The Straits Times, 31 December 1999 (2024)

155 1999-12-31 3 Jessica Tan- Jessica Tan m.iu.iiujw ■E9 BEIJiNG Town gossip has it that 15-vear-old Emperor Tung Chih was seen outside the walls of the Forbidden City late last night. Apparently, the teenager had escaped from the presence of his domineering mother, Dowager Empress Tz'u-Hsi, to enioy a night of

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176 1999-12-31 3 May 25, 1611 MUGHAL Empire Emperor Jahangir married his new love today. The richest and most powerful man of the mighty Mughal Empire has reportedly no fewer than 2O wives and a harem of more than 200 beauties collected over the years. The 42-year-olds latest

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128 1999-12-31 3 1200s MONGOL EMPIRE The country is in shock today, after an unexpected act of forgiveness by the great Qaidu Khan. Just last week, the ruler and his family grieved the loss of his younger daughter vas brually bit- ;en to death by Apparently, she had

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82 1999-12-31 3 1328 MAJAPAHIT KINGDOM Citizens are mourning the death of their beloved king, Jayanagara, who died suddenly today. Court officials report that stopped beating during an operation, which was described earlier by royal physicians as minor surgery. But friends of Jayanagara believe that his death was plotted by

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58 1999-12-31 3 FOR Life! s millennium cover, we wanted the new with something traditional the Chinese ink brush. And who better to do it than Cultural Medallion winner Chua Ek Kay. Accompanying the title Life!, done in Chinese calligraphic style, is a tong zi (kid) who is as much a

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845 1999-12-31 4 TAN SHZR EE- TAN SHZR EE How does a $7 mouth organ travel across space and time to become the accordion beloved of polka players? Here's a blow-by-blow account By THEY cost about $7 each today. And who knows how much they were worth 1,000 years ago perhaps they were made

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22 1999-12-31 4 The key to the origins of the harmonica (top), accordion (above) and sheng (below) are found in the humble khaen.

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774 1999-12-31 5 Helmi Yusof-TIME OUT Helmi Yusof Clock Watch TINE TRIALS: Which of these devices clocks in as the best? What do you want in a timepiece? A classy look, a working mechanism and years of wear without tear. So, which of these clocks will have you ticking? HOW TO SPEND IT WISELY

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1892 1999-12-31 6 MARRY ME? Con-juggle Bliss Will you (and you and you) No Asian would have blinked at the idea of one man, many wives, before the middle of this century, when a man's harems went the way of colonial governments and old philosophies, discovers CLARISSA 00H WEDDED BLISS IN ASIA CHINA

GEORGE GASCON- 1,892 words

88 1999-12-31 6 TRACING the beginnings of polygamy in the human race, historians have tied it to the genesis of patriarchy in primitive societies. Professor Gerda Lerner locates the first exchanges of women at the time when hunter-gatherer societies gave way to agriculture. There are three

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283 1999-12-31 6 THE word "polygamy by definition, refers to either a man or a woman having more than one spouse at a time. These days, when people bandy the word about, they are usually referring to "polygyny" the man having multiple wives. So what

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254 1999-12-31 8 KARL HO- KARL HO Miss Asia Millennium Five Asian beauties claw their way into the finals for the coveted title, according to a notorious philanderer Hu LADIES and gentlemen, welcome to the Ms Asian Millennium beauty pageant! I, Xi Menqing, notorious philanderer and aphrodisiac abuser in

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223 1999-12-31 8 CONTESTANT N0 1: EMPRESS DOWAGER CI XI THE Empress thought it was an affront to her position if she were to speaK directly to the interviewer. So her high-pitched voiced chief eunuch relayed her answers instead. Ci Xi only nodded in approval to her messenger's words, spitting occasionally into ner

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141 1999-12-31 8 SHE is the legendary beauty of Johor's Gunung Ledang, or Mount Ophir. Renowned for spurning the Sultan of Melacca's marriage proposal with a list of impossible requests. QWhat must a man do to win your hand in marriage? A Build two bridges between

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121 1999-12-31 8 REMEMBERED as the '50s Hongkong movie icon who committed suicide. Qls ihcrc anything you want to say about love? A Every love story is a tragedy. Man and woman meet and fall in love, only to be broken up because one of them dies. Like

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245 1999-12-31 8 THIS Asian-American actress plays stone-cold, femme fatale Ling Woo in Ally Mcßeal and a leatherclad dominatrix who enjoys inflicting and receiving pain in Mel Gibson's Payback. QW hat kind of men do you date? A The kind that likes me scratching them and licking their

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258 1999-12-31 8 Steve Dawson- And the winner is. OOPS! The contest has been cancelled abruptly. Hantu Tetek, the well-en-dowed supernatural vamp of Malay folklore, was insulted that she was not invited to the contest. She strangled all the judges. CONSORT of Shah Jahan, a Mughal emperor who ruled India

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218 1999-12-31 9 1158 IF YOU are wondering exactly where it is that you are, ponder no longer. You may never feel lost again. Mariners in China and Europe have announced independent discoveries of a new navigational tool. The new gadget is known as a compass and is

ALAN LIM- 218 words

114 1999-12-31 9 What a load of junk 1488 THE next time you get the urge to sail all seven seas, junk it. You could do worse. The Chinese junk is receiving accolades aplenty from snipping experts, placing the vessel 400 years ahead of similar designs in the Western w.orld. Recent developments to

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• Article, Illustration

  SOFTWARE COMPANY GOES PUBLIC

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  120 1999-12-31 9 1986 AMERICAN software company, Microsoft, has had its initial public offering (IPO), 11 years after it was founded. The opening price for the Seattle-based company's today s exchange rate) per share. Wacky predictions of its performance in the coming years have been hopeful. One anonymous analyst

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• Article

  WORLD WIDE WHAT?

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  253 1999-12-31 9 1988 1999 WITH the Cold War apparently over, a network of com m eric an military is becoming lid in the United The computers, designed to speak to each other trom different corners of the country in the event of a nuclear war, are now becoming the

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224 1999-12-31 9 1900 CRAFTY colonials in India are thought to have invented a refreshing, alcoholic tipple that just may save your life. Known as gin, it began life as a medical beverage in the 18th century when juniper berries were soaked in alcohol. The restoration of weak constitutions

LUIS ASCUI- 224 words

172 1999-12-31 9 1218 THE yurt, a tent-like nomad's dwelling, has become a prominent player in the global mobile-home market. Genghis Khan's sweeping advance across the land mass from as far west as Russia to as far east as northern China, has spread the word about the unique tent design in

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189 1999-12-31 9 Surfs up, Raffles MY BOOKMARKS E-mail raffles® Tumasik.eom.sg SIR STAMFORD RAFFLES Administrator, founder of Singapore, employee of East India Company and proficient linguist WHEN it comes to the Internet, Sir Stamford is not really up to speed He said: "I come from a generation before computers became übiquitous and have

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305 1999-12-31 10 CHEONG SUK- WAI- CHEONG SUK-WAI Food, Glorious Food Sugar and spice and all things nice make Asia a good gourmet's paradise. The region's contributions to the stomachs of the world are legion *!L IF YOU are still stuck for ideas on how to make your last three square meals before the new

ALAN LIM- 305 words

368 1999-12-31 10 RICE is nice. So says the average Asian, who scoffs down more than 140 kg of it each year, as compared with the average Westerner's pecking at about 3 kg worth a year. But the staple grain had ignominious beginnings. China's fanners discovered it as

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170 1999-12-31 10 RICE may be a staple in Asia, but it is used elsewhere only in "by-the-way" concoctions such as: PAELLA: This Spanish rice and seafood dish a cross between fried rice and rice salad is best eaten with spritzes of lemon juice to bring out the

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284 1999-12-31 10 YOU might call it the case of Pasta vs Mian (Mandarin for noodles). Western cookbook authors still dispute the claim that Marco Polo introduced noodles to Italy, citing the ancient murals depicting the Etruscans, Italy's forefathers, rolling out what looked like sheets of

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170 1999-12-31 10 AS mian and pasta are, essentially, convenient starchy bases to complement meat, vegetables and sauces, cooking with them is a matter of producing variations on the same theme. Listed here then are three enduringly appealing ways in which folks in the West have adapted noodles to

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339 1999-12-31 10 THE tale of how spices travelled from East to West is one swashbuckler of a saga. Today, it may be hard to imagine that these tiny, unremarkable twigs, roots and seeds power-packed with intense flavour triggered bloody wars between East and West throughout 500 years of

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150 1999-12-31 10 WHILE spices in Asian kitchens flavour savouries like tonguesearing curries, five-spice chicken and lontong, Western-trained chefs use them mainly in sweets. Spice-laden desserts that thrill foodies from Poland to Pakistan include: APPLE PIE: The crust-punctured apple pie in the movie American Pie may take the cake

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242 1999-12-31 11 1,001 nights of cheese SAY "cheese!" and one might have rhapsodic visions of snow-capped mountains, rolling green pastures and blonde milkmaids tip-toeing through the tulips. But it was sun-browned Asians who sported the world's first milk moustaches. As early as 8,500 BC, people in the Near East were chugging goat's

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148 1999-12-31 11 CHEESE lends itself to all forms of culinary experimentation, like: CHEESECAKE: No one knows who first compacted cream cheese into a pastry crust. But there is a 1912 record of an unnamed actress who stood at a ship's rail in blustery New York Harbour,

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154 1999-12-31 11 Bean eating soya WHO would have thought that the Chinese creators of a mind-boggling array of soya-bean products once detested the beans on sight? Not that you could blame them. Digesting the innocuous beans made them break wind a whole lot. So, while Jung tribes north-east of China brought soya-beans

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123 1999-12-31 11 WHILE Asia hcs a litany of soya-bean derivatives doufu (bean curd) and tempeh (fermented soya-bean patties) among them the beans are all but missing from Western cuisine. But America, at least, has one saving grace: New York restaurateur David Mintz. After five years of dishing up kosher

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1015 1999-12-31 13 TEE HUN CHING- TEE HUN CH ING We've come a long way baby, from the Chinese du dou to the French corset. But the question remains should the bra hide or flaunt women's curves? Hu IT MAY be only three letters, but the bra is engineering miracle, sexual revolution and fashion statement

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390 1999-12-31 14 CAT ONG-WORN OUT! no way! CAT ONG National Costumes Qipao, sari, sarong kebaya or mini. We, the citizens or Singapore, have worn them all, one way or another, for a century and more IF there is one lesson that you can learn from the end of yet another thousand years of

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262 1999-12-31 14 STREAM siren. Pei Pei packs new pow in Ah Ma's favourite qipao. It has been shrunk to a tiny top and micro-mini, a la Mandarin. MA: Pei Pei, Pei Pei, Ah Ma is coming to visit and she wants to see what you have done with her

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215 1999-12-31 15 LENGANG LENGANG SARONG BABY CARRIER! You can't use a blanket, it's too hot in this weather. You can't use canvas, it's too scratchy for baby. You can't use baby's nappy, it's not big enough. You can't use the tablecloth, it's too square and doesn't loop around the body comfortably. So,

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213 1999-12-31 15 A TINY top, a broad swatch of a skirt. But what a variety of head-turners from this traditional Indian costume. So, wear it every which way and swing, Subatra, swing. SUBATRA (ABOVE) TALKING TO HERSELF IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR: So, who's sari now? Not me. Look

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325 1999-12-31 15 LEGS, legs, legs got them? Then flaunt them. Got sm<x)th skin, show, lor? But your silky underwear do not. That is Mimi on minis. MIMI (MIDDLE RIGHT) ON THE PHONE TO HER BOYFRIEND, BENG HUAT: "Ah Beng ah, tonight go where pak tor, ah? I got

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196 1999-12-31 16 ELISABETH GWEE- ELISABETH GWEE Treasured Souvenirs Don't dismiss your humble feather duster. It's gone global. We show you 10 objects that transcend Oriental kitsch and have made it to Western homes Since souvenirs of the frivolous variety, like snow domes and plastic statues of landmarks, were invented only early this

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78 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: It wasn't only the pandas who lived on this chewy breakfast/lunch/dinner treat. The Chinese used it for garden furniture. The Southern Indians, too, were into elaborate bamboo chairs by AD 2 and 3. TO WEST: During the 1880s, no self-respecting household in England was complete

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138 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: When sitting on floors became a pain in the behind, the Turks moved on to this long-and-low upholstered seat. It took pride of place in most Turkish homes by the 16th century because of its multiple-seating capacity that no doubt came in handy when the entire

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132 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: Apart from allowing the Chinese to cook up an audible storm, this thin- walled pan was developed some 3,000 years ago as an energy-saving device. Its round bottom concentrates heat and allows food to be cooked quickly with relatively little oil. TO WEST: A must-have

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103 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: Lacquerware never failed to impress with its highly-polished surfaces and rich colours. As a result, it was reserved mainly for religious buildings and palaces. Lacquer work was first discovered in China as early as 4th and 3rd BC. TO WEST: One of the

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82 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: In Japan, the effect of seeing a mass of ornaments all at once is regarded as the visual equivalent of overeating. Which explains why the folding screen has been a regular feature in Japanese homes. For auspicious reasons, the Chinese also liked to

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116 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: Recycling was already on the minds of the 18th-century Chinese. Rather than throw away a pile of fowl feathers, someone struck upon the idea of gluing the feathers to a stick, and voila! one of the earliest cleaning tools to come out of China

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102 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: The ultimate in simple, portable, and unobtrusive bedding. This soft-padded mattress originated from Japan. Makes for quick and easy housekeeping because it can be rolled up and thrown in the closet when not in use. On the health side, its firm base is good for bad

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125 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: The first chopsticks may have been twigs used to spear food cooked over an open fire. There is evidence that chopsticks date back to the Shang dynasty (1766 BC 1122 BC). But some historians credit Confucius' influence with the widespread use of chopsticks in 551 BC.

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105 1999-12-31 16 Don't bead yourself up FROM EAST: More for decorative purposes than keeping out prying eyes or the sun, this form of decoration is from 19th-century India. It is fashioned out of a number of separate threads, on which beads of glass and wood of different sizes and lengths are strung.

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128 1999-12-31 16 FROM EAST: Porcelain has undergone a schizophrenic array of looks since it was first made during the Tang dynasty (618 907). It was at its finest in the Song dynasty (960-1279), decorated elaborately in the Yuan (1280-1367), predominantly blue-and-white in the Ming" (1368-1644), and

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2283 1999-12-31 17 HUA MUI HOONG- HUA MUI HOONG The End Of Days? Society has become so complex and fragmented that it is hard to make sense of it all. How do people cope? By selecting amnesia over anguish lin We no longer believe in Magic, but in Mammon and Machines. Many symbols that

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392 1999-12-31 18 FRANCIS CHIN- FRANCIS CHIN Tomes Of The Lost Raiders The pen is mightier than the sword, the samurai's sabre notwithstanding, and these seminal books illustrate the literary prowess of Asia Bg •w" "w* "Y HEN some- I one says American, you know he Y Y is talking about someone

HEDY KHOO- 392 words

628 1999-12-31 18 JAPAN SOME of the earliest and most beautiful literary works were written by women in Heian Japan at the turn of the present millennium. The supreme example is Tale Of Genji, the first significant modern novel (an extended prose narrative as distinct from the epic

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832 1999-12-31 18 It 's no Dream, this saga is real CHINA FROM the poetry- of Su dongpo and the epic novels of the Ming and Qmg dynasties, to the short stories of Lu Xun and the elegant En-glish-language book-essays of Dr Lin Yutang, one is spoilt for choice when selecting the important

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380 1999-12-31 18 1,000 reasons to read tliese books INDIA AT FIRST glance, it appears that all of India's great books were written more than a millennium ago. But there has been a seemingly endless number of great poetic works written since. These include Treasury Of Well-Turned Verses, the love lyrics Song Of

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129 1999-12-31 18 Where is my love? MIDDLE EAST THE POETRY OF RUMI By Jalal Al-din Rumi (mid- 1200s) RUMI (13th century) was born in Afghanistan but lived most of his life in Turkey. His poetry, however, belongs to the world. Lines of his poetry have the uncanny ability to create instant insights

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1359 1999-12-31 19 ONG SOR FERN-Prose CONS ONG SOR FERN Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Perhaps that's why Western writers' views of Asia were so clouded by imperialist leanings liu THEN AND NOW: How attitudes have changed THEN Writer Somerset Maugham's (right) description is most telling: the use of

ALAN LIM- 1,359 words