Farewell comrades

J.B. Jeyeratnam, veteran Singapore opposition politician, aged 82, died this morning. By all accounts, JBJ, as he is often referred to, was a brave and courageous man. Whether out of stubbornness born of a deep conviction and/or a dogged in his beliefs, he remained, unfortunately, an outsider in mainstream Singapore politics for much of the last 20 years.

When he first entered Parliament through the Anson by-election, there was much promise for people hankering for an alternative voice. He was the first one in many years to break the PAP monopoly in Parliament and ultimately forced a rethink of electoral politics within the ruling party. The now entrenched Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system, the reluctance to hold by-elections, and the Non-elected Constituency MP (NCMP) scheme probably dates from the PAP's debacle in Anson '81.

His win was quickly followed by another opposition politician's, Mr Chiam See Tong, in 1984, where the PAP, represented by Mr Mah Bow Tan (currently the National Development Minister), was beaten soundly by Mr Chiam's 60% majority vote.

Sadly, JBJ never could hold his tongue. He was sued multiple times in Court for defamation, which resulted in him losing his Parliamentary seat, his money and his influence in Singapore politics over the last 10 to 15 years. Just when he had formed another opposition political party - the Reform Party - to wrest back his opposition mantel, death would deny him for the last time.

I met him once, in Raffles Place many years back, when he was selling his party's newspaper, The Hammer, to raise money for one reason for another. I never talked to him, nor bought his paper. I thought he cut a forlorn figure, and thought of how much he had 'fallen' - a former MP and District Judge reduced to selling newspapers on the streets for a $1. Truly, what a waste of talent. If he had been more circumspect and careful about avoiding the pitfalls which his political foes would certainly set for him, he could have done so much more.

Yet in spite of all his failures, history will show that he did stir the giant that is the PAP from its inertia to forward the cause of all opposition politicians that will follow.

JBJ - Rest in Peace.

See also: JBJ Blog, Facebook: In Memory of JB Jeyaretnam

Image source: http://www.singapedia.com.sg/entries/j/jeyaretnam_jb.html

Start your engines

I am no car racing fan, yet yesterday evening's inaugural Formula 1 race was something not to be passed up - on TV at least. I couldn't afford the thousand(s) dollar tickets. I have stopped working around the Raffles Place area since 6 eyars ago and thus couldn't get anywhere near the tracks to have a freebie off the office's aerial view of the race. Many offices which had good views of the tracks had a party last night - in the office premises while watching the race for free. Lucky blokes.

I am sure those at track-side got their tickets' worth, what with the atmosphere and roar of the F1 car engines and all. But watching on Telly has its advantages too. The room is air-conned (at least mine was), I can snack on anything and everything that I fancied, the toilet is just next door and you get aerial views of the cars and tracks. There was the magnificant skylight too, courtesy of the cameraman from Mediacorp's free-to-air channel, or any of the pay TV channels that was broadcasting the race. And I can follow the race at every turn and corner, including a view of the paddock when Felipe Massa raced off with the refueling tube in his car. The instant replays are one of the features watching on site could never match. With informative commentary thrown in, it is no wonder that F1 sells.

Some had earlier derided the whole event as nothing more than 20 cars circling a track 61 times. They really missed a good race, which was full of drama and action. I didn't know that circling a track that many time was so engrossing to watch. At the end, only 16 cars (I remember) completed the circuit. I would have wanted to be on site so that I could also have taken away videos and photos that I can share with my children in the years to come. Oh well, there is next year.

Though not the first F1 event on this island, it was the first F1 race staged at night. I remember people TALKING about the F1 races in the Old Thomson Road tracks when I was about 8 years old. Then there wasn't any broadcast of the event on TV. The best you got was either be on site or near a radio. (Was there a radio broadcast of the event then? I don't remember).

What a fantastic night and an exciting race it was. I am looking forward to next year's race, which reminds me - I need to put that on my spending budget for the next year to be on track side, or find a job that has an office with a view or get a 52 inch High Definition TV so that I can catch it on Mediacorp TV HD5.

And congratulations to the eventual race champion, Fernando Alonso (in a Renault), whose name will now be associated forever with this small little island.

Image source: morgueFile.com Author: Rogan Josh

Luckless Bliss

I rarely comment on a particular person, much less a beauty queen as Ms Teo Ser Lee. It is not about her actually, but a person who wrote in to Today (24 September 2008, Voices, page 29) to state that "meeting the right person for marriage requires a lot of luck to start with". She was commenting on the fact that Ms Teo, despite her undoubted beauty, remains unmarried at 43.

I don't know if the letter writer had in mind the play on the word 'luck' which Ms Teo's brother, the Honourable MP, Mr Teo Ser Luck, holds, that inspired her to spout this line of inexplicable err... nonsense. In my experience, and I believe in thousands of others, meeting the right person for marriage really has nothing to do with luck at all, good or bad.

In the first place, luck is usually used as a catchall to attribute causes that cannot be explained or, more likely, something that one is too lazy to explain. To me, that is as good as not saying anything. No, luck (whatever it is), has nothing to do with marrying the right person. When is a person the 'right' one, anyway? When the 2 decide that they should get hitched? On the day of solemnisation of marriage before God? In the first 7 years, until the 7-year itch kicks in (not that I believe in the 7-year itch)? After 15 years of marriage? Until the marriage survives till the golden jubilee? People have been known to divorce after being married for 20 years! Did the couple become 'unright' for each other only after 20 years? Clearly, the 'right' person is an elusive entity.

Rather, what I think is important in making a marriage last is not the first flush of love or infatuation, the good vibes (whatever that means again), or as many TV and movies suggests - a mutual 'click' and romantic fit. I have been married 15 years - not so long that I have become an authority on it, but not that short not to have understood something of the process of keeping married. Many years ago, after I was already married, someone taught me that a couple must have a certain fondness for each other. It didn't matter if they were otherwise incompatible in many ways. For example, I am an 'early to bed early to rise' type of person whereas my wife is a night owl. I love reading and writing, but my wife would rather spend her time talking to people (she is a people person) - mind you that is altogether different from gossiping, which she detests. My wife cannot keep money from flowing out of her bank account. I would rather take a bus than a taxi.

Really, if you look at the two of us, we couldn't be more different than night is from day. Yet I have grown very fond of her over the years. Towards the end of the work day, I would think of the dinner she would have whipped up that I will be going home to. Sometimes, she buys in, but I am no less appreciative of her effort. We talk about things, our day at the office, at home, about our friends and relatives, really nothing substantive along the lines of the important politics of the day or dwell deep into the philosophy of life. Yet I enjoy our conversation because it is laced with complaints, humour, care and concern, rage and irony. Sometimes I think she is a bit shallow in her thinking, but I always let it pass, remembering that I am not in a University lecture hall debating something critical to life and thought. Instead, I try to appreciate where she is coming from and often, underneath the apparent shallowness, she has a point. I look forward to days when I am on leave so that I can have a slow breakfast with her at the local coffeeshop.

But at other times, she gets under my skin and I'd complain about her in front of our son even - in her absence of course! We'd end up in a cold war - until someone gives in. We take turns doing that - giving in - though I tend to do so more often. Leave pride and ego outside the door, I always remind myself. This is not about me, its about us, about the family, and whatever differences we had, it wasn't that serious to warrant a permanent stand-off. We appreciate each other for giving in - not because anyone 'has won', but because it just isn't fun while it lasted.

I can go on, but suffice to say, marriage needs working on and done properly, fondness for each other will grow over time. So I regret that some people are still looking for love or that 'right' person. You will probably not find him/her if we must size up that person first with a whole kitchen list of must-haves. By the time this person appears, you'd only have a third of your life left to give to each other. The biological factory would have shut down, depriving both the joy of having children.

Don't be reckless when it comes to marriage, but then, choosing a life partner is not about finding that perfect person either. Non exists. It is what the two of you want for each other that is important, not what I want from the marriage that the other must fulfill.


Image Source: morgueFile.com. Author: Stijn Swinnen

Warranteed

I find it rather ludicrous that the Housing and Development Board (HDB) needs to give warranties on the public apartments it builds. In this case, they are giving warranties on apartments (flats) built not too long ago. Most Singaporeans know that the HDB has been in this building public housing business for more than 30 years - and are proud of this fact. It has, over the years housed a great many Singaporean families, upward of 80% if I am not wrong.

Yet in all these 30 years, it has not learned to build apartments where the walls and ceilings do not leak water. I remember the first apartment that my parents moved into in the late 1970s. There was spalling concrete at the toilet ceiling. We wondered if we would not be dumped with various types of 'soil' as we squated while doing our business. Those whose apartment were located at the end of a block also suffered from leaking walls, when it rained, ruining the paintwork and raising worries about how secure their homes were. I remember the senior engineer trooping into our apartment with a bunch of trainees in tow, pointing out the spalling concrete problem. I assume the purpose of that was to train them not to do build houses with this problem in future.

That was more than 30 years ago. Yet many public apartments still report spalling concrete problems as late as a few years ago. And my private apartment wall was leaking water during a heavy downpour earlier this year. Was nothing learnt by civil engineers all these many years?

Incredibly, in today's ultra-modern HDB apartments in Punggol, the HDB found it fit to issue warranties against spalling concrete and leaking walls - but only for 5 years for external wall leakages and ceiling leakages in the toilets and kitchen. It would appear that they are not all that confident to extend that warranty period to 10 years, which, admittedly, they have done for spalling concrete. My point is, when you build a house that costs upward of $200,000 (which is heavily subsidised, we are told), a 5 or even 10-year warranty seem to say very little about the confidence that they have in what they have built. Though they lease the entire apartment to its customers for 99 years, the longest warranties they are confident in extending is only a tenth of the lease period. That's really incredibly uninspiring show of confidence. I can understand if a TV set breaks down, or a washing mahine in 5 years, but have you heard of a house falling apart except in a category 3 - 5 storm or earthquake - the former of which is unheard of in Singapore?

Frankly, I would hesitate to hang up such warranties (which were given to the house owner all framed up) for fear that visitors to the house might take their leave earlier than expected after they learn that it has been occupied for ten years. Well, ok, its just the ceiling in the kitchen and toilet and the external walls. Nobody said that the whole apartment would collapse. But in kiasu Singapore, it wouldn't be surprising that people would behave that way.

What is the lesson in all this? When you own a house in Singapore, you need to buy insurance for it. But then nowdays insurance companies themselves are known to collapse too....sigh. Are there no certainties in this world anymore, except death and taxes?

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Kenn W. Kiser

Para Vic

I am ambivalent about the achievements of Laurentia Tan at the Paralympics - the Olympics for the disabled, which is currently being held in Beijing, at the very same site that the 29th Olympics was held less than a month ago.

Yes, she was wearing the Singapore flag when she took not one, but two bronzes in her equestrian event. Being individual events, it can be argued that her achievements exceeded that of our table-tennis team's silver medal at the Olympics, it being a team effort. A letter writter has event pointed out the the monetary reward of $25,000 is far too small a sum compared to her Olympic counterparts' $250,000.

Yet, that ambivalence lingers, not only in me, but obviously in the rest of Singapore. No campaign bottle was uncocked, there were no victory parties nor parades and the press was subdued in its reporting about this achievement compared to how it reported the victory of our table-tennis team. The reason, perhaps, is that until she won those paralympic bronzes, she was a nobody in Singapore. From what little I gathered from the press, her parents brought her over to Britain when she was just 4 years old, and she has been there ever since. Her father probably did the right thing. It has given her daughter the chance to develop into a confident young women who is contributing productively to society. She is today employed as a Mental Health Worker in Britain, caring for those perhaps more fortunate than her. There must be an inspirational 'Chicken Soup' story here to be told and I am sure it will be told eventually.

For all the help that British society and medicine gave her over the course of her living with her disabilities and overcoming them, I thought that she should have put on the British flag in the Paralympics. For her achievements is a compliment and testimony to the British, more than to anyone on one of its former dominions. And this dominion, Singapore, should be honest and graceful to accept that it played very little part in her rehabilitation and conquest at these Paralympic games.

We would like to toast her victory with 'Majulah Singapore', but in this case, it perhaps should be more like 'God save the Queen!'


morgueFile.com. Author: Nicolas Raymond

TOC at Speakers' Corner

Be a part of history in the making. Come down with your family and friends tomorrow. No entrance fees, free seating, free speech, free performance. What are you waiting for, Singapore?

A programme organised by The Online Citizen.

Schizophrenic

I find the idea of a township for blue-collared foreign workers odd. Minister George Yeo made the announcement on Sunday that the Ministry of National Development is looking into establishing 'self-contained' living spaces for our swelling numbers of foreign workers apparently so that they do not encroach on the living comforts of the rest of Singapore, as starkly highlighted in the recent (and ongoing) incident of Serangoon Gardens residents signing a petition to the government to shelf its plans to make use of the dis-used Serangoon Gardens Technical School to house up to 1000 workers. See also Today Online.

Why do I find it odd? Well, I know that the Ministry of Education has been pushing schools to mount overseas trips so that our students can learn about the social, cultural and historical characteristics of our neighbours, in order to appreciate their people and their way of life better. Our schools have already begun to do this in droves, so I heard, including those in the tertiary institutions such as the Polytechnics. I also heard that the cost of these trips is not trivial. A trip to India, for example, will set you back by S$1,800 for a 5 day / 4 night jaunt. Quite a lot of money goes towards subsidizing these programmes. As I understand it, one of the objectives of these trips is to help our students appreciate our foreign neighbours better in terms of their economy, their businesses and their socio-cultural settings. But more importantly, these trips hope to give them the initial impetus to uproot themselves in years to come to work in foreign lands, as and when the opportunity, or necessity, presents itself.

Ironically, when these foreigners come to our land to live and work, at no initial expense to us but great expense to them, we try our level best to keep them away from our children and ourselves, fearing (with little basis) the harm these people will bring to us. We make a big deal out of these expensive overseas study visits just so that we can look at foreigners through a glass tank but are unwilling to swim with them when they present themselves in our own soil. Now, we are suggesting to confine these same people in a fish-tank of a township, thereby perpetuating the perception that they are to be seen and not heard, that they should go about doing what they are paid to do and nothing more. I would have thought that interacting with these people on a daily basis on our own soil will show that we are indeed sincere in knowing and appreciating our neighbours, that it will enrich our lives (not threaten it) and that we would, as a result, not feel any inhibition in going to their lands one day to work. Instead, we would rather they not trample on our tranquility, and our way of life. We leave behind a legacy of insularity, which in this globalised world, our children can hardly afford to follow.

As it stands, if we treat foreigners in this way, I wonder if they would not have the right to 'return the favour' when our roles are reversed? Given our parochial outlook and attitudes, we still have a long way to go towards becoming global citizens. It would appear that our government ministries, politicians and people are all working at cross-purposes. I therefore do not envy Minister Yeo's job at this moment. Hopefully, good sense and good neighbourliness will prevail, or are we doomed perpetually to our kampong mentality?

 

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Kevin Connors

Unwelcome

I wrote about foreigners in our midst some time ago. It appears to be haunting residents in Serangoon Gardens, especially those that are living in the semi-detached private houses. A petition has even been started to stop the government's plans to relocate some 1000 foreign workers to a dis-used school compound nearby. The stated concern is that these people will probably clog up their roads. Some even view it as a security concern, as if the government is moving a bunch of misfits and shady characters into their neighbourhood. I think these people have lost sense of reality and are showing their prejudicial and snobbish side all too obviously.

If these foreigners are not welcomed in their midst, do they then think that somebody else's neighbourhood is more suitable? Who do they think they are? The heavenly host up there whose peace cannot be disturbed no matter what? That the rest of Singapore, where the minions live, are more suitable for such (dare I say), 'low life'? Well, ok, many of these people do have million dollar properties they are sitting on. Are they worried that the value of their properties will drop a notch if 'low life foreign workers' move into their neighbourhood? Are they worried that these 'low life' will roam their neighbourhood to steal, rob and rape, or at least swagger around drunk and noisy in their neighbourhood? 

Well, yes, they are foreigners and may have habits that we are not used to. They may congregate more and speak a decibel louder than us. But these do not make them criminal. Our fathers were once foreigners in this land, and they managed to rise up to own property and land, which they have passed down to us, their children. Truly we have forgotten our roots. So instead of petitioning against these people, they should try to make these people feel at home, or at least not treat them as 'low lives' and suspects. Many of them probably have families in faraway lands, families they are supporting and feeding by coming to this place to toil and sweat. If we treat others shabbily, they will always be shabby as far as we are concerned. If we treat them well, we may get rewarded. How do we know that amidst all the sea of brown, black and yellow, there is not an angel amongst them who might save and protect us someday? 

We are talking of a gracious society. There is an opportunity to show our graces. We should practice charity, for surely it must begin at home. Otherwise, whatever civility we may have cultivated among ourselves is only skin deep, and that skin is particularly thin for people living in the private houses in Serangoon Gardens.

 

Image source: www.morgueFile.com. Author: LaRae

Finding the Equilibrium

Generally, people look out for themselves before anyone else. The exceptions are probably their own child, their parents and perhaps their own 'flesh-and-bloods' siblings. So when a rule comes into play that will advantage some and disadvantage others, then that rule will not likely work out the way it should. One of these is the additional month of leave for mothers that the PM announced in the National Day Rally speech delivered last Sunday. I don't know, but this time, the PM has probably talked 'too much' to the ah-soh and not balanced it with consulting employers, especially those that run a 'tight ship', which will likely become even more lean and mean in the months ahead, given the less than rosy economic outlook.

The economy is sputtering worldwide - in the US, in Japan and possibly in Europe. With China dependent on the US for its exports (it is, after all, its largest customer that can absorb its humongous volumes of exports), it will mean lower production in the months ahead. The sub-prime problem continues to bring down Banks and Finance houses that two years ago was inconceivable, to the benefit of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) managed by some Middle Eastern countries and that tiny red dot of an island called Singapore.

In this environment, can employers be expected to engage in such largesse of extending 4 months of maternity leave to its employees? Even if the cost of that fourth month is borne by the government so that the employer can bring in some standby staff at no additional cost to itself, it will still be on the losing end. Not everyone is born equal, and not everyone knows the company's business like its employees. The stand-in staff will have to learn the business and the operations of the person she is temporarily replacing first before she can become effective (and equivalent to the person whom she is replacing). By the time that proficiency kicks in, it is time to cede back the position to the person who has been away for those 4 months. There are intangibles that money just can't buy in the short term and money is therefore a necessary but not sufficient solution.

I would expect that with this extended maternity leave kicking in, it will get even more difficult for the women employees in any organisation, particularly the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The young and energetic, who are the target lot that the government is encouraging to bear more children, would still not want to bear children. After at least 12 years of going through the Singapore school system (and more if they are graduates), who would want to give up recouping the time, money and effort expended? Having children young goes against all rational thinking. The priority must first be to make enough money, then think about marrying and then having babies. That's the incontrovertible truth about life in Singapore, although it is not uncommon today to have the baby first and then marriage. The young probably do not earn enough yet to make the tax burden onerous at all, so its a non issues as far as taxes go. The increasingly consumption-based tax regime has also made the tax burden more bearable, not to mention the generous tax breaks that everyone seem to enjoy nowadays.

So the women who will really will gain the most are the older set, probably in the late twenties and early thirties. But therein lies the irony. At that age, many would already have established themselves in the company and thus becoming less readily replaceable. With their skills and experience, they are not easily replaced - at least not in the short time of four months. And that's where employers will bear the most anguish. So what is the logical course of action, as far as employers go?

1. Never employ women who are more interested in the family than the workplace.
2. Never train nor promote women to a level where they are hard to replace.
3. And, obviously, never employ a pregnant women. The risks have just gone up a notch. (I imagine that there will be an additional question on recruitment forms asking job seekers (apply to females only, obviously) to declare that they are not pregnant, besides the obligatory 'I am not a bankrupt'....etc.)

The only way these various financial incentives can work is when a women, on balance, can earn more money giving birth to a child compared to what they can earn in a full time job. This is not likely to happen, or if it does, then nobody will be working (and I am not referring to the surrogacy industry).

So what can be done. If women really want a longer maternity leave, they should be given a longer one. 4 months is disruptive. Why not go on a one year maternity? That way, the stand-in staff can put to good use what she has taken perhaps a month or more to master for a longer period. The business suffers less disruption, the mother can really take care of the child without prematurely exiting the industry and the stand-in staff can be more useful. Who is going to pay for the absence? Let's make a 4-4-4 deal - the employer bears the 4 month bill at reduced pay (40% of regular salary), the employee takes 4 month no-pay leave and the government ante's up the balance 4 months. (What's that? tax payers will be screaming bloody murder?).

Frankly, if you want to do something that will make a difference, it is no point taking 'baby steps' by just upping by a month more. You need to be bold, like what some other countries are doing - giving one year maternity leave. But of course this can be a threat to the mother, who would rightly worry whether she has a job to return to at the end of one year. But in Singapore, this problem can probably be legislated away.

The other suggestion is to establish a national registry for 'transient' women workers who are willing to work part-time on stand-in basis. This registry will list their skills and experience, and their availability for employment. Employers can then tap on this registry to find the right stand-in person who can take over the job of a 'maternatied' woman. This will go a long way towards alleviating the problem of getting the right stand-in person who can be productive from day one.

To generate more babies, it is important not only to help the women, but also the employers. A one sided solution, even with the largesse of the government, will not go very far. This is what Economists call equilibrium. Without it, the 'market' will make its own adjustments, which may bring more grief than help to the womenfolk.

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Kevin Rosseel

Baby load

One of the greatest burdens of having a baby in Singapore is not about money. Rather, the problem is how to ensure that that baby grows up to become a government scholar or at least one who isn't ranked in the last 10 in class. This is the real challenge that parents are forced to face in Singapore society - and it isn't pretty. It doesn't matter if a child is scholarship material or not, parents naturally want their child to do well, no, extremely well, in school. To that end, it is common knowledge that almost every school going kid in Singapore has a private tutor on top of their school teachers, to pile them with additional school work and supplementary exercises. Kiasu parents want to ensure that their child does not fall too far behind the rest of the students in the school, whose parents would most likely also have have engaged a private tutor for the same reasons.

And the problem is a real one. Let's get one thing straight. Not everyone can be first in class. No every can get a scholarship. In fact, those who do so are the exception. The rest of us are the ordinary boys and girls who get by. But the competition to be that exceptional student is such that reality is often suspended over fantasy. And this fantasy is often an expensive affair. One has to shell out more than a $100 per subject per student per month. Multiply that with 3 or more subjects and you're really out of pocket by a couple of hundred $$. Multiply that with 3 or 4 kids and you begin to understand the problem with money. But money, really, is not the only problem. The problem is the mental anguish and superhuman effort parents need to put in to ensure that their child do do well. And time really is not on our side, not when we need to work those hours to earn enough to pay the tutors and the additional enhancement lessons during weekends. I know of a parent who has a somewhat wayward (but academically capable) son. In spite of all his effort and that of his wife, he just couldn't get his son to 'do the right thing' in school. In his word, he was '....getting so tired of supervising and managing his son' that he was about to just give up. This mental challenge and anguish, if multiplied 3 times would kill any parent. Which explains why a couple doesn't desire more than 2 kids, no matter how much the financial incentives dangled in front of them by the government. You either kill your child's interest and young lives with after-school tuition after tuition, or your own sanity trying to manage the child, or, heaven forbid, both.

That is why the government's incentive programmes, which have largely revolved around financial help, haven't really worked. The latest reported replacement birth rate in Singapore is 1.2, hardly enough to replace ourselves in the long run. So long as this pressure cooker environment persists in Singapore, the government can forget about increasing the birth rate. It may as well do what it has silently been doing for some time now in increasing the population - import foreigners and make than locals - eventually. But then, the children of these foreigners will eventually still need to join the junior rat race, so that will then lead us back to square one - rationalizing whether having more than 2 kids in this pressure cooker environment is desirable at all.

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: manuere

Spy vs Spy

The Singapore Police has used CCTV (close-circuit TV) in public places for various purposes. The most 'profitable' of these must be those CCTV cameras that take pictures of a speeding cars. Many drivers have been 'caught' in the process and have had to pay up fines according to the traffic rules broken. And yes, CCTV cameras have also already been put up above street level at busy places such as Boat Quay, Orchard Road, Little India, Raffles City, Suntec City and Geylang (reported in Today - 12 August 2008) - places frequented by tourists, and other pleasure seekers.

Now, the Police is going one step further. It is evaluating cameras that have the ability to recognise faces. The use is obvious. If it can instantly recognise a face - the face of a person wanted by the law, then that information can be conveyed in real-time to a monitoring centre where the police can be informed to take the necessary action - immediately. What can be more efficient than that? We don't need so many police patrolling the streets anymore - these cameras will do the job. And in spite of the reduced number of police on the streets, the island will become even more secure. Singapore's famed low crime rate will be set to become even lower, except...

What/who are the police looking for? If it is for criminals and offenders, then even if these cameras can recognise faces, it isn't going to be very useful, eventually. Criminals and those on the Wanted list will probably learn to alter their physical features - grow a moustache or beard (or attach one for the female), put on spectacles, dye the hair - so much so that even the human eye can no longer recognise the person much less a camera. And experts and users of such cameras have admitted, it isn't very accurate now, though they hope that the accuracy can be improved with time.

This doesn't give me any comfort. First, we shouldn't be spending tax-payers money on technology that works approximately 50% of the time, or even 90% of the time. The mis-identified person can be put through such 'inconvenience' that the police can become the subject of lawsuites - unless the law protects them. Which gives rise to the issue of abuse and privacy concerns. I may not have broken the law, but I don't necessarily want anyone to know that I was at Boat Quay on a particular night at a particular hour. Simply put, it nobody's business, and shouldn't be, unless I have committed a crime. That's my private life, my personal preference. Similarly, I wouldn't like to think that somebody is monitoring my movements anyway and trying to determine who I am. Who is this person who has been given such powers? Would anyone feel comfortable being watched?

Yes, there are security cameras all over the island now - at MRT stations, at shopping malls, at bank lobbies, even at swimming pools (acting as pseudo life-guards). When you don't have that many people who can, or want to, walk around these places to keep an eye on everything, we use technology. That's fair enough. Sometimes, these cameras are pretty useful - like capturing the image of a person or persons who may have committed a crime, or looking for lost kids in the mall. But when facial recognition cameras are aimed at people in public places, well, I think a line needs to be drawn - between a need for security and a need for privacy. Otherwise, we may as well have Big Brother take over the running of our lives.

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Rachel Montiel

Of Diamonds and Apples

I am now a proud owner of the HTC Touch Diamond. Granted, it doesn't have the prestige, hype or snob factor that seems to go with the Apple iPhone 3G. The Apple iPhone 3G has yet to see land-fall on Singapore's shores. It has gone on sale in the US for some time now. There is report that it will be available on the 26th August 2008 through local Telco, Singtel.

I said 'now' because at one time not too long ago, I just wanted to throw it into the river, any river. I was really disappointed and cursed the 'toywan-zai' for their lack of attention to detail. You see, I bought my Diamond from Singtel just a fews day after it was launched back in June. Within a week, I went back to Singtel for a replacement, and the replacement phone continued to give me problems the original one had - the phone would 'hang' at least once a day and the only way of resetting the phone so that it could take and make calls was to remove the battery and put it back. (Of course, there is the soft reset feature, but I didn't learn about it till much later). The phone's back cover was notoriously difficult to remove, requiring almost superlative human strength and gentleness so that it would come off without shattering it. Sometimes, the phone's battery would drain all its power unexpectedly so that I am left with a useless piece of metal and plastic block when I am expecting an important call. And sometimes, it would take hours to charge. What's more, it is also laggy. Response time during the password sign-in felt as if the phone was half-asleep and the highly touted Touch-Flo, well, sometime didn't quite flow at all. And you may say, the list of grouses continues...until one day, the phone just froze up. I couldn't soft reset it, I couldn't switch it off, so I had to pay the HTC service centre a personal visit.

And the people at the service centre admitted as much, that the firmware in my Diamond wasn't all that well written. The Touch-Flo feature, in particular, was taking up a lot of resources. I was told to disable it, but doing so would take away one of the reasons why I bought it. In any case, it appeared that they had a new firmware, which was duly loaded onto my Diamond. Thereafter, the Diamond looked and worked more like a diamond. Just two days ago, another upgrade to the firmware was made available. I downloaded and flashed my phone once more. The phone is now more responsive than before.

But my problems with the Diamond isn't unique, it appears. Early adopters of the iPhone 3G are reporting problems with it too. One of these is Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome fame. The problem he reports almost exactly mirror the problems I had with my HTC Diamond. So I would recommend that Chris flash his iPhone 3G (if Apple has the improved firmware). All of which goes to show that you shouldn't buy gadgets fresh off the oven, not even Apple's much hyped products. I suppose it pays to wait. But somehow, it is only human to want the latest gadget from Apple. Its the defining quality of this company. Me? I just cannot stomach hype and besides, the Diamond came out just at the time my Telco contract expired, so I got a hefty discount on the phone. All things considered, it is a great phone.

Spectacle and pride

The timing was unfortunate, inopportune, one might say. On Friday evening, the 8th of August 2008 (or 08-08-08), China put on a show extravaganza that simply took away everyone's breadth. Costing in the region of billions of dollars, it was simply one of the most spectacular opening ceremonies of an Olympic games. As I watch the TV now, of Singapore's National Day Parade on the banks of the Marina Bay, I must say that I am underwhelmed. And perhaps Mr Lee Kuan Yew feels the same too, having been at the Olympics opening ceremonies less than 24 hours ago. This is not to disparage the effort and sincerity of most Singaporeans on this occasion. It is a fact that somebody else has the resources and the talent and the people to mount something much more impressive. Its just that it probably would have helped if both occasions didn't come back to back on consecutive evenings, not when technology can bring both occasions into the living rooms of anybody anywhere in the world with a TV that is plugged into broadcasters with a license for these occasions.

Spectacle aside, it probably is politically more correct to have a modest celebration in Singapore, after the PM and government Ministers have been on air in the last few days warning the nation of harder times ahead. It just wouldn't do to see millions thrown into pageantry, never mind that it is only a once a year affair. But pageantry there must be, to show the rest of the world that we are not rolling over and playing dead. We are still very much alive and kicking, and if the past is anything to go by, and I am not referring to the recent past, but the past 43 years (or more if we count the year 1959 when Singapore gained self-government), then we should be ok. A people must show that it can enjoy the good times, but also hack the bad times. And I am sure we will emerge the stronger for it. Adversity breeds genuine character, so the Chinese saying goes.

Image taken off Mediacorp's 'Live' Web TV during the National Day Parade 2008 on 9th August 2008.

P.S. This is telling...from Yahoo Singapore:

Whole in the Heart

Yesterday, I attended a National Day observance cum celebration. It was an extravaganza of sorts. Besides the obligatory pledge and Majulah Singapura, which I hadn't sung in one year, the afternoon was filled with very creative and fun activities on stage. There were many stage items put up by various groups. Many of them were comedic to keep the occasion fun and entertaining. There was an item that went retro with dances stretching from the 1950s (a-go-go) right up to today's hip-hop. Some were more cultural - more dances again of which one was put up by our Myanmarese friends, all decked out in their traditional costumes. I didn't know there were that many Myanmarese in this single organisation. They managed to put on garbs from the various ethnic groups that make up Myanmar and did a fascinating traditional dance display. In the midst of this dance, I began to feel adrift as a Singaporean.

These people aren't rich, materially, but they have a culture and tradition they could articulate and call their own. They had come from afar to seek opportunities in Singapore, but they would have a place they would call their home to return to one day, nevermind if those places aren't as well-to-do or sophisticated as Singapore is. Their homes may be rural villages, but it has a history that probably goes back hundreds of years. And they have immediate neighbours who share a cultural and historical continuum. In contrast, Singaporeans have nothing.

We do not have a dance we can call our own. Whatever that it is, it looks awfully (and I mean awfully) like a product or adaptation from Hollywood, Bollywood or Shaw Organisation. Whatever songs we have come up with - "Stand up for Singapore", "Count on me, Singapore", "One People, One Nation, One Singapore", "Where I belong", "We will get there", etc., all of them are effort to try to psycho ourselves to believe that we belong to this tiny island. We do, so why insist on it? It is un-natural. That is why I rarely, if ever, sing these songs. Unlike our Myanmarese friends, we Singaporeans are trapped on this island. China will never accept Singapore Chinese as one of their own. Our fathers and grandfathers perhaps, but not those in my generation and those after. Ironically, many China Chinese seem to have migrated in droves to this island and called it their home - for now, that is. They still have a Shanghai or Suzhou or Tianjin or Beijing to go back to when they choose to. It is such a fluid world we live in today.

But of course, some would argue that the Singaporean can easily uproot himself to places such as the US, Canada, Great Britain and Australia. But that is hardly going home. The Singaporean may be cosmopolitan, and he would fit in nicely in these places, but at heart, he knows it is not home, and can never be. Some Singapore Chinese would like to call China our home. That is where our forebears came from anyway. But we know we are not one of them and they know that too. And it doesn't help when our Chinese language abilities are half past six.

So for better or worse, there is really only one home, and that is located on a tiny island on the tip of the Malay Peninsula. We are not old enough to have a unique and ingrained culture and tradition. We should not pretend that we have. We experiment through copying and adapting from others what fancies us at that point in time. It is not us - at least, not yet for people like me who straddle different histories and memories. We still wear costumes that our forebears wore in their countries of birth - China, India... Any pretense at a National dress has been torn in tatters years ago. We may have an island full of engineers, but we have failed dismally when it comes to engineering an identity. That will take time and perhaps we shouldn't rush it. In the meantime, at 47, we can continue (is there a choice?) to be cosmopolitan in our outlook and mercenary in our pursuits. I am sure some time down the road, perhaps 40, 50 years from, we will have evolved a peculiar and genuine Singapore culture and tradition our children can call their own.

We are, after all, only 43.

Image taken off Mediacorp's 'Live' Web TV during the National Day Parade 2008 on 9th August 2008.

Lose that customer

According to a MasterCard Worldwide survey on customers' relationship with the banks, Singapore is the only country in Asia-Pacific where people (61% of them) switch banks because of bad service and not lousy rates and high fees.

Well, this survey finding is spot on where I am concerned. About 10 years ago, I got ditched from being rewarded by a bank whose credit card I had been using regularly for well over 10 years. Credit cards accumulate points which can then be exchanged for rewards. I had a very hectic schedule then and didn't notice that my accumulated points were expiring, until one day after. I called the bank to waive that one day. The guy said he needed to check and duly reverted. I was refused. So this was a higher up decision, not just the front line staff making a hasty 'go-by-the-rulebooks' decision. This meant that the points that I had accumulated, which was quite substantial, was simply just wiped off my account. In a sense, that's cash. I thought that if someone higher up did not value my business, and could be so mercenary with its customer's cash, I'd take it elsewhere. I stopped using that credit card and in all that 10 years since, I have only ever used it a grand total of once. Even today, under the pecking order of cards that I have, it is my least preferred card. There is such as thing known as the lifetime value of a customer. While I don't spend in the 6 digit figure range every month or every year, for that matter, I settle my bills on time and don't give them any problems - re delinquency.

Just the other day, I canceled another credit card one year after I signed up because it slapped me with a card membership fee of S$192. I thought that I had 2 years free use on that card because the telemarketeer said so and the expiry date printed on the card confirmed that. Call me naive if you want, but I do dislike people, and especially businesses, who do not keep their word or who do not have a customer orientation in their business dealings.

Since then, I have only ever used a vanilla credit card (gold, platinum, whatever...they mean nothing nowadays) which rewards with cash rebates. I get the cash which is accumulated through use of the card. So the next time I visit a store that has the facility to inform me of my rebate earnings, I offset my bill at point of purchase - simple, clean and clear. No more having to keep track of expiry dates, no more having to deal with people who cannot waive a one day expiry, or a one year premature membership fee...and the list may go on for others based on my experience with the banks.

Banks are not unaware of this, yet I am still canceling cards. There must be something wrong with the processes in some banks. Ah well, I don't need that many cards, really...

Image source: morgueFile.com. Author: Kevin Rosseel