced significantly when you didn’t get enough sleep.
2. Indirect effect. Bad sleeping habit increases your chance of developing obesity. And being obese gives you higher risk to get diabetes

Short summarize of Diabetes taken from Wikipedia:

1. Diabetes is an illness where the blood sugar level in a body is very high. This high level of blood sugar will cause the body to get easily fatigue, excessive urination, blurred vision, impotence for male, and bad ability in healing wounds (difficulty to stop bleeding).
2. There are three types of Diabetes, Type 1, Type 2 and Diabetes resulted from pregnancy.
   • Type 1 is characterized by low insulin production caused by the autoimmune destruction of the cells that produce insulin.
   • Type 2 is characterized by insulin resistance by the cells in the body.
   • To some women with certain genetic condition, when they are pregnant, the pregnancy hormone will cause the insulin resistance, symptoms of Type 2 diabetes.

So what should we do to stay healthy and stay away from Diabetes?

1. Obviously, have a better sleeping habit. Have enough rest every night. Don’t forgot to switch off your light. Sleeping in total darkness will help to beef up your immune system.
2. Stay fit. Don’t let yourself enjoy the comfort of being overweight, let alone obese.
3. Stop smoking (hmm.. this is like talking to a mirror … )
4. And don’t forgot to pray …

Hmm.. this should become a good reason to motivate myself to stop smoking keep on reducing the number of my daily cigarettes consumption (and eventually stop), and kick off that ‘getting fit’ program that has long forgotten delayed by complicated reason.

Happy New Year and stay healthy people!

Hardono Arifanto :: Jan.04.2008 :: Life, News :: 3 Comments »