Sembawang Drive forest becoming a brothel at night

Posted on March 16, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Sembawang raid:Forest by day, brothel by night’, 16 March 2013, article by Wang TianJie, TNP

The dense forest along Sembawang Drive looked innocent enough in the day. But come nightfall, dozens of women allegedly offered paid sex in a makeshift brothel amid the trees. The brothel was discovered in the forested area along Sembawang Drive in the direction of Admiralty Road. It was about a kilometre away from Cochrane Lodge Two, a workers’ dormitory.

On Tuesday, at about 10pm, the illicit activities came to an abrupt end when police officers raided the brothel and arrested about 40 men and 10 women. The women, mostly clad in revealing tops and skimpy shorts, were led away to police cars. Several of the men were topless when arrested.

When reporters from Shin Min Daily News visited the scene on the same day, the grassy area where the arrests were made was in a state of disarray. The ground was littered with tissue paper, water bottles and open condom wrappers.

Tarpaulin sheets were hung up to create three small rooms in the makeshift brothel. Each “cubicle” was further divided into three to five sections of about four square metres each. Thin mattresses were laid on the sandy ground in each section.

Stories about illicit sex in the wild are a New Paper specialty. In 2009, a similar open-air brothel was raided somewhere in Woodlands, where the state of amenities made the Sembawang one look luxurious in comparison. Instead of mattresses, this brothel offered CARDBOARDS as makeshift beds. It was also set up in the Kwong Hou Sua CEMETERY. If kinky open-air sex among the dead is your kind of thing, then this was the place to be. A foreign worker who stumbled upon the site told the reporter that ‘his colleagues have been COMING (for the girls’ services) for the past two months. This guy was there to pluck durians. In the middle of the night. He could have killed someone if he ever dropped the King of Fruits into an occupied cubicle.

Another hotspot is Lim Chu Kang in 2008, where tents big enough to house 10 people were erected in forested areas less than 100m from the main road. In 2010, TNP again exposed a sex den in Yishun (again located near northern Singapore), where the pimp charged $20 for a ‘short time service’ lasting no longer than 10 minutes. That’s just $8 more than my 10 minute haircut at QB House. I wonder how much of that time is spent lighting mosquito coils or swiping red ants off of your groin. For a budget brothel, you can’t expect to be put in the mood for love. No frollicking among daisies and lavender, nor blankets to cuddle in. You only have the stars above and a disgusting sheet separating your naked body from the soil and worms below. Time is of the essence, even if it feels like sex on a bed of nails.

Forest whoopie

Our foreign workers don’t mind such no-frills prostitution, of course. A 2008 survey found that an astonishing 50% of Thai construction workers visited Geylang while 10% went for the budget alternative. To many who frequent such places, sex is a treat after a hard day of physical labour, even if it means cheating on your wife back home. But getting caught with your pants down in the bushes on your off day is a small matter compared to other more serious social issues involving foreign workers caught in sexual relationships. Like murder for instance.  Perhaps it’s about time the ST sent their reporters into the woods for a change, instead of TNP having a field day with such vice raids all the time.

With more green spaces and cemeteries being squeezed out, forest brothels may become a thing of the past. There’s a chance our foreign workers may flock in even higher numbers to various beaches gawking at women in bikinis, while the rest consider their options with our red light districts where one can indulge with at least a roof over their heads. But why risk dengue romping in the woods off Lim Chu Kang road, or upsetting spirits by leaving bodily fluids all over their graves? If one is having sex by the barest of moonlight, you might as well hump a lubricated tree trunk with a hole in it for free. Just make sure you check for termites first.

If MOM doesn’t do something to keep our foreign workers entertained beyond carnal pleasures, even our locals’ favourite sex haunts, the carparks, the stairwells, the gazebo in the park, may be overrun with condoms, used tissue and army groundsheets in no time (There’s still hope for Beach Road army shops). I also realise there is a candidate for worst job in the world: Picking up this filthy mess at forest brothels after a raid. But I suppose you’d only get a foreign worker to do that sort of thing, wouldn’t you?

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Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Foreign workers, Sex | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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 »

Nursing a low skilled job hard to offshore

Posted on February 8, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ DPM Teo issues correction to Footnote in Population White Paper’, 8 Feb 2013, article in Today online

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean today issued a corrigendum to the Population White Paper in Parliament to delete a segment of a footnote that classified nursing as a low-skilled job. Mr Teo said, in the Notice of Corrigendum, that he intends to delete the part of Footnote 12 on Page 40 of the White Paper, which said: “Certain low-skilled jobs like personal services, retail, and nursing are hard to offshore. They will still be needed even as the economy upgrades.”

“This classification of low-skilled jobs is not correct. I would like to apologise to those whose professions have been unintentionally misrepresented,” said Mr Teo. He said he was alerted to the matter by “our friends in the nursing profession and unions”.

Adding that he has the “greatest respect” for the nursing profession, the DPM said it is a “noble and caring profession, which all of us and our loved ones depend on and appreciate”.

A ‘corrigendum’ is a fancy term for a ‘correction’, as in ‘Notice of Correction’ according to the White Paper website. It’s the kind of word you use to lessen the impact of a terrible mistake in Scripture, like saying that God made the world in 5 days instead of 6, although it sounds like an unused part of the large intestine. Having a longer word to substitute ‘error’ doesn’t make it any less heinous. It’s like the Emeritus of ‘sorry’.

The footnote now reads: ‘….slower growth in low skilled (e.g caring and cleaning) jobs’. I’m not sure if that was adequately ‘corrigendummed’. Anyone in the business of ‘caring and cleaning’, like a social worker in a hospice for example, would resent being labelled as ‘low skilled’. ‘Skill’ traditionally refers to how one performs a task with his hands. If we still lived in villages, the resident blacksmith would have been among the most ‘skilled’ of the lot. Today, a manager could be described as ‘highly skilled’ without having the slightest clue of how to forward or bcc emails. The difference is that one bangs a hammer to create fine artisan craft. The other bangs tables and chairs to frighten people into doing his bidding.

Changing diapers as social workers/babysitters/caregivers do for a living seems like an example of a proper skill to me, but perhaps all this boils down to a fundamental problem of semantics. We have low-skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, a form of categorisation which replaced the blue-white collar distinction. How have the various scales of skill been defined, if at all? Am I unskilled if my ONLY task is to load and unload wheelbarrows with bricks and move them from one place to another? What if I’m a doorman at a really posh hotel whose only job is to open and close doors for guests? And why protest over nursing only, what about ‘retail’ and this ambiguous ‘PERSONAL SERVICES’? Is this a euphemism for PROSTITUTION? Patrons of sex workers would argue that some of their ‘service providers’ are more ‘skilled’ than their own wives.

And since when did OFFSHORE become a verb? Is this appropriate language for a Population policy paper, or was it edited by a business guru? Are we sending our low skilled workers to the Maldives? As expected, there were no names listed as to who authored or edited the White Paper, just a list of anonymous scribes from various ministries and government bodies who contributed to its publication under the ‘Acknowledgements’ page (like the Bible, perhaps). Among them was the Ministry of Manpower, who could be behind the footnote fiasco being the authority on labour. I wonder what level of skilled workers they got to write this rubbish.

But I don’t want to speculate. Corrigendums seem like hard work. I may have to OFFSHORE my corrective actions to another party.

Filed under: 2013, Bureaucrats, Foreign workers, It Should Have Been.., Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Dual citizenship is like polygamy

Posted on February 4, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ’4 in 10 S’poreans married foreigners in 2012′ 4 Feb 2013, article by Ashley Chia, Today

Last year, 9,000 marriages registered in Singapore — or about four in 10 — involved a Singaporean and a non-Singaporean. That figure has held steady for the past five years. In the White Paper on population released yesterday, the Government said that Singapore’s immigration policy “must also take into account” this growing proportion, including children born to Singaporean citizens overseas.

Analysts whom TODAY spoke to said that if this trend continues, it may prompt policymakers to reconsider dual citizenship, although they stressed that changing the law is not the only way to encourage this group to “sink in their roots”. Sociologist and former Nominated Member of Parliament Paulin Straughan, a staunch advocate of dual citizenship, called for more measures such as courting and engaging children below 21 born overseas and who carry dual citizenship, to make them feel that Singapore is their home.

“Many of them have already been educated here … allow them to sink in their roots, build their careers without fear that they have to give up their Singapore citizenship,” urged Associate Professor Straughan, adding that the ones who stay would “contribute meaningfully” to Singapore society.

It’s no surprise that Dr Straughan is a strong advocate of dual citizenship. Married to an American maths lecturer PR, she has 2 sons who are holding two passports until they have to forsake one by the time they’re 21 (Home in Singapore, heart in homeland, 4 Feb, ST). When ST’s favourite sociologist was interviewed, she said:

“How does it make sense to lose a Singaporean child who has grown up here, while giving citizenship to newcomers? We should not be too dogmatic and rigid in the way we perceive the responsibilities of a citizen.”

She has a point, but she also has a vested interest in the revision of our citizenship laws. Loyalty and our being a relatively ‘young and inexperienced’ nation is often cited as a reason why you can’t hold two passports. There still remains a fear of such people running away in the event of crises, or refusing to come back from their second home to do battle or contribute to society once we’ve given them the option of a second home. Some have compared dual nationality to polygamy where you have to divide your attention between two wives. If that’s the case, then Singapore is a damn needy wife indeed.

Another renown individual with a stake in dual citizenship is our very own Minister Yaacob Ibrahim, who has a boy who’s both US citizen and Singaporean. According to Daddy in 2011, he will serve the army, which should be some time this year. Only time will tell what will become of him after that, though it’s not enduring the 2 years  that would be the key factor in determining which passport to toss aside, it’s the RESERVIST training thereafter. But maybe it’s not just the foreigners and their kids who we should worry about. How about those 1200 Singaporeans ‘divorcing’ their country annually? There’s also the argument from ‘muddled identity’ if you have two nationalities. Erm, with only 55% of the country consisting of Singaporean citizens by 2030 according to the White Paper, as it is…WHAT IDENTITY?

If we’re so sticky about having foreigners with their hearts in two places commit to swearing their unconditional love and allegiance to Singapore, then why are we giving our passport away so freely to people who have yet to prove they are willing to stay in the first place? Like our China-born athletes for example, some of whom have already disappeared without a trace, taking our passport along with them. What about Jet Li? Shouldn’t he have set up some kungfu dojo in Singapore by now? In 2008, Vivian Balakrishnan pooh-poohed the dual citizenship issue by saying that being Singaporean is an ‘conscious, active choice’ and that he ‘cannot give it away freely, like a FREE GIFT in a CORNFLAKE BOX’. Well, I don’t know about ‘free’; Olympic medals must be worth something, no? The argument from ‘split loyalties’ is shaky, at best.

When the laws were first implemented in the 1960s by Minister of Home Affairs Ong Pang Boon, the intention was to ‘debar those who sought to obtain citizenship for reasons of convenience or expediency, hoping to enjoy the BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.’ Which suggests that there should be some form of selection process here other than the blanket ban that it is today, though I can’t imagine anyone keeping two passports other than, well, maximising the benefits of both. Like having a wife who controls the house finances on a tight leash on one hand, and one who’s fantastic in bed on the other.

In the ‘spirit’ of the law, I think a case-by-case system needs to be considered to assess the likelihood of a foreigner staying and making themselves useful. A mother from a war-ravaged country married to a Singaporean with a comfortable job, for example, is likely to make Singapore her permanent home though she may prefer to be bonded to her motherland emotionally. A 36 year old Briton who has never carried a weapon or charged through muddy forest in his life, will not leap into the line of enemy fire just because he’s granted a Singaporean citizenship. In fact, I doubt most born and bred Singaporean men, even those fit and agile ones, will die for the country, dual citizenship or not. Some foreigners may also feel insecure if they converted 100%, partly because of the cold or awkward reception given by local residents towards Singaporean ‘ang mos’. I mean, would you as a Chinese Singaporean renounce your citizenship to be a Papua New Guinean for example? Don’t you want something to hang on to when you’re bombarded with funny stares every single day? Others may wish to retain their belonging to a glorious heritage, a proud and mighty homeland with centuries’ worth of scientific and cultural advancement. As a country that places so much emphasis on sinking roots, surely we should empathise if people find it hard to tear away from their homes. Who wouldn’t want to retain some ‘French-ness’ about them? Well not actor Gerard Depardieu I suppose.

I wonder what Eduardo Saverin, Facebook billionaire thinks of the idea. Maybe if he’s game for dual citizenship (Singaporean, Brazilian), our laws may just change overnight.

Filed under: 2013, Foreign workers, Justice system/Lawsuits, PRCs | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Li Jiawei returning to China after retirement

Posted on January 1, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Li Jiawei’s departure a loss to Singapore’, 1 Jan 2013, ST Forum

(Christopher Chong): IT WAS disappointing to learn that former world table tennis champion Li Jiawei (right), who came to Singapore on the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme, will be returning to China (“Hard for Li to say goodbye”; last Friday).

Singapore is losing someone who has had an impressive list of contributions and achievements; someone who has won countless medals for us and earned an estimated $1.27 million from the Multi-Million Dollar Award Programme.

I am disappointed also because her departure lends support to those who doubt the long-term commitment of our foreign-born athletes: Will they return to their countries of origin after they are done with their sporting careers here?

Singapore should not be seen as “buying” success – fast-tracking citizenship for our foreign-born athletes, only for them to return to their countries of origin when they can no longer win medals for us. While Li has indicated that she will continue contributing to Singapore, it is unclear if she intends to remain a Singapore citizen, and whether her family will move here in future.

As a Singaporean, my wish for the new year – and the years ahead – is not to lose any more talented citizens.

Li Jiawei’s not the first foreign-born athlete to return to her homeland after a sporting stint here. Another naturalised player and former compatriot Zhang Xueling quit the game after just 7 years as a Singaporean, moving to Beijing to join her Chinese husband only to endure his sudden and tragic demise. In the interview, Zhang had initially wanted to settle down in her adopted country, but things ‘didn’t go as planned’. In 2008, another top shuttler and Singaporean Li Li resigned abruptly and returned to Wuhan to spend CNY with her parents, citing ‘personal reasons’ and ‘fatigue’. Fellow shuttlers Zhang Beiwen and Gu Juan followed suit barely a YEAR after being granted citizenship. None of those who departed have been seen or heard since. I doubt they can even get past the first line of Majulah Singapura.

It’s probably the same ‘change of plans’ with Jiawei here, for whatever personal reasons that she decided to move back to China. Many would recall her high-profile turbulent relationship with ex-fiance Ronald Susilo, and her similarly public marriage to a Chinese businessman right up to her pregnancy and birth of her Singaporean boy. Who knows, if Ronald and Jiawei had worked out and stayed for good, critics wouldn’t be howling ‘I told you so!’ at the STTA right after the her retirement announcement. Some may have noticed her slow creep back to the motherland when she took part in the China Super Table Tennis League playing for BEIJING University. Now, there’s the possibility of us not just losing another Singaporean athlete, but her progeny as well. I don’t hear ESM Goh Chok Tong coming out to chastise those who pack their bags before even learning how to construct a proper sentence in English as ‘quitters’.

Along with Sun Bei Bei, who also decided to quit table tennis, Jiawei, Li Li and Xueling were all part of the $7 million Project 0812 funding program, which unashamedly declares that its mission was to win medals and national glory for Singapore. The program also involves converting star players into Singaporeans as soon as possible to qualify for international tournaments. If they had arrived as nobodies playing for domestic clubs and left as millionaire Chinese nationals we wouldn’t have bothered, but these girls left their hard-earned fans as Singaporeans and have given critics all the more reason to call them out for treachery, treating the citizenship as a mere feather in their cap and using the Olympic opportunity as a stepping stone to loftier ambitions that have nothing to do with Singapore. But what else can they do if they had chosen to remain after retiring from professional sports? Just look at happened to our original silver medallist Tan Howe Liang. Maybe our ex-National Players were just looking out for their own given the uncertain, limited future of sports professionals here.

I would question why so much effort and money is splurged on nurturing foreign sports talent at the risk of losing them, and whether the pursuit of Olympic success is worth dispensing citizenship like candy from a vending machine. With many Singaporeans giving our China-born sportsmen a less than lukewarm reception, you should expect them to be a little ‘homesick’ given the cold treatment. Maybe we were a bit too hasty in christening our paddlers as our own, or overestimated our reputation as a ‘promised land’ for sporting achievement. With Wang Yuegu also retiring from competitive sport, maybe it’s time to close this obsessive chapter on Singapore table tennis and focus on other talents. Let’s hope Feng Tianwei makes good of her stay, finds a decent Singaporean man for once (instead of a Chinese tycoon) and settle down. Meanwhile I’m still waiting for a sighting of fellow Singaporean Jet Li here. No one I know was particularly excited that we had a Singaporean starring alongside the biggest action stars on the planet in The Expendables 2. I’m sure many of us still think he’s either from Hong Kong or China (Like Jiawei he’s also from Beijing)

Filed under: 2013, Foreign workers, PRCs, Sports | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Kallang literally means ‘colder’ in Chinese

Posted on December 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Keep it in English or all four languages’, 7 Dec 2012, ST Forum, and ‘Chinese tourists need Mandarin station names’, 3 Dec 2012, Voices, Today.

(Kimberly Lim): I BECAME aware of the Mandarin in-train MRT service announcements on Monday. I have reservations against this for two reasons. First, it gives the impression that Mandarin takes precedent over the other official languages.

Second, the translation appears to have been a hasty job. For example, “Kallang” is translated literally to mean “colder”. Translating the name to one that sounds similar to a station’s English name would make it easier for commuters to identify the stations, but it would risk ridicule among Mandarin-speaking foreigners.

SMRT should make such announcements in English only or use all four official languages.

(Elaine Luo): …Recently, two Chinese tourists asked me for directions to “Duo mei ge” station, referring to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. When I said that they must take a train to City Hall MRT station and transfer to the North-South line, they gave me a blank look.

I did not know at the time how to translate “City Hall” into Mandarin. Granted, they could have used the brochures and asked for directions using the station numbers instead, but they were tourists trying to navigate their way around a new place. They probably thought that Chinese-Singaporeans would be able to assist them with the translation. However, we in Singapore are so accustomed to using English that many of us do not see the need to know the station names in another language.

I believe that most Indonesian tourists here, even if they have difficulty understanding English, are probably better able to read and pronounce the station names, as Bahasa and English use the same alphabet. This is not the case for the Chinese language. English and Mandarin words are dissimilar and translating the words may be more of a necessity.

Chinese station names have been confusing and tickling Chinese-speaking Singaporeans for years, although they were intended to aid the elderly according to a recent SMRT explanation. Commuters in the past have complained that the translations never made sense, whether it’s Somerset’s ‘Rope Beauty Stuffing’, Buona Vista’s meaningless and hyper-syllabic phonetic translation, or the confusion between Woodlands and Woodleigh. But even without additional languages, the selection of English names alone can be bewildering to many.

Take Farrer Road and Farrer Park. I was once asked by a stranger if the Circle Line went to Farrer Road, and had to double-check because at the back of my mind I knew there was a Farrer PARK served by NEL. So even if I had bothered to memorise every station name in Chinese, chances are I could have still sent a tourist on a wild goose chase. Imagine if I had to recall what Farrer Park was in Chinese, differentiate it from the other Farrer station, before giving the right answer. If a Chinese tourist asked me if I knew how to get to ‘Hai Jun Bu’ (Admiralty), I’d give a blank stare too, and wonder what someone from China would want with our Navy headquarters.

Thank God I’d only need to describe the Circle Line as ‘Orange Line’, rather than ‘Yuan Quan (圆圈) Line’ (some would argue it’s not even in a loop). Then again, even SMRT can mess up the colour coding sometimes. First conceived in the eighties, colour coding was meant for the ‘less-educated’. Today, if SMRT went ahead to approve the use of all 4 official languages, they may apply to EVERYONE. Also, you’d have people complaining about announcements being too noisy, or zealous Good Samaritans accusing SMRT of not doing enough for the deaf, blind, colour-blind, dyslexics or people inflicted with a neurological disease where they can only read words backwards and not forwards.

It took SMRT more than 20 years to decide on Mandarin station announcements. In 1985, the MRT Corporation was blasted by the public for using only English station signs. Four years later, there were calls to include Mandarin announcements to ‘familiarise commuters with station names in Mandarin’, as well as cater to China and Taiwan tourists. 20 years would have been more than enough time to figure out if Mandarin announcements were really necessary, whether the elderly prefer to say ‘Buona Vista’ instead of the mouthful ‘Bo Na Wei Si Da’. And yet, critics today continue to hound SMRT despite them responding to customer feedback from the eighties, some arguing that it’s unfair to single out Chinese among the other languages, others ranting about the pandering to PRCs, or those suddenly realising that some of the Chinese translations are nonsensical when they have been there all along.

Sure you can’t please everyone, but at least attempt to convince us that spending money on voiceovers actually  makes a difference rather than tarring the elderly and uneducated with the same brush. Just don’t let this be another excuse for ‘fare adjustments’.  Wait, they have the China worker strikes for that already.

Filed under: 1980s, 2012, Foreign workers, It Should Have Been.., Money, MRT, Names, Noise, PRCs, Public works, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

50,000 Singaporeans living in Australia

Posted on October 14, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ’200,000 Singaporeans living abroad’, article by Theresa Tan, 14 Oct 2012, Sunday Times.

The number of Singaporeans living abroad has risen sharply over the past decade, with Australia, Britain, the United States and China being their main destinations. There were 200,000 citizens overseas as of June – a 27 per cent increase from 157,100 in 2003.

Most are between 20 and 54 years old, with slightly more women than men, stated the Population in Brief 2012 report published by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) last month. The figures refer to citizens with a registered foreign address or those who have been away for a cumulative period of at least six months in the past year.

…Economists interviewed said Singapore’s brain drain is more a social and political problem, rather than an economic one, as the outflow of local expertise is matched by an inflow of foreigners, so the country is not short of skilled manpower.

…The countries with the biggest number of Singaporeans are Australia (with about 50,000), Britain (about 40,000) and the US (about 27,000). China is catching up with about 20,000 Singaporeans, The Sunday Times understands.

Absolute numbers aside, there are other worrying signs about Singaporeans packing their bags and leaving for ‘greener pastures’. Of those who are still here, 56% (of 2000 Singaporeans) in a recent poll ‘would like to migrate’ if given a choice, and could be among workers with the highest rate of BURNOUT in the region. A section of the Population in Brief report unveils a disturbing trend other than a ‘brain drain’; if this rate of Singaporeans leaving remains constant while our birth rate declines, the ‘born and bred’ Singaporean may become an endangered species.

Based on the above, in 2011-2012 alone, about 8000 of us left Singapore. In the same period, more than 40,000 non-Singaporeans were granted PRs or citizenship. That is, for every Singaporean who leaves, 5 times more foreigners are here to stay. The outflow of expertise is most definitely not ‘MATCHED’ by foreigner inflow. It is like a football coach replacing a player with half a team of imports, without having a clue as to whether his team can gel together after topping up his squad. It is exactly this treatment of the census as a numbers game that perhaps makes those abroad wonder if they’re missed at all, or just mere statistics in business-as-usual population management.

If you look at the age demographic of overseas Singaporeans, they peak at 20-24, and then rise steadily from 30, hitting the highest number at 45-49. Which suggests that we are longer looking at people just RETIRING to a villa by the seaside anymore, where they can sit swirling a glass of Shiraz watching their grandchildren play in the garden instead of attending tuition. These are either young upstarts or adults in the prime of their lives. We also have about 10,000 Singaporeans who may be born here but are wouldn’t have the slightest memory of ‘home’ when they grow up anywhere but.

Of the young and, more regrettably for our birth rate, FERTILE, people leaving the country, there are significantly more females than males settling down elsewhere, especially in the 15-34 years group. It would be interesting to see how many of these are married, or living, with foreign spouses. For some women, it’s not just the Singaporean lifestyle that is a turn-off, but maybe the MEN are not worth returning home for either. The higher proportion of males in the 40-85 group suggests that men leave to further career prospects, raise a family or just kick back and relax without having to worry about taking part-time jobs clearing trays in food courts because his fellow Singaporeans are too damned lazy to clean up after themselves.

Interestingly, more people appear to be moving to China, or ‘returning to the Motherland’, a trend observed among Singaporean expats since 2008.  One can safely assume that means at least 20,000 CHINESE Singaporeans are not here with us as we speak (despite lack of ethnic data in other ‘second homes’). No worries, we have at least a million PRCs to more than compensate for the racial quota.

Yet, the above numbers could well be an underestimate. The World Bank cites the number of overseas Singaporeans as 300,000. In 2010. Of ‘skilled emigration’ in 2000, 15% of our tertiary educated population, and 15% of locally trained physicians bid Adieu. There have also been reports of ‘several Singaporeans’ gone MISSING while overseas. It didn’t help that in 2002, just before this surge in Singaporeans departing, then PM Goh Chok Tong implied that those who left or intend to leave are weak, cowardly, disloyal and fickle:

Has the younger generation of Singaporeans gone soft? Look in the mirror and ask ‘Am I a stayer or a quitter’? Am I a fair-weather Singaporean of an all-weather Singaporean’….Which country will they run off to next when bus fares go up in Australia?

Well, it looks like those ‘quitters’ are ‘staying’ in Australia still regardless of bus fares. But what’s so appealing about what Lee Kuan Yew once dubbed ‘The poor white trash of Asia’?  How about the fact that you could own a massive house, complete with swimming pool, tennis court and landscaped garden for less than the price of a Queenstown HDB flat? Or that your kids needn’t have to take the PSLE, do National Service, or go mad studying CHINESE? That you could knock off work before 5pm everyday and enjoy greater ‘work-life balance’ playing golf? Or is Singapore just not COOL enough? It seems that in the land of ‘poor white trash’, Singaporeans could live like ‘rich Asian kings’. In an ironic reversal of fortune, it’s the Aussies are who reaping the benefit of our unhappy emigrants, while Singapore, with its corruption scandals, gaudy casinos and Grand Prix posturings, is steadily becoming the TRASHIER of the two. But like everything else in life, achieving dream living standards in a foreign country may not always go according to plan.  Your business may fail, or, at the very worst, you may get tortured and killed after a very successful career in porn.

Nonetheless, something’s not right if our people constantly harbour thoughts of getting out of here, or put thoughts into action despite the risks of failure or ‘second-class’ citizenship overseas. Ironically in our government’s drive to make Singapore a ‘global city’, Singaporeans have gone ‘global’ themselves. It’s time to ponder who’s the REAL quitters or stayers, those who are willing to abandon their friends and ‘roots’ for the sake of their children, pursue their dream homes or solely for their own mental well-being, or those who hang around, resigning to their stressful lives and perennial debts, suffering and complaining like the miserable masochists that we are.

Meanwhile, participants in the first Our-SG conversation wished for Singapore to be the ‘happiest country in the world’. Be serious now, we need realists in the National Conversation, not deranged optimists who want to see Oscar the Grouch turn into Elmo in 10 years. You want to staunch the population leak with hard policies, not cotton candy and Post-It pads.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Foreign workers, Politicians, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

6 million people in Singapore should not be a problem

Posted on September 23, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Singapore could accommodate 6 million people in future’, Today online

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore could accommodate six million people in time to come. The country’s total population stood at 5.26 million as of December last year.

…”It’s very hard to give a concrete figure (on Singapore’s ideal population target), because the situation is evolving. We’re gradually increasing our land area, and if we rebuild our older towns, then we can accommodate more people. Today our population is over 5 million. In the future, 6 million or so should not be a problem. Beyond that, we’ll have to think more carefully,” said Mr Lee.

6 million doesn’t seem too far off in the ‘future’, in fact, according to DBS Vickers in 2009, we could attain that figure in less than 7 years, even hitting 6.5 million in 2020. That’s hardly surprising, even if you take into account the dismal birth rate, because the ‘ideal population size’ can readily be topped up by PRs, non-residents and new residents, i.e foreign influx. In the space of a decade between 2000 and 2010, Singapore’s total population increased by 1 million, although population GROWTH actually DIPPED by 1%. By 2010, almost two-fifths of the population were PRs or non-residents. If the number of Singaporean citizens creeps up to the 3.7 million mark by the end of this decade (by IPS’s conservative estimation given the TFR of 1.24), we’re potentially looking at 1 out of 3 in a 6 million population NOT born and raised here. And that’s not even taking into account TOURISTS, whom we had 13 MILLION of in 2011 alone.

PM Lee’s father probably disagrees. In 2008, LKY didn’t seem ‘sold’ by the 6.5 million mark, and believed that 5 to 5.5 million would be the optimum population size, where ‘open spaces and comfort’ would still be maintained. Then National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, on the other hand, said it was ‘COMFORTING to note that our physical resources, especially LAND, is able to support this’ (6.5 million). He also clarified in 2007 that 6.5 was not a ‘target’ but a ‘planning figure’ for land use and transportation framework for the next 40 to 50 years. So we have 5.5, 6, and the audacious 6.5 million. Who the hell should we believe? As someone who has little affection for crowds, I’m inclined to take the elder Lee’s word for it.

Unfortunately it’s not guesstimates that matter here, but rather what we see with our very own eyes to realise that this burgeoning human load is straining our geography and infrastructure to the point that things are literally BURSTING at the seams. Just last week, hairline cracks emerged on the walls of homes located near the Downtown Line. Our sewer pipes also can’t seem to take this SHIT anymore. Crowds are commonplace and often an inevitable side effect of rich economies, but the picture below from just last Oct speaks a thousand, or should I say, 5 million words. Do I even need to mention the countless delays and breakdowns plaguing the MRT as we speak?

CRush hour at Bishan MRT

But the most important thing about a station packed to the brim is not so much the breathless and cold sweat one experiences just looking at photos of it, but that we face such levels of appalling congestion despite our government only recently PLANNING for it (for 6.5 million people too). What you also don’t see is the same people in the photo growing old and riding the ‘silver tsunami’ together. With so many people jostling for deathbed space, you wouldn’t be able to die in peace anymore. Hell, you may even have to rent out a rubbish collection centre to conduct your last rites if the hospitals have no space for you, because rubbish, unlike hospital beds, is something even I can confidently say we’ll have ample quantities of. 6 million human loads of it.

OK, maybe I just need to relax after a long day getting suffocated on the bus and train. How about a movie? Surely that would take the stress off would it? Alas shopping malls are not on the government’s population agenda, so you get this:

JCrushed

How about a romantic date with my spouse by the Bay then? I mean, the PM did say he wanted more babies, didn’t he? Apparently he also wants the F1, which we are told that we MUST accept. Like, really DIE-DIE must accept.

F1 Crush

Fine. If I can’t even step out of the house without being trampled to death, at least I’ll need a love nest to perform my civic duty. How about getting a condo?

Condo Crush

Bummer.

So if the PM tells me that ’6 million should not be a problem’, I can’t help but question the optimism and back of the envelope calculations that went into this proclamation, and whether he consulted the Environment Ministry to assess the ecological impact of an extra million people consuming, driving, queuing and pooping this country into submission. It also runs counter to his call for more babies.  How we’ll dread bringing babies into a sardine-tin society where you’d have to compete for places in everything from cradle to the grave,  confinement nanny to undertaker. No, 6 million should not be a problem TO YOU, sir, though to everyone else who doesn’t sit on a high chair approving policies nor paid a million-dollar salary to afford the personal space, to everyone else who is a victim of that ‘equitable’ system of ‘getting in line’, it is akin to stuffing an elephant into a bomb shelter after building more shelves trying to contain it. If we don’t start ‘thinking more carefully’ NOW rather than wait till we hit 6 million, people won’t think of a troubled World when they see a book title like Thomas Friedman’s “HOT, FLAT and CROWDED”. Singapore, already the second most densely populated country on EARTH, would be the first thing that comes to mind instead.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Environment, Foreign workers, Politicians, Public works | Tagged: , , , | 12 Comments »

LKY and the ‘folding up’ of Singapore

Posted on August 12, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Get married, have babies’, 12 Aug 2012, article by Leonard Lim, Sunday Times

…In his annual National Day dinner speech to residents of Tanjong Pagar GRC and Tiong Bahru, Mr Lee kept his message on population simple: The country’s citizens are not reproducing enough, and migrants are needed as a temporary solution. But in the long run, mindsets must change, and the trend of declining birth rates needs to be reversed.

“If we go on like that, this place will fold up because there will be no original citizens left to form the majority,” he said. And we cannot have new citizens, new PRs settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms.

“So, my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult, but the problems, if we don’t find the answers, are enormous.”

Oh boy are we in trouble. According to the CIA Factbook, we are down in the doldrums in terms of total fertility rate at a miserable 0.78, which is way below the minimum number to replace ourselves. But what’s interesting about LKY’s exhortations to procreate is not what’s being said, but what’s NOT. For example, he did not say that educated women with pHDs should get boyfriends and settle down. He also did not specifically urge the Chinese to pick up the slack. What can only be inferred, from how he social-engineered the Singapore population experiment over the years and from the number of PRCs working here, is that it’s the faltering Chinese Singaporeans that he’s really concerned about.

Racial composition is rarely mentioned these days, but it seems that the old man built this nation using his own golden ratio of how each ethnicity should make up the population, even if it meant staunching its growth at certain critical periods in Singapore’s history, and to see his formula for success fail in the face of ‘personal choice’ is like God stomping his feet because his creatures are not sucking on the sweet nectar of the fruits that he created for them. I would feel the same way if I’m playing Simcity and my little people refuse to reproduce themselves. Anyone would be tempted to push the reset button rather than see your piece of work destroy itself. You get the feeling that LKY’s lament is more an emotional one than one that involves deep, probing reflection or acceptance of the fact that where we are now is the result of an abject failure of balancing First World ambitions with First World problems. We are having it faster, stronger, better but weaning ourselves off the face of this earth while at it, like tireless, naive male spiders trying to get it on with the Black Widow of progress.

The last time LKY mentioned ‘racial balance’ was in relation to the SAF and the tenuousness of our position in the region in terms of defence.

‘If we continue this way without the new immigrants and PRs and their children doing national service, the composition of our SAF will change. So please remember that…..It is in Singapore’s interest to have immigrants who can be integrated without upsetting the racial balance.‘

In response to the influx of Hongkongers in the eighties, he expressed a resolute fondness for the ‘status quo’:

Let us just maintain the status quo. And we have to maintain it or there will be a shift in the economy, both the economic performance and the political backdrop which makes that economic performance possible…..You look at the educational levels of the performers. It has got to do with culture, nature and so many other factors. But year after year this is the end result. Let’s leave well alone. The formula has worked. Keep it.

‘Nature’, of course, is a euphemism for RACE. A UMNO MP did not mince his words when taking the cue from LKY regarding the fate of the Malay majority in Malaysia, saying that LKY’s coercions were to ‘strengthen the dominance of the Chinese on the island’. When you mention ‘racial mix’ and optimal ‘performance’ in the same breath, it becomes quite obvious that you’re hinting that a certain group is driving the success of the country, though that looks set to change at the rate we’re welcoming Caucasian billionaires with open arms, not to mention plying foreign income off our two casinos. LKY wouldn’t want to mess up the HDB ethnic quota too. The Ethnic Integration Policy, by capping the proportion of races in housing estates, was intended to ‘maintain a healthy racial mix’, without specifying what an ‘unhealthy’ composition is. In 20 years when our homegrown population will presumably halve in size, the EIP and its secret ratios will need some revisions as well. I mean, you don’t want your neighbours rioting and burning the flat to the ground over curry smells would you.

We have no data on the proportion of races among Singaporeans renouncing their citizenship, erstwhile pretending that emigration doesn’t exist. If making couples have sex more often is an insurmountable hurdle, how about trying to figure out what’s making Singaporeans want to LEAVE? It’s likely that the answer would partially explain our reluctance to have children. Chan Chun Sing and the MSF have their work cut out for them, and if he’s serious about pushing our TFR up, perhaps he should come clean with the numbers, examine the reasons why people abandon their Home, and let us all know of the gravity of the situation, instead of hiding painful facts from Singaporeans like sweeping broken glass under the carpet. If all else fails, be wary when our NEWwater starts tasting funny and you feel tingly sensations in all the wrong places after drinking it.

But it’s not just a freak census that LKY’s terrified of. It’s the PM’s position and PAP leadership itself. In 1988, LKY remarked that Singapore ‘was not ready’ for an Indian Prime Minister, that he would have considered S Dhanabalan if not for his ‘Indian ethnicity’. Our cabinet still holds a majority of Chinese ministers, and remains a reflection of the ground demographics. So when it looks like that precious ‘formula’ is on the brink of shattering and LKY’s worst nightmares are on the verge of coming true (though he probably wouldn’t live long enough to witness it), we have an ENORMOUS problem on our hands, and it’s not just a matter of the EXTINCTION of the Singaporean, but the fall of a NATION, when the house that is our little red dot is no longer a home. In the spirit of the business parlance used by LKY, Singapore Inc may have to ‘close shop’ if nothing is done. And it takes more than a cheeky Mentos ad  (National night, hip hop or hip flop?) and a Ministry playing the role of Love Guru to do it.

Filed under: 1980s, 2010, 2012, Army, Babies, Foreign workers, Politicians, Racism, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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