Today’s Reads (Apr 04)

Pay Hike

• Serving The Nation – Altruistically (Dr Huang @ ST)
  

  from SingaporeSurf

• 10 more thoughts on the ministerial pay hike

  from Fearfully Opinionated

• Is Ministers’ Pay Hike Reasonable? — Benchmarking…

  from Singapore Alternatives

• Sadness over Ministerial Salary Increase

  from Singapore Angle

Other

• Lee-fearing Nation

  from No political films please, we’re Singaporeans

• Singapore Medical Association’s Guideline of Fees…

  from nofearSingapore

• Smoking makes you a “dead girl”.

  from Coffee and Cigarettes.

• The elderly – so how?

  from zyberzitizen

“D’epaysement……Why You Simply Need To do it!” (Travelogue Series 2007)

There is a French word which I really like to share with you! It’s a word that doesn’t lend itself easily to the English translation, “d’epaysement,” a few years ago. I chanced on an article written by the Paris Bureau chief for the New York Times, his translation of the word felt just right so for ease of reference, I am going to quote him.

“The feeling of not being assaulted by the familiarity of things, a change in surroundings where there is no immediate point of reference.”

He went on to quote a French journalist who once said that

“Most people don’t make it a point to “d’epayses,” only to end up craving a home they once knew in a place away from home.”

This is unfortunate as it is true. Although one may even spend years working, living and playing in a country, their unwillingness to d’epayses ensures they never really left home. In many sense the word simply means to (de)countrify or (re)seeing.