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Heart Of Glass (Fiction)
By Stephen Yeo

Chapter 12
It was another Monday morning. The gloomy sky finally cleared, much like Steve's love life. One week had gone by since he last stepped into the apartment where he once shared happy moments with Ai Ling. There were also unpleasant memories of course, but Steve found it hard to let these negate his feelings for Ai Ling.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Nature Versus Nurture
By Stephen Yeo

Is it nature (heredity) or nurture (upbringing) that determines one's intelligence? Behavioural scientists are grappling with this conundrum, even today.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Movie Review

Movie Title: Windstruck
Director: Kwak Jae Yong
Starring: Jun Ji-hyun, Jang Hyuk
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

A movie that blows hot, then cold
This pseudo-sequel to the romantic comedy "My Sassy Girl" starts off brightly enough, even though the opening scene has the female lead character, Yeo Kyung-jin (played by the effervescent Jun Ji-hyun), on the verge of a headlong plunge to meet her maker (or should it be her lover?).

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Book Review

Title: To Catch A Tartar: A Dissident In Lee Kuan Yew's Prison
Author: Francis T. Seow
Publisher: Yale Southeast Asia Studies, Mongraph 42, 1994
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

The Lee Kuan Yew that very few Singaporeans know about

"To Catch A Tartar" is an excellent study of the conceit and deceit of a man many Singaporeans thought they knew. The author, Francis Seow, is a former solicitor general and president of the Law Society in Singapore. This is his first-hand account of how he has suffered under the PAP government's use of biased legislation and media manipulation to maintain political hegemony.

This book review continues.

Friday, July 9, 2004

Psychology

Freudian slip: A case of mind over mutter?
By Stephen Yeo

In one of my earlier articles, (Straightening the Straits Times [6], I wrote: "when Ho [Ching] mentioned family jewels, I believe it was a genuine Freudian slip". But what exactly is a "Freudian slip"?

Well, it certainly isn't some kind of undergarment that women hide in their closets. But it's close enough. In fact, one could argue that a Freudian slip is much like skeletons in a closet.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

I think it's Paris, but I'm not sure... (Travelogue)
By Stephen Yeo

[... ahem, ahem] Yes, it should be Paris, even though sometimes it looks uncannily like Singapore. [... ahem, ahem] Yeah, I'll be darned if it ain't Paris.

In case you're wondering what the hell is going on, this isn't a write-up on some stupid game show for people with irrepressible throat itch. Rather, it's a little reflection of my recent trip to Paris for the Alcatel Forum 2004.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Giants of Economics: Thorstein Veblen (1857 - 1929)
By Stephen Yeo

"Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability of the gentleman of leisure."
- The Theory of the Leisure Class

Thorstein Bunde Veblen was an unorthodox American economist of Norwegian ancestry. He is considered the founder of the "institutional school of economics", a group of economists who believed that traditional economic laws and theories had little validity.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Book Review

Title: The World's Most Infamous Killers
Publisher: Chancellor Press, 576 pages, hardback edition
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

Bite-size (ahem!) information
This collection of more than 150 tales of the most prolific and shocking murderers to have made the world's headlines over the years is not a treatise on the psychology of serial killers. As noted on the introduction page, the book "does not discuss how to build up a profile of a killer to fit a particular crime".

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Movie Review

Movie Title: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Too many to be named
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

A return that took too long
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. And some have greatness thrust upon them. Literally. Just like Frodo who has "greatness" thrust upon him to return an ordinarily looking ring back to its rightful place.

Friday, December 19, 2003

Book Review

Movie Title: Wishing Stairs
Director: Yoon Jae-yeon
Starring: Park Han-byeol, Song Ji-hyo, Jo An
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

Go ahead, make a wish
It only takes one misstep to screw up your life. Similarly, it only takes one misstep to screw up a good movie. Notwithstanding its promising premise - a mysterious stairway along a wooded path to the school dormitory that will grant you your wish if you can climb up to the non-existent 29th step - "Wishing Stairs" veered on the verge of a typical horror movie.

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Extreme Liberty (Travelogue)
By Stephen Yeo

If there's one nation that can predict Armageddon with certainty, it must be the Taiwanese. Switch on the television during a normal weekday, and you'll be able to catch a stock "guru" confidently putting his reputation on the table for his guaranteed profit-making stock pick.

Friday, October 31, 2003

Is war a necessary evil?
By Stephen Yeo

Imagine India launching a nuclear missile over the Himalayas into China, or Pakistan laying waste to Nepal with an atomic bomb. Think of Israel, besieged by a continent of enemies, levelling Lebanon.

None of these scenarios is politically plausible, at the moment. Technically, however, all all-out nuclear war between nations has become an unsettling possibility. Many countries not only possess the much-maligned Weapons of Mass Destruction, they also have the means to deliver them.

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Book Review

Title: The Tale of Kieu
Author: Nguyen Du (trans. by Huynh Sang Thong)
Publisher: Yale University Press
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

A timeless exploration of love, loss and life
Written by Nguyen Du (1765-1820), Truyen Kieu (The Tale of Kieu) was produced during the social and political upheavals of the 19th century, and is now a cornerstone of Vietnamese literature. In Vietnam, Truyen Kieu has attained almost a Shakespearean status: according to news reports, children study it in schools while adults allude to it in daily conversations.

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Killing me softly with his song (Travelogue)
By Stephen Yeo

Undoubtedly, the Vietnamese have a killer instinct. Otherwise, they wouldn't have survived so many wars (the First Indochina War against Japanese, Chinese and mostly French colonialists, and the Second Indochina War - the American part of the Vietnam War, or simply "American War" to the Vietnamese) within such a short span of time (1945-1975).

Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Book Review

Title: Stupid White Men
Author: Michael Moore
Publisher: Penguin
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

Stupid is as stupid does?
On 14 June 2001, George W. Bush, unaware that a live television camera was still rolling, blurted the following words to Swedish Prime Minister Goran Perrson: "It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency."

Monday, August 25, 2003

Dark Side of the Moon
By Stephen Yeo

"I want to live on my own."
"No, you can't!" The rest chimed in at once, like the representatives of some great power waking up halfway through a conference in time to bomb a veto on some mewling little voice they don't even care to listen.

Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Book Review

Title: Tales Of The Unexpected
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Penguin
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

Short, but sweet. Or should it be morbidly funny?
This collection of short stories is an impressive showcase of Roald Dahl's writing talent as well as his vast knowledge of various subjects.

Saturday, August 1, 2003

The Sacrifice
By Stephen Yeo

Somewhere along Mount Pleasant Road.

Crazed with terror, the man fled in the direction leading towards the Pan-Island Expressway. His heart was throbbing furiously and he could almost feel blood shooting up to his head. The dim streetlights fell on his face, revealing an expression of ultimate horror and panic.

Friday, July 11, 2003

Who cares about your privacy anyway?
By Stephen Yeo

Remember George Orwell's 1984? Forget the cumbersome technology depicted in this rather grim tale of a Big Brother society. If present trends continue, surveillance tools will be so seamlessly integrated in our environment that we won't even notice the constant intrusion into our privacy.

Yet if you were lucky, you could still hide, blend in, and pursue a life that remained more or less private in a totalitarian regime. In the brave new world of the Internet, you can bid any hope of anonymity goodbye.

Saturday, July 5, 2003

Book Review

Title: On Writing: A Memoir
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Reviewed by: Stephen Yeo

One man's treasure is another man's junk
About the only thing in common between King and myself is our first name. Other than that, our views on writing (based on those expressed in this book) could be worlds apart.

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Shi Lin

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