Just attended a gala charity dinner organised by a college in town. It was held to honour orphaned children from three orphanages. Sounds like a noble cause, the well endowed high heeled paying back to society, to entertain attention deprived kids and to raise funds for their daily needs!
Yeah right! The nihilistic part of prefer to see it from another angle...
The college run by fat capitalistic businessmen who, realising the raising concern on the decline and apprehension of the standard of public education in Malaysia, built colleges to offer quality education with affiliation to well renowned overseas universities to entice the ever unhappy paranoid Malaysian (who never believe the official version of Malaysian statistics) to send their spoilt bred kids to them for studies at exorbitant fees.
Feeling the guilt and increasing brickbats from the lower strata of society, like the heat felt from the Wall Street demonstrators, these business conglomerates try to wash their 'sins' of charging exorbitantly by having CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects. The function I attended above was the product of one of those. The college offered scholarships to students with exemplary academic and extra curricular activities performances with the understanding that these creme ala creme students will end their term with a project like this- to invoke a tear drop to attendees at the dinner and feel the 'empathy' as felt by the rich college. Everybody is happy. The attendees, having contributed to a worthy, tax-deductible cause; the students' for the experience of seeing and feeling how the underprivileged live as most of them were born with silver spoons; the bosses for a feather in their cap which would make them eligible for conferral of honourable award from monarchs which will further elevate their status in the Tatler and lifestyle magazines; not to forget the caterers, the hall owners and the events management manager who made a killing from the function.
The teenagers, which with the wealth of imagination and exposure, did a splendid job of setting the mood with the ambiance (of multiple hues of light, as though we were caged in a submarine) and backdrop. The bourgeois and fine upbringing of the students were apparent from the ushering of the guests, the multi-talented music extravaganza displayed and the smooth seamless handling of the show by the designated masters of ceremonies. Even the glitch of the non functioning microphones was wittily replaced with sign language and the disturbance of the media player was cleverly handled, kudos!
Sad to think that these young talents may one day leave our shores for greener pastures leaving us with non-employable graduates unable to converse in English and need prodding for everything like a snail with the danger of them withdrawing in-toto into their shell if the prodding is too intrusive!
The hosts managed to convince (I always wonder if 'con'ning is part of 'convince'ing?) the many sponsors to part from their moolah which were used to pay for the orphans' dinner ticket. The balance of of total collection (RM35,000) was given as a mock cheque to be shared among the 3 bodies, much to the delight of shutterbugs who were clicking away shots which would be used as CVs and KPIs of college directors and students alike. The students will supplement their long list of certificates with the experience of working with under-privileged kids to keep themselves abreast ahead from their peers in their next scholarship interview, entrance to Ivy League or Oxbridge or future job opportunity in a multinational company.
Coming to the real guests of the honour of the night, they performed to their best ability to entertain their hosts. Unlike their host and the rest of the paying guests who were dressed to kill to nines in their branded cocktail body hugging dresses and stilletos, the children were contented with their regular down to earth street clothes (probably contributions of kind souls) performing to their hearts' content to please their hosts and well wishers to make it worth while the time and money spent!
Call me weird, but in their shoes, I would feel humiliated performing like a dance monkey, performing to please my masters with their corny speeches and material splashing just to fatten their inflated egos.
Evil that men do! Because of some (wo)men who used intimate moments as a recreation rather procreation and society's frowning and denial of promiscuity as a real problem and ostracization of the products thereof, lack of social net for children abandoned by parent(s) who puts more importance in their own worldly satisfaction over their children welfare, orphans exist.
Yeah right! The nihilistic part of prefer to see it from another angle...
The college run by fat capitalistic businessmen who, realising the raising concern on the decline and apprehension of the standard of public education in Malaysia, built colleges to offer quality education with affiliation to well renowned overseas universities to entice the ever unhappy paranoid Malaysian (who never believe the official version of Malaysian statistics) to send their spoilt bred kids to them for studies at exorbitant fees.
Feeling the guilt and increasing brickbats from the lower strata of society, like the heat felt from the Wall Street demonstrators, these business conglomerates try to wash their 'sins' of charging exorbitantly by having CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects. The function I attended above was the product of one of those. The college offered scholarships to students with exemplary academic and extra curricular activities performances with the understanding that these creme ala creme students will end their term with a project like this- to invoke a tear drop to attendees at the dinner and feel the 'empathy' as felt by the rich college. Everybody is happy. The attendees, having contributed to a worthy, tax-deductible cause; the students' for the experience of seeing and feeling how the underprivileged live as most of them were born with silver spoons; the bosses for a feather in their cap which would make them eligible for conferral of honourable award from monarchs which will further elevate their status in the Tatler and lifestyle magazines; not to forget the caterers, the hall owners and the events management manager who made a killing from the function.
The teenagers, which with the wealth of imagination and exposure, did a splendid job of setting the mood with the ambiance (of multiple hues of light, as though we were caged in a submarine) and backdrop. The bourgeois and fine upbringing of the students were apparent from the ushering of the guests, the multi-talented music extravaganza displayed and the smooth seamless handling of the show by the designated masters of ceremonies. Even the glitch of the non functioning microphones was wittily replaced with sign language and the disturbance of the media player was cleverly handled, kudos!
Sad to think that these young talents may one day leave our shores for greener pastures leaving us with non-employable graduates unable to converse in English and need prodding for everything like a snail with the danger of them withdrawing in-toto into their shell if the prodding is too intrusive!
The hosts managed to convince (I always wonder if 'con'ning is part of 'convince'ing?) the many sponsors to part from their moolah which were used to pay for the orphans' dinner ticket. The balance of of total collection (RM35,000) was given as a mock cheque to be shared among the 3 bodies, much to the delight of shutterbugs who were clicking away shots which would be used as CVs and KPIs of college directors and students alike. The students will supplement their long list of certificates with the experience of working with under-privileged kids to keep themselves abreast ahead from their peers in their next scholarship interview, entrance to Ivy League or Oxbridge or future job opportunity in a multinational company.
Coming to the real guests of the honour of the night, they performed to their best ability to entertain their hosts. Unlike their host and the rest of the paying guests who were dressed to kill to nines in their branded cocktail body hugging dresses and stilletos, the children were contented with their regular down to earth street clothes (probably contributions of kind souls) performing to their hearts' content to please their hosts and well wishers to make it worth while the time and money spent!
Call me weird, but in their shoes, I would feel humiliated performing like a dance monkey, performing to please my masters with their corny speeches and material splashing just to fatten their inflated egos.
Evil that men do! Because of some (wo)men who used intimate moments as a recreation rather procreation and society's frowning and denial of promiscuity as a real problem and ostracization of the products thereof, lack of social net for children abandoned by parent(s) who puts more importance in their own worldly satisfaction over their children welfare, orphans exist.
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