Russian tourists clearing out hotel minibars

Posted on April 25, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Pay $50k to holiday in S’pore’, 25 April 2013, article by Jessica Lim, ST

TRANSFER by private jet, suite bookings at a five-star hotel, reservations at celebrity chef restaurants and a chauffeur at their beck and call. This is the kind of itinerary – costing up to $50,000 per person for a five-day trip – that inbound travel agency Hong Thai woos its well-heeled customers with.

Such niche offerings have proved a hit with tourists from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia – two countries singled out for targeting in a new discussion paper from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Hong Thai’s director, Mr Alex Chan, 55, started offering such packages in 2011 and saw the number of tourists from these places increase by 10 per cent in just a year.

It could be because Mr Chan has them figured out to a tee. Russians, looking to escape from harsh winters back home, prefer hotels by the beach. Tourists from the UAE tend to opt for accommodation located in shopping districts, he said.

“You know what they say – that Russians like vodka? It’s true. They’re known to clear out hotel minibars, so we make sure they are well-stocked,” said Mr Chan, whose agency seems to be ahead of the curve.

The Russians’ fascination with Singapore began since the days of the Soviet Union. In 1967, they were the first group of visitors from a Communist country to fly in for sight-seeing. Travel agents were keen on establishing tourism partnerships as early as 1969 for the benefit of eager Russian academics who wanted to know more about the historical and cultural aspects of a ‘new independent country’. Soviet philologist Ann Kartvelishvile said Singapore was ‘so much like home’, home referring to ‘a warm and friendly place somewhere between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea’. Sochi, a Black Sea resort, was also the site of the Friendship Tree, a symbol of Singapore-Soviet UNITY, where Lee Kuan Yew in 1970 grafted a sprig of citrus alongside personalities like Yuri Gagarin and HO CHIH MINH.

Today, they’re among the biggest European spenders, staying in luxurious five-star hotels in Sentosa, Swissotel and splurging like czars on helicopter tours or private yachts to take them to Bintan and even the EQUATOR. Tour operator Uniglobal specialises in bringing Singapore and Russia together, pampering guests with a fuss-free holiday and great privileges for the ‘ultimate shopping experience’. JetQuay services will even ferry you from the terminal the very moment you touch down in Singapore. This image from their brochure says it all:

Screen Shot 2013-04-25 at 10.00.55 PM

If they’re not here to be chauffeured in Ferraris, eat Jumbo seafood, tour Sentosa in 7-star bejewelled VIP Cable Cars (yes, these exist) and ‘wipe out’ our hotel minibars in presidential suites, they’re here for medical services. In 2008, it was reported that ‘15 to 20 Russians come to Singapore to seek treatment EVERY day’. Well, that and escaping the harsh winter, too, via direct flight from Moscow with SIA (circa 2006).

In fact, the Russians may love Singapore so much they may even want to build a little version of us in Siberia, more specifically a special economic zone (SEZ) in Katun. Professor Andry Alpatov had his sights set on our expertise in ‘masterplanning and design’, in particular our experience with Sentosa’s IRs. The affection is mutual; our office temperatures are set so low that conditions have been described as ‘winter in Siberia’. Russians are also settling in rather nicely here, calling Singapore ‘paradise’ for its climate and ‘orderliness’, though their culture is slow to catch on among us locals. It is a country known more for its charismatic leaders than, say, Vaganova ballet. In my youth, everything I knew about Russia came from Arnie action movies like Red Heat.

Hong Thai’s Alex Chan risks stereotyping his clients as drunks with his choice of words, though ‘vodka’ seems to be the only Russian word that the average Singaporean knows. With more of them coming our way, perhaps it would be, well, nice to first master the Russian word for ‘hello’ – zdravstvuite, which to the non-Russian sounds more like what aliens from the planet Zdorg would call an ‘apartment’. In 2009, Russian officials reported that there were 2000 of their countrymen living in Singapore, while tourist numbers surged from 19,000 in 2004 to almost 60,000 in 2011. One such visitor, however, decided to make bomb threat just last week on an SIA flight. Not sure if he was drinking vodka on board though.

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Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 2000s, 2013, Money, Tourists | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

WP’s Blue Paper will cause great hardship to us all

Posted on February 24, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘WP’s proposal hurt Singapore SMEs and workers:Grace Fu’, 24 Feb 2013, article in Today online

…Posting on her Facebook page, Ms Fu said the WP wants to freeze foreign workforce growth immediately which she said, will hurt Singapore small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and workers. She said the government’s plan on the other hand is to significantly tighten the inflow of new foreign workers, but allow businesses time to make adjustment and help SMEs in particular, make the transition.

Ms Fu touched on several points raised in the WP’s paper. Among them is the argument that by raising the resident labour force participation rate, Singapore can maintain its non-resident workforce at the current numbers. Ms Fu said this will “cause great hardship to Singaporeans and SMEs”, which employ 70 per cent of Singaporean workers.

She said if these businesses fail, many Singaporean workers and their families will suffer and added healthcare, construction of HDB homes, and train lines will also be affected badly.

“WP argues that by encouraging more senior citizens and homemakers to work, we don’t need additional foreign workers. But how can our seniors and women fill the need for workers now where we need them most — such as construction and cleaning/maintenance?”, said Ms Fu.

Foreign labour has been the nation’s drug of choice for so long it’s expected that the WP’s cold turkey solution to creating a ‘dynamic resident workforce’ would come with its fair share of withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps this bold suggestion is just another ‘emotional hump’ that needs to be surmounted, though I’m not sure how many seniors and women are willing to do dirty, ‘low-skilled’ work like construction and cleaning in place of the junkie’s ‘high’ we get from foreign workers. Minister Fu was being selective in her blasting of the ‘Blue Paper’ of course, just like how everyone else zeroed in on the 6.9 million figure of its White counterpart.

I wonder if the SDP has their ‘Red’ paper in draft mode, though I hope it’s less clunky and has more images. I believe the reason why the average Singaporean doesn’t grasp the full picture of such policy papers is because it’s impossible to read them from start to finish without dozing off. WP’s paper may not cure our immigration addiction, but it can certainly cure insomnia. People want to read a summary of your executive summaries. The rest can be footnotes and appendices for the more serious-minded folks. The good news is that Singaporeans are at least aware that such documents exist. Some of us even begin to watch Parliamentary sessions in full over YouTube while the rest of the world is playing Candy Crush.

Grace Fu is one of the more vocal female politicians around, but I’m not so interested in what she used to do for a living (PSA CEO) or how she justifies her astronomical ministerial pay, but rather her bloodline, namely her father James Fu, ex Press Secretary to then PM Lee Kuan Yew. In 1986, the government restricted the local circulation of Time magazine based on their editor’s refusal to publish a correspondence in full, exercising its new powers under the amended ‘Newspaper and Printing Presses Act’.  The article in question was ‘Silencing the Dissenters’, which LKY, through secretary Fu, took offence for its ‘factual errors’. Time was then accused of ‘meddling in domestic politics’ in its handling of a story involving the PAP’s ‘muzzling’ of Opposition MPs. The spotlight was on none other than beleaguered Anson MP JB Jeyaretnam (incidentally from WP). In 1988, Fu, on behalf of LKY, stung another powerhouse magazine, the Asian Wall Street Journal. A full page advertisement had to be bought over to publish government ‘clarifications’ on articles deemed to be ‘distorting’ the truth. His most prominent work for the PAP, it seems, was threatening to ban prestigious magazines altogether for ‘irresponsible’ reporting i.e media censorship. He was also once the ominous sounding Director for Information.

But wait, there’s more.

Long before his role as LKY’s mouthpiece, Fu was a reporter for the Nanyang Siang Pau. In 1963, he was ARRESTED during Operation Cold Store as a political detainee. Only LKY can explain how a political opponent would wind up as one’s personal secretary in 1972. In the same fell swoop was fellow ‘conspirator’ Dominic Puthucheary, who being Malaysian was readily banned from entering the country for  ‘pro Communist activities’.

On 2 November 2009, ST published a feature with the headline ‘Son of former leftist is now PAP volunteer’. In fact, the ST were rather open with Puthucheary’s son about Daddy’s history with the ISD. This son is none  other than Malaysian-born PAP MP Dr Janil Puthucheary. Another ‘son of a leftist’ is Ong Ye Kung, former Aljunied PAP candidate and now part of GLC Keppel Corp, his father being ex-Barisan Sosialis MP Ong Lian Teng. Such media fascination with Janil and Ye Kung as offspring of ‘leftists’ makes Grace Fu’s father’s past involvement with the ISD conspicuous by its relative silence. Any attempt to speculate why may end up with a totally different ‘Paper’ coming my way, one from the White camp seeing Red, which upon reading may see me turn Blue, then Yellow because of threats hurled my way, before this post, or even the blog, is forced to fade into Black.

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Foreign workers, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Li Yeming sending an army to flatten Singapore

Posted on February 23, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Xenophobia row:Police report filed’ 23 Feb 2013, article by Leonard Lim and Andrea Ong, ST

NEW citizen Li Yeming, who had accused Workers’ Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang of driving a wedge between Singapore-born and new citizens, has made a police report against netizens whom he said falsely accused him of making anti-Singapore comments.

A friend had alerted him that netizens were circulating posts he supposedly made on his Weibo microblog, including one which said “I will send an army over to flatten your home (Singapore)!”, he told police yesterday.

Mr Li, 43, said in his police report he had not written the posts “stating that I scolded Singaporean(s), threatened to flatten Singapore and also commented on how lazy Singaporeans are”.

Yesterday, Mr Li told The Straits Times he hopes the police can find out who started them. He also hopes to set the record straight through the police report, so as not to affect relations between local-born and new citizens.

…On Monday, Mr Low  issued a rebuttal and said he was shocked that Mr Li had accused him of “inciting xenophobia”. The systems analyst then wrote a second letter to the Chinese daily on Wednesday, saying his sentence, “inciting xenophobia is not patriotic“, was a general statement not targeted specifically at the WP. He had intended to question Mr Low’s stance in the White Paper debate as it seemed to make a distinction between native-born and new citizens, he said. Mr Low has said he made no such distinction.

As a ‘new’ citizen, Li has picked up the Singaporean trait of sending in the cops to ‘set records straight’, though this drastic action is likely to rile the ‘xenophobes’ further. Buzzword of the Day ‘Xenophobia’ isn’t new, having been freely uttered by LKY on the local sentiment against our British colonialists more than 50 years ago. Today, it is an accusation that has been tossed willy-nilly at Opposition politicians, White Paper petition organisers like Gilbert Goh and some bloke named Darryl Nihility dressed like the Sex Pistols holding up a sign saying ‘Singapore for Singaporeans’. That technically includes Li Yeming.

Begs the question of who’s Singaporean

Li’s original letter to Zaobao used the Chinese term ‘排外’, which I think literally means to ‘cast outside’, and I’m not sure how accurate this translates to a word that seethes with fear and hatred, a word that borrows from medical terminology suggesting a form of mental illness. ‘Xenophobia’ is really the flipside of the same coin when you’re talking about extreme ‘patriotism’ or ‘national pride’. It’s like choosing to call someone ‘fussy’ instead of ‘meticulous’, ‘possessive’ instead of ‘concerned’ or ‘stupid’ instead of ‘underachieving’. Some of the most patriotic people on the planet are also the least welcoming of foreigners, the kind that put up national flags on their front porch and ask ‘What the hell do these Chinese have to move in this neighbourhood for?’ These are also the same people who use dehumanising words like ‘scum’, ‘vermin’ and ‘swine’ and have miniature gas chambers and shotguns in their backyards. Unlike the rest of Li’s public articles, this blurt about him summoning a Red Army to storm our land does sound like the rantings of someone who’s watched far too many reruns of Mulan.

The tendency to distinguish and shun members out of our social circle serves the purpose of protecting our own and preventing outsiders from leeching off our resources, and is the whole premise of civilisations demarcating territories, building defences, national service and calling ourselves ‘nations’.  Humans have evolved with brains equipped with an ‘us vs them’ module, otherwise we wouldn’t tell our kids not to open the door to strangers. Foreigners are labelled with slurs like ‘gwailos’, ‘ang mors’, ‘gringos’ and ‘gaijins’ in almost any country that accepts them. Without the ability to distinguish friend from foe by which tribe they belong to, we’d be long decimated by freeloaders or psychotic barbarians. Although we have grown to be more altruistic in our treatment of strangers and discovered some social and economic magic to ‘integration’, it is perfectly normal to question the wisdom of taking the term ‘global village’ and ‘cosmopolitian’ to the level of a desperate streetwalker warming her bed for any Tom Dick and Harry. In that sense, to some who petitioned it, the White Paper was a slut manifesto. Interestingly, the White Paper translated in Chinese is 白皮书, or White Skin Book.

It is also a gut reaction to label those who choose to stay here as ‘ingrates’ for trash-talking Singaporeans, whether we’re lazy slobs, bad Mandarin speakers or just a pack of dogs, again a symptom of our national ‘pride’ where we consider Singapore our home and these guys, new citizens or not, are guests or tenants.  So it seems counter-intuitive that people are preaching about preserving a Singaporean Core, yet telling us that being accepting of foreigners is what a ‘patriot’ should do. Ironically, ‘patriots’ are often associated with violence, whether they’re pistols-ablazing on a horse or decapitating people in a kilt like Mel Gibson or named after Gulf War missiles like how one names a rabid pit-bull terrier ‘Braveheart’. Anyone who yells ‘Majulah Singapura’ while charging headlong into a bunch of rowdy drunk expats will be martyred before being accused of being ‘anti-foreigner’.

The emotional motive that belies our general wariness of foreigners, whether in war or in their ‘naturalisation’, remains the same: The protection of our land, our heritage, our kids, our future against outward influences. How is that a ‘sickness’ like xenophobia is presented to be? A milder version of being ‘xenophobic’ is NIMBY (Not in my backyard). Except that those who actually OWN backyards probably can afford to move out of the country if they’re too many guests pitching tents on their lawns. The media’s use of the phrase ‘new citizen’ has exposed a grey boundary where we even need to debate over what a ‘Singaporean’ or ‘Our Home’ means anymore. ‘New’ citizens like Li will eventually become as ‘Singaporean’ as anyone of us born and bred here. The question no one can answer, not Low Thia Khiang nor Li Yeming, is: When?

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Foreign workers, Politicians, PRCs, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Having a National Referendum for a 6.9 million population

Posted on January 31, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Hold referendum on population growth’, 31 Jan 2013, ST Forum

(Kelvin Quek): AS A born and bred Singaporean, it is my right to have a say in the size and composition of the population (“Population could hit 6.9m by 2030“; yesterday). Unlike measures like the certificate of entitlement, Electronic Road Pricing or goods and services tax, population policies have an impact that cannot be reversed in one or two generations.

It is all the more worrying since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself recently admitted that the Government does not have 20/20 foresight and finds it difficult to predict economic changes, the property cycle, population trends and the number of homes needed (“PM throws light on what led to infrastructure strain”; Tuesday).

So let the citizens have a real say. Let us hold a national referendum to see if Singaporeans are supportive of having a population of six million by 2020 and 6.9 million by 2030. The referendum can be carefully crafted to present various choices to Singaporeans, including the scenario of very low economic growth or even economic stagnation if we cap the population at 5.5 million or six million. If more than two-thirds of Singaporeans are against having a population size as projected by the White Paper, then the Government should plan for an alternative scenario.

If a large majority agree with the White Paper’s conclusions, then at least we know that we share collective responsibility for the consequences.

The chance of a National Referendum happening to let Singaporeans vote for or against the 2030 population crunch is as likely as a tsunami sweeping us of our feet. The first (and maybe LAST) ever NR was in fact held before we even gained our Independence in 1962, when we had to decide what flag to use in our merger with Malaysia among other stuff like citizenship and language policies . This was like Polling Day, except that instead of ticking for a party, you voted for various scenarios. The people chose the Lee Kuan Yew-backed ‘Alternative A’, which granted Singapore control over labour and education, despite us having to convert our identities to become Malaysians. The decision to merge was already a done deal, and the whole referendum process appeared to be a cosmetic matter of going through the motions, or in commonspeak ‘wayang’. You could say the same thing about our National Conversation, which has probably expended the amount of Post-It pads equivalent to a stack of White Papers as tall as the Singapore Flyer.

The reason why the PAP is generally reluctant to hold such resource-intensive opinion polls is because asking Singaporeans if they would prefer to live in a state of 7 million people is a no-brainer. We were already upset when you were talking about 6 million people. It’s a stupid question to ask, yet the obvious answer is not one they want to hear, because they’d know better. So it’s likely that our government will trudge ahead, telling us how their  expert-endorsed, concise ‘Land Use Plan’ would achieve a SWEET SPOT.  If there were ever a poll on the matter it would be asking us if we’d like to turn Pulau Ubin from a nature spot to a hub of seaside executive condos or a ring of luxury hotels. It’s like a grubby sommelier asking if you’d prefer the red or white wine after already putting you on tab. I’m not sure if the people who sort our land resources out are actual population experts, or a bunch of nerds addicted to Simcity.

Why, in our 48 years of nation-building, have we stalled on referenda? According to Goh Chok Tong, he did not ‘believe’ in such things because referenda should only be held on ‘life and death’ issues, and not something like say the elected presidency for example. In 1987, when he rejected calls to vote for the ‘Team MP’ or now known as the GRC system, he said the consent of voters would only be needed if the proposed legislation brought about ‘fundamental changes’ to the Constitution and our Sovereignty as an independent nation. Turning our once idyllic fishing village into a gambling haven also didn’t seem to warrant a Referendum in 2004, yet it remains uncertain these days if the Government had made the right choice about casinos without consulting the general public, with so much investment in damage control and prevention. In fact, I think the National Conversation system was set up PRECISELY to ward off any suggestion of the more decisive Referendum. If you deliver a dud platform for airy-fairy topics of discussion, you provide citizens the illusion of ‘ownership’, when it’s really a distraction from your actual powers as a citizen. It’s like a desperate father giving his kid a digital watch to play with instead of an iPad.

I would argue that overloading our tiny island with new citizens IS in fact a ‘life and death’ issue. You could have people losing their careers and minds in the heat of competition. You’d have the weak and elderly fainting, wheezing, getting heart attacks or beating each other silly from the sheer stress of taking public transport. Not to mention the spread of re-emerging Third World diseases that we’re struggling to contain even today like influenza, dengue and TB. You’d have the national identity diluted by foreign invaders, hence the ‘sovereignty’ of being Singaporean. Ministers like Khaw Boon Wan and DPM Teo are convinced that things will go according to plan, telling us ‘not to worry’ like singing a lullaby while shaking the baby. There’s a reason why they call it the population ‘bomb’ and not the ‘sweet spot’, an embarrassingly corporeal catchphrase that brings to mind the brink of an orgasm or releasing a long-suppressed fart rather than what should be better simplified as ‘balance’. But why feed us with boring energy bars when you can spin candy floss, and all this sugarcoating of a serious, even dangerous, logistic nightmare is giving me the cavities in addition to the heebie-jeebies.

For subjecting Singaporeans to the terror of squeezing and squirming our way through every facet of our lives, the White paper is not so much a predictive model of an economically sustainable wunderkind nation, but really a user’s manual titled ‘How to Live in a Box and Still Call Your Nation a Liveable City’.  When the country bursts at its seams and the Government hangs the WHITE flag, it’s already too late giving them the RED card for the WHITE paper. I’d like to see our President do something really, if only to stop the masses, the foreign labour and jobless hobos from camping on Istana grounds when they have no place left to live. You don’t have to be a crowded nation to be successful. You just need smart leaders, you know, with 20/20 foresight.

Postscript: Khaw Boon Wan later clarified (2 Feb 2013) that 6.9 M was the ‘WORST CASE SCENARIO’ and that hoped that the actual figure would be turned out to be ‘much lower’. So what’s the ideal population for Singapore then? Just a few days back, he said a ‘high quality of life’ was still possible for 6.9 M people and that we shouldn’t ‘worry’ about a thing. Now it’s not so much a population explosion that I’m ‘worried’ about. I’m worried if the Government knows what exactly it’s doing with the White Paper forecast. This concession after all the comforting and confidence seems like a forced U-turn to me.

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Environment, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Nicoll Highway speed camera not transparent to motorists

Posted on December 20, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Wrong to hide speed cameras from motorists’, 20 Dec 2012, ST Forum

(Emmanuel David): I RECENTLY received a notice from the Traffic Police informing me that my car was caught by a speed camera near lamp post 107 along Nicoll Highway in the direction of Guillemard Road. After revisiting the site several times, I discovered no notices along that stretch of Nicoll Highway notifying motorists of the presence of a speed camera.

There appeared to be a platform for a speed camera near lamp post 107, but no camera was mounted, and the platform was hidden from the view of motorists. I understand that Britain, Australia and many American states, as well as neighbouring Malaysia, have strict laws specifying that the use of speed cameras must be transparent to motorists.

…At a time when there are visibly fewer Traffic Police officers patrolling our roads, and an increasing dependence on speed cameras, it is important that the use of such third-party devices is governed by legislation. Almost all other speed cameras in Singapore would adhere to such a law if it was promulgated, but the one along Nicoll Highway did not when I was driving past it.

Everyone speeds at some point behind the wheel and most get away with it. When we do get caught it’s only natural to be defensive, denying that we exceeded the speed limit or hope that the camera snapped the wrong car or malfunctioned. Those of us who could afford it and know that we broke the law pay other people to take the rap. The rest of us, like the writer here, blame traffic legislation, display some futile worldliness about other nations’ laws and even conduct our own field sleuthing in an attempt to save face, without admitting whether we had in fact been speeding or not. It’s like you got fined for littering and complained to the officer about the lack of warning signs in the vicinity, or better still, for ambushing you from behind a pillar and violating your right to litter freely and not get caught.

Some would argue that instead of reducing accidents, making speed cameras VISIBLE and bright orange would actually wreck havoc on the roads when motorists jam brakes after spotting the box at the last minute. The same could happen to oblivious drivers who fail to pay attention to road signs telling you there’s a speed trap ahead. Yet, all the speed cameras, bush-raiders and signs in the world won’t help if you don’t even know what the speed limit is (up to 70% of road users). Maybe if a certain Ferrari driver had been snooped by hidden speed cameras and deprived of his licence earlier, a horrible accident could have been prevented.

In the 60′s we had human speed detectors in the form of the traffic police instead of ‘third-party devices’, who were believed to be constantly lurking behind trees or bushes stalking their prey, their motorbike wheel or side of helmet sticking our ridiculously behind a trunk. But it’s not just victims behind the wheel getting ‘punked’. You could be caught unawares jaywalking, smoking in a non-smoking area, or jerking off alone in a cinema. And it doesn’t matter if the one exposing you is a mysterious overhanging box, a squealer, someone with an invisible cloak or an undercover cop dressed as the usher. You lucked out, that is all.

Drivers will generally agree that there should be deterrents to road hazards; it’s only when they get their demerit points when they decide to blame the police for sneaky tactics and lament the lack of ‘transparency’. I mean, why not just do away with ‘undercover’ jobs altogether and put CCTV signs EVERYWHERE so that we’ll rid this country of all forms of shady dealings and misdemeanours altogether? Anyone who speeds and risks hurting another being deserves the full penalty of the law, whether you felt that the snare was unfair to you or not. Anyone who complains to the public about traffic injustice without addressing road safety or personal responsibility ALL the more deserves a ticket too.

Filed under: 1960s, 2012, Fines, Justice system/Lawsuits, Motorists | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Lee Wei Ling and LKY are dyslexics

Posted on September 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘The long and short of rules’, 2 Sept 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

…Ryan’s mother, however, reacted melodramatically. She went to the press with her son’s story and lodged a police report. She claimed that Ryan “could not leave home for two days because of the way he looked”. Then she arranged for him to have a $60 haircut.

She excused her son’s disobedience by saying he was dyslexic, and that dyslexics were forgetful. Both my father and I are dyslexic. We are no more forgetful than other normal people.

…Ryan’s mother’s reaction to the teacher cutting her son’s hair was, I am afraid, close to hysterical. How do we bring up our children with the right values when parents and schools send such conflicting messages?

I wouldn’t doubt a famous neurologist’s analysis on the symptoms of dyslexia, and I fully concur with her diagnosis of HYSTERIA in Ryan’s mother. But what’s interesting about this week’s Lee Wei Ling column is not so much her stand on hair rules or teachers playing barber (which is not surprising since she fancies a shorn crop, probably one that’s even shorter than Ryan’s), but her admission that both herself and LKY are dyslexics. Wei Ling herself once confessed that she didn’t really pay attention during GP lessons, which could be related to her undiagnosed dyslexia then. Despite that, she did well (an ‘A’ too) and look where she is now.

In a 2009 article ‘Morals and Morale’, Wei Ling was candidly honest about her problems with spelling in English, but did not shy away from boasting about how good she was at Chinese ‘mo-xie’, a test in which you had to regurgitate an entire essay or poem entirely by memory.

Those who know about moxie might be surprised to hear that I enjoyed memorising the classics, and I never got less than 90 marks for moxie. It was English spelling that I had problems with.

Since I had no difficulty with written Chinese, I blamed my problems with English spelling on the strange spelling rules of the language. It was only many years later that I discovered I was dyslexic in English. To this day, I sometimes cannot decide whether to use a ‘d’ or a ‘t’, a ‘v’ or a ‘z’. I have even more difficulty with vowels. Fortunately, my e-mail and word-processing programs have spell checkers.

In 1995, the good doctor was kind enough to sign up as Advisor to the DAS (Dyslexic Association of Singapore), an acronym which I’ve come to realise is a smart wordplay on how dyslexics tend to ‘mirror-write’ (DAS backwards is SAD). Wei Ling also spent some time in the 80′s as registrar at TTSH working with ‘under-achieving’ kids, a euphemism for ‘slow learners’ or ‘backward’ children. In the 60′s, experts were quick to discount myths that children who suffer from ‘word-blindness’, as it was formerly known, were ‘necessarily STUPID’. In the 70′s you would see headlines in the ST like ‘The bright kids who just cannot write; first in a two-part series on ABNORMAL children’. In the tradition of making disorders less dreadful than they sound by making them harder to read or spell, dyslexia has been rebranded recently as Developmental Reading Disorder (DRD).

Looking at the language standards of Facebook posts and Twitter feeds, you would think dyslexia, despite affecting up to 10% of Singaporeans, is still relatively under-diagnosed here. Perhaps the rate would have been higher if spellcheck and Autocorrect were never invented. There’s also a chance that with the stigma removed and dyslexia being erroneously tied to genius like how bipolar mania has become a ‘fashionable’ disease, normal people who write undecipherable emails may abuse the ‘dyslexia’ label by claiming they are ‘dyslexic’ when they’re just TERRIBLE, LAZY spellers. I hope DAS never has to change their name to DRDAS.

In a 2007 interview with the New York Times, LKY mentioned that an unnamed grandson was dyslexic as well (without saying that he had it himself), further supporting the observation that it runs in families and is more common in boys than girls. No signs of it in PM Lee so far, though he has the occasional lapse in mistaking one hawker food for another.

I’ve got one grandson gone to MIT. Another grandson had been in the American school here. Because he was dyslexic and we then didn’t have the teachers to teach him how to overcome or cope with his dyslexia, so he was given exemption to go to the American school. He speaks like an American. He’s going to Wharton.

It was Lee Wei Ling herself who revealed to the media that her daddy suffered from ‘mild dyslexia’ in 1996 (SM Lee has mild dyslexia, says daughter who’s dyslexic, 18 Jan 1996, ST), just like how she told the whole world last year he had peripheral neuropathy. Still, dyslexia didn’t seem to stop the elder statesman from publishing bestselling autobiographies showing a strong command of the written word, though I doubt he said anything about the disorder in ‘Hard Truths’. In the HongKong Journal of Paediatrics 2005, LKY was cited as a case study of highly successful dyslexics, where he submitted himself to testing only when he realised that ‘he couldn’t read fast without missing important items’. Proceeds from sales of a CD-ROM of his life were donated to the DAS (You can still buy it from e-bay but not sure where the money goes now). LKY’s affliction is proof that some dyslexic individuals not only function just as well as their ‘normal’ peers in society, but far exceed their abilities in all other aspects. The list include visionaries like Richard Branson and Albert Einstein, famed Scientologist actor Tom Cruise, Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney, light bulb inventor Thomas Edison and internet sensation ‘Dog Bless You’ Dr Jia Jia.

And how could I forget Derek Zoolander and Homer Simpson.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Kids, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Lee Wei Ling and the elastic band on her father’s shorts

Posted on August 5, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘At Oxley Road, we value the frugal life’, 5 Aug 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times.

I grew up in a middle-class family. Though they were well-off, my parents trained my brothers and me to be frugal from young. We had to turn off water taps completely. If my parents found a dripping tap, we would get a ticking off. And when we left a room, we had to switch off lights and air-conditioners.

My father’s frugality extends beyond lights and air-conditioners. When he travelled abroad, he would wash his own underwear, or my mother did so when she was alive. He would complain that the cost of laundry at five-star hotels was so high he could buy new underwear for the price of the laundry service.

One day in 2003, the elastic band on my father’s old running shorts gave way. My mother had mended that pair of shorts many times before, so my father asked her to change the band. But my mother had just had a stroke and her vision was impaired. So she told my father: “If you want me to prove my love for you, I will try.” I quickly intervened to say: “My secretary’s mother can sew very well. I will ask her to do it.”

My parents and I prefer things we are used to. For instance, the house we have lived in all my life is more than 100 years old. When we first employed a contractor-cum-housekeeper, Mr Teow Seng Hua, more than 10 years ago, he asked me: “Your father has worked so hard for so many years. Why doesn’t he enjoy some luxuries?” I explained we were perfectly comfortable with our old house and our old furniture. Luxury is not a priority.

..All the bathrooms in our house have mosaic tiles. It is more practical than marble which can be slippery if wet. But it is now difficult to buy mosaic in Singapore. So again, Mr Teow bought mosaic tiles from Malaysia to keep in reserve in case some of our current tiles broke or were chipped.

…Frugality is a virtue that my parents inculcated in me. In addition to their influence, I try to lead a simple life partly because I have adopted some Buddhist practices and partly because I want to be able to live simply if for some reason I lose all that I have one day.

I’m not sure if Wei Ling’s father would appreciate information on his undergarments or elastic bands being leaked this way, but there’s a fine line between being ‘frugal’ or ‘thrifty’ and, well, simply being a ‘stingy poker’. This isn’t the first time that Lee is harping on about how she wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury. In 2009, she emphasised that life ‘wasn’t a bed of roses’, and more recently she waxed lyrical about the joys of sleeping on a cold hard floor. But there are inevitably a few things missing from this account as to how the Lee’s Oxley fort was being run. For example, she didn’t say anything about the ‘maids’ (plural) in the house, as divulged in an eulogy by a Lee relative at Mdm Kwa Geok Choo’s funeral. Granddaughter Li Xiuqi had this to say about the late matriarch:

Before stroke, she was a power woman. She ran the Oxley road household like a tight ship. She paid the maids, bought the fish, quality-checked the cooking, and peeled my grandfather’s fruit and packed his suitcase.

So now we know who peels LKY’s oranges. According to Xiuqi, the Lee family never installed a shower in their bathroom until the matriarch got her stroke, using the ‘old fashioned’ method of scooping from a tub of water. Grandson Li Shengwu talked about how ‘Nai Nai’ provided a ‘well-stocked’ bookshelf next to the children’s table instead of a TV. I suspect there’s not a single TV in the entire Oxley residence. Just look at the basement dining room of 38 Oxley Road below, the WOMB of the PAP. It looks more like an old conference room than anything else (and it was, in fact, the makeshift HQ for the inaugural PAP meeting in 1954). It looks like nothing’s changed since then. Geez, there’s not even a sofa in sight.

The coziest corner in 38 Oxley Road

There is a lingering refrain to use the word ‘BUNGALOW’ in Wei Ling’s trip down memory lane. Someone from the Remembersingapore blog put up a rare exterior shot of 38 Oxley Road. No guard dogs in sight. In 1965, a Malaysian visitor was surprised to discover that LKY stayed in a ‘modern, wooden house’.   Well if the picture below comes across as a humble shack, then what are the rest of we living in? Damp cardboard boxes?

House of the Rising Son

Wei Ling also failed to mention how her house is constantly guarded by Gurkhas like a fortress. In 1972, additional road humps were ordered to be placed for ‘safety reasons’ outside the Oxley house, in addition to convex mirrors a year earlier to give Gurkhas a better view of the road, in case anyone decides to speed dangerously and try anything funny. Security is so tight (like LKY’s elastic bands) that you could get arrested for shouting outside.  Such paranoia is understandable though, especially if you have people who fling bricks at your compound (Brick thrower fined $1000, 8 March 1991, ST). There are some creepy going-ons too surrounding the house. In 1964, a policeman was found mysteriously shot in an unoccupied house which stood ‘back to back’ with the Oxley one. But I doubt the belt-tightening Lees believe in spending money on ghostbusters.

LKY also talked, in typically unsentimental fashion, about demolishing the house when he’s dead and gone. This ‘big, rambling house with five bedrooms’ was also built by a ‘Jewish merchant’ more than a century ago. I wonder if his name happened to be Shylock. You can also forget about using Google street view to see what the birthplace of our government looks like, and none of the Lee kids seem interested, or ALLOWED, to post pics of it on Instagram. The virtue of ‘frugality’ within the Lee family may have been stretched to the point of ‘cheapskate’ depending on whose side you’re on, if you’d recall the 1990′s saga whereby the Lee father and son bought condominiums at Nassim Jade and Scotts 28, at DISCOUNTED prices. In 1996, both promptly donated their property discounts to charity (SM, BG Lee donate discounts on property buys to charity, 4 June 1996, ST). How thoughtful.

So, unlike the cosy, obsessive-compulsively spartan image of Oxley Road painted here by Wei Ling, the reality is that this place started out as a secret hideout and remains a secretive, gilded stronghold till today, and one is left only to the imagination as to how many rings of barbed wire, buff Gurkhas with guns, saber-toothed guard dogs and CCTVs surround this building, keeping vigil over the premises like it were an ivory castle in a princess fable. It goes without saying that in spite of Lee’s rose-tinted humility, she was well taken of, never had to beg for food in her life, had an excellent education, and lives in a house 99% of us can never afford. It’s like a queen telling her subjects how she had to eat food with her bare hands because she wanted to spare her servants the arduous task of washing utensils. Yet she’ll ALWAYS have food on the table. This is like a monk preaching out of a window in his temple without noticing the sharks swimming in the moat around his abode, blind to the corpses of peasants who so much as dared to fish from his waters because they had nothing else to eat.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2012, Architecture, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Feng Tianwei cannot compare to Tan Howe Liang

Posted on August 4, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Foreign sports talent..There’s a difference’, 4 Aug 2012, ST Forum

(Tan Boon Keng): THERE is a difference between Singaporeans who were born and raised here and those who were recruited to win medals for the country (“Simply Feng-tastic” by Mrs Eunice Ang-Choo Sok Ee; yesterday). While paddler Feng Tianwei is a Singaporean who made history by winning the country its first individual Olympic medal in more than 50 years, she is unlike the first Olympic medallist, weightlifter Tan Howe Liang, who was a home-grown sportsman.

Mrs Ang-Choo’s remark that she, too, is a foreign import by virtue of her heritage is puzzling because she was born here. My grandparents arrived from China, but I do not consider myself an import, because I was born in Singapore. Certainly, I shall feel proud if Feng’s children win medals for Singapore, provided they are born here.

As a former Chinese citizen, Feng can opt to return to China. For us, Singapore is home.

Tan Howe Liang’s skimpy leotard. In 50 years maybe we’ll see Feng Tianwei’s legendary bat. From KeropokMan’s blog.

As long as there are immigrants in our Olympic squads, there will always be people making comparisons to ‘home-grown’ Tan Howe Liang (He was actually born in Swatow China and came to Singapore when he was 4 years old). You can argue all day about what exactly makes one Singaporean enough for one to be fully satisfied with the victory, and even if Feng could cram a user manual on all things Singaporean and recite the pledge in all 4 languages, she still wouldn’t hold a candle to our much lauded Silver Olympiad because, according to the writer, she just wasn’t here long enough. Even if Feng continues to participate in ping pong until she’s 70, there will be critics who’ll continue to go ‘Meh’ at her well-deserved Bronze award. It’s also easy to forget that during Tan’s time, hardly anyone of us were true-blue Singaporeans in the first place.

Tan Howe Liang didn’t just win ONE silver medal and called it a day. He accomplished it despite cramping in the legs, and walked out a hero without a SINGLE CENT. He was a world record breaker, once hailed as the BEST at his weight in ASIA and made it into the GUINNESS BOOK of Olympic records in 1972. That is why Feng (now $250,000 richer) and her gang can’t compare to Howe Liang, not because they’re not ‘localised’ enough, but Tan is probably the greatest athlete Singapore has ever produced, or will ever have. Like Feng, Tan had his share of critics too, that he wasn’t the humble boy from Chinatown as everyone thought he was. His post-medal refusal to participate in the Rangoon SEA games trials got him labelled as a ‘prima donna’ and a ‘spoiled child’.  Still, it’s easy to heap praise and remember Tan’s sporting achievements fondly, or make him a flag bearer and curate his photos and stories in the National Archives, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t FORGOTTEN as a person.

In the 80′s, Howe Liang was appointed national coach for the SEA games, but suffered from a lack of participation in the event. I thought any professional athlete who has spent his entire life mastering a single sport could slide easily into a coaching post, like what paddler Jin Junhong and Ang Peng Siong have, but apparently not in the case of a niche and severely gruelling sport like weightlifting. According to a Today letter writer, Tan also spent some of his post-glory years as a CARETAKER in the National Stadium (More likely he was a gym instructor i.e glorified caretaker. A ST headline in 1982 reads ‘Olympic hero PERFECT for gym job’ 4 Nov 1982). He was last reported to be earning his keep as a gym supervisor at the Singapore Sports Council, struggling to pay medical bills for his cancer-stricken wife, a little known fact overshadowed by his past Olympic success. Ironically, if it weren’t for our foreign-talent paddlers and reporters, few would have heard of Tan at all, and it seems like it was only in the mid 2000′s when somebody, in the midst of the Olympic ping pong glitz, suddenly remembered ‘Hey, didn’t we have whats-his-name win a Silver medal in 1960?!’ Which is all the more inexcusable because we’ve only ever had ONE guy winning at the Olympics. I have to admit I had trouble recalling his name myself during a recent argument with a friend about Singapore’s Olympic history.

In a Today piece, Tan had this to say about his so-called Olympic fame:

..The problem is Singapore sport. After you represent your country, they will CHUCK you to one side. Who will remember you? At least I’m lucky. Some people still remember me.

Instead of being made to languish as a convenient afterthought in obligatory tributes to local sportsmen or as a standard trivia question on a game show like We Are Singaporeans, more should be done not just to TELL the story of Tan’s ascent and quick decline, but to make sure that our legends continue to contribute by fulfilling the dreams of subsequent generations of sportsmen, like how they have fulfilled the entire nation’s during their glory days. The story of Tan Howe Liang is the story of Singapore’s sporting dilemma, where the quest for excellence and the pursuit of passion at the expense of academic success gives one diminishing returns. That the worst thing that could happen to any committed sportsman here is to get a debilitating injury, or RETIRE. That the fact you’ll be the only benchmark against which all other local sportsmen will be compared is proof of how popular sports is as a career choice. That winning an Olympic medal is like the brutal curse that is the Best Actor/Actress award at the Oscars. It goes all downhill from there.

Tan’s recognition is long overdue. And yet here we have people swooning over expat billionaries or praising a disgraced pastor in music videos. There is no God.

Filed under: 1960s, 1980s, 2000s, 2011, 2012, Foreign workers, Sports | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

The silencing of the Boars

Posted on June 11, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Crossbows to cull wild boar’, 11 June 2012, article by Feng Zeng Kun, ST

KILLING wild boar with bows and arrows may sound primitive, but the National Parks Board (NParks) is considering the method to curb the animal population. The Straits Times has learnt that the agency met animal welfare groups last month to discuss using powerful crossbows against the animals.

It told the groups that the silence of the bows would avoid alerting the animals, which travel in groups. In trained hands, a single bolt could also kill a boar instantly.

…The Straits Times understands that most of the groups did not favour the method and considered it inhumane. The agency said it would enlist the help of trained archers to do the job, should it decide to go with this culling method.

…Mr Louis Ng, executive director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), says NParks could sterilise the animals instead. ‘Culling doesn’t work because the animals breed every year. You would have to cull them every year’ …’Put up fences. Wild boar are big and powerful, but they can’t jump,’ he said.

Pork-eye

Boar hunts have been documented in Singapore as early as the late 1870s, where white men with a pack of dogs chased these beasts around the Bukit Timah area with a shotgun, occasionally finding a boa constrictor getting to the prize first. Locals stalked boars with guns even up till the late fifties, and anyone who happened to be plucking leaves in the forest may find himself at the wrong end of a buck shot after being mistaken for a pig. In 1957, a wild boar hunter was charged for murder for firing at and killing a certain Abdul Kareem. Today, you’re unlikely to get hit by bullets, but you may fall into a pit intended to snare these animals, or have your foot maimed in an illegal trap. Seems like the $1000 penalty for killing them isn’t severe enough to stop some Singaporeans from living out their Man vs Wild fantasies.

Only Theseus can slaughter this monster

But how much of a nuisance are these pigs? In the 60′s, boars were known to charge at and almost gore amorous couples at Macritchie Reservoir.  On Malaysia’s highways, a charging boar may cause fatal accidents, a freak scenario which is unlikely to happen here, though you can have other breeds of swine ramming themselves into innocent people on our roads. We don’t have crops for them to ravage, nor do they steal our grocery bags or scratch and bite like the monkeys do. They don’t shit all over our cars or air-con compressors, nor spread airborne diseases. For all intents and purposes, man and boar have been left pretty much to themselves.  More animals and humans have been injured by wannabe boar hunters than the tusked beasts. If there’s any wildlife that bugs the hell out of us it’s the damned birds, and before we hire Green Arrows, Legolases, Hawkeyes and Katnisses to do the dirty work for us, perhaps we should control our pesky mynahs, crows and pigeons first. Hell, maybe we don’t even need to pay hunters to trap boars at all; our road barriers can do a pretty decent job as it is.

It’s not funny if it’s your kid in it

One of the arguments cited for culling is that wild boars ‘trample and destroy the forest undergrowth’ (They destroy forests, 16 June 2012, ST Forum), especially since they have no known ‘natural predators’. Well, there’s another animal higher up in the food chain which no other being eats and destroys forests and old cemeteries for development at a faster rate than a bunch of seed-gobbling, soil-digging pigs. Us.

Even if the authorities eventually attempt to equilibrate whatever’s left of our ecosystem through controlled murder, I’m not sure about crossbows as a weapon of choice. Our ‘archers’ (most likely members of some sporting club because the army no longer plays Cowboys and Indians) may need just one shot to kill a pig in the quickest, most painless, squeal-less way possible, but you probably need an experienced poacher to tell the difference between a pig and a foraging human from a distance. A poorly judged snapped twig may make all the difference between an impaled hog, or a pierced stray dog. You need someone with the seasoned, pricked ears to tell the difference between a frightened porcine grunt and something more human.  If these sharpshooters don’t bring home the game, at least their very presence, or even the very thought of arrows flying all over the place,  would deter people from having sex in jungles.

Why not blowpipes loaded with tranquiliser darts, where at least there’s room for mistaken identity, after which you can proceed to make a proper meal out of the animal and feed the needy, or Wong Ah Yoke?

SOON

Postscript: A few weeks after this post, a boar reported charged at a CISCO officer (who hurt his hand in the ensuing escape) and a child (who wasn’t harmed) in Bishan Park, and Khaw Boon Wan, a self-declared staunch Buddhist, publicly supported the decision to ‘manage’ the wild boar population because ‘protecting our babies’ is more important. Maybe we should leave it to the real boar-killing professionals below.

Snakes in a Drain

Filed under: 1800s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 2012, Animal abuse, Environment, Pesky animals, Violence | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Policewoman-biting undergrad on probation

Posted on June 9, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Probation for undergrad who punched, bit, head-butted cops’, 9 June 2012, article in asiaone.com

The undergraduate who attacked four police officers after having too much to drink has been sentenced to 15 months of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. Natasha Wan Xue Wen, 24, pleaded guilty to using criminal force and abusive words on public servants, and behaving in disorderly manner. Wan is also required to stay at home from 11pm to 6am during her probation period. Her parents signed a $5,000 bond to ensure her good behaviour

….At about 4am on October 26 last year, two policemen saw a bouncer escorting Wan, her boyfriend Lim Zhao Ming, and another man out of Zouk. Mr Lim had a cut, and bloodstains on his shirt. The two officers asked if he had been assaulted, and if he needed medical treatment. Mr Lim shouted at the policemen, and Wan suddenly punched an officer in the face and began hurling vulgarities.

When two female police officers arrived to arrest Wan, she put up a struggle. On the way to the police station, Wan head-butted one of the female officers and bit the other on the wrist and hand. The officer who was bitten had to be warded in hospital for six days and given 13 days’ medical leave.

Other than slapping a mandatory curfew on Natasha, someone should consider making her wear a Hannibal Lecter iron face mask during the day as well. From the way she put a cop in hospital for 6 days with a single bite, it’s either this woman has razor-sharp werewolf fangs, rabies, or is a bloodthirsty immortal bride of Dracula. There are also inconsistencies in how stay-home hours are determined. Previous offenders have a 10 to 6 shut-out. That includes a cross dresser flasher doctor.  Natasha got a 1 hour discount for busting up a couple of cops. What gives?

The punishment dealt for sinking your teeth into public servant could be as lenient as a $500 FINE  in the past, although the law says voluntarily causing hurt may get you jailed up to SEVEN years, fined, caned or any combination of these punishments. In this case, Natasha was merely dealt a compulsory early bedtime, this in consideration that she not only tried to eat someone’s finger but HEAD-BUTTED another officer too. Contrast this with what happened in 1999, when a woman was sentenced to 4 MONTHS JAIL and fined $1000 for biting a female officer (Woman jailed for biting policewoman, 6 Aug 1999, ST). Perhaps the judge took her inebriated state into consideration, though one wonders what Natasha would have gotten if she had literally ‘bit off more than she could chew’ in her drunken kicking and screaming state, for instance the victim perished due to some unknown bloodborne contagion, if not a fatal blow to the head. Or if she had run over a cop in her stupor.

No body part of a cop is safe from gnashing teeth, be it  the shoulder ,  elbow  or thigh. Even a policewoman’s BREAST has been made a quick snack of before (Man who bit cop’s breast claims mistrial, 8 Nov 2006, ST).  In 2007, a ‘rowdy mom’ helped herself to a policeman’s CHEST (Rowdy mum fined for biting cop, 11 Oct 2007, ST). If you’re a known HIV-carrier, the charge for voluntarily causing hurt could be amended to ‘attempted murder’ if you bit an officer (Man who allegedly bit cop is a HIV-carrier, 23 July 1994, ST).Though it’s unlikely that this woman carries a transmissible, lethal virus in her saliva, there are other mental disorders to plead just to get a lighter sentence for putting police officers in hospital. Just ask Alex Ong for advice. Except that with a probation she doesn’t need one anymore.

 

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Nightspots, Police officers, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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