Ian On The Red Dot

I always find it extremely surreal when my foreign colleagues complain that Singapore is too crowded. Oh, the sweet, sweet irony.

Anyway, there was a recent report in the Straits Times on the ‘Foreign vs local debate‘.

On the other side of the fence, a permanent resident argued that he should receive more benefits as he paid similar taxes to citizens. An employer spoke up in favour of foreign workers, and complained about the high turnover rate of local workers.

In his responses, Mr Gan (Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong) underlined the need for balance between keeping foreigners to boost Singapore’s economy and keeping jobs for Singaporeans. He said: ‘We need to manage and strike a calibrated approach. Foreigners are important and contribute but we must always find ways to help Singaporeans compete.’

Does Singapore need foreigners? Of course. The questions of how much and where we need them have nuanced answers and I won’t be talking about them today. Ditto to the discussion on the consequences of having foreigners in Singapore.

What I want to talk about is that nice girl who has such low self-esteem that she thinks the only way she can get any love is be a obsequious servant, occasional sex slave to the self-absorbed emotionally abusive guy who capriciously grants his fleeting attention.

I never could understand such girls.

Well, if Singapore was a lady, she would be such a one, despite the hot set of wheels, designer dress and killer heels.

The problem with being too nice to people, is that, more often than not instead of being grateful, they become more demanding. Try doing free freelance work for people – they tend to be less appreciative and more demanding than the people who actually pay you. Foreigners (PRs included) in Singapore have this overwhelming sense of entitlement because of this seemingly natural psychological predisposition of humans.

Foreigners think they are doing Singapore a favor because we allow them to.

Singapore has got to start having a different mentality (a non-crutch mentality) with regards to foreigners. We want you but we don’t need you. We can get along just fine. Maybe no towering skyscrapers. Maybe no billion dollar resorts. Maybe not so many BMWs on the road. But we will get by just fine. You guys just ice the cake.

When foreigners start having a mindset change, that Singapore is doing them a favor by allowing them to be here, then things will change. But since we can’t change how they think, we got to change how we think.

(of course, ideally, both parties should recognize that we are in fact in a mutually beneficial relationship. Sadly, mutually beneficial relationships rarely last, because humans are greedy SOBs who always want to get one up on another and are seldom recognized because some joker will always feel shortchanged and think that he/she deserve more.)

Another thing, not all foreigners have the same experience in Singapore. There are bullies in Singapore who 打狗要看主人面. And some of these foreigners unfortunately are not in a position to protect themselves. They aren’t here to make life harder for us. They are here to be exploited by those among us (some our own kin) who have the resources to do so.

Sadly, all these foreign versus local debates will get nowhere. Why? Because we are humans. And humans will always use (dehumanize and exploit) fellow humans to satisfy our own avaricious appetite. Your only solution? Be the one who can make the best (ab)use of whoever is in Singapore – be it foreigner or local.

Not too long ago, I can’t remember if i was serving in National Service then, or had just ORDed, I heard a story about a case of (?two) officer cadets who were dismissed from OCS just before their commissioning parade.

The reason?

They were caught playing with their ceremonial swords during a break.

So, the official reason they were dismissed was because they had disrespected a symbol.

It didn’t matter they had spent a good number of months going through a tough course to become officers.

Nope. One mistake. Just one mistake and everything they had worked for was gone.

Why?

Maybe because there really isn’t anything to be gained from keeping on that few more officers. After all, what medals will they bring us?

Or maybe it was indeed an unforgivable offense to disrespect a symbol.

Anyway, I can’t really verify the story because I don’t know the people involved. It could just be unsubstantiated gossip. But let’s just use the above story as a convenient marker.

While I find it hard to stomach that a person who is, to me, more foreign talent than Singapore citizen carry the flag, I recognize that I do not know where Li Jiawei’s heart lies and it would be highly presumptuous for me to hold anything against her just because I do not see her as a Singapore citizen. Maybe it is me who must change my lenses.

I saw the video of the flag touching the ground.

She definitely could have taken more care with the carrying of the flag. But she didn’t. And actually, to me that’s forgivable. A bit mah-loo but I think we should go easy on her. There are many reasons this cock-up occurred and the blame really isn’t just her own.

The question that really interests me is do the powers that be actually think she has disrespected the flag, probably the most important symbol of any nation.

If they don’t, then fine. But we should let that standard of what constitutes disrespect for a flag apply to everyone.

If they do think the flag was disrespected but that the offense is mitigated because she is a potential medal winner for us then I think it is sad.

But hey, what’s new.

Everything in Singapore has a price. And in this case, the get-out-of-jail card for arguably disrespecting the flag, albeit accidentally, is a (potential) medal.

At least now we know.

Update (26/1): After some people shared in the comments about their experiences, I realized I sound so much like my father in this post. To him, an obstacle was never as important as our attitude towards the obstacle. In the post below, I approached the topic of National Service from that POV – that NS will always be needed, and if it’s going to be there, then it will be our attitude and how we deal with National Service ourselves that determine our success and minimizes its impact. To me, our destiny is in our own hands, and only our attitude affects how well we compete with the foreign talents. I still maintain that is the case. But based on the experiences shared, I have come to appreciate even more how NS handicaps us to compete, even with the right attitude. We really do need a way to ensure that the men who serve do not put a pause on their lives as the rest of the world zooms by. We may have the will to run harder and faster to catch up with the foreign talents and rest of the world, but sometimes it may be a bridge too far.

Thanks to dermapthera and signaller_private for sharing. 

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I wrote most of this during my reservist which was about a month ago. I have added some stuff which are in bold:

I am reminded that while we may not enjoy doing national service and would prefer to be spending our time elsewhere, not everyone who dislikes National Service and reservist does it based on the argument that NS disadvantages us against foreigners.

We view it as both an irritant that eats our personal time as well as a duty. Our feelings about it are mixed. But what I do see is people doing what they must and doing it with a kind of resolve that can only be described as professionalism.

It is arguable if the blogosphere generally makes National Service a scapegoat for problems pertaining to foreigners in Singapore when discussing competitiveness, privileges of citizenship and fairness but personally I think the blogosphere tends to have that slant.

The question then is should the general public be made aware of such arguments. Sometimes people need to be made aware of issues they should be unhappy about and the reasons why. Sometimes though, people can be made to be unhappy about issues based on flawed reasons when there is no cause to be so.

The arguments I have seen against NS on the blogosphere seems to fall dangerously into the kind that would politicize what is a personal issue about the duty imposed on us as citizens to one that fuels nationalistic, racial and protectionistic sentiments.

I am not saying we should stop discussing the need, implementation and impact of National Service. What I am saying is National Service might not be as important to the discussion about foreigners taking out jobs as some of us might think.

While National Service might cause us to enter university at a later age, what happens during university is more a result of what we do in university than what preceded before it. It was what we did or did not do during that time that determined our grades and affected how we measured up to foreigners in the local universities and hence later in the job market.

Of course, some have pointed out that companies discriminate against Singaporean males while hiring because of reservist but that discrimination needs to be understood as the impact of National Service in influencing the market and not the result of time spent in National Service.

One of the questions then is how do we do National Service and use that two years to increase our value to the labour market. Are we working harder to maximize whatever other time we have before and after National Service to increase our own value. Yes, National Service has a cost. And it is a high one. Forgetting the argument if it is a necessary one for the moment, what are we doing to ensure we can pay it? Sure, we can wait for the government to give a handout (which they are in terms of taxes) but are we doing anything on our own to take charge of our own destiny?

I think people might actually waste more time doing leisurely activities like playing DOTA, clubbing, watching TV … Is leisure time a right for all of us? Sure, I think the option to have leisure time is a right. But we make the choices. If time is so precious based on the arguments that National Service waste our time, are those who make it being judicious with their time outside of it?

There is the argument made that the two years spent dulls the brain and breaks the education flow. I agree there might be some merit in this argument. But here is the thing – when I was waiting for my ORD so that I could go and study, I was like a boxer jumping about enthusiastically at the corner waiting for the bell to ring. However, once the bell was rung, and the fight I had impatiently been waiting for started, I realised I didn’t prepare myself for the fight.

Truthfully, the two years in National Service does have time in which we can prepare ourselves for the civilian life after ORD but how many of us have the wisdom not to squander it?