Can Talented Flowers Bloom in Singapore?
This is going to be a bit of an ironic piece in as
much as, I am the son of man who made pretty decent money by being “arty.” My
Dad was, for a time one of the most prominent advertising film directors in
town and even though he’s not had a great many jobs, just about everyone who
knows him, speaks highly of his dedication to his craft. My education at
boarding school and university in the UK was a result of the rewards of his
talent.
So, given that this is my background, one might say that
it’s a bit “rich” of me to ask the question whether “talent” can bloom in
Singapore, when my father managed to succeed pretty well on his talents.
However, the answer is that my dad is an “advertising”
film director. He managed to make his money through his talents because he applied
artistic talent to commercial interest. Advertisers were willing to pay good
money to produce TV commercials that were works of art and my father was lucky in
that sense.
He and his generation had the good fortune to be born
in the right time and to be in the right place in that the commercial interest
of advertisers created a demand for artistic endeavors in the production of advertising.
I believe that it would probably have been a different story had his artistic
talents not been something that commercial interest wanted.
I stress that my dad is the living example that
Singapore does produce people who are gifted and have the ability to create.
However, unless your ability to create suits either the commercial interest of
advertisers or a government agenda, chances are you’re going to starve.
Now, in fairness to Singapore, artist around the world
tend to struggle. The joke remains that every waiter in Los Angeles is as
aspiring actor or producer. Back when I was in school, we were told that if you
wanted to be an actor in the UK, you needed to be part of the actor’s union and
most of the members of the union were unemployed. We need to look at the fact
that Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting his lifetime. Shakespear himself,
was at best “comfortable.’
So, artistic talent being commercially unappreciated
is nothing new or unique to Singapore. However, there are certain aspects of
Singapore’s culture which makes it particularly tough to be “talented.”
Talent is inevitably defined as someone who can pass
exams and work within a system. As such, we have “talented” bureaucrats and “good
workers” for multinationals or companies set up by people from elsewhere. To a
certain extent, we’ve been lucky in that a good portion of our prosperity has
been generated by multinationals eager to set up shop in a stable place with
competent by obedient people.
However, talent and the desire to follow your heart
often means not fitting into a mold. People out of the orthodox don’t get recognized
or appreciated in any shape or form. I think of an opera singer I recently met,
who described her friends telling her that they couldn’t understand why she’d
subject anyone to screeching in a foreign language nobody understood:
As such, people who wish to pursue their dreams an
make the most of their talents are forced to leave Singapore and only get any
form of appreciation once they make it outside of Singapore. Our one and only
gold medalist, Jospeh Schooling and our one and only tech entrepreneur, the
late, Sim Wong Hoo come to mind. Both had to be in the US in order to go
through the trial and error that made them “world class” in their fields.
Then, there’s policy. One of the worst examples of driving
away talent, comes from our policy on National Service. For the record, I do
believe in National Service and its ability to be an “equalizer.” However, let’s
recognize that our military capabilities won’t be affected with a bit of
flexibility. One thinks of the case of Ben Davis, who was offered a contract by
Fullham United, a club in the Premier League (“EPL). The Ministry of Defense refused
to let the one Singaporean talented enough to get into the EPL any exemptions
or deferments (though it had no problem giving Dr. Patrick Tan, son of former
President, Dr. Tony Tan a 12-year deferment to study soil in the name of
national security). Ben Davis isn’t the only talent driven away by National
Service. You have the pianist, Melvin Tan, who plays in concerts around the
world except Singapore and the author Kevin Kwan who wrote a world-famous book
that got made into a world-famous film shot in Singapore, the home land Mr.
Kwan can never return to.
So, what parent in their right mind, wants to risk all
of that, even if it’s the one thing that will make their kid special? In an
ironic way, Singapore is starting to see the value of having creators and does
all sorts of things to bring creators from around the world into Singapore.
However, its ironic that at the same time it sets up a system that’s hostile to
native born talents trying to make it.
It requires courage to be a “creator” in Singapore. I
take the example of a musician I recently met, who was once a banker. Luckily
for this particular musician, he found a support network that enabled him to
make a living from his music:
Mr. Remy Fan
It’s this simple, creators, be they in visual arts,
writers, musicians and other innovators need space to grow. We need an
employment culture that allows us the flexibility to hire “gig” workers for certain
simple jobs (thus reducing the need for cheap foreign labour), cheaper spaces for
certain people to gather and a culture that encourages people to make mistakes.
We need people willing to collapse and get up again to keep creating:
Let’s never forget that the societies that produce
artist also produce scientist and entrepreneurs. These are the very things that
keep the economy growing.
1 comment
It is precisely the spirit of allowance for exploration, testing new possibilities, accepting trade offs of potential failures that allow both artists and entrepreneurial people and exploratory scientists to flourish and breathe new life into their respective fields. The macro environment has to be willing to tolerate more chaos and unpredictability to nurture such outcomes. It explains why even the best Asian talents tend to flourish in the west and not so much in straightjacketed places like China or Singapore which value conformity and certainly over possibilities. Law and order appear great but chaos also engenders creativity. I think the Singaporean and Chinese environment simply are less friendly to the sort of creativity we so aspire to.
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