On December 1, 2007, Zhang Zilin was crowned Miss World 2007 at the Crown of Beauty Theatre in Sanya, China. It was the first time China won a Miss World title. During her reign, she traveled to the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Vietnam and South Africa. Zhang lent her voice for the 2008 Summer Olympics soundtrack and also appeared in the music video for the same song entitled Beijing Welcomes You.

I’m sure anyone watching these videos would not dispute Zhang Zilin’s victory at the Miss World pageant. She is simply stunning and obviously very talented. Her English may not be perfect, but she’s proven that she is no airhead.

Then, on 18 August 2012, Yu Wenxia won the 2012 Miss World pageant held in Dongsheng Fitness Center Stadium, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China. Can you believe it? I’m stunned, not by Miss Yu’s beauty but by the judges’ decision.

Well, the folks in China finally have their own Ris Low. That’s some consolation for us, I guess.

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It’s been an awful month for the British Royal Family. TMZ published pictures of Prince Harry totally nude, cupping his genitals in one picture and hugging a naked woman in another. These images are now unofficially banned in Britain, following a request from St James’s Palace, the official residence of the prince, through the Press Complaints Commission to respect his privacy. They might go so far as trying to get a court ordered injunction against the publication of the images in the UK.

Dewdrop Notes is probably out of their jurisdiction, but I think it’s only fair that I don’t download and circulate those pictures. Our prince is entitled to a little fun and privacy – just like his mother, the late Princess Diana.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the globe, Communist Party secretary of Lujiang county in Anhui Province, Wang Minsheng, his deputy, Jiang Dabin, and the party’s youth leader at Hefei University, Wang Yu have been linked to a sex party whose pictures have been leaked and circulated all over cyberspace. I won’t repost the raunchy pictures here. The Chinese authorities have banned the circulation of these pictures and are monitoring websites that don’t comply.

Officials recognised in the pictures included Wang Minsheng (王民生) party secretary of Lujiang County of Anhui Province, Wang Yu(汪昱), vice secretary of Chinese Youth League in a Heifei University, and Jiang Dabin (蒋大彬), vice mayor of Lujiang County. One of the women was Diao Jirun (刁吉润), mayor of Lujiang County and another was He Tingting 何婷婷, a college teacher in Heifei University.

Diao Jirun, Mayor of Lujiang at the office

The Lujiang County government initially denied all allegations and threatened to arrest anyone who defamed party officials. Undeterred, netizens dug up for more information. The first man to confess was Wang Yu. He also apologised for his behaviour. China does have laws to prosecute people who engage in sex parties.

A Chinese court sentenced a hotel worker and a prostitute to life in prison on Wednesday for organizing a three-day-long sex party for Japanese tourists — in a case that outraged Chinese and reignited anger over Japan’s wartime conduct.

Twelve other people were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, and China said it had issued arrest warrants for three Japanese accused of organizing the event, asking Tokyo to help detain them.

According to earlier Chinese reports, the incident in September involved as many as 400 Japanese men and 500 Chinese prostitutes at a hotel in the southern city of Zhuhai.

Well, since this one doesn’t involve the Japanese, I guess the punishment won’t exceed exile to Urumqi. In fact, it might do the Communist Party good to have a scandal like this. Why? Because potential and prospective cadres may get the impression that the Communist Party is boring and unhappening. With these photos leaked out, young and virile people will see that joining the Party does not mean that they’ll have to live like nuns and eunuchs. If digital cameras were around in the Song Dynasty, maybe even our much revered Justice Bao could have had his moments.

Diao Jirun at the beach

Across the Straits, Taiwan is not letting up. As if trying to give Edison Chen a run for the limelight, Taiwanese playboy Justin Lee formerly Li Zhong Rui (李宗瑞) who is also the son of a millionaire, has gotten into the act with a bunch of female celebrities including Alice Tzeng (曾愷玹), Kelly Lin (林熙蕾), Amber Ann (安心亞), Maggie Wu ( 吳亞馨) and many more starlets from Taiwan.

Alice Tzeng

Kelly Lin

Amber Ann

Maggie Wu

As we can see, these are not middle-aged mayors from some tiny county on the mainland. How did Justin Lee do it? Well, first and foremost, by being congenitally rich, I guess. Suffice to say that unless you’ve got Edison Chen’s looks or Justin Lee’s money, you might as well just dream on.

What an awful August. Let’s hope September won’t be as bad.

© Chan Joon Yee

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In a 12-minute video shot at a seminar at a school in Samut Prakan, Thai MP Sunai Julphongsathorn tells the audience of around 1,000 red shirts to find a farang husband for an easy life “because European governments give you everything for free.”

Sunai went on: “Get a German husband. Get a Swedish husband. Get a Norwegian husband. People used to love [Thailand] unreservedly. But the more they loved the country, the poorer they got. The more they loved the country, the stupider they got.”

“All you need is a farang husband and their government will pay you to study,” he said.

The video instantly received an overwhelming number of dislikes from Thais. Nothing unexpected. This is the typical impulsive Thai reaction to “nah taek” or “broken face”. It doesn’t bother them that the next Farang who advertises for a trophy wife in Thailand will probably get more responses than he can handle.

Even though it’s rather atypical for a Thai not to mince his words, there is actually a lot of truth in Khun Sunai’s brutally honest statements. For that, he is unlikely to be popular amongst his diplomatic and politically correct fellow countrymen. But just substitute “Thailand” with any other country. The more you love it unreservedly, the poorer you will get. There is a lesson here for us in Singapore.

Since Thailand first started promoting tourism, Farangs have been arriving in troves, enticed by the many charms of the Land of Smiles. They love the sun, the sand, the sea, the food and of course the people. Many of them have not known such hospitality and generosity back home. I’m not sure if anybody recorded the figures, but I bet the numbers of tourists who decide to move to Thailand after just one short holiday there can be quite staggering.

But once the Farang settles in, he suddenly finds himself swarmed with “dependants”. It’s time to reciprocate Thai generosity and many Farangs hoping to find low cost living in Thailand find themselves inextricably drawn into the big spender’s league. Many return home disillusioned and broke. The amazing thing is, they still keep coming.

So why can’t our Farangs be a little more like the Farangs in Thailand? Hey, there are more than a few Singaporeans who are struggling down here. Certainly, we could use a bit of Farang generosity too. Why is it that instead of fleecing our Farangs, our policies seem to allow Farangs to fleece us instead? Khun Sunai had asked Thais to get Farang governments to pay for their education. So why are we paying for our Farangs’ education with scholarships and other generous perks?

We can be utterly generous with our smiles, our tom yam, laksa and char kway teow. Let’s give our Farangs a chance to show their generosity too.

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Space may be the ultimate frontier, but it’s expensive business. To justify it, you need more than just scientific curiosity. And truly, there is a lot more than just scientific curiosity that both promoted and hindered space researched all these years.

Before 1957, scientists did not even know what the ionosphere was like. On 4th October 1957, America was shocked when the Soviets launched Sputnik I – the world’s first artificial satellite. Just a month later, Sputnik II was launched, leaving American pride thoroughly wounded. Determined not to let the Soviets win this, the US military launched Explorer I on 31st January 1958. The space race had officially begun.

Rocket science was touted to the American people by President Dwight Eisenhower himself. He recommended An Introduction To Outer Space, a document explaining rocket science in simple, non-technical terms. The report informed the public of the possibility of landing on Mars and captured the imagination of millions of Americans with the suggestion of a “message from Mars”.

However, that report, and other reports that followed, concluded quite unanimously that outer space would be explored with robots and instruments. All was well until Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into orbit! America was once again behind the Soviet Union in the space race. What could beat the emotional impact of seeing a human in space? President Kennedy understood the deeper, higher aspirations of the American people well. He decided that he had to do something about this, ignoring the advice of the scientific community. He gave NASA a new mission – to put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade.

America quickly took the next step. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. A chimpanzee went with him. Glenn and the chimp (named Ham) became instant celebrities. Reports on their “groundbreaking” achievement reached the ears and eyes of millions of excited Americans. Finally, they have caught up with the Soviets.

Later that same year, an unmanned spacecraft the Mariner II, voyaged 100 million miles to the planet Venus and fed the scientific community with valuable information about the atmosphere of the mysterious planet. Not surprisingly, that achievement was not celebrated by the general public. Everyone was crazy about Glenn and Ham.

Kennedy may have been killed in 1963, but his dream finally came true. In 1969, Neil Armstrong stood on the moon. Apollo II was described as a feat of skill unmatched in history. The US was finally ahead in the space race. Naturally, the American public went crazy. The science aside, it was also a political triumph. In fact, without the political will, science alone would not have brought America ahead in the space race. Americans could finally recover from the Sputnik humiliation. Not that many members of the public celebrated one month later when Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 (both unmanned) passed the planet Mars and made important discoveries about the Martian surface.

The Soviets, who had been pragmatically focussed on space robotics, failed to see the socio-political importance of putting their nationals on the moon. Irrational as it may seem, not many people paid the slightest attention to the Soviet’s unmanned Luna explorations which brought back far more valuable images and samples than any of the American expeditions ever did. So who won the space race? Not just the American public, but the world would have judged that the US had won.

There were 5 more astronauts to reach the moon. Science fiction fans then predicted that lunar colonies and human expeditions to Mars would soon follow. All that didn’t happen. The laws of economics are as sacred as the laws of physics. Then, in 1984, President Ronald Reagan directed NASA to develop a permanently manned space station in earth orbit within a decade. His justification? That new medicines, cure and alloys would be produced at these space laboratories.

A decade? The Soviets shocked America again. Less than 2 years after Ronald Reagan’s instructions to NASA, the Soviet Union launched Space Station Mir. It has been decades since Mir was first launched and to date, no miracle cures or new alloys have been made there. Cosmonauts on the Mir were too busy staying alive and not allowing themselves to go insane. It was a blow to the American ego, but this time, it was the Soviets who were behaving irrationally even though they probably knew all along that it was a bad idea.

But Reagan’s plan still went on. The project was initially estimated to cost $8 billion. Then, $12 billion was spent on design alone. These folks were just trying to make it work at all costs. George Bush senior didn’t talk about alloys or miracle cures. He talked about Neil Armstrong, the Apollo missions and perhaps quite ingeniously, he talked about Christopher Columbus.

Bush called on America’s youths to summon the spirit behind the voyage of Christopher Columbus in his discovery of the New World to bring Americans back on the moon, to Mars and beyond. America already had the technology to send a man to Mars. Bush wanted the space station to be a medical research laboratory to find ways to mitigate damage to the human body on the long voyage to Mars. Bush proudly named it Space Station Freedom. The budget was slashed, but it didn’t help the American economy. Then came the unexpected fall of the Soviet Union. The Cold War ended. The political ends of the space station were gone. Costs spiralled upwards and Bill Clinton took over.

Clinton had no interest in the space program. He just wanted to revive the American economy, but sadly, space programs have become a part of the economy, employing thousands of people. Unable to scrap the space program, he started looking for partners and renamed the project International Space Station. The Russians were roped in and a new design allowed Russian participation. The new concept? World peace.

In 1998, John Glenn returned to space. This time, not even the starry-eyed Americans could be persuaded to take this as scientific exploration. It was just a nostalgic trip for a national hero and while the public did not protest, they were also not elated.

With the death of Neil Armstrong, there has been speculation that public interest in manned space explorations may soon be revived. Yes, the economy is still lethargic but they have a new competitor. Can Americans resist the temptation to shock the world before the Chinese land on the moon?

© Chan Joon Yee

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Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor and United States Naval Aviator. He was also the first person to walk on the Moon. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was a United States Navy officer and had served in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he logged over 900 flights. He graduated from Purdue University and the University of Southern California.

A participant in the U.S. Air Force’s Man In Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission in 1966, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians in space.

Armstrong’s second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module. Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon along with Collins and Aldrin, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

After his monumental achievements, Armstrong moved away from the limelight. From then on, space missions became confined to space shuttles and recently, President Obama announced that all future missions would be unmanned.

A less restrained individual of that era would have lashed out at President Obama’s decision, but Mr Armstrong, in his usual soft-spoken, mild-mannered tone, said he had “substantial reservations,” and along with more than two dozen Apollo-era veterans, he signed a letter calling the plan a “misguided proposal that forces NASA out of human space operations for the foreseeable future”.

Neil Armstrong was a true hero. His Apollo landing had only a 50-50 chance of success. The logistical support required for humans to explore the surface of the moon or Mars on jeep is astronomical. Not surprisingly, most of the work done on these worlds recently did not include the “human touch”. The pragmatist may ask “so what if we don’t send astronauts on missions anymore?”. Most of the space explorations in recent years were accomplished by robots. Not only did they survive the 10-month voyage without going crazy, they stayed on Mars, conducting experiments and beaming back images of the Martian surface. They did many times more work than humanly possible. And some, like the Mars Rovers, lasted much longer than originally planned. Here are a list of landings made on Mars.

Viking program 1976
Mars Pathfinder 1997
Beagle 2 2003
Mars Exploration Rovers 2004-2010
Phoenix Lander 2008

The Mars Exploration Rovers were still functioning and able to capture images of the Phoenix Lander landing on Mars – a huge bonus previously unplanned. With the impressive report cards from the robots, there are really not that many reasons for sending a human to the moon or to Mars. Maybe it would make more sense to send a poet than an astronaut. And soon, the space administrators may even need to scratch their heads for an excuse to send someone into a space station orbiting Earth. One of the excuses might be the sheer romantic concept of having humans in space or on a planet. The sci-fi movies and stories don’t work very well with robots as their main characters. Another reason could be a matter of national pride.

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