Monthly Archives: October 2018

DD3006_10_The Movement of Plants & Animals

Journal, , , ,

I have been learning about fruit, plant and their latin name since primary school yet it never crossed my mind who started the naming and started to collect the data. Now I know. 🙂

It was so weird to think that the think we know now was a privilege in the past. It is as if we have been taking things for granted.

The fruit I am going to share is not my most favourite fruit (but I like it) and it has been at least 4-5 years since the last time I ate it.  I would like to share it as I have been always curious where it came from because of its unique shape and taste.

Sugar-apple, Annona squamosa

I firstly know the fruit was called srikaya in Indonesia. Apparently it is called Lim kim in Singapore. With a latin name of Annona squamosa, it is more commonly known as sugar-apple, sweetsop or custard apple. In Singapore it is also more known to be the fruit of kaya jam. Have you tried the fruit raw before?

MichaÅ‚ Boym’s drawing of, probably, the sugar-apple in his Flora Sinensis (1655)

Date of introduction of A. squamosa to the West Indies is unknown, but it was present by the time of Sir Hans Sloane’s 1687-1689 voyage to Jamaica  during which he collected specimens now present in the British Museum (British Museum specimen BM000594147). The species was also included in Macfadyen’s (1837) work on Jamaica, and was present in Puerto Rico by 1883, as it was included in Bello’s (1883) work on the island. It was also listed in Britton’s (1918) flora of Bermuda and Britton and Millspaugh’s (1920) work on the Bahamas.

The species was probably brought to the Old World tropics by the Spaniards to the Philippines and by the Portuguese to India by 1590, and from there cultivation eventually spread to Indonesia, China, Australia, Polynesia, and Hawaii.

 

Reference:

https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sugar_apple.html#Origin%20and%20Distribution

https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/5820

DD3006_08_Narratives of Servitude

Journal, , ,

Wew. It was a really eye-opening and thought-provoking presentation. Honestly, I never thought of servitude as a form of colonialism between each other but now I kind of do.

How about the contemporary narratives of servitude such as those of domestic workers and construction workers? It just made me feel that may be the difference is that the current ones is more towards the flexibility of the job. Not saying that it is not strict anymore, it just, these jobs seems to be something they can choose tho change if they want. It is no longer something that you will pledge and do for your their whole lives if they don’t want to. I think they are given the option to quit.

I am not sure about how it works in Singapore, but in Indonesia the presence of domestic worker is something that is really common in the household of middle class family upwards. I grew up with domestic workers taking care of the household. But unlike Majie, they quit when they want to  or get a better pay offer in other place. It was quite common to change domestic worker within a year. And most of them were young an aged early 20s. Now that I think of it, it was such a sad truth where the young generation should have been educated and pursuing their dream in their youth.

However, over the years the trend and style of domestic worker has changed from what used to they stay full-time in employer’s house into come into daily or even some days per week. Even some of them started to do some online job or sale as part-time. I think in the current era, it is no longer full servitude that takes one life to be fully dedicated into it. With the presence of internet, it is now more towards how one will stay in one job for others or use their time to make more things for their own.

Just a random thought after writing all above, I think history has shown servitude exists but it changed form over time. From something that is more physical and obvious into more subtle thing that is not tangible. Taking the group’s first definition on servitude, servitude is the state of a person who is subjected, voluntarily or involuntarily, to another person as a servant. If we define the person to be a figure who has online influence via social media, does it mean that the followers who choose to voluntarily follow and unquestioningly accept and do what the figure says are the servants of the figure? It just made me wonder of those who can be radicalised through online media and form.. It is as if they have been in a form of servitude..