Little Tribes

 

It’s Valentines Day today and I thought it was time to bash out a piece on a topic that many of us don’t think about – our need for a tribe. Ironically, my “love-life” has been what you could call an opener into the topic of tribes.

Let’s face it, the word “tribe” has “primitive” connotations. Mention the word and you automatically think of “less sophisticated” societies like “native Americans” or places in the outback of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the truth is that modern societies, like Singapore’s a in fact very tribal.

As much as we talk about diversity and the need for “unity in diversity,” the truth is, we as a species,” gravitate towards people who are “like” us regardless of whether the “like” is based on ethnicity, religion, sexuality and so on. I experienced this first hand, when I was a student. I lived in Dean Street, Soho, which was the centre of the “Gay Tribe” of Europe (I used to hang out in a Spanish bar where all the Spanish gay people who could not be gay in Spain ended up.) At the same time, I was also a stone’s throw away from Chinatown, which provided the comfort being able to speak Cantonese (or anything other English), and I got to eat familiar foods like “Dim Sum,” (Chinese restaurants in that part of London were great – the only exception being “Mr. Wu’s” which was a Pseudo-Chinese buffet and I can proudly say I never entered the place in three years of living there.)

In a way, this makes sense, particularly if you’re a migrant, arriving in a place where you don’t speak the language and you don’t know anyone. The most natural place where you gravitate towards is to the place where there are people like you and who can understand you and hopefully get you settled and started in the new place. It was your fellow clansmen who helped you get work and if you started up a business, they were the ones who would be your initial customers. The workings of how “migrant tribes,” whether you call them “Tongs” in the context of a Chinatown in the West or a “Kongsi” in Southeast Asia are best illustrated in the Netflix Series, “Warrior” which shows how Chinese communities in 18^th century San Franciso settled and tried to build a life.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796/

 

 It’s easy to see why and how such little tribes formed. I mean, where do you expect to go to when you’re in a foreign land, where you are effectively a fish out of water? Its natural to go to the people are understand you. The Kongsi’s in South East Asia, provided a haven for migrants and by and large, helped to build people-to-people ties between the country or origin and the host country of their communities. I think of the Khoo Kongsi in Penang, Malaysia, which I visited in November. Mum’s close friend, Uncle Teng Guan had actually traced a lot of his heritage in Malaysia through the Khoo Kongsi.

https://www.tiktok.com/@tang.li0/video/7441812326333926673?lang=en

 

 

However, whilst the Kong Si’s had their uses, Singapore’s first tribal leader, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, decided that they were an impediment to build a “united” Singapore. As such, he went to war against anything that resembled a tie to an era he did not shape. Mr. Lee, for all his brilliance, had a blind spot against Chinese dialects, which he regarded as a relic of an ugly past. As far as he was concerned, Singaporean Chinese would speak English and Mandarin. It was good to learn other things to, except Chinese dialects.

In a way, his war against tribalism seemed wise. Racial quotas in housing estates for example, meant that people of different ethnicities and religions would eventually live side by side. No community would dominate any particular neighborhood.

However, just as clamped down on “tribal” affinations of the old sort, people found new tribal associations. One only has to think of how old school networks play a part in certain industries. I think of my era when I had a Commanding Officer from Hwa Jong as well as a div-arty and Chief of Artillery from the same place. In my first case in the insolvency trade, I notice that the partner in the law firm we were working with came from ACS. No surprise where the associate came from.

Sure, with a new batch of immigrants, the old factors like race and language come about. In my 13-years with Huong, a lot of our social life evolved around Vietnamese girls and their boyfriends or husbands who were inevitably Caucasian expats mainly from the oil and gas industry.

However, its not just race and religion. One of my favourite Teddy Bears in a Chubby Boy who plays video games. His tribe is a tribe of Chubby Boys who play video games. When the focus was the neurotic angel, I discovered a tribe of “Over 50’s Party girls,” who were trying to get a tribe of little party boys. Now that I’m spending Valentines Day with the Pillow, I’ve noticed that a lot of her friends are also pillows. I look at myself. I am bald and the guy who has kept me in a job for the last decade is also bald.

Now, there are advantages of the new tribes in that there’s flexibility. You don’t have to be exclusive to any particular tribe. Some of the Over 50s Party Girls are part of the Pillow gang as well. I, for example, happen to mix with people with hair from time to time.

There is a use for tribes. Human beings need their tribes. However, as shown in the Warrior series, there’s the issue of insularity. If you watch Warrior, you’ll notice the way in which the Irish and Chinese have a go at each other because they think killing the other community benefits theirs.

So, whilst people will look for their own tribe, there is also the need for a safe guard against breeding tribalism and insularity. To an extent, its encouraging to see how some tribes do it from the ground up, like a recent cross-chamber party I recently attended, which was jointly organized by the Irish, Canadians, Italian, South Africans and New Zealanders. All these countries are relatively small. Yet, they’ve found that working together on such events does create opportunities for their members. Its something we should all remember, we may be small but when we work together, we can do great things.  

https://irishchambersg.glueup.com/event/cross-chamber-lunar-new-year-networking-celebration-22nd-january-2025-128805/   

Should You Give a S*** about being a S***?

 

It’s often said that one of the signs of being very rich is the fact that you can show the world that you really don’t care about everyone else. Look at the way some of the world’s billionaires dress. A lot of them are spectacularly shabby, because, well the rules about dressing to impress don’t really apply when you don’t need to impress anyone but everyone else needs to impress you.

The other big perk of being exceedingly wealthy is the fact that the very concept of work takes on a different meaning when you’re not doing it to survive. People like Bill Gates, for example, have moved away from the activity that made them spectacularly wealthy and moved to passion projects like saving the world.

So, in a sense, the ultra-wealthy are a boon to the rest of us. Take Bill Gates as an example. Mr. Gates, for the longest of times, on top of the rich list with a wealth comparable with a few nations and then, he gave it up and poured his fortune into making the world a better place. Whilst Mr. Gates wasn’t always the most popular billionaire (He didn’t push us to use the best software around – just his software), most people would say his contribution to humanity has been a net positive. Mr. Gates made being very wealthy easy (Just go work for Microsoft and get your stock options) and he’s throwing money at things like bringing sanitation to the world and finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. These are things which only the insane would say are bad. Likewise, there’s Mr. George Soros, who made his fortune cashing in on the incompetence of finance ministers, who has used his fortune to do things like promote more open societies.

So, whilst we may not like certain members of the ultra-elite, there are certain members of that circle who do good by putting their brains and fortunes to make the world a better place.

However, happens when members of that part of society decide that they should use their fortune to make society worse? The prime example is the richest man in history, Mr. Elon Musk, whose taken on a passion project of making the world a nastier place by giving credence to the world’s most shameless opportunist who only get potent when bashing up people significantly weaker than themselves.

Mr. Musk is well known for his backing of Mr. Trump, who recaptured the White House on the premise of ending crime by dark skinned people who do work that no one else will do and freeing violent criminals who actually attacked the national capital.

Once his boy got into power, Mr. Musk proceeded to p*** off the rest of the world by giving what looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute.

Mr. Musk would probably be an American farce if kept his focus within the USA. However, he hasn’t. Take his efforts to prove that he had no love for history’s most infamous political party, Mr. Musk proceeded to rally a political party that runs pretty much on a platform similar to the Nazis in the country that the Nazis mobilized to their awful deeds by telling the German people not to carry the guilt of their past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iB9SefG5Ow

 

Sure, nobody is saying that Germans shouldn’t be proud of their country. On the balance of things, Germany post 1945 has been good for the world. Modern Germany anchors Europe, which has moved from a continent where nobody could conceive of being at peace to one that nobody can conceive of being at war within a generation. There is also a case to say that Germany does get trapped in its past when it backs whatever Israel does unconditionally.

However, nobody, including a good many Germans (for the record, I have Germans that I call family) believe that Germany should never forget its past. The so called “guilt” has made it such that Germany has acted on the global stage through Europe and brought up the European continent as a whole.

Let’s think of who else Mr. Musk has befriended. In the UK, he’s decided that Nigel Farage of the Reform Party isn’t extreme enough and is looking for someone who makes Mr. Farage looks like one of life’s better specimens.

Again, let’s remember that Mr. Musk isn’t some troll in a basement. His net worth, which at the time of writing, is estimated by the Bloomberg Billionaire index stands at some US$422 billion. To put this in context, Mr. Musk is worth more than the GDP of Finland, a highly advanced economy. So, when Mr. Musk opens his mouth and makes pronouncements on various topics, he does so with a lot of weight behind him. Let’s not forget we live in an age where we worship wealth. We assume Mr. Musk is “smart” because his net worth is what it is.

The issue here is not that Mr. Musk is rich. He did what he did and got rewarded for it. By all accounts he’s a hard worker. However, the issue here is the fact that he’s gone out of his way to help social scum dominate the rest of us.

So, what can we do to limit someone with that much influence of things without banning wealth or freedom of expression? Yes, we do need more funds going into things like research to fund deadly diseases and lifting people out of poverty. We don’t need people funding the type of people that victimize the people who can’t fight back and do work. How do we encourage the very wealthy to give back rather than to throw s*** against the rest of us? These are questions we need to work on.

They Didn’t Think He’d Go for Them

 

Last night I had the privilege of having dinner with one of my favourite members of the legal community. We talked a bit about family history and mentioned that one of his aunt’s had fled German controlled Czechoslovakia for Shanghai during 40s. He’s Jewish and when mentioned that, I told him that my step grandfather had learnt to speak German from Jews in Shanghai, who had fled Germany and German controlled Europe.

What really struck me about my friend’s recalling of family history is the fact that he mentioned that whilst most of his family got out of Europe before the Nazi’s got serious about exterminating Jews, many of their contemporaries thought Hitler didn’t really mean them. It was a case of “he’s only going to go for the religious Jews,” and “not people like us who happen to be Jewish but aren’t strict about it and we’re so integrated into society, we’re actually like everyone else.”

This really struck me because we’re now living in an age where nations in the places that the rest of us look up to are becoming increasingly isolationist and things that were once considered “xenophobic” or “racist” and therefore “unacceptable” are now being seen as “truthful” and therefore “acceptable.”

I think of the Pork Guzzling Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC who got the shock of his life when I told him that I got turned off Donald Trump the day he got onto a podium and talked about “Mexican Rapist.” Yes, I agree, all of us say “racist” things and have racist thoughts and I have to admit that I am guilty of it too. However, whilst I may the odd “racist” thought and say the “odd racist” thing, I am aware that it’s the ugly part of me and I like to think that a lot of people are like that too. Then, there’s the point that I’m a nobody and I’ll never get the levers of state power. So, when I’m at my ugly best, I’m just ugly and most right-thinking people avoid me.

However, it’s a different story when you talk about people with pubic platforms and ambitions for public office. Let’s go back to the fact that Adolf Hitler only succeeded at what he did succeed in because the people gave him the levers of the machinery of the state. That gave him ability to do the horrible things that he did. Had Hitler remained an unknown painter, nobody would have cared about what he said or did.

How did Hitler get to where he got to? The answer is simple, he found an easy target and the targeted them as the source of all problems. Whenever he said anything ugly about the Jews, the mases thought he was “telling it as it is.” The people with power thought he would be a “useful idiot” and so many backed him. The people with a few brain cells gave him lots of license because they didn’t treat him seriously and I’m sure plenty of people said he probably didn’t mean what he was saying and so on. Like it or not, Hitler was given the keys to the machinery of state and the rest is well documented.

For the longest of time, targeting any particular ethnic or religious group was unacceptable in any decent society. I think of the late Jean-Marie Le Penn of the National Front in France who ran for the Presidency five times. He hated every immigrant to France and his solution to all of France’s problems was centred around removing every French person of colour. Sure, he picked up votes but by and large the French voters thought of him as a “crazy old man.”

Unfortunately, we seem to be forgetting the lessons of the 30s. When Trump made his comment about Mexicans, you had lots of people rushing to defend these comments as “he didn’t really mean it,” or “may be, he didn’t say it very well.” Brushing Mexicans as rapist was a wonderful dog whistle for the guys who can’t get laid and let’s just put it this way, guys who can’t get laid tend to take it out on the reason why they can’t get laid.

Ironically, things have evolved and become more sophisticated. In France, Marianne Le Penn has successfully rebranded the “National Front,” and instead of ranting and raving, packages things in a simple but attractive way. It’s gone round the world.

Just look at the difference between Trump 2016 and Trump 2024. This time round things are more sophisticated, even if you have to listen to the rants about “eating dogs” from time to time. Trump has managed to get the “tech-titans” who once shunned him over to his side. This time he’s gotten “Latinos” despite all his rhetoric about mass deportations. Ask enough people of migrant stock as to why they’re voting for him and the answer is inevitably “He means Latinos crossing the border and not people like us who are well integrated into the rest of society.”

It cannot be a good sign when one of Mr. Trump’s big backers appears to give Nazi salutes at the inauguration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2bbb-6Clhs

 

Sure, not all of Mr. Trump’s ideas were bad. As my favourite Young Muslim Politician likes to say “Many Americans I know say he grew the economy.” However, whilst economic growth is important, it cannot come at a certain cost and let’s never forget that Adolf did grow the German economy for a while.

Let’s face it, if economic growth was the be all and end all of how you judge a government, then China’s Communist Party would be the best in human history. To the credit of the CCP, they have brought more people out of absolute poverty in a relatively short time (40 to 50 plus years) and so they must be good, never mind the Tibetans and Uighurs that they’ve gone out of their way to eradicate.

The public targeting of any particular group by anyone seeking office should be a reason why you should NEVER let them have the keys to the machinery of state. When someone, particularly someone seeking power blames every social woe on “Indians/Chinese/Blacks/Muslims/Jews/Christians/Gays etc,” they mean exactly that and not “Indians/Chinese/Blacks/Muslims/Jews/Christians/Gays like us who are part of the mainstream etc. Also remember that if someone target certain groups, they can definitely target yours when they run of excuses.  

Start of the Healing

 

The year is coming to an end and so, I thought I would try and write about a few reflections. At the time of writing, things on the geopolitical stage look pretty awful. America has just put back its most erratic an incompetent president into power. The genocide in the Middle East looks set to intensify and there seems to be no end in sight for the war in Ukraine. The world, it seems is turning to s***.

Still, life has carried on and as always, I manage to find an optimistic side to things. For the first time in 13-years, I am single again. My 13-year marriage to Huong, that determined and focused Vietnamese girl, ended in March of this year. We’re still friendly and I’m glad to announce that she’s since remarried and seems settled in the USA. Ironically, she’s found happiness in Washington State, the place where my stepfather Lee and his family live.

When I told Kiddo that I had officially ended things with her Mum, she asked if I’d still be her dad. The answer remains yes but she’s now an adult and this experiment with parenthood goes into a different phase of letting your kid find her own way and respecting it no matter how much you may disagree with the choices she makes.

Sold our home in July. There’s nothing like seeing the physical emptying of the house you once shared for the message that “It’s Over” to really sink in.

 

 

I do miss her. She remains by far and away the best looking and most focused of the women to touch my life. I got to see the “real” Vietnam, thanks to visits to her Home Town and more importantly, she brought Kiddo into my life.

The pain of divorce was cushioned by the fact that I had fallen for someone else quite deeply – as in the, I’ll my body in harms way for you type of love. It was kind of unexpected but it happened and I’m glad it did. It was like I gave her a portion of my life force and whenever I was around her, I felt that the world was mine to conquer.

Unfortunately, things are not meant to be. In a rare moment of vulnerability, she revealed that I am a cause of pain to her and since my presence in her life is painful for her, I shall remain outside and away from her existence.

I am, as the Americans say “Playing the field.” The main person in my life is a nice girl, who seems to want to make life better. She admits that she realizes she’s “not my type” and given that my mother has described “my type” as “sh****” it’s probably a good thing and I could get used to being around someone who is genuinely, in the words of my youngest brother “shockingly normal.”

So, amidst all these developments in my personal life, I work on pampering myself a little. Exercise remains a fact of life and occasionally I get my head shaved by a professional and on the odd occasion, there’s afacial treatment to get my 50-year-old self looking presentable.

 

 The family I was born into, remains a source of strength. Mum organized a family trip in Malaysia for the event. It was good to see the family. We’re all growing older we remain as close as ever.

 

 

 

Professionally, I remain in the insolvency trade. Never saw myself in anything resembling legal or accounting but I remain here, celebrating a decade with the same employer. I have gone from the guy who couldn’t hold down a job to a guy who has been in the same job in the same place for a decade. I enjoy the fact that I remain “unqualified” in an industry where everyone is obsessed with paper qualifications.

I have no idea what the next year will bring. I’ve heard from two sources that the fortune tellers tell me that I shall soon be approaching the decade where I make my fortune. I can’t verify any of this but I will do my best to be as decent a person as I can be, even if the world goes to the dogs.

The White Lions

 https://www.sunway.city/kualalumpur/the-white-lion-kingdom/

I had a late night with the Loveable Pillow, who took me to see “Mufasa the Lion King,” in a luxury Cinema in Johor Bharu last night. The story of Mufasa is the prequel to Disney’s “Lion King” and tells the story on Mufasa, the father of the proverbial Lion King.

While Disney may not have intended it, the release of the movie in Asia close to Christmas proved to be highly significant. Let’s face it we are celebrating the birth of someone who became the first real champion of Outcast or “God from the Gutter.” Read the gospels and you’ll notice that Jesus is constantly having a go at the established characters like the scribes and the pharisees and speaking up for the outcast like the whores and tax collectors.

The story of Mufasa has a similar theme. The central character, Mufasa gets lost from his parents and ends up getting adopted by another pride. The theme of “outsiders” becomes very prominent from this moment. The King Obasi, the leader of the pride he adopted into, has rules against outsiders, stating that dilutes the background and so on and so on. However, his Queen, Eshee, speaks up for Mufasa who is finally adopted into the pride but on condition that he hangs out with the females, which is a “snub,” a sort of we’ll let you stay but you do the s*** work. King Obasi tells his son, Taka to follow his lead and exude power – which is to sleep.

Then, there’s the moment of truth, when Queen Eshee is attacked by the villainous White Lions, who are bigger and meaner than the average lion (in the movie – bears not biological evidence), her own flesh and blood son hides and trembles whilst his mother is attacked. It is Mufasa, the cub she adopted who fights with her, effectively rescuing her. It is Mufasa who has the skills and the brains to know that the White Lions are coming for the pride.

So, how is it such that the “stray” functions so much better than the heir? Well, it starts out with the fact that he was sent to be with the females. It’s supposed to be a “snub,” a way of saying he should be grateful that they’re letting him live provided he does all the “s***” or in this case “female” work. However, in a Lion Pride, it’s the females who do the hunting. They are the ones who bring home the food. So, whilst their work is deemed “lowly,” they’re doing something essential for the survival of the pride. Mufasa learns to hunt from his adopted mother and he learns the necessary skills for survival. So, by the time Mufasa and Taka are told to flee the pride, its Mufasa who takes the lead because he’s the one who’s had to go out and do things. Taka, who later becomes Scar, snivels away and expects things to happen for him, because, well, he was destined to be a prince who exudes power by sleeping.

Think about how many times we’ve snubbed someone because of their job but had problems the moment they stopped doing their job. Think of Communist societies where the top guy is known as the “General Secretary.” Ironically, this job was considered unimportant, which is why Stalin first got the job. It was Lenin’s way of trying to push him into obscurity. However, whilst everyone was looked elsewhere, it was the General Secretary who was appointing his people to every lever of power in the party and government.

The other characters are also “outcast” so to speak. Rafiki, the “wise mandril” is an exile from his tribe because they think he brings them bad luck, even though he actually gets it right when he predicts danger.

So, the lesson is clear, the things you consider “virtues” may not necessarily be so. Taka has “blood” relations with this family but flees at the first sign of trouble. Mufasa the stray, fights with the pride that adopted him.

Then, there’s the lesson of never snubbing people based on their profession. Mufasa sent to hunt with the females, is the one with the skills needed to survive. When push comes to shove, he’s the one with the ability to get thing done.

Ironically there’s a flip side to this in the shape of the villainous White Lions, who are cruel and incidentally more powerful than the average lion. It turns out that the white lion pride is not an organic pride but a collection of exiles from prides who exiled them for looking different. Being rejected by the ones supposed to be on their side gives them a sense of vengeance.

Think about the calls for mass deportation from Western countries and bans on Muslims. Yet the truth is rather different. First generation migrants are funnily enough the ones who are the most loyal citizens. They’re grateful to be far away from wherever they came from originally. The problem is not the migrants but the second generation. Think of the guys who bombed London on 7 July 2005. They were people born and bred in the UK.

The lesson here is very clear. Welcoming people and treating them with dignity works. Alienating people who look different gives them a reason to want to harm you.

Mufasa should be made compulsory viewing for kids in elite schools. The messaging on leadership is clear and people born into privilege need to get the message as early as possible that they need to understand that warmth and kindness are not weaknesses but the essence of good leadership.

The Art of Kissing Up

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Bananas, Apples and Coconuts

 

My mother takes a certain sense of pride in the fact that all her children are “Bananas.” We are “Yellow on the outside but white on the inside.”

I never really liked this phrase as I grew up. As I grew up in WASP country (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) country, I went to great pains to show that I was not one of them. I only maintained a smattering of Cantonese dialect because it was the one thing that made me different from all my school friends. I actually dreamt that I would be able to be in a position where I would only wear a “Mandarin Collar” in public.

Although growing up a “WOG” (Western Oriental Gentleman) has given me a lot of advantages (speaking with the right accent helps when you have to deal with British or American immigration), I’ve always felt and still feel that there’s something lacking in me. I never wanted to be part of the clubs of colonial masters. I wanted to be the rickshaw boy who was secretly a member of the Boxer Rebellion. I wanted to be small Oriental guy in black pajamas who sent the GI’s packing. Up till this day, I maintain the position that the only good colonial is six feet under and the only thing better than a colonial master six foot under, is the act of putting him there yourself.

Whilst I sign my name as “Li Tang,” rather than my birthname of “Tang Li” (Deng Li if you use Pinyin), I only do so because I was living in a society where I was “Li Tang,” a fact that it took me a while to accept. I remember my mum telling me it was better to be flexible than to constantly correct people over my name. I’ve been told that the “Colonial Legacy” has gifted me what I do for a living, to which I’m still curious as to why that should make me grateful for that legacy.

Having said that, I’ve now reached the age that although I may have wanted to be the “stereotype” Chinaman, my mother is right. While I am Chinese and my name is Tang Li, there’s actually very little else that’s Chinese about me. I grew up speaking English. It was the language of the home, school and now work place. To compound that, the only other language where I am vaguely literate in, is German. My American and German families are White and some of my best mates are WASP (OK, a lot of Welsh too).

The only thing that disqualifies me from being a “Banana” is the fact that the people I’ve had most affinity with, have inevitably been from South Asia or Arabia. I can pick up a few words of Hindi here and there from watching Bollywood but the only Hokkien I’ve picked up in over twenty-years of living in Singapore are the curse words. I am very comfortable in Hindi music lounges and greeting “Namaste” or “Salaam.”

I recount all of these emotions growing up as an Oriental kid in the West because there is a lot of talk about “Best of both worlds, mixing East and West” and so on. Ironically, it was my “White” friends in the UK, who encouraged me to maintain what little Chinese language skills I had because it was my advantage – both “Eastern” and “Western.”

Well, I get the logic. I look Chinese and speak English like a native. However, at this point of Middle Age, I think talk about being both “East and West,” is more wishful thinking. One is either Eastern or Western. I have to be honest here, I moved back to Singapore because I believed that the action would be in Asia-Pacific rather than in the West. Statistically, I am right. However, culturally, I would have to make a lot of psychological adjustments to operate outside of the Westernised bases of Singapore and Hong Kong (though Kiddo tells me I should learn Vietnamese and spend my final years there).

Incidentally, everything I’ve said here doesn’t make me particularly unique. I’m not the only “Banana” around nor is the Oriental Community the only one with fruit. In the USA, the “Native Americans” have “Apples,” (Red on the outside and white on the inside). The UK recently made history by having its first “Coconut” (Brown on the outside but white on the inside) Prime Minister.

So, like all sorts of fruit around the world, I have certain hang ups about straddling the world of my complexion and the world of my cultural make up. However, its not an impossible task. In fact, its an essential task.

I spent my birthday at the “Cheong Tze Fatt – Blue Mansion,” in Penang Malaysia. The original Mr. Cheong was a giant in this part of the world He was born in China and made his fortune trading commodities, amongst other things in this part of the world. When he died in Batavia and they transported his body back to China via Singapore, Penang and Hong Kong, the Dutch and British Authorities saw to it that flags were flown at half-mast.

 

 How did someone who was known as the “Last Mandarin” and actually served the Imperial Government gain so much respect from the Western Colonial Authorities?

Whilst Mr. Cheong was inevitably as Chinese as you can get (admittedly the rest of us don’t think of the Hakka as such), he was able to straddle and operate in both worlds. He never swayed from his cultural roots (The man had more than one wife, which was perfectly acceptable back then), he saw the good things about the Western world.

Mr. Cheong did a lot of social work and kept a lot of Chinese people employed. Hence, he alleviated suffering, which could easily have been turned on the colonial administrators. He employed the best of Western technologies too. His house is an example of that. It’s built to the best of Fung Shui Principles but at the same time, used metal work from the UK.

 

 So, yes, for fruit like me, you’re inevitably going to feel more than Easter or Western. However, the world is such that you’re going to need to be able to operate in as many worlds as possible. To do that, you need to recognize the best that both worlds offer and use them to your advantage. Don’t be linguistically chauvinistic. Whenever I hear ABC’s tell you “I’m an American,” when you speak an Oriental language, I’m inevitably inclined to ask “Are you too stupid to speak something other than English?” Reality is, knowing Mandarin or anything else is going to be a necessary skill. Yes, emotionally, we might feel a certain way but as fruit, we should never be afraid to operate in as many worlds as we can.