A Singaporean says

Let’s not forget: it takes two, and please have a rest

2012-02-23T20:25:00.000Z

I had not intended to blog about Mr Yaw Shin Leong. But even before this became news, I had been mulling over the question of how a marriage could stay intact.

As I hear more sob stories from my clients at the Citizens Advice Bureau of partnerships (not necessarily marriages) gone wrong, I was asking myself, “How do I keep my own marriage intact?”

My husband comes from a family where there are many broken marriages, including his brother’s. For this reason he was not keen to marry.

He also came to the conclusion that in every marriage breakdown there is always fault with both parties. It takes two to form a partnership, and it takes two for the partnership to break down.

Whenever we discuss the breakdowns of friends’ partnerships, even of friends very dear to him, his comment is always, “It takes two.”

I have been conscious therefore of my own part in this marriage, too.

I look at Mr Yaw and the wonderful things that he has done for the public with such energy. I wonder how much his partner understood his aspirations and how much support he was given. Was he ever reminded to “slow down”, have a break, recharge?

Did Mr Yaw also support his partner in whatever career path that she was pursuing?

There is always a danger when the dynamics within a partnership change. My husband has always been the worker ant. He calls me the “tai-tai” and I run the family and a business from home.

(He may be the breadwinner, but I am the bread maker! Bread making is a delicious hobby.)

Dynamics change when one or both partners make career moves, take on new hobbies, children are born, start school, leave home, fall ill, etc.

My husband is now semi-retired. I, on the other hand, am trying to forge an academic career (again) given my imminent redundancy as a full-time mother.

He was always very sensitive to my needs while I was a housebound mother, always checking to see that I was still happy to remain at home, always telling me to treat myself to something nice because being at home is boring. (I’ve declined all offers of Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and more recently Christian Louboutin, etc.)

I realized that I, too, must remember to be sensitive to his needs as a husband who might be spending more time at home than I do for the first time in our marriage.

His words keep ringing in my head: it takes two.

I learned an important lesson when I became a full-time Christian worker. Jennifer told me: “You are not indispensable. Always make time to rest.”

Take time to have a life. Christian ministry (like politics?) is 24/7 if you let it.

But as Jennifer pointed out: even Jesus rested. He went to quiet places to commune with his Father. He avoided the crowds. This is the same message I pass on to all friends going into full-time ministry.

All of us, whether ministers of religion, ministers of education (teachers), ministers of law (politicians, lawyers. policemen), ministers of medicine (doctors, nurses), ministers of care (mothers, maids, etc) all need time off to recharge our physical, spiritual and mental batteries.

Those of us in a personal partnership need to ensure and encourage our partners to take necessary breaks, and be there to support him/her. If we are the busy/busier partner, we also must take heed and take time off to recharge.

We owe it to our partners to be able to give them our full, total and undivided attention on a regular basis. We are, in that sense, indispensable, or should make ourselves indispensable to our spouses.

Breakdowns do not happen out of nothing if that relationship (ie a firm commitment) was there in the first place. (I grant that some marriages are marriages of convenience.)

Relationships start breaking down when partners stop communing, in word, in deed and in the flesh.

In word: The Bible teaches “Never let the sun set on your anger.” Let us make sure we talk and clear any “bad” air before retreating to bed.

In deed: My husband makes me a mug of tea in the morning before he goes to work. I make him coffee when he comes home from work. Each mug is lovingly made and each is gratefully received and acknowledged. (This probably does not happen in households with maids.)

In the flesh: The words of the marriage vow “with my body I thee worship” is very powerful imagery. Married Christian people do not “own” their bodies, according to the teachings of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 (emphasis is mine):

³ The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. ⁵ Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Jesus taught, “Love your neighbour as yourself”. So love your spouse, your closest neighbour, as yourself, your own body.

This is a timely episode to remind all of us in a relationship to not take our partner for granted. I think those who feel able should also pray for healing for the marriages we know that have broken down.

I pray, too, that there is room for forgiveness.

Let him/her who is without sin cast the first stone.

Finnish schools

2012-01-31T11:18:00.006Z

After my previous post I read Mr Yee Jenn Jong in a post about the Finnish school education system.

I must confess that I had not taken too much notice of Finnish schools in the PISA ratings. Some might argue that it is the ratings and league tables that have played a big part in dumbing down the British education system. Just read today's news Thousands of 'dead end' courses axed from school tables.

However I can see why someone could become very enthusiastic about a system where children are not labelled and the dropout rate is low/zero and everyone sings from the same song sheet (which I would hazard a guess is led by the tune, "Don't Worry, Be-e Happy").

I like Finland a lot. I had spent many hours at Helsinki airport en route to somewhere (can't remember where). And then I spent time in Helsinki with a co-worker en route to Latvia. I stood outside the University of Helsinki for a long time, got chatted up by new immigrants, etc, and acquired the taste for smoked mackerel (eaten with boiled potatoes and some peas).

My Finnish hostess spoke fluent English. She also speaks Finnish, Swedish and Estonian. I enjoyed staying in her tiny studio apartment, available for rent to singles at reasonable prices.

(Like I've said before, if we want our singles to mingle, what better way than to let them live in tiny homes with shared leisure and laundry facilities?)

The public transport in Helsinki was also excellent.

I like Finland. I might go work there myself.

So I nosed around a bit more to learn about the Finnish education system. This is what I discovered:

The current system was started some 40 years ago and the government mandated that all teachers must have at least a masters' degree. There was, effectively, a paradigm shift in thinking and policy.

Children only start school at age seven. Before this, most children are in government provided childcare.

Come the age for pre-school, or kindergarten, children do what the originator (Friedrich Fröbel) of kindergartens (children's gardens) intended this transition period between home and school to be: for children to be "nourished" like plants in the garden (note, not "hothoused" as in a greenhouse).

Instead of times tables children learn self-reflection and social behaviour (which I imagine to mean being gracious, being courteous, respecting teachers, being able to empathize, etc). They learn to behave before they are taught to read.

Class sizes are often about 20 or fewer. If pupils are too difficult to teach (eg if they have special needs), then the class could have a second teacher, and a third adult as an assistant teacher. That is three adults to 20 children. [Why do I suspect that the children are actually taught in "sets" in class?]

The children take no national exams but are graded by the teachers who are trusted to do a professional job.

Teachers are a highly regarded profession in Finland where only the best and brightest are recruited. (I have not discovered where they recruit their doctors and lawyers from.)

Finns are polyglots. They speak Finnish and Swedish (one as mother tongue, the other as "other domestic language", the latter of which has to be spoken to a very high level of competence). Many speak English and another Germanic, Nordic or Baltic language.

The Finnish population stands at about 5.4 million with a school population of about 600,000. There are 10 universities, 7 specialized universities and 27 universities of applied sciences (polytechnics). Because everyone is well educated, no one looks down their noses at someone else.

You might be a house painter (or painter/decorator as they would say in Britain), but at least you are a numerate, literate painter/decorator who have post-secondary education and we respect you.

Well, we aspired to "a Swiss standard of living" some years ago. Maybe at the next election we can aim towards "a Finnish standard of education".

However the Finnish education system is not just/only about teachers and schools. One has to take the whole package -- it's my famous anthropological 'holistic approach', or 'joined-up thinking again -- starting with maternity leave.

Stress-free pregnancy with no fear of losing one's job. Affordable and high quality childcare when one is ready to return to work. Subsidized health provision. Employment legislation which is family-friendly (I imagine). A wide choice of universities and polytechnics catering to the natural talents and skills of all individuals. And no mention of the foreign domestic worker, mate.

But how do you legislate against parents being "kiasu"? You cannot.

How do you stop people from looking down at people who are not similarly qualified and have to do ostensibly "dirty jobs"?

The Finnish people appear at one level to be more homogenous than Singaporeans. But dig a little deeper and you'd find that there are distinct ethnic differences. However a school system that requires the study of national languages and cultural knowledge has ironed out these differences, even amongst the new arrivals.

You want to live in Finland, you speak Finnish (or Swedish).

Singaporeans used to have a national language. It was called Bahasa Kebangsaan. I learned it till I was in secondary two. I used to be able to hold simple conversations in BK. And that is why our parade commands are ke-kiri pusing and all that.

Would the Finnish system translate into Singapore?

Why, we could not even cope with ONE national language, let alone two. English is ostensibily the main business language and yet Singapore-born Singaporeans cannot even speak the English language properly, how can they expect us to speak two like the Finnish?

So can we ever be like the Finns? Yes, we can. We only have to think "Singapore River".

We used to be able to smell Singapore River before we came anywhere near it on a bus and saw the copper green (or was it chocolate brown?) water filled with detritus of every description.

In 1977 Mr Lee Kuan Yew said, "Clean it up!" By about 1988-9 the river was transformed. I played with the NUS Orchestra on a barge at its re-opening ceremony, complete with fireworks and all that.

It took political will, adminstrative gumption, and not a little bullying (uhm cajoling), as lots of people had to be moved from their sources of livelihood from either side of the river, lock, stock and barrel to other locations. (Were these folk merely relocated or were they also dis-located? Discuss.)

People shift? Business shift? Education shift? Paradigm shift? All of the above.

Singapore River took more than ten years. The Finnish education system started changing 40 years ago. Where do we start?

Class numbers? Three teachers to a class of 20?

Teaching children (and parents) to behave before they start to read and write?

No more exams?

Reverse the foreign domestic worker culture?

Incidentally the Finns pay up to 30% in income tax, another 16% to 21% local tax (depending on where you live) and a church tax. The tax on investment income (earnings from capital income, stocks and shares, etc is 28%).

They also say there is not a vast gap in household incomes.

Ah! I guess this is where us Singaporeans come unstuck.

=====
I asked my son whether he would like to be taught in a class of 20 where children of mixed abilities learn together. I can't describe the look of horror on his face. But that is just my son. Ignore him.
=====

Are Finnish schools the best in the world?

Several Lessons to Be Learned from the Finnish School System

What can we learn from British grammar/state/private schools?

2012-01-22T22:35:00.010Z

Recently in the UK there has been much written and said about the "grammar school".

Singapore has its PSLE. Britain had the 11-plus.

Those who were deemed academic were streamed into grammar schools. Those who did not do so well were channelled into the comprehensive or vocational schools.

Today there are only 164 grammar schools as most have been converted to comprehensives, taking children of all abilities.

Children who wish to have a shot at the grammars are still required to take some form of entrance exam. Otherwise children are allotted schools by postcode, except for certain selective church-based and other "government-maintained" schools.

So it does not matter whether you worked hard or not. If you happened to live next door to a very good school you get there even if you are thick. That is why property prices near good schools are much higher.

If you are clever, very clever, and your nearest secondary is a sink school, and even if your parents indicated that you would prefer to travel further to get to a good school, you often got sent there any way.

One reason for abolishing/reducing grammar schools is that it segregates and labels one group as "able" and the rest as "not-so-able". People opposed to grammar schools say they "fuel elitism".

O no, you cannot have one group of students given an educational advantage over another group based on innate ability.

A British idea of fairness? Or at least one (rather skewed) view of it.

[Compare: Lots of children are scarred by doing badly in PSLE, so let's scrap it.]

Some have argued that the 11-plus was not a true test of ability because those from better socio-economic backgrounds have the wherewithal to hire tutors to coach their children whilst the poorer children cannot even afford to buy assessment papers for practice.

Are PSLE age children not coached to death? [O, most children in Singapore are coached to within an inch of sanity, some say.]

Grammar school supporters argue that it is the best mechanism for social mobility. It did not matter that children came from poor families. If they were gifted and/or hard-working, they got to grammar schools.

Here they learned Latin and other classical subjects, learned to do serious maths, and then moved on to Oxbridge and other red brick universities.

Opponents however say, "Only a tiny proportion of grammar school pupils actually do come from poorer backgrounds."

Ergo, the social mobility argument was shot down. Even that tiny proportion who might have managed some social mobility via grammar schools are now deprived of that opportunity.

The Labour government (many of which ministers had a grammar school or private school education, I've been told) said "no more new grammar schools".

These days the new education minister (called Secretary of State for Education) Michael Gove seems to like the idea of grammar schools but has his hands tied by legislation. And so some are accusing him of bringing them back "by the back door", through allowing existing grammar schools to start "satellite schools".

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the 11-plus and grammar schools may be, I think we need to examine the issue of selection.

The purpose of exams, surely, for any rational human being is to separate the sheep from the goats at some point or other. (Please feel free to disagree.)

Those who do well academically are rewarded in one way, and those who don't must be helped into areas of training that would prepare them for an independent adult life.

It pains me to hear my son complain about how he feels he is a failure on the football field. He does not like football. He does not even watch football on TV. Frankly he is rubbish at football.

He plays football because as a conscientious pupil at this school he is required to play. But he would drop it as soon as he could. If football is a compulsory exam subject, my son would be totally and utterly miserable.

By the same argument, why make a child who is not good at Maths, Science and English (or second language for that matter) continue to struggle with those subjects at a level of competence that they would not need to assure their chances of personal and career advancement?

Ergo, selection is a good thing.

On the other hand, when we do not reward children appropriately, when we give them nothing to aim towards, it becomes a race to the bottom. Why work hard? If no matter how hard I worked I would end up in the nearest sink school , why bother indeed?

All around me I see parents desperate that their state schools are not looking after their more gifted offspring.

If you are middling or not so clever, you're OK, but if you are gifted, or of above intelligence, or are just keen to learn, you have a hard fight in a class full of children who do not wish to learn.

I "taught" a group of young secondary school age children at Sunday School. I could not get a word in because they are not used to sitting quietly to listen to someone else expressing an opinion.

"Is this how you behave at school?" I asked.

"Yes," they chorused in reply.

In the last couple of days we have Failing secondary schools placed on list of shame. It highlights how schools ignore the needs of gifted students. Instead they focus on the borderline C-D pupils, trying to push the Ds into the Cs so that the school appears to do OK on the "A to C" league tables.

As for the social mobility argument, it has been observed that many Labour politicians and teacher leaders who have benefitted from a grammar school education, benefitted from social mobility, have raised the drawbridge once they got "inside".

[Is this the same picture in Singapore? Are past scholars now making it difficult for other non-scholar families to access the privileges they received?]

I write as one born into a family which would have been considered very poor. Passing my PSLE well and going to RGS completely changed my life and aspirations.

And I want the same for every young boy and girl who is able to have a chance to go to a school like RGS, both in Singapore and the UK.

Some pupils make it to grammar school after intensive tutoring. And then they struggle. Worse they could actually slow down the progress of the more able students, dragging the whole school down.

The headmaster at my son's school advised: if your child needs tuition to get to a [certain highly academic] school, then it is not the right school for your child.

How wise.

I would ban private tuition. But of course this is not possible. Or children who have had tuition should be marked differently from those who have not.

Only when we level the playing field could the truly able children from whatever disadvantaged background be given the chance to get to a grammar school and then to university.

Because there is no reward commensurate with doing well, or attempting to do well, UK schools have failed many of our brightest children.

OK, perhaps it's not fair to select merely on academic ability. What about selecting on the basis of natural talent in art, music, drama, sport, DIY skills, etc.

[It heartens me to know that there are some Singapore schools already selecting on such bases. But we need more of these.]

If your child happens to be shortchanged even by those criteria then what about selection on the basis of good behaviour? Or helpfulness? Then at least some schools have a chance to teach those who really wish to learn.

Of course the minimum skills in Maths, Science and English, knowledge which help us to function as normal human beings cannot be overlooked. Not many of us need to have an intimate knowledge of calculus to go through life. Maths, for example, could be taught at a slower pace for those who are less able.

The problem with British schools is the race to the bottom means many pupils leave school without the minimum skills required to do any job to any degree of competence. (I've been told that there are school leavers who wouldn't know that 0.5 and 1/2 (half) are equivalent measures.)

A school is not a factory. What I like about the ethos at my son's school is their firm belief that every child is gifted. The teachers try to identify these (sometimes hidden) gifts and nurture them.

It is a school where the teachers know every child by name. Senior Science and Maths masters go down to read books to the youngest children. This is especially important for boys so that they do not think that teaching/learning is a female thing.

The staff are able to discuss the progress of every child at meetings due to the small size of the school. They also get to know the parents well.

The size of classes vary from a high in the mid-twenties to single-digit numbers (in the upper classes when children leave to go to other schools, countries, when parents can no longer afford the fees, etc).

Economists preach the economies of scale. I don't think this works in the ideal school context.

If the aim of schools is to make carbon copies of items, then yes, let's talk economies of scale. But identifying the innate gifts of children and nurturing these gifts is a totally different mission.

Schools can try economies of scale in different ways.

My son is going to a school with nearly 700 pupils. It is not big compared to many schools, but the boys are looked after in groups of 60. There is a constant figure (and two assistants) to see to the pastoral needs of each child throughout his five-year stay in the school.

Mum used to say yaat yeung maai sek choet baak yeung yan (Cantonese: one type of rice feeds/produces 100 types of people) and hong hong choet zhong yuen (Cantonese: you can produce a "scholar" in every occupation).

My vision for the new Dragon year? An education system that would nurture a "scholar" in every field, to support every child into a career that will be respected by a gracious society that does not only worship the academic, the rich and famous. I wonder if that would make happier, more creative and confident children, and therefore happier parents.

If you wish the school system to improve, perhaps you could copy this post to your MP or the ministry of education.

Saan nien faai lok! Sum sheung see seng! (Cantonese)

[Akan Datang: a post on why boys should transfer to secondary school later than girls.]

A green light for more grammars?

Grammar schools 'to expand' to meet growing demand

The new academies are a revolutionary force in British education

The creeping return of the grammar school ("creeping"?)

So who is good enough to get into Cambridge? (first hand account that might interest parents and young people)

It's not always black and white

2012-01-17T14:03:00.010Z

My first client today at the CAB was a foreign born woman asking whether there is a chance that she might qualify for some benefits.

She has three children. Her husband works 40+ hours on minimum wage while she works part-time. (She also volunteers at her son's school.) Together they manage to cobble together just enough money to rent a three-bedroom property, but there is very little left after paying rent.

Hmm, another scrounging family?

I withheld judgement and continued to do all that I was supposed to do to find out which is the best way out for her.

She is half an hour short of qualifying for Working Tax Credit but could certainly get some help with Child Tax Credit. As her husband is on very low income, he might also qualify for Working Tax Credit.

Probing further I learned that this family has, to date, not received a single penny of benefit.

Not even Child Benefit which is supposed to be a universal benefit. Either because their immigration status made them ineligible or that it was far too difficult, they had not bothered to claim.

Then there is Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. If they manage to get this sorted, or even any of these options sorted, it would make a huge difference to their lives.

Then I learned that their 19-year-old has been offered a place to study Medicine at Kings College London.

Now, THAT is quite some achievement. Despite being so poor her daughter was able to capitalize on the state school system, almost universally villified by commentators in this country.

She must be a very bright young thing. During this "gap year" she decided to give tuition to earn some money. The father of the girl she was tutoring thought so highly of her that he offered her a job.

Any parent would warm to a story like this.

And I felt no resentment at all in advising her on how to claim these benefits. It was great to see that despite all the disadvantages her daughter now stands a very good chance of lifting them out of poverty. Her skills as a doctor would also benefit the British public.

The next client was an older woman who kept on and on about how "I was not able to get MY money" -- because she was a bit confused about bank holidays, etc -- and failed to pay her council tax leading to the council cancelling her agreement and demanding for the whole sum to be paid or the matter will be passed on to bailiffs.

This old woman was really frightened, "I'm afraid I would lose my house."

[It is a council house, not hers.]

She also managed to raise two useless sons who were not able to help her very much in disharging her debts -- council rent arrears, council tax arrears, bank overdrafts, etc. [She is paying £400 for a three-bedroom council property, while the first client is paying £1400 for a privately-rented property of the same size.]

This woman is nearly 70. Her sons are not youngsters who she says live with her, and yet she is not getting any help from them. (She did say the one who's on the dole does give her some money.)

The most difficult bit was trying to get her to understand that in order for us to help her sort out her debts she has to provide us with the information we need. [We need to get her to do her budgeting statement and then talk to all her creditors to negotiate a loan repayment on her behalf.]

Every time I tried asking if she was able to gather all the information to tell us exactly how much she owed she interrupted, "I've already done that! I was given some forms which I filled in and sent them off to Lloyds. Now they want me to fill them out again," getting quite agitated.

Keep calm, keep calm, I told myself. Take a deep breath.

After further questioning I figured that the bank had passed her case on to a debt collector who in turn wanted to help by asking her to fill in a form (probably a budgeting statement). Her refusal to "do it all over again" made it impossible for anyone -- even the debt collector -- to help her.

I could not actually help her, bar calming her down and making her see that she must help herself by providing the information required.

After carefully explaining to her what I thought the bank had done, and what the debt collector was trying to do I asked, "Are you willing to do this?"

She agreed, at long last. This interview could have been shortened by 10 minutes if she would only let me finish asking the questions, really.

In ten years one immigrant family was able to nurture a hardworking disadvantaged young woman into a potentially net giver to society.

But the indigenous family, given all the benefits and privileges (my house, my money) they have enjoyed for years, only managed to produce children who either cannot or do not help an aged, widowed parent.

People in this country often assume that the immigrants -- anyone of colour -- are the ones who scrounge. The white indigenous people are the angels.

This afternoon I had the perfect example, side by side, "ebony and ivory", to show this is not always the case.

I am not saying that all immigration is a net benefit. I still have to think about that one. (UK did gain me, that is true.)

Rather it is the "failure to thrive" by some groups of people despite everything provided for them by the welfare state that I worry about.

Compare with this news: Homeless teenager competes in national science competition

Liar

2012-01-16T21:45:00.015Z

Some weeks ago I dealt with a young man from the Horn of Africa. I came this close to throttling him.

He slumped into my office and started off straightaway with "I want to know what benefits I am entitled to".

[Why should he be "entitled" to anything? He has not contributed a penny to the British economy.]

He told me he was being given some benefits in another part of the country and so clearly he was "entitled" to those benefits. But his JSA (JobSeekers Allowance) was stopped because the woman at the Job Centre said as a student he is not looking for a job and should not be entitled to JSA.

This woman is right. Otherwise there will be lots more people on JSA.

The point is without his JSA his Housing Benefit (paying rent) and Council Tax Benefit (paying council tax) were also stopped. So this poor chap had to move in with his sister. Previously he had "his" own little flat.

I was distressed because every time I followed a line of inquiry and went outside to seek help from my supervisor, and returned to ask further questions, this young man changed his story.

Time and time again he changed his story until I felt that he had been telling me nothing but lies, wasting my time.

First he was receiving JSA in Yorkshire. Then he was not receiving JSA in Yorkshire. [We wanted to establish why a benefit approved in Yorkshire was withdrawn where we are.]

First he put in an appeal for a decision to strip him of his benefits. Then he did not put in an appeal, "but something was submitted at the Job Centre". [We could help in advising on the appeal procedure, hold his hand a bit, if he did appeal.]

First he said his college had "given them everything" to prove that he was attending class for less than 16 hours a week. Then his college merely told him to photocopy information in the college prospectus. [Previously I've seen letters written by colleges on headed paper to support their students. Why did his college not do the same?]

Throughout the interview he was also going, "But I am entitled to this," "I should be entitled to that." At one point he asked for a lawyer to help him fight his case.

And who would pay for the lawyer?

In the end we decided that we would help him if he would do steps 1,2,3, etc. and gave him a slot to see an adviser.

Then the pièce de résistance (for want of a better phrase but I think you get my drift). Just before he left my office I passed on my manager's advice, "Well, if you are only studying for 14 hours, there's nothing to stop you looking for a part-time job." [This is what most foreign students do. They are allowed to work up to 20 hours a week, and most do.]

His reply was, "There are no part-time jobs out there. They are all full-time jobs."

Liar. Complete liar.

Everyone else tells us that there are only part-time jobs, offering a few hours here and there, but far fewer full-time ones.

And he just shot himself in the foot: If there are full-time jobs and he cannot, or refuses to, take up a full-time job, then he is NOT a JobSeeker by definition and therefore should not be given JSA. Simple.

My young friends at church work for minimum wage at bars, restaurants, cleaning, etc. for pocket money whenever they can. (They also have parents who pay tax, unlike this young man.) This young man could do the same but refuses to.

He much prefers to "sign on", pretend to look for a job or two to fulfil his "job-seeking" obligation under JSA, continue to complete his course at college, and expect the taxpayer to give him a nice little flat meanwhile. [It is pretence because he has already indicated that he was not going to give up his college course even he was offered a job.]

What makes him think he is entitled to certain benefits in the first place?

He is "entitled" to money if he is being owed money. By insisting that he was "entitled" to benefits suggests that he was being owed benefits. The taxpayer pays these benefits. He is in effect saying that taxpayers (yes, people like myself) owe him these benefits.

As a taxpayer, I fear, I do not feel I owe him a thing. I do not owe him money and do not feel obliged to help someone like him. So his stance that he was "entitled" to something for doing nothing, worse, by pretending to be a jobseeker, does not help his case.

Claiming benefits fraudulently is a crime. Perhaps I should have warned him.

Today I checked. This young man did not bother to show up for his appointment. Why was I not surprised?

He wasted an advice slot that could have gone to someone else needing urgent help.

20/1/12 Update: Out of curiosity I looked up the college at which this young man said he was doing a diploma in engineering. The only engineering diploma courses on their website require full-time study. So how he could argue that it is for 14 hours a week is quite beyond me.

2/2/12 Update: The plot thickens. Talked with a friend whose son is at the same college. She tells me even though her son is at a "full-time course", he only has 14 and a half hours of lessons. So the college claims to run a full-time course (and gets the relevant amount of money from the govt.) but actually only provides 14 and half hours contact time.

She also tells me the college allows students to work a maximum of 8 hours. But of course, one may argue, full-time university students could have as few as 9 hours of contact time. The rest of the time is required for personal study. Still, does not make the case for my young man from the Horn of Africa.

Thanks for the mammary

2012-01-01T20:04:00.009Z

Well, you know, it was the end of another year and I could not resist the pun.

I sent a letter on this subject to the Straits Times. It is written in a light-hearted manner although the message is a serious one, and I don't think it is going to be published.

So it goes here, with several edits as I do not need to worry about a 400-word limit:

Two Straits Times stories inspired this: faulty silicone breast implants and toxic milk.

It now appears that no one is exactly sure how many sub-standard implants had been used as the Dutch believe that implants banned in

France

could have been re-branded and used in the

Netherlands

If a British newspaper is to be believed, a staggering 25,000 British women a year have breast implants. Of these, only a small proportion is done as reconstructive surgery post mastectomies (due to breast cancer).

Most breast implants were done ("made", "performed", "inserted"?) purely for cosmetic reasons. Of course some people think that breast augmentation could enhance their careers in modelling, acting, and other media or non-media work.

Should I feel sorry for the women who now face a life sentence of not knowing what may hit them next (like a Damoclean sword), or that they had their breasts augmented in the first place (ie without medical reason to do so)?

Some may suggest that it is just sour grapes on my part (pun originally unintended, but I'm leaving it in), that I am just jealous of women who fill out those T-shirts a bit better than I who have a triple-A rating … in the chest department. "Frontally-challenged" is the phrase I've just coined. :-)

We have yet another tragic episode of contaminated Chinese milk.

When mothers breastfeed they need only concern themselves with their own nutrition. They know what goes into their milk.

In my case it was very clear that onions gave our baby colic. Ginger, on the other had, had a positive effect. So I had ginger with everything, and avoided onions like the plague.

Not so when we buy milk off the shelf.

These stories remind me (hence "memory") that:

(1) “breast is best” for babies, and thanks to my late mother for bothering, and

(2) the safest breasts are our natural unadulterated ones, whatever (less than ideal) shape or size they might be. Look after them.

Look after them well to keep them cancer-free.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and good health!

Update 3/1/2012: See also If a vanity breast job goes wrong, that’s just tough (NB: NHS - National Health Service is completely FREE at point of service)

Child development, entry to Oxbridge and simply common sense

2011-12-31T17:36:00.003Z

A few days ago I heard on radio a feisty debate on the effect of TV watching on young children.

I've long believed that TV should not be used as a baby-sitter. And so it was that we banned our son from watching TV (especially so-called children's programmes like Teletubbies) until he was two years old.

He was allowed to watch any amount of sport and news programmes, but no other TV was allowed. DVD and video tapes (back when) were OK if carefully vetted. There was a particularly good Beatrix Potter box set.

More importantly he was exposed to a lot of speech on radio, story CDs, to our reading and our face-to-face conversations.

As my blog stats show that the post on bringing up a gifted child was most read, parents interested in this, please do search for information on "children and TV-watching". Note who says what. Children's TV producers usually have a different perspective from academics.

Oxbridge entry 'still stubbornly linked to postcode' was another news item.

Can't say one is exactly surprised that the "richer" areas in the country have more students getting to Oxbridge.

I remember while I was in RGS reading some sociologists (who later became my teachers) telling us that children who lived in Queenstown (where I lived) was least likely to get to junior colleges and then to university.

(This was when Buona Vista was considered "ulu". There were no Clementi, Pandan this and that, Sengkang, etc.)

Instead of being detered by this finding I was determined to prove these sociologists wrong. And did.

But that was when Singapore was truly meritocratic.

Every neighbourhood school was likely to produce boys and girls going to RI and RGSS. Without the benefit of tuition and enhancement classes. We were the generation of WYSIWYG.

Now it appears that we have to be in the right catchment area to get into a good primary school, to get into a SAP/GEP/IP school, to get to university, etc. Not unlike the plight of many parents in the UK: School admissions fraud rises in race for best places.

What I do not understand is why selection is considered such a bad thing in this country.

Is it because UK is [supposed to be] a Christian country and so any talk of selection is Darwinist and therefore anti-Christian?

In fact this is -- ironically -- a largely non-Christian country. Despite what is an essentially Darwinist outlook the country spends a fortune to support the survival of the unfittest (the feckless, the lazy, you get the picture).

OK, maybe schools should not select on the basis of ability, as in academic ability. What about selection on the basis of good behaviour? Or other positive traits?

Even if children are not naturally academic, they could seek to excel in art, sport, drama, music, kindness, selflessness, etc.

If children are anti-social -- or if their parents think it is OK for their children to be anti-social -- then they should be given the lowest priority for schools, housing, etc.

Would this resolve the issue of misbehaving and disrespectful children?

We were actually having this heated debate at dinner table when husband said, "We made the mistake of giving free education."

When education became an entitlement (free textbooks, free exercise books, free stationery, etc) parents lost their stakeholder function, and quickly lost their interest.

Discipline at school is such a huge problem that teachers cannot teach and the able students -- and I believe there are gifted children in every school, whatever their biological parentage, because God is fair -- cannot learn and so, yes, they don't get to Oxbridge.

Wherever you find good schools (state or private) you find it is the parents who make a difference.

In paying schools, parents would not only push their own children. If other people's children stand in the way of their own children progressing, They would have words with the teacher/head teacher. No fear.

Selection by good behaviour is social engineering, you say?

The welfare state is social engineering on a mega scale, full stop.

And the chickens are coming home to roost. See: It should pay to be thrifty

[It's New Year's eve and I've not been as stringent as I usually am with the use of language here. Apologies.]

Homeless in London, who cares?

2011-12-20T13:37:00.000Z

My clients yesterday included a 44-year-old mother of four who suffers from incontinence and told me that "I am claiming [benefits] for them [husband and sons]".

She's one of the thousands the government is trying to move off Incapacity Benefit (she was classed as severely disabled) back into work (JobSeekers Allowance). However because no one in the family works, for her to lose her benefits would mean the family would struggle to survive.

This is despite one son and husband also claiming benefits. She "claims for them" in the sense that she is entitled to most. When I probed further she said that she is a bit embarrassed by her problem and so does not feel that she could work.

She also mentioned depression. I wonder if the depression is a result of her not working or her reason (excuse?) not to work. Similarly her son who trained as a plumber could not find a job -- and is depressed -- and so has signed on.

Before I met this lady I didn't think incontinence is such a big problem that it would be categorized as "severely disabled". Let's put it this way: us women are "incontinent" for a week in every four, dripping blood, and we manage to remain in work.

It appears that this lady is not using the right kind of support, using sanitary pads instead of incontinence aids, to control her problems (smell, eg). She's only 44. She has another 27 years, possibly more, to state retirement age.

Twenty-seven years! That is a long time. She could do so much during this time.

Her grown up son who trained as a plumber, he's sitting at home waiting for a job to come to him. Is this a symptom or a result of the welfare state?

Why does he not go to solicit for business? Everyone is looking for a good plumber. Why not ask to work for someone for free, a charity for example, helping to fix plumbing for old people? He sits at home collecting his JSA, and gets depressed.

Worklessness in this country contributes to poverty, not of the pocket, but of the soul.

Another client arrived from France and went to claim benefits the following day. And was rejected. He had been thrown out by his wife*. I don't know the details.

Nepali woman who does not speak a word of English wearing very "blingey" glasses. She applied for pension credit and was awarded it for several months. Then some hardworking civil servant (hurrah! there is at least one) finds out that she is not actually eligible.

Her daughter has sponsored her visa. Her daughter has undertaken to maintain her. Somehow someone told her that benefits were to be had if she applied. Now she's slapped with an "overpayment" bill. We advised on how she could settle the bill.

I had to warn her that if she made too big a fuss, they could just deport her.

Student next, paid an enormous amount of money to a "college" offering something like an "MEP" (Masters Entry Programme). This young man spoke with such a heavy accent I could hardly understand him. The college threw him out, saying that he was not a good enough student. They also dismissed about half his class. Student wants his money back. This is, believe it or not, a consumer issue.

Room got a bit cold, so I shut the window. Big mistake.

My next client was a man who has been sleeping rough. He had not washed for two weeks. He came in and promptly removed his shoes to show me his problems.

He arrived in this country on a spouse visa. His wife is supposed to support him. But somehow he managed to antagonize her enough she threw him out*, and this man has also been given conditional police bail -- whatever that means. He had come in two weeks ago and another volunteer tried to help him. And now he's back.

[*Women are so keen to throw out their husbands, it seems. Why?]

Because he has "no status" in the country he is not entitled to any benefits. So some "charities" would not touch him as their costs could not be recouped from government departments. We rang around, my manager and I, and I finally found a nice young lady who advised that he could get to a day centre the following day where they would give him some food, he could have a shower, wash his clothes, and they might even be able to give him shelter.

"Uhm, what if he has a history of violence?" YMCA has rejected him on that basis, so I thought I should check.

Lady checked. "Uhm, yes, it's OK. We love everyone here."

I managed to stop myself asking, "Are you, by any chance, a Christian charity?"

CEO gave us permission to give him money for a night at a B&B. Manager had also made him a cup of tea and given him some food.

I hope this man managed to get to the day centre and I hope they are able to shelter him. But it led me to think: If his wife promised to be responsible for him, but is not, should she be given the bill when he is finally sorted out?

Why should I, as the taxpayer, pick up her bill?

I came home and looked up the day centre and discovered that they are indeed a Christian charity. There was something in the way that lady spoke, or something she said, which gave the game away.

I also cannot get over the smell.

Ouch! Singapore society slammed by Apple co-founder

2011-12-14T17:13:00.002Z

This morning while working at my computer pre-9am I heard BBC interviewer quizzing Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers, about the counter-culture that Steve Jobs apparently embodied.

Steve W talked about creativity, and noted that -- especially in schools -- the length of one's hair is not important relative to how creative that person is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9661000/9661755.stm

You may or may not agree with him. I say, it should be entirely up to you. But then I sat up as he went:

"... look at structured societies like Singapore where bad behaviour is not tolerated. You are extremely punished.

"Where are the creative people? Where are the great artists? Where are the great musicians? Where are the great singers? Where are the great writers? Where are the great athletes?

"All the creative elements seem to disappear. Of course everybody is educated, has a good job, a lot of pay and a nice car.

"You know, some rituals in life, you are never going to get away from all rituals. 'Let's sing and cheer to our school,' you're taught in school, you know, 'My school, right or wrong, and I'd always oppose the other.'

"'And the referees if they make the call that is against our team, the referee made a mistake ....'

"That's not really what it's about. You're just taught this 'nationalism', not to think about what is right and wrong but to take a side, just like in politics at an early age ... and that's not lined up with creativity.

"And they will take a side because [of] other people, it's the thing to do. Somebody else made that rule, not you. You did not think for yourself. So thinking for yourself is creativity.

"And that goes right down to what we were talking about dress, the clothing that you wear. It's like you wear what you want to wear."

Clearly Steve W knows enough about Singapore to talk like that. (And this is going to be broadcast to all of Britain later on tonight.)

I am so embarrassed. But he is right.

This is exactly what my husband has been saying about Singapore. So "thinking-inside-the-box", so sticking to rules, so toeing the line, we are unlikely to produce a Nobel Prize winner.

Talk about a wake-up call. I'm not sure my breakfast sat very well after this.

Singapore the laughing stock -- again.

We don't need no education

2011-11-09T21:44:00.003Z

Thankfully it was yesterday and not today that I travelled to central London early in the morning and came home walking past the University of London Union building. As you know our young men and women were out demonstrating today, starting at ULU.

Here's Toby Young's comment

and James Delingpole's

and a student's view

I came home frustrated, so frustrated. The only comfort is that today's demo shows that anthropology graduates are not the only ones who live in cloud-cuckoo land.

I had the impression that the workshop I was attending was about getting people within anthropology to think outside the box and say how anthropology could or should be taught so that the richness of anthropological research could be used outside academia.

So I didn't mind a former MA student complain about how her course did not meet her expectations. Great, I thought, such honesty. Department staff have better sit up and take notice. The student is now a "customer". How do we meet their needs?

We had a recent PhD student telling us all the wonderful things he's done: refusing to "give office hours" because as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) they are not paid for office hours (which I assume means consultation hours, ie making themselves available to students they tutor at regular advertised times).

Prat! I thought. When I was graduate tutor at NUS we all had to have fixed times for consultation. We are not only facilitators at tutorials. We do not only mark essays. We also provide some pastoral care to our students. We knew we had to do that when we agreed to become tutors.

We were not paid a lot of money, but it was our duty of care to the students. We took the responsibility of shaping lives very seriously.

This GTA would only do it if they were given more money.

Then he boasted about not agreeing with the policy of submitting attendance registers to the UK Border Agency. Apparently this was required to help the agency weed out those bogus students who sometimes cause a lot of trouble, either from a terrorist perspective or slipping into the great illegal/informal sector which costs the tax payer a lot of money in the long run.

Prat! I thought. Does he think he is on the moral high ground by simply claiming that he did not want to be "gatekeeper" and agent for the Border Agency?

Has he ever considered: If only we did not have to waste so much time, money and effort tracing the illegals, if only we manage to stop these illegals worming their way into our benefits system and sponging on it, or working in the black market sector without paying due taxes, we would have more money to spend on hospitals and education, pay our academics? Yes! Including him.

So on the one hand he wants to be paid more money. On the other he refuses to safeguard the finite amount of money available to pay people like him. "Eating cake" is the phrase that comes to mind.

Reminds me of the time my friend had heart trouble when visiting the UK. After a short hospital stay he offered to pay his bill as it would be covered by his insurance. But the staff -- presumably also refusing to act a a gatekeeper to a National Health Service -- told him that they would not be contacting his insurer.

???

That means they now cannot recoup the money spent on him that could be used to treat the next British heart patient who needs a hospital stay. It is the NATIONAL Health Service, not INTERNATIONAL Health Service, for crying out loud.

And then as Anthropology PhD students they didn't like very much having to study statistics .... I thought anthropologists are supposed to provide a holistic perspective.

Young students are allowed to be idealistic.

Most of the time we grow out of it. As we pay taxes, get married, start a family. When thrown into the dog-eat-dog world we begin to realize university is not at all like the real world. Grow up!

However, sometimes, they take this idealism to an unsustainable plane.

It would be a gross understatement to describe the last speaker as such. Despite the grey hair, this speaker does not seem to have grown up.

He rambled on about how he was unemployable, found a job, and then is now unemployable again. He is attempting to overthrow the British government come 30th November and then we can all happily return to being hunter-gatherers, when we would have more time to play, for music, for food, and sex and all that.

Is it any surprise that he has been sacked by a few universities?

He handed out leaflets for a blockade of the "ring of steel" (within which, incidentally, my husband works) that would "bring down the government". Capitalism has had its day, he thinks.

Yet just a few minutes before that this man was happily tucking into a store-bought sandwich in plastic wrapping carried in an orange plastic carrier bag, and drinking water out of a plastic cup, poured from a plastic bottle. Where would he be hunting and gathering if nobody now makes sandwiches for sale?

Is he any good at all with a rifle, I wondered. (I was pretty good at air rifle myself.) He would need something to hunt with. What happens when there are no more capitalists to make rifles for him to hunt?

O well, maybe he is good with a slingshot.

If these are the images that the British people have of anthropologists, no wonder anthropology departments are having trouble recruiting. Would parents across the country encourage their children to study this subject if all they could get up to is complain about everything?

What have they done today to make them feel proud?

What have they done in the last two weeks to make the world a better place?

How much taxpayers' money have they wasted today simply on the policing cost?

And what are they saying? I have a right to education, whatever that may mean. The taxpayer should fund my studies. Even if it means the hospital attendant, the school cleaning lady and the checkout girl at the supermarket must pay for it.

After all that cerebral exercise it was so good to return to sewing and making physical things with my own hands today.

Please tell me your views of anthropology graduates. Thank you.

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

2011-11-07T19:54:00.001Z

Warning: This is a brag post.

My son, his mate and I enjoy watching the comedy series "Miranda" in which Miranda's friend (and employee) often holds up a mask of Heather Small and mimic her singing "What have you done today to make you FEEL proud?"

Yesterday I went to bed thinking that I really toted up well.

First, a meeting with fellow social scientists outside academia. It was a group I started – by accident – some years ago and now it has grown, nearly 400 members! Was able to encourage those present.

Then on the way home – my train, for which I was careful to buy a first class ticket to ensure a seat after a tiring meeting, was cancelled – I was squashed into a Tube train whereupon a man with a beard, long hair, a very large ring in his nose, dirty finger nails, on a walking stick asked my fellow social scientist and myself whether the train was going to MK.

He, too, was supposed to be on my cancelled train, but got shoved into this other train instead.

My colleague got off the train but this man – let's call him Mick – leeched on to me. Meanwhile husband was on the phone trying to get 'live' information on the internet and telling me how to get home.

We were directed to make a change at station X at which anxious people were trying to get information as to how to travel. The platform staff were trying to be helpful but they, alas, did not seem to have the up-to-date information.

The electronic board said 17:15 was "on time" whereas I was told on the phone (and another passenger apparently knew too) that it was cancelled. What to do?

Husband on phone said, go to platform 3. Train due in. I walked over to platform 3 as quickly as I could while Mick hobbled along, trying to keep up.

More confusion on this platform. Even bigger crowd. Mood still harmonious though. People were anxious, not angry. Londoners are used to such delays. Unlike in Singapore, a train that is delayed by six minutes does not get reported in the papers.

Husband on phone, "There should be a train coming in at 17.19. It's the late-running 16:44. Get on that one."

I could hear on radio of staff on platform receive the information from control at a station upstream, "Train leaving that platform, should be at station X soon."

Husband on phone, "Your 17:19 should be arriving any second now. You might need to push your way in. I'll hang on to make sure you're on."

Me, "No. If I need to push in I need both hands. Call back in five minutes."

Train on platform. Mick said, "O no! It's one of those trains with a big drop from the platform. I made sure Mick got onto the train and followed." We actually found seats across each other.

Husband on phone, "Are you on?"

Me: "Yes."

Husband, "Your train should arrive at 17:32. I'll be at the station to pick you up."

Mick continued to make conversation with me across the train. Other passengers looked on with interest. Was tramp-like Mick harrassing this tiny Chinese woman? I felt they were all watching to make sure I was alright.

The man next to Mick was clearly an ex-Gurkha. He wears a uniform with a badge "Security" emblazoned on it. (A number of ex-Gurkhas are in the security sector in the UK.)

Girl next to me got off. Mick came to sit next to me. Mick had been very keen to tell us on the first train that he could not wait to get home to his flat in MK. He had gone to London for a "demo" for animal rights.

I asked him where he lived before MK. He uhmmed and arhed which suggests that he had just been taken off the streets, or released from supported housing (for mentally ill?), or even perhaps from prison, but he was "doing well". I had, as if on auto-pilot, put on my CAB hat and wanted to make sure that he was being looked after as well as looking after himself.

So the questions came fast: why the walking stick? Orthoarthritis since he was 16 or 17. How old is he? About 39. Is he taking his medicine? He stopped because the pain comes back one the drugs wear off. He just bears with the pain." I thought, "Hmm, should I ask if he was on cannabis?" Time and place for everything, my dear. The train is not the right place.

Is he with a GP? Which council is looking after him? Does he get to do much? So I learned that he gets "lonely, you know" and he repeated how pleased he was to be travelling with such good company. Earlier he had given me his number so that my vegetarian colleague could call him. Now he tells me I should put his number on my phone, too.

No, I won't, I said. "Why not?" It's falling apart. "O! But you'd put it in your next phone." I didn't commit.

Then I said he should stop smoking. Told him I could smell it a mile away. What a waste of money. "I know, but I have cut down a lot," and threw me a sheepish look.

He told me he is into art (I really hope it's art, and not graffitti). I said he should make himself useful, do something with his art. "Do something nice for someone every day."

He said he tries to do that, indeed. Mick might smell, but he speaks very good English, and very polite. If indeed he was on cannabis his intellect had only be slightly dulled by its use.

We reached our station at the end of the line and was thrown off the train. I walked away quickly, wishing him a safe journey home. He waited as I went through the gates to say "Goodbye!".

I think Mick was chuffed that two complete strangers (describing us as "very pleasant ladies") trusted him enough to continue a conversation with him. Would he do something to make himself useful? I don't know and might never know. But I certainly hope so.

Outside my "chauffeur" was waiting patiently and we got home, had a short break and we were off to a church fireworks party.

There we met PO and his dad. PO has just lost his mum. His dad had been married for nearly 60 years. Put another way, he had been married for longer than I have been alive.

For Christmas "dinner" we usually gather people we know who have no close family to go to, or people who are new to the country. So a number of nationalities have graced our table at Christmas.

[What would Jesus do? In the parable of the banquet the rich man invited those who were not likely to reciprocate his invitation. This is also partly a result of my own experience of Christmas in this country as a single person. Friends went home to their families and I was on my own, lonely and very cold.]

We had asked PO and his dad this time knowing that the first Christmas after the death of a loved one is always difficult. PO's dad was not sure whether he wanted to accept the invitation just incase he wanted to be able to have a cry. Later on he grabbed me by the shoulders and said "Christmas. Thank you for the invitation. Yes, we will be there."

Tears welled up and he gave me a long, long hug. I comforted him as I have comforted others by confessing that it took me four years before I could speak of the death of my father without crying.

When we left the party – husband was "smoke damaged" by then , from being the "lighter" of fireworks – PO's dad gave me another long hug, and still more tears.

At the end of the day I took stock and thought: It does not take much to bring happiness to those around us. A word of encouragement. Kind words. An offer of hospitality.

Perhaps I must remember to ask myself at the end of each day the words of Heather Small: what have you done today to make you FEEL proud?

English as it should be writ (Part 6)

2011-11-06T08:26:00.000Z

The headline Institutionalise hawker courses (20th October 2011) refers.

20/10/11 I sent this email to the Straits Times editor:

====
It has been a long, tiring day: squashed in the Tube train first thing in the morning, research at university, department seminar, more library research, long journey home, prepared evening meal, back to school where son played a concert, prepared evening meal (again), supervised homework, etc. and then "Institutionalise hawker courses" on Straits Times online.

It woke me up!

Does the headline writer mean courses to institutionalize hawkers (ie how to put hawkers in an institution, usually implying they have committed a crime or needed to be institutionalized due to mental illness)?

Or does he/she mean running courses for hawkers so that they could become better (or betterer), more hygienic in practice, smarter in marketing, or more polite to customers, multi-lingual, etc?

In other words make them more professional?

When I finally got round to reading the letter I realized that the writer was, amongst other thoughts, calling for the Institute of Technical Education to run courses for hawkers, which I thought was a very good suggestion.

However the word "institutionalize" (I spell it with a "z") cannot be used in this context just because the name of an "Institute" has been invoked.

[The emphasis was added for this post.]

"Institutionalized" (usually in the past tense) means it has become identified with a certain act (ie normalized) or that a person has been incarcerated (ie put into an institution). Eg "institutionalized racism", so-and-so has been declared mentally unfit and needs to be "institionalized" for his own good.

Sure, we have the Raffles Institution, but one certainly does not refer to any of their alumni as being "institutionalized".

I doubt very much that Singaporeans would appreciate being locked up just so to get a licence to run a hawker stall.

An alternative headline?

I'm too tired to think of any.

Goodnight!

===
Surprise, surprise, nochet got reply.

Please, Straits Times, teach our chewren well.
===
The original letter here:

Institutionalise hawker courses

MANY hawkers had no formal education when I grew up and yet, succeeded through sheer perseverance and hard work ('Who will operate stalls at new hawker centres?' by Mr Alvin Tan; Tuesday).

Many also grew wealthy. I believe there are still many citizens who are willing to be hawkers, judging from the number of those who work in retail assistant jobs and the food and beverage sector. The owner of casual dining chain Paradise Inn started out as a cook in a small coffee shop in an industrial estate in Defu Lane.

I patronise a stall selling cuttlefish kang kong at Bedok Hawker Centre opposite Bedok Camp. Its owner, Mr Peter, still runs the business handed down by his father since the 1950s.

The Institute of Technical Education or community clubs should consider starting a course for food stall operators.

I am confident the take-up rate will be overwhelming as there are now more young entrepreneurs keen to venture into the food business after seeing others succeed.

The humble hawker stall is a good starting point.

Jeffrey Tan

What would Jesus do? (Part 2)

2011-11-02T21:15:00.002Z

Following the last post I continued to mull over "What would Jesus do?".

This is what Jesus did (emphases are mine).
===
Mark 12:
13Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement.
14They came and said to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?
15“Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”
16They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.”
17And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him.

=====

John 8:
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.
3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,
4they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
5“Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”
6They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
7But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
10Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”
11She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

=======
Mark 10:
17As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
19“You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’”
20And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.”
21Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
22But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

===
Luke 19:
1He entered Jericho and was passing through.
2And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.
3Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.
4So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.
5When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”
6And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly.
7When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”
8Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”
9And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.
10“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

=======
Was Jesus an out-and-out capitalist?

Luke 19:
11While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.
12So He said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return.
13“And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas and said to them, ‘Do business with this until I come back.’
14“But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’
15“When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done.
16“The first appeared, saying, ‘Master, your mina has made ten minas more.’
17“And he said to him, ‘Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.’
18“The second came, saying, ‘Your mina, master, has made five minas.’
19“And he said to him also, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’
20“Another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief;
21for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.’
22“He said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow?
23‘Then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?’
24“Then he said to the bystanders, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’
25“And they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas already.’
26“I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.

My observations
(1) When quizzed by Pharisees and Herodians trying to trick him into saying something to incriminate himself, Jesus reasoned and used words to make his inquisitors realize that they have backed themselves into a corner. They quietly went away.

(2) The rich man who could not stomach giving away his riches also went away quietly, grieving. Zaccheus, on the other hand, understood almost immediately that Jesus did not only wish to be a guest in his physical house, but wanted to enter into Zaccheus's heart as well.

Becoming acutely aware that his fraudulent dealings were not acceptable he repented and acted upon his conscience. He gave away half of his wealth and compensated those he defrauded.

(3) As for the parable that Jesus told, a literal reading would suggest that Jesus was on the side of bankers and banking. Bad news for the anti-capitalist protesters then? (They did not quote this parable, did they?)

Perhaps. This message is often quoted to teach us how we are each to use our talent/s until God returns. It does, however, suggest that Jesus would not oppose banking and banking (lending/saving) with interest, as such.

Alongside the Zaccheus story -- which comes immediately before this parable -- it also shows that Jesus was not happy with fraudulent gain. That is why Zaccheus's example is being hailed as the enlightened course of action once a person realized that his profit-making has not been above-board.

Which leads me to three conclusions:

(1) Given that Jesus was not anti-capitalist, would the protesters who have proven themselves to be asking the wrong questions of the wrong people at the wrong place now quietly go away?

(2) Are we more likely to get our money back through governments legislating against bankers, or should we pray that the rich and fraudulent "do a Zaccheus"? How would they do a Zaccheus unless they first let Jesus into their homes (and hearts)?

(3) Hebrews 13:5: Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
I Timothy 6:10: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Matthew 6:24: You cannot serve both God and Money

Money, whether it is to render to Caesar what is Caesar's or to put it in a bank to gain interest, it is not evil. It is the love of money, otherwise known as greed -- when Money becomes our god -- that is the root of evil.

Capitalism does not have to be this greedy

The protesters and the clergy at St Paul’s Cathedral have both got it wrong

St Paul's protestors should stop bullying the Church of England and go home

Thank God ethics is a messy business

What would Jesus do (re: anti-capitalist protesters outside St Paul's)?

2011-11-01T18:03:00.010Z

On the way back from Devon this morning we concluded that the anti-capitalists outside St Paul's were merely bullying the church. Why not pitch up outside a mosque, we asked.

Lo and behold, someone else thought the same.

They cannot pitch up where they wanted to and found refuge outside St Paul's. Now they have overstayed their welcome (as Libby Purves said in a Times column which I am not able to link to because some capitalist has installed a paywall), but nobody had the decency to move. Too much 'face' at stake.

No, no, must not 'lose face'.

Let's go back to first cause. Capitalism. If these anti-capitalists are really anti the capitalists then surely the church is the wrong target.

The complaints against these "protesters":

They all indulge in the fruit of capitalism: Starbucks coffee, coca-cola, iPhone, iPads, the expensive/cheap tents they use, etc. How could you be against capitalism on the one hand and support it with your buying habits? Something has to go.
Where do they find the time to protest? My husband and I, we do not have time for protests. They have the time to protest only because they do not need to work, ie they are either (1) on benefits, paid for by taxpayers within the capitalist system, or (2) offspring of very rich capitalists who can afford not to work. Either way their present activity is supported by the spoils of capitalism.
Some are "professional" protesters who have just moved from Dale Farm
Many are said to have not "camped" there at all during the cold nights, but retreated to warm homes and hotel rooms (but this is in dispute, although a spokesperson for the protesters said she did send people home for a shower and a rest).

One word comes to my mind: hypocrisy.

I am, like many others, not happy with the way the leaders and employees of banks have conducted themselves. I am, like many others, appalled at how the taxpayer has had to bail out these banks.

But I am, also like many others, not in favour of a group of people with very ambiguous aims ruining the livelihood of the families of those who work in and around the cathedral (ie the person who cleans the restaurant and brings you the tea, the single mother who mans the cashier counter, etc.). Yes, the very same people who paid taxes to fund the expensive university education of some of these protesters.

I like to say that my life is guided by the principle of asking "What would Jesus do?", as emblazoned on the banner of these protesters.

We know that Jesus overturned tables and chased the money changers out of the temple, the House of Worship. He was angry that these traders had turned the temple into a den of thieves. Apparently these traders were making profit out of people who came to the temple to worship.

Inside the temple.

But what did Jesus do outside the temple?

He supped with tax-collectors, merchants, farmers, Pharisees, prostitutes, etc. and worked alongside fishermen. Jesus engaged with people who were both in the centre of political and commercial life as well as those on the margins.

What else did Jesus do?

He healed the sick, comforted those who grieved, debated with the intellectuals, turned water into wine, taught us to give support to the widows and fatherless.

So let us not get mired in a mono-dimensional debate, comfortably ensconced in the muddy belief that because Jesus threw out the traders in the temple that he must be against all capitalists.

A basic principle of hermeneutics is that we must let scripture interpret scripture. We must look at the whole Bible for a truly biblical perspective. Never read anything out of its historical and cultural context.

For otherwise we would all migrate to Jerusalem (because the New Testament repeats "starting from Jerusalem"), we would all become alcoholics (look! Jesus turned a lot of water into a lot of wine), and then of course we would also encourage 12-year-olds to leave their parents in order to spend time with their religious leaders because that was exactly what Jesus did!

What would Jesus do? What would Jesus say?

I think that amongst other things Jesus would wish to know what have these protesters done in the last 24 hours, in the last week, in the last fortnight, in the last month, to make the life of one person in need, one hungry person, one sick person, one under-achieving student, better in any way.

How many of us have gone to visit someone in prison, read a book to someone in hospital, shared a hot meal with someone who has no one to share a meal with, given money to some deserving poor, coached a neighbour's child on trigonometry, washed someone else's dirty and smelly feet?

Many of us do this every day through our taxes.

Some of us do this through our ir/regular charity giving.

Too few of us do this every day for real.

What would Jesus do? I think, like Marx, Jesus would advocate "praxis".

=================
(Readers who post links to my posts on FB, please use the "Comments" box to let me know where I could find them. As I believe in the freedom of speech, I would also appreciate a "right to reply".)

Anti-welfare and why

2011-10-27T21:06:00.000+01:00

I don't have the time (yet) to put together my next instalment of "How to help the poorest" (it is there, ruminating) as I am trying to write a conference paper on the UK benefit culture.

It's really "doing my head in" (as my son would say) with books I covered today in the vein of "So Marx was right, after all", more capitalism leads to more poverty, etc. (But who do these writers expect to fund a comprehensive welfare state? The writers talk about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett making so, so much money, but refuse to also note that they give a lot of their wealth away. O, don't get me started.)

This evening I got onto this website and found a whole list of "books".

Brilliant. That's my homework sorted for the next few days.

Civitas is, as you will see, rather "anti" the welfare state as it stands.

Enjoy reading!

http://www.civitas.org.uk/books/openAccess.php

After CAB

2011-10-18T15:48:00.014+01:00

The managers were pleased that I was back this week after this episode last week. Told them that I would tell clients off the next time if they mess with my fellow volunteers.

It was an interesting session.

First up I was able to tell this elderly gentleman (after I've organized an appointment for him) who could not speak much English (his son was speaking for him) that it would do him and his wife a lot of good to learn to speak good English.

I said otherwise they would not be able to communicate with their grandchildren. His son agrees, but elderly gentleman was not so keen.

We (ie anthropologists) see this all the time. Elderly migrants who become prisoners in their own homes because a lack of English means they can't go any where on their own.

Grandchildren speak English fluently. Migrants think they must preserve their own language and culture, insisting their grandchildren speak it. In the end they lose it because they do not have the English to tell their grandchildren about their own rich culture and history.

What a pity. (In this particular case it is all Joanna Lumley's fault!)
===
Then I had a young woman who appeared to just want to hear her own voice. Laugh if you must. There are lots of lonely people who have no one to talk to in their own homes.

She had several problems. My task was to get her to see the separation between the bureaucratic (requirement that she signed on at a particular centre) and the affective (apprehension about her treatment there as she has an outstanding complaint about this particular job centre).

She wondered about making an appeal for four months of "loss of income" (ie loss of JobSeekers Allowance when she tried to claim ESA, a higher-value benefit). Really she did not have a case as she had refused to undergo those tests that her GP had ordered.

(I nearly said "she did not have a leg to stand on", but if she really did not have a leg to stand on, then she would surely get her ESA! O, never mind!)

The GP could not, in honesty, sign her off, and so her application was rejected.

To be honest, at one point I nearly lost my patience with her. This client thought she knew better than her GP and refused to take those tests. What help could I or anyone give in this instance if she thinks the GP is not good enough?

She was speaking gently, always politely, but you could see she is just such a troubled soul. The measured way in which she spoke suggested a certain "tightness" (for want of a better word) in her being.

After I sorted the one problem I could help her with I asked "would it not be better if she let go of trying to claw back the 4 months of benefits that she felt she had been deprived of and instead focus on the future".

She is still alive, she has a future to look forward to, why spend all her time and nervous energy thinking, "O! I should have been given those benefits."

How about trying to do something positive to make her future more of what she always wanted it to be instead of being dependent on benefits?

Yes, she missed her benefits for four months, but the fact that she found the strength to survive that shows she is capable of doing better. Look at this experience positively.

As I said that it appeared that a light came on in her head. Her face lit up. She started agreeing with everything I was saying.

In the end she declared that she would now go to do the thing she said she was fearful of doing when she first came into my office. With a smile. :)

She was also sign-posted to a good counselling service.
===
Then a single mother who was "sanctioned" (penalized for not doing enough "job-seeking"). We talked about her problem. We talked through her problem: what she needed to do. And then I thought, "Hmm, is it worth talking AROUND her problem?"

I suggested that she might think about using her other skills to earn some money (ie start a business) instead of relying on benefits and the poor (non)advice the Job Centre seemed to be giving her. She agreed that she should do so.

She then told me she is a good cook. I suggested ways she could explore making her skills known, maybe get a shop to sell some of her food, let people know she could do that kind of work, ready to launch her own business if not now, then later on.

Yes, it is difficult now with a 10-year-old to care for, but 10-year-olds will eventually grow up.

I said if we were in a non-welfare state we would be cooking and making things to sell to make some money.

She agreed. She would very much like to do that. But in this country there is such a mountain of health and safety regulations to get over, it guarantees that it is much easier to rely on benefits than to think about starting one's own business.

If only we could have a way of co-ordinating a few good (women) cooks to prepare meals-on-wheels -- in this case for the Asian community with their specific dietary requirements -- would that not be wonderful? Local jobs for the local community.

Jobseekers get to do something. The community benefits. The taxpayers are not worse off.
===
On the whole I thought it was a good session. I don't think I was able to help these clients directly (the other advisers would be doing that) but I think (I like to think) that I had planted seed thoughts in these clients and I do hope that their future would be much brighter, much happier, as a result of their resolution to do something for themselves.

Maybe I should apply for a job at the Job Centre ....

How to help the poorest (3)

2011-10-17T21:00:00.064+01:00

The thing that characterized my young life was "hand me downs".

Clothes -- hand me downs.

Mum had cardboard boxes full of beautiful clothes that belonged to my cousins. Even after I graduated university I accepted hand-me-downs from friends and family.

Books -- hand me downs.

Mum kept textbooks that my siblings had finished using. She also collected these from neighbours and any one willing to part with them.

Furniture -- hand me downs.

For a long time we only had mum and dad's "wedding bed". Over the years we were given a second double bed, a bunk-bed, a wardrobe and a sofa set. I was the last one to be allotted a bed and slept on the floor (first bamboo mat, then mattress).

Electrical appliances -- hand me downs.

We had no fridge until Second Auntie gave us her old one. A cousin gave us his old black-and-white TV when I was sixteen, our first TV.

My childhood was also characterized by watching my parents help those who are more in need.

One day the neighbourhood was abuzz with talk about an elderly couple two floors down from us who had no money for food or water. Neighbours found them with a mouldy bit of bread and nothing else to eat. Their water, gas and electricity had been disconnected.

Neighbours gave them cooked food. Mum was sent out to buy a long length of garden (water) hose. It was trailed from our bathroom tap down to this couple's flat in the evenings. It ran for as long as they had receptacles to collect water for drinking, cleaning and flushing the toilet.

We stopped when social services stepped in.

Our flat had an open-door policy, it appeared. People came from all the different households to ask to use the phone, for example. (It was a necessity, not a luxury, as my dad needed the phone to run his market stall.)

People came to my mum if they needed help with reading letters. When a neighbour was being beaten up by her husband, Mum was the person she shouted for.

We didn't have money to throw around but we were able to help in practical ways.

Take my eldest sister.

She always managed to find a neighbour here, a friend's child there, or someone else who needed help with school work. She gives free tuition to kids who needed that extra coaching.

So it has been ingrained in me that we must as neighbours, as fellow human beings, help those who are immediately around us. In practical ways.

Fighting for better national provision for the sick and elderly is important. Agitating for a fairer and more inclusive education where those who are not academically gifted are given space to develop is critical. Seeking pathways for our nationals to be happy and comfortable in being "Singaporean" -- that is urgent.

But it appears to me that most of us are also probably in the position to do something practical. If my late father, a market butcher, and my late mother, housewife, could make a difference in the lives of those in their neighbourhood, surely anyone reading this could do something, too. No?

The exchange of material goods is not only helpful but environmentally sound. These days we live in such a "disposable world" we forget that there is a long shelf-life to most of the things we own.

Just think, there was life before disposable nappies, when in fact people had more babies. The same cloth nappies could be used over and over again, and then either passed on to other parents or cut up to make other items (hankies in my case).

No, I doubt if my parents would have had six children if they had to depend on disposable nappies.

In Britain we have "Freecycle". We join Freecycle groups in our local area to recycle what might seem useless to you, but which would be of value to someone else.

Eg we had a robot lawn mower. (Husband bought this when he was too ill to mow the lawn.) When it stopped functioning we offered it on Freecycle and it was picked up by people who either like mucking about with robots or enjoyed repairing broken things.

Mum (who never threw anything away) found someone disposing of a huge "softboard" (which you could stick pins into). It was about six foot by three foot. We did not know what it was used for. Mum, being Mum, felt that it could be useful one day.

That "one day" came when a neighbour came to use the telephone, saw the board propped up between the bed and the wall and asked if she could have it. "Auntie Tailor" could use that to transfer her paper patterns onto fabric.

Rubbish to everyone else, but treasure for "Auntie Tailor".

So what can we do to supply those most in need amongst us with practical tools, appliances, bedding, clothes, books, furniture, etc?

We have the charity shops in the UK. (I used to volunteer in one.) My sister-in-law takes a lot of stuff to the Salvation Army in Singapore. (Unfortunately one day she took my 30plus-year-old Brownie uniform with all the badges intact.)

Such shops in the UK are great in re-cycling old but clean and useful clothes/other items. However they do also face a lot of flak from rival shops because they are seen to be unfair competition, in not having to pay employees but can depend on volunteers instead.

What about those who are unemployed? Disabled? Alcohol-dependent? The gambling addict?

There was a couple who lived in the next block who are both blind. But the husband was trained in sports massage and earned his own living. On occasions when I got to help him to cross the roads, etc. we had very interesting conversations.

How do we support our disabled so that they could lead an independent life?

There used to be "sheltered" factories where disabled people could make items with their hands or provide a service and earn their own living. Yes, these ventures might need to be subsidized. These people are never ever going to be able to compete against all the dagongmei from China if manufacturing is their mainstay.

But are there contracts that they could get for, let's say, filling goodie bags for National Day Parades or other corporate events? (I know it is cheaper to get our NSmen and prisoners to do these jobs.)

Such jobs mean workers are DOING something, creating and deriving a positive feeling about their own being. Even if taxpayers have to subsidize these ventures it is still cheaper, much cheaper, than handing out welfare benefits in the long run.

(As I pointed out in previous post, handing out welfare benefits willy-nilly only leave recipients free to loiter, listless, purposeless, and prone to being stopped and searched by police. Money does not remove the poverty in one's soul.)

By the same token, some unemployed can be absorbed into the charity shops either as volunteers or sometimes as volunteers who get expenses paid (transport will be expensive when you do not earn anything).

There are already people who collect perishable foods to distribute to those who need them. Such organizations need volunteers. Could you offer help, too?

My point is there are big overarching missions we can work towards: a change in policy, a turn towards passion, a step towards graciousness.

But there are little practical things we could all do to help. Let us walk our talk.

We are the ones who would know which neighbour is in need. What have we done in the last week to check up his/her needs? When we cannot finish the food that we buy on a "buy one get one free" deal, do we give the second lot away?

Do we make it known to those in a position to help that someone might benefit from free food? Or a care package (soap, toothbrush, shaving razers, etc) once in a while?

Or could it be that we could make a world of difference by volunteering to distribute food just once a week, a fortnight?

When we see our neighours' children struggling with school work and not being able to afford private tuition, are we able to offer help? Or point them to places where volunteers offer free tuition? Give them some old textbooks, or other books?

What about offering a lift in our car so someone could get to work? Or offering to childmind just a few hours a day so a parent could get to work?

Of course, of course, I also recognize that sometimes our offers of help are not appreciated. We risk rejection.

It has never occurred to me, once, that accepting hand-me-downs was a negative thing. It has not given me a low self-esteem. I have never once thought, "Yee, people must think we are so poor because they keep giving me their old clothes."

However when I consider that there are relatively good jobs that Singaporeans do not wish to take up, then possibly they would not accept offers of help.

(Times have changed. Jobs that my classmates would have aspired to are shunned by the younger generation. Is this a result of our own making?)

I remember two Cantonese phrases learned in my childhood: ma sei lok dei harng. When your horse dies on you, you jolly well get off and walk.

The other phrase is yum soey see yuen. When you drink water, think of its source.

When we help those in need, as I had been helped when my family and/or I was in need, people remember. When we then get to a position where we are able to help others, we must all see yuen and do the same.

And perhaps this is why people from humble backgrounds who have received scholarships and other types of help want to put themselves in positions where they are able to influence policy. When one is born with a silver spoon in one's mouth (can't understand this idiom, think of the poor mum!), one is less able to understand what it is like to have so little, and yet be given so much.

If some of our leaders (or civil servants or their offspring) appear to be heartless is it because they do not have the "privileged" disposition to yum soey see yuen as an impoverished young person, because everything had always been handed to them on a silver platter?

(Maybe some have chosen conveniently to blot out memory of their humble beginnings?)

Still, if each of us could do one additional thing for our neighbour in need, today, we will make this world a better place. Not just for this generation, but also for the next (should they remember to see yuen).

No need to wait for the politicians to debate until the cows come home.

===

How to help the poorest (2)
How to help the poorest (1)

Where got time to loiter?

2011-10-12T19:57:00.004+01:00

The CEO at my CAB phoned yesterday to check that I was alright after the Monday run-in with client.

That was nice, I thought.

I didn't tell her though the next time I see clients mis/behaving this way I shall tell them in no uncertain terms what I thought of them. The CAB staff cannot do that. But as a volunteer, I can.

(This CAB employs about 5 staff members, the other 30-40 "work" on a voluntary basis.)

Clients have no right to abuse a free service. Even less so do they have the right to abuse volunteers who try their best without any thought of being paid.

And that man who told us to "get a real job", he has no job. He does not pay tax. I pay tax, a lot of it. So how dare he shout at my co-volunteers in that manner?

Thinking about how this client alleged that he was simply stopped and questioned, I thought, I have never been stopped by police and questioned.

(I've stopped them several times, though. Once to ask if a crime had been committed across the road. Turned out there was a cannabis farm. Once I saw that a group of Chinese illegal DVD vendors had just been rounded up. I asked if they needed any interpretation. Etc. etc.)

Is it because I always look like I am walking with a purpose?

People who are "time-poor" do not loiter. We just focus on what we needed to do, do it, and head home.

Why would anyone "loiter"?

When you look around you the next time you go out for lunch, do you see people "walking with purpose", or do you see many who are just ambling along, loitering?

The next instalment of "How to help the poorest" is brewing. I am too busy in the next couple of days to spell it out. I think it would have something to do with "walking our talk".

How to help the poorest (2)

2011-10-10T19:52:00.005+01:00

Just come back from a rotten time at a CAB session.

My first client refused to leave my office insisting that his human rights had been infringed because we could not help him. It was a criminal matter. We only deal with civil matters. I had given him all the phone numbers for people he could contact but he was not happy.

This person alleged that he was "kidnapped" and assaulted. It turned out that he was being charged with assaulting a policeman. A senior volunteer adviser (SVA) tried to explain the situation to him and client went, "What? Are you trying to strangle me?" Senior volunteer (probably in his 70s) had not laid a finger on him.

Client finally left my office when SVA said he would have to call Security. Client was shouting that SVA had assaulted him. ??? This client was in denial that it is a criminal matter. I had given him a list of solicitors circling "C" for "Criminal" and he said, "I don't want no criminal lawyer."

When I thought the dust had settled, another client was shouting, saying us volunteers were useless, go get a real job. By this time, security had been called. This second man left before security appeared.

I learned later that the bureau had been helping this man countless times before. He is a case where instead of being empowered from previous advice given, he had taken CAB as a crutch.

This time he alleged that a policeman was mistreating him simply because he is black. Sure, police officers stop and question a black man simply because he is black and ignore the white man who is ranting and raving and behaving in a threatening manner across the street.

First up, two people who seem to refuse to take responsibility for their own aggressive behaviour. It is their human rights being violated and other people's racist actions to blame. Nothing to do with the way they were shouting and making life unpleasant for other people, even those who were trying to help them.

Rant over.

The Big Issue

Meant to say, really, that if you were to visit the UK you are likely to encounter people with big plastic identity tags dangling from their necks selling copies of a magazine call The Big Issue.

This started as the brainchild of a man called John Bird and co-founder of The Body Shop Gordon Roddick. You can read more about this magazine here.

The idea was that homeless people, if they fulfilled certain criteria for homelessness, could apply and be trained to become sellers of The Big Issue. They are given a few free copies to sell at a specific pitch, and after that they could buy a few more copies to sell, and basically decide on how many copies they could sell, and thus become self-employed.

One might well ask how it is that in a country with a comprehensive welfare system individuals could become "homeless".

There are a great number of reasons, not least of all arising from mental illness. For some reason people could be deemed "intentionally homeless" in which case local councils are absolved from any responsibility to house them.

There are those who prefer to remain homeless with their dog rather than be housed in a hostel or B&B while waiting for more permanent accommodation. But you are unlikely to be rehoused permanently unless you are first in temporary accommodation. A Catch-22 situation.

Be that as it may The Big Issue is doing a great job in helping some of the most vulnerable back on their feet.

What about Singapore? Could a Good Issue (bearing only good news?) help the poorest of the poor? Following the theme of a previous post we could call this The Good Heart Issue (or Ho Sim Times?)

To some extent, it is not much different from people who used to hawk Ma Biu Po (papers giving the race results) as such. (Is there still Ma Biu Po in Singapore these days?)

Selling The Big Issue is only the first step towards normality. These homeless vendors need further practical support to help them into long-term jobs and a more regular income.

In the same way the poorest and most vulnerable Singaporeans are likely to need help other than a pitch to sell magazines to get them into the rhythm of work. Are there debts that need to be cleared/otherwise managed, illnesses to be cured/managed, homes to be cleaned/decluttered, bedding to be de-bugged/replaced?

Part of the failure of the UK welfare system is that it is a huge, cumbersome and impersonal bureaucracy. There are fixed sets of criteria and fixed sets of rules and corresponding sets of decisions and sets of rewards.

But in the real world people's personal circumstances do not fit neatly into those sets of criteria.

Handouts prevent a person from being homeless but it does not stop him/her from getting dependent on alcohol and spiralling into deeper troubles. Nor does being so aggressive like our first two clients today make long-term employment possible.

For any "helping system" to be effective, the whole person, the individual in his specific set of circumstances, within his family of a particular/peculiar structure, in the context of his personal abilities, mental well-being and emotional/physical limitations, must be taken into account.

It's what the anthropologist calls the "holistic" perspective again.

I mean, if the first man here went to court and was found guilty of assaulting the police, what is going to happen other than a short prison sentence, maybe some "unpaid work", a fine (paid out of his benefits money) and then he's still back on benefits.

It chews up police, court and probation service time. Should he complain about police mistreatment he would be chewing up even more administrative time, maybe even precious legal aid. And the result? It is still one young man who refuses to work and who thinks that the whole world is against him.

He, on the other hand, is the ultimate innocent. His only recourse is to shout "my human rights are being infringed", "you are not helping me", "don't treat me like I am stupid".

Abuse

Any way, note though that even an ostensibly charitable venture like The Big Issue could be abused.

It has been reported that in certain regions of the UK Romanian migrants who do not qualify for welfare benefits get themselves into the The Big Issue circuit. As they are classified as "self-employed" they then become eligible for benefits.

This is another example of how when there are easy pickings (a generous welfare system), people would try, in the most devious ways, to benefit from it.

And I wonder if our two CAB clients were out busy working at a suitable job to earn their keep because there are no welfare handouts, would they have the energy to be so aggressive?

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How to help the poorest (3)
How to help the poorest (1)

Payday loans -- avoid, avoid, avoid

2011-10-08T21:05:00.001+01:00

On the news today we learn that the government is looking into "payday loans". Hurray!

The issue was brought up by the Citizens Advice Bureau, where as a volunteer I was shocked to see clients having to pay eye-watering 600-1000+% interest on a small loan that they thought they could pay off come their next pay day.

When I joined the CAB I was heartened by their mission to provide evidence to the government on issues affecting the general population.

When we come across cases which could be sorted by policy changes, we flag up such cases. So when bureaux across UK have sufficient evidence we could alert the government to what is really (f)ailing the people.

As an anthropologist stuck on the "holistic approach" to life I find myself asking questions around the issue that the client comes in with. Debt often surfaces although this is not at first articulated.

My advice is always to stay clear of the "personal credit" people such as this and this who are just one half-step up the evolutionary ladder from unlicensed loan sharks, it appears to me. 1068.5% APR.

How would it be deemed "responsible lending" when they approach people on their door-step knowing that they are already hugely in debt, and some already have taken an IVA (individual voluntary arrangement) to sort out their mounting debts?

Criminal.

How to help the poorest (1)

2011-10-07T13:04:00.003+01:00

I grew up in a family which would be considered poor by many. ("Poverty" is always relative. We were rich in love and enthusiasm for learning.) Yet I am against the welfare system that I have to subscribe to in the UK.

So how do we help the poorest of the poor amongst Singaporeans?

I remember when in primary one the teacher Mrs Jalil said to bring in 20 cents to buy a plastic cover for a workbook. I went home to ask Mum for 20 cents.

Mum did not have 20 cents to spare. Instead my eldest sister removed the (dirty) plastic cover from one of her books and put it on the workbook which I took back to school.

The next day a classmate laughed at me. I was too poor to afford the 20 cents to buy a book cover. I cried.

I went home, told Mum, and a few days later Mum found the 20 cents to let me buy a pristine plastic cover.

On another occasion someone told me the handbag I was using (a gift from my aunt) came from the "50 cents bargain bin" at CK Tang.

There I was, chuffed to the bones with a handbag at last (I was 12) as my mum had never bought me a handbag. A rich girl turned her nose up at my handbag because it cost all of 50 cents.

I remember these occasions well because clearly they had left marks on my psyche.

Sadly the classmate who laughed at me lost her father soon after that. She had become one of my best friends by then.

Then it transpired that her grandmother was given a stall in a nearby coffee-shop to sell wanton noodles (very yummy ones, too). This way her grandmother helped to support her family.

It appears to me that that was the way the Singapore government used to help the very poor and uneducated. They were given help or some sort of priority in running a business in coffee-shops, school canteens and so on.

I don't see how my friend's grandmother would have found a way to run a stall these days. The cost of renting a stall must be exhorbitant when one hears of coffee-shop owners having to bid a million dollars for a unit.

Micro-loans

It has long been recognized by people "in the field" in developing countries that "throwing money" at some people would not help their situation. International aid often goes astray, lining the pockets of dictators and those in positions of influence instead.

Yet many charities are able to make a real difference by offering interest-free micro-loans to women (usually) so that they could start a business. The loan is then repaid and the money given to another person to start another business.

Such schemes engender empowerment instead of dependency.

Are we in Singapore able to do something similar?

Instead of making old ladies sell tissue paper in food centres, is there something we could do to set them up in business?

Here's an idea, an untested idea. So please bear with me, and do please add your suggestions.

In the bus exchanges, void decks, and appropriate locations, could shop space be allotted to a group of needy Singaporeans who might wish to run a business? Let's call it, for now, a "Ho Sim [good heart] Shop"*, run by "members" and not "owners" or "employees".

Members could run mini-units (just a table space, say) within the shop/space, or they could run the whole shop on a rota, or the shop could be run as a co-operative, with members sharing all profits. A decision as to organization has to be made at the start.

Say we find a group of individuals who make some really beautiful one-off cushion covers, aprons, dolls, clothes, other decorative objects, etc. They do not have the platform to sell these items. They could sell these through a Ho Sim Shop.

Items could be bought outright for re-sale or on a "sale or return" basis. Members pay makers a commission, as if they are running a physical version of eBay.

Maybe the Ho Sim Shop members are themselves creative people. They could weave baskets out of discarded magazines, for example, or knit and crochet items that people would wish to buy. They could sell such items (and perhaps the odd pack of tissue paper) at such shops.

The thing is Ho Sim Shops must only sell items which are unique, not items that other shops could sell better(er?) and cheaper, like tacky plastic mass-produced items bought extremely cheaply from another country.

Maybe (and this idea is full of "maybe's" because it is just an idea) polytechnic/university business (and law?) students could come and help them get started, help organize them, help source supplies (eg gather a group of housewives keen to make things to sell), help them to agree on how to run the shop, help them commit to doing some simple book-keeping.

Maybe other students could advise on window displays, marketing, etc. ITE students could be in charge of the fittings and upkeep (electricals, plumbing, eg) of the shop, etc.

An audit trail is important. Because we want members to be able to return whatever start-up money they were given. Maybe they could be given tax breaks for a fixed period. Maybe there is a maximum stay of three to five years so someone else gets the chance.

So perhaps they get a discount on tax/rent every time they let a new member in. On a first-in, first-out basis, members also have to think about a longer-term plan. The point is this scheme is a temporary help. Members who have gained confidence and contacts could move on to other enterprises.

The result?

A platform for home-bound creative people, a source of income for destitute Singaporeans, a chance for students to hone their skills (which would sit well in their CVs), and a unique shop for shoppers to browse where they can expect the unexpected.

A win-win situation?

Alternatively, existing shops could be given a discount on tax or rent if they gave a "Ho Sim space" to a needy person "approved" by the appropriate authority. (Be careful this does not degenerate into a "rent-a-granny scam".) In the long run, this is still cheaper than a comprehensive welfare state.

Who qualifies for such help is a tricky question. If left to a bureaucrat, underlying reasons for "need" would become subsumed under red-tape. One could almost guarantee that.

I suspect it is better for a charity or a "people's champion" to do this work.

If you think you could do something, please kee chiew.

* Overnight thought of another name "The Traiding Post". As some charities say, "Trade, not aid". We also have "Traidcraft".
Playing on the concept "Hand up, not hand out", what about a "Hand-me-up" shop (in contrast to the "hand-me-down's" I used to wear)? NB there is a shop in Georgia, USA, called "Hand Me Up's".

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How to help the poorest (2)
How to help the poorest (3)

How welfare culture evolves (4)

2011-10-04T20:22:00.002+01:00

A Solution in Sight?

In my three previous posts about the welfare state in Britain I might have sounded like a hard-hearted woman. What about those people who are really in need? you ask.

Hopefully it has also become clear that I believe welfare benefits are great iff (if and only if) it is structured in such a way that those who need temporary help/support are helped/supported, but those who only intend to sponge on the hard work of others could be weeded out.

Clearly no government has been able to design a welfare system so "fail-safe" that this very important principle could be adhered to whatever the circumstances, whatever the political party is in power, and whatever the global economic situation is.

If there is a "perfect" or "ideal" system, every country would have adopted it. If I could come up with this perfect solution I would not be "self-employed craftswoman" and "general busybody", but specialist adviser to national governments, being feted by national leaders and jetting around the world, first class.

Having lived and worked in the past 20 years in a welfare state first in the Netherlands and then in the UK these are some of my observations (it might be useful to substitute "Singapore" for every time I use "UK" or "Britain" when you ponder "welfare" in Singapore):

"Us" versus "Them"

When my friend drove us to what is ostensibly one of the poorest parts of Amsterdam (to visit a church member living there) I was struck by the number of BMWs in the carpark. My friend enlightened me.

"These people have lots of children. The more children the more benefits they get. They can afford to buy expensive cars."

There was a lot of friction between the indigenous Dutch and the new migrants from North Africa (Algerians and Moroccans ). My friend said, "Sometimes I feel like I am living in a foreign country. This is not my own country any more."

She also warned that some day there would be a backlash.

In England I researched the first generation of Chinese who retired in this country. They were also up in arms against the new arrivals.

They insisted that they deserved their pension privileges because they have long "lim see-tump" ("pasted their stamps", meaning paid their national insurance). But "that one there", the one who's just arrived from America, she had not paid anything. How is it that she also gets the benefits?

Meanwhile "that one there" told everyone her children had long paid their taxes and national insurance and so she, too, was entitled to her benefits.

Somehow or other a benefits system such as this would evolve into a system where people who have tenuous relationships with those who have actually paid would find ways to assert their rights to benefits. Eventually a group of people would fight for these relatives on their behalf and the "entitlements" of new arrivals will become entrenched in the system.

In view of the current immigration policies that irk Singaporeans so much, do we want a welfare system where 20 years down the road, a whole lot of new immigrants would claim the right to long-term, indefinite benefits for themselves and their extended families? Your children and children's children could be funding these benefits instead of looking after you.

Where pensions are concerned, the truth is few people actually pay more into it then they get out of the system. Only the top earners do so. How else would the bulk of a population agree to such a system knowing that some/most of their contributions would go to other people?

The point was people thought, "Great! I put in £x, if I live to see it I could be getting £10x out of this."

The next question is: how does a government come up with the shortfall?

Immigration

Remember that a welfare system does not exist in isolation. It exists within a context of a failing or thriving economy, a political context with greater or lesser tension, a social context of contested or free-flowing immigration.

In the UK we have just been told that EU citizens can now come to the UK and claim benefits without having first worked here. In other words, people who have not contributed a penny to a country can now claim benefits. Is this morally correct or acceptable?

How do you separate the nationals from the "inter-nationals"? If your border is hermetically sealed, then it's less of a problem. But if it is as porous as it is in Britain, then you are in serious trouble.

Add to this the non-EU nationals who come here, work for a year or so, often less, claim to suffer backache, and never work again. They continue to draw benefits, have several children, and are not in a hurry to get back to work.

Soon non-EU citizens would say "if EU citizens do not need to contribute and still get benefits, to make non-EU migrants work first before being given benefits will constitute discrimination". What then?

Attitudinal change

I went to school with classmates whose mothers washed clothes for a living. My mum used to hoard newspapers to sell to the karung guni man for a few cents. My neighbours sold nasi lemak and goreng pisang to earn the extra money for household expenses.

Day in and out we were told, "Study hard. Get a good job. Or you'd end up in a labouring job. Get good grades. Then you could get a good office job."

It was the same in Britain. It used to be that people who needed money would "char" (clean) or do gardening work. It was a respectable thing to do. They were earning clean money to support their families.

These days people simply expect to receive handouts. There is a dearth of entrepreneurial spirit.

Meanwhile retirees who cannot manage the scrubbing and cleaning, mums and dads too busy working to pay taxes, pay above minimum wage to have East European women clean their homes and East European men to do gardens.

In short taxpayers are paying twice: for (1) one group of people who do nothing and (2) another group to do the same work that group (1) would have done had there not been welfare handouts.

When the welfare system was first introduced in Britain after the war it had the laudable objective of helping those who were most in need: widows and orphans, those maimed in the war. People avoided getting any public help until it was impossible to put food on the table for their children. People had so much pride.

These days children learn in their citizenship classes (I kid you not) that the welfare state would look after them.

We have a friend whose daughter is disabled. He cannot get her to do her homework. Her view is that it does not matter whether or not she studies. Because the government would look after her, give her a house, and pay her for doing nothing.

Inevitably people come to the conclusion: why work at all?

Young girls vie with one another on how soon they could have a baby so that "social" would give them their own flat and they could stop going to school. I actually know young girls who would have more babies in order to get a larger flat.

One claims to suffer from bad backache and was unable to work. (She keeps a taxi running on the meter while she shops, the taxpayer picks up the bill.) "But the backache disappears when I'm pregnant". (Tell that to a woman who's ever been pregnant.)

She was chuffed when allotted a larger property. A few weeks later she had chucked the boyfriend out.

In Britain now there are families where members have been on benefits for two or even three generations. Single mothers beget children who beget children while still in their teens. Women become grandmothers by the time they are 28 and such-like.

Even my hardworking Chinese friends are saying, within a generation of living here, "Why bother to work 40 hours just to have some money to spend when you can do nothing and still get money to spend?"

You cannot legislate against creeping laziness.

Mission creep

A woman told me her husband had not been in work for more than five years because he cannot cope with employers who have rules.

What sort of rules, I asked.

You know, like being on time.

[And actually being productive? I said to myself.]

This woman came to see me to have her benefits transferred from her husband's name to hers. The taxpayers pay her some £250 a week for Housing Benefits, and she was concerned that she had no money to organize a halloween party and then a birthday party for her daughters.

A woman who is a German national shouted and ranted about the civil servants not giving her her money. She suffered so much she had to pawn her gold jewellery to get £500 to feed her five children.

This woman is given £1500 a month for Housing Benefits. She's not even British but gained EU status as a refugee from the sub-continent. She has a second husband with whom she has children. Her husband had come from India to join her and was trying to get benefits as well.

I was really cross with her as she had already been given an appointment to see our adviser but had come to clog up the system demanding that I rang around to find out where her benefits were. She had also been hassling the various govt depts to no avail.

This woman worked 16 hours a day. She spent her free time ranting and raving at govt servants and CAB volunteers. Why does she not increase her hours of work to increase her income to support her family now that her husband was in the country to care for their children?

Because she knew that if she worked more than 16 hours she would lose a lot of her benefits (losing out on her Working Tax Credits).

She and/or her husband could also either return to Germany or India. But would she/they?

A woman from a North African country was in receipt of benefits and found herself in debt. She demanded that I rang Belfast (benefits office) and other agencies to ascertain why she was not getting her money.

I looked at her letters and said, "Here, this is the number to call."

She steadfastly refused, "You have to call. I don't understand what they say."

"You seem to understand perfectly well what we are talking about here."

"No, those people they speak with an Irish accent, I cannot understand them. You have to call them."

I was trained not to discriminate on racist grounds. What do you do when a client is racist in this manner?

She also disclosed that she is a member of a private gym charging some £50 a month.

So, "not got money enough" for gas and electricity, requiring help from the taxpayer, but "got money enough" to join a private gym. After 20 years in the country she had no intention of learning the language well enough to get real work.

Young man threatened suicide if I didn't let him see an adviser straightaway.

He was on incapacity benefit that was being phased out. Recipients have to undergo medicals to show they are indeed unfit and unable to work to receive the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) which is now time-limited. He failed this medical (meaning he was shown to be fit to work).

This man was loud and rude, telling me that even talking to me was stressful to him. He just wanted money to feed himself and his dog. His sister was with him. She said she tried to help him where possible but she has her own children to feed. She is dependent on welfare as well.

I made the appointment for this man, briefing him on the documents he needed to bring so that we could help him.

"I'd be dead by then!" he shouted, and stormed out of my office. [My husband has very strong opinions about such people.]

Young man with "depression" problems wanted help to fill in forms to appeal a failed ESA application. When I looked at his claim it says he could not go out of the house by himself or cope with being with strangers. His claim of depression was not substantiated by any doctors. Neither was he on any medication.

Yet he was at the bureau by himself and waited in a crowded waiting room full of strangers for hours so that someone, he hoped, could help him claim that he was really too ill to work because he is not able to step out of his house.

My personal, possibly erroneous, assessment was that this man (who came into country as a refugee) needed to brush up on his English. But he cannot be bothered to learn English. Or someone told him that he should try to claim a disability instead.

For these claimants, the welfare system is not the safety net it was meant to be. It is a lifestyle choice.

Why work when you can get benefits indefinitely? When the Housing Benefits, Council Tax Benefits, Child Tax Credits/Working Tax Credits, etc are all taken into account, some claimants are getting (are you ready?) more than £15 an hour. And that is FOR NOT WORKING. There is no way that they would be paid anything close to this in the real world, given their lack of work ethic, punctuality, skills and literacy.

Of course I do not see/know everything about the welfare system. The type of cases I come across are repeated in the 394 Citizens Advice Bureaux across Britain. I am barely seeing the tip of the iceberg.

A Covenant?

As I said at the start, if I could come up with an ideal/perfect welfare system I would be feted by national leaders.

One cannot legislate against laziness or greed. There will be mission creep. How do you cope with the question of immigrants' rights to benefits?

The Israelite nation of the Old Testament were reminded of the covenant that God had made with them. Parents are to keep teaching their children how they were slaves in Egypt, how they were delivered from Egypt and how they were brought into the land "flowing with milk and honey".

They were also told that if they were to break their convenant and worshipped another God, calamity would befall them.

Part of my church building was sold off many years ago. Written into the title deeds are a covenant that anyone who runs the shop (which it has become) must not trade on Sundays.

It is now an estate agent's office. Some years ago the owner wanted to sell it to a cafe owner, and with it the application to trade on Sundays. The matter was brought up to members at the church business meeting. The proposition to allow Sunday trading was unanimously rejected.

Change of ownership is fine. Change of use is fine. But Sunday trading is not OK. It is written into the covenant. It would cost a long court battle to break that convenant, if ever.

But covenants only work if there is a shared vision, a set of shared values. Twenty years down the road the church members may not be so irked by Sunday trading because they have grown up with Sunday trading unlike the current generation of church members. Then, maybe, the church would allow the covenant to be broken.

When the UK welfare system was mooted, there was a shared value system. Most of the population were church-goers. They may not be very staunch Christians, but they upheld the teachings of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, etc.

It was unspoken but there was this "social glue", a "British" value of looking after oneself, and where one is able, to look after one's neighbour as well. Marriage was the norm. Having children within wedlock was the norm.

In the aftermath of a Pakistan-born member of the Lords blowing the whistle it has become known that thousands of Muslim men have multiple "wives", each claiming benefits as a "single mother" while the husband keeps on fathering more children. Entitlement without responsibilities.

Non-Muslim men are just as culpable. Why work when you can enjoy sexual favours from multiple wives/partners and produce many children who are all given all kinds of child benefits?

Worse still is the spectre that the welfare state skews the law of natural selection (if you believe in such a thing). The feckless procreate whilst the able and conscientious, mindful of mounting bills, increased taxes and responsibilities, choose to have fewer children.

The result is the "survival of the unfittest".

The social glue, British (to a great extent Christain) values, have eroded as Britain became a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, in a political Europe that has made its border porous.

Would a convenant -- a constant reiteration of how the welfare system is meant to be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice, not a gravy train to multiple conjugal relationships -- prevent mission creep?

I have my doubts.

One thing I am sure: if the bogus, lazy, feckless and undeserving claimants can be removed from the system, those who are really in need through no fault of their own, or those who have tried despite disadvantages, will be far better off. But how do we design such a system?

How welfare culture evolves (3)
How welfare culture evolves (2)
How welfare culture evolves

How welfare culture evolves (3)

2011-10-02T13:36:00.001+01:00

Let's talk "Underbelly"

On mornings before I set out for my stint at the local Citizens Advice Bureau my son often tells me, "Hope you don't get too many benefits cases." Sometimes we even pray at breakfast that I don't get any benefits cases.

He knows how I detest having to deal with benefits clients who say, "I'm entitled to this. Do this for me. NOW."

Yet a month ago I was incensed that a client has had his benefits stopped. This man is a refugee from an African country. He has four young children. He was on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) or unemployment benefit, and therefore housing benefits, and with that, Council Tax benefit.

(Failure to pay Council Tax could land you in court and a hefty fine. Council Tax debt is classified as "priority debt".)

This man, who took care to dress smartly and spoke most politely, decided that he needed to improve his English and signed up for a college course (ESOL Intensive) and did so well that he passed his exams before the end of his course.

This course required him to attend 15 hours of classes a week. Somehow a civil servant at Job Centre Plus decided that 15 was the same as 16 hours (how???). They pressurized him to sign a piece of paper which says he was at college for 16 hours a week.

As a result he was deemed, technically, "unavailable for work". Therefore his JSA was stopped, leading to his Housing Benefits (which pays his rent) and Council Tax benefit being stopped.

With that he would soon get a demand from the council for unpaid Council Tax. Unpaid Council Tax of £200 (say), would become £350 as soon as they pass this on to debt collectors. If still unpaid this man will be taken to a court and another £100 will be added to the debt. You get the picture.

More urgently his landlord was threatening eviction because he has rent arrears.

A man tries to improve his language skills to improve his chances of finding employment and he is penalized. Now it is going to take at least 50-100 civil servant hours, I imagine, to set it right.

Who really benefits from this?

The civil servants, paid by British taxpayers, who are making sure that they still have jobs to go to. Yes, the blundering civil servant would still keep his/her job. The trade unions have made it impossible to sack any one for poor work performance in the civil service.

This is what I mean by the great "underbelly" of the welfare state, civil servants whose strong trade unions are always asking for more money and threatening to go on strike. More on this later.

Back at the ranch (in a manner of speaking, we don't actually live on a ranch), my husband tells me he was in a similar situation many, many years ago and took the relevant government department to the tribunal, and won. They then awarded him a fat cheque for arrears in his benefits.

Husband's defence (and he represented himself): If they could find him a job/apprenticeship in accountancy he would leave the (accountancy) course he was studying to take up the post. As they could not, he was going to improve his chances of becoming an accountant instead of sitting at home to watch TV. (He later had a successful career in finance.)

In other words it was OK for someone to receive JSA and vegetate at home. As soon as they try to improve their employment chances, especially if this took up more than 16 hours a week, they get penalized.

Clever system, innit?

In my husband's case, the benefits he received while studying helped this (once) young man into a job which has made him a net contributor to society. He now pays (too much) tax to support quite a few civil servants.

============

Back to this great "underbelly" .... When you have a welfare system such as this, you have, at the least:

(A) people on benefits (for reasons beyond their control)
(B) another lot who wants more benefits but who cannot get them (eg wanting more benefits by claiming to be ill, thus excusing them from the hassle of "signing on" every two weeks if on basic unemployment benefits)
(C) one lot in govt offices making sure lot A gets paid
(D) another lot in govt offices making sure that lot B does not get paid more than what they are already getting
(E) the lot in the "helping industry" fighting on behalf of lot B against lot D
(F) yet another lot in govt constantly asking for bits of proof for lack of income (???) or ill-health, just so to ascertain whether those of lots A and B should return/repay benefits already paid out to them.

If lots C, D, E and F all go on strike together tomorrow, what impact would there be on the taxpayer and the economy?

How do lots C to F and their unions add value to my life as a "tax slave"?

In what ways would a country get economically richer, or become spiritually and morally uplifted, by feeding the groups of people D to F?

As we say in Mandarin, the answer is precisely "ji dan" (="egg" => zero).

How welfare culture evolves (2)
How welfare culture evolves

How welfare culture evolves (2)

2011-09-30T08:01:00.003+01:00

When the receptionist handed me the client's thick pile of case notes I noticed my own handwriting in changing the address. The size of the file tells me this is a "chronic client", someone who has come back again and again.

"Do I really want to see him?"

It was a rhetorical question. We run on a taxi-rank system (not unlike QCs on legal aid in that manner). We take on any client without prejudice (theoretically). We cannot refuse to see a client unless the client specifically asked to see someone else instead. This has never happened to me, but some clients refused to see our younger volunteers a second time saying they were useless, which is unkind.

Any way I saw this man who looked vaguely familiar, but I could not actually place him. But as he spoke I realized it was the man who "you people" me in a previous post. This was the man who started my bread-baking career!

His face has grown rounder. Obviously he has been eating a bit better.

We have managed to sort out all his (deep breath) income support, housing benefits, council tax benefit, carer's allowance as well as attendance allowance, housing benefits, council tax benefits, pension, etc for his father.

Yesterday he wanted to find out whether his father, his mother (in a nursing home, with attendance allowance, income support or is it pension credit?, and all related benefits) and he could go on a holiday to India for 12 weeks without losing their benefits. We are talking here of nursing home costing the taxpayer about £500 A WEEK.

At least he is polite this time. He learned not to mess with me.

Then I saw another couple who had worked in the UK, returned to their own country, and have now returned to look for sheltered accommodation.

They had questions about "heating", which I interpreted as "winter fuel payment" worth £400, and how to apply for that. We looked up information and assured them that they qualify for this payment being in the country on the third Monday of September. There is no need to apply.

Then they went on to ask if, because they are living temporarily with their daughter, she is entitled to any extra support.

Further questioning revealed that their daughter is actually quite well off: owns her house, has a job, not on any benefits other than Child Benefit (which is universal, for now any way). But this elderly couple wanted to know if the taxpayers should subsidize their stay with her. They are already in receipt of state pension and pension credit.

But nothing beats the man I remember from several months back. He's been separated from his partner. His son lives with his ex-partner but is planning to come live with him.

This man wanted to know whether he is entitled to any benefits for having his son live with him (if the son decided to do so).

I checked. Nineteen-year-old son. Big problem. They fall within no-man's-land. It depends on whether they are in full-time education or in a job. No benefits, I'm afraid. Besides we ought to be seeing his son to advise him, not the father.

Then this, "O, I just wanted to know if the government would support him. Or that simply because he is my son, you know, I brought him into the world, am I supposed to be responsible for him?"

Answer on a postcard, please.

How welfare culture evolves

2011-09-27T11:06:00.011+01:00

Yesterday I had one client at my surgery who enquired about mortgage relief.

He is on sick leave. He has exhausted the period of time his employer would pay him full pay without work, and they have moved him to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) which is about £81 a week. This is still higher than the JSA (Job Seekers Allowance or basic unemployment benefit).

Clearly this is not enough to cover his monthly mortgage payment of about £600. What other benefits is he entitled to?

I checked and said, actually he's not entitled to anything else. The reason being he is not on other benefits.

He had told me that he has three grown-up children. So I asked, "Could you rent out one room to bring in some rental income?"

"O no. My children still live with me."

"And you don't charge them rent?"

"No, they have their own lives to look after."

Later on I realized that the two grown-up children (the youngest is at university) don't even contribute to Council Tax. In other words, they live with their parents without paying a penny.

Question: Why should I, the taxpayer, help to pay off his mortgage?

Question: Should his children help out financially in these circumstances?

Question: Should adult children already earning good money not contribute to the family expenses?

As soon as I finished my A Levels I had to start earning money to help out with the family expenses. I worked when I went to university, and especially during the vacation.

Immediately after I finished university my dad was demanding money again. So I took on part-time jobs which explains my spiderweb-like CV as I was often working "two and a half jobs" at any one time.

My Asian neighbours assure me that their culture means inter-generational care. So I was most surprised that this Asian man not much older than myself did not also expect his children to at least contribute towards the household expenses.

Surely, now that their father has suffered a greatly reduced income the children should offer to chip in?

No, the man expects the taxpayer to chip in.

I don't blame him. The "culture" of the welfare state, or its ideology, is "the state would take care of you when you can't take care of yourself".

So this man has given, and given without thought, into this system, diligently paying taxes and national insurance, council tax, etc. Now that he needs extra help, he feels that he should receive extra help.

However this man is not without resources, which is what the welfare state as safety net is all about. He has a house with rooms to rent out and which would easily cover his mortgage and more. But his children still live there.

If his children were living elsewhere they would be paying rent/mortgage and Council Tax.

From one perspective this is a case of a family that wants to have its cake and eat it.

From another perspective it is a family who expects the taxpayer to step in because it is their turn to receive some payback from all the taxes that have been paid.

They have forgotten, it seemed, that they have also benefitted from a free education that has made their jobs possible.

Singaporeans might think that the "welfare state" is the answer to all ills. Do what social anthropologists do. Do some "participant observation".

I, too, used to think what a marvellous system it is that children get free education and students get an allowance at university (this era has gone).

Within three months of working here and seeing how a large portion of my pay packet disappeared into tax and National Insurance (it's "Pay-As-You-Earn", so you are "taxed at source") I had second thoughts about this system.

In three months on a low salary I paid more in tax than the nearly three years I paid in Singapore as an above-average wage earner.

So Singaporeans who are agitating for a welfare state, please come and work here and pay some real taxes here first. Try making ends meet on a real salary (not scholarship funds) and paying real taxes, etc. before deciding whether Singapore should go down the same route.

The thing is most of us don't even mind paying the taxes if the benefits system actually helps people in need back into good health, and/or back into a job.

At the coalface where I deal often with benefits claimants at the Citizens Advice Bureau we know it is an ineffective, inefficient system that often takes away any will to work.

I happened also to have seen a young single mother before this man yesterday. She was thinking of doing some work around Christmas (all the shops require extra help) to bring in some extra income. But she is afraid of losing her current benefits.

That means it is far better for her not to work.

Consider also what I call the great "underbelly" of the welfare state: the huge army of pen-pushers doing unproductive work. Civil servants who check every few weeks what claimants are really earning, calculating their benefits, reducing their benefits, demanding repayment of overpaid benefits (which of course has been spent), taking claimants to courts for non-payment of overpayments, administering crisis loans (to pay court charges), etc.

This army just passes a fixed pot of money from one government department to another, and then to the large firms of debt collectors who go round trying to collect debts from benefits claimants who have suffered from their inefficiencies.

This underbelly sucks up a huge amount of GDP. What they dispense, from what I see at my bureau, is misery.

Once your attempt to find work lands you in a situation where you are taken to court for such debts, you soon learn: respect inertia. Don't try to find work. Work and you would get into debt. Stay low. Try not to surface on their radar.

If this army of pen-pushers were out there farming and providing affordable food, affordable good quality goods, providing care to our old people in nursing homes, they would be a net contributor instead of a pseudo-employee and GDP sponger.

Before Singaporeans get seduced by the wonders of a comprehensive welfare system, let me urge you to look beyond the surface. Check out this great big "underbelly". Then think how within a generation a "something for nothing" culture would soon evolve into a work-shy culture.

Like this man whose family believe that the taxpayers should pick up the tab for his mortgage payments while they live with dad, rent-free. In the absence of the welfare state it would be "natural" for grown-up, wage-earning adult children to help out.

=======
I could not believe it when I came home and heard this boy on radio telling me that it was the welfare state that saved his family. That is why he joined the Labour Party.

No, son. It is the taxpayers who saved you. If your education -- funded by taxpayers -- has not taught you this important fact, then it has failed.
=========
Update: 28/9/11 Today we learned more about this young man. He attends a selective grammar school but thinks selection is wrong. His father was a millionaire who over-extended himself. And so the taxpayers picked up the bill.
=========
Update: 28/9/11 (a bit later):
Rory Weal wowed the Labour Conference. But if they'd known about his grammar school education, they'd have booed

A "Daughter" Visits

2011-09-26T19:42:00.000+01:00

Normally I would be glued to the sofa watching the Gron Pree (or Grand Prix as I thought it was to be pronounced) when it takes place in Singapore.

I don't take pleasure in cars zipping round the track over and over again. I watch it to take in the Singapore skyline.

Eg, Look, look, look, that's Anderson Bridge, that's where we went to ....

Yesterday we were so, so, pleasantly surprised by the visit of a young lady from Beijing. She used to attend our church when she was doing her postgraduate journalism course at the university near us.

She is also a friend of our Chinese lodger (JJ) who happened to be on the same course. JJ is now a well-known talk-show host on Beijing Radio.

Our young lady dropped in at church and we invited her home for lunch and we had a lovely time catching up.

We talked about the welfare state, the NHS (free or affordable healthcare?) the income gap (in China and Singapore), how developers must consider long-term sustainability, etc. I kept saying, it felt like a daughter had come to visit.

If only I was so privileged!

Husband said, "Don't copy everything from the west."

I said, "Yes, there is a lot about Chinese culture which is great."

Confucian teachings about the Five Relationships, for example. Of propriety. Of relationship between the family and the country.

The western culture does not have that.

The most interesting thing is our young lady now works for an environmental charity. She's actually working on setting the standards for organic cotton certification in China.

How awesome is that?

I've always had my doubts about cotton from China touted to me as "organic cotton". Now the young lady we befriended, played host to, is now a key player in setting those standards in China.

Makes you think. Extend hospitality when you can. Be kind always. You never know whether you are entertaining angels.

There is no end in folklore in every language about how the person one despises or ill-treats, or the lowly person one treats with utmost respect, becomes a person of great importance and influence.

How do we know that the foreign domestic worker that we have to teach cooking skills to would not, one day, rise to the highest position of power in her own country?

Be kind to aliens.

Harrowing times ... not

2011-09-23T21:23:00.001+01:00

I was so looking forward to yesterday.

My son was supposed to be going with a group of other boys from his school to ... O wait, I heard this on radio on Wednesday:

A: So-and-so's family fell upon such hard times that he had to go to the local school.
B: O? Where's he from?
A: Harrow.
(Canned laughter)

It is perhaps the most famous public boys school in Britain (because Churchill and a zillion other prime ministers and sons of sultans went there), together with Eton and something else. It's the school up on the Hill where the boys wear funny straw hats and tails to school. Apparently the boys are advised to go non-uniform when coming down the hill (where I live) or risk being mugged.

They organize a "Music Day" for boys in prep schools in the region with the view of attracting them to the school. The boys come to play music they have not seen before, give a concert at the end of the day.

Parents are invited to a tour of boarding houses, treated to a sumptuous tea, and then congratulate themselves on how well their sons played at the short concert.

Son was really looking forward to this. So was I, for the sumptuous tea that I heard about.

I missed the tea last year because my son was too ill to get out of bed on Music Day.

This year he went one better. I had to collect him from school the day before Music Day.

He was told that he would be playing piano for the jazz group. I could tell he was keen. Which is unusual. He actually tried jazzing on his piano.

At dinner we talked about how he might be persuaded to go to Harrow. Perhaps they would offer him a scholarship. Until I said one word.

"What?" he asked.

"Z-C." That's the name of the boy from his school who has transferred to Harrow.

"Yes! I'm definitely NOT going there." This chap was the older boy who gave him no end of trouble when son was younger.

He appeared cheerful when he went to bed.

Come Music Day, of course, son was not able to get out of bed, thick with cold, unable to speak with a sore throat, hurting from a mouth ulcer, etc.

Bah, that means Mum would have to miss the sumptuous tea again. (Worse, I had to miss my Thursday morning surgery at CAB.)

Two out of two. Husband says it's "a sign" our son is not meant for Harrow.

Today son went back to school. He learned that no one played piano for the jazz band. He was given a list of dates of school "open days" for prospective students.

Harrow School Open Day is on the very Saturday we are due to meet with the headmaster of another school -- where son has already been made a "conditional offer".

Of all the Saturdays I could choose between October and July 2012 I chose the Harrow School Open Day Saturday to meet another Headmaster.

There was a loud cheer from all three of us. Yay! That must surely (SHORELY) be a sign.

Thank you, God, for guiding us!! (And we were talking about guidance from God at church last Sunday.)

Giving back to charity

2011-09-21T16:36:00.002+01:00

Last Monday I stood in for another volunteer at Citizens Advice Bureau.

One woman client found herself in a rather complicated web of misfortune: separation, having her benefits docked, debt, etc.

Another was left with no money to feed her gas meter and to buy food to feed her young children.

In the first case the client was not properly briefed by Job Centre Plus what the implications of her savings were. Neither did the bank help in advice and counselling.

In the second the woman was messed around by civil servants who cut all her and her disabled husband's benefits because his social worker was trying to apply for more benefits to cope with his increased disability.

How could they stop payments before a new decision has been reached? What do these claimants live on meanwhile?

Eventually we decided to give the second woman some money from another charity available to us. She was very grateful.

What surprised me most was her near instant response that when she gets her benefits back on track she would give this money back to charity.

I have met lots of nasty people in my voluntary role here, and this response was heart-warming.

I said she had better sort all her debts out first. Then when the children have become successful, or when she becomes successful, then please do not forget to think about doing something for charity.

Of course, of course, she said.

As for the first woman she has already been thinking of volunteering. She may be on benefits. She may have a school-age child to look after, but she wanted to do something to help others, and in so doing, help herself along the way to a proper job.

Charity is like that. We sow seeds. Some time in the future, we hope to reap a harvest

Being surrogate mother

2011-09-21T14:09:00.002+01:00

At one of my Citizens Advice Bureau surgeries last week I encountered a 20-year-old male.

He came in all flustered. He thought he was going to be evicted from his home.

He had already been assured by the Housing Department that his landlord had no right to throw him out within that week as he threatened, but further questioning revealed that this young man who had "a million and one problems" needed to talk through other issues.

Now I am supposed to spend as short a time as possible with clients and then move them on to the next person, organization, appointment, government department or whatever.

But this chap needed to talk.

His housing issue was also clouded with questions over university, where or whether to go to university, and a job offer.

He was made an offer to one of the top universities but missed a grade. He missed a grade because he did not get to the exam centre in time. He was late because he was working the night shift. He was working the night shift because he needed the money to support himself.

His college appealed on his behalf and based on his course-work he was given a "C". Still he needed a "B".

We discussed his options regarding university. He does not want to go to his second-choice mickey-mouse university but at least he would have a roof over his head if he went there.

By this time I had concluded that this was clearly a very intelligent young man. I probed further and discovered that he had also been offered a job.

Young man tells me he did not think he could take on the job because he cannot afford to live locally and travel to the job. There was no way he could afford to live nearer the job either as the taxes and rent will be higher.

So we talked through the options again. Working from home, travelling after 9.30am, getting more money, a loan, etc, etc.

In the end we pinned it down to him making a case to his prospective employer that he needs either a loan of £X, a promise of a raise after n months, or a straightforward increase in starting salary to allow him to take on the job, help build the business.

I assured young man that he must have been so good at his work (IT) that he was offered a job without a degree.

OK, he said.

Don't let anything take that away from you.

OK, he said.

Do you know exactly how much money you are short?

No.

Well, work it out and then ask for the difference. Not an airy-fairy "I need more money", but "I would need another £700, say, to take on this job and do it well."

OK, he did not say. He just looked at me.

Your prospective employer could only turn you down.

More puppy-dog look.

After the long session with him I realized that I was not much more than talking to him like a mother would.

But he had no mother or father to talk to. He left the family home at 17 because of personal differences.

You see the welfare system makes it possible for 17-year-olds to leave home and live "independently", but young people do not have a mother or father they could turn to for advice like this.

You do the sums.

A Gifted Child is a Challenge

2011-09-21T11:38:00.026+01:00

A certain letter of mine was published in the Straits Times today and I am being torn to shreds by readers.

Readers of Letters to the Forum should bear in mind that writers have 400 words and often cannot dwell on related topics to make a holistic or "joined-up" argument.

Editors also make changes outside of our control so that the original intention might be obscured. Eg the third and fourth points in print were one point in the original letter: MM Lee first alerted us to our limited gene pool back in 1984. What has been done since to preserve/enhance this gene pool? Has the “foreign talent” initiative superseded this urgency?

My (subtle? rhetorical?) question was whether politicians are now happy with just buying foreign talent instead of investing in and nurturing our own. By breaking this one point into two it sounds like I was paying homage to MM Lee. As if.

This letter was written with the purpose of reiterating a need to support parents who might wish to take a career break so that their children (of whatever ability) could benefit.

The focus was on better-educated mothers because a PhD was at the root of this controversy. Such mothers find it harder because society makes them feel they "owe" it to society not to "waste" their education. The nature of their professional jobs also makes it more difficult for them to get back to work. I am saying, let's not forget to support these parents.

I noted breast-feeding to point to how "nurture" is just as important as "nature". I did not have space to say how much we should support mothers of all education levels who breast-feed. Babies breast-fed for more than six months (or is it 12?) are some nine (NINE!) IQ points ahead of their mums.

Imagine the results if every baby born has the privilege to be breast-fed by mothers for at least a year, by mothers who are not stressed about returning to work, pumping, freezing and transporting breast milk, etc?

I also hoped to encourage more young men to marry women who happen to be better-educated. I wonder how many male readers have, hand on heart, also walked away from women simply because of the women's education. (Let him who is without any sin .... )

I did not say anything about women who refuse to marry men they deem not clever enough for them.

In short I encourage women to do their PhDs if they are so inclined. I am also aware of the issues that cleverer (and this word is used in Britain) women face in terms of marriage, having children and nurturing them.

My father had at best two years of schooling in his village before coming to Singapore from China. My mother had four years of education before it was disrupted by the Japanese Occupation. They taught themselves to read the Chinese newspapers.

Would they have gone far in formal education? Precisely because of my own background I believe that giftedness is not restricted to those who have well-educated parents. I was also blessed with being nurtured by five older siblings who all did well at school.

What has been done to enhance this gene pool? Does our education system identify such gifted children who are hidden in neighbourhood schools, eg? What has happened to our meritocratic system which allowed children of factory workers, taxi-drivers, or butchers in my case, to get to university?
===
I made the point of my son having a high IQ. But I did not have room to say that at school he is classified as having "special education needs", like those who have dyslexia, autism, asperger's, etc.

To those who do not yet have such offspring a high IQ might seem a godsend. Let me assure you, having a child with an IQ in the "gifted", "highly gifted" or "exceptionally gifted" category is a real challenge to parents.

I think mine falls between the first and second categories (or "moderately gifted") and I thank God that he is not "exceptionally gifted".

My son exhibited quite disturbing behaviour at school when he was seven years old. We were told to engage an educational psychologist to assess him.

We did, and after careful assessment her conclusion was that he has a very high IQ (nine points above mine), a reading age about twice his real age, etc., but very poor skills in reading facial cues. But she discounted borderline Asperger's syndrome which so often comes with the territory.

Up to this point we thought, "Wow! Clever child, no problems there." We assumed that because he was so clever that he, like cream in milk, would naturally rise to the top.

NOT SO!

I read all I could find about gifted children and helping a gifted child. Clearly this child needed a lot of help.

The good news is, four years later, he has shown great improvement and we are now confident that he would be able to cope in most new situations.

Some of the lessons I learned are:

their intellectual development is not in step with emotional/physical development. So while he could think through problems his fingers and fine motor skills did not develop at the same speed. Eg he came up with very convoluted story lines, but because his handwriting had not developed to the same level he could not finish writing in the given time. He hated, absolutely hated, his own handwriting which was not "perfect" enough for him. At one point he refused to write a test -- which alerted us to his special needs. In the last few years he was "invited" to join the handwriting club. He has since "graduated" and is now able to write quickly and fluently. (Some experts recommend that such children be allowed to type their exams instead or be given more time to write.)
they may have physical sensitivities. I have lost count of the times I've been asked to cut off clothing labels because they irritated him. He prefers to wear his socks inside out so that the seams do not bother him. He could not cope with being in a shopping centre because the echoing sounds disturbed him. Travelling in a bus with lots of other children was a torture because sounds were coming in all directions. (A friend who suffered trauma to her head has the same problem.) He felt the need to process every sound, which of course he could not. Thankfully he has learned to cope by eg focussing on one sound, one stream of conversation, but even this becomes very tiring. The GP advised using an iPod!
these children have an enhanced sense of right and wrong. He found it most difficult when a boy in class refused to obey instructions like sitting down. He felt it was wrong. He had come home complaining, "I learned nothing new today!!" What he did not say was this boy had disrupted the class so much he did not learn anything new and it is right that he should learn something new at school. When this boy left the school, my son became almost instantly a much happier boy.
I used to tell him off for being a "perfectionist". I learned from my research that he could not help it. You cannot say to a child her hair is too brown. Please make it less brown. You cannot ask a gifted child to be "less perfectionist". That's the way they function. That's the way they make sense of the world. I apologized to him and learned to accept him for what he is.

There is hope, I have learned, for such children. I spent many hours briefing and debriefing him. I began to recognize how when he is tired, when he's been "compensating" for a long time with his disappointments and frustrations, he blows up.

We had a "disaster scale" which we drew up together. It helped to remind him that things are not as bad as what he makes it out to be (gifted children suffer from extremes in emotions, every day was his "worst day of my life").

We had a debriefing routine at the end of the day, going through a checklist of emotions he went through and how he coped with it.

We "banked" good experiences so that when he had bad days we could draw on these happy memories.

I also had to supplement learning at home. Whenever he felt inclined to discuss a subject we would spend time doing this, whatever the subject.

What do you say to a six-year-old (he was six then) who wanted to discuss "artificial intelligence"? Or when he comes up with the statement "There's no right in doing wrong, and there's no wrong in doing right."???

Most of all as he moved up the grades where football prowess was not the only "social capital" on the playground, his confidence level rose.

I've lost count of the times he came home crying "We played football. Or I tried to. I was the last one to be chosen by the team captains. Nobody wanted me on their team."

I cried with him, too.

Then one day he came home to say, "We had a music quiz and I was the first one to be picked by a team captain."

Eventually the boys learned that to win a general knowledge, science, music (whatever) quiz, it's best to have him in their team.

They also started playing other sports. He discovered that he has inherited his grandfather's genes and was quite good at hockey. And he skis rather better than all his mates. (He is mix-handed which suggests that he has a more centred centre of gravity which makes slalom easier for him.) No one in the whole extended family skis.

Our son entertains us with some really good and original jokes. Unfortunately his mates at school often did not understand the word play. Now that these other boys are older, they are beginning to appreciate his sense of humour a bit better.

I am pleased that my son has a high IQ, but he is very hard work. I thank God that he is not "exceptionally gifted" with an IQ in the 160s or above ("profoundly gifted"). Such children find ordinary life even more difficult.

Clearly it was imperative for me to stay home to support him. He was more important to me than making use of my PhD.

We are also grateful to his school teachers who "extend" him in class as we are not in favour of accelerating him (skip grades). What's the point of doing 'O' Levels, say, at age 11? What does he do after that?

We want to let him enjoy being his own age, to be amongst his peers, have sleepovers with friends, etc. We only agreed to let him skip a year in Maths this year because it has come to a point where it would be cruel not to do so (having beaten the most able boys two years older than him in a national Maths competition last year). It is the subject he complains about the most. Now he's enjoying Maths again because it is a challenge again.

Over the years we have struggled to keep his emotions on an even keel. Slowly we have more calm times than tantrum/disaster/the-whole-world-is-against-me times. I think in the last year or so he has, at last, come to a kind of equilibrium. Long may it last.

The danger is that very often gifted children go unrecognized. In their frustration they begin to manifest behaviour which school teachers consider disruptive. "Why show working in Maths when I have already computed the answer in my head?" They get side-lined, labelled as lazy, uncooperative, trouble-makers, nutters, whatever.

Parents who struggle with gifted children please feel free to get in touch.

And my husband would object to being called "Caucasian". He much prefers "gwai-lo" as in my original letter.

English as it should be writ (Part 5)

2011-09-18T20:52:00.002+01:00

The headline CNB officers seize $70k worth in drugs in 3-hour sting (10th September 2011) refers.

9/9/11 I sent this email to the Straits Times editor:

=========
Dear Sir

As we begin the Speak Good English campaign this year, may I urge journalists to (please,) write good English.

Yesterday I read online "CNB officers seize $70k worth in drugs in 3-hour sting" and wondered what is a "3-hour sting".

A "sting" or undercover operation, especially in the context of illegal drugs, often takes weeks and months to conduct.

Immediately I thought a "3-hour sting" is highly improbable.

When the report then goes on to describe a "three-hour operation" I was convinced that the word "sting" had been used in error.

Whilst the three-hour operation and eventual S$70K seizure might have been the result of a sting operation, it is incorrect to describe this three-hour police action as a "sting".

"Raid", "blitz", "roundup" or "exercise" would have been more appropriate.

Please teach our children well.

===========
Surprise, surprise, nochet got reply.

Meanwhile I shared this with my Arer-Gee-Ess girls.

I seyz:
==========

My main objection was "sting". I think it has been used in a totally wrong context. If I read this in pemmery skool I would think that, ah, "three-hour sting" equals "three-hour operation" and therefore, logically, "sting" equals "operation".

So nex time i write composition instead of using the boring word "operation" I substitute with the cool word "sting".

Eg. Making alterations to a dress is not as easy as it sounds. First you have to .... Then you have .... Finally you must not forget to .... All in all, turning my cheap $10 dress into something remotely suitable for the graduation dinner was a five-hour sting.

How can liddat?

Methinks the word "sting" has undertones/overtone/in-between tones/whatever of undercover work which is unlikely to have been completed within three hours.

A "sting" if you remember Robert Redford and the unforgettable music of "The Entertainer" and all that, is a complicated confidence trick, double-crossing and double double-crossing.

In the context of a police investigation it means tedious hours of undercover work, infiltration, furtive alliances, etc. etc.

So for me, rightly or wrongly, either it's not a sting, or it's not three hours long. Putting the two together does not make sense.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T14:24:00.002+01:00

It's wall-to-wall TV coverage this tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I remember it well. I was sitting in the living room. Mum-in-law was visiting. My son was 17 months old.

The phone rang. It was my husband. "I think you should turn on the TV," he said.

He rang off. I turned on the TV and stared in horror, and disbelief, as they showed the clips of the first twin tower on fire, and then the second airplane hitting the second (south) tower.

Nobody knew exactly what was happening. There were just speculations and conjectures. Mum-in-law mentioned "World War Three" and my heart sank.

About an hour later, husband rang again.

"I'm coming home. We are being evacuated." As usual he did not give details.

After that it was a few hours of agony as we waited for my husband to arrive home.

As more news of senseless destruction came in, we in London became very conscious that we could be under similar attacks. I tried calling my husband to check his progress, but of course he could not be contacted.

You cannot imagine the sense of relief mum-in-law and I felt when he finally walked in the door.

We then learned that he and his colleagues were evacuated when there was a rumour that a plane had gone "missing" from Heathrow.

Thoughts of being widowed with a young child from a terrorist attack disappeared, at least temporarily, until 7/7 when its effect on me was even more traumatic.

My PA deprived me of a kindergarten experience

2011-08-24T10:14:00.001+01:00

I recently realized that I have impeccable political credentials.

I used to stand behind the windows of our Tanglin Halt flat watching little children go to or from their kindergarten. My neighbour next door went to Damien Hall (Church of Blessed Sacrament).

Some walked to my left towards the market in their blue and red uniforms (I think). Others walked to my right in their yellow and brown uniforms to Damien Hall.

I asked Mum why I was not allowed to go to kindergarten. Her reply (similar as to why I could not have piano and ballet lessons) was, "We cannot afford it."

Later on I learned that the PA kindergarten located by the market was not expensive at all, compared to Damien Hall. Why did my parents not send me to an affordable kindergarten?

Much later in life I discovered that my late father refused to send me to a PA kindergarten because he felt that it was run by the PAP. We were, in no way, to be associated with the PAP.

So on political grounds I was deprived of a kindergarten education/experience. When I started school I found that I didn't know the Mandarin songs that my classmates who had been to PA kindergartens were able to sing.

Boy! Was I truly and utterly embarrassed. At age six and three months I had just about learned my English alphabet. Thankfully I appeared to be a fast learner.

I went on to Raffles Girls. However that was in the heyday of a meritocratic education system, mate.

What's the point of this ramble?

(1) I want to record respect for my father, uneducated as he was but taught himself to read Chinese, for acting on his principles. He always did, sometimes to the frustration of mother and the rest of us.

(2) The People's Association should aspire to be the PEOPLE'S Association. For all the love poured out on Mr Yam after his spectacular rise to fame on Polling Night, I imagine that if the people could raise him up, people could also bring him down. I am not suggesting that we all started to boycott PA activities. O no, not at all.

(3) I've been harping on my vision of a Singapore that could be described as "gracious society". I am more and more convinced that we are not very gracious at all (whether this be giving up seats, being kind to people and animals, respecting people of lower socio-economic status, ill-treating maids who are fellow human beings, etc) because we do not have role models in our leaders who show us how to be gracious. And magnanimous.

I don't know what (else) to say.

It is not a foreign talent question, mate

2011-08-12T10:10:00.000+01:00

When I heard the news of China upbraiding USA about its spending a few days ago, it suddenly tweaked.

The Chinese nationals in Singapore has nothing to do with "foreign talent". They are here so that in the event that there is any aggression against us, these Chinese nationals would become a bargaining chip.

The millions of Chinese nationals here would give us better leverage in any future negotiations. It's a bit like good old King Solomon having all those wives from countries around him.

So, be kind to them, mate. We can all sacrifice a curry or two, no?

Discuss.

London burns: A Singaporean fumes

2011-08-10T15:49:00.005+01:00

Update: 20/9/11 The shop that no rioter wanted to loot...

========

As Singaporeans celebrate National Day I am in London fuming at the mindlessness that has wreaked havoc across London and different cities across the UK.

One black man in Tottenham gets killed by police. People in Tottenham demonstrate. So far so good. Then the riot began.

Looting. Thieving on a grand scale. Brand-name trainers, brand-name clothes, mobile phones, plasma TVs, alcohol, cigarettes. They came, they saw, they looted.

I did not hear of a book shop being looted. Either (1) the looters were not interested in books, or (2) there were no book shops in the area. No book shops in Tottenham? Is it because there is no demand there?

People "working on the street level" came on radio to tell us how these looters suffer "poverty and deprivation". They have no prospects for a job. They have given up. They have nothing to lose.

Other commentators noted how in previous riots, people were angry. They had a reason to be. But what is the point of burning those shops they have looted? Why thrash the community they live in?

One reason for this is simply these looters are not of the same community. We learn that the use of social network and BlackBerries mean crowds have gone from one location to another to pillage. One report says that in an upmarket part of London, looters were shouting, "You are rich. We are poor."

Because these looters are not locals, they have no qualms about torching the place.

Let's dissect some of these issues, beginning with jobs.

These people cannot find jobs. This is a problem. What is the root cause of this problem? These people do not have the skills to do the jobs available. If you cannot read and add up, who is going to employ you?

Labouring jobs. Cleaning jobs. Social caring jobs. There must be a few. Employers are crying out for workers. East Europeans, Africans and Filipinos are coming in droves to do these jobs. Ergo, there ARE jobs. Why are these people not taking up these jobs?

Too much hard work. Why work 35 hours a week at minimum wage when you can get unemployment, housing and council tax benefits for doing nowt? Better still, add a few babies, and the child benefits pile up.

In my voluntary work I learn of how people fail to hold down jobs because they "don't like rules". What sort of rules? "Uhm, being on time, for example."

There are hundreds of schemes and organizations helping people like that into jobs. They could get themselves re-trained/re-educated for next-to-nothing if they are on benefit. Do they?

What about their poverty and deprivation? They used BlackBerries to co-ordinate these attacks, remember? Deprived?

Someone noted how one man was putting his loot in a souped-up car. Deprived?

How many Singaporeans would love to live a life where you need not worry about rent while doing nothing and still get £68 of spending money every week?

OK, £68 is not a lot after you have paid for the utilities and food. But clearly this amount is not enough to cover cigarettes, alcohol, nights out, brand-name goods, etc. So it is a bad deal.

People could save up £1 here and £2 there. Or simply save on a pack of 20 cigarettes costing £4.50. Buy some sugar (55p/500g), coconut (78p/250g) and milk (89p/1140ml) and turn it into coconut candy, say. This way £3 could be turned into £5 and £5 into £9 or whatever.

There are schemes to help people on benefits start their own business. But no, they would rather wait for the ideal job which pays them lots of money, a car, etc for doing nothing.

There could be a myriad reasons for the shameless criminality we witnessed. The core of it, I think, is a poverty of the spirit. This often leads to drug and mental health issues and they often cause a downward spiral even in the most robust of personalities and families.

Another issue is that of race. It is politically incorrect to state what is obvious to many, so no one says it.

We see CCTV pictures of looters wanted by the police. Most of these are black African/West Indian. We see the people coming with brooms and brushes to clean up the streets of Clapham. They are mainly white with a few blacks wanting (and rightly so) to make a statement.

Over in Birmingham we saw TV pictures of shopowners taking the police to task. These are of "Asian" Indian, Punjabi, Turkish and other immigrant stock. They are the "shop-owning" class. The looters were also mainly black African/West Indian.

Despite being much earlier migrants here than the Chinese and the Asians (ie Indians) expelled from Uganda, Kenya, etc, the West Indian groups do not seem to have taken advantage of the state funded school system as well as the others.

There appears to be cultural reasons. I have seen clients on my "street level" voluntary work with staggering amounts of debt. They have borrowed not to buy food, but clothes and shoes, alcohol and entertainment they do not need. These are the very items that the looters were going after.

The politicians and police were saying to parents, "Do you know where your children are? Keep them at home," etc. The truth is, many of these marauding young people have no parents to tell them right from wrong. Or perhaps they have never learned to respect their parents.

One West Indian colleague explained that there is still this acceptance of single motherhood as a result of their days of slavery. Generations have grown up without fathers and the cycle repeats.

Previously mothers in the West Indies worked hard to put food on the table, and admonished their children to do well in school so that they do not end up cleaning and labouring like she was. The effect of this was many first generation West Indian immigrants in the UK have done well in education and have moved on professionally.

But the acceptance of single motherhood has never gone away. Except that now mothers need not slave to put food on the table. All young people now see are mothers on benefits with no incentives to return to work. Girls grow up and have babies instead of finishing school. Boys grow up and father babies to up their street cred.

Up north is a different picture. There appears to be a few more white faces in the pictures released by police so far.

No, I cannot express my anger and frustration enough in words. Suffice it to say the looting has little to do with poverty and deprivation. It was an excuse to run riot, to thieve and to cause arson.

PS: Hours after this post I read this.

Where's my party bag?

2011-07-13T10:17:00.000+01:00

The Lady Gaga Fun Pack Song Saga caused me to think: children's party bags.

I remember the first birthday party I organized for my son, at four, and a young lady refused to leave the house asking very loudly, "But where's my party bag?"

Her mum said, "Darling, you are holding it."

The point is this little girl was not going to leave until she was given a party bag.

Since when did party bags become de rigueur?

Growing up when we had no birthday parties AT ALL, to be invited to the party was the treat. Fun, games, party (=treat) foods. We bought presents for the birthday boy and girl, not expect to be given party bags. OK, this was during the dinosaur age.

So why put so much emphasis, even have a song butchered, on a "fun pack", a party bag?

As has been expressed by other Singaporeans before: Why do we need a song about a fun pack in the first place? It is, as my son would say, “a blunt pencil” (pointless).

Is it because the organizers think that the recipients are not clever enough to know what to do with the contents? (The same reason we do not have juries in law courts, because we are not clever enough to discern who is/not guilty.)

There have been whisperings about how people won't bother to wave the flag if no one reminds them.

It has also been alleged that some people go to the NDP only for the fun pack. They don't bother to stay for the parade. If this is true then it appears that we are fast advancing towards another “uniquely Singapore” trait – being “yau kwee” (ie greedy).

Thankfully the revulsion expressed by many Singaporeans towards this song shows that we have not come to that, just yet.

Meanwhile I live with the dubious honour of being a Singaporean thinking: Other nations boast of beautiful poetry like the “Ode to a Nightingale”. Singaporeans have, in a manner of speaking, an “ode to a fun pack”.

How great is that?

Going gaga over intellectual property, right?

2011-07-06T10:41:00.003+01:00

Assuming that the original songwriter has not given permission for the song to be used this way, the Lady Gaga NDP Fun Pack Song saga is a reflection of the lack of respect for intellectual property rights in Singapore.

If this infringement has been approved at the highest level it is a shocking indictment on our moral standards. A standard being led "from the top"?

There is a very simple solution. Again come back to "do to others as you would like others to do to you".

My son, aged eleven, won't even think to violate intellectual property rights like that simply on the premise that one day, one day in the distant future, he might write a song, a piece of music, invent something fantastic etc.

Then what? Would it be fair that people used his work without paying for it, a result of hard work, trial and error, etc?

Likewise he refuses to take something that is not his. Violating intellectual rights is theft. No ifs, no buts.

If Singaporean artists/artistes are not able to see like this eleven-year-old, then they clearly do not have the confidence to be able to produce something quite spectacular and successful.

See also Copyright and Integrity

Made/Maid to rest

2011-07-05T19:34:00.000+01:00

Straits Times is not running this letter, so I am copying it here. Added some footnotes to make my points clear.

=============

Allow me to look at the “maid* off days” and minimum wage debates together.

When our forefathers first came to Singapore there was no minimum wage, but they often had sympathetic employers who awarded wages according to their work as well as needs.

If an employee got married or had another child, the employer raised his wages. If one were a good and trustworthy employee, employers did that to ensure that his business continued to thrive. It was self-preservation.

I was once a single foreign worker. I understand the strong desire to be with someone from the same country, speak the same language, or eat familiar foods**.

Foreign workers (not only domestic workers) carry with them a personal, social and cultural baggage. This baggage needs to be set down, re-packed and perhaps shared at timely intervals.

When was the last time an employer organized a party for the maid, allowing her to invite her compatriots, cook some familiar foods, in a safe and convenient environment, simply “to chill”?

Our forefathers did that. They had their village and clan associations. They played, worshipped and celebrated together.

From a biblical perspective*** maids should have a day of rest every seventh day. When I had worked continuously for weeks to meet project deadlines, my body always told me that I needed both physical and mental rest. That is how our body is designed.

Rest does not mean doing nothing. Rest does not need to be on a Sunday. Rest should not mean maids must spend it outside her employer’s home. Rest could simply mean not having to do the chores whether at home or on a family outing. “Ma’am” or “Sir” could change nappies, no?

Sure, some families need “cover” for those days that their maids are off. Why have our entrepreneurs not started a weekend maid service?

This is going to cost money****, you say.

If we desire that our loved ones are being well looked after, then it is our prerogative to treat our maid as we would like to be treated.

Would YOU work on minimum wage, with only two days off in a month?

===============
* I used "maid" instead of "foreign domestic worker" to reduce number of words.

** We see these workers out in the parks sharing food.

*** Note also the Bible also admonishes the Israelites to treat their "aliens" well, remembering the time that they too were aliens.

*** If families can only afford to employ foreign domestic workers with little left over for anything else, then perhaps they might consider life without the maid.

When was the last time your Residents Committee organize a party or event for all the foreign workers in your area? The RC could provide a safe environment for these workers. But does anyone bother?

What's wrong with our education system?

2011-06-25T20:22:00.000+01:00

I was trying to find the energy to write a piece about the education system in Singapore when I came across Education standards 'not good enough' warns former Tesco boss .

Much of what he says about the British school-leaver could also probably be said of the Singaporean school-leaver/graduate. So, have a good read. Read the readers' comments, too. Check out the comments with the "best rating".

Incidentally the person who made this comment is "Sir Terry, who stepped down from the helm of Britain’s largest private employer earlier this year after 14 years in charge".

Please note that it says he stepped down "from the helm of" and not "from helming".

We have potatoes!

2011-06-13T21:52:00.002+01:00

Remember my post about mudslinging?

One of my potato tubs looks like this:

There are "windows" at the bottom of these bags to let you reach in and remove potatoes. My first attempt yielded these:

There are more, but I think this is enough for one (or two) of our forthcoming family meals

I think Singaporeans should begin to grow their own food again. Why not use this method to try growing sweet potatoes on your balcony? Or other root vegetables suitable to the Singapore climate.

My mum used to keep the water from washing rice to water her plants. Only water when the sun is not beating down ie early in the morning or after sundown.

O! And here is a picture of my parmesan and sage bread rolls. The sage is organically-grown in my garden.

I blogged about baking bread here.
Tell me how you get on with either growing or baking.

Soul-searching: Singaporeans need a vision

2011-06-10T18:59:00.003+01:00

Since the General Election 2011 there has been a lot of soul-searching and one of the questions raised is "Do our leaders have a vision?".

At the last British General Election I was lamenting (1st May 2010) the lack of vision in all the main parties:

None of the major parties seem to have any undergirding ideology in the recent years. There is no real 'vision' for this society. Everywhere there is just a bit of tinkering here, a bit of polyfiller there.

... Our political parties have abandoned ideology because ideology does not win votes.

... Instead, we have politicians saying only what the populace wish to hear.

Previous to this I discussed vision in relation to the importance of speaking good English here (2nd October 2010):

The tools of language, like the keys on a piano, are all there. Just as good music would evoke a response, a good leader could put words together in such a way that listeners could go, “Wow! I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Good use of language could stir listeners to action. Think of famous speeches like "I have a dream" and "We shall fight [them] on the beaches", etc.

In his recent National Day Rally speech did the Singapore PM choose to inspire?

Instead he chose to dwell on bread-and-butter issues, using anecdotes and case studies to engage, explain and communicate.

Perhaps he had discerned that his audience were unlikely to have the vital language skills to be inspired by clever rhetoric. He has learned that they much prefer to talk cockles and chilli.

Years of languishing in a linguistic torpor have guaranteed that enough people remain merely useful and utterly apathetic. So apathetic that there is no real fear of uprising.

But alas! these same people cannot be stirred to action either.

Post GE2011 we may have stirred from our dreams, but do we, or our leaders, yet have a vision?

For all his shortcomings, Mr Goh Chok Tong's aspiration to a "Swiss standard of living" is visionary. I enjoyed my time in Switzerland. You can, literally, set your watch by the bus time-table.

Not being very good in reading German I did not realize that the shop I was in was about to close for lunch. I loitered. They did not say, "O! She's a tourist, just tell her to go. We'll not be seeing her again."

Instead they waited patiently when at last I bought a bar of chocolate. They took payment, I left, and they closed the shop. It left me with a very favourable impression of the Swiss.

Back up a little and I remember Mr Lee Kuan Yew admonishing us to aspire towards being "an educated Singaporean".

Even Mr Lee didn't seem to know how to define the "educated Singaporean". He made references to reading books unrelated to work, and paintings on our walls, of needing to have been "educated" -- not just "trained" -- and "something else".

But what was that elusive "something else"? (Did he contrast this with the "ugly Singaporean"?)

Is it a bit like "class", as in "so-and-so exudes class". However money cannot buy you class. Thus while some people have all the money, and wear the most expensive clothes, they might still exhibit the traits of a peasant. (Think My Fair Lady, and the high-flying wife of a certain ex-prime minister.)

We can go back further still. Think about "We, the citizens of Singapore ...". Now that, I think, was a real vision: "happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation".

Most, not all, of us have done well on the score of prosperity. We have progressed a little in our arts. But happiness?

So what vision do I have for Singapore (or of Singaporeans)?

Call them educated or something else, my kind of Singaporean is a gracious Singaporean (23rd January 2008). That would be a good start.

A gracious person looks beyond the self to the society in which they live. They are conscious of their responsibilities (and not just of their rights) to the point that it affects even the way they drive their buses, serve a customer, treat a patient, etc. Being gracious is a first step towards that "Swiss standard of living".

Such persons look beyond pure material gains, mindful of their fellow travellers. People who abuse their maids need not apply.

A gracious person also believes in a "shared space". I refuse to throw my litter in the train, on the ground, or spit, etc. not because I am afraid of being fined so much money. I refrain from doing so because I think of public space as shared space.

I do not own the space. I do not have the right to mess it up. Either by polluting it with material waste or by talking loudly and incessantly (mostly rubbish) on the phone.

Gracious people can also be proud people. They are proud of their achievements, whatever their achievements. They are aware that they play an important part in the overall picture of national success. They don't look down on others because, hopefully, others have not looked down on them.

You see if, within and between every stratum of society or pecking order, we can be gracious and kind to one another, accepting one another for our talents, then wouldn't we all be happy?

I wouldn't look down at the men and women who empty my bins because if they do not do their jobs well we'd live in a stinking cesspit. Sure, I can see that they may not be as well educated and as well paid, but they earn their own keep. I respect them for that.

Just think, any of us could be that person who is now a maid or road sweeper. They are each someone's child, sibling, parent, spouse. How could you treat them other than with utmost respect? (And from the biblical perspective, may I add, they are each made in the image of God.)

For as long as we -- as a nation -- wander aimlessly around looking for a reason to exist other than a home, a job, family and a Kate Spade bag or two (or that Rolex watch, say), we will only find drudgery.

If Singaporeans are soul-searching, is it perhaps because in our quest to make more money (with or without asset enhancement, in or out of the casinos) we have somehow lost our soul?

Education: Hardware vs. Heartware

2011-06-07T12:53:00.004+01:00

I am a "small trader", a "self-employed craftswoman". I'm like a little market stall trader, except that I sell online.

As such I am keen to encourage young entrepreneurs with new ideas and inventions.

When I used to organize fundraising school fairs at my son's school, I always tried to get the young boys (all under-13) to run their own "business". (One young boy, eg, drew cartoons and comics, copied and sold them. You could even get them printed on T-shirts.)

But I was not impressed by this short report: This toilet seat could lift couples' spirits

The problem: (Men) Toilet users do not lift the seat before use, thus messing it up.

The solution: Develop a device to flip the seat up after use.

As a woman my response was: But I don't want the seat to flip up. Why should "seat up" be the default position?

Why can't the men users learn to lift the seat up, use the loo, and then put it down?

It does not take rocket science to do that!

Whatever the right and wrong of "seat up" or "seat down", I was struck by how these student inventors tried to resolve an attitudinal problem with an engineering solution.

It reminded me of the time my young son would preface most of his statements with "I shall invent a machine to ...."

As a four-year-old and very lacking in social skills (being an only child looked after by a full-time mum and therefore not exposed to the rough and tumble of nurseries and child care environments) my son thought all problems could be resolved by designing the correct machines.

An attitude issue has to do from what emanates from the heart. Such problems cannot be changed by hardware like machines.

Three points I wish to note here:

I cannot understand why notices in Singapore ladies toilets tell me to lift the seat. No, no, no! Women need to have the seat DOWN! Was it a man who commissioned those posters?
A marriage requires a lot of give and take. If couples fight over the toilet seat, we as a nation are in serious trouble. What is so difficult about lifting a toilet seat that a husband would refuse to do it? What is so difficult about the wife putting it down?
If our engineering students cannot tell which problems require engineering solutions and which not, there is something wrong in the way we've been educating our young people.

While discussing toilets, let me mention two other problems in Singapore public toilets:

Some users squat on the seats instead of sitting on them. You can tell by the footprints. O! Why on earth do people do something so uncivil as that?

My ex-room-mate from America once asked me, after discovering the "hole-in-ground" toilets in Asia, whether I thought the western way of sitting on toilets rather "unhygienic".

That was an interesting perspective. Maybe people squat on pedestal toilets not because they are "uncivilized". Far from it, they may be thinking that WE are the ones who are "unhygienic"!

Once we learn to see it their way, our education programme could take a different track.

The other problem with ladies toilets in Singapore is wet floors. Some of our women folk insist on washing with water (it's a religious thing), but toilets are not designed to drain water poured onto the floor.

Now this is a problem that our engineers can solve.

Still the best way to keep our toilets pristine is still a notice that says: "Please leave this toilet the way you would like to find it."

English as it should be writ (Part 4)

2011-06-05T19:41:00.004+01:00

The headline Civil service to get half-month payment in July (28th May 2011) refers.

This headline was accompanied by what looked like senior civil servants smiling, which mystified me.

Why would these civil servants be smiling when they are only going to get a half-month pay instead of the full month?

Reading further I realized that the headline writer meant these civil servants were going to get a half-month "bonus".

A "payment" is just reward (or punishment).

A "bonus" (Latin root "bon" = good) is an additional payment usually due to good performance.

As a taxpayer you might well ask what have these civil servants done to deserve a bonus, almost immediately after a general election. (Answer: it was not the peformance of the civil servants that was deemed good, but that of the economy.)

When so many aspects of our daily life are going wrong, eg:

dead body in water tank (not properly regulated by government department?)
flooding (we can't stop the rain, but at least the relevant departments could ensure safety)
boy lost to flood (when safety barriers were not put in place)
overcrowding in buses and other public transport (not getting the estimates right)
schools not producing the type of graduands required by employers (poor forecasting and understanding of economic and industry needs)
foreign maid left with brain damage because of some illogical government policy, etc.,

is it legitimate to ask why these civil servants should be getting a bonus at all?

I have friends in the civil service who are doing a great job, I'm sure, so forgive me for even thinking this: maybe a real dose of "half-month payment", especially for those at the top, could be the spur that we taxpayers should put in the you-know-where of the ministers and those who should be leading the charge in making the life of Singaporeans (and their guests) that little better.

Those who agree, please ~~put your hand up~~ kee chiew.

English as it should be writ (Part 3)

2011-06-04T22:01:00.003+01:00

In the GE2011 period and its aftermath I cannot help but notice that Singaporeans tend to:

(1) use the word "stay" when they mean "live", and

(2) use the word "house" when they mean "flat".

I have not done any research or looked up any dictionaries, so feel free to fire arrows.

Typically "stay" suggests a temporary stopover.

So if you run into friends while on holiday they might enquire, "Where are you staying?" Your answer might be "such-n-such hotel", or "I'm staying with my friends", etc.

The location at which you spend most of your life outside work and school is where you "live".

If you say, "O! Fred? He lives at the casino now," we would conclude that Fred is in serious trouble.

In the UK I live in Greater London. In Singapore I am a person of "no fixed address" or "no fixed abode", so my family and I usually stay at the YMCA. ("Homeless in Singapore", that will be another post.)

My mum-in-law? She does not live with us. She lives a four-hour drive away.

Of course when you say that you "live with" someone, it often suggests that you are in a special relationship with that person.

Thus on bio-blurbs you might read that "so-and-so lives in such-and-such with her partner, two step-children, a parrot and two cats".

If the person you live with is not your "partner" as such, you'd probably describe this person as your "flatmate*", "landlord" or something else. *The Americans tend to use "room-mate".

In Singapore we often use the words "house" and "home" interchangeably. This is probably because in the Chinese and Malay languages "jia" and "rumah" mean both house and home.

In the UK I find that English speakers are often more particular. A house refers to a two-storey property. It could be a stand-alone and therefore "detached" house, or a "semi-detached" property (two houses sharing a common wall).

Houses in a row that share common walls on both sides form a "terrace". The end houses in the row with only one common wall is "end-of-terrace" and therefore more expensive, though it is still not as prestigious as a semi-detached.

Single-storey detached houses are called bungalows. If a second (half) floor is added to it where the attic used to be, it is a "chalet bungalow". Etc. etc.

So the Brits are miffed when Singaporeans say "Come to my house for a visit" and find that the "house" is actually a flat.

Yet, let me add, there is nothing shameful about the flats we have in Singapore. Most of our flats in Singapore are larger than the flats you'd find in the UK.

The flat I lived in for nearly five years would be claustrophobic by Singaporean standards. The upside is there is a little garden.

In summary, most Singaporeans do not stay in houses. We live in flats. Nice flats.

English as it should be writ (Part 2)

2011-06-04T13:57:00.002+01:00

The headline President Nathan forfeits public service awards to Ming Yi, Durai (27th May, 2011) refers.

27/5/2011 I sent this email to 'newseditor@channelnewsasia.com'

==========

Dear Editor

It was a "facepalm" moment when I read this headline.

It is appalling English.

How could President Nathan "forfeit" a public service award that was not his?

A person can only forfeit something he owns or is due to him but which now needs to be given up as a punishment or penalty.

You could say "President to strip Ming Yi and Durai of public service awards" (except that "President to strip" is not a very good headline).

Or "President to remove/recall Ming Yi and Durai's public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to forfeit public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to be stripped of public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to lose public service awards".

Or several other ways to convey that story.

But the President can only "forfeit" what is his to lose: freedom, free time, salary, title, anonymity, etc.

==============
Notchet got reply from Channelnewsasia, but I noticed that the next time someone wrote about this in Todayonline the headline was: Durai, Ming Yi stripped of public service awards.

Are Channelnewsasia and Todayonline part of the same company?

English as it should be writ (Part 1)

2011-06-04T13:47:00.005+01:00

The headline Clementi's first full-fledged mall officially opens (22nd May, 2011) refers.

22/05/2011 I sent this email to Straits Times Forum as well as the contact email on their website:
=========

Dear Sir/Madam

My husband and I looked in puzzlement at this headline.

What animal is this Clementi mall that it is now full/fully-fledged?

In what way has this Clementi mall lost its fledgling status to gain maturity (hence fully-fledged)?

If your writer/subhead writer* means "complete" as in fully-built does that imply that previous malls, in Clementi perhaps, have never been fully-built?

I used to learn my English by reading Straits Times a lot. I am glad that my son does not have to do the same.

Please take note.

* My mistake here. I meant headline writer, or sub-editor.

=========
Didn't expect a reply, but it came on 26/5/2011:

=========

Dear Dr Lee,

Thank you for taking the trouble to point out the wording of our headline.

"Full-fledged" in this instance refers to the "full status" (New Oxford Dictionary of English) of the mall as one that comes complete with major anchor tenants (a big supermarket, department store, public library, etc) and a wide variety of other shops, including specialty stores, restaurants and a foodcourt, among other tenants.

This is as opposed to smaller malls which do not have major anchor tenants or a wide range of shops/services.

And it is the first such mall in the Clementi area, a point the headline writer saw fit to point out.

Apologies for the slow reply; our usual person who deals with external emails is away.

I hope you and your family will continue to read The Straits Times.

Lim Chuan Huat
Associate Night Editor

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I mulled over this, but was still dissatisfied with the answer and responded.

==============

Dear Mr Lim

Thank you for your reply.

I am still not convinced that the phrase "full-fledged" has been used in its correct context.

How does one define when a shopping mall [has**] acquired "full status"?

You might argue that it has anchor tenants and such. I could argue that it lacks a fitness gym and a swimming pool, for example. A very important feature of new shopping malls is that it has a creche for shoppers so that little children could be taken care of while parents/carers shop. Does Clementi Mall have one of these? Also it should have a "motobility" shop, hiring out motorised scooters for elderly people who cannot walk the distance.

I hope you begin to see how illogical it is that one would describe a mall as "full-fledged". Someone else might argue that it lacks a place of worship, a place of meditation (for stressed out shoppers or husbands of shoppers), a funeral services shop (convenient for those who like to shop till they drop?), a maid service agency, etc.

There is no agreed definition of when a mall is "complete" or of "full status" in your usage. Whereas in describing an animal that has fully matured, all the biological indicators are there (or not). In describing whether a professional person is fully-qualified, all the requirements are legislated (eg a medical student who has not completed x period of internship, certified by professional body, etc. cannot call himself/herself a "doctor").

If you could describe a shopping mall as "full-fledged", you would next describe a car as "full-fledged" (because it comes with satnav, remote controlled seats, etc).

You get the picture ....

Yours truly

Dr Lee (full-fledged busybody)

**Omitted inadvertently in my email.
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I'm still waiting for Mr Lim to reply.

Time and Place for Everything

2011-05-31T09:59:00.001+01:00

This is one of my many letters to the Straits Times that have not been published:

=============

What do the news on sloppily dressed students,

Singapore

employers struggling to fill vacancies, and the Indian tycoon Ratan Tata complaining about the “work ethic” of British workers have in common?

Despite putting people through an extensive, and some say intensive, education system, employers in

Singapore

and the

still do not get the type of employees they require.

Ergo, our education systems have failed.

This clearly contradicts the increase in the number of students gaining a greater number of O and A levels. Some young person questioned how Chen Show Mao could be a top student with only 4 A Levels.

I am of the opinion that a “marketplace” of exam boards in

has led to a “dumbing down”. Where previously only the top 5% (say) of a cohort are awarded an “A” grade, now everyone who scored over 70% (say) is given an “A”.

Therefore, many more people get A grades. But does gaining multiple A grades mean they have actually mastered the art of learning and the skills of thinking?

I have met several ostensibly “high-achieving” young people who cannot string two grammatical sentences together in a conversation on any topic of significance.

“Yes”, “No”, shrug of shoulder, shake of head. How are these going to convince anyone to buy a product, a service, or an idea?

I had no qualms in ticking off my NUS students if they came to tutorials ill-prepared or dressed inappropriately.

Educationists speak of a “hidden curriculum”: being – and submitting work – on time, wearing the uniform correctly, participating in discussions, walking and speaking in a manner befitting a student, etc. (“Hooligan or gentleman?” is enough to make my son sit properly.)

Knowing how to dress (and behave) for the occasion is a life skill. Would you wear revealing clothes when being introduced to your prospective mother-in-law or a scholarship interview?

Heard of Victoria Beckham? She annoyed me by refusing to smile at the recent royal wedding. She behaved as if she were royalty, attending a funeral.

Time and place for everything, my dear.

Who's the highest paid person in this chain?

2011-05-30T19:18:00.002+01:00

I am often a bit slow off the mark when it comes to commenting on Singapore news, despite the instant nature of electronic communications these days. My excuse is I do have a life to live, a home to look after, a business to run.

Concerning Dr Lim Wee Kiak's comment about high minsterial salaries, he was supposed to have said, but later apologised for these inappropriate comment, “If the annual salary of the Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discusses policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars, because they need not listen to the minister’s ideas and proposals. Hence, a more reasonable payout would help to maintain some dignity.”

My immediate response to this was this man has never lived in the real world.

At eighteen, when my classmates went to National Service and/or university, or repeated their A Levels (which were really tough), I decided that I had enough of school and went out to work.

I went into advertising as a trainee copywriter. Prior to this I had asked and was given a column to write in a teenage magazine. The editor said, "Yeah, I think you can write," and gave me a job that did not exist before. She even assigned me a senior writer to train me, in between my long hours at a junior college.

When I saw an advertisement for a copywriter after my A Levels, I thought, uhm, I don't think I they would give me this job, but who knows? They could only turn me down.

Though I was not the type of person they needed, the creative director managed to create a trainee post for me, because he saw that I had the potential. He even managed to find an extra desk and an old typewriter for me, rather upsetting the chemistry between members of an existing creative team.

What I learned here was wages were in inverse proportion to "power".

The advertising executive in a client company called the shots on the type of advertising campaign his/her company required. He/She signs off the contract, and if the agency does not comply with what was agreed, the client could refuse to pay.

The account executive from my advertising agency probably got paid a lot more than the client advertising executive, but he/she quietly took instructions from the client, and produced the brief for the creative department.

The creative director who was paid more than the Account Executive (AE), no doubt, then gave the job to one of the creative teams. The art director and copywriter took instructions from the AE and planned the campaign. The creatives are known to make a lot more money than the AE. Or at least they behave as if they did!

Then if the campaign required models and photographers, the creative team sourced for these. The photographer and model took instructions from the art director. The copywriter took care of the "copy" (ie words). I got to talk to the model agency and "ordered" the type of models we needed and helped to audition them.

Again both the photographer and model probably made more money than the art director (at least on their hourly rates). The top models I worked with (sometimes I helped to style photo shoots) were paid about half my monthly wages for an hour of work!

Sometimes if the art director/photographer would let me, I would make suggestions about the photo shoot (especially if I knew that it would be more in sync with the copy (ie advertising text) I planned to write. Even top models had to take instructions from me. Sort of.

So you see, the person/s at the lowest order of the command chain (the model) actually made the most money, while the advertising executive who thinks he called the shots actually, possibly, probably, made the least (bar the trainee copywriter).

What has Dr Lim got to say to that?

It was the same when I was the editor of the magazine for an international non-profit organization. I had to commission articles from the people who were the "who's who", the "aristocracy", of the business I was in.

Poor me, earning peanuts and therefore living on peanut butter sandwiches in my north-west London town, had to tell these people what I required of their articles and the deadline by which I needed them.

And then I had the audacity to edit their theses into 800 words for a target audience made up mostly of readers who do not have English as a first language.

Yet I always got my writers to agree to write, and my articles always arrived on time, and no one has yet to complain that I have not done justice to their original articles.

So Dr Lim, clearly it is not a question of how much I earned, what brand peanut butter I used, or how important these people are in their spheres of influence.

It comes down to the skill with which I (or anyone else) could persuade other individuals -- who do not owe me a living -- to do something for me despite not gaining any financial advantage.

Does this surprise Dr Lim?

If it does, I can only conclude that Dr Lim has lived in a very cloistered world.

Going by his reasoning, no one would engage in any unpaid voluntary work.

Sir, Man shall not -- must not -- live by bread alone.

Why do we (still) need MPs to write letters?

2011-05-28T11:52:00.006+01:00

Of course due to reasons of confidentiality MPs cannot tell us the particular woes of their constituents who come to their MP surgeries (as they are called in the UK). (This is one reason void deck surgeries are not ideal.)

From information gathered in the news, blog post comments and other personal communication, it appears that a sizeable number of queries are to request MPs to write letters to government departments.

In the following link someone wants help with an application to hold a religious event: Aljunied MPs hold first Meet-the-People sessions

Why, I ask myself, does an MP need to be involved in this? It should be a purely bureaucratic decision: The rules are these. If your plan does not fall within these rules, you cannot apply.

Or is the woman in question appealing a decision by whatever government department involved? (1) Is it a standard practice that these decisions are passed back to the MP? (2) Is the MP therefore to act as judge and jury to decide what is appropriate and what is inappropriate?

If the answer to (1) is yes, then something is very wrong with the civil service/bureaucracy. Clearly the system is not efficient enough. There are too many grey areas and a comprehensive review of processes and protocols is required.

If the answer is yes to (2), then we are are saying that MPs have the right to dispense patronage. If they feel that they like a constituent for some reason, they can approve ("endorse" was the term I've seen being used) an appeal/application. If, for some reason, the MP does not approve, the contituent has no one else to turn to.

What if the MP writes the letter, but the government department still refuses the appeal? Does this mean that the MP would "lose face"? What is the percentage of MPs' intervention refused by government departments, I wonder. Is there a difference between PAP and opposition MPs' appeals?

If MPs are now writing more letters, according to a Straits Times report (which link I cannot locate as I write), is this because civil servants are not really as efficient as they should be? Then why are they given the bonus we read about here:

Civil service to get half-month payment in July (actually this headline gave me the impression that their regular wages have been docked for poor performance, such is the headline writing skills at Straits Times)

In Singapore where we had a lot of illteracy, constituents had to turn to MPs in the past to write letter. Now after 40 years of good education (so the government claims, but that will be the subject of another post), why are we still having to rely on MPs to write letters?

A response to my previous post tells me:

When the MP writes the letter, the government department considers your appeal differently. If it's a favourable result, the constituent will be indebted to the MP (and hence more likely to vote for him/her). That's the whole point of the system.. unfortunately.

I remember I had to go to my MP to write a letter to HDB for a grant to fix a toilet ceiling leak! Waited for 2 hours to not even see the MP, but some grassroots person, and my letter got lost somehow. Crazy.. HDB could have just given the grant directly without me queueing etc, but they said it's the policy to get the MP to write a letter.. ??

Similarly someone told me that when after all her efforts to write to the relevant department have failed, a letter from her MP did the trick, and so she is now eternally grateful to him.

This suggests to me that our civil service departments and/or statutory boards have designed "built-in inefficiencies" into their protocols so that MPs are seen to be effective. Such an inbuilt pattern of patronage is not befitting a first world parliament.

We pay our MPs quite a lot of money. We should not use them as a secretariat.

I would rather MPs hold more "tea parties" or "focus groups" so that the issues facing constituents can be dealt with BEFORE there is a need to get an MP to write to government department x,y or z.

A Tree Picture

2011-05-16T17:38:00.001+01:00

Last Saturday I was away with friends from church on an "away day". We spent the day at a 19th century home of the former Dukes of Somerset. It is now owned by an international mission organization.

A staff member took some of us on a tour of the house and grounds.

Of greatest interest, she said, are some of the trees in the grounds. They are so old they are listed and once in a while some officials come to inspect them.

She then pointed to us a very old tree, apologies for not remembering what it was called, that had fallen down in the last winter. It was a winter so harsh that even we in Greater London became housebound.

The tree had fallen in the night, right across the path we were walking. It was the tallest tree of its kind "in the whole of the Seven Counties".

Pity, but she pointed out that a sapling in its previous shadow was doing well.

The old tree had fallen. The wood was cracked and therefore useless. They offered it to people in the area but nobody wanted to take it away.

Ah! But a sapling is now growing sturdily where it would never have survived due to the shadow cast by the old tree. The old (now fallen) tree would have drained the ground of all its goodness and water making it impossible for a new sapling to be established.

The old tree had not fallen all that long ago. Now the sapling is nearly six foot tall, free to absorb the heat and light to thrive; free from competition in the roots department.

Some hundreds of years down the road it may yet again be the tallest of its kind in the Seven Counties. Who knows?

When I got home I noted the news that the MM and SM had just announced their retirement.

Ah! I thought.

Salute to Mr Chiam, shame on voting chaos

2011-05-09T21:21:00.002+01:00

It's heartbreaking, watching Mr Chiam try to speak on footage posted on FB last night.

The cameras were clicking away and I was shouting in my heart, "Stop! Stop! Is it necessary to take all those photos?"

Mr Chiam has done remarkably considering the fact that he had suffered, I'd been told, two strokes.

Watching him at a rally it appears that he had difficulty even trying to smile. He's got the words in his heart and in his fully functioning mind, I am quite sure.

But to make that connect between the brains and the vocal chords and other facial muscles must have been such an effort.

An elderly member of my church also suffered a series of strokes. The first one gave her a black eye. The second left her unable to speak. The doctors could not tell how many strokes she had had in total.

I visited her often at hospital and later at her nursing home.

You could see the frustration on her face as she tried to speak and no words could form.

So to see Mr Chiam, otherwise known as "Chiampion", making his points so clearly attests to the fighting spirit of this man.

That "office" where he had his Meet-the-People Sessions.

They say a picture paints a thousand words.

(source: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/photo.php?fbid=10150176737467043&set=o.154767907922223&type=1&theater

This picture paints a picture of :

(1) tireless, unrelenting desire to serve the people of Potong Pasir,

(2) an uneven playing field where opposition MPs, though elected servants of the land, are not provided the same facilities as other elected MPs of the ruling party, which

(3) illustrates that there is a dire need for Singaporeans to understand the distinction between the party and the state, the legislature and the administration, and therefore demand that the administration provides what is rightly that of the people: a right to a private conversation with their elected representative in parliament.

Perhaps we should insist that the new Potong Pasir MP-elect continue to use this office?

Potong Pasir (and Hougang and Aljunied) residents pay their taxes. They should be given exactly the same services as other taxpayers. Full stop. And puh-leese, don't get me started on "upgrading".

Was there a counting fiasco?

I was trying to follow the election results on FB, Twitter and "938-live" on my internet radio.

What I heard was the radio station interviewing friends of PAP candidates to testify how wonderful these candidates were. After the first poll result, the candidate was quickly elevated to "MP-elect". Every other PAP candidate that was returned subsequently was described deferentially as "MP-elect".

Until Hougang was announced and Mr Yaw was simply and still the "opposition candidate".

And if a blog doing the rounds is to be believed, then Singaporeans appear not to know how to vote, leading to many votes being spoilt, and/or spoilt votes being counted.

It is worrying that if a voter puts "go to hell" next to a party logo it was considered a mark in favour of the party indicated by the logo.

??

So those crucial spoilt -- as well as valid -- votes at Potong Pasir could have made a huge difference.

As to why spoilt votes were not re-scutinized in cases of such tight margins is beyond me.

What a shame, this: Only in third-world countries do they have to educate voters how to vote in a normal election. These are countries coming out of dictatorships, colonial rule, and therefore needed to be told that a cross (X) must be placed next to the name of the candidate/party for which they wish to vote.

How sad is that?

Many Singaporeans in their mid-40s confess to being "virgin voters" because since coming of age they have had no opportunity to vote. Did they spoil their votes on purpose or did they spoil their votes unknowingly? Worse, were spoilt votes given to an undeserving party?

And if you were, like me, a Tanjong Pagar constituent ... aiyah! susah-lah! (My husband suggested that I took the government to the Court of Human Rights for depriving me of a chance to vote.)

Back to the recounts that night.

"938-live" explained that candidates could request a recount if the margin is very small, and a low figure like "between 2% and 4%" was quoted, if I remember correctly. Imagine my shock when the Hougang result was announced.

We'd been told all this time that there was a recount in Hougang, implying that there was a very close margin. But the result in Hougang was not any where close.

Which makes you wonder, "How impartial were all these election officials?"

Were these civil servants who have long forgotten that there is a difference between the duties of the Legislative (parliament) and the Executive (administration) branches of government?

Were these civil servants simply fearing for their ricebowls?

How valid were the spoilt votes and vice-versa?

Scholar, Officer and Gentleman

2011-05-08T13:01:00.009+01:00

In the last few days it was brought to my notice (some internet message making the rounds) that a couple of our highly-paid ministers have sons who are in receipt of very expensive scholarships.

In other words (if this information is true) Singapore taxpayers -- the lowly clerk, the security guard, the hospital cleaning lady, the sales assistant, the school teacher, as well as the most expensive CEO -- are helping to foot the bill of said ministers' children at very expensive overseas universities, providing them with book allowances, flights home, etc. etc.

I was just amazed, if this information is accurate, that these ministers had the cheek to accept these rewards. Buay paiseh, huh?

I have nothing against these young men. I am sure they are very capable, very personable and polite young people deserving of every accolade they received.

But surely, as top-dollar ministers, these fathers should be going to their colleagues to say, "Hey! Thank you for thinking so highly of my son. But hand on heart, I cannot accept this. It is worth a lot of money. Could we give it back so that we can give it to another candidate whose parents cannot afford to pay?"

"Let's do it this way, we can acknowledge his abilities, maybe make it an honorary award. But let me pay for the fees. Or at least let me pay some of the costs of educating him there."

An officer and gentleman would, in my view, say that.

Sometimes when we give away some things (lawn mower, old sewing machine, old microwave, my old car, etc, all in working order) the recipients say, "This is too good to give away. Could we give you some money for it?"

(Anyone with a sense of justice would say that. Our reply is usually, "Make a donation to church or your favourite charity.")

I grew up in an era where we were always challenged and inspired by sons and daughters of taxi-drivers and housewives winning major scholarships. We looked at these and say to ourselves, and later our children, "You could get to Cambridge that way."

How have things changed in the last two decades!

I watched in amazement as foreign investors tell us that they cannot find Singaporeans with the ability to think outside the box, or the work ethic, to do the work. Therefore they seek permission to employ foreigners.

So ministers acqueisced to this request (demand?). Did they not first ask, "What is wrong with the Singapore education system such that graduates are deemed to be 'trained' but not 'educated'?"

Is this why sons and daughters of ministers have a better chance to gain scholarships than the sons and daughters of us more ordinary people, us "lesser mortals"? Do they have opportunities denied ordinary Singaporean young people? (Access to better schools and overseas universities not affordable to most, eg?)

What an indictment, eh, on the state of Singapore education?

Who has/have been in charge of education in the last 20 years to create a generation of young people who cannot think for themselves? And how much do we reward these ministers, did you say?

I hope these are not the same ministers who allow their children to accept these high-prestige and high-value scholarships.

In the UK young people vie for scholarships to prestigious (secondary) schools in the private sector. These awards are usually merely honorary. Sometimes all the scholars get is a special neck-tie or item of clothing which they wear with great pride. Sometimes such non-monetary scholarships are called "Exhibitions".

Some scholarships carry a 5% to 25% remission of fees. Most carry a full remission only if the candidate's parents are genuinely unable to afford the school without that scholarship.

If our cabinet ministers have a heart, or clever enough, they would have said, "Why not design a scheme to recognize these candidates without using public funds to educate them?"

That would have been the appropriate and expected response of the true gentleman (and whatever the PC equivalent to a female "gentleman" might be).

Of course, if the ministers are only paid a pittance to do their work, as altruistic "service" to their nation, I would not quibble with their children winning prestigious and expensive scholarships.

The terms "eating cake" and "having it" come to mind.

"Majulah SINGAPURA!" is what we sing

2011-05-04T17:00:00.004+01:00

Some miscellaneous thoughts:

1) We pledge allegiance to Singapore, not to a particular party, and sing a national, not party, anthem.

After years of doing this, can the PAP now blame us for wanting to BE Singaporeans, and not PAP puppets (PAPpets?). Still, "A+" to the PAP for making us "Singaporean".

(I've been told "pap" is English slang for something "worthless". However the National Union of Teachers is NUTS.)

2) An indispensable minister? No. If it is a truly good minister, leader, parent, he/she would have the vision, the foresight to ensure that they are not indispensable. Good leaders work themselves out of their jobs, fully confident that someone else would do similarly good, if not better, work after them.

3) My husband's company sent in one man to start up their Singapore office. Now they employ four Singaporeans and hopefully would employ several more. That is foreign talent generating employment.

Would you go to China with its vast supply of workers and then employ Indian workers because they do the work better (or cheaper, or faster)?

4) I left Singapore in 1991. Some time after that I seem to remember reading about plans for Singapore to move into the high-tech manufacturing and/or service industry because we cannot compete with labour power of China and India. So I am surprised to learn now that manufacturing is back on the agenda.

I have not read Mr Tan Jee Say's essay, I must admit. The recent debates in the UK made us realize one thing. We must have something to sell (ie export), be it in manufacturing, food or services.

The UK has a huge service industry -- servicing the benefits culture. People are paid on their 'expertise' in how the benefits system works: who gets what from which government department, and what to do if you do not get the amount that you think you are entitled to, etc, etc.

We don't want that kind of "service industry". Singapore must also have something good, something special, something "noble" (as Mr Tan might say) to export. (Please hah, not cheap tacky plastic goods that only damage the environment.).

5) Inward investment. Singapore has done well in attracting the MNCs to create employment. This strategy worked when we were a fledgling nation and there was a lot of unemployment. But to attract investments that would create jobs for foreigners seems counter-intuitive to me. Yes, GDP will grow, but what's the point if the locals do not benefit? [did someone whisper ministerial salaries?]

Were Singaporean workers overlooked because they do not want the job or that they cannot do the job? I get the impression, and I might be wrong, that Singaporeans do want those jobs. If they cannot do that job, then it is an indictment on the Singapore education policies.

Or is it because Singaporeans are too expensive to hire?

Why are Singaporeans expensive? Because Singapore is expensive.

I have blogged about the British government attracting "foreign investments" to the detriment of the British people in Money, Manufacturing, Farming, where British taxpayers (ie myself, yes!) had to bail out foreign companies on the threat of their closing factories. Closing factories would be paiseh for the government. So we were forced to bail out such companies. Just so to help that party win votes. So we voted out that party.

6) Encouraging local enterprise. What have we done to encourage Singaporeans to start their own businesses?. I feel I am doing my bit, just a tiny, teeny bit, for the British economy when I sell my little crafty bits and bobs to USA, Europe, and so forth.

It is not much, but the running of a business is such that you are actually feeding into other businesses (suppliers, stationery, postage, couriers, accountants, etc.). And of course one pays tax not only on profits (if any) but also on goods and services (ie GST) with everything that one buys and transports.

Small businesses matter. What more can we do to incubate businesses and encourage big businesses to use the smaller ones? Does our education and tax systems encourage our people, like our forefathers, to take risks, to explore, innovate, or just to become a "jobsworth"?

7) Empowerment. I remember a classmate whose family was doing very well. Sadly her father died and there were several young children. I'm not sure if her mum managed to find work, but her grandmother was soon selling wonton noodles in a coffee-shop. One of her younger sisters graduated NUS many years later. I cannot imagine how proud my friend's mum would have been.

It used to be, I believe, that people in dire financial circumstances were given priority in the granting of hawker licences. So when we looked at any school canteen there would be a widow or widows there running a little stall to support her family.

For me, this is equivalent to the work of one of my favourite charities. They give a microloan, just £50, to a widow to start her own little business. When the business becomes self-sustaining, the loan is returned and it goes to help another widow. I much prefer this model to the incredibly expensive welfare state I now am forced to fund.

But now it appears that only millionnaires get to own coffee-shops (someone please explain the significance of a Kate Spade bag to me) and so stall rental is correspondingly exhorbitant. There is no way my friend's grandmother would have been able to sell her delicious wonton mee (with bits of fatty chicken skin, yumm) to support her grandchildren.

I don't want MPs to write letters (to "endorse" suggests that the MP, a paid servant, has power and authority that others do not have) so that someone can be given special treatment. I want action to help that person to look after himself/herself after a period of support. [thinking the Cynthia Phua episode]

8) An informal economy. Very third-world, you say. But let's think, just a generation ago, my parents' generation, we were brought up on the backs of washerwomen, seamstresses, hairdressers, odd-job labourers, etc.

I was thrilled last year that through Facebook I got together with some primary school mates. I was especially happy to know that a friend's mother who used to be a washerwoman is alive and well. She used to go to homes to wash clothes by hand. I take my hat off to her.

The advent of the washing machine put her out of a job, but it was mothers like her, hundreds of them, all over Singapore, that saw a generation experience the most incredible social mobility in what was a truly meritocratic Singapore.

In my own housing estate I can remember the cries of "nasi lemak" and "mee rebus". Families requiring extra income (or simply an income?) packed their children off before or after school to walk the length and breadth of HDB corridors crying "nasi lemak", "mee rebus".

I am particularly fond of the goreng pisang that a neighbour sells from the back door of her groundfloor flat. Next to the rubbish chute, mind you.

But we never feared food poisoning. Simply because we know these people know they would lose their clientele once someone gets food poisoning.

What if middle-class Singaporeans employed local people to clean their homes instead of foreign maids?

I am a fan of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series. The heroine Ma Ramotswe says it is not acceptable that people who can afford a maid (a local maid) does not employ one. It is the unspoken duty of those who have the ability to employ a maid, to do so. That way the maid could feed her family.

An interesting perspective. Certainly better than the comprehensive welfare state.

You say, but there aren't women who wish to do these jobs any more. I had an older widow who was too young to get a state pension who had time on her hands. She used to come to my house, parked her BMW outside, and cleaned for me. (I did pay her above minimum wage.)

It was a case of give and take. I am a good employer and needed some help, and she only wanted to work a few hours.

Us mothers love to be paid for doing work that we already do. So if I have to pick up my child from Games, it is no trouble if I picked up another two (which indeed I do. I don't get paid but the boys are always very polite and thank me profusely every week).

If we developed a "helping mother" culture, we can cut out the costs of hiring a maid, which makes hiring Singaporeans cheaper.

The fact is in any society there will be a whole spectrum of people with widely differing abilities. There will be people who are willing to do work on an informal basis.

9) $1,800 not enough?

Apparently a PAP candidate met a restaurant owner who said he could not find someone to do the job even at $1,800. Are my Singaporean friends too choosy? Maybe.

Are the working conditions difficult? Would you like to be the only Singaporean working amongst a whole crew of foreigners? Would you work 12 hours a day seven days a week when you have a spouse and children?

Are Singapore customers hard to please? Confirm. Double confirm (I chuckle at this term.)

I have seen how difficult some restaurant patrons are and I often feel sorry for the staff waiting at tables. More money has not made us all more gracious. To be fair to Singaporeans, we must put this $1,800 within context.

It's back to that Swiss standard of living, isn't it? Learning to be gracious. (Remember, even that waitor/waitress is a human being, possibly Singaporean.) Learning to be generous. Learning to be magnanimous. It must begin at the top.

O look! A pig ... flying!

Fallacy of the letter-writing MP

2011-05-03T15:24:00.004+01:00

So some voters would say, "My MP has been a great help in resolving this issue with the [xyz] department. He wrote a letter and it was sorted."

My questions have been, and always remain:

Why was that government department not able to resolve your "problem" until a MP steps in?
What are the civil servants for, except to serve the citizens? If they made a mistake then they should jolly well make a polite apology and make sure things are set right. There should not be a need for a voter to go to an MP to "set things right".
After the MP has written the letter and your problem has been resolved, does this MP then go to his colleague in the party or hassle the relevant Minister to ensure that the same mistake does not recur?

Or, do we condone a sluggish, inefficient civil service just so that it appears that MPs are doing something?

I don't wish to malign all civil servants as I am sure that there are very many very good and efficient civil servants.

But when trouble spots appear, they face an obstacle, an "unusual" set of circumstances occurs and they are lost in their bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, then they are duty-bound to DO SOMETHING to resolve that.

The last thing they should do is say, "Those are the rules. If you are not happy, go to your MP."

If MPs are always busy writing letters to government departments, that means these departments are inefficient, or uncaring, or both. If things do not get done unless "endorsed" by a MP, something is not right.

The ministers in charge should be taken to task, not be rewarded with huge salaries.

Conversely (just for the sake of argument), if ministers are richly rewarded that means their departments are running well, so logically there is no need for these MPs (because no need to write letters, what), so why do MPs still get the high salaries?

MPs are paid a lot of money. Why waste their time writing to government departments? Is writing letter the only reason we vote for a particular MP? If this is the case, then of course the "personalities" matter.

Thankfully I can write my own letters. So when I vote, I vote for a person who would be my "Member of Parliament", someone who would represent my voice in parliament. Not to write letters on my behalf.

Or pull strings.

Distraction of "track records"

2011-05-03T14:39:00.007+01:00

As I've said previously let us not be distracted by calls to opposition candidates to prove their "track records".

Opposition candidates can only have a "track record" when one is able to do something in a ward between electioneering periods.

This means that opposition parties and their candidates are given a level playing field, even between elections. (And it would help if ward boundaries are not drawn and redrawn for some unspeakable reason.)

I ask the following questions as someone who's been away from home for too long, based on what I've observed of UK politics:

Can opposition candidates go on "walkabouts" or would they face harrassment, eg being construed as an illegal assemby?

Can opposition candidates sit in on local Council/town hall meetings and voice concerns about work done (or not done) around the constituency?

Can opposition candidates interest the mainstream media in publicizing their work in supporting the campaigns of the constituents if these campaigns are not supported by the sitting MP?

What opportunities are there for opposition candidates to be effective opposition if regulations are in place to obstruct any work they might try to do?

If it is clear that opposition parties and candidates do not have a level playing field, then it is an "own goal" for the sitting MP, whether PAP or not, that opposition candidates do not have a "track record" to speak of.

Fallacy about manifestos

2011-05-02T16:54:00.002+01:00

Too much has been said of personalities in this election.

Yes, the integrity and ability of the individual candidates are important. But a first world parliament looks at manifestos. When push comes to shove, the MP votes with the party.

Therefore it is important to know what the party stands for.

For example after years of a Blair government that championed "education, education, education" it is clear that education has failed and the party has not met the promises of its manifesto.

In the corporate world, the business plan is very specific: we will achieve these (KPOs or Key Performance Objectives) by these dates. We will measure success in this way (KPIs or Key Performance Indicators).

Likewise a party manifesto must be specific, to some extent.

Even the 13-year-old boys in my son's school need to have a manifesto at the annual hustings for House captaincy. Some run on "better lunches", or "bicycle sheds" or "lockers to store music instruments", etc. (Somehow "less homework" is not accepted!!)

To couch a manifesto in extremely vague terms is (1) avoid making any real promises, and/or (2) to have forgotten what a manifesto means. As the saying goes, if you do not have a target you are certain to hit it.

A party election manifesto must spell out the general guiding principles of the direction they plan to take. But it cannot be so specific as to say how many dust-bins will be provided in which ward.

There is distinction between overall political direction and specific administrative goals. So to challenge opposition candidates on "what they would do" for a specific constituency is moot.

But Singaporean voters are not really used to such election protocol. I know. I used to be just like that. Until I started working overseas.

We had always gone with personalities: look! this candidate is more qualified, more experienced, has more grassroots experience than that candidate.

Or guess what, that candidate spiks liddat, only got 'O' Levels, and is a lorry driver.

That may be so. But remember that when it comes to voting in parliament, MPs vote with the party.

Could someone please help, enlighten me?

I've been asking this question but have not been given clear answers.

Is the Speaker allowed to speak for his constituents in the debating chamber? When my former MP was made Speaker he had to be "impartial". While he would still meet the people, he could not represent our views in parliament as such.

What's the point of having your MP appointed as a Speaker when he cannot actually represent your interests?

What about ministers?. When my local MP (in UK) was made a junior minister, he had to represent the cabinet view. So when my friend went to see him about a personal matter he said, "Sorry, I can't help you. As a minister I cannot be involved."

So what's the point of voting in MPs who are going to become ministers?

My question: does the same system apply in Singapore?

Fallacy about high ministerial salaries

2011-05-02T16:35:00.001+01:00

In the UK, especially after the "expenses scandal" of 2009, few voters have faith in their elected representatives in the House of Commons.

Many of us feel that they are overpaid and get too many perks, all at the expense of us hardworking taxpayers.

We feel this way not only of the UK MPs, but also of the EU MEPs (Members of the European Parliament). We use the term "gravy train".

Once one gets "onboard" (elected into one of these parliaments), their future is made.

First, not only do they earn a salary quite disproportionate to their skills and amount of time spent on this job (MPs at Westminster have very long holidays). They get huge travel perks (first and business class travel), a monstrous living allowance (root of "second home" scandal), and also a fat pension (while most of the rest of the country sees their pension pot shrinking)

When they finish, many move on to lucrative jobs in lobbying companies, or get non-executive director posts all because they know the people who are still involved in making decisions. In other words, they have a fat address book.

This is not corruption, of course. It is all above-board.

Us taxpayers, despairing at the policies dreamt up, describe these elected representatives as "couldn't even run a whelk stall". (A whelk stall represents the smallest possible business.)

That is, they have no real work experience in the cut-and-thrust world of commercial enterprise. They have never been charged with responsibilities that require making a healthy profit.

Many of our MPs "rose" through the ranks of the Westminster system as researchers, administrators, being "spotted" by sitting MPs etc to then being transported to the various wards to be voted in at general elections.

While they have a bottomless pot to spend, it seems, these candidates have never had to take a risk, make a profit and/or understand the impact of bad decisions on ordinary people around them.

They are, in short, only used to spending OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.

Guess what, even my young son knows how to spend other people's money!

The PAP, in giving all their reasons for giving ministers and MPs such high salaries, now run the risk of attracting all the wrong kind of "talent".

From within parliament when you have a (relatively) good team, we can understand why one is persuaded to think, "Ah! These people are doing a good job and should be rightly rewarded."

From the outside, one or two elections down the line, and looking at Westminster (let's say), we see the very real danger of attracting precisely the type of people we do not trust in running a whelk stall.

Be warned.

Parenting an adolescent (nation)

2011-04-30T22:19:00.005+01:00

I look in amazement at pictures of the crowds at the opposition rallies. Then I noticed that Straits Times ran pictures of people at PAP rallies from quite different angles, as if attempting to portray the crowd to be as large as possible.

There was also video evidence that PAP supporters were bus-ed in. Contrast this with the exchange I had with friends giving up hope on going to a WP rally because they heard that the stadium was already full.

While I cheered for William and Catherine celebrating the start of what we hope is a long and fruitful union yesterday, I felt sorrow -- yes, sorrow -- for Mr LKY. How was he reacting to reports of the lack of interest in PAP rallies?

This was the man used to addressing thousands. His shouts of "Merdeka!" have resounded in the largest public spaces. He galvanized our imagination, motivated a generation, and turned pockets of immigrants with differing worldviews into a nation.

Yes, for all our gripes today that Singapore is not what we wish it to be, you cannot take away the credit due to the first generation of politicians who were true statesmen. Goh Keng Swee, Hon Sui Sen, S Rajaratnam, Lim Kim San, Dr Toh Chin Chye, etc. these were men of vision, passionate for Singapore, the nation.

Were they passionate for a PAP-Singapore or were they passionate for Singapore - the nation?

As my son turns another year older, just two years short of turning into a sullen teenager, we are bracing ourselves for a few years of rebellion.

I wonder if we can view the "life course of a nation" in a similar way. Do the stages of development in a child correspond somewhat to the development of a nation?

When they are in their "terrible twos" we show them who's boss (ie learn to say firmly, "no"). When they are older we hold their hand to teach them how to cross the road.

When they are young we sometimes resort to bribes/rewards (eg sweets/chocolates) and punishment (eg deprived of a favourite toy/TV programme). When they get older we reason together.

Then, sooner or later, they fly the nest.

If we have faith in our parenting skills, then when it's time for us to "let go" of our adolescent children, we will let go, and let them grow up.

Many societies still do this. Young people undergo "rites of passage" and are then expected to become adults. Parents take a step back as adolescents come under the tutelage of older people in the wider society, the "communitas".

My first research work was of adolescent girls and one of the lessons I learned is that it is difficult to be an adolescent when sometimes parents expect us to be grown up and discharge responsibilities, and yet at other times they treat us like a young child.

In urban Singapore where many adolescents do not have clear "rites of passage", adolescents remain for a long time in a state of "liminality", in a "between and betwixt" state, where they have no certain status.

If as grown-ups we do not remember this state of being/mind as a problem it is probably because it was so traumatic our brains had blanked it out. (Just as, thankfully, we do not remember the pain when we cut our first teeth.)

Then we turn 18, and either university, work or national service suddenly qualifies us as "adults".

Is Singapore an "adolescent" nation?

When I read comments in blogs and forums (fora?) I get a very strong feeling of "Singaporeans" vs "foreigners". Is this a good or bad thing?

I think it is a marvellous achievement that political leaders have now nurtured a generation or two who are "Singaporean". As my Hong Kong-born hairdresser tells me, "You Singaporeans always say 'Singaporean' first, before saying you are 'Chinese'."

My father was born in China and to him, he was always Chinese first. Singapore was his adopted country. I might support the English team at cricket, but I am still Singaporean.

How different would Singapore be if at the point when we got to be "Singaporean" our 'parents' (aka PAP) had "let go"?

Together as "Singaporeans" we would have forged a path together. Perhaps a different path, but nonetheless a path, TOGETHER.

Political threats, we can deal with that. Housing shortage, we can deal with that. Economic crisis, we can deal with that. Because we had done it once before, we can do it again.

If nothing else, we could look back at our visionary leaders and say, we MUST also deal with these issues.

Low fertility rate? Ah, this one, we don't know, but at least give us a chance, we can probably also deal with that. Maybe we need to tweak the way we work. Maybe we need to tweak the school system. Just give us a chance.

But Singaporeans did not have a chance to deal with this. So while we were treated as "adults" in some ways (paying for a grown up, first class but very expensive Cabinet), we were still "children" in other ways, having policies regarding immigration (eg) foisted on us.

If we are behaving like rebellious teenagers now, agitating for change, is it because we have been forced for so long -- for too long -- to remain in this state of liminality?

My son is nearly as tall as I. I say to friends, my parenting must be done by the time he is my height. I must teach him values, manners and those skills that I am able to impart to him, and which he must have, by then.

Because five-foot-two me cannot expect to look up to a six foot tall man, point a finger and say, "You do this because I am your mum."

No, I should jolly well make sure that I have taught him what I need to teach him before he gets taller than me. After that it is his father's responsibility, but only until he outgrows his dad. Then he is on his own.

We have invested in our parenting early in our child's life to ensure that when it's time to let go, the child can be trusted to be the type of adult we wish him to be.

Children grow up. Just as nations do. Founding fathers (and mothers) of nations cannot expect to be parents forever. As I often say to my son "there's a time and place for everything", there's a time to let go, and let them grow.

Kookaburra gay your life must be: one Christian view

2011-04-28T22:20:00.006+01:00

When my son was born I had this inordinate fear, an overwhelming fear, totally illogical fear, that he would be gay (not in the "happy" sense).

After years of parenthood now I realize that even if he did decide to be gay, I as a parent, would still love him. I would not abandon him.

My Christian response to this debate is -- and I am not ashamed to say that I am a committed, Bible-believing Christian -- this is how I imagine God would respond to homosexuals. He still loves them nonetheless. They are still his creation, and he loves them one and all.

Some Christians shorten this principle as "hate the sin, love the sinner".

Of course it is not nice to be called a sinner, but that is what we are, if we believe in what the Bible says about our "fallen nature".

What would Jesus do? (WWJD?)

We read in the Gospels that Jesus associated with those who are the lowest of the low in his time on earth: the prostitutes, the lepers, the tax-collectors. Indeed, those who are not sick do not need a doctor. [I am thinking, should I underline "do not need a doctor"? ]

Some people ask, "Why are you Christians so homophobic, so hung up on a person's sexual orientation?" My response to this is I have no problems with anyone's sexual orientation. But the Bible does not condone sex outside marriage, full stop. It does not matter whether this be premarital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexual sex, or sex with animals, etc.

Just as the Bible forbids theft, whether this be stealing biscuits from a supermarket, paper clips from your employer, or money that your friend, client, taxpayer, investor, etc has entrusted to you, it is theft.

Of course a "gay agenda" scares me. It scares me stiff.

Recently a gay couple went to a B&B in Cornwall run by a devout Christian couple. They state clearly on their website that only married couples are allowed to use the room with the double bed. The gay couple arrived and when the B&B owners realized that this was not the "married couple" they expected, offered them separate rooms.

The gay couple sued for discrimination. In court the gay couple won because the judge deemed that the right of the couple to protection from discrimination was stronger than the B&B couple's right to religious faith and conscience.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8288916/Inside-a-most-un-PC-BandB.html

There are lots of B&Bs who would have gladly let this couple share a bed. Why they deliberately chose a B&B which clearly states that it is run by a Christian couple on Christian principles, I will never understand.

If I am a meat eater I won't choose a "vegan B&B" and then complain they refused to serve me meat. Why did this gay couple go and "kachow" this Christian couple? I don't go to a gay bar and complain I can't find a straight guy there.

I don't wish Singapore to come to that where churches are forced by law to hire out rooms to Satanists or face the full wrath of discrimination legislation.

However, as a Christian, I won't have a problem voting for VW.

Let me rephrase that: In a truly democratic system I have no problems with voting for VW even if he is gay if I know that he would represent my voice better than the alternative candidate.

Simple. In a truly democratic system I can -- Singaporeans please note -- vote him out at the next election!

Elected MPs are not, if I may borrow a slogan from the Dog Trust*, "a dog"; they are not for life. (*A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.)

Let's say I, as a Christian, am a bit uncomfortable about a candidate's sexual orientation (that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on his/her abilities as an MP) gives this person a chance. He gets into parliament. He speaks on my behalf. I am happy. I vote him back.

Then he begins to push for the "gay agenda". I am not happy with that. I write to him, "Please stop," I say.

He says, "Cannot. I cannot act against my conscience. The rights of gay people are very important to me."

Then I can vote him out. I can gather as many people as possible who would vote him out. I might have to start my own "Christian Democratic Party" to succeed, but that is the whole point of a democratic system.

Wish-list: Candidates must stop saying to opposition candidates "What is your track record?" This is a non-argument.

How can a candidate who has not yet been in parliament talk about a "track record"?

It is like my own experience of being "over-qualified and under-experienced". Impressive CV when it comes to education, internship, practical experience, etc. But no track record of being in a paid job.

Who would employ such a person?

You see, unless you are a government scholar, bonded to serve the government, most of us in the real world would have, at some time or other, experienced the pain of not being offered a job because "we have no track record".

Until an enlightened employer comes along to say, "I see the potential in you," and makes you an offer.

Remember, "no track record!" is a non-argument. Voters must think as prospective employers. After all, MPs are indeed the employees/servants of the electorate.

Incidentally I read in the Bible (Matthew 20:25-28) yesterday Jesus teaching his disciples:

25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

MPs' salary: Is Confucius out of fashion today?

2011-04-27T22:23:00.000+01:00

In my last visit to Singapore I (or rather my sister) managed to retrieve an old plastic folder of my newspaper clippings. I used to write letters to the local press (nothing's changed) as well as occasional "Analysis" pieces for the Sunday Times.

In my folder I found a clipping from 7th April 1985, a letter entitled: If we took the Master at his word. Back then we were admonished by a senior statesman to follow a "Confucian ethic".

I attach the text of this letter in full below:

===========

It was interesting to have a People's Action Party Member of Parliament quote Confucius in support of Confucius policies.

For if we are going to take Master Kung at his word, life in Singapore would be very different.

For example, the Sage teaches that there should be no distinction of classes in education. If we accept that, streaming must go.

Leonard Hsu, in The Political Philosophy of Confucianism, writes: "Equity, in Confucius philosophy, condemns favouritism, partisanship, and selfishness in administration."

"The government should help the insufficient and deplete the abundant in order to maintain the level of balance. The poorest people in the state should be respected, and the noblest people should not be flattered."

On the question of salaries and due recognition, the Analects, one of the Four Books of Confucian teachings, records the following: "The Master does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition."

"The Master said (the good man) does not grieve that other people do not recognise his merits. His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognise others."

"Concerning the head of state or family, I have heard that rulers should not be concerned that they have not enough possessions and territories, but should be concerned that possessions are not equally distributed; they should not be concerned that they are poor, but should be concerned that the people are not content."

On the question of ministerial salaries, let us be reminded by the Chung Yung (usually translated as The Doctrine of the Mean), another of the Four Books, "it is possible for a poor officer to give up voluntarily his position and emolument."

If the poor officer can give up his meagre salary, what more he who has 30 times that to spare?

If only we could follow Confucius to the letter, there wouldn't have been those long Parliament reports and Saturday night movies* need not be shown on Sunday mornings.

=================

*This reference is to the TV schedule being distrupted by extended parliament sittings.

Clearly, Confucius and his myriad teachings: being gracious (being the junzi), the emperor being given the "Heavenly Mandate" to rule, and the setting right of the five relationships, etc. these have fallen out of fashion.

I was struck by how relevant this letter is despite it being 26 years old! Does that make me a woman of vision? Or simply old-fashioned.

Here in the UK we have a debate "in reverse". The British PM earns £145,500. But many CEOs and senior civil servants in the local council, BBC, and QUANGOs earn much more than that. See link.

Basically these people, unlike CEOs in the private sector, do not have to worry about income or making a profit, but are paid an incredible amount of money to spend it! Taxpayers have no choice but to pay the local tax and TV license fee, but the people earning these inflated incomes are not accountable to the taxpayer.

I personally feel that CEOs of local councils have no moral right to earn such amounts. They will be totally unemployable outside the civil service. What they have is a thick address book, a good network, and they do the "merry-go-round" moving from one council to another, getting a higher and higher pay each time, thereby pushing upwards the average salary. Ludicrous.

OK, I have to concede that we cannot expect these self-serving individuals to have any Confucianist principles. What to do?

Interestingly, I spotted another letter in my folder, dated 21st July 1985. It expresses my surprise and discomfort at the closure of the Singapore Monitor.

It was particularly bizarre for me as a senior staff member of the Sunday Monitor had just rung, a few weeks before, to try to get me to write for them instead of the Sunday Times.

We learned that the paper was facing a financial blackhole to the tune of $20million, or some staggering figure like that (if I remember correctly). My letter expresses how the closure was so sudden that allegedly even the editors were kept in the dark. The staff also did not have a chance to up their productivity or stage a management buyout, etc.

Guess who was at the helm (the CEO, no less) of this newspaper?

I give you a clue. His initials are MBT.

Singapore GE 2011: A view from overseas

2011-04-26T22:25:00.000+01:00

The excitement over the forthcoming General Election in Singapore is palpable, even where I am, miles away from home.

It reminded me of the elections between 1981 and 1984, when I was often worried over whether an increase in bus fares would mean I could not afford to eat, given my meagre income giving private tuition as an undergraduate.

I don't remember much of elections since then, and in particular in 2006.

2006 was when (1) my son had the most difficult time at school before his special education needs were identified, (2) my husband was very ill, and (3) my business was in its infancy.

It has been said of British politics prior to 1997 when the Labour Party came into power, that it was not that the electorate wanted Conservative rule, but that there was no "credible opposition".

I remember how every time the then PM John Major came on radio I switched it off. His "back to basics" rhetoric was torn to shreds as minister after minister, politician after policitican was exposed as a hypocrite.

The Labour Party remained in power while the Conservative party was in disarray, going through several leaders in the course. Likewise I was so affronted by the lies and spin of the Labour government that every time Blair or Brown came on radio I switched off. Enough! I cried to myself. Enough of those lies.

Again Labour remained in power only because the Conservative Party did not constitute a "credible opposition" until last year where though they won more votes in total, the constituency boundaries were drawn in such a way that they could not form the government.

Of course in the lead-up to our last UK election we had the "expenses scandal". In Singapore ( where there is no corruption, remember?) I understand that the ministers have awarded themselves a 30% pay rise. This, you must agree, is a first-class way of preventing corruption.

We have been introduced to opposition candidates whom many now feel make up a "credible opposition" come May the 7th.

Interestingly, many of these candidates are men and women of a certain age. They are, to a great extent, self-employed. Professionally they have proven themselves.

I wonder if they have only now come forward because they have observed that to do so earlier would lead to professional suicide.

They have seen how the likes of JB Jeyaretnam have had to suffer the pain and ignominy of being imprisoned and bankrupted. Have they bided their time in anticipation of an uphill struggle ahead?

For years the ruling party have resorted to mudslinging come election time. "Ad hominem" (character assassination) arguments do not work any more. The Singaporean electorate have grown up and have become quite fed up with this. Singaporeans want a clean fight.

It amuses me that whilst the ruling party champions the virtue of foreign talent and Singaporeans working abroad, when faced with a "returnee" billed as a "star catch" by a opposition party, they question his credentials.

Singaporeans who, for whatever reason, have been living abroad can only be good for local politics. Singaporeans exposed to other parliaments, whether "First World", "Third World" or none at all, can offer a fresh and useful perspective.

Eg I would express caution when it comes to a debate on minimum wage and a comprehensive welfare state because I know this is not working. Here in the UK I am paying the heavy price of a welfare state that has lost its moral bearings.

In a 'previous life' I had to introduce Mr MBT to interactive educational software via touch-screen technology. The preparation for his visit required rehearsals because "we must not let the minister wait for the lift". So colleagues were detailed to ensure that the lift doors would be open when Mr MBT stepped out of his ministerial car.

That is not how the majority of us Singaporeans live.

How many of us have found it impossible, come lunch hour, to get into a lift to take us to the ground floor? How many of us have resorted to taking the "up" lift to a higher floor in order to take us down so that we could brave the hot sun walking to the nearest hawker centre?

So, when was the last time people like Mr MBT had to wait for a lift?

When was the last time politicians had a door slammed in their faces by another ungracious Singaporean?

When was the last time they sat down at a hawker centre or food court and experience the ugly practice amongst Singaporeans of reserving seats with tissue paper while people eating on their own cannot find a place to set down their tray of hot food?

Part of me feels sorry for these politicians because, of course, when you become famous, or become a minister, this freedom to live an ordinary life is not always possible.

When politicians and ministers come to a point where they cannot move around freely, let the current candidates take note, they must surround themselves with trusted friends who can do this and report accurately, make use of every feedback channel to listen, and then act accordingly with a clear conscience.

Any way, here are my other thoughts, for what they are worth:

"Parliament" is pronounced "paR-le-ment", not "pa-lee-men". OK, Nicole, take note!

I was very impressed by the woman PAP candidate who comes from a Mandarin-speaking background (her parents are Nantah graduates). Is it because she learned English properly, ie. as a second language, or by immersion in America (or wherever it was her parents were based)?

Please sounD youR enD consonaNTS. If your poiNT is importaNT, say iT. It heLPS to sloW down.

Y-O-U-T-H is "youth", not "yoof".

P-A-R-T-Y is "paR-ty" not "pah-ty".

We "take" someone (eg children) TO somewhere there (eg Legoland). We "bring" something FROM somewhere else to here.

I was quite tickled by how the likes of Tan Jee Say, who speak very good English, would switch to Singlish complete with the accent.

And please stop nodding your head incessantly at the end of answering a question and saying "ya". It reminds me of those nodding dogs some people put in the back of their cars!

Wrt to opposition switching parties I have this to say: people switch parties when they feel that they cannot, with a clear conscience, go along with what that party stands for. This is to be taken as an expression of one's integrity and honesty, not a negative point.

Unless of course that candidate is "shopping around" for a party that would reward him/her with privileges not obtainable elsewhere (eg a ministerial post). It's a bit like athletes shopping for a country they could represent because they are not really top-class in their own countries.

When I first came to the UK I was still very hung up on personalities when it came to elections. That was the Singaporean upbringing in me.

Now I understand that in a First World parliament, party manifestos are important. When it comes to a vote, MPs vote along party lines except when a "free vote" is allowed on matters of conscience.

I am tempted to fly back to cast my vote, but alas! it appears that it is another walkover in my Gee-Arer-See.

Mudslinging makes potatoes grow

2011-04-24T22:26:00.000+01:00

The potatoes in my garden are going berserk. Every time I see new leaves I cover them with compost (as per instructions).

If I put compost on it last thing at night, new growth appears the following morning. If I cover it with compost in the morning, the leaves break through again by the end of the day.

New leaves appear despite the compost. Or is it because of the compost?

I’ve been baking my own bread. In the temperate clime here it takes a long time for bread dough to prove (rise). But when it has risen to the right size, it takes but a few minutes to bake, and then soon we can tuck into delicious warm bread.

When it’s the season for potatoes to grow, nothing would stop it once it finds moist, fertile ground.

Fed with alternative views via the internet and watered by rising dissatisfaction, the political ground in Singapore is fertile for opposition growth.

The ruling party might dig up the dirt and heap it on the opposition. But mudslinging and dirt (as compost is but organic material that has rotted down) only promote even greater growth.

I don’t have to remind you that potatoes grow underground.

As the opposition has been biding its time, proving (pun intended) itself to be worthy (or not, as the case might be), so too like bread, it would not take too long for it to be ready to form a government, or at least that alternative voice.

Wishing you, my beloved Singapore, the wonderful aroma that promises the delight of freshly baked bread. Soon.

PS: Is it not ironic that in these 20 years I have been able to participate in all local, mayoral and general elections as well as the forthcoming referendum on AV (Alternative Vote for Proportional Represenation) in the UK but cannot take part in an election in my native Singapore?

Big Society, Small Mind (copy)

2011-04-01T07:44:00.000+01:00

[Copied this from another of my blogs]

It's been a long while since I last posted. Together with all the usual busy-ness of life during this time of year I had been doing my weekly stint at a local charity which gives advice on all areas of life. (This means I have less time to run my business, but never mind.)

Of course we are not know-it-alls. We merely have the resources to point people in the right direction. Some folk who come in need more help than others. For these we spend more time with them and help with writing letters, making phone calls, etc.

My role in this charity is to assess within as short a time as possible how we might (or not) help the "client".

We get all sorts. People asking about neighbour disputes over boundary fences, pensions and how these affect their current benefits, whether they are genuinely required to pay underpaid taxes because HMRC completely fouled up, domestic violence, how to apply for benefits for 19-year-olds, etc.

We get the few odd-balls, for want of a better word. People who want to just have a talk, eg I've applied for x number of jobs in the last y number of weeks, and not a single reply. Can you tell me whether the job market is really that bad?

One man who finally decided to divorce his wife was so glad for some guidance we gave he put quite a substantial donation into our collection box. He needed reassurance, some advice regarding a legal matter, and you could see the relief on his face when we helped him to separate the two issues.

But two weeks ago I very nearly quit. For the second week running I had a 'run' of clients wanting to know where they stand with regards to their benefits application, etc. We are a charity. We have nothing to do with the various government departments that push one bit of paper to another, and then on to another department, only for it to be lost in the post, etc.

But they come, constantly, "Please, I have no money to live on this week, what has happened to my application?"

I don't know.

You also have those who tell you, "I'm entitled to this [benefit] and that [benefit]. I went to the office, and they tell me I'm OK, but I get the letter that tells me I get nothing. What is happening?"

I don't know.

Some get really rude when after we had given them the advice and clear directions as to what to do. "But why are you not helping me? Previously when I came here always someone helped me. Make a phone call and you get the answer."

Me: "Here's the number given to you. Call and find out what the situation is."

Client: "No. They won't give me an answer. You people have to give them a call, and then they give you an answer."

Me: "Are you saying that the people at the council are not giving you the answers? Are you saying that they would only give an answer if someone from here speaks to them?

Client: "Yes. Always I call and they don't help me. You people call them, they would give you an answer."

That really made my blood boil.

First, I didn't like being referred to as "you people". "Look!" I said, "I am only a volunteer. I don't get paid for trying to help you. My role here is not to make phone calls for you."

Second, I was furious that local council employees who are supposed to be public servants, paid by my tax money, seem not to be doing their job. Why are they not giving this man the answers he deserves?

So on the one hand I pay these servants, and on another I pay this man (his benefits via my tax), but the lazy public servant has caused this man to come to me to say, "You people are not helping me."

Why should I be taxed to the hilt and be insulted by this client whose benefits come out of my taxes?

The following week I had a woman who claims to be single, with three children, with a query about her housing and impending eviction. Of course the taxpayer is already paying her housing benefits, council tax credit, child benefits, child tax credits, etc.

She asked me whether I knew anything about "banding" in the homelessness jargon. "No," I said, and she rolled her eyes in disgust.

I wanted to say, "Sweetheart I've not received a single penny of benefit from this country. How do you expect me to know? I have not even received Child Benefit because it was too complicated for me as a foreigner to claim, so it has been given to my husband.

"Incidentally I am contributing towards your benefits, so don't sound so high-and-mighty." (I learned later from the case notes that actually, she had not been telling us the whole truth! And yes, I would still like to find out how in a community that considers it acceptable to stone a woman caught in adultery she could have three children when claiming not to be in a relationship.)

When I got home after this session I had to bake bread. I needed to punch out my anger and frustration. How dare these people talk to me like I am their servant when their livelihood depends on people like me who fund their benefits?

Here I am trying to do my Big Society and all I meet are small minds like these.

Thankfully the last session (yesterday) was so different. I met some really nice people who were grateful for the help, advice and information we were able to provide.

I am, however, continuing to make my own bread. My baking skill has risen a lot in my boys' estimation as my bread proved to be a great success!

Revolutions, some random/rambling thoughts

2011-02-27T22:29:00.000Z

First Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya is at the brink as I write. People power.

Gaddaffi sees himself as a revolutionary leader, not a president, and so cannot resign, as the people demanded.

Revolutionary leaders ought to be respected for their vision, for their fortitude and for their ability to bring about revolution and surviving. When we look at the east Asian countries, not excluding Singapore, we see historians having rather nice things to say of leaders who took us out of colonial rule, hailing these as "fathers" of the nation.

Problem is such leaders, after being comfortably in unopposed power (dictatorship?) for years often forget that whilst the nation might owe them a lot, the nation does not owe them EVERYTHING.

The rot sets in when such leaders begin to see and appropriate their nation's wealth as their own. They start enriching themselves, and their families, blurring the line between what belongs to the nation and what belongs to the individual. Worse, they bring in laws to institutionalize such blatant corruption.

The people will acquiesce, usually for as long as they are happy and reasonably well-fed plus a little bit of room to give them a sense or myth of well-being.

But then the day comes when "enough is enough" and the revolt begins.

So the likes of Gaddaffi have better take note.

My sister is sixty! Or what is poverty?

2010-11-07T22:35:00.000Z

I find it hard to believe that. My eldest sister. Sixty.

And she spent four hours working at McDonald's today, because the manager there could see that her work ethos was so different from that of Generation Y (or X or Z?). But she had a run-in with a much younger staff member who did not realize that she was a champion french fries fryer whose "just-in-time" technique was exemplary.

Sister has a full-time job in accounts. She 'retired' and started doing some hours at M's, but was soon offered a job elsewhere. M's called her up, asking her to work Sundays.

Actually Big Sister is very good at audit/accounts but never quite bothered to get her accountancy qualifications. I remember her talking for hours on the phone trying to explain to her best friend the difference between debits and credits, assets and liabilities.

I look back at my young life with great sentimentality today because the talk in the UK this week was -- still -- on cutting public spending. Today Iain Duncan Smith tells us that those on long-term benefits will be forced to do unpaid work in the community.

As you can imagine, uproar from the red corner: that's slave labour, exploitation, unfair.

From the blue corner (or whatever colour corner you choose to call it): about time, too, why should people be giving something for nothing?, three generations of workless households? they need help in being introduced to work, etc.

Incidentally magistrates often sentence minor criminals to unpaid "community work". This week we read of one such "Lazy thug chooses prison over community work 'because he doesn't like getting out of bed'".

Earlier this week BBC journalists went on strike. I personally found it very refreshing. None of that 24-hour dribble (drivel?) speculating as to who was going to say what at which platform. They were protesting against a 25% cut in pensions. 25% of what? 25% of a very large sum would still leave you with 75% of a lot. The BBC licence fee is something we have to pay, or face jail (if I'm not wrong, but of course the prisons are too full now for that).
They quibble over the big bosses having huge pay packets. That, as far as I am concerned, is quite a different issue from their pension cut. Everyone is facing a cut, so why should BBC journalists be different?

My eldest sister's birthday was significant because she was the first person who finished her education at sixteen, went to work in a factory to help support our family, and then learned her trade in audit/accounts in the evenings.

My family was materially poor. There were six of us children and we lived in a one bedroom flat in Tiong Bahru. The flat was kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a large sitting room. So most of us slept on the floor in the sitting room.

We had one bed -- my parent's. Come evening, the mats -- we didn't even have mattresses then -- were rolled out and we slept on the floor.

We had no wardrobes, except the one dressing table/wardrobe that was part of my mum's dowry. Our clothes were kept in wooden boxes that used to hold vegetables/other goods. Mum collected these boxes from the market and cleaned them out. These were stacked, double decker, under my parents' bed. We each had a different box. Under the bed, too, was a metal trunk, again from mum's wedding, where she kept some very beautiful dresses that belonged to my cousins. Every so often she would open this trunk to take out new (old) dresses when I outgrew the ones I was wearing.

Come Chinese New Year mum would take a pink dress out of a cardboard box, a very pretty lacey dress, from the wardrobe. How I loved that dress! It was very long when I first wore it. A few Chinese New Years later it got rather short.

Then my parents could not afford the rent and we had to move into Queenstown. Two bedrooms, but a much smaller flat.

We still only had one table. It was our dining table. In the evening the food was cleared away and we sat around it to do homework.

Someone gave us a second smaller bed. Two sisters shared this bed. The rest of us slept on the floor, in the bedroom, in the sitting room, anywhere we found space. Later we could afford mattresses. Then an old bunk bed was donated to us, complete with mattresses. Wow!

Someone else gave us an old wardrobe/cupboard. The sisters now each had one shelf. Such luxury!

When I read of "overcrowding" in this country, I chuckle.

Second sister went into nursing a year or so after she finished school (at 16). Third sister worked and studied in the evenings for five years to qualify as a quantity surveyor.

With the financial burden eased somewhat, Big Brother was able to finish his A Levels, finished his National Service and went into university to study engineering. Second Brother joined the navy and through a circuitous route is also an engineer now.
Yet when we were growing up we did not think of ourselves as poor. We were happy. We had food. We were always clean and tidy.

We might not have TV, but we had newspapers, in two languages. We had Rediffusion and radio, through which I learned my English. Mum collected discarded textbooks and I would read those. An uncle bought us a subscription of Readers Digest which we read avidly.

Ours is a reading family and we read everything we could put our hands on.

We were materially impoverished by today's standards in the UK, but boy! were we rich in our ambition and desire to succeed.

We did not have a choice. When you see your parents working their fingers to the bone to pay for school fees, to buy books at the beginning of the year, to keep us in school uniforms, etc. because nothing came free, you just want to do something about your life. Yet when I look around me now I see young children considered "poor", with their satellite TV, annual holidays, expensive shoes, and parents not in work, I have to question: what has gone wrong?

My young son stared in disbelief when I recounted how when at university there were days when I literally had no money for the next meal -- only to find my grandmother visiting and giving me some cash "to buy something nice for yourself". Or it happened to be my birthday and aunties gave me small sums of money, as aunties do.

Was I poor? Perhaps. I remember mum telling me I must aim to get to university.

I said, "But we may not be able to afford university."

She said, "Don't worry. If you are good enough, we will find ways to pay for it. There's such a thing called 'scholarships'."

In the end my big brother, a young graduate himself, paid my fees. I worked throughout university to support myself. And yes, I graduated with a (Rotary Club) loan to repay, etc. I had to repay this even when I was jobless, having graduated in the midst of the first major recession my generation has ever seen. (I worked at two part-time jobs until I was awarded a graduate scholarship.)

What this nation needs is not money -- taxpayers' money, ie my money -- poured into a system to "eradicate" material poverty because some will always be poor when compared to others; "the poor you will always have with you", Jesus said.

What this nation needs is blue-sky thinking that will lift the millions mired in their so-called "benefits trap" out of their poverty of ambition. And a very happy birthday to my sister for her contribution to our family since she was 16, making it possible for the younger siblings to move on to higher education. Wishing you God's every blessing!

Linguistic Hegemony: Cockles and Muscles

2010-10-02T22:39:00.000+01:00

(A shorter, less controversial version of this was published in the Straits Times online section on 11th October. I had assumed that the Editor was not going to run it. Apologies for the overlaps.)

The English-Singlish debate has thrown up a vociferous group defending the use of Singlish, largely because they see Singlish as being tied up with a Singapore identity. (I tried to explain how being a good Singaporean should not preclude us from learning to speak good English in a letter to the press.)

This group seems to be made up of people who are able to speak (or at least write) excellent English when they choose to.

There is a deafening silence, at least in the English cyber-media (and understandably so), from the Singlish-speaking group who could most benefit from learning to speak good English.

If I were a Marxian sociologist (not the same as being a Marxist, nota bene) I would say that this ‘good English’ group own the “means of production” and the ‘Singlish’ group do not.

In original Marxist philosophy the bourgeoisie own the “means of production” – land, tools and other resources – unavailable to the proletariat who merely provide the labour.

In Singapore today we can equate “means of production” to access to, or monopoly of, a good standard of English, and with it, ideas, knowledge, jobs, money and therefore, power.

By championing Singlish the ‘linguistic bourgeoisie’ are ensuring that the ‘linguistic proletariat’ continue to be ignorant of how they and their children are being deprived of these “means of production”.

I have spent enough time working on the factory floor to know that parents in this ‘linguistic proletariat’ are unlikely to march up to the school principal to flex their collective muscle and demand that their children are taught English grammar so that they could speak and write proper English.

It is therefore a form of hegemony when the ‘linguistic bourgeoisie’ act to ensure that the social mobility of the ‘linguistic proletariat’ is, henceforth, effectively curtailed.

Outside of economic gain there is another issue related to the grasp of ample language skills: we need good language skills to think through complex ideas.

The tools of language, like the keys on a piano, are all there. Just as good music would evoke a response, a good leader could put words together in such a way that listeners could go, “Wow! I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Good use of language could stir listeners to action. Think of famous speeches like "I have a dream" and "We shall fight [them] on the beaches", etc.

In his recent National Day Rally speech did the Singapore PM choose to inspire?

Instead he chose to dwell on bread-and-butter issues, using anecdotes and case studies to engage, explain and communicate.

Perhaps he had discerned that his audience were unlikely to have the vital language skills to be inspired by clever rhetoric. He has learned that they much prefer to talk cockles and chilli*.

Years of languishing in a linguistic torpor have guaranteed that enough people remain merely useful and utterly apathetic. So apathetic that there is no real fear of uprising.

But alas! these same people cannot be stirred to action either.

Think about it. (And if you do, I am almost certain you won’t be thinking in Singlish.)

*In a 2006 speech the PM used the phrase "mee siam mai hum" which translates into "a spicy local noodle dish without cockles" to illustrate a point. It was then noted that "mee siam" is never served with "hum" (cockles). So did he mean "mee siam mai hiam" where "hiam" refers to "chilli"? What's the point of ordering a spicy noodle dish without the spice? Whatever the defence for this mistake was given, the suspicion remained that this PM has not eaten at hawker centres as most Singaporeans do, suggesting that he was (is?) completely out of touch with the electorate.

Don't mix Singlish with identity

2010-09-19T22:42:00.001+01:00

Recently I sent this letter to the Straits Times:

To be or to be – what is the question hah?
“Should Singaporeans speak a standard English or Singlish?” is the wrong question.

We need to “go stun” (back up a little) to ask whether Singaporeans need, or wish, to speak and write a language – any language – fluently enough to hold a sustained, logical and sometimes protracted discussion. Then only do we know how/which to choose.

Many have observed that code-switching within a sentence (English, Mandarin, Singlish) is a common phenomenon in Singapore.

My Sociology professor reasoned, “But you can’t translate the concept ‘pek-chek’, can you?” No, I can’t. I cannot even spell it.

This difficulty in writing down the language is an intrinsic part of the problem.

We borrow words like “anomie” and “Weltanschauung” in Sociology because there are no accurate English equivalents. Similarly, when discussing localisms the use of a Singlish term may be appropriate.

However a lot of conversations I overheard seem to suggest that speakers simply do not have the vocabulary to complete a sentence in the language with which they started.

A superficial grasp of any language means we can only cope with the most superficial of thought processes. So:

(1) Do we want (our children) to learn a language that would give them access to the rich cultural heritage that that language has to offer?

(2) Do we wish to speak a language sufficiently well to discuss more profound issues relating to scientific theory, theology and philosophy, for example?

Singlish, like Cantonese, is difficult to write down. Would it ever evolve to such a level to give us the equivalent of a Shakespeare, Voltaire or Li Bai?

Admittedly most of us read foreign literature in (a good) English translation. What are the chances that Hegel, for example, would be translated into Singlish in my lifetime?

Of course, Singlish has its place amongst our family and friends. It made me feel “at home” even with my Tiong Bahru Primary School classmates after a staggering 37 years.

However because Singapore is that little red dot that trades (in goods and knowledge) with the rest of the world, we have to choose to learn a language that is able to serve this purpose.

For as long as we conflate the issues of speaking a language well (be it English, Mandarin, French) with that of our national identity (that there is nothing wrong with Singaporeans speaking Singlish) we will never arrive at the logical conclusion to either of these.

================
What was published was this rather bland version:

Sep 18, 2010
Don't mix Singlish with identity

THE question of whether Singaporeans speak standard English or Singlish is the wrong one ('Getting it right - from the start'; Sept 1).

We need to back up a little to ask whether Singaporeans need, or wish, to speak and write a language - any language - fluently enough to hold a sustained, logical and sometimes protracted discussion.

Only then would we know how or what to choose.

Code-switching within a sentence (English, Mandarin, Singlish) is common. We borrow non-English words like 'anomie' and 'Weltanschauung' in sociology because there are no accurate English equivalents.

Similarly, when discussing a local custom or peculiarity, a Singlish term may be more appropriate.

But the truth is, many speakers simply do not have the vocabulary to complete a sentence in the language with which they started.

A superficial grasp of any language means we can cope with only the most superficial of thought processes.

So, do we want children to learn a language that will give them access to the rich cultural heritage that it has to offer?

And do we wish to speak a language sufficiently well to discuss more profound issues relating to, for example, scientific theory, theology and philosophy?

Singlish, like Cantonese, is difficult to write down.

Would it ever evolve to a level that would give us the equivalent of a Shakespeare, Voltaire or Li Bai?

Of course, Singlish has its place among family and friends.

It made me feel at home with my Tiong Bahru Primary School classmates after a separation of some 37 years.

However, because Singapore is that little red dot that trades (in goods and knowledge) with the rest of the world, we must choose to learn a language that is able to serve this purpose.

For as long as we conflate the issues of speaking a language well (be it English, Mandarin or French) with that of our national identity (that there is nothing wrong with Singaporeans speaking Singlish) we will never arrive at the logical conclusion to either of these.