The Kampong Girl, Silverware and US-made products

This morning I woke up at 6am because the electricity tripped. The maid was ironing my mom’s skirt for work. Why she had to do it so early in the morning instead of last night? I don’t know.

All I know is I’m the one who had to wake up, find the key to the gatepost and re-instate our modern quality of life because my parents didn’t even know the electricity was cut off. Even if they had known, would they have bothered?

After that, I simply couldn’t get back to sleep. The dogs also got excited and woke up early.

As a result, I started polishing my mother’s silverware which, due to long storage, I’d taken out and soaked in lemon juice, dish washing liquid and aluminum foil, overnight. And as I got sleepier, the dogs went back to sleep, full from their meal, I pressed on polishing up silver that hadn’t seen light of day after a grand total of 4 dinners many years ago.

I remember that it was in the 80s that I first saw the shiny stuff in a felt lined box. I have to admit, I was pretty taken. As most women are by shiny glittery stuff.

Why my mother got this, I don’t know. We’ve never had to entertain important people. But perhaps in my mother’s eyes, anyone who comes over is important. And I bet those diners whom she entertained, never even realised they were eating with silver.

So here I was, polishing this stuff and feeling like those African man servants of Karen Blixen, wearing inappropriate white gloves to serve food. Although I would’ve liked a pair right then, because my fingerprints kept getting on the parts I’d just polished

Back then, my mother could use silver, because there was child labour. But she forgot that children grow up into lazy adults. And if, we… okay, I… had followed the natural laws of agrarian society, that silver would’ve remained used and polished because children would beget children and child labour would continue to be available. Freely available.

Having a bottle of Brasso really helps. I’m sure it’s not child-friendly as it smells strongly of ammonia, but any child having to polish silverware will be glad to have some on hand.

Now that I’ve polished the silverware, I’m sure someone will have the bright idea of taking it out and using it again.

So, knowing that, I thought of how I could minimize the contact of air on silver, so that tarnishing could be minimized and I wouldn’t have to polish as hard.

Wrapping it in paper helps. I would’ve preferred tissue paper. Anyone shops at Marks and Spencer? Collect me some tissue paper?

And don’t jump on me for using this paper. I don’t know how I got it. it’s not A4, it’s not letter size. It’s not here, not there.

Is there a better solution to lock out more air?

Ziplock bags.

Out my father went to NTUC’s Big… Huge… Mega… I forget the name… the hypermart. Well anyway, I sent him to look for ziplock bags. What brand? I don’t know why, the name Ziploc escaped me. So I said, “anything made in the US”.

If there’s one country that knows how to make good quality disposable stuff – so good, you feel bad actually throwing it away after one use – it’s the US. God bless America. Asian stuff is generally shitty. All the way from disposable stuff to stuff that’s supposed to last, the quality of products coming out from China is pretty much crap.

Boy, I did what the Americans did right? Lump the whole of Asia as China. But I think we should get used to it. They’re so big, China will give us all Asians a bad name.

Let’s look at the plywood industry here. (I only know this, because I’ve been thinking of making my own bed.)

I did research on the Internet about plywood. There’s this stuff called Decorative Plywood which is plywood sandwiched on both sides by quality veneer of oak, cherry, maple – basically any wood you fancy.

These are graded, A for the best down to D. But the grades always come in pairs. For example, A/B, B/C. This is because even though both sides are of the same veneer, one side of the plywood is finished better than the other side. So you have to use the better side on the side that’s visible.

Plywood is usually available in 4 x 8ft pieces. And thickness varies from half an inch to two inches.

Normal plywood itself is graded, generally, the more sheets that make up a particular thickness, the better quality it is.

Armed with this information, I went on the hunt for plywood suppliers. It is surprisingly easy to find them on the Internet.

This is what I found out. Decorative plywood is known as Fancy Plywood in these parts.

In addition, none of the grading applies.

Fancy plywood is only available in 1/8″!

Indeed, I was told, the US standard doesn’t apply. Singapore follows the British standard. BUT the British standard has also improved, but Singapore hasn’t followed suit. The standard that we go by is that set by the Brits in the 1980s!

(Remember the time when LKY said Singapore should be Switzerland in the 1980s in 2000? I hear now Singapore wants to be Sweden? What is it with the S countries?)

I was also told that wood suppliers here have no  choice because that’s the kind of plywood their suppliers in Asia manufacture.

This is very disappointing indeed. Not just because I can’t make my own bed, which would’ve been easy and cheap were I living in the US. It would have also been of higher quality.

Why are we still accepting materials of quality that date back to over 20 years ago? Surely there’s something called improvement. And if we wood suppliers AND furniture makers insist on better quality, surely, the plywood makers would adopt more international methods of grading.

There are numerous benefits including that to customers who need to specify materials for furniture products and, in complying with homogenous standards that are understandable on an international level, it would open markets beyond that of Asia.

But there’s no impetus to. Furniture makers say that the wood is “like that” and “can’t be helped”. Customers will be unhappy because as the years pass, things seem to be worse than the year before. Customers take it because there’s no other choice. They’ve already spent that money and trying to pursue something that apparently can’t be had.

And so it goes. When you need a certain quality, you just have to buy the real stuff, the good stuff.

You pay more for it, but you waste less of it because it lasts longer. You can bet the silverware will be stored like this for years to come as long as those zips don’t break and the plastic doesn’t puncture. And when I need to replace it, you can bet all ziplock bags will be produced in China, and won’t be as good or as long lasting.

It used to be that we killed a tree for a chest of drawers that could be handed down through generations – perhaps the same number of generations it took that tree to grow, sometimes even longer.

Today we fell trees faster to produce crappy wood to make furniture that won’t even last one lifetime.