Crow Island

Crow Island

It's good to be able to blog on a Friday night--something which I've not been able to do for quite some time. My past few blog entires did not reveal where I was but I've been back in KL since Sunday. It's good to be able to catch up with friends here and to take a breather before I start working on my next trip back to the City of Victory, Ja(ya)karta again.

One day, I hope to be able to go to Jakarta via Singapore and Batam. You can catch a local flight from Batam to Jakarta but I suppose it is more fun taking a Pelni ship from Batam and land at the port of Tanjung Priok, north of Jakarta.

Batam is not a beautiful island but it is nevertheless an interesting place. You'll find Batam swarmed with visitors from Singapore during the weekends--usually men on their weekend "golf" outing. And because of its close proximity to Singapore, Batam has become a cheap and convenient place for the Singaporean men to keep Indonesian mistresses.

Pity the Singaporean tai-tais: if their husbands are not spending their weekends "golfing" in Batam, they are being targetted back home by mainland Chinese women who seem to have invaded every nook and corner of the island state. These so-called wuya (or crows) are even preying on old Ah Peks, sipping coffee outside their HDB flats.

I suppose it is one of those inevitable consequences of globalization. There are always cheaper sources of "labour" from elsewhere. All this while, Singaporean men have had to live up to the exacting standards demanded by their women--the 5Cs (cash, credit card, car, club, condominium). But now the men realise that with the 5Cs, they can easily attract the sixth 'C'--a concubine. It's still a man's world out there.