Sexism in newspapers I first came across this story about 22 people caught in Malaysia for indulging in a sex orgy on the Straits Times’ website. The headline of the Straits Times version of the story is “3 women caught at sex orgy”. After I read the story, I found out that the three women were Malaysian, and they were caught for prostituting themselves to 19 Bangladeshi men in a sex orgy. I got annoyed after learning the whole story because I couldn’t understand why the focus was on the women. The headline was plainly sexist. Later, I realised the story was attributed to The Star, a Malaysian newspaper. So, I went to search for the original story that appeared on The Star, and the headline, “Three women caught at sex orgy with 19 foreigners”, was a little better than the Straits Times, although it was still sexist because the headline explicitly mentioned the word ‘women’ but not ‘men’. I don’t understand why the focus of the story had to be on the women. The Bangladeshi men are equally guilty of committing the offence. Why can’t the headline be gender neutral, such as “22 people caught for sex orgy”?. The fact of the matter is that there were 22 people involved in the act, so why did the papers decide to highlight the role of the women in the offence? In fact, the newspapers should highlight the alleged pimp and mastermind of the orgy, a 56 year-old man. Sheesh. I can’t speak for the Malaysian papers, but I think the Straits Times editors should have had more sense to change the headline for re-publication. Our One-Party Democracy The title of this entry was copied word for word from the headline of Thomas Friedman’s op-ed column on the New York Times a few days back, and the reason for borrowing his headline word for word is because it aptly describes the situation here in Singapore too, although there are definitely some differences. In his column, Friedman acknowledged that a one-party autocracy by an enlightened group of leaders can have enormous benefits for citizens, and he used China as a shining example of the advantages of having a one-party autocracy, contrasting it with the currently dysfunctional (at least in my opinion) two-party democracy in America where the smaller party is constantly obstructing progress for the sake of obstruction while the bigger party is trying to create progress for the country, hence the term one-party democracy. Actually, the one party democracy Friedman describes is not exactly unworkable. The problem in the United States now is that the Democratic Party is not dominant enough to completely ignore the Republicans. In Singapore, we have a one-party democracy that provides the same benefits as a one-party autocracy as stated by Friedman. Singapore does not have a problem with policy obstructionism simply because the Other is simply too weak to provide any decent challenge. Does this then mean that a one-party democracy, Singapore style, is the ideal form of governance? Actually, I think so, provided that voters can cause the political pendulum to swing the other way when the need arises, for example, like what has happened in Japan recently. The only dangers in the Singapore-styled one party democracy are acts behind the shadows that are against the values of democracy. Don’t be mistaken, though. There are great benefits of Singapore’s one-party democracy, but I still believe that the two dominant party democracy of the United States is still slightly better. However, after further contemplation, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s one-party, two-party, multi-party democracy, or even a monarchy, for so long as those in power use their positions to create a better life for everyone in society. At the end of the day, perhaps it’s pointless to argue over which style of governance is best, for everything is moot if those in power possess narrow, selfish interests. The short supply of empathy in Singapore While I’ve been ranting about the Straits Times pretty often of late, being the most decent English newspaper on this island, I have no choice but to read it for local news, and this piece of news about a man jailed for pitching and living in illegal tent was rather disturbing to me. I do not know the complete facts of the case, but assuming the newspaper report is accurate, this man pitched a canvas tent at East Coast Park in 2007 without a valid license, and he lived there for a month before being discovered and apprehended by park rangers who presumably handed him over to the police, and then the attorney-general’s chambers decided to proceed with the case, resulting in the fine which became a 4 day jail term because of inability to pay the fine. The reason for this man living in a tent is apparently homelessness and unemployment. And in that month he lived outdoors, he claimed he seldom ate, subsisting on food that friends would bring from time to time. I believe these information should have been given to the police, who would have in turn passed it on to the AGC. While I understand that this man has indeed broken a law and legal prosecution is completely justified, surely some empathy could have been shown in deciding whether to charge this person. The justice system worked flawlessly in this case, but what this person needs is not a fine nor jailing; what he needs is social assistance to deal with the source of his transgression of the law. The justice system is not the antidote to this problem. This is not the way to build a more inclusive and gracious society. And yes, a more inclusive and gracious society needs a greater supply of empathy, and of course, the participation of the justice system too. It’s a sad story to read. Tolerance versus understanding This year’s National Day Rally speech is interesting because of the amount of time devoted to the topic of racial and religious pluralism in Singapore. There is no doubt that many people are still concerned about the state of the economy, and the prime minister would do well to dwell on that issue at length, but instead, a choice was made to devote a considerable amount of time on the issues of race and religion, issues which have not been publicly dealt with by the head of our government for a good number of years. I am most certainly pleased that the prime minister has chosen to discuss the topic candidly and respectfully. Racial and religious harmony can never be taken for granted, and it is necessary to bring this topic onto the public agenda from time to time, lest we forget the painful lessons of our history. However, the content was pretty much predictable, toeing established government lines on race and religion, but well, what else can we expect from this occasional flogging of a dead horse? The prime minister has outlined the various government efforts to maintain race and religious harmony in Singapore in terms of the punitive legislative measures, behind the scenes efforts to engage religious leaders and mediation efforts to amicably resolve conflicts, nipping potential flash points in the bud. However, I think what is more important is to cultivate a sense of understanding in Singaporeans with regards to race and religion, and not just mere tolerance. Tolerance in my opinion, especially in the context of race and religion, simply means suppressing one’s objections or discomfort. A person can be racially tolerant, but it does not mean that person is not a racist. I am willing to bet to my last dollar that there are racists and religious extremists in Singapore who do not express their feelings outwardly because they don’t want to be thrown into jail under Singapore’s strict racial and religious harmony laws. These people can be said to be tolerant, but is this a satisfactory outcome? What will happen if the strong mandate of the state vanishes? What we need is to engender understanding rather than tolerance. Easier said than done. It’s really about getting the individual to step out of their comfort zones. A person who always surrounds himself or herself with people of the same race or the same religion is very much less likely to be understanding of other races and religion. The association with people of similar traits is likely to result in the narrowing of one’s thought and thus resulting in diminished racial and religious understanding ability. Forcing people to mix together, especially adults, isn’t a very good idea. It’s easier to do so with children, though. I remember I went to a government primary school, and many of my current friends from other races were made from back then. We played together, laughed together and were punished by our teachers together. At least for me, I didn’t care about race or religion; all I knew was that it was fun to be with everyone, regardless of race and religion. I think the best starting point for racial and religious understanding is during childhood, and the government has to try and make sure that children experience racial and religious plurality at a young age, no matter which schools they are in. I generally don’t support government propaganda and ‘brainwashing’, but I am willing to make an exception for the sake of developing of religious and racial understanding. Consultation on human rights in ASEAN There will be a public consultation workshop on human rights in ASEAN this Saturday at the Novotel Hotel, and it looks like a pretty interesting event for anyone interested in human rights issues in this region. Details of the workshop can be found here (PDF document). Do give the details PDF file a read. Pretty interesting stuff. And if you would like to go, the sign up link is here. Just when I thought I was done ranting about ST I ranted about Straits Times a couple of days ago over the quality of their content, and today I just had to see something to make me rant again. This time, it’s not even about quality of content; it’s about their atrocious quality of writing and editing. Bad content, bad writing and editing. Can our flagship English newspaper sink any lower? Here’s the problematic lead paragraph (original article here): WHILE most offenders appeal in the hope of lowering their sentences, 18-year-old Danny Koh Jia Gui asked an appeal judge to be jailed and caned instead of having to undergo reformative training. The confusing part is in bold. The sentence construction conveys the meaning that Koh had asked for the jailing and caning of the judge instead of asking for the judge to jail and cane Koh. The copy editor was obviously SLEEPING on the job. If I were the copy editor, I would have rewritten the lead paragraph as follows: While most offenders appeal in the hope of lowering their sentences, 18-year-old Danny Koh Jia Gui asked an appeal judge to impose a jail sentence and caning instead of reformative training. The rewritten paragraph has the same number of words with much greater clarity in meaning. Sigh. Update: I just realised the Straits Time put up a rewritten story, and the original that I read was posted up yesterday, but a new version put up today. It seems like they have quality control problems, but as always, they try to secretly change the story and hope nobody notices instead of admitting they screwed up. The first version I read: The second version A convenient excuse for racial stereotyping I read this article on the Straits Times blog after seeing a friend share it on Facebook, and boy I was totally floored and flabbergasted by its content. In short, the author, Luke T Johnson (he’s apparently assistant to the editor), attempted to make the case that racial stereotyping is not always bad. In his words, racial stereotyping can “prove useful, even life-saving”. In order to make such distasteful content palatable, he placed a few paragraphs of disclaimers upfront before narrating in detail a single incident which he was robbed by a Hispanic and two African-Americans, concluding that he would have avoided being robbed if he had done some racial stereotyping. The icing on the cake? Trying to link his incident with the recent Gates-Crowley incident. Total bullshit. It’s bad enough that the Straits Times is often derided as State’s Times, but with this latest piece, I can’t help but wonder if the ST is continuing on its downward devolution into BS Times. Racial stereotyping for the purpose of fear-mongering and perpetuating irrational hate among people can never be justified. One can find murderers, rapists, robbers, burglars, thieves, con men and other kinds of criminals in any racial group. Therefore, what good reason is there to engage in racial stereotyping? Johnson claims that the danger in harbouring racial stereotypes is the possible degeneration of such thinking into “twisted ideologies” but he conveniently drops the discussion of whether racial stereotyping is logical to begin with so as to be able to make his bullshit claim about racial stereotyping being potentially useful. You know, crime is potentially useful too. Burglary is potentially useful because it will make people double bolt their doors, triple lock their windows and install burglar alarms. Shoplifting is potentially useful too. It will make shop owners install security cameras, anti-theft alarm systems and hire security guards, boosting the economy and the labour market. Robbery is also extremely useful to deter people from showing off their expensive Rolexes and Tiffanies. Allowing robbery would be much more effective than throwing money at PR or advertising agencies to come up with a campaign. I rest my case. From iron fist to velvet gloves to boxing gloves Ever since changes to Singapore’s political system was announced a few months back, I’ve been thinking about why the Lee Hsien Loong government has decided to do all these when it is obvious there’s little tangible gain to the PAP from taking a small, liberal step towards reforming our political system. Reactions that followed the announcements of increasing the number of NCMPs, reducing the size of GRCs, increasing the number of single seat constituencies and permanently entrenching the NMP scheme as part of the Singapore political space were drawn along familiar battle lines, with the more belligerent cyberspace facing off against the cheerleading mainstream media. I believe that most arguments for and against these changes have been exhausted, so I’m not going to comment about that. What piqued my curiosity regarding these announcements was the purpose behind them, and I came up with two possible explanations. It’s either the PAP has come to realise that being too politically dominant is is potentially threatening to their own political survival or Lee Hsien Loong is starting to move his chess pieces to secure his legacy in future annals. The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to believe the latter reason is more plausible. Singapore’s first post independence Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, is most remembered for his iron fisted style of governance. In his drive to move Singapore from Third World to First World, Lee adopted a ‘my way or the highway approach’, and while this approach has had admirers, with the more recent ones being the Chinese Communist Party cadres, it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Singaporeans. After Lee Kuan Yew came Goh Chok Tong, a leader with a softer personality but with the previous Prime Minister still sitting in Parliament and Cabinet as Senior Minister, and wielding extremely strong influence to boot, there was little Goh could do, so he built his legacy as a Prime Minister by masking the entrenched iron fisted style of governance with a velvet glove. It seems that Lee Hsien Loong has decided against being a carbon copy of Goh and wants to carve out his own unique legacy. My guess is that the announced political changes are part of his plan to cushion the entrenched iron fisted style of governance, changing not just the look but lowering the pain of being punched by an iron fist. I believe there’re probably more changes afoot as Lee Hsien Loong continues to think about his place in future history books. The real question I would like to see answered in the coming years is whether Lee Hsien Loong is willing to stop at donning boxing gloves, or would he be willing to replace the iron first with a gentle fist? Well, maybe he should go the whole nine yards. If everything ends up being upended by the end of Lee Hsien Loong’s tenure, his successor is going to have a difficult time. The meaning of death I’m supposed to be working hard on my Masters thesis, but for the past week, I’ve been spending some time pondering the meaning of death because my wife’s co-supervisor at MIT, Professor David Schauer, suddenly passed away. I’ve not had the chance to know him very well, but the few times I’ve met him and talked to him, it’s clear as day to me that he’s a wonderful person. He’s soft-spoken, patient, kind and caring towards people. He was due to spend a year in Singapore in a few months, and I was looking forward to knowing him better and showing him around Singapore. His departure came as a shock to me, although I’m definitely not as badly affected as my wife and the other members of his lab. However, it did make me ponder the meaning of death, a topic in the deepest recesses of my mind in recent times. And, I think I’ve decided what death means to me. Death is not the mourning of demise, but a celebration of having lived life. When it’s my turn to leave, I hope people who still remember me will smile, and for those who have to shed tears, let it be tears of joy. The way forward This blog has not been updated for a while, and I don’t know if I’ll continue to update it with the intensity of the past. It’s a combination of factors for the lack of updates but generally, I guess the fire in the belly has fizzled considerably, perhaps due to age, work, married life, new life interests and other factors that I’m unable to pinpoint. I guess I’ll probably still write on this blog sporadically. There are many voices these days commenting on the gamut of socio-political-economic issues in Singapore society today that perhaps my views are perhaps unnecessary, except for a niche group of people who bother checking this blog every now and then. Nonetheless, I still want to document my views from time to time, and perhaps some years down the road when I do a proper content analysis of my blog I will be surprised to find out how I’ve changed through the years. Till the next entry. No frills housing? Don’t have upgrading lor. The recent discussions in Parliament had two pretty interesting topics that I’ve been wanting to write about, but I’ve not gotten down to doing so because of the whole JCS debate. The first one is the no-frills HDB flat, which I will address in this entry, and the second is the proclamation that Singaporeans are untalented in procreation, which will be saved for another day. I don’t quite get why the suggestion of no-frills HDB flats was even brought up in the first place. This suggestion flies directly in the face of what the PAP has been doing for years: upgrading HDB estates to increase their value. Twenty to thirty years ago, HDB flats were indeed almost no-frills until the upgrading frenzy started. If we didn’t have upgrading, there will be plenty of no-frills HDB flats out there on the market. Besides, HDB has flats available for rent (at hugely subsidised prices) for those who are unable to afford owning their own roof over the head. So, what’s the purpose of having no-frills HDB flats? It doesn’t seem to serve any purpose at all. This is an extremely strange proposition coming from PAP MPs. It is indeed very interesting to me that some PAP MPs don’t seem to even understand rationale of the policies set by their own political party. Instead of no-frills housing, from a logical standpoint, the government will actually want to INCREASE the frills so that the market value of the HDB goes up. This is because a) the current ruling PAP can use increased values of HDB flats as election propaganda, and b) HDB can pocket more from the sale of a new flat, since the subsidy is pegged to market prices. I think sometimes, not saying anything is a better option than shooting oneself in the foot. But I must say that this suggestion is a whole lot smarter than suggesting the abolishing of the five day work week because the birthrate has not gone up. Love, not violence I was just reading this website that’s trying to raise awareness of dating violence (http://www.chooselovenotabuse.com/). This whole concept of dating violence, I must admit, is something that’s foreign to me, probably due to my idealistic views of a relationship. The first thought I had of what constitutes dating violence was physical violence, and as an afterthought, sexual violence. And yes, my immediate mental imagery was that of men as the abusers and women as the victims (looks like I’m not immune to gender stereotyping). Well, perhaps some women might abuse their partners physically, but I’m not quite sure about the sex part… Never mind. Anyway, it turns out that emotional and psychological abuse are part of dating violence too. I don’t quite get what’s the difference between the two, though. Do our emotions not emerge from our brains as well? Why the different classification? Anyway, I’m digressing. The point here is that dating violence isn’t necessarily restricted to physical or sexual harm. I don’t understand why would anyone resort to physical or sexual abuse of their partners. If you’re pissed off and need to take things out physically, go pummel a wall or sandbag. If you are not having enough sex, I’m sure there are better options other than forcing yourself on your partner. If you’re the one on the receiving end, I sure you wouldn’t enjoy the experience of being either physically or sexually abused (masochists excluded from my argument). As for psychological/emotional violence, this is a little tricky. Being humans, we do get upset and say hurtful things or carry out actions that might wound our partners psychologically and emotionally. I am guilty of inflicting psychological/emotional hurt sometimes. I definitely need to continue working on that to be, in the words of Robbie Williams, a better man. But I guess the occasional outburst is pretty normal; it becomes dangerous only when the psychological/emotional hurting becomes pathological. If you’ve been physically or sexually abused by your partner, I think it’s clearly time to seek help. As for psychological or emotional abuse, this is going to be a harder call. I don’t know where the line is drawn for non-physical forms of dating violence. I believe different people have different thresholds and definitions of psychological/emotional abuse. Nonetheless, it’s perhaps a good idea to read up a little on dating violence. You might never know when the information could come in handy. Anyway, for all of you who are attached or married, have a great Valentine’s Day. If you are in a long-distance relationship as I am now, I feel your pain. I’ve held out fine on my own for a few months but my walls are crumbling. When you are with someone for a long time, their absence is like having a heart or lung missing (not that I know what it feels like to be literally having a missing heart or lung; it’s a figure of speech). So if you’re spending your Valentine’s Day this year with your significant other by your side, take a moment to cherish the fact that she’s with you now. Even though videoconferencing technology is cheap and easily accessible these days, it still remains a poor substitute. Nothing beats having your loved one by your side. Enjoy your Valentine’s Day while I stare into tonight’s sky wondering if my wife is looking at the same moon on the other side of the globe at the same time. Doing the right thing The Online Citizen has made available in digital format the full version of the Auditor-General’s report of its findings of an audit conducted on 12 ministries and their associated statutory boards. A total of $6.2 million in public monies were found missing, with a large amount still yet to be recovered. $6.2 million dollars is a big sum in absolute terms, but as with the increase in ministerial salary, it is peanuts when considered in the grand scheme of things. The annual budget of the government is around $10 billion, and $6.2 million works out to be around 0.062% of the budget, which really is not that big a sum. The Singapore government has always maintained that paying its civil servants high salaries will enable it to attract more talent, as well as stem corruption. While the amount of public monies found missing is not substantial in relative terms, it is significant because any form of corruption will be seen as a blow to the Singapore government’s image. I remember that on some occasions, Singapore government leaders have trumpeted Singapore’s lack of corruption and attributed it to paying good salaries and having tough laws on corruption. The Auditor-General’s report is certainly an embarrassment, only because the trumpet was blown too loudly. However, I have no intention to nitpick over this matter. I can accept that no system is perfect. However, because anti-corruption is one of the core values of Singapore, I don’t think the matter should be put to rest quietly. The government should be forthright in this matter, ensure that appropriate actions are taken and make a public announcement on the steps taken to remedy the situation. We have to guard our core values religiously, for if we do not, we will just end up making a mockery of ourselves. The current problem really isn’t the missing $6.2 million but rather, the relatively quiet response from the government about it. Besides, this report is on the heels of the public discontentment over increase in ministerial salaries. It is bad timing, although the damage is pretty limited due to the mainstream media’s lack of spotlight on the issue. I am not sure how big of an issue it will become on the blogopshere, but the government does not need to wait until there’s public disquiet to deal with the issue. The Singapore government always like to say that even if a decision is unpopular, if it is the right one, the government will do it. I hope that the right thing will be done. Tomorrow.sg receives legal letter I believe it has to be a first that a local blog aggregating site receives a legal letter. The details of the letter can be found here. How Tomorrow.sg decides to respond will certainly be closely watched by the internet community because the guys at Tomorrow.sg will be setting a precedent. The situation is not unlike the traditional newspaper receiving a lawyer letter. Editors must then decide whether it is worth fighting a lawsuit for the sake of ideals, or just agree to the terms of the person who sent the lawyer letter. The problem with Tomorrow.sg is that it probably has no deep pockets. Granted, most newspapers around the world don’t exactly have deep pockets (probably with the exception of Singapore Press Holdings), but I think Tomorrow.sg seriously doesn’t have the money to fight a lawsuit at all, unless some lawyer is willing to waive legal fees or someone is willing to bankroll the lawsuit. Of course, Tomorrow.sg would have to consider the worst case scenario and whether they would be able to pay the compensation. I do wonder if the lawyers have also sent a letter to the original writer. After all, Tomorrow.sg links and republishes articles written by others and it would not make sense to just go after Tomorrow.sg without going after the original writer. But unfortunately for the law firm, the original entry is hosted on an overseas server, and the WHOIS data of the domain doesn’t list any contact information. There’s an email provided on that blog, but it’s a gmail account which the writer can easily close (or choose to ignore any email that threatens legal action). Perhaps this is why the lawyers decide to go after Tomorrow.sg. The WHOIS data of Tomorrow.sg has an actual contact person and address. Interestingly, the letter requested Tomorrow.sg to disclose the name and address of the writer. I suppose the law firm had run out of ideas on how to get the identity of the writer and resorted to try and get Tomorrow.sg to do the work for them. In anycase, I doubt the people at Tomorrow.sg will know anything at all. If the lawyers had done some homework, they should have known that Tomorrow.sg probably knows as much them and nothing more. Let’s watch how this pans out. In the meantime, I must say that there are quite a few grammatical errors in the letter (and the URL provided in the letter was wrong). Not very impressive, I must say. On Masculism I was just thinking yesterday that in Singapore, women have it somewhat better than men. They have the Women’s Charter, while we men get no Men’s Charter. They have the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) to go to for assistance, while we men have no male equivalent. And perhaps the best thing about being a woman in Singapore is that one doesn’t have to go through conscription. Just a caveat though. I am not an MCP (means Male Chauvinist Pig, a derogatory term for males with do not respect female rights). In fact, I classify myself as a male feminist (more about that in another entry). It’s just that I feel that relative to women, men in Singapore seem to get the short end of the stick in some areas. Therefore, I set out to see if there is the male equivalent of feminism, and boy I was surprised to find that there’s indeed such a thing, and it’s called masculism! According to Wikipedia, Masculism (also referred to as masculinism) is an ideology associated with the men’s movement. It consists of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies primarily based on the experiences of men. Although masculism provides a general critique of social relations, many of its proponents also seek to analyze gender inequality and promote men’s rights, interests, and issues. Masculism is viewed by its proponents as having an egalitarian view of gender issues, even though it focuses on men’s experience. Ok, the last line sounded really MCP. That aside, the idea of masculism is really interesting. While I bet to my last dollar that there are some MCPs masquerading as a masculist as a response to soothe the ego that has been bruised by feminists, nonetheless, with changing gender roles in society, the issue of male rights should be seriously considered. I know that some extreme feminists are going to cry foul at such a suggestion, but I prefer to think that such a move is not mutually exclusive. Fighting for more rights for men does not mean less rights for females. It’s more about a holistic approach where gender roles in modern society are carefully examined and if necessary, certain rights that has historically been accorded to one gender should be accorded to the other as well. For example, the Women’s Charter allows the courts to order maintenance for the wife, but what about the reverse? It’s not unreasonable in today’s context to have women who are out bringing in the bread for the family while the man becomes the homemaker. And of course, there is always some inherent assumption somewhere that women can be raped by men and not vice-versa. I just think that modern society has caused gender roles to change drastically and we should seriously be looking at how best to accord each gender respective rights that would be more egalitarian to both genders. Therefore, the feminist and masculist have much in common. In fact, I don’t see much of a difference since both are working towards a more level playing field. Perhaps the ideas of feminism and masculism should be dropped altogether. It just doesn’t make sense to have two separate labels for two groups that are doing the same things. Of course, in reality, the labels will remain because hawks never know how to stop (think Bush). Public Accounts Commitee findings: a sobering reminder The PAC’s findings presented to the parliament a few days ago reminds us that despite paying top dollar to our civil servants, we are not immune to corruption. Corruption is perhaps too strong a word to use versus the terms presented in the report, such as irregularities, lapses, decifiences, inaccuracy, unfair practices, conflict of interest etc, nonetheless, if left unchecked, a minor issue can easily blow up into a big one. Such findings are especially significant in Singapore, where the government has constantly reiterated it’s abhorrence for corruption and how it has in place many measures to prevent corruption, both in the form of carrots and sticks. High salaries for its civil servants and harsh penalties for transgression are thought to be the panacea for the corruption ill in Singapore. Yet, Singapore is ranked only fifth in the world in terms of being non-corrupt by Transparency International, behind Finland, Iceland, New Zealand and Denmark, where measures to control corruption appears to be less zealous compared to Singapore. While the Singapore system of controlling corruption is laudable in my opinion, there is an Achilles heel in the system. The main watching on corruption in Singapore, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) reports directly to the Prime Minister. If Singapore has a revolving door style of politics where a different party comes into power every few years, this is not a big concern. However, Singapore has had the same ruling party since independence. One cannot help but wonder if the CPIB would be more empowered as an entity with independent powers rather than to report to a representative of a party that has been in power for more than 40 years, and is likely to continue in power for the next 10 - 20 years, barring exceptional circumstances. While I hold the belief that Singapore is generally non-corrupt (which is backed by the accordance of a good rank by Transparency International), nagging doubts still linger. As I have written some time back, I feel that internal checks and balances are insufficient. Human beings, being human beings, are imperfect. It is all too tempting to attempt a cover-up without an external and independent watchdog, since it is much easier to get one eye closed internally. I would be more assured about Singapore’s incorruptibility if there is a truly independent watchdog, which is perhaps hard to achieve since there is no separation of powers in governance in practice. Nonetheless, the findings of the PAC is certainly a good thing. While some may say that their findings have dented Singapore’s reputation, I take a different perspective. I think that this report shows that Singapore is not too perfect. It would be fishy if year after year, Singapore presents a zero-corruption score card. What are the odds of that happening? It would imply some form of cover-up. However, what we have caught appears to be the small fish. I wonder if the bigger fishes are getting away. On whiners and those who whine about whiners According to dictionary.com, the term whine is defined as “to snivel or complain in a peevish, self-pitying way“. It would seem that Singaporeans in general like to whine. Just hop on a taxi and chat with the taxi uncle. Chances are, he will regale you with a ton of complaints/whines about the “gahmen”. Sit at coffeeshops for a day and you are sure to hear some negative remarks about the “cheng hu”. Read Singaporean blogs and you are almost definitely going to read plenty of writings slamming the government. For some Singaporeans, such “whines” are viewed with disdain. They think that their fellow Singaporens have a “crutch” mentality, and that these people are better off looking into a mirror to see what is wrong with them instead of blaming the government all the time. There is this typical arrogant attitude with such people, who I think typically are well-educated and well-to-do people. The fundamental assumption of such people is that people who “whine” are lazy, unmotivated and just wants the government to babysit them. This brings into mind the case of the boy who died serving NS because the doctors at the hospital who were attending to him (mind you, they are very senior doctors) accused the boy of malingering (which means pretending to be sick) in order to escape his NS duties. Eventually, the boy died of acute baterial infection, which is something that is likely to have been easily treatable in the early stage with proper administration of antibiotics. I remember reading an article in Time magazine in which a US colonel was quoted to have said, “Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups”. My point here is that we should not put a blanket label of “whiner” when people complain. Sure, there are some people who like to complain for the sake of complaining. However, does this mean that we thus assume that everyone who complains is like that? When we do that, we conveniently cast aside those who might genuinely be calling for help. In some cases, the assumption that someone is whining won’t kill him. In other cases, such as the case of the NS boy, it killed him. And, as some people like to say, to assume is to make an ASS out of U and ME. Besides, for those who like to casually dismiss the complaints of others as “whining”, the act itself speaks volumes about the character of the person. To not want to empathise and start accusing others of whining smacks of arrogance. By empathising, it does not mean that a “crutch” mentality will be engendered as a result. That happens when one sympathise, not empathise. To empathise is to understand the situation and work out a feasible solution with them for them to undertake while to sympathise is to solve the problem for them, which is the thing that causes the so-called “crutch” mentality. The inability to differentiate between empathy and sympathy is perhaps the greatest problem with whiners about other whiners. I bet those whiners about other whiners are going to read this and start saying that I’m a whiner. Their actions are just so predictable. It doesn’t affect me though. I just find it amusing that these people go around so readily pointing their fingers at others and conveniently forget that they too are guilty of the same sin. In anycase, what’s so bad about whining? People need to let off steam sometimes. I think I pretty much let off quite abit of steam with this entry. UNSW follows the footsteps of Warwick I was quite taken aback to read that UNSW has decided to close their Asian (i.e. Singapore Campus). The full announcement is on the UNSW Asia webpage, which can be accessed here. The reason cited by UNSW was that enrollment numbers were insufficient to meet their expectation. This might be a valid reason, but I do wonder if there are other reasons, such as interference with academic freedom (which was given by Warwick when it decided against having a campus in Singapore). Whatever the case is, it is quite surprising to me that UNSW has decided to take such a step after so much fanfare when the agreement was inked a few years back. I really wonder what happened. And, UNSW’s move certainly made a huge dent in the government’s grand masterplan to make Singapore an education hub. To have two universities of good reputation reject Singapore is probably going to cause future problems in attracting other world class universities to set up shop in Singapore. I guess for now, students will have to make do with the joint programmes that local universities have with other top foreign universities. I still can’t believe that UNSW decided to close down the Singapore branch. How safe are our online services? Estonia’s government has been paralyzed by war (read this and this). It’s not the conventional war with tanks, missiles and guns but rather, the government was “brought down” by a cyberwar. It appears that the cyberwar resulted from a conflict with its former Soviet superior, Russia, as the origins of many of the assaults were traced to Russian computers (including state-owned computers). With many government services computerised and made available online, Estonia put itself at risk of being paralysed by cyber-assaults, which of course happened. Reading this piece of news, I wonder if Singapore is similarly at risk. Our government has always been quick to embrace the latest forms of information technology, believing in the potential of IT to help further develop and grow Singapore. While IT indeed has made our lives much more convenient, the Estonian experience has shown that it can make us more vulnerable as well. Estonia prides itself for being a “paper-less” government, relying on technology to deliver most, if not all government services. Singapore is clearly in the same direction and league as Estonia. What happened to Estonia in the past few weeks can possibly happen to Singapore as well. The scary part of the Estonian experience is how easily the attacks can be achieved. It appears that some of the hackers gained control of many “zombie” computers and simply used them to flood the Estonian government servers with requests, overloading the Estonian government servers, causing the system to collapse under the sheer volume. By gaining control of the computers of other people to do the job, it becomes much harder to track down the perpetrators. And, goodness know how many computers can the perpetrators gain control of? Defending such attacks is going to be tough. I seriously do wonder what are our defense strategies against these forms of cyber-warfare. If our government services, financial institution services and other services essential to day-to-day running of the country go down, it will not only cause massive inconvenience, but it can very well cause corporations and investors to lose their confidence in Singapore. I wonder if our multi-million dollar ministers have already put up the required defenses. For this is where I know it’s home? Edmund Ng’s blog entry on Lawrence Leow, a NSF who suffered permanent disability during the course of serving his duty to the nation has drawn quite a few responses on blogosphere. Many commenters feel that the compensation that Lawerence is receiving ($500 allowance and a CSC card) is inadequate. I only found one dissenting view which the author eventually shut down, which I presume is because he couldn’t take the heat of people dissing him for his views. In monetary terms, it is quite a hefty sum of money that the state is spending on Lawerence. He gets free medical services at government hospitals and polyclinics, and depending on how long Lawrence lives, the total amount paid out to him in allowance can be a significant sum. The state is spending a fair bit of money on Lawrence, and according to the dissenting view I found, Lawrence has no cause for complaint. To deny more assistance to Lawrence on the basis that the state is already spending a relative big sum of money on him is morally reprehensible to me. This bright young man took up arms to serve his duty to his country as required by law. Now that he is almost completely paralysed as a result of serving his dues to the country, the country should pay its dues to Lawrence. To be fair, the state is compensating Lawrence. However, the question is, is the state compensating Lawrence reasonably? Looking at his condition, it is clear that he is no longer capable of looking after himself. It is obvious that he needs at least one person to take care of him for his remaining lifespan. Maybe his parents can do the job now, but what happens when they age and pass on? Do we realistically expect Lawrence to be able to take care of himself on $500 a month? It is enough for basic subsistence, but his condition does not permit him to even carry out the basic activities of subsistence (such as buying food for himself unassisted). How then do we expect him to even be able to spend the $500 to sustain himself without a caregiver? I don’t think the state should be counting the pennies in compensating a person who suffered physically in the line of duty. It’s not about the money. It’s about being responsible. Lawrence clearly needs a caregiver, and $500 per month is simply insufficient. If one so wish to argue that $500 per month over say 40 years is a huge sum of money, let me put things in perspective. Had Lawrence been well, he would have likely gone to university. If we compensate Lawrence based on the loss of his potential income, how much would that be? And, how much should the state compensate him for the mental anguish that he suffered? How much should the state’s compensation for the anguish that his parents suffered be? What is the monetary value of the loss in quality of life for his remaining lifespan (such as being a husband and a father)? Whatever happened to Lawrence has happened. We cannot turn back the clock. What can be done is to make sure that he receives a reasonable quality of life. In Lawrence’s case, I think the state should give him a caregiver’s allowance in addition to the $500 for basic subsistence. It is only right to do so. Had Lawrence not survived the ordeal, I am less inclined to argue against a $500 monthly allowance for his family. However, as it stands now, Lawrence is unable to care for himself for the rest of his life and it is only right that the state provides a caregiver allowance for the rest of his life in addition to the allowance for subsistence. If Singapore cannot even reasonably take care of its people who have suffered in the name of duty, this is not a place where I would like to call home. This is why I chose to title this entry with the last sentence of the chorus of Kit Chan’s National Day song, “Home”. As the song now replays in my head, I wonder if Singapore is indeed the beautiful home that the song sings of. Discrimination requires no good reason Heavenly-Sword wrote recently about the issue of “over-qualification” of graduates, resulting in companies being less than willing to hire certain graduates who are deemed to be holding qualifications that are too high for the job that is being advertised. He thinks that it is a very stupid idea, which I somewhat agree with. Maybe there are some employers that are really that stupid to have such reasoning, but I think that real reason in using the term “over-qualification” is just plain discrimination. Employers just don’t want to have to pay more money (or face the potential of having to pay more money) to get the same job done. Job discrimination against those with post-graduate degrees is similar to job discrimination against older workers. Employers just want to pay the lowest dollar. One can advertise to death how much knowledge one has (in the case of over-qualification) or how much experience one has (in the case of age discrimination), but if the company does perceive the marginal utility of such people to be less than that of someone with lower qualification or younger age, it’s just too bad. Money aside, to justify the discrimination, some employers like to hold certain assumptions that might or might not be true. Employers assume that they have to pay a premium for someone with a post-graduate degree over someone with just a bachelors, or they assume that those with post-graduate degrees are more likely to “jump ship” if a better opportunity arises. Such warped thinking is seriously laughable. Whether the company has to pay a premium or not is not dependent on whether the would-be employee wants a premium. If the company is not agreeable to paying a premium, and the would-be employee is not agreeable to accepting a lower pay, the company is not obliged to hire. And, ANYONE would jump ship if a better opportunity arises, be it a diploma holder, a bachelor’s degree holder or a post-graduate degree holder. Indeed, as Heavenly-Sword points out, it is a huge irony that the government is trying to encourage Singaporeans to pursue postgraduate studies but yet firms are unwilling to hire due to the perpetuation of certain stereotypes based on groundless assumptions. There are many ways to combat the perceived negativities associated with people who hold higher degrees. It is a matter of whether firms want to do it. With regards to paying a premium in salary, firms can simply arrange with the post-graduate degree holder that the initial salary will be the same as that of a fresh-graduate, but the advancement prospects would be more rapid if they prove that their post-graduate degree indeed adds significant productivity. With regards to the “jumping ship” issue, it is up to the company how to engender a sense of employee loyalty across the board. I do not believe that post-graduate degree holders are any more likely than other people to change jobs. If employees so choose to discriminate, they can have a hundred excuses to do so. Whoever said discrimination requires a good reason? What it requires is an excuse to somewhat justify the act. For practical purposes, a smart person will play the game in order to be assured of a livelihood. Post-graduate studies will end up being the enclave of those who are interested in academia. Human capital will not improve because people don’t see a need to do so. The monkey-see monkey-do scenario among employers could very well lead to the downfall of Singapore, where high quality human capital has been instrumental in ensuring economic prosperity. Busy I’m in the midst of checking out all that needs to be done for solemnisation, so I might not be able to update for a couple of days. In the meantime, keeping up with the love is in the air atmosphere of the blog, I’m posting the Youtube video that darkness of The Brotherhood left in a comment to my previous post. Making good on a promise 4 years ago, I promised to marry the woman of my life, and I made good on that promise on Tuesday by proposing to her at Istana Park. Here are some pictures: Waiting at Istana Park Omigosh, this cannot be happening! Yes! The original plan was to 1) steal her colleagues’ phone number and then 2) ask her colleagues to suggest an outing to a place where I’ll be waiting to spring the proposal surprise. I managed to execute part 1 according to plan, but part 2 was changed because I found out that they already were going out on Tuesday. I wanted to propose somewhere around mid-May, but she would probably suspect something amiss if her colleagues were to suggest another outing so quickly, so I decided to make use of this opportunity. Since they had arranged to meet in Orchard, I went for a recce of Orchard Road on Sunday, walking the entire stretch from Wheelock to Plaza Singapure before deciding on Istana Park. Istana Park is relatively quiet, and there’s a nice long stretch of trees and flowers along the foothpath. I thought that it would be nice for her to walk in amidst flowers and trees. So, on Sunday night, I messaged her colleague and changed the meeting venue to Dhoby Ghaut. My fiancee actually wanted me to join this outing but I bluffed her that I had another meeting elsewhere, and she gullibly believed. So the stage was set. I went to order a bouquet of tulips (she loves them) on Monday and collected them on Tuesday evening. Thankfully it didn’t rain, although I prepared an umbrella just in case I had to stand waiting in the rain. It was quite hilarious when her colleagues brought her to Istana Park. She saw me from a distance (say about 80m away) but couldn’t make out who it was standing there, nicely dressed and holding a bouquet of flowers. She actually tried to make a detour, which I later understood from her that it’s because she thought that it was someone else’s proposal and the bunch of them should just make a detour. Her colleagues, with their wonderful acting skills convinced her that it’s alright to continue walking down the footpath and when she came closer, she realised that it was me and was completely stunned. Honestly, I have never seen her so surprised before. Then again, I should expect her to be so completely taken aback. After all, I told her I was at another meeting, and logically speaking, there should be no way her colleagues were in cahoots with me because I don’t know them well (I only met most of them once, for a short while) and I don’t have their contacts. Well, to cut the story short, I proposed to her, and despite her dazed state, she said yes (maybe because she was too dazed to say no ). I was wondering if she might make things difficult for me by saying something like “Let me think about it and give you an answer tomorrow” but thankfully, I wasn’t made to stay in Istana Park for a day to get the answer. Now, we’re going to begin the journey of preparing for solemnisation, customaries, housing and everything else that’s necessary for marriage. Special thanks to her colleagues Irene, Wendy, Chailian and Weixing for their assistance, especially Irene whose ingenuity ensured that my fiancee was kept completely in the dark until the actual moment. Also special thanks to Steven who so willingly came down to take a video of the special moment. I am really thankful that there are so many people who so kindly offered their help to make this once-a-lifetime event so memorable for me and my fiancee. Singapore’s class divide When talking about Karl Marx, most people have the idea that he is the ‘founder’ of communism, and since communism has so often been demonised, it is perhaps not surprising that some people have a rather mistaken view of Marx. It is true that Marx is a proponent of the idea of communism, but the communist ideological developments that succeeded Marx were rather different from what Marx envisioned, particularly the development of communism in China. Communism aside, what is more important about Marx is what underlies the concept of communism, i.e. the issue of class divide. According to Marx, human history is nothing but that of class struggles. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx famously wrote: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. In medivial days, it was a struggle between the master and the slave. Then it became a struggle of the lord against the serf. Then, we have the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (aristocrat versus worker). According to Marx, if we examine every period in history, we are bound to see the same dialectic occur over and over again. The form may be different, but the substance is the same: a struggle between those who own the means of production and those who don’t. It seems to me that no matter what kinds of social and political systems human beings come up with, we never manage to escape from the clutches of class struggle. The practice of capitalism makes class inevitable. Even in Singapore, despite the practice of what is called meritocracy, the issue of class struggle is still present. It’s just in a different form. In Singapore’s case, it’s the meritocratic elite versus the meritocratic non-elite. It is true that in Singapore, one is unlikely to be denied basic life opportunities. Quality education is available for everyone, and there are many jobs to go around, especially in the recent years where the economy is doing well. However, if we examine the Singaporean society a little more carefully, the picture isn’t as rosy as it seems. We have on one end rich government officials and business owners, and on the other end, we have everyone else who are dependent on the government officials and business owners for their livelihood. Do not be mistaken. I am not saying that it is a bad thing to have rich government officials or business owners. If they earned their riches honestly, it’s their due reward. What I’m trying to say is that at the end of the day, we see what Marx observed operating again. There’s a small group of people controlling most of the means of production. For those who claim that Singapore has a capitalist head and a socialist heart, they might want to seriously rethink their claim. Singapore is not in the least socialist. The class divide is clearly present. The question now really is whether the class divide will lead to class conflict. Marx thinks so, and he believes that the “oppressed” will rise up in a revolution. Certainly, revolutions have occurred in Russia, China and some other countries. Will Singapore see a revolution? I suppose it all depends on how much longer the ruling party can maintain what Friedrich Engels called “false consciousness”. As long as Singaporeans are willing to continue buying into the ideology that has been perpetuated, all will be well. If not, the predictions of Marx might very well come true once again. A state of disarray? Elia Diodati has written an interesting perspective on the state of Singapore blogosphere, and he surmises that it is declining. He provided a fair number of evidence to prove his point, and it appears to be a pretty compelling argument. Writing is a tough job (a point constantly emphasized by my journalism professor), and only those who have tried their hands at writing regularly will know how hard writing is. To consistently be able to produce “good” blog entries is a huge challenge. It’s small wonder that some will eventually feel fatigued and end up dropping out. Writer’s fatigue is something that is very real. For other bloggers, they cease blogging because they started with unrealistic expectations. Blogging does not change politics or social issues overnight. After ranting and raving for a while and seeing that nothing happens with this new “tool”, it is understandable that one would feel disillusioned. As the saying goes, the higher up one goes, the harder one falls. So, some bloggers cease blogging as a result. Does this mean a state of disarray in Singapore blogosphere? To answer this question, in the very first place, what constitutes “normal” state of blogosphere? Could this “decline” or “disarray” very well be the “normal” state of things? In fact, I am inclined to think that attrition is normal. I am also inclined to think that the lack of updates, or the so-called “self-degeneration” of blogs are normal too. Not everyone wants to say something all the time, and not everyone has something good to say all the time. Bloggers are not paid professionals. They have other things to do as well. It could be that the blogger has hit a rough patch and decided to take a break. Pseudonymity is a good example. Who knows, people like Kitana, Gayle and Zyberzitizen might make a return some day? And, I agree with Mr Wang that bloggers (the content providers) are only one part of the equation. The other part, which is easily overlooked, are the readers. The state of blogosphere cannot be truly assessed without factoring in readers. Even if there are many active bloggers, if no one reads them, what’s the point of them playing to an empty hall? Indeed, as Mr Wang has accurately observed, the whole issue of civil service pay revision (as well as the GST increase + Budget 2007) has resulted in a large increase in web traffic for many bloggers. No one can truly estimate the number of people who read blogs, but I would estimate that more and more people are reading blogs. That in itself is a crowning achievement, for Singaporeans are actively searching for alternative ideas and opinions other than really on the pro-government SPH. And, I believe the existence of blogs have forced some editors in the ST well-known to be pro-government (such as the Chua sisters) to subtly play Devil’s Advocate once in a while. While there has been some movements in blogopshere in the recent couple of months, I don’t think that blogosphere is declining. To assume that it’s declining might be too early a conclusion. In anycase, why is there a need to observe or conclude whether it is declining or not? Let’s take things as they come. In the meantime, just enjoy the going while it’s still good. Do we “lack” resources? We have been told from time to time that Singapore is a small rock with no natural resources of its own. Therefore, we have to invest heavily in our human capital because humans are the only resources that Singapore have. The supposed “lack” of natural resource also provides reasons for the ruling PAP to justify it’s hegemony, such as political and social stability, economic prosperity etc. I have always taken it for granted that our lack of natural resources is a given and never really thought critically about it. I was just lying in bed this morning and somehow the question popped into my head on whether is Singapore really lacking in natural resources? Perhaps we really are lacking natural resources in the conventional sense, i.e. oil, rubber, iron ore etc. In the past, perhaps the lack of such resources is a hindrance to economic prosperity. However, does the lack of such resources pose economic problems for Singapore today? Maybe it is still a problem, but it’s not that much of a problem because Singapore is shifting into services and knowledge industries. The conventional resources that our leaders like to remind us that we lack are of relatively little importance in current and future Singapore economy. While we may not have resources that we can extract from the ground, we have, or at least are developing resources that others can’t extract from the ground, and it is not easy for other countries to develop such resources quickly. Therefore, the whole argument about Singapore having little natural resources and therefore we need a certain government to ensure economic prosperity is really just scaremongering, especially in today’s context. We may lack certain types of resources, but we are not really lacking in all types of resources. There is no country that is completely self-sufficient anyway (and from the economic standpoint, it’s not wise to be self-sufficient because of comparative advantage). I’m not going to buy the argument that Singapore is “poor” in terms of resources and only a certain party is our salvation. Of course, we are not invulnerable but we are not that vulnerable either. Singaporeans perhaps should think about whether the rhetoric regarding our lack of “resources” is indeed as big a problem in today’s context as the government likes to make it out to be, and not just accept the rhetoric blindly. Foray into the world of Linux Since I had an old laptop lying around, I decided to give it a new lease of life by installing Linux on it. The original XP has become unbearably slow, and I’m trying to test if I can live without Microsoft so I thought it would be a nice idea to try out Linux, the much touted free alternative OS to Microsoft. I did some homework and settled for Simply Mepis 6.5, one of the various available Linux distros (think of distros as different brands of the same kind of product). Downloaded the iso image file and burned it onto a CD before popping it into my laptop that was previously cleaned up with Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN). DBAN is a great piece of software that’s free for personal use. It overwrites your harddisk with a string of zeros (all electronic information is stored in binary format, i.e. in combinations of zeros and ones), thus effectively destroying all information on the harddisk, especially if you let it run a few passes. Even data recovery professionals would be unable to recover the data. A nifty and must have tool if you want to donate/sell away an old computer. You don’t want the next owner to do data recovery and steal your passwords. I used DBAN not because I need to destroy data, but I just wanted to get rid of all the data inside. Conventional formatting doesn’t clear out the old contents completely. With a nicely refreshed harddisk, I popped in the disc and it ran automatically. I clicked on install and after filling out some information, the installation detected and set up everything smoothly. Installation was a complete breeze. The Mepis KDE desktop looked neat. It wasn’t hard for a native Windows user like me to use it. All the apps were working fine, except for the darn wireless. Spent a couple of hours looking for a solution online, but to no avail. For some strange reason, the wireless card DID manage to work a couple of times (out of the 40-50 times I tried to connect), so I don’t think the hardware is faulty. I decided to install another Linux distro, Ubuntu, to see if I have the same problem. So I downloaded Ubuntu 6.0.6 (also called Dapper Drake) and installed it. I couldn’t connect at all with Ubuntu. I don’t suppose 2 popular distros are so lousy, so I guess it’s either the wireless card or the router (I’m more inclined to think it’s the former). I read alot of discussions on Linux forums about Cisco 350 series wireless cards being a pain in the neck, and different things work for different people, thus making things worse for a Linux newbie like me. Anyhow, I’m at my wits end now. I like the two distros that I tried, but I can’t use Linux if I can’t solve the wireless issue. The simplest way to prove that it’s the wireless card at fault would be to try another PCMCIA card, but I don’t think I want to shell out the money for another card that I am not sure will work. All said, it’s a pretty good experience playing with Linux, save for this irritating problem. If there are any Linux experts out there who might have an idea about how to handle this issue, please contact me. I would love to tell money sucking Microsoft to kiss my laptop’s ass goodbye, provided I can get the wireless to work. Thoughts on joining an alumni association Now that I’m done with 4 years of university, one thing I’m toying with is joining an alumni association. The most obvious choice for most NUS graduates would be NUS Society (NUSS), since it’s the biggest one with more than 12,000 members. However, the question of need arises. Is there any necessity to joining an alumni association? The single most useful benefit I can think of is networking at events. It might be useful to get to know fellow alumni working in different fields in case you might need their assistance some day. Of course, if one is interested to network, there are many other ways to do so than to join an alumni group. Further, it might be more useful for people to network within certain limited fields that they are likely to encounter in their work. An alumni association, being broad-based, would hardly be ideal for such networking purposes. The next most useful benefit would be membership privileges. NUSS has 3 guild houses, including one in Suntec City. That’s quite an attractive benefit. The guild houses offer pretty nice services, such as gym, swimming pool, tennis courts etc. There’s also the DBS platinum credit card for members, which I think is a very good deal. I would also think that standard club privileges such as cheaper booking rates of facilities and lower prices for courses/workshops also apply. The cost of joining is a one-time $2,000 fee (if you join within first 3 years of graduation), or $3,000 (set to rise eventually to $5,000 in 2009). The monthly subscription fee is now $47.25 a month. The question now for a soon-to-be graduate is whether it is worth taking up a membership, considering both the pros and cons. The benefits are attractive, but what is NOT attractive is the $2,000 one-time fee. It’s almost a month’s salary for most fresh graduates. NUSS makes things easier by offering a 20 month interest-free installment scheme, but $2,000 is hardly spare change for a fresh graduate with study loans to pay, a wife to marry and a house to buy. And, miss the first 3 years, you’ll end up paying $5,000 (that’s the rate in 2009), which is a larger financial disincentive considering that by then, there’s a housing loan and car loan to pay for, and maybe milk powder and diapers too. I guess that the implementation of a one-time fee is to give a sense of exclusivity, but it’s a barrier, especially for fresh graduates. I am not surprised if the take up rate among fresh graduates is very low. The monthly subscription fee is still reasonable, but the one-time entrance fee is not, even with an installment plan. One feasible work-around would be to waive the fee if the graduate remains a member for X years. To me, it doesn’t make sense for an organization to lose potential members because of a high entry barrier. It makes more sense to lower the barrier to entry, get the members in first, and make them want to keep the membership. If the association doesn’t grab the graduate before they step into the working world, it’s going to be hard to get them later. Even if the graduate earns big bucks in future, I’m sure they would go for more prestigious country club memberships (at least I would). All said, I’m undecided for now. The perks are good, but I can do without them. Besides, the NUSS brand doesn’t appear trendy to young graduates, and joining alumni associations is not a fad at all these days. I bet there are many current undergraduates who have not heard of NUSS, which doesn’t really help things either. They should really do something about the way they market themselves. Whatever method they are using now, it isn’t working. I only know of NUSS because I once held student office and had to work with them. The ordinary student would probably not even know of NUSS’s existence (or maybe just vaguely heard about it), much less bother about the perks and what-nots. If I’m not convinced to join now, it’s probably harder to convince me in future. Funny Dick Lee performance Dick Lee pokes fun at Singapore, and in particular, the Lee family. The Malaysian brain drain I read this interesting entry from (presumably) a Malaysian who condemned the Malaysian education system. The blogger was talking about how Malaysia provides free primary and secondary education, only to have its top students then come over to Singapore universities for 4 years and then work in Singapore for the next 30 years. According to the blogger, for every 18 students with 8As and above, 6 come to Singapore for higher education. I am not surprised that many bright Malaysian students are choosing to come to Singapore (especially Malaysian Chinese). Firstly, they are being systematically denied of life opportunities in their home country through the bumiputra system. Due to quotas being placed according to race, the Chinese would need 13 As to enter the top Malaysian universities, while a Malay could get in with Bs and Cs. I’m not making this up; I heard it from a Malaysian friend. I asked a friend who just graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia, one of the top universities in Malaysia how much would she be getting when she finds a job. She told me RM1,800, and I nearly fell off the chair. That’s about S$800. And, according another Malaysian friend of mine, RM1,800 is considered one of the best salaries for a graduate. The starting salary in Singapore for a graduate is around $2,200 to $2,400 on average, and this is a whopping 3 times more than what a graduate in Malaysia earns. If I were a top student in Malaysia, of course I’ll choose to come to Singapore and work here for my entire working life. With proper savings and investment, most Malaysians who are graduates can go retire back to Malaysia with at least 1-2 million ringgit. It’s a no brainer whether Singapore or Malaysia offers a much better life opportunity. Besides, Singapore is very much culturally similar with Malaysia. It’s not hard for Malaysians to assimilate into Singapore society. There is a discernible difference in terms of the accent, but the differences are very slight. Compared to other foreigners, Malaysians would be most able to integrate into Singapore society without much problems. And, compared to other foreigners, they are less likely to be viewed as “competitors” for jobs. It’s weird, but I see most of the anger towards foreign talent being directed at nationalities other than those from the region. The brain drain is a big problem for Malaysia. If they don’t do something about it, Malaysia will continue to lag behind Singapore in terms of development because its talents are coming into Singapore and contributing to Singapore’s development instead! However, I bet that this brain drain will continue because no Malaysian politician will dare to do away with the bumiputra policy. The Malays in Malaysian have been spoiled by the policy and will never agree to the revoking of the policy. It’s a Catch-22 situation. So, Singapore will prosper at the expense of it’s larger neighbour for many years to come.