Timber tumble

The weekend after I returned from Samui, my family and I were severely distressed to find some of the much beloved pine trees around our flat were chopped down. All that were left were their sad stumps. My brother and I marched up to question the contracted workers who were uprooting the trees but they said they were just ordered by the Town Council to do it. Che cazzo. Boiling mad, we decided to pen separate emails to the committee members - and I also cc-ed the major newspapers and TV news editors. Here's what I wrote which was carried in Today's forum page:

"Dear sir/ mdm,

I'm writing in to express my utmost shock and utter dismal at the felling of several mature handsome pine trees along Elias Road. We have been staying here for about 15 years and my family and neighbours take a lot of pride in these majestic willowy trees which add a lot of character to the quaint neighbourhood.

Even visiting friends, overseas guests and family members often comment on how beautiful they are. Very often we look out of the window and spot various breeds of exotic migratory birds resting and feeding on their pine fruits. It was such a pleasure to see them grow from 5-storey young trees to their current 14-storey height. They are one of the main reasons why we have chosen to stay here for many years. So you can imagine our horror this morning when we discovered that a team of workers have started chopping down a few trees and uprooted 2 of these gentle giants, leaving a huge gap in our landscape.

We do not see the reason why they should all be cut down as they are healthy and not causing any problems. When we approached the workers to find out why, the contractor asked us to refer to the Town Council (which is closed on weekend). They also informed us that they are going to chop down all these pine trees. We heard one of the possible reasons is a recent mosquito breeding problem but we don't see the relevance between the trees and mosquitoes breeding. In fact they are an important part of the eco-system and providing comforting shade and visual beauty for the residents here.

My family and neighbours are extremely upset that this has happened and hope to get a proper explanation for this insensitive action because there is no prior notice given to residents. Given we're a green Garden City, we should have more respect and consideration for these mature trees as well as our home setting. To quote MM's vision 'a City pleasant green and cool', we are seeking to advocate these trees to be heritage trees as part of the Heritage Trees Scheme in our Garden City. This is in line with promoting conservation of these mature trees to the community as they take decades to mature gracefully and beautify our landscape.

We hope through this urgent letter, we can prevent more of these irreplaceable trees from being chopped down because it takes decades for them to flourish but just minutes to cut them down. If there is a need, we will be happy to get a signed petition from the residents around the blocks at Elias Road.

Thank you and best regards. Your sincerely..."

I guess we did have a valid cause because the major papers picked up on this story. Lianhe Zaobao (Chinese), Shin Min (Chinese), The New Paper, Ch5 and Ch8 News (I was interviewed and my mandarin sucked!) as well as STOMP (ST blog) ran it. Yay! Viva gli aberi! Some people said 'why you so free ah? They're just trees.' Well, I think it's so easy to turn a blind eye and sweep things under the carpet but it's so hard to fight for what you believe in. Si, we couldn't save the ones which were fallen but at least we tried our best and managed to put up a good fight. Hoepfully they will think it through more carefully in future.

Calma after the storm

Ok I know I was missing in action per tantoooo tempoooo! Sorry lah, so many things happened over the past month and I finally found some time to update my blog. After the surgery, Luigi arrived on 5 Feb in S'pore, in time for the CNY reunion night - his first culture shock in Asia. This was his virgin trip to his dreamland Asia and what a ride he got! Well, with me as his guida... it was like the F1 - full speed ahead!

He got his first taste of Chinese hospitality at my place when we all settled down for the reunion steamboat dinner where we all shared saliva by dipping our chopsticks in the pot. Yum. He loved it, esp my mamma's chilli dip and dad's freshly caught cuttlefish. Then we went to Chinatown and squeezed our way through the mad throngs of people (big mistake!) before sipping on martinis at A's Home club while the fireworks went off at midnight. The next 2 days were spent visiting relatives and friends, and the happy fellow bagged a lot of hongbaos, ate a few lo-heis and more steamboats to last him a lifetime.

He was also becoming an ace at using chopsticks and eating chilli like a pro. Bravissimo! I guessed CNY was the perfect time for any 'Chao.ang.moh' (one of the few Singlish words we taught him, besides 'C.Bye', 'Kay.poh' and 'Wah.lao.eh') to visit S'pore and get a true taste of local festivity. Luigi truly lived it up and sweated it out, especially lapping up the pool at Aquarius Park, my aunt's condo. As it is, he's saving up 350,000 euros to buy the smallest 2-bedroom unit as his Asian getaway.

After 5 days of sightseeing in S'pore, we flew to Koh Samui on Bangkok Airways and checked promptly into Thai House Beach Resort, a rather charming cosy thai-style haven, where we got upgraded to Villa N. Woo-hooo! The first night was a bit of a downer for us as Lamai turned into a whore-house in the evening, lined with bars, chao ang mohs and putane. E' un po depresso per noi. The second day was much better as we explored Lamai beach, our resort and ate very well at this no-fuss restaurant.

We drank our fill of Singha birra, green curry, and spicy tom yum (in that order) and had a running joke that I was the putana escort. Everywhere you go, you see an ancient chao ang moh and a Thai sweet young thing. I wasn't surprised anymore if a local spoke Thai to me. I get it ALL the time. The second night we took a cab from Lamai to Chaweng, the most developed and crowded part of Samui, for 300 baht (a tad steep). We walked the full length of Chaweng in about an hour and every 10 metres, L was ascotted by Indian tailors who called him his amico: "Suit for you, my friend?" He was amused and polite at first and soon became pissed off after fending off the 25th tailor either called Armani or Giorgio.

The next day we learnt that for 300 baht, we could rent a motorbike for 24hrs and so we did just that, riding carefree without helmets under the fierce glare of the sun. We explored various beaches of the island, saw the towering Big Buddha, hiked down steep hills to glimpse at waterfalls, and stopped for chilled coconuts and a dip after lunch. In the evening we went to find L's affable second cousin Tonino and his sweet Thai wife Bee at their two-storey house. Tonino was easy to like; a no-bullshit straight-talking New Yorker who has eased into a laidback lifestyle in Samui which suits him just fine.

They thought I was L's Asian girlfriend, in my mid 20s. Bee said, "Gino must learn to like spicy because he has Asian girlfriend." I replied Gino is very good at spicy now. Tonino happily showed us his garden, backyard of coconut trees, and shared his life history and insights on the Thai way of life without much prompting. His brushes with the special massages and putane were particularly funny; also how he met his wife and finally won her over. We promised to meet up again the next day and hurried back on our moto at sunset. It was Valentine's Day night - not that we cared - and were just planning to have a simple cena at our favourite Thai place whose waitress was starting to recognise us.

Back at Villa N when I switched on the lights in the dark, I found a big bouquet of red roses on the bed. I gasped in genuine shock, glanced at L and said "Err, who are these roses from? Did someone make a mistake?" He shrugged and said "They are for you." I was still doubtful but figured it couldn't be wrong. He's so sweet lah. What's more, there were 27 roses - because I told him I always feel 26 years old and he added 1 more to make it an odd number for good luck (Italians). Such a clever boy. I'm always outwardly embarrassed but secretly glad to receive flowers.

After another aroy-mak-mak (molto delizioso) Thai dinner, we retreated to our favourite spot at our villa's balcone. It had become our routine and our piece of paradiso. We'd settle in with a bottiglia di vino and sigarette, and talk about everything under the twinkling stars. The sea breeze blew gently and the palms swayed in the dark. On 2 nights in a row, fireworks crackled and lit up the starry skies.

The next day, we lazed around a lot and met up with Tonino and Bee for a late lunch at their casa. The 4 of us then rode around the island to visit this secluded seafront temple and hiked nearly 40min into the forest to locate this gentle waterfall. It was good exercise; L was drenched in sweat while I was half eaten alive by the zanzare. We laid on the rocks and stared at the many dragonflies dotting the blue skies. E' veramente un paradiso.