I've just heard about the contents of the show on Ch U Xi You Ji- the one hosted by Belinda Lee. She goes around the world seeking Singaporeans who have left their homes to foreign lands to live, fulfil missions etc. So far I've only watched 1 episode, the one about the lady in Norway.

I probably would have gladly traded that episode for the latest one aired on TV.

I wasn't fortunate enough to catch that episode, but my mum did and she described everything to me. The whole thing's really freaky and touching at the same time. If I were to watch it I would probably have started crying or something.

Basically, Belinda visits this fellow Singaporean lady who had migrated to a third-world country to help people. This lady's called Fangfang and she goes around the region of the mountains to aid the villagers. These villagers are not there for no reason- most of them are isolated by their government due to different reasons. The houses on the mountains are so far away from one another that Fangfang had to slide across huge chasms between mountain regions to get from one house to another. By what? By this rather rotten pulley system built ages ago. Without safety nets below. Thus if she loses her grip or it just happened to be a nasty day, there'd be a possibility that she will plunge miles down to her death. She can take up to days just to travel from one house to another!

The first story I'm going to describe briefly revolve around the stranded orphans in that country. The country (yet to find out) does not have an orphanage, so most kids who have lost their kins usually roam around and make their own livings. There's this little girl who had lost her parents and only brother to a landslide. She actually saw her parents and brother get buried alive by the landslide with her own eyes. Hence she's traumatized till today and refuses to speak to anyone.

The next story I heard was the most horrifying I'd heard. I swear upon my PS2 all these are real. Oh and throw in my crumpler, neoprint album, Adidas superstars and cellphone if you think I'm lying. ;)

Up in the mountain regions there was this 18-year-old guy who was probably emotionally damaged or stressed by something. He had burnt down his parents' house on impulse and thus, his parents thought he was senile. You know what they did?

Till now I don't want to believe what his very own parents had to resort to.

They sent him higher up into the mountains and told him to sit there. Then they gave him a little talk and instructed him to sit at a particular spot where they would construct a made-to-measure hut for him.

Never did he know he'd sit at that spot for the rest of his life.

This guy's parents made a tiny hut for him- so limited in vertical measurements he couldn't even stand in the hut cage. They literally caged him up and imprisoned him! But do you know what he did? He just sat there without retaliating at all, as he watched his parents build the cage around him, wooden plank by plank until he was completely boxed up with only a gap in front of him to look out from. As I had said, there was simply no allowance for him to stand and he can only huddle in that exact spot.

He does not come out of that cage to eat, to walk about or even bathe.
His waste, both solid and liquid, are deposited within less than 50 cm of him.

GOSH.

Wait, there's still more.
No one's there to talk to him, so he's locked in 24/7 without anything to do. The only visitors he get are probably his parents once in a blue moon, and Fangfang, who braves the brutal weather to pass him food everyday.

He has been living in that box for EIGHT years.
Eight years, can you believe that?

As I have mentioned, he was 18 years old when they thought that he was insane. Now he's 26, a full grown man who had lived in that cage, despite heavy snow, rain or sun.

Belinda was afraid, initially, to meet him. However he proved her entirely wrong. That guy is not mad. He's probably just a little autistic and shy from being boxed up for 8 years, but he even shook Belinda's hand when she stuck her hand through the little gap. He spoke and said stuff that, I doubt, would make you believe that he was senile.

That's life, for him. Eight years. If you do a little math here, it means that he'd been living in that cage since we were 7. He's still sitting there now.
PRIMARY ONE. Now we're already halfway through Sec 3!

After hearing about some of the contents of the show, I really felt bad. So did Elise who had, fortunately, caught that very episode. She was like, "Here I am worrying about whether I should get black or gold stillettos when there's someone out there in the mountains without even basic needs of living!" on msn. You guys should really ought to catch that particular episode, and I will do my best to. MobTV, Youtube, anything. Everything just sounds so...

Unbelievable.
Remember, there are always much more unfortunate people on Earth. Wave aside that fact that you didn't pass Math or Chem or whatever. You're ALIVE. With the basic needs of a human, and I'm extremely sure, more than just that.

Ouch, don't shout at me if you felt horrible reading this post. Be it "An utter waste of time" or "Do you expect me to believe this". It's okay. I'm just sharing what I want to say :)

More about my own very privileged life later on next time.