Aha! Now I know what bugged me most about "Pagoda Street." It's a rich boy's idea of what being down and out in Singapore is like. The lack of research and effort to make the characters more believable and using these caricatures as a vehicle to showcase "Singapore" is particularly irksome.

OK. Maybe I should lighten up about the whole thing. It's entertainment, after all; but how many of us felt the same way when The Amazing Race came to town and the face that represented us on international TV turned out to be "Poo Koo Kang's?"