i was at some 'zhi char' stall in the MacPherson road area, having dinner with my family and some of my mom's friends. food wasn't that fantastic but then again, i never had an affinity for chinese food. anyway, on the television at the stall was the NKF Charity Show. i have some things to say about it.

these charity shows are some what of a growing trend these past few years. and one ever-present component in the shows are the 'dangerous, life-threatening' stunts the celebrities go through to garner votes from viewers.

the celebrities apparently put their bodies on the line for charity, sacrificing themselves to perform stunts that are potentially fatal or might cause them to lose a limb or become seriously injured. two words: overrated and exaggerated.

take the show today for example. celebrities are performing songs upside-down, blood gushing into their heads. after the performance, they do the cliche-filled sympathy talk, asking for calls to donate. we've all seen it before. jumping through flaming hoops, jumping off a speeding car, playing tennis on moving lorries. i mean what is this? the entire thing has become a bloody circus. the focus has changed. people are no longer calling because they want to help, they are calling because they pity and sympathise with the celebrities performing the stunts. it's become a pay-per-view circus show. "well, at least they donate" you might say but will this method of getting donations really last? i mean, there are those who donate for the real people who need it but there are those who base their donations on the risk-value of the stunt or the entertainment they get from them. and in the entertainment industry, nothing is forever entertaining. it's already showing signs of ineffectiveness, based by the lack of calls during the shows. for all you know, people might just stop calling one day.

another thing is, how genuine is the whole affair? are the celebrities genuinely concerned and want to help? or is it just another acting job for them? after all, many of them ARE actors and actresses. what makes us so sure that they aren't secretly getting paid to perform or that they do it just to gain publicity? you might say, "no, never. it's charity! why would anyone want to exploit such an innocent thing?" then again, they might be counting on you to have that mentality so that you do not suspect such deeds.

i mean honestly, you can sometimes tell if someone is over-acting or showing too much concern and that it's all bogus. take one performance in today's show for example. a bunch of people were doing a Musical Fountain-like performance where they acted as water sprinklers, spitting out jets of water as light fell upon the jumping streams in a colourful collage. they emerge from the performance wet, cold and shaken, as if it was such a difficult ordeal. they were all wrapped in towels, shivering as if they were in a freezer, sipping from cups of hot drinks as they gave their sympathy speech. i mean, COME ON! first of all, kudos for such a creative performance but are they really that desperate for donations that they must put on a shivering facade to milk every last drop of sympathy from us? the harder they pull the udder, the drier we get. they were wearing swim suits for goodness' sakes. swim suits keep you WARM when you're wet. and it was pretty obvious that the cups they were sipping from were empty. the children in the performance gave it away really. they overdid the "pity the shivering kid" bit. it's just water being spat out, it's not like they were left to soak in a tank for hours on end. and it's not like the air-conditioning in the studio was at -9875616549846 degrees.

then, there was the relay-race cum escape from the tank of water thing. my goodness was it dumb. someone, apparently Kym Ng, was chained down into a tank that was being filled with water. other celebrities had to go around doing stunts to get keys to free the drowning Kym in phases. jumping through flaming hoops, very much like what lions and big cats do in circus performances, jumping off a car after ramming through fences to grab a key hanging in mid-air and so on and so forth. and guess what, in the nick of time, drowning Kym is free! i mean honestly, they are trying too hard. they have more theatrical nonsense than a never-ending soap opera [no reference to Days of our Lives]. all the falling down while running through the blazing maze, falling down while playing tennis on the lorries. any idiot can tell that it wasn't accidental. heck, if they were in a football match, they'd all be sent off for diving. honestly, it's come to the point where it's all pointless and ridiculous. the stunts and performances have attained the status of "cliche". if you look up "cliche" in the Oxford Dictionary a few years from now, you would see "celebrity stunts on chraity shows" as one of the examples used to describe it. it's just plain getting dumb.

another thing is, why the hell does the NKF need that much money? they have the collection from the students, private companies as their benefactors, government subsidies, people who give part of their wages to them every month and overseas donators. and they still need money?! like what the hell? they're richer than the the people in the Middle East, bathing in oil! they still need money?! it leaves me to suspect that there might be some major embezzling operation going on. sure you might say dialysis is costly, but is it really that expensive, surely there is some excess. then where does it go? is it secretly siphoned into some unknown higher management big boss' pocket? what makes you so sure that the figures they flash on the TV aren't the real amount collected to make you feel that you should call more to add more digits? are their costs really that high? no one knows. and why does it have to be so hush-hush all the time? you never know.

call me cynical if you want but it doesn't hurt to fathom such thoughts, so that you won't be surprised if such things are true. if anyone is offended or disagree, just take it that i sometimes get really paranoid and i have a serious perception problem. maybe I need donations for treatment.

so how do we get donations if bogus stunts mar the whole purpose? real life stories always score. they can make real-life documentaries about how those people with kidney failure and whatever ailments they have live their lives with such burdens. charity shows should have more of such video montages. they are the ones that will tug at heartstrings and make people pick up the phone and dial the number. people with the condition can write biographies and publish them along with addresses and numbers they can call to donate. sometimes, doing the small things can help in a bigger way. brochures, heartland events to make people aware. the television is overused.

damn, have a test tomorrow. i hate mugging.

"he's been waiting
she's got the hidden intent
to tell the story no one's told"