did someone say tea party Two nights ago I was awake at two in the morning, having a quiet drink of Asahi - you know you’re really past 18 when you drink and it’s no longer a big thing to be drinking - with three other friends, all of them also drinking, deep in some quiet HDB heartland of Singapore. We were talking, not about anything in particular, but in that desultory, rambling way, stopping here and there to tell a story or two to each other, as su is about to go overseas to study. Four nights ago I was awake at one in the morning, playing pool in a part of Ang Mo Kio Central I’ve known for years - another quiet HDB heartland of Singapore - talking crap with four other guys I have also known for years, and making equally crap shots. We were talking, not about anything in particular, but in that desultory, rambling way friends who have known each other for years use, in no particular hurry to go anywhere, as Wen Yi is about to go overseas on attachment. The two stories are not connected; the former is going to university in the UK and the latter to a three-month polytechnic attachment at some university in Australia. But both are parallel. Both are friends I will not see again until they return. I’ll miss you two. Even you, Wenyi, you old bastard. Take care and enjoy yourselves. Watch out for the crocodiles in Australia; and if you need to distract some of the older British, remember the two magic words. (”Did someone say TEA PARTY?”) Heck, maybe I should consider going overseas too… writing - this place. This Place.         For Bernadette. I don’t live here, anymore, I only inhabit this place. This place which was mine, which for all that it was and that it wasn’t, this land of fast cars and fat-wallet dreams, where the past is mutable like 1984, it was my land, but it was never my land, the morning coffees and bird-songs are gone, they died, they made way for a shopping centre, and now you? You too, you were mine and yet not mine, you wanted more (some would say less) and like this strange place which was mine and yet not mine, I am both happy for you and heartbroken, knowing that that strange place over distant seas will be good for your education, for your dreams, for your future career, even as all I ever wanted to do was to lie with you and forget the world. Written in mid-October, 2007. Unedited. Self-explanatory. you can make no more of me, only destroy The Wounds Have Cut Deep The wounds have cut deep. My chest has been a cannon, and I have shot my heart upon it; There is nothing left that has not gone forth. I am bleeding poetry. I am dreaming. I am drowning. Help me.                 There will be no help. We who have seen Foucault’s Panopticon know better (or do we?) than to ask for help from                         the fixing eyes around us. I am bleeding poetry from the sap of my barkless heart. I am waving. Not waving. I am drowning. Help me. My heart is nothing more now than an engine forged                 from the remnants of a dead star. The wounds have cut deep. Nothing beside remains. I am lost. - me. 010908, 0210 hours. Unedited. yay there’s no more moon in the water In this way and that I tried to save the old pail. Since, the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break. Until at last the bottom fell out. No more water in the pail! No more moon in the water! spending time in a side-alley. It’s already the end of August, and with it the passing of seven months out of my term of twenty-four. The days pass by slowly, and as they pass I every now and then get glimpses, no more than flashes, of what life will be like when at last we leave this workplace. —– Not too long ago I left this place in the evening instead of the morning, I left at the end of the workday instead of the start, and with it I felt as though I was homeward-bound at last, heading for rest, soon to take off the uniform for the last time, to sleep and wake up and not have to go anywhere or do anything, free at last, going home. we are trapped and burning stars Shine for Singapore This is your song, Deep inside your heart where it belongs It’ll always stay. Strive for your goals, You will achieve with visions so bold. … Shine for Singapore This is our song Reach out for the sky, far and beyond As one we’ll stand, we’re Singapore It’s here that we belong Nowhere I’d rather be, this is home to me This star shines strong and free Hady Mirza: Shine For Singapore I don’t know about you, but I will not shine for Singapore, this is not my song, was never my song, and I am beginning to think that if ever I belonged here it will one day be time to leave. Singapore, my Singapore, where I grew up within the heartlands of Bukit Gombak and Toa Payoh, whose plastic candy-coated flag I waved ever so madly when I was young and easily excited, you are not this terrible hallucination, this amalgamation of GRCs and GLCs, ERP and GST; you are, quite possibly, gone. If I reach out for the sky, I will not come back; I will search out a place where we can begin anew in the opposite direction from what we are; and if I do come back to shine for Singapore, it will be with the wild and frantic convulsions of a trapped and burning star. the quiet desperation of an illiterate man The Illiterate. Touching your goodness, I am like a man Who turns a letter over in his hand And you might think that this was because the hand Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man Has never had a letter from anyone; And now he is both afraid of what it means And ashamed because he has no other means To find out what it says than to ask someone. His uncle could have left the farm to him, Or his parents died before he sent them word, Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved. Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him. What would you call his feeling for the words that keep him rich and orphaned and beloved? - William Meredith Encountered in literature class. I have special fondness for this one. and they steal the whiteshirts’ show Another National Day, another year past. It used to be a big thing, National Day; the place would be decked all over with banners and flags and festive pennants and all us little kids would sing National Day songs at school and wildly wave the little plastic Singapore flags with the candy in the clear hollow handle (oh that was exciting then!) and the whole extended family would gather at some aunt or uncle’s house to watch the whole wonderful parade on TV, when we were little - and now the only reason why we watch the parade, perhaps, is out of some faint sense of obligation. —– That, and the fireworks, and the fighter jets. I know those fighter jets; they can cross Singapore in a minute, tearing trails of smoke across the sky, stealing the whiteshirts’ show, taking their pilots far away and back on the wild roar of a trapped and burning star. a wide expanse of endless sea My life continues as it was before, and as it will be after, and by the time I am done there will have been enough walking and enough sleep to cover two years, both ways; each day at eight I am either coming or going, booking in or booking out from work. Barbed wire opens for me and barbed wire closes behind me, while feathered and occasionally exotic birds sing from their perches in the hollow spaces between concertina coils, flying in and out and occasionally depositing a turd in some convenient place. And from where I stand, both at work and on the way home, work seems like a waking dream, a strange, slightly surreal dream, the shades of Kafka’s dreams watching over me as I myself dream, or dream within that waking dream. Or thereabouts, anyway. I dream I am running; I am not running to somewhere, or from somewhere, I’m just running, up and down the track in little laps and I count the street-lamps as they pass with the slow onrushing majesty of the impersonal markers of time passing that they are. We are homeward bound, traveling across an ocean of mists and clouds. As we travel we count the days of our exile, and the paths to our home - crying out for thalassa in our hearts, and ORD in our souls. the other side of the sea The other day, I came across a poster of a beautiful rock-strewn beach facing a wide expanse of endless sea. The caption: “OCEAN: [the end] is as near as the other side of it.” And we’ve still got years to wait. How true. we’re our own worst enemies Every now and then, you talk to a friend of yours, you catch up on John and Alex and Malcolm and that guy we met at that university thing, what was his name, great guy, friends of friends of friends, all of them talking on about their lives. And your friend leans close and asks. Have you heard? Guy cheating on girlfriend. Guy treating his girlfriend like trash. You have. You haven’t. You shake your head and sigh. Again. Girl won’t give straight answer to guy. Girl is actually a lesbian. And you’ve heard this all before, and yet you haven’t heard each story before, each new person in their own individual lives living what can only be said to be a cliché by the foolish and the ignorant. Nothing is a cliché when it happens to you. Girl is playing some guy for a fool. Girl keeps being let down in relationships by guys. Guy treating his girlfriend like trash. Again. And all you can do is shake your head and sigh and try to think of something to say in reply, because truth is you have nothing to say, you have nothing left to say, it’s tired and stupid and sad and there’s nothing you can do about it. Guy is hopelessly in love with a girl who doesn’t want him. These are real people out there, fragile constructs of flesh and sinew and hope and loss and loneliness, and they are out there hurting each other, getting hurt by each other, and chances are, all that hurt is inadvertent. Isn’t that utterly, tragically, foolishly sad? Isn’t it? —– Written sometime in 2006 - while I was in J1. Rediscovered recently. in your mind. In Your Mind The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered? Its language is muffled by the rain which falls all afternoon one autumn in England, and in your mind you put aside your work and head for the airport with a credit card and a warm coat you will leave on the plane. The past fades like newsprint in the sun. You know people there. Their faces are photographs on the wrong side of your eyes. A beautiful boy in the bar on the harbour serves you a drink — what? – asks you if men could possibly land on the moon. A moon like an orange drawn by a child. No. Never. You watch it peel itself into the sea. Sleep. The rasp of carpentry wakes you. On the wall, a painting lost for thirty years renders the room yours. Of course. You go to your job, right at the old hotel, left, then left again. You love this job. Apt sounds mark the passing of the hours. Seagulls. Bells. A flute practising scales. You swap a coin for a fish on the way home. Then suddenly you are lost but not lost, dawdling on the blue bridge, watching six swans vanish under your feet. The certainty of place turns on the lights all over town, turns up the scent on the air. For a moment you are there, in the other country, knowing its name. And then a desk. A newspaper. A window. English rain. - Carol Ann Duffy. Discovered during literature class. Prompted by thoughts of work. of college days and suchlike So I went back for College Day. You know, the annual and semi-obligatory “let’s go back and hand out awards and certificates and little metal plaques out to each other and sing the college song with gusto in front of VIPs” College Day. Well, to be honest, I went back for the money, for which I am thankful. That, and the chance to meet up with old friends again - but well, the money helped. I won two certificates, a nice plaque with the college crest on it, and a cheque for $150/-. And well, going back to college puts things in perspective, like going back to my secondary school’s Commendation Day in my JC1 year; you are reminded inevitably just why you were glad to get out of there in the first place. Well, okay, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. But the thing is, actually going back there and looking around and meeting people - some of whom you never wanted to see again - is the equivalent of dreaming of a steak and finding a baked yam. Or something. —– Events like College Day seem to take on their own self-serving significance: it maybe started as a genuine desire to honor the school’s best and brightest, and then it became a pony show for the VIPs, who you sometimes suspect are just there for the free food anyway. The spontaneity of the event was nonexistent. There never is any, at this sort of thing. The student audience, if I know anything about it, didn’t volunteer to watch out of sheer pride so much as they were “volunteered” by teachers anxious over decorum. Likewise, the students receiving awards were probably put through rehearsals, because as we all know, seventeen and eighteen year-old JC students are stupid and prone to incredible screw-ups in the ten or so seconds they have onstage. There are also speeches, which can variously enlighten or confuse, and random performances which may or may not convey meaning beyond “oh, the teachers thought it would be appropriate, so here we are, don’t mind us.” The awards ceremony of this sort is meant to celebrate. It cannot celebrate because the way it is conducted means it becomes an almost-tedious formal function as cheerless and ritualized as the latest resolution of the 19th Party Congress. Or maybe I’m just being cynical. Maybe I still haven’t gotten over that feeling of being the Other, of being an outsider, of being Bernard Marx at the Solidarity Service. Am I being the heretic here? The unbeliever in a hall full of Anglicans? —– Somewhere out there has got to be a form of awards ceremony that is neither ceremony in name or in fact. Spontaneous and genuine in feeling, it exists as a heartfelt gesture of thanks and appreciation to those who have in some way or another reached out and done something that’s really worth honoring; in it, either no one or everyone is a VIP and if there is food afterwards, it is the food that people choose to buy for each other without thought of return or recompense, and not the staid reality of catered food paid for by an organizing committee that must dun its budget from contributors. And it is out there - it is real, it exists. It is yours. But in the meanwhile, we will just have to live with the cheques and the plaques and the mass-printed certificates, and the free catered food, which does so much to make up for the shortfalls of the actual award ceremony, as we sit across cafeteria tables from friends over plastic cups of cordial, the ceremony we just came from forgotten. writing - in your eyes In your eyes I have seen In your eyes I have seen the swaying rushes of our glances stilled, and the quiet, simple precious thing caught in your fingertips                caught between the reeds, quiescent, huddled, silent and still, dormant in the chill of a November evening and the slow March thaw. It is springtime again. The ice which once froze along the water’s edge has gone, leaving me feeding the ducks (and other things) and looking, looking out and waiting for it to poke its head out from its gentle brook and say hello once more. - me. A followup to Before We Left. First of a series of four which otherwise will probably never be posted here. For Bernadette. we’ve still got years to wait My horizons these days are circumscribed by my job, with days of whitewashed routine broken only by the highlights of my days off. I go to work, I come back from work, and in-between those simple, utterly quotidian things, there is simply - work. Nothing more, nothing less. Its been a while since I looked over the barbed-wire fence of my paid time, past what others would so charmingly call the mundane, and had a adventure. Or much else with any semblance to the interesting life I used to have. Then again, it would help if I had a few more days of leave queued up. I guess I’ll have to wait until the end of the year - and hopefully Koh Samui or some other suitably tropical island getaway far from here. Or something. And in the meanwhile: work, work. lady sings the blues The record plays on an outdated gramophone, spinning slowly as the warm analog crackle of long-ago trumpets and a smoky voice begins to fill the room. You can almost see it now, the nightclub, the singer, some black woman in a wonderful dress, the band. There is no record, there is no gramophone, but the warm sound of vinyl and the record of a long-ago performance at some recording studio, with the pianist and the trumpet and saxophone players, lives on. And now, maybe, if you listen hard enough, you can hear it - filling some room with the smooth strains of a long-gone era, redolent with fedoras and trenchcoats and pearls: I’ll never smile again, Until I smile at you… I’ll never laugh again; What good would it do? For tears would fill my eyes, My heart would realize That our romance - is true - I’ll never love again… I’m so in love with you… - Billie Holiday, “I’ll Never Smile Again” I love it. 小笼包 (Xiaolongbao) So I finally got around to trying Xiaolongbao (小笼包). At one of the many Crystal Jade* restaurants dotted around this island, no less. Bernadette loves the things and figured she’d drag me along to have a try**. What can I say? The things are made of pork or some other meat in a flour skin. My understanding is that the meat is uncooked before the whole thing is steamed, meaning the meat stews in its own juice, which in turn isn’t allowed to escape. You take one gently, making sure you don’t puncture it with your chopsticks, and dip it in vinegar. Then you place it in your mouth. The flour skin tears easily, and suddenly the juices from the meat run along your tongue. Then you gently bite, and the juicy bits of meat gives way. It’s soft and stewed, and the small size - it’s usually a dim sum dish (i.e. snack) - means that it’s basically a little chunk of delicious. What can I say? A+, Would buy again. * It’s been said before (I forget by who) that all Chinese restaurants tend to have the following words in their names: crystal, imperial, treasure, palace, jade, dragon. This one is no exception. ** She also told me to write about this, so here you are. writing - have i walked… Have I walked beneath these eaves before Have I walked beneath these eaves before, walked upon these shadowed streets before, paved my way with footsteps at the close of day through the gentle sunlit park where once too I left my mark past another crumbling wall crowned with alabaster tall on these concrete steps? Perhaps this thought of memory past is not a memory, not the last of painful wanderings, but the dawn of a past yet new-made morn dimly glimpsed, and dimly sought but where not all has come to nought. - me. Unedited. Mostly derived from one of those semiconscious, thoughtful instants before sleep. For Bernadette. after apple picking. After Apple-Picking My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep. - Robert Frost. Posted because about a year after first encountering this beautiful poem, I finally get a sense of that it really is. That moment of sudden understanding was worth it, and so was the poem itself. the realization. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I learned a lot in JC, but not much of it was that important. Sure, it was fun. It was interesting, it was a challenge in many ways, and it was a absolutely brilliant ride. I would go again. Rated A plus. But let’s be honest. Chances for most of us are that in your everyday life, the law of universal gravitation, or the defining characteristics of a Petrarchan sonnet, though both useful in their own way, won’t be half as useful to you as the ability to fit in and live as part of a community. Which is basically a long way of saying that I’m gradually coming to terms with the realization that junior college was - for me at least - the easier part of these mercurial years between the last days of secondary school and the first days of university. Which is basically a long way of saying I need to grow up and come to terms with the world outside the little metaphorical academic cloister I’ve been finding very comfortable the past couple of years, and be more approachable. Which is basically a long way of saying I’m a bloody fool. I’ve got a lot to learn. garfield minus garfield. What happens when you remove Garfield from Garfield? “Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.” I think we can all identify with this on some level. Garfield minus Garfield. Strongly recommended. #710. The night is hot and muggy and a study in black night and yellow streetlight, shadowed grass and speckled stars in the drifting skies, with drifts of dead leaves piled up like sheets of sleet on the ground. Overhead the moon grins at you. A dark shadow perched on a sign flutters its wings and sinks into the looming trees. You walk in silence, punctuated only by the crackle of autumn and the relentless tread of your steps. At the other end of the walk is light, cool air, a house, blue walls, a bed; rest. no beachy. Right now I can’t help but wish my life would be less like the damn TV drama it’s becoming, step by crashing step, and return to the semblance of normalcy that it retained to some extent during my JC days. I mean it. I’m emotionally drained, I need to recharge, I need to feel whole and new again, because if anything this past month has really taken a lot out of me. And everything that’s happening now isn’t helping. And tonight instead of spending the evening resting with you, next to “cool white sand, a soft ocean breeze, and the lulling rush of the waves breaking onto the beach” I will be having dinner with my dad, who I have not seen in perhaps half a year. I know it’s important to spend time with family, and I miss my dad, even though he’s grown distant from weight of prolonged physical separation, but I was really looking forward to the beach too, love. Sigh. Kevin the love doctor. This post is going to be a plug. Kevin, the newly self-anointed love doctor, is going to be posting a new series on his blog coming this Friday. To say its ambitious would be understating it. The topic: “What do women really want?” To those of us who know Kevin, this promises to be interesting at the very least - one way or the other. And to those of us who do not know Kevin, well, I leave it to you to decide whether to peruse his posts. And Kevin: if you’re wondering why I didn’t post your promotional picture, well, it wouldn’t have fit without some ugly scaling. So let’s not do that. Normal service will resume shortly. we take care of our own. So look, all right, it’s not that I’m against all those immigrants and foreign laborers coming over to our sunny island to find jobs with work and pay. It’s not that I’m against all those study mamas and China girls taking up places in our schools and universities. It’s the fact that our own government doesn’t seem to care about its citizens as much as it cares about these foreign interlopers, that’s what really pisses me off. Because when you get right down to it, who should the government be paying more attention to? —– Abbas is my friend. He is a Pakistani who came over to Singapore years ago, and took Singapore citizenship last year. He serves NS. There’s nothing wrong with him. I’m not pissed off with him. He’s Singaporean, just like me. And the foreign scholars I met in JC, Kevin and Roger and Mun Hon, or Zac and Rav, there’s nothing wrong with them, really. They’re awesome people, by and large. You can’t blame them for wanting to study here. But when it comes down to the issue of places in university and jobs in the Singaporean workforce, I see no reason why Singaporean citizens shouldn’t be given precedence. It’s simple, right: this is our land, not theirs. People like Abbas throw their lot in with Singapore because they believe in it - generally, that it’s a great place to settle. By becoming a citizen, they put a stake down in this country. They serve NS, they vote, they become our people. In contrast, no matter how talented a non-citizen is, they are not Singaporean citizens. They are not ours. They have somewhere else to go back to if Singapore fails. They don’t have a stake here beyond their own bank accounts. —– The government probably believes it doesn’t matter, because talent is talent, and talent is what drives the bottom line. Our government is a great believer in the art of economic statistics and the bottom line. The government probably hopes that once these foreigners come in, and see how wonderful Singapore is, they’ll all take up citizenship too. This would be fine if not for the fact that this leaves them, at best, only potential citizens. A lot of these immigrants are hungry in a way we aren’t anymore, though I wonder whose fault that’s supposed to be, if anyone’s. Either that, or they bring in boatloads of sweet, sweet moolah. What to do? But if you’re a Singaporean citizen and you’re feeling pressured because of all the foreign competition, whether for university places in our own country or for jobs in our own businesses, you probably know it does matter. Why aren’t we taking care of our own people first? —– And so speaking as a born and bred Singaporean, who grew up in Bukit Panjang and Toa Payoh, attended government schools from kindergarten to junior college, whose friends and family and memories are all here: if the nation-state won’t value me as a citizen, why should I stay? so much for 42. 6.5 When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it. 6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said. 6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer. 6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense?) 6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. 6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science–i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy–and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person–he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy–this method would be the only strictly correct one. 6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. 7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. And this is why I want to get a dead-tree physical copy of the Tractatus. difficult this is So we were just trying to decide what to get for a pal on his birthday… A: ROGER!!! A: GIVE HIM A GIRL IN A BOX!!!! B: so startthinking!! C: … B: wTF? C: that would be perfect A: hahaha C: but it’s not like we can get one C: i mean the box not the girl A: PICK ONE UP FROM THE STREET SIR!!! B: lol B: the box damn it A: lol B: where to find thebox B: FEDEX GOT SERVICE I THINK SIR!! C: yeah, but do they have airholes? A: lol A: no A: hahaha B: hmmm B: difficult this is No, I’m not A. Heh. of sins and their confessions. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. Then the padre says, “I have already taken confessions from the other men. Would you like me to take yours now?” “Is this what Catholics do when they’re about to die?” “They do it all the time. But yes, it is advisable to confess immediately before death. It helps - what is the expression - grease the skids. In the afterlife.” “Padre, it looks to me like we’re only an hour or two away from hitting the beach. If I start confessing my sins to you right now, I might get up to stealing cookies from the cookie jar when I was eight years old.” The padre laughs. - Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon Posted because I love Neal Stephenson’s writing and wanted to share. the responsibilities of DPM Wong. “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.” - Heinlein’s Razor. So now that the account of the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari, the local Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader, has been revealed in Parliament, published in the papers, and broadcast on all the local news channels, we can stop wondering about conspiracy theories. Sure, it remains within the realm of possibility that the escape of Mas Selamat was engineered for reason or reasons unknown. But the lack of initiative on the part of the Gurkha guards and the female ISD officer - that just speaks to me not of malice, but of stupidity, to use the term loosely. —– But that’s not what I want to talk about. Once it was revealed that Mas Selamat had escaped, there was considerable sentiment that our DPM Wong Kan Seng, who remains in charge of Home Affairs, should have resigned over the incident. The Cabinet, and the Prime Minister in general, rallied around the DPM, and several arguments were made: the faults were not due to the DPM, the DPM is required as a key talent in our government, there’s no point in him resigning just for the look of it. Others have written - in the Straits Times too, no less - about the history of the tradition of minsters resigning over gaffes in their ministry. I am afraid I cannot recall the article at the moment, but I think Chua Mui Hoong wrote it. As the article points out, not all ministers have followed this rule, and the rule itself dates back to a time when ministries were smaller, and minsters could know everything that went on in their departments - and so bore some responsibility - but the rule is at best unwritten. It is true that there is no actual law, whether customary or statute, where a minister *has* to resign over a mistake. And personally, from what I’ve read, I do not believe that DPM Wong was responsible for the screwup. I do not believe he has to leave the cabinet. Having said that, I think he should have at least offered to resign. It doesn’t have to be accepted, and probably would not have been accepted, by PM Lee. But it is important in the way that gestures are important, and in this case more than ever. Had DPM Wong offered even a token resignation, he would have been sending a signal that he was prepared to accept responsibility for the mistakes of his staff, and that he was personally sorry about the incident. He did not, and the government subsequently had to defend its position in Parliament. There was room for a misconception that the DPM was trying to dodge responsibility, or worse, was not truly sorry about the screwup. Considering the past furores over constantly-increasing ministerial salaries, GST hikes, increasing transport fares, and now the price of rice and other foodstuffs, a move like his was bound to stir up more resentment. DPM Wong cannot offer his resignation now, given that the Cabinet and the majority of his party have rallied behind him. Nor would there be a point. But the situation may change if Mas Selamat continues to evade capture. We are a small island nation. There is a nationwide search for Mas Selamat, conducted by Gurkhas, police units, and SAF units. His recapture will mitigate, to some extent, the political damage caused by his escape. But should the manhunt fail, and fresh controversy over the escape arise, a new round of calls for DPM Wong’s resignation, token or not, may force the government to reconsider their position. Somehow, I do not think that scenario to be likely. in ur china, doin olympix. The 2008 Beijing Olympics were billed as China’s coming out party, and its world-wide torch relay, a Journey of Harmony. This of course led to protests, both outside of China on all manner of issues from its human rights record, Tibet, and Darfur, and in China itself at all those damn foreigners trying to humiliate China again; torch runs surrounded by police and security forces clashing with pro-Tibet protesters, allegations of excessive violence by the Chinese security forces, and entire segments of the relay being cancelled due to security concerns. Perhaps it should have been expected. China has in many respects not been an ideal state. China’s support of Darfur in the UN Security Council has drawn flak from lots of people, least of all Steven Spielberg. Its human rights record has long drawn the flak of groups like Amnesty International. Its environmental record is appalling. Its continuing repression of Tibetan culture and society, and its policy of assimilation, has been an issue since Mao invaded liberated Tibet. At the same time, what other nations do not always understand is that China, more than many other countries, if any other country, is weighed down by its own history. The Opium Wars, the crushing of the Boxer Rebellion, the jockeying of the Western colonial powers for a slice of the China pie, all hang heavy in Mainland Chinese memory. The turmoil from the Opium Wars to the end of the Chinese Civil War can be seen as a massive national loss of face. Anything the Western powers do now is liable to be seen in the light of this historical baggage. The Chinese government, thankfully, is being rational about the whole issue. The Chinese people are not, as the numerous protests against Carrefour and France demonstrate, protests which carry the potential, in their intensity of nationalistic fervour, to degenerate into rioting, as with the anti-Japanese riots several years back. What makes it worse is the perception, in China as in some Islamic nations, that a government is responsible for the actions of its citizens. In any society with the principle of free speech, the government has expressly abdicated most rights, if any right was possessed in the first place, to regulate the speech of its citizenry, and thus cannot be said to bear any responsibility. In less free societies, no protest can take place without some degree of official sanction and approval, and protests can be seen as a manifestation of national policy - as with anti-American protests in Tehran. The Chinese thus perceive the failure of French officials to apologize as a lack of sincerity - whereas the French officials never felt themselves to be responsible for their citizens’ opinions or protests. The Chinese people need to get over their inferiority complex. The world is not really out to get them, and China, if it wants to play in the international arena, should abide by the international standards it accepted as part of the admission requirements. It was given the chance to host the Olympics on condition that it shapes up - environmentally, and in terms of human rights. It should honor those obligations. Likewise, it should try to cope with the fact that the West is not like China, and while that means the West will judge China by its own standards, the West is not hostile to China. I do not believe Tibet will be independent; nor do I believe it should be, at this point. The depth of nationalistic sentiment means the Chinese will not give up Tibet, whether their claim to it is legitimate or not. But I agree that Tibet should be made into a special autonomous region, and more respect should be given to the Tibetans and their culture. The Western nations meanwhile face another instance of the conflict between protecting cultural sensitivities and the maintaining their tradition of free speech. Where this will go now, I can’t really say. I suppose the Olympics will happen, though with quite a few leaders refusing to attend the opening ceremony, the Chinese government will learn something new about being part of the international community, and about public relations management. The Chinese people may become even more nationalistic, driven by these and future perceived slights towards a more anti-Western stance. The West will have more fuel to add to anti-China sentiments. As for the rest, we’ll see.