The Liberal George Yeo

I've been away for some time. Was sucked into the US Democratic Primary campaign, and checking out all the candidate blogsites constantly, being the political junkie that I am.

I'm back now, with some interesting news to tell.
Tomorrow's blog entry will be called
Bangladeshi PhD thesis outsourced to Singaporean BA grad

Today though, I'll be aiming some potshots at our favourite "Philosopher-King" of the PAP, the greatest long-winded, tendentious and facetious bore and intellectual whore of all-time, BG George Yeo.

Most of you will be too young to remember that during the 1980s, Yeo was the person who pronounced, in Parliament, that media control and information control was important to Singapore, because foreign ideas can be good and yet very dangerous, so "we cannot let the flies in". Few years later, of course, we pretend that he's one of the more "liberal" and philosophical ministers, only because of his long-winded speechmaking...

Here's his latest nonsense.

Trade and Industry Minister urges Singaporeans to venture abroad is what the headlines had it, half a month ago. It all sounds very mature, wise, liberal, and open-minded, yes?

"Individual Singaporeans themselves to take the plunge and their chances [overseas]...

"Our minds must be much larger than our geographical confines"

"If we are too home-bound in our thinking, we will fail."

So why am I slamming and sliming this decent maverick?

General Yeo said: "Indeed, we should try to alter our social climate here so that those who do well overseas are admired, while those who prefer to stay home all the time are suspect.

Here's my beef: What are the list of countries that have a social climate that admires people who go overseas, and suspects people who prefer to stay at home? Answer: These countries are the major labour-exporting nations in Asia - The Philippines, Bangladesh, India, some southern provinces of China. You see their major exports every day in Singapore, working on construction sites.

Mind you, I'm speaking here as a researcher who's editing someone's doctoral thesis on international labour...

Most researchers on labour migration point out that very few of these migrant workers break even, and recoup their intial investments and costs of air travel to the host country. Yet, even if these workers finish their contracts with a big deficit, they'll still apply to work overseas again after a short rest home.

Why? Because in their countries, there IS a social climate that admires people who work overseas, and suspects people who stay at home - the very same social climate that Philosopher-King George Yeo wants to see in Singapore. The very same social climate that some researchers call migration mania, an irrational belief that the overseas is a source of riches and prosperity while the home is a source of stagnation...

It's irrational on 2 counts:
1. Most of the temporary migrants end up poorer
2. Most families WILL willingly go into debt to fund at least one member to work overseas.

So, why are the leaders in these labour-exporting countries not unhappy? Because the migrant workers will send back remittance money to the home country every month. Because, even if the poor worker is suffering overseas, he'll dutifully send back money, a small percentage of which gets taxed by the government before it lands back in the home village.

Why is it really so irrational? Because:

3. In reality, cost-benefit analysis by economists studying this phenomenon show that the migrant workers will actually have made MORE money (or at least made some profit) if they had settled for construction jobs in their own countries, instead of going overseas (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Middle East) for the same construction jobs...

Why don't they do that? Because in their countries, there IS a social climate that admires people who work overseas, and suspects people who stay at home.

4. Just look at the history of Singapore. Why is Singapore majority-Chinese? Because during the founding years, hundreds of thousands of "temporary migrant workers" from Southern China flocked to Singapore, where they found that after so many years of work and sending remittance money back to their families in China, they couldn't afford to go home.

People who CANNOT afford to work overseas should not be forced to go overseas. Why doesn't George Yeo argue for improving and reforming Singapore, for making it a place where we can proudly live and work again?

The economies of the major labour-exporting countries (Philippines, rural southern China, Bangladesh, some parts of India) have not made ANY improvement despite decades of migrant workers - unskilled or otherwise. If we listen to George Yeo today, Singapore will end up looking like these countries in a few years...

People who think Singapore has gone back to the bad old days of the 1980s recessions are wrong. We are going all the way back to the bad old days of the 1880s, with policy-makers and philosophers like George Yeo running around, shooting their mouth off, masquerading as liberals and mavericks, and offering what appears to be sensible advice.

Today, we talk about the bird flu

It was here that I out-predicted China's admission of bird flu, but anyone could've seen that coming. Today, I put forward the case for Singapore.

No, this isn't out of spite for the Most Expensive Newspaper in Singapore, which boasts that "Singapore is prepared for the bird flu". Emergency plans have been drawn for an effective mass culling of chickens (See related: "Snap General Elections"), and switching from imports of Malaysian chickens to frozen Brazillian poultry.

Interesting plans, but hardly "preparing Singapore for bird flu", and hardly combating the real problem of bird flu. The H5N1 virus is uncontrollable. In the months since April, the virus has had time to spread from poultry to pigs in China. My prediction: a further, belated revelation in the weeks to come that this piece of speculation from scientists will be confirmed.

Consider: the natural reservoir of the virus resides in wild migratory birds travelling North-South between Russia, China and Indonesia, Australia/NZ. As silent carriers, most of the natural hosts will not exhibit any signs of flu. Even if the poultry farms are all culled, in April the migratory birds will fly back North, reseeding the virus.

What does Singapore have to do with this? A fair number of these wild birds use Singapore as a nesting ground during the October - April season. The birds are here among us, on our mangrove swamps, as guests in the Jurong Birdpark and various Gardens, on the golf courses, on the lush green grounds on the NUS and NTU campuses =D

Yet, for all the evidence of where the virus resides, we do not hear any news of researchers in Singapore taking stool and blood samples from these "visitors", or taking pre-emptive action by culling all birds here. Part of me is outraged at the double standards from the ENV, which crazily started killing stray cats at the peak of the SARS panic, despite the fact that "Civet Cats" (the culprits in China) are a breed of mongoose, and look more like rodents and racoons than felines.

Now, in an ideal world, the best way for Singapore to prepare itself against bird flu is to eliminate the natural reservoir of the virus, aka kill the birds:

1. Make use of our RSAF white elephants for once, and fire all missiles at any wild migratory bird daring to enter our airspace. Take care not to aim anything at Johore.

2. Forget about not aiming at Johore. Shoot Johore for harbouring the terrorist avians and brand it a rouge state.

3. Get the ENV in action. Not just the teams of sharpshooters who practise their skills on crows. Let's push the war further, confiscate all the coffeeshop ah-peks' birdcages and shoot those birds, just to play safe.

4. Remember the silly RC-approved messages on the notice boards in HDB flats? "Do not feed pigeons. They spread bird flu" is how they can help spin the message in a convincing way.

5. Get the Senior Minister on TV. He will threaten to break bird heads, it'll send out a really clear message.

6. Shooting birds to be included in Rifle Range tests for all NSmen.

7. Mah Bow Tan to head the new initiative for Singapore to win gold medals at the Olympics for air rifle and trap shooting events. Clubs all over Singapore to be set up, and practise on real life birds.

8. Mini-Lee revealed by The Straits Times as an excellent shooter during his student days, to inspire people's trust in his leadership and "human-ness". He will be nominated to be the honorary head of the shooting clubs that Mah will set up.

9. KFC is taken over by Long John Silvers.

10. NUS scientists and the Life Sciences industry collaborate to genetically engineer birds that glow in the dark when infected by H5N1.

Domino Effect

An artifact of 1960s anti-communist hysteria, Amercian neoconservatives devise the theory that should any single country in Asia fall to communism, all countries in the continent will subsequently fall as well, like a stack of dominoes... hence, justifying their interventions in Indonesia (supporting 'regime change' and replacing Sukarno) as well as the Vietnam War (assasinating the democratically-elected South Vietnam president, replacing him with a series of authoritarian, war-happy generals, and going to war with North Vietnam).

Let me invent the New Domino Effect theory for my readers:

Should any single country in Asia fall sick from flu, all countries in the continent will subsequently fall as well, like a stack of dominoes...

Like last year's SARS, this year's H5N1 avian flu proves to be an epidemic fit for the globalised economy. And like last year, several governments have been caught with their pants down this year. Cases in point: Thailand and Indonesia, which have had cases of avian flu for the past few months and covered it up until very recently.

Now, here's a map of Asia for us to consider. Let's take a look at the 7 countries that have bird flu, in order of declaration: South Korea (7 Nov), Vietnam (9 Nov. First human deaths on 11 Nov), Japan (13 Jan), Laos (21 Jan), Thailand (23 Jan. First human death, 26 Jan), Cambodia (23 Jan), Indonesia (25 Jan).

Notice anything weird? Big gaping hole in the almost contiguous land-area: China. Are we to believe that the Middle Kingdom is safe from the current outbreak, when it is conspicuously surrounded by 2 countries to the East, and 5 more to the South with the flu?

The scientific facts of the case are stacked against China's denial - H5N1 is known to be spread across borders by migratory birds, whose droppings fortuitously land near chicken farms and hence infect the livestock. Well, not that much of a long shot as it sounds, since it's apparently happened 7 times already. Can we believe that migratory birds don't shit when they fly over China from Japan to Indonesia?

Of course, China will be given a chance to come clean next week in the emergency bird flu conference in Thailand. It had better.

Chinese New Year Woes

I'm more than happy to skip all the Chinese New Year visiting; relatives are poison, and all the questioning they subject me with is not worth the ang pow money...

My CNY resolution of the year is: Learn to forget all dialects. This will prevent me from comprehending the longer sermons from my grandfather's sisters, who should really save those sermons for their own grandchildren.

Sample sermon...
"Don't you love your mother? She's brought you up for 27 years now, you should do your fillial duty and make sure she spends the rest of her days in peace and comfort. Find a girlfriend and get married soon, so your mother doesn't need to do any housework. You're a graduate, try to earn lots of money and buy a car, so you can drive your parents all over Singapore..."

Yes, if one day SDU decides to shoot advertisements in dialect, we'll know which kindly great-grandmother to recommend.

Now, compare that sermon to one very practical, encouraging, and uplifting advice my father's cousin gave me. I repeat it here, also for the benefit of Camorenesi:

"So the civil service rejected you last year. Never treat that rejection as final, never believe the doors are
closed... Try and try again. They always underestimate the number of people they need, so they're always hiring."

So, my second resolution for CNY is to try again for that cushy civil service job. Just to show that I haven't given up any hope of beating the underemployment trap, that I have a chance aside from applying for waitering...

So, how did we deal with the Stupid Annoying Questions of CNY?

"Have you gotten a job yet?"
"When are you getting married?"
"Don't be shy, show us your girlfriend someday!"

For my part, I dressed in Black and Grey during the reunion dinner and put on the most bochap face and the "Ask me anything stupid and I'll KILL you" attitude® that no one asked. And perhaps the fact that my aunts and uncles seem to have woken up to the fact that there are an alarmingly high number of graduate taxi drivers in Singapore, probably
saved me from the questions as well...

And yes, I didn't do any visiting this year. It's the best way of avoiding the SAQ... maybe next year, I'll spend the holiday overseas (even if it's in Johore).

That's because I'm too polite to reply to the SAQ the way I want:

1. No, I haven't got a job. May I ask if you have enough money in the CPF to retire? Or how many more years it'll take for you to pay off the housing loan? Or how close your company is to the next retrenchment exercise?

2. No, I'm not getting married. I'd rather live in a free love commune.

3. Well, I could bring along my blow-up Gackt doll next year, if it makes you feel happy...

International Criminal Court to Examine Blair War Crimes

News reports from Reuters and the Independent

"Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are considering a request by an international body of lawyers to try the Prime Minister for alleged war crimes during the invasion of Iraq."

The logic of war meets the morality of war. Disproportionate use of force causing civilian casualties is a crime under international humanitarian law.

During last year's invasion of Iraq, the Wonder Duo dropped cluster bombs in dense urban areas, killing many civilians.

The logic behind cluster bombs is simple: efficient decimation. Hundreds of mini-bomblets (ie. 'clusters') are scattered by larger bombs, rockets, and artillery shells, hence enhancing the destructive power by dispersing the area of destruction... Needless to say, where these clusters end up is neither controllable or predictable. That's why many markets and bazaars in Baghdad were hit by cluster bombs, even though they were not targetted.

Reuters reports that British aircraft dropped 70 cluster bombs and British artillery fired over 2,000 cluster shells during the war.

Another hot issue that the prosecutors at the ICC have been asked to consider, is whether the Allies deliberately targetted non-military installations during the invasion, an illegal act under the Geneva Convention.

It would seem that Blair should've considered this chain of events before signing up with Bush... unlike the US, the United Kingdom IS a signatory to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, where heads of state are NOT exempt from prosecution.

I doubt, however, that there will actually be a trial, even though the evidence seems quite clear-cut. Two words: political pressure.

The BBC reported the news on radio at 4.30 in the morning, with many interviews and analyses which kept me up till dawn, but apparently this news is missing from their website... Brilliant.

Apologia

Recently certain friends and acquaintances have been asked to give feedback about this site, to choose their favourite articles, since I'd like to assemble a portfolio of my own. There were those who were not really interested in commenting but not forthright enough to say so, or too polite to offer anything constructive beyond "Yeah, I'm reading it...", which is of course the polite version of "no comments", Singaporeans' most popular answer to just about anything... I'm kind of sorry for having inflated expectations of their expressive abilities and imposing on their time. Which is my own polite way of saying "fuck you", in case anyone wonders.

And to those who took the time to read, to consider, and voice their opinions, and for those who posted comments here on xanga, many thanks - you know who you are!

Whether this blog was praised or panned, people tend to agree that
1. Illusio has a high 'bombastic' word count.
2. "The cerebral undertones... come across rather much too strongly".

Apologia
noun. A formal justification, explanation, or defence of one's opinions, position, actions, or belief system.
Note: NOT the plural form of "apology", and has NOTHING to do with making one.

1. I have always tended to write about specialised topics, uncommon things, and tend to push myself to deep analyses of my subjects. It's my prerogative. And, as a sympathetic reader pointed out, "everyday language lacks... conceptual and semantic endowment" for complex and specialised topics such as what I have been writing consistently at Illusio.

I believe that the English language would be impoverished if we refuse to see that even long words, big words, can be appropriately used, especially if it takes too much difficulty to find a short phrase to replace them. Humans keep coining new words to describe the growing complexity of their world... yet we Singaporeans are linguistic beggars because our national newspapers limit their writers to words not more than 3 syllables or 8 letters long, and our major publishing houses, who believe that the market out there consists of people with the mental capacity of 14-year-olds.

However, when there is a feeling that the writer is deliberately and unnecessarily using difficult language or dropping literary allusions and big names, then it really becomes "bombast".

If I cannot convince my readers that the "difficult" language is necessary and appropriate in my articles, I consider that as a failed attempt at writing and a sign that I need more practice, or at least run one round of editing before posting on the blog. (Which I currently never do. And there, doesn't it actually annoy naysayers more, since I don't need to put in any effort at difficult language?)

One can still come across as natural and unaffected even when writing difficult words.

2. Again, I remind my readers that I choose to write on uncommon topics and offer uncommon viewpoints with uncommon depth.

Think metaphorically, if your writing was a student in a classroom where your readers are other students: In the context of our academic history, your writing would be a "mugger" - The over-achieving high-brow kid which we were all too familiar with in our school days. There is one in almost every classroom.

My point is, these kids are never popular with the other kids. They are viewed either as "spoil-market", a threat, or just simple too weird out by the other kids.

A friend wrote that in his email (and incidentally, he concluded that he still liked my writing :D).

Here's my spin on it: Staying with the same metaphor, I would be the student who realises that one way to succeed would be to differentiate yourself out of the normal market, carve out a niche for yourself, play for different stakes, play a different game from the rest of the classmates.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the rest of the class would mis-recognise the strategy and insist that I'm "spoiling the competition", but the fact is, I'm no longer competing with them, or even for the same prizes as them.

I would probably be - and I have been, on occasion - the student who disagrees with the GP tutor and uni lecturer to present a counter-argument that is nevertheless logically and theoretically reasonable, and hence still ace the assignment. Of course, that doesn't stop the real "muggers" and the rest of the students to give the standard, acceptable, and approved answers and get their aces (or other grades, as dictated by the normal distribution for interchangeable and indistinguishable products).

I'm one of those who are horribly disappointed with the "new and improved" Straits Times Weekend Edition and the intellectual poverty it imposes on Singaporeans. Read the NYT Weekend Edition, and you'll see why it literally takes one an entire weekend to parse through the very thoughtful and thorough news, commentaries, and reviews. Time taken to read ST on Sunday: 10 minutes, inclusive of the Life! section.

Why do I write? I'm sure you would've read my first blog. Given that, there isn't any discrepency between what I write and how I write it, really...

The Logic of Warfare (a selective history)

Charles Tilly is credited with reading the history of Europe since 1000 AD as the history of uninterrupted, ever-intensifying, rational warfare, going so far as insisting that "wars make states as much as states make war". Yet uninterrupted warfare was practised much earlier in China (which incidentally has the same area as Europe), during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods of its history. For 550 continuous years, from 770 BCE to 221 BCE, over 150 kingdoms fought each other, annexed each other, and dwindled to a single polity, the State of Chin.

One does not battle for 550 years without the invention of universal conscription, more efficient economic models, agricultural reforms, and of course, harsher and more complete extraction of taxes from farmers (which would reach an unprecedented 25% in Shogunate Japan later) - hence, the invention of serfdom...

The invention of maiming is tied to serfdom. Norbert Elias reports that less than a millennia later in continental Europe, the barons of Europe regularly tortured 'civilians' as they raided their rivals. Why the disjuncture between the mediaeval celebration of chivalric combat between soldiers, and the torture of non-combatants? Rational calculation: everything the serfs produce, as long as they are productive, will benefit the baron.

Elias unearths diaries of noblewomen, wives of barons, who describe their delight as they joined their husbands in the torture of enemies' serfs and farmers. A certain noblelady personally cut off the breasts of a milkmaid, poured tar on the stumps, and sent the girl back to her enemy, alive. Today, warlords and soldiers in Africa maim civilians as part of a rational "denial of resources" strategy against their opponents.

Over in England, the invention of the longbow in the 14th century finishes off the ideal of 'chivalry' of melee combat between noblemen. Exceptionally efficient long-range bombardment from longbows decimated the French armies even before they could come close to combat, in Crecy, Poiters, and Agincourt. The lesson: Decimate your enemies...

The calvary charge, as popularised by Napoleon's military campaigns, then romanticised by adoptors, effectively ended in Crimea when the Light Brigade fell to "canon to the left of them, canon to the right of them, canon in front of them". From then onwards, we learn to pulverise the enemy with artillery fire, bomb them to bits from planes...

Nerve gas? The subtle art of poisoning and germ warfare didn't just end there. Not when, as part of the terms of surrender, Japanese researchers in the notorious Unit 731 were transfered to the United States to continue their research.

Which of course won the war by dropping 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To date, no war crimes tribunal has been set for the men who planned the attacks. Last year, the Pentagon started research on small-scale nuclear bombs that could penetrate underground bunkers.

Guerilla warfare is strangely justified from the results it produces. It does the job, as just well as any weapon, any method of war.

A morality of war is non-existent, as long as we listen to the logic of warfare. How else do you win a war, except by destroying your opponent? Maim them, decimate them, pulverise them, blow them to bits, launch a megaton bomb, blow yourself up in their public places. They all work, and none of them are more or less morally reprehensible than the rest.

This is the logic of war, and I'm afraid there's no moral standard inherent to warfare; warfare does NOT have morality as its first principle.

On War

"No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb."
--- Theodor Adorno, "Negative Dialectics", 1966

We'd like to think we're a civilised people, that a million years of evolution would breed out the animal in us. Violence, according to some historians, has been effectively tamed through the "civilising process", and we are the only species to draw up rules of engagement for war, a code of morality for justified violence...

Why would the technology of war (and the capacity to kill) still march on relentlessly, unless the urge to slaughter remains undiminished?

Whither the morality of war, that sense of justice in combat, that allows some of us today to declare others as "unlawful combatants" undeserving of justice, basic human rights, and exempt from the Geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners?

Great Internet Firewall of Singapore (Singnet outtage edition)

I'm wondering how many of you using Singnet broadband (and whether users on Pacific or Starhub/SCV) have encountered this problem during the recent week while surfing: all webpages from Blogspot, for example:

http://moobie.blogspot.com/
http://the_bone.blogspot.com/

are redirected to http://new.blogger.com, which is the usual page you get, if the blogspot URL you entered doesn't exist.

Meaning, for the past week I haven't been able to read any blogs from blogspot.

Now, the weirdest thing is, you have to manually set your proxy settings to proxy.singnet.com.sg:8080 in IE/Netscape/Mozilla in order for the blogspot pages to load properly and not get redirected.

This is weird, since from 3 years ago, Singnet users didn't need to set their proxy servers; everything is automatically cached/filtered/blocked at the server end. Yet this week, something comes up to remind us all that proxy servers are not just for "speeding up internet access", as our ISPs call it, but to block/filter webpages.

Nowadays, it is considered impractical and heavy-handed to block entire websites, so our ISPs are experimenting with targetting and blocking specific pages from websites. Officially though, our ISPs do not have the technology to block specific pages, and are not acquiring the hard/software for this technology.

Jim Carey too, had this feeling in The Truman Show, when he discovers the stars in the sky to be huge stage lights. It's only the imperfect implementation of proxy blocking that reminds people of the existence of proxy servers behind our "Internet experience".

Latest Update:

I've been told that the blogspot problem has disappeared since yesterday noon, so you don't have to manually set the proxy server in your browser... Although, there might be longer loading times for singaporean pages on blogspot o_0

Don't ask me how that can happen, but a few friends told me the same thing. I'm sure in a day or two, the technology will be perfected, and everyone can have a wonderful internet experience without realising the amount of spying our ISPs do behind our backs

Wisdom from Unexpected Quarters

I found an interesting and wise quote, taken from the first line of an editorial from the above link.

A wise man said this shortly after WW2:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Which probably summarises neatly, last year's invasion and occupation of Iraq by the Wonder Duo, Bush and Blair.

And the wise man? Herman Goering, founder of the German Gestapo and Air Force.

Sieg Hiel! Or, as Radiohead puts it, Hail to the Thief!

On the New Year

I am not in a habit of making resolutions for the new year or to reflect on the passing of the old. Somehow, these traditions seem nothing more than distractions from the purpose of human existence, that they achieve the complete opposite of what they intend to do.

Everyday living requires some form of planning ahead to set personal goals, and some form of reviewing to reflect and re-appraise one's position and direction in life. We ask ourselves questions like "Did I set out to do what I promised?", "Did I live well/correctly this year?", "What do I hope, plan towards, for the next?"

My quarrel is with the institutionalising of this natural self-reflexivity into an annual affair. The new year tradition is a caricature and perversion of this human instinct. Most people end up making wildly ambitious resolutions that they never keep, and never bother to keep once they articulate the plan. And on reviewing the previous year, they sadly remark that the previous year's resolutions were not met either. And blithely live on in the new year.

This new year tradition then dulls the impulse to review and plan constantly, consciously, every so often in the days of our lives. The space of one year is too long a wait between self-assessment and reflexivity.

If we made our self reviews/plans much more frequently, we'd end up making more reasonable and realistic goals, and constantly monitor satisfaction with our lives. That, I believe, is more meaningful and useful than the annual tradition.

The Year in One Minute

(or 1 minute and 15 seconds)

I had the honour of getting the Video Renegades' film shown at Zouk yesterday. On the whole, I think the audience liked it. Then again, it's rare to see a non-abstract, non-experimental short film. I can't remember the last local short film that had an overt commentary on current affairs. The mainstream attitude is "We're Singaporeans, no politics, please."

A One Minute Review for a One Minute Film

The agenda was simple: the Video Renegades are a recently-formed association of underground filmmakers who have taken to refine their skills at producing short films on shoestring budgets.

"The Graduate" was shot in one day (4 hours, in fact), the props cost less than $5, and the humour in it is probably priceless.

When we made this film in February as a tribute to the tenacity of Singaporeans in this annus horribilus, we didn't expect the film to get more and more relevant as the months went by.

For one, the $1.99 Shop line announced its closure a month after we shot the film at its Far East branch (and with it, went our hopes of getting that shop to bless our film). Then, more and more grads remained unemployed... and our leaders said we should be more price-competitive with the workers in China. Of course, they never managed to get our wages cut to $1.88 an hour, but I suspect they're still plotting.

And yet, no matter how lousy this year was, we must agree that excessive misfortune becomes, all too easily, the blackest and funniest of comedies, especially if all this misfortune takes place in everday life, around us.

Great Classics II

I had an interesting ICQ chat with a friend. Life is treating him well relatively well, you could say. Even as an overworked and underpaid management trainee with a bank, he still has one more job than me, and that's where it counts the most.

We exchanged employment histories for the past 2 years (I had the longer story, in and out of temp jobs and freelancing), and he concluded: "You know, you're not stupid. If you just stopped being a critic, the civil service would be an easy job to get. If you're not from the cookie-cutter, and you are not, you'll never get employment from them, not with that kind of attitude... Challenging ideas should be done in academia. The civil service doesn't hire dissenters or mavericks..."

The civil service is a kind of Holy Grail for Singapore graduates. Like the imperial examination system in old China - which gave us the word "Mandarin" to denote any civil servant - the best products of our education system move on to a job with the bureaucracy. Or at least, that was the way life was supposed to have worked till not so long ago.

Because of the lasting strength of the civil service, and the fact that it IS the pillar of society (You can throw away the leaders, but you can't throw away the cookie-cutter!), thousands of grads still aspire to a cushy job. It helps that with the new year, a grad's starting pay as Mandarin has been adjusted to the more 'reasonable' rate of $2100. A very modest adjustment of 20% downwards in light of the economic realities, given that the starting pay of grads in the private sector is $1500 (if you're very lucky).

Eventually, as my friend hinted, even the mavericks and dissenters have to feed themselves or secure a fatter wallet, and join the Mandarins. We should resist the urge to deny the interviewers, just give them the answers that they want in their essay questions. You're smart enough to get the job, if you just say the right stuff.

Indeed, one of the "great classics" of Chinese literature, the Outlaws of the Marsh (水浒传), depicts a band of rebels, dissenters and mavericks during the waning years of the Song Dynasty. 108 bandit chiefs led a wider resistance centred around Mount Liang against the corrupt and inept administration of a weak emperor, and believed that their dissent - robbing the rich to give to the poor, killing corrupt officials - was justified.

The 'civil service' had failed the system, producing either scholars who said the right things in the exams (but were incapable of fixing the real problems), or officials who were content to receive their guaranteed salaries, pensions, and bribes.

Much is remembered from the Outlaws of the Marsh, especially the exploits of the 108 Heroes: Wu Song killing the Tiger, the Golden Lotus, the Cannibal Inn... But the least-mentioned story is the most important, and it comes at the end of the great novel: the Dissolution of the Outlaws.

The leader of the outlaws, 宋江, used to be a low-ranking civil servant who couldn't get promoted because he wasn't corrupt enough, who believed in some principles, until his desertion. For 100 chapters in the book, Song Jiang frustrates the venal and incompetent administrators and paper generals who come to destroy the bandits. Yet, in the end, the bandit king himself was bought off with an amnesty, a high rank in the civil service, praise for his "patriotic duties", and his bandit army recognised and given official military titles.

Join the civil service. You can't go wrong.

The comeuppance for the Song Jiang was swift. In return for his amnesty, his title, his recognition, the weak Emperor orders his army to combat the Golden Horde of the Mongols in the north. A quarter of the 108 Heroes (and their soldiers) are sacrificed.

Then, on the urging of the same venal, corrupt, and incompetent civil servants, the bandit army is sent south, to quell a rebellion from another group of bandits. The civil servants were farsighted: the capable Song Jiang won the war for them. And his bandit army was exterminated in the battles, eliminating any challenge to their control.

A great bandit leader, a gracious robber is lured by promises of Respectability and a position as a Mandarin, and crosses over. Nothing in Western Lit prepares us for a noble hero "selling off" his principles for a position in the Establishment.

It would be as though Robin Hood, another righteous bandit leader, gave up his fortress in Sherwood Forest, disbanded his Merry Men... for a position as a general. And then, getting sent off to fight a bunch of rebels in some other forest, and having his own army exterminated.

I'd like to prove my friend wrong, of course. I hope... not everyone wants to sell their soul to the civil service, not everyone will say the "right things" just to get the job. But seriously, how many of you here would?

The Gift of the Gab

or, Why the Great Library of Alexandra Burned Down

LIBRARIAN of the Great Library: ...

MOTHER of the Librarian of the Great Library: Look, this place is in a mess! The scrolls are everywhere!!! Look at this shelf! It's full of SCROLLS!

Librarian: ...

Mother: There are scrolls dating from a few hundred years ago! Are you inviting the bookworms to eat this place up?

Librarian: ...

Mother: Look, are you listening to me or not? I'm going to start spring cleaning in an hour, and I won't be able to clean this place with all these scrolls here!

Librarian: I never asked you to clean the Great Library.

Mother: Look, this chest of useless pamphlets! "Aristotle's Poetics: The Tragedy and the Comedy"??? These lecture notes are worthless, and you're still keeping them?
(hauls chest into the incinerator)

Librarian: !!!

Mother: Now, you listen to me. I'll not have this MESS! These scrolls have been lying here for a few hundred years, and you're collecting them, piling them on the shelves, on the tables, on the floor...

Librarian: Well, I told you we needed more shelves, but you just prefer to throw things out.

Mother: I'm not going to do that this year, oh no... Why should I do the job and SUFFER? It's such a thankless task. You lazy, worthless, pathetic fool who can't even keep things in order...

Librarian: ...

Mother: Blahblahblah yakettyyakyak nagnagnagnagnag just throw the damn scrolls away, idiot blahblahblah don't understand why you're keeping all this trash yakettyakyak oh, you're torturing me to death on purpose aren't you, you're putting all this mess to annoy me aren't you nagnagnagnagnag

Librarian: ...
(Burns down the Great Library in a state of madness)
There, you happy? Next time you EVER mention about 'a mess' again, or throw stuff out without asking me, I'll knock out every tooth in your mouth.

Mother: WHAT DID I EVER SAY? You're the unreasonable one here! That's it, I don't want to see you for the rest of today, I'm going shopping.

(picks up phone): Yo, Euphygenia, you can't believe what my AUNT said yesterday. She's the most insufferable woman I've ever met... Any sequence of words from her mouth would drive the listener stark raving mad! I don't understand why people like her exist in the world! And why I'm related to her! Blahblahblah yaketyakyak, oh poor me, nagnagnag...

And this is how today, more than $500 worth of CDs, manga, books (notably: Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival - bought TWO DAYS AGO, Hillary Clinton's Living History, Roland Barthe's S/Z, an English translation of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) were thrown down the chute by my mum and me. I'm not counting the board games in my cupboard that I threw away so that I could move all my "piles of worthless thrash" in. Risk, Monopoly, Scrabble (and not the cheapo mini "travel version"), a full-sized Chess set, 2 photo albums...

Review for Stray

So you’ve written a sardonic, anti-establishment play that pokes fun of, even punctures straitjacketed Singaporean society. Knowing smiles broke out in the audience each time Stray highlighted the insanity of a nanny state that produces conservative, play-it-safe clones. Silent laughter, the most dangerous kind, erupted each time the play held its mirror to a citizenry which has been so disempowered, deprived of most liberties (especially creative ones) that it is only free to participate as vacuous actors in the futile and fashionable pursuit of consumerism and the sham social charades that include televised charity drives, National Day parties, celebrity-watching, economic restructuring exercises... And of course, the obligatory, but oh-so-stinging deconstruction of sound bites from our leaders and typical Singaporeans by the chorus, never failed to bring the house down with genuine laughter.

Yet, to the credit of its playwright Emeric Lau, director Aaron Tan, and talented cast of Stage Pals, Stray never comes across as heavy-handed or polemical when it expresses the rage, alienation, and irreverent, iconoclastic humour of the 20-somethings, its ideal audience. It helps that the humour is always at the expense of the powers-that-be - and the 20-somethings are the first generation in Singapore to openly and savagely mock their leaders in everyday speech - but more importantly, this play is the honest collaboration of people who know and love Singapore too much to want to present the topic in any other way, and in such damning detail.

In his preamble, Lau writes of his struggle against the “dearth of well-written, well-performed original material in the local theatre scene in recent years”. It is a fact that most ‘big’ Singaporean productions are either adaptations of acknowledged Great Plays of the civilised West (modern or classic); huge musicals (any of the interchangeable Dick Lee productions); or “seem to pander to niche audiences” - a code for the Gay Play, which can be dissected into the Gay Martyr Play where every gay person emotes existential angst (the recent stage adaptation of Cyril Wong’s poetry), or the Gay Camp Play that merely celebrates the spending power of its niche community (the vulgarly shallow and consumerist Asian Boys Vol. 1, Shopping and F***ing, among others); or the multi-disciplinary, multilingual, multinational “Pan-Asian” play that has no real message aside from its own salad-bar conception of an ersatz, exotic, and auto-erotic Asian identity. Lau and Tan are right in lamenting that the tradition begun by Kuo Pao Kun seems to have been forgotten.

In this respect, Stray has managed to avoid the pitfalls its creator identifies as endemic to current Singapore theatre. The play is unapologetically original and Singaporean - its themes and issues, sensibility and psyche are undeniably “20something Singaporean”, and most importantly, the play has a real heart and soul; it grapples with real issues. In other words, an attempt to resurrect the tradition of Kuo Pao Kun, a tradition of writing and performing original Singaporean plays while maintaining the intercultural and eclectic osmosis of creativity.

A New Dream

Kill the 30somethings, they ruined Singapore with their naive borrow/spend/re-sell/upgrade cycle, their economic bubble that burst on us. And while we're reaping their bitter fruits, they're cosily planning on the next upgrade, the next job, the next baby.

No matter. I have an alternative dream to their 6Cs dream that's easily achievable, and has lower expectations fit for the dire straits of our generation.

30something Dream:
Career
Card
Condo
Club membership
Certificate
Car

20something Dream

Contract
The new economy for the 20somethings is a contracting economy, in both senses of the word. Gone are the days of the Singapore salaryman, and the Career. Companies are only interested in giving out contracts, so that you, the 20something worker, will never get any medical, leave, and seniority benefits that the 30somethings have managed to cling on to.

Cashcard
Credit is out, as most 20somethings are temp workers in this economy, with no guaranteed income to qualify for a Credit Card. Debit is in, and the cheapest debit card that doesn't require a bank charge is the Cashcard.

2nd-hand HDB flat
While those evil 30somethings upgrade their old flats for condos, we will get their cheap castaways, instead of buying direct and incurring a 30-year debt from the HDB. Besides, the worst thing that can happen to an old flat is leaky pipes. I prefer that to the new flats that show signs of premature aging even before 5 years have passed, like: exploding bathroom screens, popping marble tiles, falling windows, leaking walls....

Friendster membership
Here's a social club that allows people to do heavy-duty networking, for free. Members gain social recognition with each additional testimonial they receive from other members.

Diploma
With the new economy, everyone's realised that the higher your certificate, the less help it gives in your job hunting. The diploma is now the in thing for this, and the next generation. For once, 30somethings can rest assured that they will be more educated than future Singaporeans.

NEL
It's not a case of sour grapes. 30somethings can go on upgrading their cars every few years... but I'm banking on the Northeast MRT line. At the staggering pricetag of One Billion Dollars, it far outranks their cheap cars. And in two years' time, I'll upgrade to the Circle Line, which will probably cost even more. Now, for this kind of expensive transport, shouldn't the social prestige be correspondingly high?

Rivalries and Competitions

Recently, Annhell made mention of a certain Asian Blog Awards where he was nominated. The good writer was not impressed by the competition itself, or by the very personal attacks between some of the Singaporean nominees.

Perhaps we Singaporeans do have some unique national trait that enable those few to behave very badly in their blogs, but then again, I believe some sniping is inescapable in literary contests. Unlike other contests or competitions where talent or accomplishment can be gauged objectively on say, the Guiness Book of Records or its TV show ("Biggest Eater", "Most Pierced", "Fastest X"), the literary is entirely a field of strategic positioning, or as some might more pointedly put it, strategic posturing. Hence, it does make sense for any interested literary participant or observer to stake out their own position, to articulate their view on what makes a good blog, play, poem, film, novel, etc...

Ten centuries ago, Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon were the leading diarists, poets, and novelists of their time (and I believe they still count in the all-time top 5 of Asian writers), in the Japanese court. Yet, from the diary of Murasaki, we find her writing:

"Sei Shonagon has the most extraordinary air of self-satisfaction. Yet, if we stop to examine those Chinese writings of hers that she so pretentiously scatters about the place, we find that they are full of imperfections..."

What Sei Shonagon would've said in response is not known to historians, but we might have a clear idea. Literary critics and historians dub Shonagon as "the witty diarist": frank, sarcastic, witty, and young. In other words, someone who would get away with her sharp comments, as long as they were tastefully done.

In comparison, Murasaki would've been the dignified "Elder Stateswoman". Widowed at 30, she enters the Japanese court at a ripe old age, schooled in Chinese and writing more like a sensitive scholar. One must wonder if the "dull people" in Sei Shonagon's diary entry of "Things I hate in people" might've been a dig at her rival...

Such sniping... even 10 centuries ago! And they didn't even have a competition or award for diary-writing. Then, as with the modern "invention" of the blog, the great Japanese diarists never wrote for themselves, but for a public audience, who waited impatiently for a new entry in anyone's diary.

Then, as now, literary competitions were an exercise in posturing and poseurship for their contestants and nominees, and perhaps much more significantly so for the organiser. The ability to confer "greatness" is greater than the gift itself, and organisers and judges are not unaware of this fact, when they set up or adjudicate at awards... even when that ability is mostly dependant on the social illusion on the part of a number of people, who by their participation, comments, and other behaviour, give "credibility" to the organiser, the judges, and the competition itself.

It is here that I disagree with Annhell on what makes a credible competition: it doesn't matter whether the awards are handed out by a panel of judges, or by a "democratic" vote from the public. There is zero credibility in literary competitions; it all boils down to posturing again. A panel of judges will make annoint a contestant that best represents the political negotiation of their literary agendas and positions on what is "suitably literary", and which judges are the more influential. Pure audience voting will boil down to how well-connected the nominees are to their voters, and how well they marshall these people. Hence, the best blogger might not even be in the XYZ polls, if his/her readers don't tend to read the site where that poll is from. In addition, how the categories for prizes/awards are constituted will also signal clearly the agendas and biases of the organiser.

In real life, it's pretty easy to find horrendous and comic examples of all that. The Asian TV Awards, for example, consists of 140 entries from 15 countries in Asia. Now, how many countries are there in Asia? How many entries did each TV station enter in this competition? (Which is a really sneaky way of asking how few stations dominated the entire "competition").

The Singapore A Cappella Awards decided to go for the online voting system, starting from 2 years ago. As I recall, in 2001, a certain group won the Audience Favourite Award without appearing for any performance on the public showcase dates at Suntec.

For the Asia Star Search award... the organisers must really hope that audiences don't not get too deep into questioning why "ASIA" is represented solely by Singapore, Hongkong, China, and Taiwan. Or, for some other Asian awards, why the first few categories are always from these few countries, then some other technical categories, and then followed by a few other Asian countries, as if they are an afterthought. Or why "Miss UNIVERSE" doesn't have any extraterrestrial contestants.

I don't believe in any credibility of competitions. But a literary competition I'd give two hoots about would rather have

1. Consistent and coherent, meaningful poseurship and strategic posturing from judges, organisers and participants.
2. Not too much of inbreeding, such that the winner is the one with more friends, or a blog circle that marshalls voting from members.

As thebeastz has pointed out, it is unlikely that the Asian Blog Awards would be repeated next year. For the sake of serious bloggers everywhere, I hope that it will never be repeated in its current state/concept.

Snippets

A haunting line from a short film. Listening to it articulate my innermost.

我知道,有一天,我会离开这里
一直以来,我就想去一个地方
不知道哪里,但我知道我一定要走.
这个时候,我只想见一个人...

Sinecure

Q: Where does the Minster Without Portfolio work?
A: In the Ministry At Large.

Long post on cutting things short

As old as the human urge to create art is the equally human urge to creatively truncate art. Call it what you will - editing, expurgating, censorship, summarising, adaptation - this urge has remained with us ever since the First Reader yawned on the umpteenth sentence of the First Writer's manuscript. Today, we bring you on a magical mystery tour across the ages on the fascinating and underappreciated human will to cut things short, to simplify, to reduce.

The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, whom Harold Bloom credits with "The Invention of the Human", is regarded by most of the English-speaking world as the greatest dramatist in history. Whole forests are sacrificed for scholarly criticisms of Shakespeare's plays.

Yet, there is precious little in these criticisms concerning the bawdy language, crude jokes, and blasphemies that the Bard used. Perhaps the most inventive Shakespearean line that combines all three elements comes from Ophelia, in Hamlet: "Young men will do't, if they come to't; By cock, they are to blame." Act 1, scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet begins with two Capulets making the infamous "maidenhead" joke...

There is no surprise then, that for every William Shakespeare, there is a Thomas Bowdler. The easily-offended prude decided in 1807, that in the interests of family values and politeness, the legacy of Shakespeare should be preserved in an edition where "nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." Enter well-meaning censorship. And the world has never quite been the same ever since Bowdler's The Family Shakespeare.

Not that Shakespeare was terribly prolific with blush-inducing phrases and jokes; most of his contemporaries like Ben Jonson had the more inventive phrases like "whoreson base fellow" and "I fart at thee" (not to be confused with Monty Python's "I fart in your general direction"!).

Ever since performance art was unbanned here and with WWE showing at prime-time, our censors have precious little to protect Singapore's morals from. Perhaps they should take a leaf from Bowdler, and produce The Family Diablo: "Re-introducing a popular computer game in a palatable form to the God-fearing Christian family"...


Shakespeare still has fans even in this modern, post-colonial age. The Reduced Shakespeare Company puts on very concise plays (or comedy skits?) that summarise all of Shakespeare's plays AND sonnets in just 97 minutes. And that's just one of their takes on the Bard. There's another offering that claims to present Hamlet backwards and forwards in just 30 seconds flat... In contrast, Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet runs for an amazing 4 hours.

I'm hoping someone would produce a Complete LOTR (abridged). Doesn't matter whether it's on film or text... but a very abridged version of the book should be top priority.

Or, since the RSC has proven that Shakespeare's plays are so similar to each other that they can be hilariously summarised together as a single play, I'm hoping some guerilla filmmaker will produce a Reduced Wong Kar Wai. Many people point out that the characters from different WKW movies like In the Mood for Love, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, are all similar right down to their personality traits and quirks, as well as what happens to them in the movies.


Speaking of adaptations, do any of you still remember The Illustrated Bible? It had most of the books intact, except for Psalms, Proverbs, and some of the Epistles, which couldn't really be illustrated. What could be achieved was still spectacular: the Bible as a brilliant, visually-captivating story. Of course, sans graphic nudity (I don't recall many panels with Adam and Eve in Eden, the entire sequence was very abstract and subtly handled) and violence, although graphic, realistic depictions of leprosy and plague were okay.

As a lesson from the inspired creators of the Illustrated Bible, our tax department should put in more effort to release The Illustrated Guide to Filling In Tax Forms.

So, next time we hear about great artists, let's not forget their even greater editors, censors, summarisors, and adaptors.

With Apologies...

Because our national arts council chairman recently gave a speech denouncing "avant garde art", and any art that was too deep for the public and the market, this is my reply to him.

High art isn't inaccessible, you moron.

Today, I will take a break with the politics. Instead I will take three very difficult artistic texts - a very surreal tale from a Czech writer, a very postmodern collection of interconnected short stories from an Italian novelist, and a campy, sardonic stage remake of an old Hollywood movie - and re-interpret them, make them understandable, and speak out to any Singaporean reader.

I. "This is Not Kafka"

How would we tell Metamorphosis without turning K. into a cockroach? I don't believe we've seen a version of the story that's stripped away of its fantastical elements. Can audiences connect with a socially realist and bleak drama?

This phenomenon happens frequently in Japan: a young man, bothered by either work, depression, or even lack of work, will lock himself in the bedroom for years, sometimes more than a decade. Hikikomori is the name given to this affliction of self-isolation.

That's K. Passive, unwilling to become a burden to his family, he enters seclusion in his bedroom one morning. Because he has lost his job, he considerately removes himself from life in the family. He will not be a burden to them as he searches for a job from his room...

After all, Kafka wrote and set Metamorphosis in a turn-of-century Prague, where an earlier economic miracle had turned into a distant dream very suddenly. And instead of a bright future, a bleak desolation lies ahead for everyone. A bleak desolation that will drive young men to despair, seclusion, and self-negation.

II. "This is not Italo Calvino"

This is not "If on a Winter's Night A Traveler..." But something of conspiratorial proportions has been stifling the development of art in this small city for the past 30 years. An art historian, a student, takes up a research project on "the great unfinished works" of a small circle of artists, now dead and forgotten.

In the forest of images, where a painting tells the story of a book about a film documentary on musicians, can the student find the key to the mystery of the disappearance of artists in the city?

III. This is not Sunset Boulevard

Lydia is an aging comedian. An old pal who got invited to take over a TV station in a foreign land gives her a chance to resurrect a career on its last legs.

Reality-TV style, an expose on the disaster follows. The megalomaniacal diva who doesn't realise her star has faded. The lame jokes from the uninspired scriptwriters who would rather work on something else, except they're TV station employees. A series that is watched by very few, yet qualifies as a "hit" only because Lydia has sufficient clout to demand/bargain for more seasons.

And the final insult? When the scriptwriters finally walk off the set, a completely unknown bunch of maverick writers going by the name of "The Video Renegades", with a secret plan to take over the world beginning with the TV station, con themselves into the job. And perhaps, just perhaps... their offbeat humour might work.

The Power of Three

Recently, an ancient incantation popped up after years of disuse, when first our Minister of Labour and then the heir apparent to the throne threatened, not subtly, to close down the union for the national airlines.

The heir apparent, Mini-Lee, specifically plagiarised his father's 1980 confrontation with the same trade union, threatening that "I don't want to do you in, but I won't let anyone do Singapore in".

"Tripartite Relations"

Attention, shoppers: the magical phrase is Tripartite Relations. Following a venerated tradition, the "leadership" of Singapore plagiarises and then bastardises key political, economic, and social theories from academics, and then attempt to pass off the product as "uniquely Singaporean", thus excusing themselves from the usual obligations of democracy and accountability.

But let's not get sidetracked here... the issue is "tripartite relations" between the State - which in Singapore, always means the Party, Capital, and Labour. To understand what this magical phrase means, it is necessary to take a magical journey back in time for 150 years... to October 1847.

Like all good stories, this one begins "in media res", in the middle of the plot, so as to speak. The Industrial Revolution had been under way for almost a century in Western Europe. Poor William Wordsworth had much to lament in the 19th century about the despoiling of nature, so much that his muadlin verses on flowers and clouds gradually became nostalgic in his countrymen's eyes within his lifetime, due to the ravages of industrialisation, urbanisation, and rural migration in England. For that eventual rapproachment with his initially unreceptive readers, Wordsworth became the poet laurette.

Too bad then, that the poet never pointed to the real ravages of industrialisation on the human soul. The industrial revolution created a new class of people, the Capitalists, who owned the factories where hundreds of thousands toiled, in very abysmal conditions and very low pay.

By 1799, one year before Wordsworth's famous "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey", the capitalists got smart enough to bribe the very corrupt government of William Pitt, to ban the formation of trade unions. The unions would've had sufficient bargaining clout to negotiate for higher pay and more humane conditions.

Back to 1847, fifty years on. By that time, unions are banned in most of Western Europe, and the exploitation of workers boiled to crisis proportions. Enter Marx, with the Communist Manifesto. The rest, they say, is history.

Marx might have been a poor Communist philosopher (and he expressedly insisted that he was never a Communist), but he was a brilliant economist who saw the problems of early capitalism, which probably would have "did capitalism in" if Marx didn't publish his analysis.

It did however take almost a century before economists began to take Marx seriously, and only because of the great crisis of industrial capitalism, which we know as the Great Depression. The great arch-Capitalist Henry T. Ford eventually gave in and reversed his opposition to labour unions within his factories, and hence started the ball rolling on modern trade unions.

And tripartite relations? Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programme echoed most economic-political reforms in capitalist countries across the Atlantic Ocean.

The "welfare state", maligned as it is in today's discourse, is a valid description for every modern capitalist country.

The state's policy basically guarantees the near full-employment conditions in the economy for the capitalists.

For Labour, the state guarantees basic working conditions, such as instituting minimum wage laws, and safegauarding work conditions.

Since the state's aim is for an economy operating near full-capacity, it takes out "unemployment insurance" for workers caught in the wrong part fo the economic cycle, hence the dole.

To provide a decent workforce for the factories, the state heavily subsidises education, as modern industrial economies require a workforce schooled with a foundation in Math, Science, or Engineering.

In general, this agenda sounds like most of the modern "capitalist" countries. What we practise then, is a reformed capitalism, reformed by Marx's analysis of the flaws of the early system.

PAP Governance from the 1984 Operations Manual

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"Four."
"And if the Party says that it is not four but five - then how many?"

The powers-that-be probably had enough of the popular heckling of its failed PR-exercise on White Horses, and went back to the issue of the Great Leader's London Trip to cover it up - an irony, since the White Horse affair was probably leaked in order to relieve tension on the Great Leader.

The national newspaper duly reported that contrary to what the Great Leader and his medical team announced almost 3 weeks ago, the missus had suffered a cataclysmic stroke with internal bleeding, the kind that kills 8 out of 10 such stroke victims. And contrary to rumour, the missus flew back on a commercial SIA plane, where none of the passengers had a clue about who was in the first-class front cabin.

"How many fingers, Winston ?"
"Four."
The needle went up to sixty.
"How many fingers, Winston?"
"Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!"

It's all very nice, case resolved with the proper explanations from all involved. The Great Leader is not an unfair man who abuses his status.

But questions remain:
1. You mean to say the entire medical team and the Great Leader lied about the condition of the missus from the beginning? In their original words, it was a "mild stroke".

2. The entire medical team originally claimed that the missus' condition wasn't life-threatening or serious. They felt she could survive a 18-hour flight three days after her stroke. Such high-altitude flights would normally induce massive bleeding in the cataclysmic stroke patients! Now, their heads should roll for putting her into such danger, and she should've stayed in London at a private hospital for a month.

3. You mean to say the Great Leader lied when he said our national airline spent 2 days retrofitting a plane so it would be, in his own words during the initial press conference, "a flying hospital"? How modest that we are now told her flying hospital consisted of just the front cabin on the plane, in the first class section.

4. Let me ask: if you spend 2 days retrofitting a plane on short notice, surely it means it screws up the entire flight schedule of the commercial passengers?

And surely, given the status of the Great Leader, his missus, and family on the plane... standard security procedures would've been taken, like body checks, more scans before boarding, lots of security personnel with earphones. Surely it'd be impossible for the passengers to notice that someone big was on the plane?

Incidentally, we are never given the flight number of the "commercial plane" that Great Leader and missus took home.

"How many fingers, Winston?"
"Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!"
"How many fingers, Winston?"
"Five! Five! Five!"
"No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?"
"Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!"

Incidentally, I think both operations Great London Escapade and White Horse were brilliant sucesses of the Government, and should be acknowledged as such. In the end, the public is told what it needs to know, and has absolutely no way of refuting what it is told.

My previous post about the White Docket scheme was a spoof of the news reports on the White Horse revelations by the Minister of Defense, Cedric Foo. And yes, White Dockets really do exist, as pointed out by one of my readers. But it does illustrate the principles of information management that qualifies his actions as a success.

There is nothing secret about White Horses, the state of POW training in commando camps, the waste of time and money - to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars - by bureaucrats on WITS projects, and even White Dockets, which, as a reader points out, really exist. These secrets are "open secrets", some as old as modern Singapore itself.

The recent disclosures of the first 3 issues in open Parliament is a fantastic and brilliant move. If they never raised these issues in open Parliament, it would be impossible for us to discuss White horses, commando training, and WITS projects in any open forum (open = public, can be logged down).

The only venue to speak about these issues in the past was always in secret, and always as an act of very discreet "indiscretion", as a private matter transmitted from one individual to another. These indiscretions would be largely subversive, underlying connotation "Singapore is not a clean country".

That these topics are now able to be discussed in Singapore shows how much we owe to Mr. Foo, and how much permission was actually needed before Singaporeans feel they can talk about this openly.

Not only are they allowed to talk freely, now everyone is incited to debate the issue of favouritism in a context that is socially favourable. The connotations are now socially engineered in a single stroke, and changed to "standards of fairness". Such discourse is not subversive, but conservative and reactionary, re-affirming the values of justice, equality, clean government and efficient administration. The dissent of public discourse is subverted, tamed and domesticated.

And besides, according to the officials, all these activites belong to the past, and no longer take place. There is no more biased treatment of certain soldiers, no more White Horse classfications, no more deaths in the army, no more illegal and questionable army training, no more wastefulness in the civil service. Hence, it is impossible for future discourse to be subversive, or continue to bear any connotations that "Singapore is not a clean society."

Can we disagree? And where would we find the proof to back our dissent? We will neither find out just how bad the abuses and mistakes were, and whether they still exist.

In fact, our leaders have just decisively shown who's in charge here. At the end of the day, they control the information, how much Singaporeans are allowed to know, and what Singaporeans are allowed to talk about, and in what context.

And this is why the Civil Service is still the ideal job of every graduate here. It pays to stick with the winners.

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four, five, six - in all honesty I don't know."
"Better", said O'Brien.

Minister Reveals More Mindef Secrets

The Singapore Minister of Information and the Arts, Mr. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, has announced in Parliament today another Mindef bombshell: since 1965, the Ministry of Information has been tracking all Singaporeans with secret dossiers, which track them from birth till death.

This unveiling is the third this month, after the recent disclosures about the illegal POW training in a Commando school and the "White Horse" policy where sons of prominent and rich Singaporeans were earmarked for ordinary treatment in the army.

Announcing the secret dossier policy, Mr. al-Sahaf assured MPs in the House that the "White Docket" scheme has been discontinued since 2000.

"It was for valid security reasons and for the sake of nurturing a capable and law-abiding population that the White Dockets were instituted. When any Singaporean child is born, a White Docket is opened - we need to keep track of all Singaporeans' family backgrounds, to see who is safe, and who may put the State and society in danger. When you enter school, all your form teachers were required to make annual personality assessments on trustworthiness, obedience, and conformity, among other moral criteria.

"The secret dossiers follow Singaporeans wherever they go, from primary school to junior college, and even to the army. It is also used for employment, security clearance, employment, and risk evaluation in both the civil service and the GLCs, which of course employ more than half of all Singaporeans."

The Minister claimed that the policy has been terminated since 2000, because of changes in official perceptions. "The Ministry decided it is, in the long run, not cost-effective to have the system keep track of all Singaporeans."

Nominated MP Steve Chia had begun to ask questions designed to probe more information about how the secret dossier policy functioned, what "criteria of judging morality" were exercised, and who authorised this scheme when the time ran out for discussion. Parliament will move on to other topics tomorrow, when it adjourns.

Reactions from the public have been muted so far. Social commentor Prof. Kao Beh Simi suggested that the public may have reached "saturation point" with the recent spate of shocking disclosures of abuses of power, about-turns in policy, and inefficiencies in the government. "Of course, it is an open secret that actual army training violates the safety regulations of the army; that the army treats sons of influential Singaporeans with kid gloves; that Singaporeans are tracked with secret dossiers; and that Ministers don't need to queue at hospitals. Since everyone knows about it, it doesn't have much of an impact as a real revelation since people have just decided to close an eye to it, and I predict they will continue to close an eye to this too."

Bush arrives in London, faces protests

George W. Bush has arrived in the UK on a state visit, a first for any US president. He will also be the first US president to sleep over at Buckingham Palace since 1918, when Woodrow Wilson was accorded the honour. Unlike Wilson, Bush will be greeted with a 21-gun salute.

Central London will be cordoned off to all traffic, and 5000 police will be deployed on the streets as part of extraordinary security measures, a historical first for the city. The move, however, is widely unpopular with the British public, which is split in the middle on the Bush visit. Tens of thousands of protestors are expected to march near the Palace to heckle the US President on Thursday.

A grandmother, Ms. Lindis Percy, 61, was the first demonstrator yesterday to climb over the gates of the Palce to plant a yellow banner declaring "Bush is not welcome".

Protests in Singapore

An unexpected protest came from the highest office in Singapore, when the Senior Minister called a press conference to express his displeasure with the Bush visit. Speaking to a packed newsroom, Mr. Lee complained that the visit showed favoritism towards Bush and a lack of regard for his own status during his previous visit to the UK.

Visibly bristling with controlled anger, the great leader jabbed the air with his left finger as he said, "Look, I went to the UK two weeks ago. Did they close down central London for me? They didn't even close down the hospital I had to visit when my wife had a stroke! I spent the night sitting on the hospital waiting room, while this Bush fellow gets to sleep in the Palace! I am the founding father of Singapore, and obviously rank higher than GW Bush!"

Lessons for Singapore

Mr. Lee declared that the incidents showed lessons for Singapore's survival.

"We must obviously not follow the United Kingdom's slide into mediocre service. I am at least happy that in Singapore, the traffic police will definitely close off the roads to the Istana or any part of Singapore at my command. Our police and army are always ready to mobilise whenever I get bad dreams about terrorist attacks. This shows that Singapore has a bright future and excellent hopes for beating this recession."

The Press Secretary for Tony Blair has issued a statement reaffirming its cordial ties with Singapore, and has explained that "the UK has special relations with the United States, which means to say, GW Bush is more important to us than the Senior Minister."

Job Market Roundup 2003

A friend just finished his final paper for the BA in music and flew back home shortly after. It's a little funny how he'd spent the past three days packing his luggage, and still managed to leave two haversacks back in Melbourne. Then again, I suspect that was because of the weight limit, rather than a slip of the mind.

I accepted my friend's invitation to "walkabout town", and so I ended up at Bugis Junction, shopping with my very zombiefied friend. Despite his stupor, he managed to come to a quick decision after looking at the tonnes of unemployed people hanging about Singapore: he'll accept the invitation to do his Masters of Music.

Then again, it was rather scary seeing too many taxicabs on the road; the fabled "eternal taxi queue of death" was nowhere in sight at the Bugis taxi stand. The refugees of the economic recession, helping to make our transport system less painful.

In our amazingly short queue for the taxi, my friend and I came up with a comic item that probably annoyed any listeners, but greatly entertained ourselves.

Top Jobs in Today's Economy - where do our recently unemployed or recently graduated Singaporeans go?

~Taxi driver for Comfort cabs~
Remember all the reports of 30something former execs and 40something degree-holders driving cabs? If you thought the 1998 boom in the taxi industry was scary, think again.

~Sales Executive~
There must be some secret to getting people spend money when they haven't got any. 80% of job listings in Classifieds are for sales.

~Financial Planner~
Investment and Taxes. See "Sales" and "Recession". And the entry above.

~Insurance Agent~
Can someone tell me why all the insurance companies are calling up the NUS/NTU database of all graduates from 2001 onwards?

~Data-entry worker~
Ever wonder why everyone and his dog is allowed to ask for your I/C number, home address, email, age, and probably income and education level, for just about any old reason? My dears, that's to keep the data-entry grunts busy!

~Tuition Teacher~
Yes, let's do our part to make sure today's students end up as overeducated and unemployable as their tuition teachers/recent graduates.

~Waiter~
Our PM says, the Hotel/FNB industry needs you!

~Pamphleteer~
Distributing flyers pays, and some companies have armies of pamphleteers every corner of a street, underground tunnel, MRT station... all waiting to pounce on you.

~Donation Solicitor~
That's right. Our charity organisations have a shady deal with the companies that run the pamphleteer business. All operatives get paid a 20% commission on amount of money raised for the charity. Now, I'd rather give my money to a conman pretending to be a deaf-mute than donate a single cent to the thieves running our charities.

~Yasumi (休暇) ~
If all else fails, do what the Japanese do: say you're on vacation.

Sesame Street begins broadcast to Middle East

From yesterday onwards, little children everywhere in the Middle East will enjoy an educational television program aimed at fostering peace and mutual acceptance amongst Arabs and Israelis. The project is funded by the European Union, thank goodness... so there won't be any bias.

I'm sure if the US of A funded it, the show would largely be a PR stunt for "the spread of democracy in the Middle East, beginning with Liberated Iraq". Top US generals would probably appear on some episodes, saying the reason for their country's supremacy is "My God is bigger than his". Grouchy Oscar would probably be replaced with a look-alike of the evil Kim Jong Il, with his trash can doubling as a nuclear processing plant/hidden weapon of mass destruction!

One thing I'm sure of, today's episode will be proudly brought to you by the number 400, which is the death toll of American soldiers killed since their illegal invasion and occuption of Iraq began.

A Plan to Revive the Economy

Watching Singapore telly is worse than stabbing your eyes out, especially when it comes to locally-produced telly. Mediacorp proudly proclaims that it has more than 40 years of experience in public tv broadcasting, but surely much more can be desired from the producers of such gems like Living with Lydia, Brothers 4, The Ways of the Matriarch?

It's time, we feel, for the Media Development Authority to end the ridiculous monopoly of Mediawhore - a monopoly, because the said company still receives 80% of total funding. For once, MDA should encourage really independent production houses to produce their own stuff. Having mediacorp or mediaworks (Twiddledumb and Twiddledumber?) do in-house production or commission third-parties to bring to life their half-baked ideas... basically leads to awful television, bad accounting, and the closure of the market to independent competitors.

Here is a list of what locally-produced shows might actually succeed in Singapore:

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Why the hell should we watch some really boring travel shows where you get to see the landscape, the culture, the foreign people? The tourist is the real star of a travel program, and the biggest star in Singapore is our Great Leader, Mr. "It's fair that I got a discount for my luxury condo in 1989 because I'm a star, like Madonna"!

Follow our Great Leader and his family as they tour around the world and make devastating comments on the food, service, economy of the foreign country!

See how the rich and famous of Singapore push, cajole, drop names, and threaten ignorant foreigners, to get ahead in a queue! See the rich and famous travel round the world in specially chartered private planes from the national airline!

Proudly sponsored by: Chan Brothers Travel and Singapore Airlines.

Exchanging Lives

Who on earth would give a hoot to see pampered celebrity Kumar exchange places for a day with celebrity adventurer Pierre Png? Or to see a pampered middle-class Singapore exchange lives with an African family for a week?

Each week on Exchanging Lives, a minister will exchange places with an unemployed Singaporean. That will teach the minister just how easy it is to follow their own advice to "settle for any job", don't you think?

抢救贫穷大作战

Every week, this reality tv/game show will focus on the travails of different unemployed Singaporeans. Cheer them on, as they work hard to land a job, any job! Afterall, it's time we prepared Singaporeans' mindsets for the New Economy.

As befitting the advice of our Prime Minister, see each unemployed bloke and gal settle, plead, and even offer to work for free in the service industry, which of course boils down to 1. waitering, 2. sales, 3. making ramen.

The Great Reformation

Why watch the crap that is Mohlmein High?

This year-long reality series will follow the ups and downs, the hope and uncertainty that follow the pioneer batch of Singapore kids, the "guinea pigs" of education reforms, in their final year of JC/secondary school. And their teachers, who got into NIE for job security... now blunder about from the lack of 10-year series guides to rely on, and are forced to actually teach their students. There's the REAL angst that kids are facing: the incomprehensibility and senility of a system that refuses to die.

Yes, Prime Minister

This comedy is all about a clueless, newly appointed PM, who struggles to carve his own political identity in face of mounting doubt and derision from the skeptical public. He also must face the bureaucrats, who think they run the country; his father, the Senior Minister, who drops in every episode to 'give advice'; and the Other Senior Minister, i.e. the previous PM, who feels he is now entitled to a say in the running of the country. What's worse is, his political opponent Dr Suan Jee Choon keeps taunting him with the line "You think your father own the country issit?"

Poor PM!

The Ugly Singaporean Tourist

The strangest thing happened last night when I turned on the telly. Our Great Leader, after nearly one week since his missus contracted a stroke while touring in the UK, finally came back to Singapore, and the first thing he did was to give a press conference slamming the foreign country as a place with poor service, lousy healthcare, and nothing compared to our great, efficient nation. The Ugly Singaporean Tourist rears his head, in a personage no one scarcely expected. The details of the sordid tale is here.

The charge? Mrs. Great Leader had a stroke and was admitted to a London hospital. The doctors took 8 hours before they handled her, prefering instead to tend to 3 heart attack patients. Mr. Great Leader was so annoyed at not getting prompt service that he demanded to fly back to Singapore. So, Singapore Airlines mobilised an aircraft, get a team from SGH to retrofit the plane with the necessary equipment, and flew Mr and Mrs Great Leader home on that plane.

What did Mr. Great Leader complain was 'wrong' in how the london hospital staff treated his missus?

Lee said he and his wife had earlier waited 45 minutes for an ambulance to take them to the hospital for what was only a 10-minute drive. "If she was in Singapore, within... one and a half hours flat, we'd know exactly what went wrong," he said. Lee reportedly said the incident highlighed the problems of Britain's free health care system compared with Singapore's part user-pays method. "We run a system where you have to co-pay... but you get the attention. There, no attention, just join the queue."

Er, like. Let's give this guy a slap on the back of his head, shall we? If an average Singaporean had a stroke....

1. The ambulance may come in a few hours. Or it may not even come, as previous horror stories in the papers have reported.
2. After arrival at the A&E department of a Singapore hospital, you'll have to wait anything from 12 to more than 24 hours to see the doctor.
3. Mr. Lee, have you ever tried queueing when you visit a Singapore hospital?

According to some Ministry of Health guidelines, and from what I remember from my brief period as a volunteer, a Catscan needs to be done on a stroke patient from between 8 to 24 hours of a stroke. Stroke patients are indeed ranked on lower priority than heart attack patients, because a stroke tends to lead to a stabilised (but weak) condition and is usually not life-threatening. A heart attack can lead to death, and the patient health do not self-stabilise. Mrs. Great Leader's stroke was actually handled according to proper guidelines and procedures by the UK hospital.

What we can learn from Mr. Great Leader's experience... and let's just ignore whatever patriotic propaganda he's trying to spin out of this, is:
1. Being a big star entitles you to special treatment from Singapore Airlines. If you're big enough, they'll even prepare a private plane for you in 2 days.
2. Please, when you visit another country, try not to complain about how slow everything is, and expect everything to be run as "fast" and "efficiently" as Singapore.
3. If you're the Great Leader, everywhere you go in Singapore, you get special treatment. But not if you're overseas. Don't get too cocky and expect the United Kingdom to revolve around you, when you already have Singapore for that.

Disenchantment, Re-enchantment, Re-disenchantment

Today's topic is on the venerable Luohan fish that Singaporeans used to keep as a wildly popular hobby in the past 3 years. It's a good time to pontificate on this utterly serious matter, after today's reports that people are dumping the hobby fish into the sewers, flushing them down the toilets, releasing them into reservoirs and ponds, and even dumping them in front of aquariums.

As we all know, Singapore is a modern, capitalist society full of hardheaded, pragmatic people who believe in meritocracy and social mobility. This means, no ridiculous superstitious and unscientific beliefs like "the rich will get richer, and the poor, poorer", or "if I arrange my furniture thus and thus...", or "he is a son of so-and-so, of course he's rich". For most part, Singaporeans are proud to believe that no one owes them a living, that the good life can be attained by anyone if they tried hard enough. Social scientists call this demystification a "disenchantment of the world" that is a feature of modern society.

After 1999, when it became apparent that the country would not recover from the 1997 economic crisis, Singaporeans remained honourably disenchanted with the world, prefering to pick up the pieces of shattered financial portfolios by becoming entrepeneurs; we still believed then, that social mobility and sucess could be attained. So, everyone and their dog started a tuition business. Then, everyone and their mum opened a bubble tea shop in every third store of a street. And when that failed, everyone and their cat opened a handphone accessories shop.

Gradually though, the forces of science and technology took a step back from the rise of magick, when people started buying luohan fishes, those scarily mutated looking giant fish that seem to have lottery numbers showing on their bodies. We became a nation of superstitious gamblers; everyone either had, or knew a relative who had these ugly but lucky fish.

Yet today, the ridiculous fish fad has sunk. Luohan fish that used to fetch as much as $4000 now sell for $20 or less in aquariums. Our migrant construction workers collect them from ponds and reservoirs to EAT. We have become, full-circle, disenchanted again.

You can tell the difference from the original state of naive disenchantment from today's version. No one believes that "it is glorious to be rich!", since it is impossible to get rich anymore. There will be no real recovery, only a jobless recovery. Hope has disappeared, and we are truly disenchanted.

Not Wordsworth

Only those people who have been to Little India, or lived in the Northeast in late 1999, would know what's going on... But I'm interested to know what others might think when they read this too.

Notes: final revision.

Lines composed on a bus in Little India, during a traffic jam on my way home, October 1999

i.
Is the city an architectural space
or an afterimage of our constant motion?
We recognise urbanity only in a traffic jam.

ii.
We dragged Little India into modernity.
Its settlements hastily torn down,
the residents labelled squatters and redistributed.
Today, a commercial space of ethnic products
for the Indian community.

iii.
The traffic jam is a totally random
yet regular feature.
A persistent epiphenomenon.

iv.
Little India is a one-way street.
Migrant workers alight at Jalan Besar
whose Chinese-run motor parts and home decor stores
neither invite or entice.
The visitor crosses the road
into the no-man's land of the red-light district
and magically appears in Little India.

v.
Once, being a pedestrian was a subversive act.
Migrant workers disregard the 'do nots' of walking:
They jaywalk, creep into the bus lane, ignore traffic signals;
stop at road junctions, on the pavements, in the open fields.
Little India is a true pedestrian mall. Unlike Orchard Road.

vi.
Because they loiter, or maybe because they wander,
migrant workers are dangerous and vaguely criminal:
Bright fluorescent lights and security cameras
shall drive them away from the jewellery shops.

vii.
No matter, we will curb them:
fences to keep them off the road
hired coaches to keep them out of public buses.

viii.
This is all history erased.
There are no migrant workers in Little India.
They are transported safely, 20 to a truck
from their quarters to work and back again.
Nevermind it violates their basic safety,
we now have a world-class traffic system.

Organisational Culture

Last Friday, a ridiculous scene played out in Parliament, when it was revealed by the Minister for Defense, that a commando died in a routine exercise in camp. The farcial elements seem to outshine the tragedy of the situation; I do not use the word "ridiculous" lightly here.

To humanise the situation, let us call this commando a mere boy, since he was 19 years when he died. That was, of course, two months ago. The wheels of justice must turn exceedingly slow in Singapore, since he died almost two months ago. That's Ridiculous Fact no. 1.

How did he die? Well, the commandoes are a very different sub-species in the army. They apparently have very interesting exercises, such as: "simulating a POW experience" as part of the training needed for this elite branch of the Singapore Army to properly defend the country. To put strip that phrase of its clinical and self-serving rhetoric, we'll call it "simulating conditions of torture", because that's what it boils down to. This includes dunking the victim (or "Trainee", in the military parlance of this "simluation exercise"), head-first, into cold water. It is not known how long the head is submerged in water, or whether this constitutes only a part of a much larger regime of similar simulations. Hence, Ridiculous Fact no. 2: the kid died in peacetime, in an exercise that served no positive purpose. It was, of course, a realistic simulation: people do die from torture, or die from exhaustion and minor injuries from the torture. The Minister has denounced the practice and ordered a halt to all simulation exercises of this sort.

Of course, just about everyone who's been to National Service in this country would know, or have heard of such practices, mostly through second-hand knowledge: someone's bound to have a classmate or a friend who served time with the Commandoes. Even if one didn't step into an army camp, one would already know from second-hand knowledge of what goes on in military training in Elite army schools. I'll try not to mention Demi Moore's G.I. Jane here, but it's such a taken-for-granted 'fact' that everyone 'knows' even without needing to see the truth for themselves. Ridiculous Fact no. 3: Our Minister of Defense, a Brigadier-General, was unaware of this practice, which had been going on and on for years. Ever since Singapore's army was started in the 50s. And of course, so was Mini-Lee, another Brigadier-General, and Teo Chee Hean, a Rear-Admiral of the navy (and some say, the NEXT PM, after Mini-Lee!). All 3 figures are, of course, Ministers in the cabinet.

I would give them the benefit of the doubt, and insist that the 2 BGs and the RAdm should be taken at their word (I mean to say this without cracking up in laughter of course). They really are unaware of what's going on in the army. Which brings us to Ridiculous Fact no. 4: Our army is administered by scholar-generals who are not involved in daily operations and training, who have worked in the confines of an office for 90% of their period of service to the armed forces. The elite managers and stewards of the army... are glorified bean counters and office bugs. This isn't peculiar to Singapore, and I'm disappointed at not being able to gloat at our claims to be the weirdest nation on Earth. Most of the elite generals at the Pentagon are office bugs too.

Ridiculous Fact no. 5: the people who really run the army on a daily basis, who make the real decisions that affect the people they command, are the middle managers - the Commanding Officers of the camps. These are the most corrupt elements of the army. They're "on ground zero" of all military operations. Every infringement of rules that take place, occur with their approval. It is the commanding officers who insist on subverting 'rules' guaranteeing the safety of their charges. It's common knowledge that there are certain managers who prevent their soldiers from reporting sick before any exercise or test, as it would jeapordise the RANKING of the camp or unit or formation. That's how the Commandoes managed to clinch the "Best Formation" award almost every year, until a few years ago, when its luck ran out.

Ridiculous Fact no. 6: The army is required to brief all soldiers of safety procedures before every exercise. According to a fellow writer who had just came back from reservist training just before the announcement of the death of the boy, "During my recent stint, officers were smirking about how safety videos had to be shown and re-shown just for everyone to cover their own backsides, and had no relation to training whatsoever; and all those with various back/leg/arm problems were still made to go to field camp, dig trenches, lift heavy loads, etc." You can read the rest of his testimony at http://www.qlrs.com/issues/oct2003/editorial/ev3n1.html.

I suppose, in any other country, the Minister of Defense would've been forced by popular pressure, to step down, and the Commanding Officer to be saked. Ridiculous Fact no. 7: The minister, as well as Mini-Lee and the Rear Admiral... stress that the army, as an institution, is not diseased. It's just an unfortunate and unpardonable mistake. Which does not warrant the sacking of the CO of the Commando camp, who was merely transferred to another post.

Ridiculous Fact no. 8: Some Singaporeans defend the idea that casualties in the army should be tolerated. What, if people stopped dying, if the flagrant abuses in the system stop... does it mean we're becoming a soft people?

Ridiculous Fact no. 9: just as it happened with an earlier case of a psycho teacher abusing her student... the ex-students and graduates of the camp commander came to his rescue and insisted to the press that he's an upright guy.

Ridiculous Fact no. 10: The camp commander makes some lame announcement that he's sorry. And that, as a good soldier, "I'll go down with my men." Right. The kid is dead, you just got transferred to a different post in the army.

White Uniforms

The leaders of this country have a fascination with wearing an all-white "uniform" in every public, official or national appearance. Some say this all-white apparel symbolises - or tries to give an impression of - the value of "purity", "incorruptibility", and "trustworthiness".

Others say, it's just the secondary school uniform that most of our leaders used to wear (Raffles Institution uniform...), and it is really a mark of how elitist Singapore society has become, for 80% of the nation's leaders to have studied in a pool of 5 top schools.

I say, the only thing an all-white uniform shows clearly, is the colour of the underwear beneath the white pants... Next time you RI boys feel a pair of female eyes behind you, you'll know why

Great Classics

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义) counts as one of the 3 great Chinese literary epics, the others being Journey to the West (西游记) and Outlaws of the Marsh (水浒传), all written in the Ming era. I term these epics and not novels. Strictly speaking, the first (or first great) modern Chinese novel was the Qing dynasty Dream of the Red Mansions (红楼梦).

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is of unknown authorship, and the earliest surviving print copy dates from 1522. The great sequence of stories in Romance detail the interregnum between the Han dynasty and the Jin dynasty, in a brief period where China was divided into 3 warring nations, each bent on reunifying the old empire under its own banner.

In this period of strife, the Romance sequence focusses on the "Great Actors" of history, the relationships between leaders and their loyal (or treacherous) followers, and their claims to legitimate power and sole rulership of China.

Yet, it troubles me, this Romance. Through all its 120 chapters, much is made of the brilliant military strategies, the shifting alliances, the heroic battles, the little crises of self-doubt that leaders occasionally fall to. War is brutal, yet the novel's heroes and villians (poor, misunderstood Cao Cao!) must soldier on towards that manifest destiny of reuniting their sundered nation. The phrase "blood flowed like running rivers", figures in every alternate battle sequence. Which is just about every chapter. 3 nations fought a 60-year war that probably killed millions. More than half the "peacetime" chapters describe the devastating famines and poverty that the war brought on.

And yet... the novel's heroes, Liu Bei and his 2 sworn brothers, soldier on to fight their battles, and to lead more men to fight. In the novel, the trio lose their wives and families in more than one occasion, when their cities fell to maurading armies of Cao Cao, Lu Bu and Yuan Shao. And yet... the trio proclaim several times that these wives and family... are of less importance to them then their brotherly ties. And presumably, the war.

How would the Romance look like, if it was written from the view of the random slain soldiers whose blood often stain the battlefield "like a river", instead of from the view of the Hero-generals? How would the Romance look like, if it was written from the view of the peasants who were either forcibly conscripted, had their food produce "taxed for the war effort", aside from the famine and droughts? How would the Romance of the long war look like, written by the women? Would it be just as "Romantic"?