Room 3, Bed 3132

Everyone who knew Toh Hai Leong; he is now staying in a nursing home for the dementia at Pasir Ris Walk.

Quite glad and relief that he finally has a place who can really take care of his physical needs. For Chew and myself, we can perhaps now focus on our other commitments without feeling something at the back of our neck.

For myself, I hope not to sound too pragmatic, but "charity and help" in a way has a limit and lines have to be drawn. We definitely know for sure we can't be a caregiver permanently... if Hai Leong does not have the will to take care of himself, and his immediate family cannot be there for him, only an institution has the means and resources to do it.

Much as we dislike the idea of him being send to a dementia home and even other nursing home (all the patients we seen are really old), what other better options aside from IMH :(

However we will not forget him, he might be there for a long haul and he needs company. Thus we will visit him, bring him out etc for the emotional support and as friends, we can perhaps only do that much.

So for those who knew Hai Leong, you can now visit him anytime between 10am to 8pm.

Lastly, despite I know it is their "job"; a salute to those nurses and doctors and social workers who are there for him.

a video of Toh Hai Leong's first day in the nursing home

After F and the Festival

Something trivial. Toh Hai Leong needs no introduction among the Singapore film community. In brief, Hai Leong is a very unique and eccentric character; he used to be a film critic, security guard, "karang guni" man, "kopitiam" cleaner, SAF and SPH librarian, and now he is suffering from diabetes . Recently there was a documentary "F" directed by Chew Tze Chuan about Hai Leong battling his illnesses.

Because he is such a strange but yet strangely attractive individual, I like to hang out with him (recently I explained to someone why I prefer to spend time with him VS say some of my old school mates is that Hai Leong's conversation is never dry. He is witty, amusing and bizarre. My mind constantly gets whacked left right centre)

For the past three years ever since he "directed" and acted in what I should say my most favorite Singapore movie "Zombie Dog"
I have recorded close to 20hrs of tapes of him at various moments of his life. Since I have no idea if and when I will do a documentary on him, I am contented just to share some of my own video collections... starting with his recent discharge from the hospital.

Toh Hai Leong discharged from the hospital

May Day Message

This is my first post. I am a filmmaker who like to do personal documentaries. For the longest of time, I believed that internet can be a new medium or another extension in the area of documentary filmmaking; some years back (2001) before blogging was the in-thing in Singapore, I went to Germany Hannover for a film fest and I tied up with an internet website company to put up a website that can allows people to participate in the documentary process... (I did a documentary about a temple in Pulau Ubin that worshipped a german girl and intend to investigate whether it was a myth. However it was an experiment that did not reap much success. With regards to blogging... i procrastinated for quite a while cause I do not want the unnecessary attention and label as some lame exhibitionist.

However I got inspired by some filmmaker's blog; namely Martyn See's blog who can effectively used his blog to reach out to a wide group of audiences (aside from the film festival circuit) and also gives an in-depth knowledge of the filmmaker's documentary and journey. Lastly I concluded that maybe the website which Martyn See created helped saves his arse a bit from the authorities :P

After attending this year Singapore International Film Festival, I am kind of fire up to do something useful besides playing xbox and playing with my little niece :)

Since I talked about documentaries (this blog will not be entirely about filmmaking, there are more important trivial issues to talk about - very soon) ; I will like to share with you two short videos I have shot. It is about the May Day Walk by Dr Chee and Chee Siok Chin.

shot on 29 April 2007

shot on 1 May 2007

enjoy :)