http://www.todayonline.com/articles/32771.asp
heres a website intro-ed to me by jialing. its hell funny and here's wat it wrote
On page one of yesterday's edition of Today, there was a story about a jilted woman who ripped off one of her former lover's testicles with her bare hands after he refused to have sex with her.
Wince.
This was not the kind of news I wanted to read when I sat down for breakfast with my wife.
I was eating fishball noodles at the time and I could not bring myself to eat my second-last fishball. Not after I read the part where the woman tried to hide the testicle in her mouth.
Wince.
Big mouth that I am, I couldn't resist telling my wife: "Eh, dear. News got this woman ripped off her ex-lovers testicle, leh."
Shudder.
My wife had to ask awkward questions such as: "Isn't the whole thing inside one, er, bag? How did she remove just one?"
"She unscrewed it with a screwdriver, lah," I wanted to tell her, wincing again, struggling with my last fishball. That's it, tomorrow I eat bee hoon with taupok, I told myself.
Ah, taupok. Everyone's favourite beancurd. It is also the term used to describe the ragging that takes place during junior college orientation.
Someone shouts, "Taupok!" and as many guys as possible will pile on top of the target, or the "taupokee". In Western countries, it is called a pile-on.
This is a dangerous and silly game, of course (which adolescent game is not?). And a parent whose son was studying "in a premier junior college in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area", where this game took place, complained to the press, calling for an end to "taupok-ing".
The Education Ministry made a statement. The school principal made a statement. A consultant orthopaedic surgeon was interviewed to ensure that everyone understood how dangerous taupok-ing can be.
So now, students from the premier junior college in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area have been banned from taupok-ing.
I hear there are plans to create labels, not unlike those on cigarette packets, to warn of the dangers of taupok-ing. One label will show a student with fractured ribs and another will feature a chap with broken arms.
The worst one will show the student whose father complained to the press about taupok-ing. He'll be pictured alone since he no longer has friends at school. That last one will be the most frightening.
Taupok-ing is hazardous to your health, says the Surgeon General. Your father complaining to the press is hazardous to your social life, says mr brown.
I am told that most of the time, only guys taupok. I am not sure if the girls do it but I heard from a source that he has seen at least two all-girl taupoks.
So, pardon my middle-aged ignorance, but if it is an all-girl taupok, is it called a tauhuay?
And if it is a mixed taupok — God forbid — is it known as a taunee?
What if the guys taupok-ing are of an alternative persuasion? Taugay?
And if a Singapore Idol is taupok-ed, would we call it a Taufik?
Some would argue that this generation of young people is too soft to taupok. That overprotective parents are creating a generation of taufu.
Others argue that we must not encourage young people to pursue dangerous activities, especially under peer pressure (if you have seven guys on top of you, that's peer pressure).
I think we need to go further to discourage such things. Make that one label with the guy who just lost one ball. That will make any bloke stop taupok-ing.
It is somewhat hard to explain to a Westerner what a taupok looks like, I have found. I mean the real one.
I tried using Google to find one, but there are very few photos of taupoks. The ones I found showed taupoks together with other vegetables, like in a rojak. Very few shots of taupoks alone.
Taupoks can be quite shy when it comes to having their pictures taken, I think.
So being the hard-working columnist that I am, I queued up to have yong tau fu for lunch, even though the queue was long.
And when the stallholder was not looking, I used my camera-phone to snap some taupoks in their untainted glory. All this to help my readers better understand the difference between a regular taupok and a JC Student one.
I think that we should also start looking into other ways of minimising the dangers to our young people. Like National Service training.
There are a lot of potentially dangerous activities and peer pressures there (the boys carry guns, for goodness sake!).
What if they are doing the Standard Obstacle Course and my son falls from the monkey bar?
What if he is crawling through the jungles of Brunei and some nasty insect bites him (enter the consultant insect-bite surgeon to make a statement)? What if the other recruits use peer pressure to make my son say bad words and smoke?
Better start writing letters to Mindef now. National Service is just two years away for most Junior College guys. Even for the ones from a premier junior college in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area.
mr brown is the accidental author of a popular website that has been documenting the dysfunctional side of Singapore life since 1997. He wants to know what the name of that other orientation game is, the one where they grab a guy and slam him, legs open, against a big pillar.
*i noe dat one!! ITS CALLED POLE!*
The mr brown Bean Curd Dictionary
taupok: dried bean curd, usually in a compressed state
tauhuay: sweet soya bean dessert (huay is also "flower" or "girlfriend of an uncouth guy, i.e., Ah Beng's gerfren")
taunee: soya bean milk drink (nee is also, er, a female source of milk)
taugay: bean sprouts (gay is also "happy")
Taufik: Singapore Idol (you may need to vote via sms or phone to taupok him)
