Military style politics

There is only so much of the PAP candidate Chan Chun Sing that i can stand listening to. This guy exemplifies everything that is bad about English in Singapore. This wouldn't matter in everyday life, but here is a candidate potentially being groomed for a ministerial position. His grammar is non-existent, his enunciation is dismal and his accents throughout his sentences are seemingly random. It boggles my mind how someone who has spent 4 years in Cambridge University and Oxford can have this level of spoken English. His language skills is merely the first impression. As for the substance of his speeches, his analogies are irrelevant and obfuscate his points, and every interview question he answers is filled with rhetoric, like he was a character from a civics and moral education textbook. Yes, remember that one? Hao Gong Ming?

Let's take one of his interviews as an example. The question was, what grassroots experience do you have? He starts by saying that he started only 10 days ago due to his previous job, which required clear separation between military and civilian life. In the 10 days, he was working in Buona Vista, which is a microcosm (one of his favourite words) of Singapore. The question is, how do you bring them togetherThe challenges that people in Buona Vista faced, were not that much different from what his men in the military faced. Everyone has different aspirations and challenges, and the question is how would one bring all these people together? He was impressed with the poor people he met, who were disciplined and determined to climb out of poverty. He was inspired to try and do better. He was more concerned however, with the group who was slightly more priviledged, but need a little help with their financial circumstances, that despite the fact that they have more, they may need more help. He hopes to bring the community together where the haves can help the have-nots, then the community will be strong. He said that poverty will always exist in society, and the important thing is to have the rich help the poor. Then he invokes his 'hero' Spidey. Those who have the means should reach out to the less fortunate. He goes on to cite his 'humble' beginnings and how he has risen and benefitted from the system. He wants to ensure that next generation Singaporeans will be able to continue to benefit from this system, so that able and willing people can always rise up regardless of their circumstance.

How did his grassroots experience turn into quoting Spiderman and rising up regardless of circumstance? His directionless ramble managed to touch upon an unidentified group of slightly priviledged people who need help, having the rich help the poor, and maintaining a system of social mobility.

Nowhere in there was a discussion of the causes of poverty in Singapore, concrete plans on how he was going to get the able to help the poor or even a hint at his ideological stand on whether it should be the government's job to alleviate poverty. It was just three minutes of fluff and rhetoric.

Can we finally have someone of more substance? Next....

Tiger mums and GRCs

It is well-documented from education studies that when teachers and schools set a high but realistic expectation for their students, these students tend to do better (see Rutter 1979, Fifteen Thousand Hours). Schools where weaker students are identified and constantly bombarded with the message that they are not good enough will tend to do badly. The psychological effect of subtle messages around us has a larger power than many of us realize. It is common sense that constantly being told that you're not smart will probably have a devastating effect on your self-esteem and confidence, and inadvertently have the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now let's suppose that a government and her citizens have a teacher-student relationship. This analogy might seem a little of a stretch for most countries, but in campaign-loving and paternalistic Singapore this dynamic seems to exist. From the 'Stop at Two' to littering to speaking English, the government constantly preaches to her citizens the lesson currently in vogue, attempting to change behaviors through a blend of nudges and shoves. If the government were to learn any lessons from education research, how should it approach its relationship with her citizens?

The Chinese culture seems to believe in the tough-love way of teaching. Tiger Mom thought nothing of belittling her daughter to push her towards excellence. My JC Chinese teacher exemplified this when she told me I should thank my lucky stars for getting a B for my AO exam and not waste my time trying for a better grade. Was she trying to spur me to a better grade? Or did she really think an A grade was beyond my abilities? Either way I was hurt. I often feel the same hurt when I read the Straits Times. Hurt by the low expectation that the government seems to set for her citizens. Hurt that they constantly belittle the intelligence and collective spirit of Singaporeans.

'Singaporean votes are not mature enough to vote beyond racial lines', we are told over and over again. That is why we need a GRC system to ensure minority representation. Yet, I always want to scream at the newpapers. 'Please let me decide for myself! Stop telling me what you think I will do!' This relationship between the government and her people is Uniquely Singaporean. I do not know of another country where politicians can get away with insulting the electorate. Instead, in most places you get a more encouraging 'yes-you-can-do-it' message.

“A poll says 90 percent of Chinese Singaporeans say they will elect a non-Chinese as PM. Yes, this is the ideal. You believe these polls? Utter rubbish. They say what is politically correct,”

Well guess what? After a few decades of being told we are not ready for full racial integration, we might really start believing it.

What if I heard this message instead?


We are proud to be multiracial and multicultural. We may still be stuck voting along racial lines (I don't personally believe this to be true), but let's try to be conscious of this and aspire to be a nation that can vote in a minority candidate! I believe that Singapore can and will look beyond racial differences, because all Singaporeans ultimately wish for such a society for their children.

I might just start believing this...

Getting ahead of oneself

Election fever has hit Singapore. Going by the groundswell of sentiment on the Singaporean blogosphere, you may be led to think that popular anger at the PAP government is going to lose them quite a few constituencies this time around. Yet going by the results of the last election, it seems this anger is peculiar to the small segment of the Singaporean population that makes up the blogosphere. Many other blogs or sites have touched on this issue so I won’t repeat it. Instead, I have been thinking about the PAP’s latest petulant complaint, that opposition candidates are received with open arms and much less scrutiny than the PAP ones. Well guess what? This is a phenomenon that results directly from PAP politics!

In the past, opposition candidates were either weakened through lawsuits to the point of bankruptcy (JBJ and CSJ) or exiled to foreign nations (Francis Seow etc). Those that were deemed safe enough to coexist with the PAP government were constantly subject to character assassinations and smear campaigns. They were ridiculed for bad grades (CST) or some other personal failing. We were led to believe that PAP candidates were the best because of their combination of good grades in school, top educational pedigree and successful careers. Opposition members were painted over as mediocre students, slipper-wearing crackpots, extreme radicals or mentally-disturbed sociopaths.

If we believed this hook line and sinker, then it’s no surprise that with the unveiling of the latest opposition candidates, the public would embrace them so warmly. Whether or not good grades and educational pedigree make for good leaders, the opposition can boast of having the same if not better caliber candidates as the PAP. With years of making us believe that these were the qualities that made for a good MP, the PAP’s strategy is now inadvertently legitimizing the candidacy of the opposition. Furthermore, years of ‘fixing’ the opposition has resulted in a climate of fear, so that any opposition candidates who emerge that do not appear clinically insane, are instantly perceived as brave, courageous and patriotic. Can the PAP’s policies back-fire any worse than this?

In a sense, the environment that the PAP has created selects for a certain breed of opposition candidates. While I do not know any one of the opposition candidates personally, here is my guess of what his or her typical profile is, based on age group. For those in their thirties and forties, he (or she) is likely to be working in a private company or have started his own company. He is very idealistic and possibly driven by religious motivations, and sincerely believes that with more alternative voices in parliament change can come about. For those older, he is likely to have been very successful in his career and felt that it is time to serve the public. He is driven more by frustration at recent policies and a sense of nostalgia for a Singapore of the past.

Conversely, the PAP’s history of trooping out one Oxbridge graduate after another sets up a self-reinforcing system, so that future candidates not from the same mould are scrutinized to a greater degree. The initial curiosity into Tin Pei Ling’s personal life is probably driven by the desire to know the qualities that got her selected over other qualified candidates. When the public balked at her lack of stellar achievements, she did not help matters by flubbing her debutante media appearance. Her Palinesque lack of substance did not fit the mould of the typical PAP candidate, drawing her even more flak. Once the PAP set the standard for high-achieving candidates, they cannot blame the public for spurning their latest insipid offering, for the public is just holding them to the high lofty standards they have painstakingly created in our minds.

The importance of experience

A Japanese friend of mine graduated from a prestigious Japanese university and was hired by Japan Railways (JR). Like in Singapore, graduates of top universities in Japan can expect permanent employment for life in a major Japanese company with an elite career guiding them to upper management. Yet for his first training rotation, my friend was assigned to learn to drive a bullet train (‘shinkansen’). He probably never operated a train by himself, but for a few months he was apprenticed to a licensed train operator, living and learning the job. This kind of training is grounded on the belief that a good business decisions can only be made by upper management if you understand all aspects of your business. Only a CEO who has experienced the job of a train driver will understand how his decision to increase train frequency may affect the drivers.

Current Justice Minister Keiko Chiba made this point last week. While Japan has the death penalty, it has not executed anyone for years. Previous Justice Ministers who were staunch Budhists have hesitated to sign the execution orders, leaving many waiting in jail on death row. Hopes were high when Keiko Chiba, a staunch abolitionist of the death penalty, was appointed in September 2010. Yet she did the unthinkable when she signed for the execution of 2 people this past week, defying all expectations. What was more surprising, was that she attended and witnessed the executions in person. Ms Chiba reiterated that she had not changed her mind about the death penalty, and that since the execution was being carried out by her orders, she thus believed that it was her responsibility to see it with her own eyes. "Witnessing [them] with my own eyes made me think deeply about the death penalty, and I once again strongly felt that there is a need for a fundamental discussion.”

I was impressed with the humility of Ms Chiba when I first read the news. Despite the fact that she seems to have made up her mind against the death penalty, she performed her duty as the law states, and witnessed the act herself to fully understand the impact of her decision. It may take only one second to sign her name on the execution order, but by being there herself, Ms Chiba launched herself into the debate. Perhaps she will change her mind after witnessing the depravity of the criminals, or perhaps she will come out of it more determined to abolish the death penalty. Whatever her decision, we know that Ms Chiba will have thought deeply about the issue, not from the comfort of her office chair, but from the discomfort of seeing someone die in front of her.

Ms Chiba also announced the formation of a study group to relook the necessity of the death penalty in Japanese society. Even though polls show majority of the public are in favor of the death penalty, Ms Chiba is also opening the gallows to viewing by journalists, in the hopes that this will prompt a meaningful public discussion about the topic. If Ms Chiba’s intentions are successful, Japan will take a huge step towards a mature democracy. It is easy to be in favor of the death penalty when one is not faced with the sight of the gallows, the face of the criminal and the family of the convict. Similarly, It is also not a balanced debate until one hears from the family of the victims. While the story of the victim is often portrayed in the media, the side of the convict is rarely represented.

Now I take the topic back to Singapore’s debate of the death penalty. We should make it the job of the Law Minister to witness the hanging of a convict. We should also open the gallows for National Education field trips. On top of going to SAFTI to learn about total defense, we should also make it mandatory for our students to tour our jails and our gallows. This not only serves as a possible deterrant to would-be criminals, but it will reignite the debate of capital punishment. We may even get more interesting GP essays that go beyond toeing the party line. A true democracy is a state where the citizens decide, not based on fear or indoctrination, the laws of the land. While she may fail on other issues, our Law Minister has much to learn from Ms Chiba in the case of the death penalty.

I am a name snob

I have lived in the USA for 10 years, and during this time I have seen Chinese friends modify their names from Jie to Jay, or Xiang to Shang for the Caucasian majority they live within. Japanese names are easier but are often shortened from Takahiro to Tak, or from Kazuhiko to Kaz. I have always insisted that people use my full Chinese name (I don’t have a Western name), even if they mangle the pronounciation. In my mind, a bad-sounding version of my real name is better than a perfect pronounciation of a Western moniker.

I love my name, and I love that my parents took great pains to select it for me. I love the aspirations that my parents had for me, all bound lovingly into two characters. Even if my mail comes with my name misspelt, or my new friend trips over the syllabi when they try to call me, I will insist on using the name my parents gave me. Even if it sounds foreign, my American friends think it sounds beautiful. Even if they don’t know what it means, they are envious when I explain it to them.

Lee Wei Ling caused a little bit of a stir when she wrote in a column that choosing unique Westernized names was a reflection of narcissism. While I don’t think she should interfere with other people’s choices of names for themselves or their children, I am secretly in agreement with her. It irks me a little when I look down the class roster of my young cousin. Her classmates run the gamut of Reuben, Aloysius, Atticus and Keisha to Byron, Floyd and Scott. I often wonder, do Singaporeans know the origins of these names? What kind of a person do they imagine when they think of a Reuben? No offense to the reubens out there, but I see a reuben sandwich being eaten by a cherubic white boy. Racist? Probably. But I can’t help what I think.

Along these lines, studies have shown that employers in the US subconsciously reject more resumes from Keishas, Demarcus and the likes. These names are associated with African-Americans names. The moral of the story is, that while we are all free to choose our names and our children’s names, we cannot control what others think about the name. My first impressions of Reuben Tan will be someone hailing from a nouveau-riche family. Florabelles will conjure up images of uneducated parents. I am a name snob, but I’m glad you couldn’t tell that from looking at my name.

Where do the brightest go?

In the days of feudal Japan, your fate was determined by the family you were born into. If your father was a farmer, you would not imagine a different occupation for yourself. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, himself the protagonist a rags-to-riches story, rose from a farmer to the regent of Japan. And yet, he wrote a law forbidding farmers from becoming samurai, ultimately rigidifying the class boundaries. Despite all its failings, this system did ensure that there were enough farmers who provided food, skilled craftsmen who produced goods, merchants who facilitated trade and samurai who kept peace.

Let’s fast forward now to our modern day. Rigid class boundaries have mostly fallen and we are only bounded by the rules of meritocracy. One can dream of being a poet, an engineer, a teacher or even an astronaut. In an ideal world, we would expect the population to spread itself evenly out over an array of occupations. This means that within the smartest group of people, we should be able to find a variety of dream jobs. Yet in the era of hyper-inflated bonuses on Wall Street, we find the best and brightest flocking to finance. Is it possible that all these people truly love finance? Is finance really superior to all the other fields?

As a libertarian, I believe that what careers others pick should be up to them. However, from the standpoint of a citizen, what others pick does concern me. I want the best civil engineers to build the bridges I use every day to get to work. I want the best researchers to search for the cures to old-age diseases that will hurt me in 30 years. I want the best teachers to educate the young so my country has a better future. That is simply not possible if our best and brightest are all flocking into finance. I see it all around me. Physicists with PhDs sucked up by Wall Street to build ever more complex financial models. Engineers, economists, English majors, you name it. A few years ago, I even knew a Dance major who joined one of the investment banks. The rationale is that as long as you were smart, you could be trained to do the job. Maybe the Dance major found out in college she wasn’t cut out to be a dancer. Perhaps she is indeed happier as a investment banker. Whatever her reasons are, I fear she is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The same situation exists in Singapore, perhaps to a greater extent. The brightest who so happen to be rich, are able to fund their own overseas education. Those who do return tend to end up in finance. The brightest who aren’t as rich find themselves serving out a stint in the civil service to pay off their overseas scholarships. The skew in the job choices of the brightest is institutional, which makes it all the more laughable when Singapore talks about creating the next Bill Gates or Nobel laureate. Things became slightly better when Singapore decided a large push towards pharmaceutical and biomedical gadgets was essential to replace the flagging semiconductor industry. Science became ever slightly ‘cooler’.

Will Singapore ever produce a Nobel laureate? Probably not in my life time. The US could also lose its science and technological supremacy, but that is less likely to happen as she will always attract some of the brightest in the world to her shores. Similarly, Singapore is trying to attract top talent to her shores, but this can only be a stopgap measure. What we need now, is to build up our own diversified talent pool. The excuse that Singapore is too small to allow diversification is bollocks. Just look at Iceland.

Generosity measured

The morning news greets us at the start of the day, with grim news of extreme hardship faced by Haitians devastated by a massive earthquake on Tuesday. I also then read with much bewilderment, that the Singapore government pledged US 50,000 dollars for Haiti relief efforts. Seriously, are you kidding me now? The Government of Singapore, representing our population of 4 million, pledges 1.25 cents per Singaporean? While I know that many Singaporeans are undergoing financial hardship in this bad economy, surely it doesn't take much to figure out that Haitians are many many more times in need right now. Let's take a moment to compare what this 50,000 USD represents:

Cost of a new car in Singapore
5% of what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie pledged for Haiti relief efforts
1.75% of PM Lee's annual salary
0.69% of our 10M SGD Community Integration Fund
0.000005% of the value of what our sovereign wealth funds are worth

Gosh darn it. 50K USD is not even enough these days to pay for the down payment on a new property.

I feel slightly ashamed of my country right now. For sure, Haiti represents little in the way of economic value to our government. There isn't a significant Haitian population in Singapore. In many ways we are far removed from the impoverished Carribean nation. However, on the grounds of our shared humanity, I think they deserve a little more than 50K USD. I personally will be making a donation to the relief efforts, and it will surely not be 1.75% of my annual salary.