Photos from Third Gathering: Ex Tin-Hill-Social
A desire to meet. Late mid-year, there was a strong desire to have another gathering. Could have been the sight of a young thing looking sassy in a tight camo tee. Or watching the Ah Boy to Men 4 trailer.
Dang, don't people know those films were made by a guy who wore Temasek Green? Do the Army jokes still reverberate with the younger generation now wearing digital camo?
Digital camo. We used to wear the MulitCam Tropic camo pattern, otherwise know as the "big patch" camo uniform. That was the successor to the Temasek Green uniform afterwards loved by construction workers.
We lao jiao soldiers scratch our heads. The Big Patch camo blended us well into the jungle because, hey, the CB leaves there were quite big; and still are, the last I checked. With the small, pixelated digital camo, our MINDEF folks seem to be telling us that the world's chee-byes, er, cheebye leaves, have shrunk. Had they?
Their excuse is Modern Urban Warfare. Singapore is 75% HDB apartment blocks; so rightfully we should blend in with the concrete. Otherwise we would stand out like corridor house plants with our big ass Big Patch camo fighting fashion.
But you have to wonder. If HDB buildings are a concern, should we not blend in better with their color scheme? Last I checked, they were still garishly painted in Indian Purple, Chinese Tangerine, and Malay Durian. The Eurasians (aka "Others) have long given up. And most have resorted to wearing sunglasses once they step out of their house. But you have to agree that a Devil's Curry shade is just Chinese Tangerine squashed.
With more Pinoys now making their living in Sg and getting used to ordering kopi gau siew dai at the local kopitiams, we wonder what imaginative colors they will suggest when the next round of HDB block painting rolls by. Shanty Grey? Marawi Soot?
Ok, maybe not Marawi Soot. The folks there have my sympathies. The place now looks like a neighbourhood in Syria. It is an interesting combat case. How a supposedly national army is so clueless to unseating a small band of rebels for so long!
Would't a bunch of guys with pistols and shields do a better job going house to house? Stun grenades? Snipers? Worse case scenario would be the use of the highly effective and portable Carl Gustav 84mm Recoiless Rifle; the latest version being the shorter M3E1 that has the US Army's approval and acceptance. Tank or house, it will be blown away. And it has a much longer range than the regular RPGs favoured by the rebels or ISIS.
Another way is to suss out their HQ and blow just that to kingdom come. Headless chickens are easy to gather and slaughter.
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Anyways, back to the gathering.
And so, as you all know, we decided to conduct a poll to see which part of the calendar year would be ideal for gathering a bunch of disparate buddies posted here and there, flying here and there. Understandable, as at our age, and astute CaoCao-ness, we would be in some C-suite barking out orders and making eyes at secretaries. (God-forbid in these sexual harassment times. We continue to see how top Hollywood actors, producers, TV journalists and one creepy Alabama politician have been caught out behaving most badly. As one TV pundit said, "Isn't masturbation an "alone" act? Since when is it fashionable to do it in front of a lady you have an interest in?"
And then there's the groping. If you have to grope a woman without her consent, you are no better than a subway pervert. Think about that. You are a C-suite guy and you have to grope a woman without her consent? Has your brain migrated to your penis? Seems like.
Even gay men are not immune to the harassment witch-hunt even though culturally it is "ok" to grab each other by the crotch at a gay club. It's what gay men do. Kind of like a fist pump when two Regular Joes meet.
However, outside of the gay club, consent is still key. This is what Facebook sensation and humourist George Takei (of Star Trek too) is finding out now. Apparently "Going beyond where no man has gone" does have its limits. LOL
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Again, back to the gathering:
A CNY gathering date sounded most ideal. Folks would fly back to meet up with their families, right? This was what happened at our First Gathering. It was a success because of that: "a first," our very first large gathering after every D10er was "found". But if long experience is anything to count on, hardworking Sgrens would many times prefer to be somewhere else than go well-wishing and "angpowing" relative to relative. And in 2018, the CNY dates are ideally a Friday and Saturday, a long weekend. That means holding our event on a weekday.
I am not much in favour of that because having an event on a weekday means ending early. Not such a good idea for nostalgic musings. It was the case at our first and second meet-ups.
So there was that wondering if folks would fly back or not, spend time with families or not, weekday suitability or not... Increasingly, the CNY dates looked the more uncertain and perhaps, even intrusive.
In the end, the polls win out and the fact that 2017 was also our 35th anniversary (after leaving OCS) and that of NS50, folks decided a Dec gathering would be great. A good time to see the year out as well. A year that has been wracked by infantile Trumpism, sudden floods (again) and of course, sexual harassment. 2017 is also Bitcoin's year, leaping from $1000 in January to the current $11,000. I know, like many folks, I am also cursing my luck or hesitation. See, it really pays to understand a new tech before dismissing it as a "fad" or hacker's joy. Wall Street do have a legitimate reason to diss it. Their very existence is under threat. But hey, it is just another means of transaction. I'm sure they will find a way to earn leverage fees! They are embracing it now, using blockchain technology to create their own Silk Road and digital kingdoms. Who's calling the kettle black now?
Still, 2017 left some issues unresolved. My one sock is still missing as is flight MH370. They both went missing about the same time. One in the washer, another in the sea. Coincidence? Nah. My theory is that on board MH370 was a rocket scientist. The plane was kidnapped by the North Koreans to fuel their need to send ICBMs across the globe. See how fast their program has accelerated once MH370 went missing? Maybe there was even fissile material on board to deliver. Hmm....
Once my sock is found, MH370 will reveal itself.
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Again, I digress.
Once the desire to have a gathering gathered momentum, Huang Kiat gathered a few agitators and formed the OrgComm group. He named me chairperson, which was very kind of him. We then met for the one (and only time) at The American Club for lunch. (One cannot fault Dennis for his sense of gormehmancy - my own Singlish term for "makan feng shui and taste". He always seemed to find the nicest spot and choicest bites. As I discovered, the American Club restaurant had some of the best "glass" charsiew in town.)
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| Glass charsiew from American Club |
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| New Singlish term. |
We threw up a few choice spots. I went to check them out; sussed out their level of gormehmancy (hey, the word does have currency, LOL) conducted a poll, and viola, there we were at Tin Hill Social.
A very nice place that unfortunately will close in mid-December after hosting a final wedding there. (Karu was so impressed he wants to hold a coming-of-age event there for his grandson) I bet it will be very very memorable. Then Tin Hill Social will roll away to become another victim of ever-rising commercial rents. No wonder the early Chinese communists looked at landlords as being evil. They do make life miserable for decent and entrepreneurial folks when the going gets good.
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One contender restaurant (altogether three) for our 3rd Gathering was a place in Cavan Road, off Lavendar Street. The food they served there was US smoked meats and whiskey. A small cosy place maybe a tad too spartanly decored. Truth be told, I was eyeing the building across the street. A truly old-time, large and solid granite-stone building that reminded me of those in Geylang or those workshops near the old Rex cinema. You know, the very 1950s Shanghainese kind. It would be fun to set up a few tables in its cavernous hall and have a private function once business is done for the day. Frankly, the place with its large machines reminded me of a set location in a Bruce Lee film from the 1970s. A longtime marine engineering company currently occupies the space. You know, it's one way to reuse dead space at night!. |
| A gorgeous 1950s building! |
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An so, our Third Gathering on 2nd December 2017 came to pass (aka Ex Tin Hill Social). Or should we call it Tin Hill Special given its wonderful ambience and disappearance from the gormehmancy map. And the fact that we had a great meet-up there? We hope there's a last ditch effort to keep it going or that the folks who occupy it next is as sweet an eatery as THS was. I'm sure the menu prices would be different given the trend, as is the food. The food we had at Tin Hill Social for our gathering was a mix of shared platters of sirloin beef (their boast), roasted chicken (very moist!), beef stew (tender and delicious!), special burgers, poached egg salad (with tasty roasted cherries and garlic!), crispy shrimps, and starters of sweet potatoes fries. There was more than enough to go around and I hope none of it was wasted (hate that). THS is known for its tomahawk steaks. But as it was closing down soon, they had deliberately drawn down their larder (understandable). So no tomahawks orders at our gathering dinner that night. (We had Spanish tomahawks at Ex Don Quijote.)
Below are some photos from our gathering. We had Chew Phit Seng share his life experiences since leaving OCS (beginning with a hectic life in pubs and F&B). We especially enjoyed his retelling of the time he was battalion commander of a Guards unit being made to trial many tactics and movement. Quite a few eye-opening nuggets of info (thanks, Phit Seng). It's true; the role of a Guards unit was never properly understood in the early days, so exercise guinea pigs they became. Often, they were simply looked upon as "fitter" infantry fellas who could run faster, fly in choppers and then repel. Ok, that last bit can be a challenge especially to a soldier with sweaty palms!
I had thought the Guards were always modeled after the US Marines as first-responders and estate holders and with less of the muscle-head stupidity that US Marines are known for. The Guards sit between the Infantry fellas and the Commandos. A rather shitty position if you ask me, picking up slack from both ends.
Ok, lesson learnt. Don't make a unit do that. Give them a definite role to work for.
In any case, it was a great gathering of old friends and army bros. Later that evening, we had a Bro Awards ceremony to honor Chew Phit Seng, Yeo Huang Kiat, Maj Ang Tow Hai and Encik Karu. All well deserved!
It ended with the guys toasting me, for organising the show and bringing everyone together. I was very touched and for once, speechless and could only utter: "As always, do live long and prosper!" - something rattled from the sci-fi geek in me. What I wanted to say in hindsight was:
"Let's toast to our D10 brotherhood. Once brothers-in-arms, always brothers-in-arms. Remember, you are never alone.
Delta 10 Be Dragons
Of Delta Dragon born
Time when our heads were shorn
Out of pouring sweat and grime
A most challenging and dreadful time
Long night topos over steep inclines
Digging deep behind defensive lines
Dragging tired bodies over low walls
Shouted at by instructors to "show some balls"
"Run and kiss that tree!"
"Drop and give me 20!"
Luckily we had a PC and Staff ace
Who "Don't make me lose face!"
And then pretty much left us alone
To tend to our own moans and groans
And so was birthed a togetherness
Tempered by our own savviness
To survive what's thrown at us
To get through nine-months of "tortureness"
Turned out less was moreAnd so we won prizes galore
Sword of Honor, Best Knowledge, Best PT
Plucking everything from the School's glory tree
This feat was never repeated ever
Making this platoon even more special
Huffed and puffed, oh the cadets triedThey never came close to our D10 might.
To lead we dare,
To strike we will.
ALL THE WAY
D10
(The last para contributed by Poh Ian Chiak, who was a sword of honor contender in his past life. *cheeky)
Chew Phit Seng now resides and works in Perth with his wife. A daughter studies in Sydney and another spends her time in Sg.
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Finally, thank yous must also go to:
1. Tan Liang Teck - for his quick response to my request for hardtack biscuits. Working with this guy is great. Very precise, very efficient;
2. Liaw Choon Meng - for volunteering transport support. I was suffering from a tired knee, so his help was sorely needed;
3. Chew Phit Seng - for sportingly sharing his life and NS experiences. I mean is boh pian one. Come from so far sure people want to know what this joker has been up to all these years;
4. Yeo Huang Kiat - for suggesting the lovely locale, and cheonging all the way to Guangzhou so we would have the watch in time for the gathering. What a guy!
5. Lady Tamani - manager and hostess of Tin Hill Social for her excellent management of the dinner that evening. She got our orders right and kept the dishes coming. Thank you, Ms Tamani. (Incidentally, her first name is "Lady". Posh, but not royal title;
6. Liong Kok Kee - for bringing along a bottle of very smooth Japanese saki;
7. Poh Ian Chiak - for leaving his Yangon lovelies behind to be with this ugly bunch of buddies in Sg. Way to go, Ian Chiak! I think he also deserves a Sibeh Buddy award!8. OrgComm members: For their drive, enthusiasm and inputs. ;-)
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| Advance party! |
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| Always much laughter when we meet! |
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| Always a great time to catch up. |
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| This end of the table having some serious LOL funny stories. |
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| Karu, always with a funny - no, hilarious - tale to tell! |
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| Buddy love never fades. Unless you do a John Terry. ;-) |
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| Finally meeting after all these years! The last time we met, one left with a black eye, the other with a bloodied nose. All good now. ;-) Freaking OCS made us box one another from the same Coy after the jokers from Foxtrot were disqualified for less than perfect eyesight. Turns out, both of us had wanted to beat the crap of one very kwai lun Foxtrot fella (who for no reason, liked to pick on people). Ok, it was the final and I became the Flyweight champ, but it was the most useless trophy to have. No one shud be fighting a bro! I actually did complain to the TCO then (that bespectacled guy), but to no avail. We should have just cha-cha or swan-laked it, haha. |
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| Phit Seng enthralling everyone with his halcyon days in F&B owning some pubs and eateries. Who knew! (Unless you hung about Boat quay, it seemed.) |
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| The 1997 crash affected many in the F&B trade (no secret). |
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| Chew Phit Seng had very interesting tales to tell of his Guardsmen days as battalion commander of one elite troop. |
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| I think it was Karu who ad-libbed and made everyone laughed. |
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| "And so now all I want is a brainless job that keeps me busy but no long hours...." |
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| Military figures for our Bro Awards. Four in total. (The figures from L-R: Solider in NBC (nuclear/bio/chemical) gear and tropic camo; soldier in NBC and desert camo; Soldier in tropic camo; soldier in SAS garb. ) |
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| I: Bro Award citations (well meaning and tongue-in-cheek) for Maj Ang and Encik Karu. |
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| II: Bro Award citations (well meaning and tongue-in-cheek) for Chew Phit Seng and Yeo Huang Kiat. |
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| Chew PS receiving his Sibeh Buddy award. |
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| Huang Kiat receiving his "Moh Duck Teng" award. It's Cantonese for "superlative" or "fantastic". |
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| Maj Ang accepting his Best PC Cmdr award. |
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| Encik Karu accepting his Bro Award. |
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| Another great turn-out! |
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| Glad that everybody had thoroughly enjoyed themselves! |
The Souvenir Watch
It is an item suggested by Huang Kiat to mark the 35th anniversary of D10 and also that of NS50 as mooted by Yew Meng. It is based on a similar watch Huang Kiat had done for his ACS chaps some 10 years ago. That watch is still running! (Good news, eh?)
Looking at the present D10 watch, it does look tough, solid (weighty) and aesthetically pleasing. Panerai watches have garnered a good reputation over the years for their mechanical movements, i.e. the "engine" inside. They have proven to be extremely robust. A true Panerai Radiomir retail for as much as SGD8500 rivaling watches from Omega. That's the value of an in-house designed watch movement not sourced from a third party, which are many in the industry. (Google ETA, Miyota, Seagull, etc.) It is like in Formula 1 where Ferrari engines are admired and not those of Toro Rossa.
I think Huang Kiat has taken the trouble to source a good one, which is a relief. Some homages look top grade on the outside but remain 2nd-rate on the inside. Jaragar is one such brand. Never buy from them. Your homage watch movement will rust in no time.
The design on this souvenir watch face garnered the most discussion in the OrgComm. The issue at hand was the placement of the logos on the watch face. I found myself falling into the trap of putting the institution first, when it is the folks in D10 that matter the most. Once I saw that, everything fell into place. D10 has always been about the journey through OCS, not the outcome. So, with that out of the way it was easy to balance the design with a "One nose, two eyes" kind of layout, with the "seconds" dial playing the "left eye" to offset the round OCS logo on the right. Perfect!
As usual, pleasing design is about balance.
Next to come was the production of the actual logos. They needed to be drawn and produced to proper print quality, which meant resolving images to high resolution and in EPS format. As all graphic designers (and Autocad users) know, EPS allows for scaling without lost of detail (unlike a bit file).
The two logos that had to be drawn were the D10 and OCS ones. You can look at them on the watch now and realise that they contain very fine details. That's because they were derived from EPS files.
How long did the logos take? One weekend. No sweat. What needs to be done, needs to be done.
It didn't begin well though. I needed a reference for the D10 logo. Where to find a photo or drawing of the dragon mascot that was very clearly painted on the fascade of the D Coy building? That cadet building itself is long gone, edged out by PIE highway expansion. And strangely, it isn't to be found anywhere in our OCS magazine. Perhaps it wasn't "hurrah-hurrahed" as a mascot at the time (no occasion for it, I suppose). Fortunately, I had a photo depicting D10 mustering a parade in front of D Coy building. We were in our starched No.3s standing smart and ramrod straight. Not ceremonial but kenna punished for some infringement at the time. You can spot the Delta Coy dragon mascot pix in the photo below.
From that fuzzy picture, I drew a new one. I find it important to be faithful to details, even if that detail is from 35 years ago. You'll never know what other nostalgic matters it will catalyst up. If I didn't redraw it, do you think you can hand-draw the very same image from memory? I think it would end up as a very bad game of Pictionary! Haha!
From that fuzzy picture, I drew a new one. I find it important to be faithful to details, even if that detail is from 35 years ago. You'll never know what other nostalgic matters it will catalyst up. If I didn't redraw it, do you think you can hand-draw the very same image from memory? I think it would end up as a very bad game of Pictionary! Haha!
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| D Coy mascot logo on photo seen under a magnifying bubble of a magnifying glass. That's how small it was in the photo! |
The OCS logo is another case of "plenty to be found on the Internet but useless." So I drew one from scratch. (I had wanted to draw one months ago when we first talked about a souvenir thinking it would be useful later but the dang wreaths with their small leaves in the logo were quite a challenge. In the end, it was better to trust your own drawing skills with a mouse. With some ingenuity, it was done within a few hours.
The OCS logo had to be hand drawn so watch production could start in order for us to get the finished watches on time. A request was actually sent a few days earlier to SAFTI Alumni to see if they had an OCS logo on hand, given the many institutional collateral they would need to print.
But the logo they sent was the SAFTI one fixed with an irremovable red background and their motto. But credit is due them as they made good some days later. They sent over a proper OCS logo graphic with just the sword and torch and wreaths. I just had to replace the SAFTI words with OCS's.
But the logo they sent was the SAFTI one fixed with an irremovable red background and their motto. But credit is due them as they made good some days later. They sent over a proper OCS logo graphic with just the sword and torch and wreaths. I just had to replace the SAFTI words with OCS's.
The wordings on the back of the watch had to be reworked also. The sample we got back from the watch maker showed a lot of misalignment and misspelling. Kind of funny and ridiculous at the same time when we had provided them with good copy instructions from the very beginning.
Ah, if you have been in the graphic design and publishing industries, you will know that Murphy's Law holds true. What that can go wrong will most certainly do. And even at the very last minute!
Valiant effort by Huang Kiat: The suppliers only managed to finish the watches late in the week and got them sitting in its factory in Guangzhou leaving no time for delivery. Fortunately Huang Kiat was in HK at the time and on Thursday (30th Nov) morning, took an early morning train to Guangzhou to hand carry 'em timepieces back. The watches turned out to be AAA grade. It is a self-winding piece based on the Panerai Radiomir but with less power reserve (to keep the mechanism price down). To use, just wind it up ten turns each day. No, it doesn't have over-winding protection (my mistake). Once you reach some tightness, stop winding. That over-wind protection feature is more for auto-winding watches (makes sense). Please correct what I mentioned at the gathering.
(The watch movement is a UNITAS/ETA 6497 - a very well-known and robust mechanism first developed in the 1950s for pocket watch use. UNITAS was later bought over by Swiss company ETA. ETA was then bought over by Swatch (who felt ill-disposed in supplying watch movements other manufacturers, LOL. Still, copycats abound. ETA inspired movements are still very common in mechanical watch movements, those with day/date even. Especially so in replicas. The Japanese have their own ETA-version called Miyota; and the Chinese, Sea-Gull. With a well known movement like this inside the D10 watch, there shouldn't be a problem getting the watch fixed should that need arises.)
(The watch movement is a UNITAS/ETA 6497 - a very well-known and robust mechanism first developed in the 1950s for pocket watch use. UNITAS was later bought over by Swiss company ETA. ETA was then bought over by Swatch (who felt ill-disposed in supplying watch movements other manufacturers, LOL. Still, copycats abound. ETA inspired movements are still very common in mechanical watch movements, those with day/date even. Especially so in replicas. The Japanese have their own ETA-version called Miyota; and the Chinese, Sea-Gull. With a well known movement like this inside the D10 watch, there shouldn't be a problem getting the watch fixed should that need arises.)
So yes, a lot of effort has been spent on this one souvenir item, so I hope our D10 bros will treasure it even more. And no worries even if it ever breaks down (such as the hidden barrel spring). Mechanical watch parts are plenty as new or salvaged from scrap. There also seems to be a revival of mechanical watches as a fashion statement saving Mother Earth from those mercury-laden and used button batteries.
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| D10 souvenir watch: A Panerai Radiomir homage that can cost up to $700 on the open market. A true-blue Panerai Radiomir model will cost around SGD8500, rivaling Omega, another in-house movement watch designer. |
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| Caption behind reads: 1/82 IOCC @ NS50, D10, Brothers-In-Amrs, Always. Quality of the watch is superb. There are other smaller details as well. Price: $120 (only) |
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| Got some SAF hardtack sample biscuits as door gift from D10er Tan Liang Teck who works in SFI. No green packet hardtack anymore but at least the latest SAF ones. Taste is not bad at all. Still hard but different. And seems a bit more coconut fibre-like. Flavors come in chocolate and plain. |
So, thank one and all for taking time out to be with one another.
It is greatly appreciated. Life is short. Make the most of it.
Till the next time, Live Long and Prosper.
And don't forget to turn up at the next gathering! I'm sure you'll leave with a full stomach and a big, big smile. ;-)
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| An advance "Gong Xi Fa Cai"! |
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Pre-event stuff:
<<<Event invite flyer>>>
Guys, guys... I need to know TWO THINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THIS THIRD GATHERING (WHICH WILL HAVE A PROGRAM).
POLL ONE:
Is 2nd December 2017 Saturday a good time to meet? For those who are locally based here in Sg and for those of you based overseas? Or would you prefer to meet next year, say, around Chinese New Year.
Note: This meeting is spurred by the NS50 event and also the fact that we are 35th Anniversary since leaving OCS, a nice number to celebrate with.
PLEASE FEEDBACK BELOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION IF WE SHUD PROCEED.
E.g. Answer "Ok with date." or "Not ok with date" or "CNY"
POLL TWO:
As part of the NS50 celebrations and the 35th Anniversary of our leaving OCS, the D10 Gathering Comm (comprising myself, Liaw, Tong, Dennis and Yew Meng) have come up with a souvenir idea. It's a commemorative watch with the following design.
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| Back of watch (on rim) will read: (Top) 1/82 IOCC@NS50 2017. (Bottom): Brothers-In-Arm, Always! |
ARE YOU OK WITH THIS ITEM AND THE PRICE OF IT?
Please comment below.
E.g. "Ok with watch and 120"
Thank you, guys. Look forward to your feedback.
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Ok, location for Third Gathering is confirmed. Pls see pics below:
Date: 2 December 2017
Time: 6 pm onwards
Location: Tin Hill Social Restnt/Bar (outside Turf City)
Click here to view POST EVENT CATCH-UPS & MEET-UPS
