Recently in Singapore Category

While hanging out between basketball games this afternoon, talk of Singapore hosting the Youth Olympic Games led to the favourite Singaporean pastime of government bashing. Car owners were upset that despite having paid their road tax, they still had to give way to official YOG vehicles or risk a fine. Others were shocked at the incredulous amount of money that went into this (“3x over the budget!”).

And then the important question was asked: “What’s the whole f—-ing point?”

I must admit, I wasn’t a whole lot enthusiastic about us bidding to host the Youth Olympic Games two years back. It felt like the consolation prize; like eating at the kiddie table. It wasn’t until I saw Selwyn’s photo that the possibility that we might be on the cusp of something special crossed my mind.

When I saw how the staff and students in my school came together for the the arrival of the YOG torch at our campus, I became pretty sure that the games would play a part in the building of the nation, especially in the hearts of the younger generation. This was most evident when we watched the Singapore Flag raised to a stunning rendition of the Majulah Singapura.

I’m actually glad that we’ve chosen to host the YOG instead of the actual Olympic Games. There is so much innocence in youth, and when it comes to children, we are better able to put aside the primal urge to place competition as the sole driving force for the games. Instead, education, cultural exchange and friendship lie at its heart. There is no medal tally for the YOG, though I’m sure enterprising newsmakers will quickly remedy that. The message to the youth athletes so far has been that they should “have fun”.

Maybe we won’t see an acceptable ROI on the games. Maybe it’s inconvenienced us. But there are many intangible goods - unquantifiable - that have come out of Singapore hosting the YOG. A sense of national pride on the international stage, a worldwide unity in the nurturing of the next generation, a temporary reprieve from the strict pragmatism that binds our island state. Yes, it’s probably an illusion, but a reprieve nonetheless.

I’m not saying that the organising committee shouldn’t be transparent about the over-expenditure. I’m saying that if we had once bemoaned the fact that the government clings on to GDP as its key indicator of how well citizens are being taken care of, maybe we shouldn’t be holding on to ROI so tightly either.

I’ve spent a large part of my adult life trying to understand Singapore and Singaporeans. It is ultimately a search for self-identity in the context of the country in which I was born and raised.

Why do we do the things we do? Where most countries would be proud of being showcased on an international stage, why do some vocal Singaporeans seemingly want the Youth Olympic Games to be seen as a failure? Why do we sit back and complain, waiting for someone else to solve problems we see rather than take an entrepreneurial approach to problem-solving?

I’ve come to an understanding (not conclusive, by any means) that the rhetoric used on us has a large part to play in the way we perceive ourselves. While we look back at history with pride at being able to break away from British colonialism, I fear we still live under the same yoke.

We are often told that Singapore has no natural resource except her people. We are called “workers” and the mainstream media constantly bombards us with coverage of political speeches seeking to “increase our productivity”. We are told that the sacrifice of personal freedoms such as public demonstrations are necessary to create a stable environment for foreign investment.

All well and good, but why does it always seem like we’re working for someone else? Why are we a resource for others to mine? Why are we always working “faster, cheaper and better” to compete as a source of skilled labour for foreign parties to exploit?

Could it be, that having lived under this label all of her 45 years, Singapore has become less human and more commodity to be sold or traded? Where once we stood for incorruptibility (a facade to some, perhaps), we have traded it for the glamour and cold hard cash of mega-casinos. It is all business, and everything is for sale.

And the perception is that the politicians are the ones doing the peddling.

Shouldn’t we be inspired with loftier dreams? Shouldn’t we talk of entrepreneurship, hiring rather than being hired? Shouldn’t we take the bull by its horns and seize our own destinies? True, the reality is that most will end up as “workers”, but hope is the fuel upon which entrepreneurship feeds. And a spirit of entrepreneurship (I mean for it to be more than just the running of a business) is essential in creating a national identity we can be proud of.

Singapore should be a force for good in the world, directed by the strength of our character, and driven by our innovation and hard work.

We are much more than lambs to the slaughter, and brains for plunder.

Happy National Day, Singapore, wherever in the world you may reside.

You know how they say you eventually become your mother / father / Darth Vader? It’s probably a rite of passage we all take: initially repulsed by the actions of those in the older generation, then eventually learning and understanding why they did it, and probably in our own time having the reconcile with doing exactly the same thing that once repulsed us, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because it is the wise thing to do.

It is the evolution (or degeneration, you could argue) of youthful idealism into pragmatism, and hopefully we retain some of the former, and temper it with some of the latter, forging some sort of practical, implementable steps to see the initial ideal fulfilled, even if it often realises itself at a compromise.

So it is with the whole business of warfare, weapons and the military. I remember the first time firing a rifle and hating the fact I was shooting at a target shaped like a human being. Violence should never be an ideal, but doing away with the ability to defend ourselves isn’t an option in the near future, or possibly ever, us humans being what we are.

My experience at this year’s Navy Open House was one of beaming pride. The seafaring culture of the Navy differs from the mud, dirt and grime of the Army quite a bit. It probably also stems from the fact being the crew of a particular vessel creates a very tight-knit community because of the confined space and everyone physically moving in a single unified direction. The ships are run like clockwork and there’s a touch of OCD in the details, especially the placement and storage of the great number of ropes on deck. This is all necessary, the sailors tell me, to prevent people from tripping and falling overboard. There are enough small ledges and fittings on the ship to make unsuspecting tourists trip already. Space being a premium, steps up and down the various decks were also extremely steep. Slinging the tripod and carrying the camera while traversing these steps was quite a challenge.

As we rode the RSS Valour out to sea for a short spin, I could see the familiar skyline of my neighbourhood in the distance. It became clear that we needed to defend these shores, and I was glad for the many capable seahands who were watching over our borders.

The Navy Open House is open to the public this weekend at Changi Naval Base. You’ll see, amongst many other things, how the Navy coordinates a hostage-rescue and how naval divers are deployed from Chinooks, but most importantly, I hope you’ll be there to appreciate what these guys are doing for us on a daily basis.

I took the train on the circle line yesterday night. The opening of the new line has opened up new worlds for me and my family, especially because our house sits no more than 30 metres from one of its train stations. We have endured 6 years of piling and drilling and cement trucks, but all that is in the past. We can now head to Suntec City, and buy dinner home, all in the same time it takes to walk to the nearby hawker centre.

What surprised me on the moderately filled train was that one of the seats reserved for the elderly or physically disabled was left empty despite quite a number of people standing around it. It was nice to see the restraint. As I moved into the train, a young man sitting down offered me his seat, seeing that I had 3 bags of groceries. I smiled but declined; I only had one stop to go.

I stood there wondering if the rare display of courtesy and class was because Singaporeans have adopted a more gracious outlook on communal living or because I was looking at life through the rose-tinted glasses of someone who was just given a brand new train set with which I could traverse new parts of Singapore.

Probably both.

With talk of the elections looming, our main citizen-run political websites The Online Citizen and The Temasek Review have both degenerated into a toxic mess of bile and lost all sense of objectivity. The Temasek Review even recently published a post “The PAP’s Greatest Fear: An Aware, Active and Adversarial Citizenry”.

An adversarial citizenry? What are we, 3 years old? An adversarial citizenry is my greatest fear. If we allow ourselves to be tangled in this web of unresolved pre-pubescent angst, we will miss the forest for the trees.

Our elected representatives (yes, yes some are there via walkovers…) by virtue of the post, represent us. But if we do not know what we stand for, we cannot blame an overly draconian hand. We cannot enjoy the comforts we have, head to the homes we have, use a computer we can afford, broadband that is available, to complain unreasonably about the government that was chiefly instrumental in putting all these things in play.

There are many of us out there who enjoy the greenery of our parks, drink freely from our taps and are thankful for friends and family we have here by our side. We cannot afford to be a silent majority while a very vocal, very bitter, technologically savvy minority dominates this side of the discourse. It’s absurd that the state-controlled mainstream media publishes prozac-induced fairy-tales far too often, but to knee-jerk to the other extreme isn’t balancing it out, it’s creating an environment of schizophrenia.

A blogger expressed this frustration best in his Rocksonesque blog post “oi cheebye, be moderate can?”

Yes, the elections are coming. Yes we need to hold our politicians accountable for the promises they make. But there is a greater pressing need for Singaporeans to be able to answer this simple question:

Define Singapore.

We could complain about a whole lot of stuff. Most of which are valid. But surely there’s more we can do. I’m not talking about protests or demonstrations. I’m talking about leaving the reserved seat empty for whomever needs it, or offering to give up your seat for the perfectly healthy guy carrying groceries.

The answer to “Define Singapore” should be, “Yes we will”, and not some theoretical debate on some obscure blog.

In recent years I have come to think of Singapore more of a city and less of a country. It has freed me from paradigms that do not exist, most chiefly that I am bonded to this place simply because I was born here.

It is probably as absurd these days to claim an affinity based on geographical location of origin as it is to judge a person by their skin colour. It happens, but it is scarcely ideal.

Singapore needs to become more than a place where our friends and families reside. Many of our friends have since migrated to other countries, and frankly, if we had the means, many of us would have moved our entire families elsewhere. It is not because we’re all ungrateful bastards, but there are some things we cannot find on this city-state.

Where once relevant, I find our 2 main alternative political websites The Online Citizen and Temasek Review becoming increasingly disconnected and bitter, and neither traits aid the maturation of the citizenry. Sometimes the best news doesn’t gain attention; not everything stands on its own as a headline.

Xenophobia has been gaining ground here in Singapore, and will continue to do so unless we actively combat it. It is far easier to pick on people who are different, than realising and accepting that it is in this diversity from which we derive our greatest strength.

Singapore needs to evolve away from the very bare definition that a country is defined by geographical boundaries.

Singapore needs to be a well-articulated idea.

She cannot be everything to everyone. We can expect prices here to escalate; surely we are not exempt from these basic economic principles. What the government can do is mitigate the rate in which these things change.

I’m sitting here watching primary school students visit the Merlion. I notice that many of them have digital cameras. The teachers are doing their best to create an enriching excursion despite the slight drizzle. I’ve spent the past few weeks riding up and down Singapore’s park connectors, checking the National Environment Agency’s 3-hourly weather forecast to see if my next ride will be affected.

Say what you will, but I think the government has done a fine job in many areas. Yes, the website for the park connectors takes forever to load, and we can complain about that on our twitterfeeds or blogs and rant incessantly on how we paid our taxes but the websites don’t work. Or we could map out the connectors ourselves.

Thing is, we have a lot more power than we realise. We who have some to spare can give to people who are in need. Now more than ever, we are able to rally together to support great causes or change the status quo.

I’ll repeat it: Singapore needs to be a clearly articulated idea. I do not doubt that debate is healthy for the country, but when it descends to a never-ending stream of negativity, surely we need to search within ourselves if we have the means to change things.

The idea that is Singapore is shaped not only by the work of her government, but by the actions of her people. We need to make this place something we, and our children, can subscribe to.

This whole cycling everywhere business has gotten me excited, especially to find out what other park connectors NParks provides.

The NParks website is extremely slow, despite the fact folks have given them feedback more than a year ago.

So rather than wait for them to fix it, I’ve traced all the park connectors into a single Google Map.

Enjoy.

View NParks Park Connectors, Singapore in a larger map

I’ve always been enamoured by professions imbued with a “higher calling”. Nurses, doctors, activists, and the last time I checked, journalists. After all, isn’t a major point in the whole “journalists vs bloggers” debate? The claim that journalists are held to a higher standard in terms of reporting, and more importantly, ethics?

To be fair, the title “journalist” has expanded a lot in recent times. In this age of self-publishing anyone with a novel idea and internet access is able to address an audience. One could argue that the folks at celebrity gossip website TMZ are journalists to some degree. Or the tabloids for that matter. After all, they do bring news to an audience that craves for the genre.

My argument here is not whether Ris Low is news. My own rudimentary understanding of the word’s definition is that “news” is the opposite of “old’s”. Anything that is current is news. Any instant thought on an old subject is a new thought, any content created is fresh content, any pointer leading to old content is a new pointer. As such, it is all news, and it is all relevant if you find the appropriate audience.

My argument is that the Straits Times has failed to live up to journalism’s higher calling. I will constrain this discourse only to Ris Low - there’s no knowing how long we could go on if we were to address the allegations of biased and incomplete reporting.

The role of the press has traditionally been the middleman between authorities and their people. She walks the line between being the government’s mouthpiece and the people’s defender. Above all, the role of the press is to elevate the level of discourse.

The whole Ris Low saga is a scathing revelation of ST’s priorities. In her latest online posting ST’s Online Editor Joanne Lee defends the stance that Ris Low is still news. She is defending ST’s extensive coverage of Ris Low even after Ris has stepped down as Miss Singapore-World. She is defending articles about Ris having to retake her exams (implicit allegation that Ris was caught cheating on her exams would be the news angle here) and Ris not allowed to shop alone.

Is it news? The two articles are the top read stories on the Straits Times Online, so yes. Does it sell papers, attract readers and eyeballs? Yes. If journalism were solely a business of dollars and cents, there probably would be no question. But we hold journalism to a higher standard than just the making of money. The question with producing this sort of news, I would pose to the journalists at the Straits Times, is this: At what cost?

Ris is a 19 year old for crying out loud. You’re really going to do this? Is it worth the short-term bump in online views, the pittance of ad revenue? Is there any empathy left in you? When you first picked up your pen, you did it with empathy. It wasn’t business, you were young then and money wasn’t the motivation. You wrote because you wanted to show the world a reflection of themselves from a myriad of perspectives. The stories of personal triumph, the informative investigative pieces you had spent so much time putting together, the call for action to help those who are suffering?

Do you not see, in your dogged pursuit of Ris Low, that you have caused suffering?

As Asians we are probably used to the Spockian justification, “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (or the one, yes yes). But the public does not need updates on Ris Low. We do need a press who will have the courage to accept the long-term view that the shareholders are best served when the people are well-served. The short-term gratification of getting the public’s fleeting attention at the expense of what the Straits Times could and should be is a bloody waste.

In the past few weeks we’ve seen the unfolding of the story that is Ris Low. For the uninitiated, it involves a 19-year old winning the title of Miss Singapore-World, her inpromptu interview and the revelation that she does not possess the eloquence expected of someone about to represent the nation on a global stage.

The public reaction was expected. You had those who made fun of her, those who created a Facebook group and those who were just dying to cast the first large boulder.

It didn’t help her cause that she was later found out to have previously committed credit card fraud, and then admitted to having suffered from a bipolar disorder.

But she’s stated that she’s still not throwing in the towel and returning the crown; how it’s been a dream of hers and she’s pursuing it, despite the overwhelming cacophony of voices maliciously denigrating her.

We Singaporeans love to play judge. Somewhere in our “you must grow up to be a lawyer” childhood we have been imprinted with the idea that power lies in the hands of those who do the judging. So we’ve acquired this over-developed ability to judge others. We are quick to deliver scathing remarks, complain if the train is a few minutes late and rant as if the universe owed us a living.

But real power doesn’t lie in judgement. It is easy to play armchair judge on Singapore idol and belittle someone elses’ lack of talent or skill. The contestants will probably tell you that going under the bright lights is a very sobering experience, and you come out of it more humbled and less likely to criticise.

So yes, Ris Low is flawed, and she probably isn’t the first choice we’d pick if we wanted to win the international competition. But I know of so many who have similar problems with diction, and my own past is as chequered as hers. The only difference is that I haven’t had the guts to subject myself to the possibility of failure in pursuit of a dream, however ludicrous others may claim.

I admire Ris for her bravery and I believe that everyone should be given chances to undo the mistakes of their youth and access to support in overcoming their personal adversity. I want my children to be brought up in an environment that believes and embodies these beliefs.

The question before us is not so much whether we will win the Miss World title, but whether we can take this chance to mature as a society and recognise that the fragmentation in society caused by being overly critical and competitive is destroying us from within. And whether we have the guts to bravely look in the mirror and accept the fact that we are all fraught with imperfections, but we are all united in the unfolding story that is Singapore.

I am thankful for the journey that Singapore has taken the past 44 years and will admit —as many would be quick to point out — that there are imperfections that lie therein. I am not saying that we ought to bury past transgressions, but we need to be conscious that the pursuit is not out of a sense of spite, and that it does not cost us our present or our future.

It is the future, that of our children’s, that I look forward expectantly, nurturing a small flame of hope in the winds of growing cynicism. The words of the anthem should resonate, that we move onward as a united people and forge our collective destinies with our own hands.

I believe that Singapore should be more than a place that holds the memories of our childhood — that could have easily been Montana or Nairobi. Singapore should be more than brick and mortar, and her pulse should be more than the rise and ebb of the stock market. She should be the manifestation of our ideals, the stuff of dreams.

A community that does not judge one by colour, language, religion or rank in society. A place that affords a measure of success to whomever has the talent, determination and will to pursue it, yet shows compassion to those upon whom misfortune has befallen. A country that stands up for what is right over what is convenient. A people of more action, and less words; more joy and less murmuring; more sharing and less hoarding.

That is my hope for you. I will do my best to work towards this future.

Onward, Singapore.

The headlines on Straits Times read “Jackie slams Singaporeans, where the Hong Kong movie star is quoted,

A lot of people are not like those in USA and Japan who voluntarily have self-respect. When you don’t have self-respect, the government will have to control you….[Singaporeans] have no self-respect at all.

His comments are likely to stir up emotions. Many Singaporean conversations would probably start to label him a second-rate movie star, and question his right to judge us. But in his bluntness Jackie might have hit the uncomfortable truth.

Singapore, in her search for a national identity, has put on so many masks, driven by an unexplainable shame towards being herself. We aim to be like Switzerland, or some amalgamation of rich and developed countries. Even the language we converse in is driven not by who we are, but what is economically pragmatic at that juncture in time.

There is a divide between our overly-involved (IMO, anyway) government and the people. Singlish - the language organically evolved by the people, is labelled as detrimental to our progress, something to be avoided, unclean, almost. The government-run stuff - almost everything else - wins international awards, but is derided by the Singapore people as symbols of our government’s obsession with obtaining the approval of her colonial masters.

The pervasive hand of the government somehow prevents true ownership of victories which ought to belong to the Singapore people. We have become the lesser brother and the Singapore government - the elite - have become the greater. This divide grows everytime a government official believes, consciously or subconsciously, that they know better than the Singapore people. They forget: they are the Singapore people.

So it is, as with every teenager beaten down by their over-achieving sibling, Singaporeans have an underdeveloped sense of esteem. Like an alcoholic, prodigal brother, we rant and tear away at our own, refusing to believe that anything that comes out of Singapore is world-class. Even home-grown Tiger beer advertises herself as more London and New York than Singaporean. We were so very quick to tear down Sim Wong Hoo the moment the Apple iPod took over Creative’s mp3 player market share. I know I was.

There is a need to merge the two Singapores. We could sit in our armchairs and go on at length about how the government ought to be more in touch with the people, or we could realise that we too are at fault. There is an image of Singapore in the international consciousness: an image of clockwork efficiency and world-class execution which is the envy of many nations. There is also the image of cold hard Cylon steel, a Singapore more machine than human.

We need to own who we are. We need to stop letting others define who we are and pour our humanity, stretching, nay, breaking the government-orchestrated exercise of nation-building. We need to speak up and stand up for that which is Singapore. We need to own our victories:

• being thankful for racial harmony and actively protecting that from a knee-jerk reaction to immigrants
• understanding that the measure of a people lies not in what she has, but what she gives
• and making up your own list of what it means to be a Singaporean. Don’t let the government, the media, or even this blog entry define that feeling in your gut

Unlike the respect of others, self-respect isn’t earned. It is found. Find it, Singapore.

In my opinion, the main impediment stopping Singaporeans of this generation from making a similar breakthrough to that of our forebears (LKY’s generation) is our obsession with competition. Singapore’s particular idiosyncrasy is that if you look closely enough, we care less about winning than about making the other party lose. Point is, the obsession with making the other person lose is driving us apeshit crazy.

A Singaporean will go to an expensive buffet. Rather than enjoying the good food and ambience, his first inclination is to “attack” the high-ticket items in order to justify the money he’s paying for the buffet. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t like oysters, or prefers cod to crab. He does it so that the establishment doesn’t win, without for a second realising that his arrangement renders both parties losers.

What I’m trying to define here is an extension of the popular Singaporean adjective “kiasu”, which denotes a fear of losing. We’ve actually gone one-up, I feel. Not only must we not lose, the other person / organisation / government / country must be made to lose.

But in the words of the ephemerally-famous Jon Stewart, “this is not a [expletive] game”. Working on a win-lose model restricts us immensely. While it served to move us from third-world status to first-world, it is incompatible with any possible evolution towards a higher form of society. There is no noble cause in obsessive competition, no moral lessons or goodwill. There is only the raw animal instinct for survival, and we will stay at this base level if we continue the way we are - content to snap at everybody else and at each other, always bemoaning the fact that someone has it better than us. More money. More happiness. More.

We have missed the forest for the trees. We are failing to see that we have plenty, and with it a responsibility to help those who do not have as much. In this time of need, let us redefine ourselves as a people of action, willing to do what is right at our own expense, rather than waiting for the phantom hand of government to right all wrongs while we snipe from our armchairs.

I think we’ve come along far enough, at least economically, to realise that no one needs to lose. It would be an utter shame for people to be in desperate need while collectively we have so much.

Some things transcend national boundaries.

When Jennifer Hudson took the stage at this year’s Superbowl with her rendition of the Star-spangled Banner, it was an amazing testimony to the enduring resilience of hope. If anybody had a right to be cynical about American rhetoric like freedom and bravery in the face of oppression, Hudson would have been most deserving. The loss of her mother, brother and nephew to a senseless act of violence last October should have shredded any semblance of ideals.

But it didn’t. Her rendition of the American anthem was amazing, not only because of the flawless vocals, but also her moving personal story behind it.

The often-quoted line from the movie “V for Vendetta” goes,

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

I believe, that in order for Singapore to endure, the country has got to stand for something more than efficient processes and non-corrupt governing. Because there will come day when processes will fail and people in power found corrupt. Realistically speaking, a “dose of bad government” is an inescapable probability as evidenced by all manners of civilisation since man’s infancy. Will Singaporeans have anything to hold on to when that happens? Are we staying only because Singapore affords us shelter, and will we leave when the winds change?

As a designer, I am driven to seek the core of any design: a story. A story gives words and sentences purpose.

Such is my desperation to know my country better that I tweeted, “What country are you from, and what does it represent?”

Most Singaporeans tell me is that Singapore’s core value is meritocracy.

So let us unite as a nation, where every man for himself?

There’s a lot of name-calling going on in Singapore.

“Lesser mortals”. “Scholar”. “Foreign talent”. “Civil servant”. “Bacteria”.

Like Ian said, get a perspective. We need to stop dividing ourselves.

Our story begins, as many stories do, with the fury of a woman scorned. It was Ping.sg’s first anniversary, and they held a blog awards ceremony. An up-and-coming blogger, Jayne had secured 4 of the 11 awards, a remarkable feat by any standards. However, as the ambitious are wont to do, Jayne threw a hissy fit when she didn’t win the largest award of them all.

Depending on whose account you heard, you either came away with the conclusion that people ought to learn how to lose graciously, or that the people in “power” were abusing their godlike status.

Fast-forward to present day. Jayne announces the registration of the Association of Bloggers (Singapore):

“Association of Bloggers (Singapore) is a non-profit association. It is dedicated to promoting, protecting and educating its members; supporting the development of blogging as new media. I hope eventually it can help to provide legal assistance to bloggers too. It is a professional body for bloggers in Singapore.”

This association was created, if anything, to coalesce power.

“[Singaporean bloggers were] easily manipulated and even banned for standing up against the foreign tyrant from self-proclaimed ‘community meta weblog for Singapore bloggers’.”

And if Jayne’s own blog posts are anything to go by, the association has a maniacal leader at its helm.

Personal disclaimer: I am a civil servant, a fact made publicly known numerous times in all my online discussions. I find Jayne’s broad sweeping attacks on public servants extremely hurtful and uncalled for.

I believe that a person who judges another by the place he is born (Chua Uzyn … is a ‘foreign talent’, educated in Singapore, enjoying our subsidies) should not be in a position to educate anyone.

It is my hope that the Singapore blogosphere would evolve to be an environment that fosters creativity and intellectual discourse. Starting behind a web of hypocrisy and an insatiable thirst for power is a bad place to start.

Faith, Seth, Anne and I decided to be tourists for a day and booked ourselves on the 10am Duck Tour out of Suntec City. We were the only Singaporeans on the amphibious tour. Halfway through the tour, Faith and I soon realised how important tour guides are in communicating Singapore to our visitors.

Duck Tours isn’t your stuffy bureaucratic tour company. It is evident that they set themselves out to be spontaneous and casual - sort of like Virgin America which I mentioned earlier. On their tickets, instead of the normal “Adult” and “Child” tickets, it says “Big Duck” and “Little Duck”. A nice touch, although I sometimes have trouble disassociating the word “duck” from a certain commonplace vulgarity. Yes, yes. Mind in the gutter, I know.

Anyway, back to our tour guide. She was, as expected, full of enthusiasm and like are tour guides are wont to do, filled every silent moment with conversation. Her gig isn’t rehearsed as some are, so it comes across as less mechanical. But here’s the thing: there’s a fine line between natural and awkward, as there is between mechanical and polished.

Her first major gaffe which really hit me upside the head was when she asked all of the visitors where they were from.

“Australia,” said the couple sitting 2 rows in front of us.

“Which part?” she asked.

“Adelaide!” they answered.

“Wow. Everytime I hear the word ‘Adelaide’, I hate it.”

My jaw dropped. It was a real life OMG moment. I couldn’t believe my ears. The silence seemed to last forever.

She then explained how her dad got a job in Adelaide last year, but ended up not signing the contract, so she was “stuck in Singapore”. Though less awkward than her first whammy, slapping the country you’re promoting isn’t exactly the way to go either.

As the tour went on, our guide displayed her tremendous mathematical acuity by boiling everything down into dollars and cents. Everything.

“Here’s the formula-one circuit. The lights cost Singapore 10.1 million dollars.”

“This is the Singapore flyer. For last year’s Valentine’s Day it cost couples a few thousand dollars to book the entire capsule to themselves. Some people may call it romantic, but I call it stupidity (emphasis hers, tonal). You may as well give me the money.”

“This is the grand old dame, Raffles Hotel. There are no normal rooms there, only Presidential suites. They run from $800 to $8000 per night. During the F1 race, it will be 3 times the amount. $27,000 per night. If you have money you can book the room. Give me a call and we can have tea together.”

“This will be Singapore’s first casino. It initially cost $2 billion to build, but now it costs $6 billion…”

Everything in dollars and cents. Faith and I, sitting on opposite sides of the Duck, had given up rolling our eyeballs at each other by then.

The obsession with cost is a distinctly Singaporean problem. Everytime we visit someone’s home, the question will be asked, “How much did it cost?” It is an extremely unbecoming question to most civilised human beings, but in Singapore, money is an identifier.

To the common man, the cost of the house, the car is a badge of our shared suffering. It’s not uncouth to us because the middle and lower class Singaporeans do not use it to distinguish themselves from the pack. After all, public housing in Singapore are all exactly 90m² in area, are painted in whatever butt-ugly colour is cheapest at that point in time, and have a bomb shelter in the most inconvenient part of the house.

“How much did your house cost?”

“$400,000? Dammit man, life is hard, isn’t it?”

And such goes the Singapore refrain. Our glasses are always half-empty.

Internally, I think it’s time we stopped thinking of ourselves as victims. But externally, I think this is a tune we need not play for foreign ears.

Many of you who have been reading Tribolum for some time have probably read how I’ve railed against the government for this thing and that. It has been an interesting journey towards the realisation that I’ve been a civil servant for what, 3 years now.

I do not think I’ve compromised on some of the things I believe in, like guarding against our nation’s tendency towards an elitist-everyone-else class structure, or that the government should be held under greater independent scrutiny. But I will admit that working here has changed me somewhat, and I hope that those of you who know me, I mean really know me, will keep me in check. Help me continue to fight to better things for everyone, especially in my specialised scope of online services.

In the grander perspective of things, I’ve changed as well. Where once I’d snigger about how Singapore’s Olympic Silver medalists are all foreign imports, I now realise that they have every right to be as Singaporean as I am. Being born in a country doesn’t make me more worthy of her; it is the willingness to identify with her shared destiny, to partake in her victories and her failures. To actively participate in making her the best she can be. It is far too easy to ask others to step up and then blame the government if no one does.

I’ve met many in the government who truly want to change things for the better and deserve more than armchair criticism. They, like our fellow Singaporean paddlers, need support.

Not all paths are smooth, some are rough but well worth the travel.

In the inaugural issue of Stories.sg, we reflect on the following question:

“What would you write to Singapore if she were a person?”

A 20 year old, identified only as “Zing”, wrote what I think is amazingly insightful.

But I’m not trying to make you something you’re not, I’m really not. I’m just trying to make you see that you’re more than dollar signs. You’re more than people just scraping by, dreaming of money and five-star hotels. You’re a hell of a lot more than just a good air-conditioning system. You’re everybody, not just the dream citizen; you’re the Malay kids skipping school, hanging out at Peninsula Plaza in black jeans and trucker caps. You’re the unemployed kopitiam uncle with his songbirds. You’re the schoolgirl holding hands with her classmate, hoping the teacher doesn’t see. You’re every one of them, but for some reason you just won’t acknowledge this. You like to hold on to this idea of you being this clean, perfectly efficiently city, when really it’s the dirt that makes you who you are.

Read her whole letter and many others at Stories.sg. Better yet, write and submit your own.

Streetdirectory.com was a kind of guilty necessity. We’d rail about how they made us pay for maps, and cheered when Singapore Land Authority hammered them for us, but SLA’s provision of Singapore maps was lacking. It’s pretty good for a gahmen site, but in these parts it’s like an able-bodied man coming in first at the paralympics. I should know, I run one of these gahmen puppies.

But I digress. We still crawled back to Streetdirectory in the dead of night, because that was the only way to get bus information. SBS’s journey planner does a terrible job at helping us get from point A to point B. We needed Streetdirectory like we needed pocket money from an abusive parent.

Needed. Until now.

Gothere.sg rocks. And I don’t mean conceptually - it rocks right now. You can change your destination by dragging markers on the map, and the bus route is changed dynamically. How cool is that!

Sure, the trains could be brought in to make a better journey planner, but that’s a small gripe. My main suggestion to Dominic who runs gothere.sg is this: Pair with Singeo. We don’t need 2 kickass Singaporean web guys cannibalising each other. A partnership would really bring the house down.

An example of how clued in Dominic is: I twittered how much I liked gothere.sg yesterday, and Dominic emailed me out of the blue to thank me for the tweet and also cited my work at MOE. That’s savvy customer relationship building for you.

In all seriousness, what are Singapore’s core values?

For it’s in dying that we are born… - Prayer of St. Francis

I spent the afternoon visiting the Singapore Cheshire Home, a non-profit that cares for the disabled.

It never fails. Everytime I visit the less fortunate, whether it is someone who is hospitalised, or a halfway-house for ex-junkies, I come out with more than I brought in. And so far it has been without fail, that before going to one of these places I’d muse over what I could do to cheer them up or make them feel better. And everytime I’m ashamed to find myself the one receiving cheer, despite having all my limbs and not facing the inevitable consequence of terminal illness.

The disabled residents of the Singapore Cheshire Home are an extremely happy bunch. Their smiles were so authentic and effusive that there was no need for me to put on a false smile. They would wave their hands - some of them stumps - in acknowledgment of our presence. One of them was surfing Youtube with her one normal arm while behind her sat a man clicking on links in Yahoo using a stick attached to his forehead.

They did not ask for our sympathy, nor did they need it. It became clear to me that it was us able-bodied people who needed sympathy, for we were blind. Blind to the amazing power these people possessed despite not having bodies that conformed to our standards of physical normalcy. We, able-bodied ones are blind for not creating adaptive environments to harness the ingenuity - the sheer force of life - in these unique individuals. It is our blindness that has created unnecessary obstacles in the way of them having a fulfilling life. We have stopped them from enriching ours simply because they are unlike us, and we do not take well to the idea of physical diversity.

I would like to enable my children to see beyond the prejudices of my generation. I’ve spoken to Joanne, the person in charge of volunteers, if we could help out as a family. Enough complaining that Singapore doesn’t have enough for us to do. There’s plenty for everyone.

I attended a dialogue session last Thursday organised by Reach, the Singapore Government’s feedback arm, on “Creating a Pro-family Environment”. It was basically a bunch of parents talking to members of the government, giving feedback on the pro-family measures introduced over the past few years.

Faith was pregnant with Anne when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced:

• the 5 day workweek, down from the original 5.5
• the extension of maternity leave for working mothers, from 8 weeks to 12 weeks, with the government paying corporations the extra 4 weeks
• a reduction in the levy when hiring a foreign domestic help
• the baby bonus, where the government pays parents a lump sum of $3,000 at the birth of their first child and second child, $6,000 for the birth of their third and fourth
• tax rebates for working mothers, pegged to the number of children they have
• the government’s plan to match parents’ savings for their children’s education up to a certain ceiling, $6,000 for the second child, $12,000 for the third and fourth (none for the first)

This was extremely good news for us back then, and we really felt like the government was doing its part to support couples who were transitioning to become parents.

Most Singaporean families are dual-income, with both parents working, while the children are left under the care of an employed foreign domestic worker, sometimes supervised by the couple’s parents.

With the birth of Caleb, Faith and I are thinking of becoming a single-income family, where Faith either takes long-term no pay leave or quits her job to look after the children. This isn’t the typical Singaporean family arrangement, and I went to the dialogue to have a feel of what other people were doing.

At the dialogue it was clear that we agreed on one thing: Parents are the best caregivers for their children.

But it also became clear that the Singapore government was bent on having us outsource the parenting function.

The above incentives - tax rebates, cash incentives, the reduction in the levy for domestic helpers - only apply if the mother is working (exception of the one time baby bonus). If the mother decides to stay home to look after her children, the family is ineligible for these incentives. These incentives cannot be claimed by the working father.

Troy, a father at the dialogue, summed it up as “stay-home mothers are at best forgotten, or at worst penalised for their choice”.

Dr Amy Khor who was on the panel that night tried to clarify that it wasn’t meant to penalise stay-home mothers, but to incentivise mothers to go back to work. While her statement is logical, it’s potaytoes-potahtoes to the rest of us.

Not only do you suffer the loss of a significant part of your household income, you lose the government’s support. I know that the government wants all the marbles - productivity in the workplace, high GDP, a healthy birthrate - but Singapore needs to make some hard choices here.

Another parent who stood up said that the government’s constantly pushing back the retirement age means that she would be unable to take care of her grandchildren, and her son would considering having less or no children at all.

The conference room overlooked a hundred cranes working on the upcoming casino in Marina Bay, a sore reminder that our government’s choices skewed heavily towards the dollars and cents.

Waking up to the sound of jackhammering at 6:57 on a Saturday morning.

I know it’s perfectly legal to do this at 7am to 7pm, but when the construction companies and the Land Transport Authority ask for our understanding whenever they need to work through the night, don’t they ever think to give some consideration back?

While walking down Orchard Road yesterday morning with Faith and Anne in tow, we encountered wave upon wave of Secondary school kids carrying tins, asking for donations to St. John’s Ambulance in return for some stickers.

They come in all shapes and sizes, but a few stereotypes stand out:

• The can’t-be-bothereds. Often in groups, these schoolkids are the ones you’d immediately describe as “recalcitrant”. They walk about with their headphones on, and the stark emptiness of their tins don’t bother them - they’re just passing time.
• The frazzled. Walking around like a bee on steroids, they wear the frown of a stockbroker after a market collapse. They buzz around, inspecting everyone to see if they’ve pasted the stickers. When faced with a potential “victim” who doesn’t sport the sticker, the frown intensifies, they step towards their target, then chicken out at the last minute.
• The shy. They’ll be seen at the corner, considerately staying out of your way but constantly hoping you’ll come over and do your good deed for the month. They occasionally gang up to take out people at the fringe of the crowd.
• The enthused. I’ve never seen this type until yesterday. This girl popped up from behind us and chirped, “please donate”, and flashed a big smile. When we told her we already had donated, she smiled, thanked us and went to the next person. Her cheerfulness was very contagious.

I’ve come to realise that I care for these kids a great deal - all of them. It could be the day job at the Ministry of Education. It’s getting to me.

There’s been quite a bit of buzz regarding a school Principal telling some 27 students to go to ITE, instead of taking their ‘O’ Levels.

Standard disclaimers. I work at the Ministry of Education as resident codemonkey, but am writing this out of a personal capacity because it reflects my personal journey.

I’m not in a position to say what the Principal did was right or wrong - I’ve read enough of our newspapers to know that their writing is sometimes meant to evoke emotion. We do not know what “detailed N-Level grades” the Principal showed. The more tempestuous among us would like to imagine the Principal flashed individual names and grades, which I too feel might be over the top. The alternative is that the Principal gave a breakdown of the collective grades of the 27 by subject. That would be offering “detailed N-Level grades”, but I doubt many would insist that it would have been as hurting as the former.

I think I’m the only executive in my division who didn’t go to a junior college. Much as I’d like to change history, it wasn’t because I chose to go to a polytechnic. It was a last resort.

At the iX Conference 2007 this morning, Mr Chan Yeng Kit, the CEO of IDA reassured us that the “buzz” was back in the IT industry by showing us increasing student enrollment in computer-related courses.

What on earth is a “bright student”? And even if you did have some criteria for it, what makes you think the others aren’t bright? I take offense at the stupid generalisation.

Now please, get out of my elitist, uncaring face.

It’s the school holidays, and that means that Faith finally gets a break from teaching. We went to Jurong Bird Park last week. Ralph, Ai and Seth came along too. It was my first time there in more than a decade - or two - I can’t remember my last time there.

We’ve brought Anne to the zoo more than half a dozen times already, so the Bird Park was a change for all of us. On the way to the Bird Park, I began to understand why the Bird Park saw considerably less visitors than the Zoo.

Oftentimes the packaging is an important lead-in to the actual product. PCs come in drab brown cardboard boxes while Macs come in beautifully designed glossy pieces of art that’d’ say “Designed in California” as you opened them. There is a tingle of excitement as you marvel at how they included little pockets for the tiniest items like the remote control or the USB cable.

This is no fault of the Bird Park, of course. But as we travelled through Jurong we passed by heavy factories, and we were constantly surrounded by huge trucks and tankers, very unlike the Zoo which was located in the middle of greenery and beside a beautiful reservoir of water.

There’s an unbelievable amount of stress Chinese families go through this time of the year. The Lunar New Year is without a doubt the most institutionalised Chinese festival in Singapore, observed by almost all Chinese, whether Christian, Buddhist, Taoist or Atheist. Shopping malls, hawker centres, coffee shops and even 7-11s close on Lunar New Year’s eve, the night of the reunion dinner.

While the purpose of the reunion dinner is to bring families together for a meal, the contradiction is that its special significance often creates very divisive forces within families. For the normal nuclear family, husband and wife often have to contend with the yearly dilemma of whose family takes precedence; who’ll be the filial child and who’ll be in danger of being disowned. Snide remarks are passed by parents who feel snubbed that their sons chose the in-laws instead of their own sashimi buffet reunion dinner. Words like “ingrate” hang in the air, and daughters break down in tears, finding themselves unable to be in two places at the same time.

We end up doing one of the following:

1. Attend both dinners. Make an early exit from the first one then rush to the in-laws’. Hope no one notices.
2. Alternate reunion dinners. This year at the in-laws’, next year at the parents’.
3. Go overseas for a short holiday on your own. At least we treat each side with equal disdain.

What did you do this year?

Ah. The warm glow of morning lighting up the living room. The clanging of bamboo sticks on aluminium as our upstairs neighbour reminds us that there is no subtlety to be found in the hands of people who hang clothes 5 times a day.

7am.

It has been raining 4 straight days, and I remember why I chose college in Arizona. Rain is bleak and miserable. It didn’t help that I was made hand puppet to some nation-wide virus that had me paying top and bottom tributes to the porcelain throne multiple times a day. I know I say this much too often for my own good, but I felt like I was going to die.

I lost about 5kg over the few days. I gained new evidence of things I already knew: that tough times draw you closer to God; and that I have the best wife in the world.

I’m sure you’ve heard the well-meaning phrase “if you want to know what the people think, you need only talk to the taxi driver”. I had a cab ride two nights ago that illustrated perfectly how wrong the adage could be.

Like most cab drivers, he drove a little more aggressively than the usual Joe. Needing to cut past 4 lanes he slowed down and allowed a motorcyclist his right of way. The motorcyclist honked twice before zipping by.

“These motorbikes…if you give way to them, they’ll act all proud as if they don’t need your kindness”, said the cabby.

At the next junction we stopped at a red light, beside a medium-sized car. There was a Malay family in the car, and both women wore the tudung, the traditional Muslim head covering for women.

“These Malays always try to copy what other people do. The women never had any of these head covering in the past.” I thought about it for a while and realised that I really didn’t remember such a prevalence of tudung-clad women in my childhood. I told the cabby that perhaps Singaporean Muslims were returning to more conservative roots.

“No lah. Last time the only ones who wore head dresses were the Catholic nuns. The Malays just copy them.” He went at length on Southeast-Asian history and the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia, and that the indigenous Muslim women started wearing head covering so that they could trade with the Catholic Dutch. He stopped a hair’s breadth short of a racist tirade.

Probably interpreting my stunned silence as agreement, he warned me that many Malays could now speak many Chinese dialects, and that I had to be careful not to be within earshot of them when talking bad about them.

I got out of the cab convinced that the world, like the blogosphere, has many conversations, but that we need not waste our time listening to all of them. And that a little skepticism is good when there is so much being said out there.

I don’t remember how old I was when Ms Teo Ser Lee represented Singapore in the Ms World pageant, but I was old enough to know she was hot, and naive enough to believe in the Disneyseque hope that we could win the whole thing.

I came one step closer to the awkward, blushful (I’m inventing the word) and adolescently thrilling experience of meeting a real life beauty queen: I had dinner with her brother Teo Ser Luck, along with quite a few of the other gahmen bloggers.

Maybe I haven’t been in the civil service long enough to appreciate how “surreal” (as Walter continually reiterated) the experience was. What I do see is the changing of the guard from the older generation of government officials whom our parents placed on a pedestal, to the younger generation of leaders who are more elder-sibling than silver-haired statesman.

Ser Luck proved that he could hold his liquor with the best of them while still talking sanely about serious matters such as BlinkyMummy’s boyfriends.

He told us of the launch of the p65 blog, a collaborative blog by Members of Parliament born post-1965. While I look forward to posts that help humanise them, I am more interested in their motivations for joining politics and the different views they have on national policies. Though I know it is important for the government to put on a united front, I would like to know the people behind the policy making - their ideologies and beliefs. I think I speak for many of us when I say that I feel a lot more comfortable putting the future of my home in the hands of principled but fallible people than a cold, efficient machine.

The site isn’t up yet, but a great idea would be to have Sylvia Lim as an author. She is… young enough, right?

Vanessa and Damien have pictures of the event.

Faith, Anne and I were having breakfast downstairs this morning. After a few mouthfuls of toast and a few spoonfuls of soft-boiled egg Anne decides to grab a spoon and help herself to the egg. She’s not really making great progress, but manages to smear her face with egg. Things get a little messy and we end up using half a pack of tissue paper to clean up the mess.

A train of thought ensued:

1. Maybe we should buy toy utensils so Anne could play with them and practice feeding herself without the mess of splattered food.
2. What if she associates all utensils with play? That’d make a heck of a scene in a restaurant.
3. Should we stop her from playing with utensils altogether?
4. But it’s a necessary skill that comes with growing up.
5. Maybe she already is old enough to feed herself real food, and there’s no need for the plastic toys.

This was, in my own opinion, a perfect analogy of the decisions the Singapore government have before them with regards to online publishing. Are they going to take a sandbox approach? They would have to realise that online publishing has and will continue to step into mainstream media. Will they clamp down on it with an iron fist? This would definitely stifle the maturity of Singaporeans and cause a mass exodus of the slightly more intellectually adventurous.

But the big question is, are we mature enough we feed ourselves?

Anne, with a face full of egg, thinks she is.

We need only look a little northward to be thankful for what we have.

Consider Lina Joy, whose conversion to Christianity means that she has to go to court to fight for her right to marry because Malaysia’s constitution defines Malays to be Muslims. Malays are therefore stripped of the right to choose their own religion.

And here I was complaining about a DVD being banned.

That’s not to say I’m ok with not being able to buy a copy of “V for Vendetta” though.

Like many of you out there who made V for Vendetta the number one box office hit when it opened in Singapore, I was all hyped about getting the DVD upon release. So I headed down to my favourite DVD store, and was subsequently told that it was banned in Singapore for language that was anti-Christian.

I’m not the Pope or anything, but when I watched it in March, I didn’t detect any overtly anti-Christian sentiments. Anti-government ones, on the other hand, were what struck a resonant chord with all V fans.

Now if the Da Vinci Code DVD goes through without hitting the censors…

On the way home from work the eve of National Day Raizan and I were talking about the housing options available to Singaporeans. It led to talk about en bloc - situations where private land developers buy out the residents living in an area in order to build something more upmarket there, usually condominiums. I casually mentioned that if such a situation came about and I was forced to sell my home, I’d probably migrate. I said that it made sense pragmatically, the money I’d receive from an en bloc sale would probably not get me anything similar in Singapore, but could afford a rather nice place almost anywhere else in the world. If I continued in my line of work I’d probably move to California, I said.

While I might have made sense from a pragmatic standpoint, the juxtaposition felt ideologically jarring.

There I stood, wearing red in observance of National Day, all set to attend the National Day parade the next day, seemingly ready to migrate at the drop of a hat. If I moved to another country, would that make me a quitter because I didn’t stay?

After a tough day at work - getting my perfectly validated code torn to shreds after emailing it to a vendor to put it up - getting on a crowded train really doesn’t lighten my mood. I don’t mind standing the whole way. I’m sure there are a lot of people who need the seats more than I do. It’s the idiots you meet on the train that you feel like killing, but haven’t the energy to do so. Yes I’m talking to you, the muscleman in the World Gym tank top sitting in front of the very pregnant lady.

Then at the entrance of the train there’s the Secondary school kid who insists on sitting on the floor, blocking a third of the entrance. He refuses to get off his butt and looks around when people have problems getting in and out of the train.

Oh, and there’s the pole dance. Here’s a photo to utterly kill your appetite and help you lose weight.

I was minding my own business, holding on to the pole so I wouldn’t accidentally fall on the stupid boy sitting at the entrance, when this woman decided to align her butt crack with the part of the pole I was holding. I was this close to chewing her head off.

I probably need to up my thyroid meds. Or migrate.