Recently, i caught sight of the Aug 05 issue of Singapore's renowned Her World Mag. Scampering through the pages, smelling the smell of printed magazine paper and looking at the pictures reminded me of how i used to spend my rainy weekends in Singapore. I would just loll around in bed, with a nice cuppa earl grey on the dresser and a stack of magazines beside me. Everything was comfy and the skies were the perfect colour of beauty and serenity. The storm bellowing outside simply made the whole afteroon even more enjoyable, the breeze was cool and it was always nice thinking about how warm you were in bed.

so there i was (still enjoying a cup of earl grey) as i recalled how my relationship with magazines all begin. So heres a short visual history of the mags in my life (at least the ones i remember reading).

As i was a young girl, one of the first magazines i was almost addicted to was Young Generation. I loved Constable Acai and gang. Everything in there was absoultely cool and my mum was nice enough to feed my addiction by buying it for me from the nearby EPB (the popular bookshop of the 1990s). Another mag i read whenever i went to Times (the borders/Kino of the 1990s) was Disney's adventures. They had the lastest on the disney sphere and i wanted to be part of that world ...


Then of course, i grew up and reached the adolescent days of Secondary school. There, under the influence of my friends, i started reading teenage and teens. While teenage became quite a hit with me, i didn't really like the things in teens but i read them whenever possible anyway.


At the same time, my friends started reading the mainstream music magazines like Lime and smash hits (i still remember the first issue of Lime coming out). So, i would occassionally glance through these but i don't remember buying many issues. It was always the odd one (due to some cute singer, etc). I was never that big on music.


At the same time, i was quite loyal to 8 days, not because it was cool or nice but mainly because of it's useful summaries of the channel 8 dramas and perhaps the Jason Hahn columnist. My mother on the other hand stuck by i weekly and when you zhou kan came out, she bought those too. Those two mags always had the most number of scribblings and underlinings because i couldn't read chinese very well (the chinese standard in those mags aren't easy peasy). Yet, the synopsis in drama serials in these chinese mags were always tons more informative ... so i didn't have much of a choice but to get through it word by word, underlining the stuff i didn't get and asking Mommy to translate it to english for me.


Mom also bought Her world and cleo depending on her mood. But as i got older, i became so addicted to it that i made sure she bought these every month (so that i didn't have to waste my pocket money buying them ... hehehehe).


Once in awhile, she would buy Women's weekly too.


But as i came to australia, i became more open to the likes of Girlfriend and Cosmo. I luuurved those.


But of couse, depending on issue, my mum sometimes bought these as well.




But Mom was ALWAY obsessed with these. I'm telling you, i had soooo many issues of these.
Not that i didn't enjoy reading them of course ... *hehehehe




I don't particularly like these but i do read them if i get the chance to (mainly hairdresser shops or houses of friends).










However, i do luuuuurve these ...


and this is a mag i always wanted to start reading but up to now, i am ashamed to admit that I haven't read a single issue of MAD ... yet.


I was forced to read these at school but it took me 21 years to figure that i still didn't like reading these. You see, when i was younger, i thought it was something that took a lil getting used to. Plus, you tell your friends your weekly dose of reading included "time", "newsweek" etc and that was enough to make you a smartass. So of course, i really tried very hard to like these, in fact, i've tried for 7 years now but i still don't enjoy them (are they even supposed to be enjoyable?).


And i'm sure this would come as a shocker... Yesh, Reader's digest makes it to my hate list too. Hahahaha ... it's quite ironic considering that my mother used to subscribe to this and Shilsy Wilsy and gang love this to bits. Still, now's as good a time as any for admitting it.


Gosh i sound like such an airhead. But oh well ...

Lastly, a paradox puz:
Why is it that the most trashy mags in singapore seem to receive the least censorship?

and just for fun ... Korea's film Festival ... Pusan.