Saturday, July 23, 2005
●● 曹启泰 ●●
The below is taken from a blogger named Potatomus Maximus. Super funny. You should read it too. Makes me laugh. 曹启泰 is over exaggerating and has oh-too-many-comments. Anyway, just read it and have a good laugh about it. Labels: Anecdotal
A Public Letter To Mediacorp
Dear Sir / Madam,
Re: Mr. Cao Qi Bye Tai
This is a public appeal to Mediacorp, requesting that the above-mentioned, Mr. Cao Qi Tai, be removed as host from all charity shows, with effect from now. We have collated sufficient information and collected enough names to support this daring request.
The list of names were given voluntarily, ranging from the PMEBs, to the small-scale shopowners, to students, to bloggers, to hawkers, to housewives and to toddlers. Many share the same sentiments and have come together to sign this petition.
Since a long time ago, Mr. Cao Qi Tai had been faithfully hosting the charity shows, year in year out. Be it kidney charity shows, cancer charity shows, whatever charity shows, Mr. Cao greatly contributed endlessly with his (mindless) banter and crocodile tears.
Many have agreed, that he perpetually interrupts everyone all the time. When other hosts are talking, he interrupts with his scrunched up face supposedly showing his agony.
When other artistes are performing, he interrupts with his over-zealous narration (and spoils the items). When other artistes are panting while trying to speak, he interrupts by shouting himself hoarse and looking constipated.
When other artistes are trying to call out for donation calls and chanting the phone numbers, he interrupts by shouting even louder and looking 10 times more pained than the suffering patients. Poor Sharon Au's voice was not even heard half as much on Sunday's show.
It is only basic courtesy, to allow people to stop talking, before one attempts to speak. Mr. Cao failed to do that. A good host, not only has to be eloquent. He has to be respectable. Mr. Cao gains no respect from us.
Even if he has a memory as long as Dory from Finding Nemo, and he has to say something out because he will forget in 3 seconds, he is in no position to showcase his (in)ability on stage. It is sheer impoliteness.
On 10th July 2005, Sunday, on the NKF Cancer show, he even interrupted Mr. Adam Zheng Shao Qiu on various occasions. Mr. Zheng ok? THE Mr. Adam Cheng! We were appalled to say the very least.
Also, each time we see him scrunch up his face in a bid to achieve some constipated look (or is it supposed to show that he is very SAD??), we all go into hyperventilation and froth at the mouths.
Must he act (yes, we all think he is merely acting, albeit very bad acting) so so sad and threaten to choke on his words because he is oh-so-sad for the patients? Must he threaten to cry crocodile tears just because some sad clip on the patients are being shown? Must he always interrupt EVERYONE just to make himself heard?
Judging from his actions, he is only trying to get more attention for himself, rather than get attention to really help these patients.
Please do not get us wrong. We know the patients are very very real, and the pain and struggles are definitely too much for us to understand. But it only takes one Mr. Cao to spoil the whole charity show, and make it seem like it is charity no more.
Instead, it has become a marketing tactic to get more money for the organisations. Mr. Cao is the epitome of fake, and this has subsequently cause many many donation callers to stop calling in, just because we are no longer convinced that the charity show is purely done to help the patients.
We do not understand why Mr. Cao is always the host of charity shows. He is not eloquent like Guo Liang, who really speaks with depth, whose mannerisms exude class and maturity, who can really capture the attention of the public with a few sentences.
Mr. Cao merely rambles on and on and on like a spoilt recorder with the speed of a M16, repeating over and over again how they need our donations, how they are suffering, how they need our donations, 1900-112-6888, how they are suffering, how they need our donations, 1900-112-6888, 1900-112-6855, how they need our donations, please please please lighten their burdens, how they are suffering.
You get the idea. Oh, don't forget the perpetual constipated look. And crocodile tears.
While we are on this issue, we would like to question the objective behind these donations. Who will benefit from this donation? Who will be able to receive treatment with this money? Why is the price increasing with each charity show?
Let's say for example, 1 patient gets 30% subsidy from the government. So is it with these donations, the patient will get 40% subsidy? Or is it that, more patients, who were not able to seek treatment in the past, will be able to seek treatment now with these donations? How does the whole thing work?
We are the ones who fork out money to help these patients by calling in; we have EVERY right to know how the money is to be utilised. Why are there no explanation of the simplest kind at all, to facilitate understanding in the public?
A certain organisation was rumoured to have a newly-renovated office shortly after the charity shows. Are we helping to do that too?
Once upon a time a donation call was $5 with no additional $0.21. Why is the price increasing to $5.80 now plus the $0.21? Oh, GST ah?
Or you have to employ many people to receive the calls thus the additional administration fee? What administration? A computer voice of Zoe Tay answered my call you know!
And why are the artistes only calling out for 1900-112-6888? Isn't it misleading to the public? Why do you only appeal for the 8-calls number? What happened to the original 1-call number 1900-112-6868?
Also, the frequency of these charity shows is also increasing. Is it really necessary for so many shows? Actually, the frequency can be justified, that if there are really many more people waiting for help, we will gladly help if we could. But, only if the whole thing is transparent and we know where our money goes to.
On the other hand, why don't you, dear Mediacorp, donate money to these organisations? Oh, we're sorry. Of course you'd have already donated!! Silly us.
In addition, it baffles us to no end, why are there such attractive prizes to be won? Is it right to play with the human flaw - greed?
If you are able to get so many sponsors to come up with so much money to give out as attractive prizes, why don't you just get these sponsors to donate directly to the organisations? Why make the ignorant fork out so much money because they have the false hope that they will win something?
The very rich people who want to help these charities will not call in to donate - they will write a cheque and drop it at the charity organisations. The poor people cannot even afford to call in.
The only ones making the repeated calls are really the ignorant ones who really think that they can win something. True, these are the foolish ones, but is it right to lure and tempt them with the idea of winning some big prizes if they call in multiple times?
Then the whole idea of having a charity show is defeated, because these people call in with the intention of winning prizes, and thus justifies the above-mentioned, that the shows are becoming marketing tactics to get money instead of a pure charity show.
Now, we have some recommendations for you.Why don't you put Mr. Cao IN the show, instead of him HOSTING the show? Make him roll on glass shards, or walk the knifes, or suspend him in mid-air upside-down and swing him all around? Or make him lie on the floor and make Moses Lim walk on him? Or tie many weights to him and throw him into the water and wait for him to surface?
We'll see if he still has so much to talk about when he accomplishes something like what Fann or Tanya did on Sunday's show. Or get the 5 hunks, Ix Shen, Zheng Geping, Christopher Lee, Adam Chen and Jeff Wang step on him instead of stepping on eggs. We'll see whether he can still shout loudly and exaggerate so.. exaggeratedly.
"OOOHHHH!!! WEN ZHU WEN ZHU!! HEN JIAN NAN DE DONG ZUO!! DA JIA ZHANG SHENG GU LI GU LI!!! XIAO XIN XIAO XIN!!! WEN ZHU!! JIA YOU JIA YOU!!! QING BO 1900-112-6888 LAI ZHI CHI TA MEN!!! DA JIA!!! WO MEN BI XU ZHI CHI SHEN ZANG / AI ZHENG DE BING REN MEN!!! OOOHHH!!!"
(Oooh!! Stability! Keep yourselves stable! This is a very dangerous act!! Please give a round of applause everyone!! Be careful be careful!! Stable yourselves! Carry on carry on!! Please call 1900-112-6888 to support them!! Everyone!! We need to support the kidney/cancer patients!! OOhh!!)
On the other hand, why don't you do a public appeal, like get public members to be involved in the show too? Forever seeing the same old faces on TV trying all sorts of stunts is getting very boring. There are only so many difficult stunts you can do without breaking a leg, literally.
Why don't you audition different types of shows, like dance items, choir items, or some other stunts that the public are capable of?
Like teenage boys can do their BMX stuff, there can be gymnasts from different schools (my cousin is a national champion ok!), or you can have a ca pella groups to sing. Then you slot in a few items by artistes too.
We are very sick of purely artistes doing the same old stunts! Oh, I've mentioned this already.
We hope this letter will be taken into serious consideration (which, we all know *cues Mr. Cao's pained look and big sigh* is not possible).
Yours faithfully,
Potatomus Maximus
Tan Ah Kow
Betty Teo
Julaiman Mohammad
Veerapal Gopalsamy
Lim Ah Lim
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