Ian On The Red Dot

Whenever you think you understand how the world works, when you think your perception of the world is correct, it is important to realize the role of the observer. The observer by the act of observing changes things.

When I hear newly weds (or those soon to be married) discuss red packets at weddings, I get the distinct impression that to them, red packets and by extension the guests, are a means to cover cost. Now, is that how these couples feel, or is it just merely how I think they feel.

I know how I got the impression although I can’t remember whose wedding led to the impression. Many many years ago, I was invited to a wedding. Last minute. Like a few days before the wedding. When I attended the wedding, I was stuck at a table with strangers. The wedding was just one whole going through the motions charade.

Stand up to welcome couple. Sit down. Wait for first course. Watch video montage of photos. Eat a few more courses. Stand up for the couple’s second entrance. Toast the couple. Hear best man say a few words. Hear the speech from the groom. Eat a little more. Take photo with couple. Eat a little more. Walk out main entrance shaking the hands of the parents and the couple.

Singaporean weddings are so standardized that it would make Henry Ford proud.

I shared the incident of the last-minute wedding with some friends and the consensus was that I was a third-tier friend, invited only because a space opened up and the couple didn’t want to waste a slot (i.e. pay for an empty seat).

And so I developed a cynicism that activated each time I got a wedding invitation. Was I being invited because the couple genuinely wanted me there. Or was I a last minute inclusion because a more important friend couldn’t make it. Had they initially wanted me at the wedding but I was excluded because of space constraints and now they were more than happy that they could include me. Or was I there to make sure they didn’t get one less red packet.

You would think that I would know the strength of my own friendships with my friends to not be bugged by such questions. And it is true. For most weddings I’ve been invited to, I knew the reason I was invited and going – to celebrate an important occasion with friends I love.

But the questions became relevant when I started wondering why other people were at these weddings. Did my friends invite them because of their parents? Was it because the use of the ballroom demanded that a certain number of tables be filled? Were these extra tables subsidizing the couple’s desire to have a wedding in a ballroom at a specific hotel?

The thought process that goes through my head when deciding the amount to put into a red packet.

1. He/She is a good friend. I really want to give an amount to bless them.
2. But hey, don’t you remember, red packets are really just about covering cost (this is my arguably flawed perception of the thinking occurring in the minds of people getting married).
3. So what’s the cost of a table?
4. Ok, I’ll just give my share.
5. But wait, he/she is a good friend.
6. Ok, so I give enough to cover my cost and a little more.
7. Wait, can I afford to give enough to cover both the cost and the blessing?

The continuation of the above thought process is linked to how I see people react when they realize they didn’t get a red packet from a guest or that the guest gave below a certain benchmark (usually the cost of a table divided by ten) – they get upset.

Now, there are many reasons to be upset, some valid, some invalid, and one of them which I think is invalid is the feeling that the guest didn’t live up to the expectation of helping the couple not lose money for the banquet.

A valid one might be – I thought we are close friends, and well, they aren’t poor, so giving so little, makes me think our friendship is not valuable (sadly, whether we like it or not, money is a marker of worth and value in our society).

And so,

8. Since society has made it really just about covering cost (or rather since I think society has really made it just about covering cost), then, I’ll shall just put enough to cover cost. If that’s the standard, then, let’s play by it.

Which of course is rather petty.

Giving the red packet isn’t about how my married friends will react to the amount or about what their expectations are or even how society at large plays this game. It is really about me wanting to do right with my friends.

It is about me wanting to bless them as they enter the next phase in their lives.

In a way, I’ve missed the opportunity to think that way with 3 of my best friends – JS, HX and WS. I won’t make that mistake anymore.

Walked around Sengkang today and took some photos of the people flying kite near the Sengkang Riverside park.

Some thoughts after the photos below:

Some thoughts:

1. This part of Sengkang is really beautiful. I know some people say that Singapore doesn’t have any scenery, and if we’re talking about picturesque views of mountains with clouds cascading off the peaks, then, yeah, they do have a point. Nonetheless there is beauty in the nature in Singapore albeit good parts of it are artificial due to landscaping efforts.

2. The concept of just leaving a space empty and letting people decide what they want to do with it should be an integral part of urban design. I shudder at the thought of the distinct possibility that when planning the Sengkang Riverside park, some government official was planning on how to allocate the land use, creating a campaign to encourage residents to engage in the single activity and spending money on a naming competition for the new XXX-Hypothetical-Activity park.

I’m not sure how the kite-flying community around Sengkang park grew but it does seem like an organic thing. I’m guessing most of the people flying kites there are just like me – someone who walked pass a group of people having fun and deciding to do the same thing next week. At this point, the question of who was the first one who was so boh-liao to just walk onto a piece of land and fly kite on a lazy Sunday afternoon is rather moot. The more interesting question would be how to create more of such spaces. I think for creativity and fun to happen we need more spaces like the ones in Sengkang.

Spaces without a plan.

3. One of the criticisms leveled at Singapore by foreigners who I have met is that Singapore is a boring place. That was something I used to believe too.

“Singapore has nothing to do.”

The above line used to be said so much in secondary school and JC that it kind of stuck in my head. I’m beginning to think that line is only surviving because of habit of thought and Singapore’s now undeserving reputation of being boring. There really is a lot of activities to do in Singapore and it’s really up to one to seek out the fun he or she desires.

I also started to realize that a lot of these foreigners are the kind that:

1. Will see a beautiful rose and complain about the thorns just because they only have tulips back home.
2. Will not be able to find fun even if it was the only item in an empty room.

So, if you think Singapore is boring, you can go fly kite lah.

I’ve had the great fortune of having two lunch-times made slightly more interesting with the appearance of Dr Chee and his team selling their party’s newspaper. The first time it happened, I was queuing to buy fish-soup at Amoy Street Hawker Center. The second time happened when I was having lunch with my colleagues at a hawker center behind our office.

It was interesting to see the different responses of the people at the hawker centers.

At Amoy Street Hawker Center, few people bought the newspaper. Some were even turned away by the price. Think about it. People who work in the heart of the city’s financial district turned away by price.

At the heartland food center, a significantly larger number of people bought the party’s newspaper. The people at the heartland food center were less likely to turn their heads away, less ashamed to look at our society’s number 1 pariah.

It would be too simple and most likely erroneous to draw sweeping and probably baseless conclusions from these two anecdotes. One of them could be that the rich (or those who have better paying jobs) love the PAP more because they are the ones who benefit the most from PAP’s policies.

Whatever it is, take what you will from these anecdotes.

In case you forgot, Young PAP released a recruitment ad which is almost a copy of ‘Lost Generation’.

I was thinking of trying my hand at writing a copy for an ad using a similar concept. Not sure how to make the video so I’m sharing what I’ve written. Feel free to improve and use it.

It starts today.
Trying to make Singapore better for all races, religions and sexualities,
Will no longer be our weakness.
Our spoiled ignorant comfy life,
We hold dear.
No matter we are a city, country, or little red dot,
Democracy, Justice, Equality are issues,
We will no longer be influenced by.
HDB upgrading benefits is the thing,
Every Singaporean counts.
In about 2 decades time, I will tell my 21 year old son,
His vote does not matter.
Although people will try to convince him,
That the youth can make a difference with their choices.
We know in our hearts,
Singapore is dead.

Unless we stop allowing such train of thinking,
Singapore is dead.

We know in our hearts,
That the youth can make a difference with their choices.
Although people will try to convince him,
His vote does not matter.
In about 2 decades time, I will tell my 21 year old son,
Every Singaporean counts.
HDB upgrading benefits is the thing,
We will no longer be influenced by.
Democracy, Justice, Equality are issues,
No matter we are a city, country, or little red dot,
We hold dear.
Our spoiled ignorant comfy life,
Will no longer be our weakness.
Trying to make Singapore better for all races, religions and sexualities,
It starts today.

It Starts Today by Ian Timothy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Singapore License.

Whoa.. Just whoa…

Got these videos from here:

Let’s compare the text:

The original:

I realize this may be a shock, but
“Happiness comes from within”
is a lie and
“Money will make me happy.”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life.
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than family.
I tell you this,
once upon a time
families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era.
This is a quick fix society.
Experts tell me
30 years from now I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce.
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making.
In the future,
environmental destruction will be the norm.
No longer can it be said that
my peers and I care about this Earth.
It will be evident that
my generation is apathetic and lethargic.
It is foolish to presume that
there is hope.
And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.

The YPAP’s version:

For I am a young Singaporean.
“Serving the country is my pride”
Is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy.”
In 30 years, my family will know that
They were the least important thing in my life
My employers will know that
I have my priorities in order because
My material pursuits
Are more important than
pursuing relationships or meaningful causes
Singaporeans are self serving
It cannot be true that
The PAP still has people’s trust
We need to first think of our own material gains
Before helping other Singaporeans
No longer can it be said that
My generation cares about Singapore
It will be evident that
My generation, unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s generation, does not care
it is silly to think
There is hope.

In case the similarities aren’t clear enough, I’m going to intersperse the text for the first few lines.

I realize this may be a shock, but
For I am a young Singaporean.

“Happiness comes from within”
“Serving the country is my pride”

is a lie and
Is a lie, and

“Money will make me happy.”
“Money will make me happy.”

So in 30 years I will tell my children
In 30 years, my family will know that

they are not the most important thing in my life.
They were the least important thing in my life

My employer will know that
My employers will know that

I have my priorities straight because
I have my priorities in order because

work
My material pursuits

is more important than family.
Are more important than

I tell you this,
pursuing relationships or meaningful causes

and the kicker…the last line..

“There is hope.”

Oh fucking really? There is hope?

Please tell me how can there be hope when people who presume to be our future leaders do not know the difference between being inspired by a concept and almost wholesale copying. Yeah, yeah, towards the end, things got different, but that’s because 1 video is talking about youth making a difference in general, and the YPAP’s video is a recruitment campaign for a very specific organization.

You know who I blame? The education system. Remember all that summary exercises we had to do. In the end, it was really paraphrasing exercises.

And young lady, it is Mr Lee Kuan Yew (or maybe for the context of this video, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew) to you. What presumptuousness thinking that you can be so casual…

Final Note:
These two lines are giving me headaches.

My generation, unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s generation, does not care
it is silly to think

When read backwards, it is

“It is silly to think my generation, unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s generation, does not care”

Let’s try to understand this sentence.

It is silly to think my generation does not care.

That’s nice. I’m part of the same generation so I get a warm fuzzy feeling. Let’s group hug.

But why you want to insult Minister Mentor’s generation?

It is silly to think my generation, unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s generation…

My generation != Minister Mentor’s generation.

My generation cares, so does that mean Minister Mentor’s generation does not care.

First learned of Troika from their SMS Guerrilla Projector project and was amazed by their work.

Singapore is host for one of their installations at Ion Orchard, a playful take on the waterfall that can sometimes be found in shopping malls.

Scafolds down – Troika’s ION Waterfall Up from chertan on Vimeo.

What’s truly inspiring about this piece of work is how old-school the tech behind this installation is. Do go down and take a look when you have the chance.

We, the citizens of Singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society,
based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

We are all getting our too excited because of this:

‘This is where most people make a mistake…I have tried to explain that we are different. We are a city. We are not a country,’

I think everyone should just calm down and assume he meant:

We are a city-nation-state. We are not a typical country with a capital.

Geographically, we are different from most, if not all countries. Geographically, we are indeed unique.

Is Singapore a country?

It is my country.

I have literally bled for it.

No matter what a minister says, it is still my country.

Breath in, breath out. Calm down. Calm down.

The government is simply brilliant.

Many of the commentators on the recent coup by Singtel in winning the rights to broadcast the EPL games have been too focused on the economics of this event. Monopoly, competition, blah blah blah.

How foolish they are!

What the government cares about is productivity, community spirit and babies. Singtel is just a proxy in the government’s grand plan to set things right.

1. Productivity.

After major champions league matches, the offices are bereft of any sort of decent productivity. The males are too tired. Also, they spend way too much time discussing matches. The best way to ensure that the males will be able to operate at peak-performance every day in the office is to make sure they don’t watch champions league or EPL matches.

2. Community Spirit

There used to be a time when everyone could afford watching football matches at home. By themselves. That’s bad for community spirit. Now, every HDB block will only have a few designated homes that will pay for the mioTV and Starthub cable TV subscriptions. On match days, neighbors will gather at these designated homes to watch the matches.

Neighbors will mingle and get to know each other. PRs will be able to integrate better with citizens.

3. Make babies

Too many wives have been going to bed alone because of the late kick off times for matches on Saturdays and Sundays. That’s no way to make babies.

Now that the male cannot get his football fix easily, he will look to score another type of goal by shooting into a different type of gaping hole.

This isn’t a failure of the free-market.

This is a mark of brilliance from the secret social engineering department housed in that super duper secret location.

Do share how this brilliant plan will improve your life.

Acts 19:15

“Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”

I keep thinking about this verse when I read the myriad rantings against the government online and assess the many offered solutions.

Who are we?

We are citizens and we most definitely deserve to be heard.

But for change to happen, people (not just those in government) need to be willing to listen.

Why should they listen to us, instead of turning against us, and hanging us by our balls (this is a phrase my secondary school teacher taught me in Sec 1)?

Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

The 1st of October.

I guess the experiment begins…

I have very strong opinions about issues. Especially issues about Singapore.

There is never a class gathering where our conversation doesn’t swerve, crash and burn into the topic of governance in Singapore. Sometimes it is because my friend drove the car into the wall, sometimes I supplied the alcohol to the driver, sometimes someone else threw a banana peel.

However it happens, it happens.

And at the end of every discussion, someone would say,

“You should be a politician.”

It is the ultimate indication that my friend(s), my classmate(s) disagree with me – usually not because they have an informed opinion but because well, that’s how things have always been, and they don’t see why things need to ever be different – and if I feel so strongly about change, I should be a politician to convince others (not them) that change should happen. I’m being shooed away because they don’t want to think about such matters.

Why?

Governance, my country, the way our lives are controlled, influenced and manipulated by the state are just too important things to be left to politicians.

These matters should be a cause of concern for every citizen.

Every citizen should have informed opinions based on analysis and understanding about these matters and not depend on opinions formed because some demagogue swayed their hearts or some thug beat their bodies into submission.

Convince me your path is right as I try to convince you to take this walk with me. Let’s not abdicate the carrying of the torch for this dark journey ahead.

How we want our country to be, how we want our lives to be lead, the legacy we want to bequeath our children should not (only?) be decided or led by politicians stuck in ivory towers.

It should be decided by citizens. Daily.

Because these are our lives, this is our country and they are our children.

I hope, for the day, when these discussions end with someone turning to me and saying,

“We should all be citizens.”

After I had finished my A-Levels, I started considering applying to a bunch of tier-2 American universities and top Canadian universities. The memory of which American universities I did apply to is hazy (if I had applied at all) but I remember clearly applying to 4 top Canadian universities. 3 replied offering places for courses I was interested in.

I didn’t accept any of the places.

The main reason was cost (which is why it was likely I didn’t apply to any of the American universities).

My mom used emotional blackmail to get me to stay:

“You’ve been in NS for 2.5 years. Now is time to stay with the family and not run off to some foreign country”*

* Above is paraphrased. My mom’s emotional blackmail skills are way better than the words above will give her credit for.

My dad had two points:

1. I had already got into NUS, and NUS was good enough.
2. It was cheaper to study in NUS, after all, the government was giving a grant and studying overseas would stretch the family finances at that point.

I’m not going to go into how students are able to work while overseas to cover part of the cost and expenses.
I’m also not going into the debate about the (perceived) value of an overseas degree from a foreign university versus NUS’s.

What I want to talk about is the messed up mentality of my generation’s parents when it comes to considering costs and benefits.

And I will do it will a very simple example.

My generation’s parents are more likely to take a loan of $50,000 to buy a car then take a $50,000 loan for their child to study overseas in a foreign university.

And when they do, it is usually because the child couldn’t get into a local uni.

I think the decision on whether to take a loan should be independent of the fact that a place in a local uni has been secured and whether a grant is given.

How the C/B analysis should be done is like this:

Cost of NUS (after considering grants) versus Benefits of studying in NUS.
Cost of studying overseas (possibly helped covered with part-time income) versus Benefits of studying overseas.

Benefits of studying overseas / Benefits of studying in NUS (>|=|<) Cost of studying overseas (possibly helped covered with part-time income) / Cost of NUS (after considering grants)

Instead of:

Cost of NUS (after considering grants) (>|=|<) Cost of studying overseas (possibly helped covered with part-time income)

Benefits of studying in NUS + absence of addition cost (>|=|<) Benefits of studying overseas.

Thinking too much in absolutes instead of relative.
Following how it is socially more common to take a loan to buy a car than to pay for an overseas education.

I really hope my generation will overcome this mental block for our kids.

Ok, I got spammed by this Singapore company Brew Creative. Apparently, I might not be the only one getting spammed.

Now, I took a closer look and tried to figure out who was responsible for the mail:

And realized who this Vicki Lew of Brew Creative was. She is the lady behind the infamous AWARE EOGM T-Shirts.

So, that might be the connection. I followed the AWARE saga quite keenly, and probably added my email somewhere during the whole period for some X show of support for the old AWARE guard, or during the aftermath, foolishly added my email on a list that I thought was affiliated with AWARE and related charities.

Oh, wait, so that’s why I might have got the email. Because this email is about raising funds for a charity.

Or is it?

Let’s look at the mail:

60% of the profits for each t-shirt sold will be donated to the CCF.

Look, volunteering to help a charity is a commendable effort. Giving money to a charity deserves a hearty pat on the back if the warm fuzzy feeling you have inside you isn’t enough.

But trying to make money off your efforts to help a charity. This stinks of NKF-entitlement complex. 40% of the profits go to the designer. WTF.

A charity isn’t a marketing tool to hawk your products. We aren’t asking you to make a loss. The printing company should be compensated for cost. And maybe, I’m being generous here of course, the printing company can make money. But if the designer (I’m assuming Vicki is the designer here) is going to put her name out there and saying she is going to help raise funds, then, seriously, there is something wrong with this picture here.

It is perfectly fine to say, look, I’m running a business. That business is designing T-shirts. I’m going to design a shirt for Singapore’s first Twestival (why why why am I think Twatival) and I’m going to sell it. I hope to make some money. After I make some money, I’m going to give a part of that amount to a charity.

But you start with,

Brew Creative and Printeet.com are lending a hand at Singapore’s very first Twestival, where the Twitter community gets together to aide a charity.

Singapore Twestival 2009 aims to raise $5000 for the Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF).

And only in the last line of the 3 paragraph do you disclose your profit-making intentions on the back of a charity,

To help raise the money, Brew has specially-designed 3 Twitter-related tees. 60% of the profits for each t-shirt sold will be donated to the CCF.

If you (whoever is reading this) can’t tell the difference, you shouldn’t be in marketing.

Oh wait, maybe you should. And that is how our sad pathetic world rolls.

Update:

Vicki has left a comment in reply:

Profit from each t-shirt:
$29.90 – $19.90 = $10
60% to CCF:
$6 per T-shirt
40% to Brew:
$4 per T-shirt

What does this $4 go into? It goes into covering our operational costs. We are, after all, a small studio and running a T-shirt campaign has us on Twitter and Facebook a lot of the time, answering enquiries and requests. We will also be manning a T-shirt booth at the TwestivalSG so there will be some logistic costs that need to be covered.

That $4 looks like a (valid) cost to me. So this is really about the wording. Do check out the sites, and if you do want to support the cause, get the tickets for the festival here and/or buy the shirts here.

Putting my inner cynic aside, the $4 seems fair (of course, if they sell like a thousand T-shirts, the absolute amount does seem big). The questions really boils down to these:

1. If I am volunteering to raise funds, how much financial cost should I bear?

2. Can the time spent be quantified to a monetary amount?

3. Should I be compensated for my time?

Put it another way, if the CCF paid Brew Creative $4000 to raise $10,000, would we be comfortable with this arrangement?

Tough questions all around.

I know where I stand but what do you guys think?

Apparently Catherine Lim asked Minister Mentor whether the military would be sent in on the really slim chance that the PAP loses an election.

Minister Mentor’s answer makes sense. His answer is reproduced below.

Some thoughts. If the government is really messed up and incompetent, I’m pretty sure the PAP would be able to come back into power lawfully after 1 cycle.

However, even if the new opposition isn’t really messed up and incompetent, there are my ways the PAP can indirectly fuck up the new government to make them look like idiots.

Let’s talk about the people in the civil service, the President and the people who work for him. To me, it is human nature to be loyal to the people who were in power when you gained power.

The PAP has been in power for a long time. Let’s just say that the PAP can ask the funeral parlour owner for many many favors.

Is this corruption? No. Don’t be silly. It is human.

It is also human to mistrust new authorities. We had that problem when a new PC took over our platoon. Do I trust him? Do i follow the SOPs set by the old PC, SOPs that worked?

It takes time to build the guanxi. 5 years might be too little time to get the mojo going. Not too hard for the old leader to tell the follower not to follow the new leader.

For those with aspirations to be dictators in Singapore, the males have been so well-trained that Catherine Lim’s question is moot and that a coup can be done as easy as saying ABC.

If the PAP really wanted to do something after a freak election, just get the military to do a SAF-wide activation. All the males have been well-trained in mobilization and will return to their camps to report. Just keep the males there. Confiscate mobile phones upon report. Tell the males to gather at the parade square and prepare store for moving out. Don’t actually need to move out.

Trust me, most of the Singapore males will not miss a mobilization exercise. Maybe, they might get an inkling that it is a coup happening. But no one will not dare go back. Why? Cos the male will say this to himself, ‘if i don’t go back, and the new government topples, I will be charged for AWOL. Ok… better go back’.

Now, before I end, I must say this. The ministers in our government do have connections with the military. Come on, look at some of their ranks. It would be naive to think that they cannot push the current officers in the SAF to do what they want them to do if they really wanted them to do something.

And one final note, the only thing saving us from these sort of shenanigans is that we currently have decent men in our government. But they won’t be there forever, and we as a nation better do something to ensure that when wolves do get in, they can’t fuck us up.

Which if you look at Minister Mentor’s answer, is something our current leaders have been trying to do. I pray they have done enough.

You look at our record and the moves we’ve made. Let me put it simply like this. First, we maintain a system which gives any opposition the opportunity to displace us peacefully. We allow the system: we’ve not interfered with the civil service, the judiciary, parliamentary procedures, the police and so on.
If you can win an election, so be it. If at some point we are not able to find a team which can equal an opposition team, on that day we deserve to be out. If we become corrupt, inefficient, can’t deliver, we’re out.
What if we have a freak election, as we may well have? Many voters say openly: ‘In my family, three of us voted for you but two voted against, just to let you know that we want an opposition voice.’ In that situation, you may have a freak result. That worries me.
So we’ve set in place a President with blocking powers. Any opposition that comes in will find that he cannot touch the reserves, otherwise you can promise the sky and spend the money. And all our hard-earned savings will go in five years.
Second, you cannot change the top officials without the President’s consent. Any raiding of the funds must be approved by the President who has a council of presidential advisers to advise him yes or no.
Now, why should we do all these if we expect to overturn an election?
We expect that if we are voted out, to stay out, and hope that within one term, that new government, incompetent and unable to deliver, will be out. And there’s enough core competencies and the funds to enable a fresh PAP government to revive the system.
I spent 15 years thinking about these safeguards and finally persuaded my younger colleagues that we needed these because they can’t guarantee that each time they will produce a better team than the opposition just because you’ve done so in the past.
I don’t see any problem in the next election, and probably the election after that. But if we don’t get a good team in the election after that and the opposition does get a good team together, we’re at risk.
One of the first lessons I learnt in politics was from Harold Laski. He said if you don’t have a system that allows fundamental change by consent, you will have a revolution by violence. If we block all possibilities, we must expect violence. In that violence, eventually the army won’t shoot because you are in the wrong. That’s what happens in Africa, the army goes in and holds up the president and often shoots him.
If we had not these thoughts at the back of our minds, why do we do these things? Just to bluff the people? Doesn’t make sense. An army commander, air force or police, has to be approved by a committee and the President must agree. Why? Because we will appoint the commanders? No, because a stupid government will do the wrong things and when we return, we may find the whole machinery has collapsed, as often is the case. Simple.

Whine Whine Whine. Singaporeans only know how to whine.

You want cheap housing. Move to Malaysia lah. There everything damn cheap. But see their roads, see their lighting. See how dirty their streets are. See how dirty their estates are.

You want cheap, fuck off lah.

Stop before you get angry with me because I also get dulan when I hear that argument above.

I seriously don’t care what is it like overseas. Want to compare, can compare until the cows come home also cannot find winner.

You got big guns, I got bigger wingspan. I win.
(I think only Singaporeans who were in primary school during the eighties might get the reference)

I remember a rather heated discussion I had with my father (who of all people should actually be agreeing with me) when I stated that I believe HDB flats were expensive and getting more expensive and that the government were doing the people an injustice with the current system of pegging to market rates (or whatever it is they use to justify the prices).

I also said we didn’t own the flat. Sure, I could eventually ‘sell’ ‘my flat’ (actually I am selling the lease agreement) for more than I paid for it but does that mean I own the flat? Nope.

A useful analogy would be to think of a flat as the stock and what we actually own, when we pay HDB, as an option. I really wonder how the market would react as HDB flats start edging nearer to the end of the 99 year lease.

Or how the government would drop a bar of soap, ask us to turn around, and bend over. To get fuck. Again.

My parents grew up in a time when staying in a place that looks as decent as a HDB flat in a sanitized environment like our HDB estates seemed like a luxury.

They grew up knowing what kampongs and slums were. I can understand how what we have now is an improvement over what they had then.

And maybe, maybe, in the innocence of our nation’s birth, the HDB was really doing the people a service, to give us a better place to live.

But now, I think my parents and people of their generation who give the younger ones advice on how to cope (mind you, not live joyfully and meaningfully) with the changes are blinded to how the government has become a corporation that sees the citizens as purely economic entities to be bled dry for every dollar that is possible (without real blood being spilled).

My father’s very useful advice to me – ‘Earn more loh. Then can afford.’

I never really understood the scam we citizens of a nation allow ourselves to be in. I never understood the abusive relationship we allow ourselves to be in with the government.

It is almost like this:

Man beats wife. Wife cries. Man beats wife again. Wife cries. Man gives wife diamond ring. Wife thinks man is the best husband in the world.

Wife says, ‘He has his moments. I stay for those.’

We are citizens of this nation. Collectively, we own the land. The government just manages it for us. They take it, build whatever shit they want on it, and charge overpriced amounts for it.

The argument that there isn’t enough land in Singapore is bullshit.

1. I have been to NS. I KNOW THE AMOUNT OF LAND WE HAVE. We aren’t exactly facing scarcity there.
2. We are building up and down. Not sideways.

The abusive relationship has got to stop. This is my land. My nation. The government are just caretakers. They (the people who MANAGE HDB) should not be allowed to do whatever they want to maximize the profit of OUR LAND so that they can GIVE THEMSELVES big bonuses.

Something is broken and we have to fix it.

On a further more personal note:

Personally, I do not want to buy a HDB flat because I don’t want to be part of this vicious system. But I do want to get married and my gf is the kind of person who doesn’t seem to see the importance of this issue. More importantly, she is exactly the kind our government and HDB prey on – the kind who worries that the system will just race onwards without us and HDB prices will just go up and up and up and we will never have a place to stay, unless we spend even more on a private place (which incidentally, the government can also capriciously just take from you at rock-bottom prices).

It is this inability to remove yourself from the subjugation of the state that I do not want to have children. I refuse to contribute another modern day slave to this world.

Of course, my gf just thinks i think too much.

and she needn’t be. I kind of assumed that’s the guy’s job.

I used to be very judgmental when it came to beauty pageant contestants, especially those who aspired to represent the best Singapore can offer in terms of brains and beauty.

I’m probably still more snide than sympathetic when it comes to alleged bloopers by these contestants but I do know I’m a recovering snob.

I can recognize when my perspective about the hegemony of the English language & the stereotypical-yet-probably-not-very-far-from-the-truth-cultures that are generally associated with those who have a good command of the language changed:

1. I entered NS and had to serve alongside ‘Hokkien bings’.
2. I got attached.

It is still a little painful to watch the interview of Ris Low but the comments by izreloaded are harsh.

Beauty pageants seem to be about showcasing a finished product. But that’s not what life is like. None of us are ever the finished article. I actually find it commendable that Ris Low has no delusions about where she stands now and seems like the sort who is willing to work to make something work. Maybe beauty pageants shouldn’t just be able the now, but about the before and the after.

It is probably too long a story to tell today about why those above events changed my perspectives about culture and language in Singapore, so I’ll just leave you with the now infamous video:

Some further thoughts:

Why, oh why, do people immediately assume that someone who they deemed isn’t worthy of something must have slept his or her way to the top to get that something.

Is that what these critics do?

Sam reminds me:

But now, I ask myself the standards and criteria I use to determine what is right. And I realise how my prejudices, both personal as well as informed by socialisation, play a huge role in how I think.

In case you need to be reminded, Malay is our national language and English is our official language. I wonder when the assumption that the ladies representing Singapore in these beauty pageants had to speak English got started.

I didn’t want to do my most recent reservist training because I knew there was work to be done in my civilian life. My CO (or one of his proxies) rejected my application.

I went back and wasted 3 weeks of my life.

I wasted it not because I was back doing my NS but because the training wasn’t meaningful. And for this, I blame the ‘leaders’ of my unit.

I feel people don’t get the difference between ‘important’, ‘more important’ and ‘not important’.

Let me explain:

1. The work commitments in my civilian life is more important to me than my reservist training. Does that mean my reservist training is not important? NO! Reservist training is important, work commitments in civilian life is more important.

However, from the first day of reservist, the CO of my reservist unit and dare I say, the officers and sergeants of my company gave everyone the impression civilian life is important and reservist training isn’t. But since we have to do it, then let’s just do a good wayang show and fuck off.

That, my friend, is the wrong mentality. Since we are in it, since we have to do it, then we should do it well. No compromise. No wayang.

This sense of importance, to me, wasn’t conveyed by the ‘leaders’ of my unit.

There were a myriad of reasons why my unit failed our ATEC 2. While the men of the unit cannot be absolved of blame, I personally believe that the tone was not set properly by the commanders of the unit, and the rot started at the top.

I’ll elaborate more in the subsequent posts about the last 3 weeks of my life however I would like to end with one last thought about the leadership in SAF.

During my active days, I was privileged to be under two amazing OCs, each special in their own way. I was also able to serve under a very good CO whose career success in the military is no surprise to me. I was also led in the field by a very decisive, field-craft excellent PC.

Looking at the disaster which was my unit’s ATEC 2, I have come to appreciate even more the importance of good, if not great, leaders.

Let me tell you a little secret. Despite our protestations, most of us (I’m speaking for my company) who are back in reservist, have the capacity and will do a good job for a leader with credibility, for a leader who demands much from us and , importantly, more from himself.

You (i.e. the leader) can fuck us for indiscipline. You can fuck us when we get our drills wrong. You can fuck us when we neglect TSR (i.e. training safety regulations). You can push us to walk, under the scorching sun, from 7am to 6pm with no food, only two bottles of water and a mother-load of heavy equipment.

You can do all that. IF …

If you yourself take things seriously. If your field-craft in topography and navigation is top-notch. If you yourself is clear about the objective. If when you tell me that this is the objective, THIS IS THE OBJECTIVE. If the time to take an entrenched position, is T hours, you get me there by T hours. If you make decisions decisively but with due consideration to the fact that you would make the same decision if we were actually at war (i.e. there are real bullets).

During the airing of my grievances, someone asked me if I could do better.

No, I can’t. I have not undergone the same training in OCS or SISPEC as the commanders of my unit.

But I have served under great leaders during my active days, and if the state keeps demanding my time for reservist training, then stop fucking me by making me continue to serve under incompetent leaders.

One final example:

During a parade, RSM came around and fucked the men for dirty boots. Fair enough. But he didn’t impose the same standards on officers who had dirty boots as well. The officers didn’t impose the same standards on themselves.

One final note:

I have mixed feelings about my unit failing ATEC 2. While it means we probably have to go back next year and do the same thing probably under the same incompetent leadership, it does fill me with confidence that those units which have got good results for their ATEC 2 really do deserve those results and that Singapore, while not being well served by my unit, is at least being well served by others.

For example, the umpire that was with my vehicle is precisely the kind of commander I had the honor of serving with during my active days.

Thanks De for sharing this pic.
Thanks Lester for initially hosting it.

A former scholar shares:

Amidst the annual scholarship fever and the flurry of applications, what the newspaper ads don’t mention, and what people don’t talk about enough in a meaningful way, is that the three or four years spent in university can change a person quite profoundly, all the more so if that university education is conducted abroad. I don’t mean having a British- or American-sounding accent, or having visited half of Europe in one summer backpacking jaunt, or learning how to cook the food you get homesick for. I’m talking about the kind of deep-seated change that can leave a person wondering how to reconcile what her old self agreed to do, with what her new self now believes.

In my case, I got bored with English literature – once the love of my life – and picked up a second major in history. I found extra-curricular activities more interesting than my classes. I discovered that, more than anything, I wanted to work in book publishing in New York. And politically, philosophically, I found myself inhabiting a very different position, one that made it hard to stomach certain principles on which our government operates.

The sweet irony …

Reminds me of the movie ‘Annie Hall‘. Alvy Singer is the catalyst for Annie’s growth. It is this growth that eventually leads to the end of their relationship.

Ok. I need to get this out of my system. I have been rushing the completion of as much work as possible before I go for my reservist in-camp training tomorrow. For the next 3 weeks, I will be paying the price of being born a male in the glorious nation of Singapore. I’m rushing work that needs to be completed days in the future, work which was ‘ordered’ only days before because I won’t be around in the weeks ahead.

I applied for deferment and it was rejected. The reason ‘work commitments’ was deemed invalid because the company had time to prepare for my period away at training. How were they to prepare for it? Duplicate another resource to the team so that two people will have the same knowledge of a system build up over 1.5 years of working so that the other person can cover me when I am away for 3 weeks. Seriously? You think every company has the same sort of redundancy built into the gloriously competent SAF?

Ask the company to withhold promoting me to a higher level of responsibility and instead pass it to another individual so there will be no gap when I’m away at in-camp training?

Now, I have always maintained National Service was important and have made it a point to go back for every single training. Even training I had to go because SAF lost the records of my previous training. Yes. The SAF made me go back to do something I already did because their clerks were so ‘meticulous’ in their processing of paperwork.

I didn’t need to do any RT. I’m saying it now. I could have failed my IPPT to kingdom comes and wouldn’t need to do a single second of RT but I called up the people responsible for maintaining the RT system and told them they missed me from their records. I eventually learned the reason why I was missed and it was another ‘shining’ example of how the SAF administration works.

When I had fever, I still took the ATEC 1 tests because there was no other person to replace me in my section. Yes, so little people went back during the last training that we had a shortage of personnel that shuffling men around couldn’t even help.

I’m not saying I have been the best solider. What I’m saying is that as much as possible, I have done what was asked of me. I haven’t made it a point to go out of my way to skip training. I haven’t ‘eat snake’ during NS and reservist trainings.

I was hoping if the day comes when my outside civilian life might be impacted by training, that the people in charge would honor the implicit bargain I thought was made – I will give my best whenever I can, and you don’t fuck around with the civilian life that actually really matters.

I’m not saying that training doesn’t matter. It does. But at the end of the day, it should be recognized that some training is good to have and some is just plain wayang. I can say for the 3 weeks back in camp, I’ll probably be rushing to wait, waiting to rush most of the time, just like every other time.

On another note:

I could have applied for partial deferment and on hindsight, I am wondering if I should have. I’ll go back to camp and discuss with my superiors. The way I see it, only 1 week is really crucial during this training.

The problem with our reservist system is that a lot of the officers we have aren’t the ones we trained and lived with for the better part of 2.5 years we did NS. What it means is that there is no way for the officers to know if an individual is making a genuine request for deferment because he believes that he can’t afford the time for training or he is just trying to ‘eat snake’/malinger. If it was my old officer from NS, I am pretty sure he would know I wouldn’t have made the request unless I was sure I needed the deferment.

In this sense, I understand the difficulty for them in granting deferments to the non-hardcore cases. The hardcore cases who are out just to avoid training would berate them with requests until it is much easier for the officers to just grant the request or these hardcore malingerers would just report ‘sick’.

The irony is that the new officers demand the same loyalty from us when they themselves are unable to show the same sort of loyalty. It is no one’s fault. Both parties don’t know each other. But by virtual of rank, they can ‘force’ that loyalty.

On a final note:

I hate how patronizing foreigners and women are when I share about how much a disruption NS is. Fuck you, you understand. Don’t give me the platitude ‘I am serving my nation’ and shouldn’t complain. And while we (those who serve NS) might joke that it is free chalet with free food and exercise, we jest because we recognize what a major inconvenience reservist is and its symbolism of how much the state owns the males in Singapore (which is a lot). You (i.e. foreigners and women) don’t get the right to make snide comments about how lucky we are to have a holiday and do not need to work.

While we may be communing with nature, reservist isn’t a walk in the park.

On a final final note:

I once talked to a bunch of older guys about their reservist liabilities and it seems that their take on it is slightly different from mine. They actually looked forward to reservist training.

I think the difference arises because the SAF is now rushing us through our cycles. The higher-ups from SAF say it is to help us finish our liabilities earlier, but I believe it is really just to help the SAF save cost. When I have to do reservist training when I am in university, you don’t have to pay much for salary. So a cycle that starts when an individual is 25 and ends late in his thirties is much more expensive than the cycle which starts when an individual is 22.

Anyway, the reason why those older dudes looked forward to reservist:

1. No need to listen to wife nag.
2. No need to send kids to school early in the morning.
3. Can tell wife he is outfield and then go out with his army buddies.

Over Singapore’s 40-odd years of independence, our bureaucracy has gone from a small team of bold visionaries with amazing execution abilities that never says die – true entrepreneurs who founded a nation – to a 110,000-odd strong Civil Service that has gotten so used to status quo and top-down leadership that it has deemed fit to leave most of the heavy brain lifting and risk taking to our Cabinet.

James Chan suggests a solution – an Agency of the Future.

Why do we need bonds? What are we scared of?

Meng says:

The assumption is that Singapore is inferior, that nobody who’s had a nice foreign education would live and work here if they didn’t have to.

The recent hatred against Thio Li-Ann which surfaced online after news broke about the invitation extended to her to be visiting human rights professor at New York University School of Law is ridiculous.

One accusation that has been levied her way is that she is responsible for repressing the homosexuals in Singapore. That is a presporterous notion. She has not done any repressing of any sort. Lest anyone forgets, the little piece of law Section 377A has been around for quite some time and although she made a vile contemptible speech in Parliament when arguing for the retention of Section 377A, she did not advocate the active enforcement of that law.

Some might argue that the mere advocacy for retention is tantamount to oppression. That would only be seeing half of the picture. It was Parliament as a body that decided not to repeal Section 377A.

Any discontent that needs to be shown, should be expressed at the elected members of Parliament. Compared to Thio Li-Ann, they are having it too easy from the same community that would demonize Thio Li-Ann. It would be naive to think that none of them share similar views as Thio Li-Ann.

And if they don’t then, discontentment at them is even more justified, because what sort of leaders do we have if they are the sort who do not stand by their own personal convictions.

Ah …yes, the sort who listen to the majority and represent those views.

It sickens me when our leaders use the majority as an expedient wall to hide behind when it suits their political agenda. It sickens me that during the debate we had members of Parliament who sat on the fence by saying that the law was only retained because of the existence of a conservative majority.

Yes, the members of Parliament are our elected representatives, but there are times when they have shown the capacity to lead by their convictions, to make the tough decisions and then convince the public they are right (strangely, recently, this usually happens when they are trying to burden us more financially or trying to be coy about the nation’s finances).

The debate for the repealing of Section 377A was one such time where they should have led by personal convictions. The law stood. And this begs the question, are they individuals who are incapable of making a stand or do their convictions lie in a different direction from which they profess. These are the individuals we should be giving a tougher time.

Hounding Thio Li-Ann serves no purpose. It is merely vindicative. Childish and useless.

Firstly, congrats to Nadnut and Geekonomics for winning the blogathon.

Now…what was its point?

Some time mid-way through the competition, a troll appeared on Twitter.

John Kerr, head of Edelman Digital Asia, mentioned the event rather unflattering in his blog post ‘No money, no social media honey?‘.

There are also grumbles against events like a Blogathon in Singapore, where high-value prizes are being given out to selected participating bloggers and the creeping realization that the event is about hardcore brand promotion, rather than promoting blogging or raising money for charity, which is the well-known focus for a ‘Blogathon.’ I don’t know many journalists who would get involved under a structure like this – celebrities yes, media no.

Firstly – bloggers can be journalists, celebrities, or maybe, horror of horrors, even both. So yeah, maybe journalists won’t take part in a blogathon, but hey, if they wanted journalists, they might have called it a journathon. Blogging is a medium. Bloggers are people who write and distribute their content using a certain medium.

Secondly, for a post lamenting the state of disclosure and transparency with regards to the relationship between bloggers and companies, I find it funny that John Kerr would actually take issue with an event that is being so clear and upfront that it is being sponsored by certain brands and that there is going to be some (hardcore) brand promotion. Although, frankly, I was at the event, and I didn’t really see how it was more ‘hardcore’ than any other sort of event promoting any other brands. Maybe John Kerr prefers his movies stamped with meaningless ratings, with cutaways, lots of allusion to sex scenes, maybe a few silhouette shots thrown in, which does nothing for the movie plot instead of just maybe 1 good scene which while uncensored, exposes the dynamics of the relationship between the characters clearly (and yes, sex scenes don’t always need to be for gratuitous titillation).

The question that should be asked is, “What’s the point of sponsoring any sort of competition ?”

Like, what’s the point of the Subaru Challenge, which if you ask me, and even if you didn’t, I think is way more of an abuse on the contestants’ bodies than what the bloggers were put through.

Borrowed an image from Keropok because he had the nicest shot of the challenge. He also covered the blogathon here.

People who think the blogathon violates the spirit of blogging, whatever this spirit might be and the only kind of spirit I really think anyone should NEVER violate is the kind that come in bottles and taste a little smoky ( i.e. drinking whiskey with coke as a mixer – now, that’s a violation of spirit that should never happen), should just take their head out of their ass and realize that the blogathon is just a format.

Just like a marathon can be run as a competition or just as a way to spend time with friends (yes, I have some wickedly ‘sick’ friends who run marathons as a way to hangout) or a way to raise funds for charity or just a way to exercise, a blogation as a format can be used for many purposes.

This time it was used as a competition where the contestants happened to be bloggers. Simple enough? Let’s break it down some more. Contestants (who happened to be bloggers) do some sort of activity (blog) to win prizes. This blogathon is really just beginning to look like any other sort of competition. How boring.

Now to the existential question – is it only bloggers who can take part in a blogathon? But if you never blogged before, and you take part in a blogathon as a contestant, have you now become a blogger?

But I’m really digressing.

So, the question that should be answered is “What’s the point of organizing or sponsoring any sort of competition?”

I can’t speak for the team from Ogilvy, and I would never have the audacity to, but I shall share 7 (because 7 is the number of completeness) points on how this blogathon might have, well, just achieved some sort of ROI at least with a supporter of the competition like me.

1. People learned about the Tangs website. Did you know there was a Tangs website? Well, now you and I do. And it isn’t some ugly looking corporate website from last century like the one for Ngee Ann City.

2. I was unconsciously introduced to the ‘Fashion Spy’ feature section of Tangs’ website. When I first visited the site, I zeroed in on that section. Why? Because the bloggers had earlier been blogging using a similar format.

Now, if you are wondering how blogging can help brand awareness, imagine if you request bloggers to blog in a certain way. That certain format could become easily identifiable on your own site or easily identified as related to your site. SCORE! 1 point to social media.

3. This isn’t exactly a product of the blogathon but more of Lenovo’s continued involvement in Singapore’s social media scene. When someone asked me what sort of Vista-based laptop he should get, my immediate answer was a Lenovo ThinkPad. Which is surprising considering that I use a DELL at work (then again, maybe not).

4. I haven’t been using facial wash (because the tube is empty) for a couple of weeks now, and coupled with the stress at work, my face is really showing the effects which Nadnut so honestly pointed out. Why no facial wash? I haven’t been buying my own facial wash for some time. I usually use whatever is found lying around in the toilet or whatever the gf buys for me because, well, guys aren’t supposed to bother about such frivolous stuff like toiletries. Anyway, now the brand Kiehl is stuck in my head, and the next time I get dragged along for shopping, I’ll probably only check that brand out cos seriously I know shit about such stuff and spending a couple of hours being exposed to good looking guys touting that brand, well, it must work for me too…right…right? Weak-minded I am.

5. Mainstream buzz.

6. Why are there activities held at that big empty space outside Ngee Ann City? Well, to make the shopping center a hub of activities. Why have road-shows? Why have give-away contests? Why have mini concerts? One doesn’t need much imagination to see how the blogathon as an event temporarily turned that little corner of Orchard Road into the hub of activities for that day. Get people near the store, they might just enter the store. Pure Genius. Almost diabolical.

7. Lastly, and I think this is the killer way the blogathon might have succeeded. The bloggers were placed in a display window. What’s the point of a display window. Err..duh, to display things. But short of putting naked women in a display window, how do you get people to actually look at what’s in it. Putting the bloggers there got people to look into the display windows. And if Tangs have merchandizing, marketing and window-dressing people worth their salt, 3 months down the road, when I’m shopping for something, somewhere in my unconscious brain, things are going to start kicking in and I’ll be drawn to some shiny object whispering seductively ‘buy me, buy me’ and I wouldn’t even know why. Although I’ll guess and say I might have seen in displayed somewhere, somewhere close to friends.

Anyway, recap.

1. Competitions – Not new.
2. Awarding sponsored prizes for competitions – Not new.
3. Getting contestants to do things to win prizes – Not new.

Lastly, the blogathon was a little like a reality TV show. One of the main reasons for the success of any reality TV show is the casting of the contestants. If you want drama, you got to cast properly – place the pretentious vicious school belle in the same room as the nerdy, kind, never-been-kissed social outcast.

In the case of the blogathon, I think the team scored with casting or at least with the bloggers nadnut, dk, claudia and aaron. I follow these 4 bloggers rather regularly and from what they usually write about products on their blogs, I know that they do not embellish. They will try to find something good to say, and usually they can, because good, can always be found (not all products are made evil) but they won’t say more than what they can.

For a blogathon, if you want trust, if you want promotion with any shred of credibility (and in this case, I think the bloggers had pages load of that), then casting is important.

You can write the script. Allow improvisation. Build the stage. Get great lighting. Find excellent props. In the end, it is the actors who deliver the lines that really matter. This time, I think they deserve a standing ovation. It was an honest performance.

I saw something on Facebook and didn’t think much about it until I realized it has been 3 years since I graduated.

3 years.

Do you know what that means to a lot of my peers from NUS?

It means now they can start leaving Singapore for possibly ‘greener’ pastures.

I wonder though … for them, is it ‘See You Later’ or ‘Good Bye. Good Riddance. Thanks for the MONEY! Suckers!’.

Dk commented that no matter how they draw the lines, there will still be jokers who will block the exit (or is entrance).

Over at the post, there have been some suggestions on how to prevent commuters from blocking the path of those who want to exit.

Spikes, Sweeping doors…

Nothing will work.

Well, there is 1 solution that could work. You put all boarding passengers behind another door some distance away. Once the alighting passengers have cleared, the second door will open, allowing the commuters to board the train. This is something like the system used by the monorail system over at Sentosa.

In the end though, all these actions is just an attempt to control very expected behavior. The key is to change the behavior. Not control it.

How to change? Remove the incentive to want to rush into a train. Now, from my observation, people block the entrance (or is it exit) of the train not because they are concerned about getting into the train, nor concerned about getting into the train first.

What they are actually concerned about is getting into the train early enough to grab a seat.

So, the key to changing the behavior is to remove all the seats on trains.

Yup. No more seats, nothing to fight about.

But wait, what about old people, pregnant women, disabled passengers.

Hmmm…what about them…. they aren’t getting seats already…so what would be the difference?