The P65 Blog

The “Yu Sheng” or “Lou Hei” is a traditional dish partaken during reunion dinners or gatherings during Chinese New Year.

It is a dish i dearly miss as i spend yet another Chinese New Year away from family in a distant land. But even as i reflect on this dish that i miss, i am amazed at how different ingredients of different qualities and traits come together to make such a unique and tasty dish.

I am reminded as well of the social fabric we have in Singapore and how different peoples, races, religions, cultures all converge together to form one unique Singapore.

Without further ado, on behalf of the P65 blog, i would like to wish all our readers a prosperous and happy Chinese New Year and to those who are not celebrating CNY, a happy holidays!

I read about the fiasco involving Pastor Rony Tan, who denigrated Buddhists in his sermon when he had a Q&A style sharing session with an ex-monk. I also watched the clips on youtube.

I am not a Buddhist but I am offended by what he did and said. It was shocking how he mocked Buddhism and even more shocking how the hundreds of people in the congregation laughed along at his comments. I wonder how many more times such things have happened, and how many more religions could have been made fun of on stage…..

It was magnanimous of the Buddhist and Taoist head monks to accept his apology and have tea with him. They really have big hearts.

But that does not negate the fact that Pastor Tan’s comments were hurtful, insulting and could potentially sow ill-feelings between people of different religions. The fact that he is a religious leader, that it was said on stage (for show) and recorded as a video clip publicized on the Internet aggravates the matter. I am surprised that he was only interviewed by the ISD. Personally, I think he should be charged under the Sedition Act. Judging from the past cases of people charged under the Act, I see no reason why he shouldn’t be charged. As for those who were in the congregation, I wonder how they can sleep at night having been complicit in the process of denigrating other people’s beliefs…..

Apart from Rony Tan’s case, the three teenagers making fun of Indians on Facebook etc, I am increasingly reading very racist or xenophobic remarks from Singaporeans on websites. One may have grievances against foreigners, minorities or what nots but that does not justify making immature, rude and down right bigoted comments about others. It is amazing how globalization is opening up the world but sadly, this may sometimes result in more closed minds.

I cherish the racial and religious harmony that we have in Singapore. It is not something that happened by chance and we should never leave such things to chance. Heavy policing may not solve the problem but some policing is necessary – not just by the authorities but also by society. This may sound like a cliché, but looking at the many cases of racial and religious problems in the world, we should all play our part in maintaining the harmony that we have.

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The chapel at my school in Massachusetts, USA, where all religions come together.

The ancient language of Sanskrit has been around since the 4th century and i found it rather surprising that this word Karunya which is translated into great compassion has been around since then.

It is interesting to note that human kind has found it noteworthy that this word great compassion should be recorded through the annals of history. I believe that the only reason why it was recorded was because it is a significant word, a word that has impacted the lives of us humans since the dawn of time.

What then is compassion? I like the definition i found on answers.com, defining compassion as the Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.

Taking a deeper look into this definition, i found 2 clauses which co-exist.
a) Deep awareness of the suffering of another
b) The wish / desire to relieve it

More often than not, i find that in this day and age, Compassion has often been mistaken-ed for pity or even sympathy, where doing something nice (usually a token act for someone less well off) is just an action to ease our conscience or have that sense of altruism for ourselves.

Yes i agree that such feelings are not wrong, but shouldn there be more to compassion than just the happy feelings of doing something nice for someone else? Shouldn it benefit the person we are helping more than it benefits us?

Another perspective i took on the word compassion is the realization that it is an amalgamate of 2 words, Compass and Passion. The former being an instrument used by travelers or explorers in helping them find their bearings, chartering new frontiers and in a hope of getting to their destination. The latter being a strong emotion or feeling.

Putting this breakdown together with the earlier definition of compassion, we have
a) Deep awareness of the suffering of another
b) The wish / desire to relieve it
c) The tool to help one find direction and reach destination
d) Strong emotion / feeling

May i thus suggest that the way one find directions (purpose) and reaching our destination (dreams) is through the means of having strong emotions and feelings of the suffering of another and in turn, having the wish and desire to relieve it.

In the current wake of the Haiti quake (i didnt mean for that to rhyme), i start to wonder about the things in my daily life, sights, observations that invoke compassion..

With that, i am thankful of the small sacrifices, people who have acted on compassion -  the student who buys the homeless man a meal,  the MP who sacrifices time with his family for his residents or even the unsung volunteer who spends time with the aged at old folks homes.

Ultimately, i guess with the occupation of the duties of daily life, it is definitely tough to find people who have the heart (compassion), hands (the ability to do something well) and head (planning, execution, foresight) that will make a tangible positive difference in the lives of fellow Singaporeans and less fortunate in this world.

Mandela cannot be captured in a couple of hours of film – but certainly Clint Eastwood does a masterful job of portraying the inspiration that he was – and remains – to millions.

The powerful poem by William Henley from which the film gets its title and which sustained Mandela through his years in Robben island now ranks with Kipling’s “If” as one of the most inspirational pieces I have read. What I found equally interesting is the fact that the actual composition that Mandela gave Francois Pienaar before the ‘95 Rugby World Cup was not Invictus, but the following powerful bit of prose by Theodore Roosevelt – ‘The Man in the Arena’ – and armchair pundits who do no more than simply criticise (here and elsewhere) might find it interesting that Mandela himself reached out to this passage, which I have always held in high regard, and which goes some way towards explaining why I do what I do – not just here, but in all the spheres of my existence.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Since I am away from Singapore, I did not get a chance to watch the Singapore Idol shows this year. However I read reports about the winner this year – Sezairi Sezali. To Sezairi, congratulations. And same too to the runner up, Sylvia.

I watched a couple of short clips of their performances (but not in the finals) and I would say that it seemed that Sylvia had better vocals. But since I did not watch the whole series, and did not watch the finals, perhaps Sezairi performed better/had better style etc – I don’t know.

What I want to briefly touch on are the remarks that I have read on reports about Sezairi’s win. Some people were saying that he won because the Malays supported him by voting many times for him. If it happened once, twice, it can happen thrice. It’s all about race. Or is it?

These sorts of comments bother me because they came up too when Taufik & Hady Mirza won the competitions. If someone from a majority race wins a competition – say, Miss Singapore Universe where Chinese girls have won it many times consecutively – no one questions the racial part. But when it comes to someone from a minority race winning something, it seems that some are bent on thinking that it could not have been by merit, something MUST have gone wrong…maybe miscalculations, maybe it was a fluke, maybe all the minority races voted to support him/her. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

What does it say about our society when such a thing happens? Of course, Idol contests are not purely about talent. They’re also about popularity, style, ability to connect with the audience etc. But talent does figure in it somewhat. If we look at Taufik and Hady Mirza, they are clearly talented and able to entertain audiences. Plus they have the X-factor too. And the exposure to performances after winning the competition have made them become even better performers than they were before. The same, might be applicable too to Sezairi.

So maybe, they all deserve it. Because maybe, they could have been the best of what was there and hence that was why they won.

The question is are we seeing things as they are? Or are we looking at things through lenses that are tainted with our own racial prejudices? Do we only give full credit to minority races for their failures, yet fail to do so for their successes?

Sometimes, we just have to believe. Maybe.

I read a news report about a debate on whether or not the PAP has caused Singaporeans to be apathetic. The report was about a Young PAP dialogue session where a Mr Alex Tan had blamed the PAP for the apathy of Singapore’s youth today. Parliamentary Secretary Sam Tan disagreed with Mr Tan’s view saying that “it has nothing to do with the system” but more with individual choices. Several other MPs who were there at the talk went on to give examples of robust debate in Parliament amongst PAP MPs and so on.

I wholeheartedly disagree with PS Sam Tan on this matter. Did the PAP have any role to play in the apathy of Singapore youth? Of course it did! How could it not have, when it has been the ruling party for decades? Politics afterall is the engineering of a society. A party with a majority in power in government would have undoubtedly “engineered” society to a large extent, therefore resulting in the “product” that it has in the form of its society. This is of course not something unique to the PAP but what political parties do in general.

Of course I am not going on absolutes and extremes. Of course in every society there are exceptions and political factors are not the be all and end all in society. The PAP did not do everything (even if some of us think they do). Cultural factors, family practices, upbringing and individual characteristics would definitely play a part in shaping a person’s mindset and views on the world. They would of course have an impact on the choices we make. But one cannot deny the role that politics play in shaping a society. Being a country that was largely built on Confucianist values and rule-by-law approach, we have all been shaped by the values that the PAP had set out for us from the time of independence.

Having been a student and teacher before in Singapore, and currently being a graduate student in America, I can see the vast differences there are between the typical classroom scenario in Singapore and that in the USA. In my undergrad days in Singapore, I was not outspoken myself even though I had views. Then again, I don’t recall there being very fierce and robust debates amongst my other classmates either. For me, I must admit that I was a late bloomer in this aspect and had gradually become more comfortable in raising my opinions through the years. Regardless of what some of you may think about the media in Singapore, my career in journalism did help me greatly in this aspect.

As a teacher in Singapore, I found it hard to get robust debates going in class. It has happened and when it did boy, they were good ones but by and large, and I think this is representative of the general situation in classrooms in Singapore, students are happy to sit back and not express their views very much. It was something that my colleagues and I tried to change through different teaching methods and such. There were results, but with a different engineering of society, perhaps the results could be different.

Now, as a student in the US, I can see how different it is. At every lecture, regardless of what time of the day it is, hands shoot up to ask questions or to offer comments. My experience may not be representative of all American schools for I am afterall in graduate school…but still…it is different from what I would expect in a university in Singapore. The Americans are largely encouraged to speak up and sometimes this appears to be a “speak before you think” model which may not always result in the smartest of comments – but still with many more questions and comments coming, the potential for good debates are higher than in a class where only one or two hands are up.

In Singapore the general reasons people give for not wanting to speak up is the fear of being chided (or being sued, or thrown into jail etc) or the lack of knowledge about the world/the region/politics. Of course, one can also be sued for saying libelous things elsewhere including the US but the climate of fear among some quarters in Singapore are blanket ones for anything that is in disagreement with the government, even when comments are non-libelous. This perhaps has to do with the public reports on lawsuits between government leaders and several political activists over the years. With regard to the second point on not knowing much – I find that many American students in my class have had overseas experience through gap-year programs or through serving in the Peace Corps. They may not be representative of Americans in general but still, such programs which have brought them to countries in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa have opened up their minds in a way that staying in the confines of one’s own country cannot do.

Then again, thankfully, things are changing in Singapore. Perhaps not at the speed some of us want but the government realizes that the strategies used in ruling society two generations ago have to make way to accommodate a more educated, outspoken and opinionated citizenry. The Internet has given the process of opening up discussions in Singapore a great shove. It is interesting seeing how “lively” online debates are and there are some good quality debates on some sites. But it is also unfortunate that online debates by and large have not reached a desirable level of maturity as there is often a lot of name-calling, mud-slinging, and comments made not on fact or substance but purely based on frustrations. This can be disconcerting at times but it is in a sense to be expected as we are after all new to openly expressing ourselves (what more, for some, under the cloak of anonymity). It is a “nouveau” experience and with time perhaps we can develop higher quality debates online as people feel more comfortable with expressing their views and can do so with greater engagement and responsibility.

Barring comments that are rude, racist, vulgar, malicious or defamatory, I think we all need to start developing a greater level of tolerance for criticisms. This of course, includes the higher-ups in the government. There is no need to instruct bloggers to pull down an article just because it was critical about what some higher up said – doing so will only invite more criticisms and will fuel more frustration amongst Singaporeans. Some of these comments are quite valid and part of being a more inclusive society includes accepting that others may have views that are valid (or maybe even better), even if they are expressed rather cheekily.

Then again, this does not mean an “all systems go” approach in terms of freedom of speech and action. Lest one is deluded into thinking that freedom in all senses of the word is the panacea for all of our problems, look around us and you will see that that in itself is not the answer to a better society. There have to be controls – heck, where I am now in Massachusetts, the laws on alcohol are so much stricter than the ones in Singapore so even the US is not as “free” as we imagine it to be.

But allowing greater space for engagement, and developing a higher level of tolerance for criticisms and feedback will help Singapore “engineer” a better society, and hopefully, a less apathetic one at that.

P.S: I didn’t intend to write a post as I am in the midst of exams….but procrastination is indeed very tempting. Hence, I succumbed this time. I may be slow in responding to comments, though, but then again this is not a two-way dialogue, so perhaps there can be a good, engaging and responsible debate here amongst readers and bloggers alike.

*Off to my books!*

It has been a while since i last shared my thoughts. Indeed, with the hustle and bustle of a new school term, things start to get very busy.

I was just thinking about the show in the title of my post about how a homeless man (Chris Gardner) defies all odds to become a successful stockbroker. At first i thought his happiness was derived from his success financially, or through the sense of satisfaction of overcoming odds in life. However i thought otherwise..

Even as the festive season draws closer, i wonder in the midst of all this commercial cheer and yuletide joy, what truly constitutes happiness? For that matter what is happiness? Is it based on something transient? Is it a feeling of euphoria?

I realized that many factors affect our state of happiness, and most of the time its the state of our financial status. Its true that with money, the means to do more and enjoy the luxuries of life are increased. However, in the absence of this, is there something more we can define our happiness around?

Going Home – A Short Film on Dementia

Watching this video made me cherish and miss my surviving grandmothers alot. I came to a conclusion that my source of happiness is derived from spending time with a loved one and seeing the smile on their face through simple gestures.

Reflecting on the show i was talking about earlier, i realized that happiness to the main character was not only based around his financial ability to provide for his son after he became successful,  but rather by  being able to be with his son through the odds and ordeals he faced in life and with that, still see him smile.

This Christmas holidays, my pursuit of happiness will be in the form of spending quality time with my grandmothers, and hopefully see them smile. Will you join me in bringing a smile to someone this holidays?

Firstly apologies for being MIA from the blog (though with all the contributions from my fellow bloggers I’m pretty sure I wasn’t missed!!) I gave birth 3 months ago and I’ve been making full use of my maternity leave and I’ve recently returned home to Singapore to enjoy my last two months of leave with my family and friends here.

Other than stuffing myself with good ol’ Singaporean food, I’ve been having lots of chats with friends and family on the cost of having children here. Having given birth in Wales, most of them were keen to find out what it was like and with all the bad press the UK National Health Service has been getting…I suppose they were curious.

Don’t worry I’m not going to bore you with the details of my labour

Since the NHS is publicly funded (i.e. taxpayers!!) I did not have to pay for my pre-natal & post-natal care and hospitalization. Technically its not free as I’m a taxpayer so in a long-winded and convoluted way I guess I paid for it via my National Insurance contributions.

Throughout my pregnancy I was looked after by my community midwife who even came over to my house when I was unable to make it for her ‘tuesday-clinic’ at my local GP surgery. Definitely top marks for service.

I was also give a number of birth options, I could have my baby at home, in the birth centre or hospital..I could even opt for a water birth if I wanted..though unlike Singapore, a C-section isn’t something you can opt for.

After labour where I went through 6 midwives(due to changing shifts and switching wards) and a doctor – my community midwife continued to visit me almost every other day when I was discharged to ensure that I was healing well and that I was coping. Once she discharged me from her car, I had a health visitor who would come once a week to check-in on baby and for a chat with me to ensure that I wasn’t suffering from post natal blues and as a 1st time mum..these visits really helped especially when you’re not really sure if you’re doing a good job!

All in all I’ve received lots of positive comments from my fellow Singaporeans and whilst in the past they had urged me to come home to have my baby…now they’ve changed their tune considerably. Some of my fellow mums have told me how they still have to cough up thousands of dollars despite being able to use their medisave and that the baby bonus given by the government is really to cover that outlay of money and not so much as additional financial support.

Next up is the actual cost of feeding a baby. I almost died of shock when I went to the supermarket to buy formula milk!I pay approximately $15 for a 900g box which lasts approximately a week or so and I really was not amused at having to pay twice that amount over here!!! (the one good thing of having a brother who studies in the UK is that when he comes home next Sunday I’ve instructed him to bring back 6 boxes of formula milk with him!!)

Now I do understand why my girlfriends keep telling me that its too expensive to have children over here!

I know you can’t put a price on motherhood and starting a family etc, but I can’t help thinking that the push by our govt to have more children to add on to the population numbers isn’t going to get anywhere if these costs stay as they are or increase as time goes by. Do people at the top(i.e. decision-making positions) know how much it costs to raise children on an average salary and that in most cases the option for one parent to take time out and stay home is not possible for most couples.

I do believe that in the next few years, the ruling party needs to seriously consider radical changes to the healthcare system to ensure that vulnerable groups esp the elderly and those on low-incomes are provided with the same quality of healthcare as those who can pay for it and that Singaporeans do not end up spending all of their live savings just on medical care especially in the case where one has a serious disease or illness such as cancer.

This is also crucial if they want to continue their push for Singapore to become a more conducive country for families.

Next up..applying for my son’s Singaporean citizenship by descent. Both my husband and I would like for him to do NS so I’m going to have first hand experience dealing with govt red-tape.

Wish me luck!

This seems to summarise the position of any politician/political organisation in power – especially if they’re making what by most reasonable people would be taken as considerable effort to deal with a difficult problem. An opposition, it appears, must find, willy-nilly something to nit-pick and criticize, regardless of the overall good of the proposals being offered.

Currently we have two important proposals that are making news – one internationally given its massive impact on global security – and the other locally given it’s impact on local elections.

Obama’s proposals regarding troop deployment in Afghanistan appears to me to be the best possible course of action in the face of an intractable problem. Given a diffuse, well armed and highly motivated insurgency combined with an ineffective and corrupt central government, he has decided to greatly increase the resources on the ground to enable rapid military action and set a clear timeline so that all the players are aware that they have to get results within a definite period and things cannot be allowed to drift interminably.

The Republicans, unable to fault anything else in the plan and needing to find fault in something, I presume, latched onto the “definite timeline” as a blunder and now are banging a drum about how this will play into the hands of the Taliban who will lie low till the Americans leave and then come back.

It’s not like the strategy of bombing them in 2001 and skirmishing aimlessly till 2008 because resources were diverted to a grand shock and awe display in search of dreamed up WMD (Bush’s strategy) worked. I’d think setting a clear timeline will help the Afghan government and NATO forces in the country work with more purpose and so actually do more good than their just hanging about forever without a clear path to a peaceful future.

Strikes me that no matter how sensible the proposal, the opposing party simply has to find something to fault.

The other issue, of course is the Singapore government proposal regarding the “cooling off day” before polls.

Predictably there’s been a hullabaloo raised by the opposition who claims vary from it being “a sign of the lack of confidence of the PAP” (Mr. Desmond Lim Bak Chum of the SDA) to it being “designed to hurt the opposition” (Mr. Gandhi Ambalam of the SDP) – not to mention the usual vitriol by the anonymous hordes online who randomly spray venom at every government move from behind pseudonyms.

I don’t see how the move is particularly advantageous to the PAP (or any single party). One argument being touted is that the fact that political broadcasts and news reports are allowed is unfair as the media is “in the hands of the government”. Well, if we assume that is the case, then by the same measure, the population will disregard anything the media puts out in that period, and moreover, it would actually be incensed by any blatant misuse of the media – and hence vote against the PAP rather than for it. Hardly a disadvantage. If I was an opposition candidate I would rubbing my hands in glee at the prospect of being able to ride the crest of such an anti-government wave.

Unless of course the opposition mouthpieces are insinuating that the average voter is either (a) not intelligent enough to see blatant misuse – which I think is a rather arrogant (and incorrect) opinion to have about the voter, or (b) couldn’t care about it and will vote for the PAP anyway – in which case, it hardly matters what the opposition does, because apparently the voter will choose the PAP regardless.

What if the government had decided to allow campaigning on polling day? Given that the opposition believes that a 24 hour cool-off period from campaigning is disadvantageous, it stands to reason that doing the opposite – allowing campaigning all the way on polling day should be feted by them. However if such a move were made, I am sure the opposition would be up in arms, claiming that the superior manpower that the PAP can bring to bear on polling day outside the polling stations to campaign for the “last minute” vote would be an unfair advantage. Thus, no matter which direction you move the “stop campaigning” deadline, the opposition will find a way to claim it to be “designed to hurt the opposition”.

I don’t see how the 24 hour cool-off period is designed to bolster the PAP and damage the opposition. Elections – at least where there is no vote-rigging and the voters are not bought or commandeered – as happens in several “democratic” countries- are not won on the eve of polling nor even in the 10-day campaign period – but in the 5-6 years prior to the day of voting – on the basis of progress achieved by the incumbent and alternatives on offer by the challengers.

Besides, the rules for the election have to be seen in an overall context. There will be more freedom in the coming elections – podcasts will be allowed, the internet will be abuzz – and the government is also putting in place measures to ensure the presence of at least18 non-PAP members or about a fifth of the house in the next parliament regardless of election results. That is remarkable by any standard. No other country gives losing parties anywhere near as much voice.

Taking it all as a package, the coming election will give opposition parties and voters a lot more room to create and consume “sound and fury” in the 9 days before the cooling off day – and also lead to a real increase in plurality in the parliament afterwards. As far as I can tell, far from designing the process to harm plurality and democracy in Singapore this is a move that significantly helps it – and such unilateral measures from a party in power is unthinkable except in Singapore. So instead of constantly finding fault with every measure or decision taken by the government– almost as a knee jerk reaction – where the default is “oppose” and then some reason is found to justify it, it would be good to see politicians being more discerning – supporting initiatives that are good for the people and opposing those they see are harmful – rather than just opposing everything.

I read about the upcoming Universal Studios theme park in Singapore and that it is meant to be a place “for all Singaporeans”. It sounds well and good and the said $66 per adult for a 1 day pass is supposed to be reasonably low compared to the prices of theme parks in other parts of the world. A 1 day ticket for kids will cost $48 while senior citizens enter at $32 per person.

A check on Universal Studios Orlando’s website shows that a 1 day 1 park ticket costs US$79 (but there is a current offer of $73), and Disneyland meanwhile charges between USD$62 and USD$72 for a 1 day 1 park ticket. There is no need to compare with currency conversions because we’d have to take into account costs of living etc.

While I think it is comparable to the prices of other theme parks, it still is pretty steep for a whole family to visit the park multiple times a year. A family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) will have to spend $228 just for a 1 day outing to the park, not inclusive of food, transport and other costs. While this may sound affordable to the higher and upper middle classes, it certainly is too much to spend in a day for everyone else. It will probably be one more way to evoke a sense of envy from kids comparing the haves and the have-nots. And with the Singapore government’s push for citizens to have more children, those who heeded the call and have more than 2 kids are certainly going to feel a bigger pinch getting the whole family to this theme park!

I understand that the park is a commercial project and it has to charge prices that will ensure its survival but if it is priced too high beyond the reach of an average family, then it can be a “place for all Singaporeans” but maybe only once in a lifetime. It will then have to sustain itself from tourist income.

What’s interesting though is that Universal Studios Orlando has promotional prices for Florida residents with a 1 day 1 park ticket going for USD$54.99. While Singapore just does not compare in terms of resident population size (and non-state resident population) to have a similar scheme all year round, I hope the Studios will have promotional rates for Singaporeans perhaps say, in the month of August or sometime in the year. Or perhaps it can be supportive of bigger families, and have special rates for the third and subsequent children per family!

Oh and if someone can explain the logic behind pricing tickets for senior citizens ($32) below the price of a ticket for a child ($48) to a theme park…I would be extremely grateful. While I am all for senior citizens perks, it seems ironic to me and it would make much more sense if kids too have a ticket price as low as grams’!