Army Open House 2007: Where our story comes alive

Okay, you might be surprised why I am blogging about army. Here is something more surprising: I am going to praise the army. AOH is good! And when an NSF like myself says army is good, it really must be so. (And I am not a big fan of army)

So what's good about AOH '07?

1) Impressive organization. 3 Div had one month to plan the entire event. Everything seemed very very rushed until the last possible moment (imagine doing evaluation on the eve of AOH), and yet we managed to pull it off. The setting up of my plaza was completed on the morning of the opening day itself! The overall consensus from public is that it is impressive. Our CO said that this is the most intensely networked AOH ever. 3 SIG BN had laid over 14km of cables and lines all around Pasir Laba Camp. Really very hard work. Lucky I am not the one laying :)

2) The friendly environment. 5 days of no vulgarities, extreme politeness and courtesy almost unheard of, and the accept-all-blame-it's-all-my-fault-you-are-right attitude towards the public. Wow. I feel like a civilian. And I was paired with this usually garang staff sergeant and surprisingly he showed that he could talk and behave like a civilian too! So we made balloons, we gave free gifts, we made their day, we made them smile. So although it was very tiring (official hours 10am to 8pm, but we had to set up at 7am everyday and never slept til 11pm for five days) standing for so many hours and talking and promoting so much(we were selling bluetooth downloads for army wallpapers. I was amazed the public wants them!), it was still enjoyable. There were some interesting people we met, like the two primary school kids.

PARTNER: You got girlfriend or not?
KID #1: No. He got. *points to friend*
KID #2: You also have lor. Don't bluff.
ME: Wah. So young got girlfriends. Teach me leh. How you get one? Why I cannot get?
KID #1: *survey my entire body* It's your hair.
ME: *speechless*

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ME: Hi Sir. Good afternoon. Would you like to try our bluetooth download? You can download our wallpapers or ringtones free of charge.
GENTLEMAN: 好。。可以。。
ME: 请问你的 bluetooth 开了吗?
GENTLEMAN: 你可以帮我看吗？*proceeds to show me the main menu on his phone in 华文.*
ME: Oh. 对不起。我的华文不大好。。
GENTLEMAN: Oh, ok, 好. *proceeds to change menu to English.*
ME: *embarrassed*

Actually I do know how to read Chinese. Just that it might take me 10 seconds to read one word.
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3) The ladies. Finally a lower level of raging testosterones. There were many characters we named. There was this Tattoo Girl (I will talk more about her later), M1 Girl, Enthu Girl, Tile Painting Girls, Ice Cream Girls, Drink Stall Girls and Survey Girls. Basically apart from a few, we don't know their real names. It was rather boring sometimes (read: promoting army wallpapers!?), so they became our topic of the day. I especially like the Tattoo Girl. She is the most plain but yet attractive girl, while the rest dress like they are at orchard road, some particularly and deliberately revealing. KY suggested that I like 'decent, JC-type girls', to which I agreed. Maybe I just like the way that she is simple, quiet and doesn't like to show off much. And she is a natural; the rest had too much make up. KY was like, ‘去拿她 number la...', to which I replied, '不要 la...看就好了...不要想太多.' I think she noticed that I was looking at her a few times. There were times when I walk past her booth and she will just glance back at me. Wah..被电到。。 KY's right. She's that type. And I met Felicia Chin on Saturday :)

4) The Magician. I love magic shows! I watched the magician perform his tricks for 5 days. One of the tricks is called the 'Crazy Man's Handcuffs'. The most that we figured out is that there was an "exchange" during the part where the magician would stretch both bands together. Requires very fast fingers.



Astonishing isn't it? He also made one of the rubber bands 'disappear' right before our eyes. He also swallowed a balloon about 1 metre long. And some simple card tricks which I cannot figure out. Bravo!

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However, what really turns me off is the fact that Ugly Singaporeans came. There were a few faces that I could recognise. They came all 5 days. Just to get freebies. Like the extremely ugly green NS40 bag which I would never dare to bring outside, so I wonder why they wanted to grab it. Some almost even came to fights. Really, I was very embarrarssed that such people exist. There was one who grabbed 4 green bags despite us telling him politely that he can only take one. And we spotted one who took more than 50 (!!!) ponchos. There were a few times I really felt like lecturing them only to be reminded that I have a positive image to portray. And there are even kids snatching these stuff and their parents did nothing to stop them. Really disappointing.

Yet despite this, AOH is still a very enjoyable experience. I am missing those civilian-like days again as I return to my mundane army life.