SINGAPORE, Nov 17 1998 (IPS) – Commerce-savvy Singapore is certainly not anyone to skip the potential for cashing in on company on the web. The island state is busily trying to position itself as the Internet business hub of the East with the so-called “E-commerce” predicted to increase five-fold this year and reach some 34 billion dollars. Singaporeans on their own are already on the list of an incredible number of consumers of this shopping that is virtual. If the reaction to a neighborhood play right here is any indicator, a number of Singaporeans are maybe maybe perhaps not planning to disregard the disadvantage of cyber shopping.

Indeed, while the play ‘Mail Order Brides and Other Oriental Takeaways’ points out, “the Web” have not only offered such merchandise as books, music cds and various foodstuffs you will find brides for desperate grooms too.

‘Mail Order’, written and directed by a cable television newsreader Pek Siok Lian, ended up being likely to only have a season that is two-week. But which was extended by per week till Oct 29 because of demand that is popular. Presently there are intends to re-stage it for the next week during the early December.

During a unique performance during the ny Global Fringe Festival in August, the play also received high praise from experts. The ‘New York Times’ has since included ‘Mail Order’ in its Fringe Selection list.

“The event workplace told us that ‘Mail Order Brides’ was among the best-attended programs at the Festival. We had standing ovations at the conclusion of the majority of shows,” boasts producer and creative manager Ekachai Uekrongtham.

‘Mail Order’ arrived on the scene of Ekachai’s and Pek’s aspire to compose one thing about “the apparently impossible relationship” between your bargirls of Bangkok’s Patpong red-light region and their Caucasian consumers.

“We soon realised that the Patpong woman just isn’t alone”, recalls Ekachai. “All over Asia, several thousand Asian ladies fancy the exact same fantasy to be taken far from poverty or tradition-bound lifestyles by males from more developed nations.”

As an element of their research, they did an internet search, making use of the expression “mail purchase brides.” Your time and effort with one internet search engine yielded nine entries with links to above 100 web web web sites and another inundated them with more than 160,00 matches that are possible.

“What is noteworthy is that these firms hawking peoples commodities are Western clothes providing to a western clientele, and their items are touted as exotics through the developing globe, particularly mostly appealing yet submissive young Asian women” claims Pek, that is additionally the play’s manager.

She asks,”Is this still another as a type of Western hegemony or perhaps is it simply flesh trade?”

Based on the play’s programme, the sheer number of “mail order marriages” between Asian females and Western guys in 1986 ended up being calculated to achieve at the least 2,000. By 1994, such marriages involving females through the Philippines and Western guys had reached 19,000.

Interestingly sufficient, almost all the hopeful brides-to-be making their cyberspace postings from Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia are Filipino females being employed as domestic helpers in these countries.

But there is however additionally a growing trend of singaporean men looking for mail-order brides from China. While just eight mainland Chinese females became the brides of Singaporean males in 1986, at the very least 1,000 such marriages happened just last year.

A Chinese mail-order bride is one of the play’s four characters, since are a definite Filipino domestic helper, a Thai intercourse worker and a Singaporean “sarong party girl” – a lady whom operates after Western expatriates.

The intercourse worker, the maid and also the bride that is chinese’ make postings on a webpage, hoping international guys will save them from their unsatisfying everyday lives.

The party that is sarong comes upon the web site while browsing the web, is incensed, and gets sucked to the site’s chat space. The play’s very first half is a group of brief monologues where each girl attempts to justify her actions.

The maid, the Chinese bride and the sex worker have all undergone terrible experiences, and are lamenting their decision to go online by the second half.

The Filipino domestic helper whom left her work in Singapore to marry a U.S. soldier was raped by their buddy; the Chinese mail-order bride is in prison for stabbing her Singaporean husband whom tried to rape her as well as the intercourse worker has contracted AIDS.

Whenever ‘Mail Order’ was initially staged a year ago, the ‘Straits Times’ reviewer Clarissa Oon criticised it as an “unimaginative one-hour- plus rehash of the many worst stereotypes of Asian females, Singaporean men and their Caucasian counterparts”.

The play has since been restructured, plus it had been this variation which was opted for while the first Asian entry to the latest York festival. But Oon stays critical of ‘Mail Order’ and says it nevertheless does not have a genuine discussion about what this means become A asian girl today.

Literature graduate Emma Yong, who plays the part associated with the Filipino maid states though: “I am relocated by my character’s courage. She risks every thing by marketing herself to unknown strangers on the web – within the hope that is slim she’ll be rescued from the life of poverty and servitude.”

Lawyer Deborah Ng, whom plays the bride that is chinese additionally claims of her character: “She’s A asia doll by having a might of metal whom embarks on a journey in order to make a better future for herself by searching for a spouse.”

Pek by by herself is unperturbed by remarks that the play presents stereotypes, retorting, “We are seeing these things occurring at our very own doorstep.”

Dr Phyllis Chew, mind associated with Singaporean women’s association AWARE, is quite supportive of this play. “It is a definite feminist statement for the discrimination and exploitation faced by an incredible number of Asian ladies because they find it difficult to better their lot,” she says ukrainian dating sites. “Any play that highlights the plight of females, whether or not they are underpaid, overworked, abused or raped should always be encouraged.”

Pek in reality is worked up about the thought of presenting ‘Mail purchase’ to wider audiences into the western considering that the guys who fuel the industry additionally the Web businesses that behave as the agents have a tendency to there be from. Her partner Ekachai adds they are now taking a look at the chance for developing a production that is new of play in the usa.

“If all goes well, we desire to jointly create it with an existing theatre business here while having it tour around America within the future that is near says Ekachai. They could additionally bring the play to Britain and Canada year that is next.

In terms of Oon’s reservations about ‘Mail Order’, the dilemma faced by numerous Asian girls looking for Caucasian husbands is apparently summed up nicely by Beatrice Chia, whom plays the Singaporean party woman.

Toward the end regarding the play, her character says: “Maybe I’m the Occidental Oriental. No, the accidental Oriental. The initial banana. Yellow on the exterior, white in the inside!”