Bleah.

But I feel sorry for miss xiaxue. She has been hounded by people, for as long as I have reading (about three months). But the scathing commentary has only intensified in the last two weeks. It is a rather poor reflection on human nature that browsing through the web community, one finds prententious literary elitist bloggers who lambast her for her frank opinions, poor grammar and innate selfishness.

I'm not excluded from this group, having written about her once when I was in a really vitrolic mood. But sometimes I wonder about the necessity of excoriating her about her grammar and lack of logical skills. You may, of course disagree with her actions and opinions, and given that there is a "comment" box in her blog, you are entitled and invited to voice your own differing opinions. But there is no need to result to obnoxious name-calling and hits below the belt. Her detractors range from the above mentioned snobs to the more colourful dregs of society who think nothing of their hurtful and cutting comments made in the worst possible way.

I believe the last straw that broke the camel's back was the furor over her entry about the incident on the train involving a pregnant woman. I believe most readers who disagree with her vituperation on the circumstances, missed the forest for the tree. They were (understandably) disgusted with her outburst on pregnant women in general. She was at that time, still seething in fury and embarassment, at being yelled at by the pregnant lady whom she genuinely did not notice (as she was engrossed in her computer game), and not giving her seat up.

(I apologise if the whole sequence of events for xiaxue's entry is rather disjointed; I'm writing it from memory because the entry has been taken off the web.)

Now Miss Xiaxue is no wilting flower and vents her anger in the most colourful vernacular, which every regular reader understands is a part of her nature. Some of her comments are rather nasty and do evince the lack of civic-mindedness that characterise her. On the other hand, she only writes in her blog when she is sufficiently roused enough by emotions to do so. Anything less is not likely to evoke a reaction and a mention in her blog. And I challenge any blogger or online journaller to say they have not written an extremely vitrolic and invidious entry, devoid of politic correctness, logical and unbiased at every sequence of events, at any point in their writing career. I will call you a liar. (Of course, in this particular blog, these entries are a regular sight, rather than an exception.)

If you wish to take the moralistic high ground, and point out that she is the epitome of an ungracious society that we hear so much of, so be it. The point is, she is just a symptom of a society that is increasingly self-centred. The pregnant lady was another example, as were the other commuters in the train. You must realise that the incident could have been misconstructed by Xiaxue and that those malicious comments by the tired and grouchy lady carrying additional weight for nine months, were indeed directed to everyone else. But you certainly don't see a lot of people realising it.

Indeed, you have people pointing out that she should have placed herself in the shoes of the pregnant lady and understand why she was so nasty to a girl who didn't give her seat up. Part of the underlying reason I believe is Xiaxue's appearance. Judging from the comments left in her tagboard and her personal pictures, one concludes that she is the typical ah lian (see this dictionary for the definition.). I believe that her appearance is a possibility why the pregnant lady latched onto xiaxue and blamed her for the ungraciousness she experienced. This possibility is mere speculation, but surely, in the context of all those vituperation based on speculation and connotation, I am entitled to form a different opinion? After all, when one glances at the comments in the tag-board, at least half of the comments are criticism of xiaxue's appearance. A high proportion of those comments insult her because she is a lian.

As I wrote before, "Writing without passion is stilted, dead and is ultimately unreadable, irrecoverable." Part of xiaxue's appeal lies in the passion that goes into her entries. You may make personal judgements on her shallow and uncivic minded behaviour, but one or two notes in her guestbook and tag-board is sufficient to make your point. And nothing should be written about her appearance, unless she explicitly asks, which she does, soliciting compliments, from time to time. (This mostly backfires on her). There is no need to hound her like a fox on a hunt, only satisfied when you draw blood. Well, you drew blood. The fox has retreated to another warren.

I think, part of the nastiness resulted from the fact that her blog was leading the pack in the Asia Weblog Awards 2003 for the "Best Singaporean Blog". The underlying sentiment among many (from the comments I read) was her blog was undeserving of the honour. This is due to reasons ranging from her unenlightened self-centredness, the "badly written, "bad English" entries and that she is the epitome of a "lian". I find all these reasons, in turn, uninformed and contrived.

Yes, perhaps these detractors are right. The Singaporean blog community should not, as a whole be represented by such a clearly "low brow" journal, whose only distinction is the ability to shock and be denigrated for its stance. After all, we should be seen as a nation of intellectuals, known for its literary prowess etc.

But in doing so, we stifle the many different voices that make a community. We can't be all uniform. And not everyone's reading diet should consist of literary pap and intellectual critical analysis. And as a historical oddity, I believe xiaxue's blog constitutes the mindset of people whose existence people living in ivory towers prefer to ignore or to shove out of sight.

If these towered people do admit to an existence like xiaxue's, it is an admission used as a tool for comparison. Well, I'm not condemning that action, (because I think I'm one of those annoying snobs), but if you wish to have a higher ground to enable you to eye the lesser mortals, you better make sure that you do have people milling around on ground level for you to do so.

The most compelling reason of all, (doubling back to my first complaint), I don't think I can enjoy life if all I have is the same monotonous diet day after day.