Singapore Girl announcing that she’s from China

Posted on May 25, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Stewardess making announcements:Why the need to specify her origins?’, 25 May 2013, ST Forum

(Kua Bak Lim): WHEN on board a recent Singapore Airlines Beijing/Singapore flight, I was puzzled when the flight stewardess who made announcements in Mandarin identified herself as someone from China. It struck me as odd that the airline found it necessary to make such a distinction when it came to announcements in Mandarin.

I then asked the in-flight supervisor whether the stewardess or steward on board an SIA flight to London needed to declare that he or she was from the United Kingdom when making announcements. The answer was no. This piece of personal information about the staff is completely irrelevant to the announcements, regardless of the language spoken.

This, in my view, tends to be divisive for the staff on board. I also find it disconcerting for SIA’s image as a world-class international airline. One also cannot help but notice that there seems to be the subtle insinuation that Singaporeans cannot speak good Mandarin, which is certainly not true.

Would the SIA management please comment?

There’s no need for an SIA stewardess from China to announce her origins simply because her accent and grammatical precision would be a dead giveaway, if the intention is to cater to PRCs on board. SIA has been hiring foreign staff for a while now so it’s no secret,  though they still insist on keeping the ‘Singapore Girl’ moniker.  As of April 2013, 7 out of 10 cabin crew are locals, with Malaysians, Thais, Chinese, Indians, Japanese and Koreans making up the numbers. It is perhaps the only airline in the world to brand their attendants after a nationality. Even Air India doesn’t call their ladies ‘India Girl’, nor China Airlines ‘China Girl’. The latter is also derogatory in the local context, often associated with mistresses and illegal immigrants than a glamorous profession that involves pushing foodcarts up and down a aisle asking if people want the chicken or the beef.

Interestingly, according to the SIA recruitment site, it’s a prerequisite to be ‘proficient in English and Mandarin’ if you’re a Taiwanese, whereas the requirement specified for candidates from China is just ‘a HIGH level of English proficiency’, though I believe the average Chinese or Taiwanese native could deliver any announcement in Mandarin without much difficulty at all. No such language criteria has been set for the Singaporean candidate, though you’d need to have A and O Level credits in General Paper and English respectively. Which means you can fail your Chinese exams and still become a successful Singapore Girl. But having splendid passes in GP or even Chinese doesn’t necessarily make you proficient in ANY language. The writer above seems highly optimistic about our locals’ standards of spoken Mandarin, but if we were that good we wouldn’t need ‘Speak Mandarin campaigns’. Even ang mo children put Chinese Singaporean adults like myself to shame. I can only remember one Chinese nursery rhyme during my childhood, the one that goes ‘san zi lao hu’ (Three Tigers, Three Tigers, run very fast, run very fast, one has no eyes, one has no ears, very strange, very strange), compared to today’s non-Chinese kids reciting Confucian EPICS like San Zi Jing.

So how many Singaporeans you know are actually up to the task of delivering a message to international travellers over a PA system? How many can deliver a simple interview to a Mandarin news crew in full sentences? How about telling a Chinese tourist the TIME? Not a lot, apparently.  Ex Mediacorp actor Ix Shen says we have a TOTAL DISREGARD for grammar and sentence construction. Sumiko Tan posits that English educated folks like herself lacked interest in the language because it was forced down our throats and not promoted in a fun, lively way. Journalist and film-maker Pek Siok Lan mocks our ‘half-baked English and half-baked Chinese’. Back in 1981, a Taiwanese professor urged us to ‘DROP Singapore Mandarin’ because we were over -’translitering’ it. We could consider a Speak Mandarin mascot like Water Wally or Singa, but it would be hard to conceive of a character related to Chinese culture without making it a dragon or coming across as racist and xenophobic.

From a business and customer service standpoint, it’s better for SIA to let a ‘professional’ handle a Mandarin announcement than risk an unseasoned Singaporean butchering it in front of PRCs, generally thought to be so proud of their language they wouldn’t stand for anything slipshod and ‘half-baked’. It would also be a hassle for the cabin crew if PRCs started throwing up their meals because they heard us speak. But you don’t have to tell people you’re from China because it’s obvious and it would confuse everyone about what ‘Singapore Girl’ means. I suppose with enough practice, a true ‘Singapore Girl’ would be able to deliver Mandarin with striking confidence. Maybe that would be the ‘makeover’ that we locals can truly be proud of, a bilingual SIA stewardess who knows what is Chinese for ‘mild turbulence’ and ‘fried mee goreng’, rather than say, toning down on blue eyeshadow.

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Filed under: 1980s, 2013, Campaigns/Elections, Foreign workers, PRCs, Singapore Airlines, Singlish/Broken english, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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?

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 »

We do duty, they pay a duty

Posted on February 14, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘MP moots defence tax on foreigners who don’t serve NS’, 14 Feb 2013, article by Amir Hussain, Today

…In his Facebook post early yesterday, MP Hri Kumar Nair proposed to impose additional income and property tax on PRs and foreigners via a “National Defence Duty”, to address “a current imbalance”.

Pointing to the “sacrifice all Singaporean males make” in serving NS, Mr Nair argued that there is also “a significant economic cost we pay”, as he cited men lagging two years behind in terms of career prospects, pay and job experience, among others.

“The thing is everyone living in Singapore benefits from this sacrifice — including PRs and foreigners,” he said. “In short, we do duty, they pay a duty. The rationale is simple — since PRs and foreigners cannot contribute manpower to our SAF and Home Team, they make a financial contribution to the protection and preservation of their lives, families, jobs, investments and properties.”

Further in Hri Kumar’s post, he proposed a National Service Trust consisting of foreigners’ ‘contributions’ which aims to compensate NSmen for any injuries or even loss of life during their stint. Isn’t it SAF’s and the Ministry’s DUTY to make sure NO NSmen gets hurt or dies needlessly at all during training? If Hri Kumar readily admits that there is an ‘imbalance’ because of NS in spite of its merits of building character and what not, one shouldn’t simply charge foreigners for peacekeeping pittance to treat the symptoms of what many perceive to be a waste of 2 years, but perhaps review the entire NS system, including reservist call-ups which take men away from work and family commitments. By depriving our men of family time, you’re forcibly relieving us our another far more important national ‘DUTY’; Making BABIES.

Ironically, the thought of ‘protecting’ foreigners’ assets and interests in this country never crossed my mind during my army days. If I were held captive and forced by an enemy soldier to choose between shooting a Singaporean vs an expat or the alternative of both dying, I’m likely to spare the Singaporean. When we’re told to defend our ‘land’, I take land to be synonymous with our ‘countrymen’. This is Singapore, our families and kin come first and we don’t do Godfather protection services.

Then there’s the lament by critics of this duty putting a ‘price tag’ on NS, or how much money SAF should take from you to cover the ‘loss’ of one soldier should you wish to bail out. One gauge of NS worth would be the looking at the penalty of dodging conscription, which is ‘up to $10,000 fine‘, or a 3 year jail term. In 1985, you would be charged a measly $2000 for refusing to serve your NS as long as you’ve made ‘positive contributions’ to Singapore. A high profile case which prompted the review of Enlistment Act penalties was that of internationally acclaimed pianist Melvyn Tan, who was fined $5ooo ($3K in some accounts) for failing to perform his NS duties. He also happens to be a British citizen, though apparently we have all forgotten about his AWOL stunt and continue to laud him as a ‘Singapore-born’ virtuoso, having performed here recently with a ‘Time Travel’ recital.

Naturally, most of the indignation stemmed against successful defaulters is not so much that they turned their back on the country, but because it’s just unfair that they could sneak away and make it big while at it. But you’d feel the same way about white horses who get to pursue their dreams till completion abroad anyway, whether or not they choose to remain Singaporean citizens thereafter. So it appears you can desert your country, become a citizen of another, pay the penalty of defaulting and still be celebrated as a ‘product’ of the country that birthed you, even though the SAF views you as a fugitive. Mixed messages, no?

If we ever do get into a real war, a foreigner may be more than happy to pay their ‘duty’, but I’m not sure if many will open their doors, feed, nurse and clothe you when you’re riddled with bullets and bleeding all over the place. In fact, when Armageddon hits, they could be long gone before the first bullet is even fired. When it comes to the crunch, we do duty, they scooty with their booty.

Filed under: 2013, Army, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 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 »

PRCs unlawfully remaining on cranes

Posted on December 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Arrested PRC workers had contacted MOM before acting on their own’, 6 Dec 2012, article by Goh Shi Ting, ST

Police on Thursday arrested two workers from China in connection with a case of unlawfully remaining at the place and intentionally causing alarm. This after both men had allegedly climbed up to the top of two 10-storey high tower cranes in a Jurong worksite in protest over a wage dispute with their employer.

…The Police Crisis Negotiation Unit was activated to get the two men to come down to safety. AT 2.20pm, after more than four hours of negotiation, one of the men came down from the crane escorted by Singapore Civil Defence Force officers. The second man followed suit an hour later.

The two men were arrested for unlawfully remaining at the place and causing a public order disturbance. If convicted, they may be imprisoned up to a maximum of three months, or fined up to $1,500, or both.

N.B: Both were charged of Criminal Trespass on 7 Dec 2012, with the intent of causing alarm to their project manager by ‘threatening behaviour’.

King of the World

If Simeon the Stylite (390 – 459) were alive today and climbed up the highest structure that isn’t a pillar where he could be seen, like a crane tower for example, he’d probably be slapped with the same charge of ‘unlawfully remaining at the place’ and being a ‘public order disturbance’. In the old days, we used to admire such feats of asceticism and defiance, and send up nourishing bread and goats’ milk to the aspiring martyr. When they die on pillars we make statues of them. In Singapore, any foreigner standing in one place for a prolonged period of time risks arrest or ‘repatriation’.

Anyone trying to make a bold statement by climbing up towers or bridges, be it protesting over wages, government policies or attaining religious epiphany, will be coaxed down by sweet-talking police and then arrested for their trouble before they could make it past a day of rigorous fasting. Unless he’s David Blaine performing an endurance stunt, or crazy French ‘Spiderman’ Alain Robert (who got arrested for trespassing in 2000 when he tried scaling the UOB Building, but eventually got commissioned by the STRAITS TIMES, of all people, to crawl up Suntec City.)

Without a permit this is trespassing

This isn’t the first time that China workers have taken to the skies in displeasure. In 2011, a lone PRC climbed to the top of a 30m crane and was ‘rescued’ within 2 hours. He wasn’t charged for ‘unlawfully remaining on a crane’, but rather TRESPASSING. The same charge was dealt to another who climbed up seven storeys of scaffolding and threatened to jump if he wasn’t paid. In 2009, one climbed onto the rooftop of the MOM building, feet dangling over the edge, presumably upset over multiple rejection by MOM officers. Instead of trespassing, this was ATTEMPTED SUICIDE. Yes, we have held a squeaky clean ‘strike-free’ record for so long, but that’s because the unhappily unpaid who resort to doing something spectacular have been classified not to be ‘striking’, but ‘trespassing’, ‘causing public alarm’, or just ‘trying to kill themselves’.

In fact, there’s an entire movie about a man pulling off a similar stunt getting everyone worried sick. In Man on a Ledge, it’s not a crane that sets the stage for protest, but the edge of a building. There’s something about death-defying heights that attract unhappy workers. Having a sit-down ‘industrial action’ on the steps of the ministry, or on an open field in the hot sun, even if you’re in a force of 100-200, is NOTHING compared to one sensational sky-high solo or duo symbolic act to capture our attention. Today it’s a crane, tomorrow it could be straddling the Singapore Flyer, or the rooftop of the Pinnacle@Duxton, all of which are proud monuments borne out of our dependence on migrant labour. Tweeting on Weibo to express your displeasure and incite your coworkers to fight for their rights is kids’ stuff.

I think there’s still room for our foreign workers to air their grievances ‘legally’ yet creatively if their employers or unions won’t listen. It’s called ‘flash mob’. And even if they lose their jobs, there’s still a market for acrobats in some Las Vegas casino out there.

Foreign labour: Our unsung pillar of strength

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Bureaucrats, Justice system/Lawsuits, PRCs, Public works | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a 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 »

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