The Best School I Went to

My Dad is going to shoot me for blogging this but I’m going to state that the single best school that I attended was School of Infantry Specialist or SISPEC as it was commonly known (SISPEC has since been rebranded as SCS or Specialist Cadet School). This is the school that dad didn’t have to pay king’s ransom for and it wasn’t the school that gave me the prestige of being a “Graduate from England.” It was the school that prepared me best for life.

It’s not to say that I didn’t value my time at Churcher’s College or Goldsmith’s College (In Arty Circles, the Great Art School of the University of London.) Goldsmith’s was great or should I say, it gave me the great experience of living in one of the greatest cities in human history – “The London Experience.” I also have great affection for Churcher’s College, a place where I have many happy memories and where I made some of my best friends.

While Churcher’s and Goldsmith’s were great for the academic training and prestige value, they didn’t quite expose me to the life that I was to have. While Churcher’s was by no means a major league public school, those of us who attended all came from a similar socio-economic background and we were basically a group of nice kids and it was understood that we would all be going to university. Goldsmith’s was like a bubble where you could hide from the realities of daily life.

SISPEC on the other hand was brutal. We all came from different socio-economic backgrounds and saw life from different sides of the road. My best friends included the Chinese speaking son of a fishmonger, who was raised by a single parent and the son of the plastic bag tycoon. Somehow, we had a find a way of gelling together.

SISPEC was supposed to train us how to “LEAD.” It was about getting guys who didn’t always feel like cooperating (or in some cases, thought fucking you up was a sport) and to add fuel to the fire, you had the superiors who weren’t exactly keen on making your life easier either. Somehow, between all of that, you had to find a way of getting things done.

One of my former officers described SAFTI OCS as the best leadership school in the East. Officers spend nearly a year learning how to lead. In the Singapore system, the NCO’s or “Specialist” as we’re known, are there for our “knowledge” of a particular topic. So, in a sense OCS might be a better leadership school than SISPEC.

However, being an officer is relatively simple in the sense that you’re part of management. Your job is to provide “leadership” and there are plenty of cooperative subordinates to do things for you. I remember reading a manual for NCO’s published by the American army, which tells a wonderful story. It involves a major, a few second lieutenants and a sergeant-major. The major asks the second lieutenants to put up a flag pole and the young officers spend hours trying to figure it out. After watching them struggle, the major offers to show them how to get it done. He turns to the sergeant-major and says, “Sargent-Major, please see that the flag pole is up by sun rise tomorrow.”

This story is the perfectly illustrates the difference between being part of the team that plans things and the team that has to execute things. As an NCO (or Specialist, as Singapore insist on calling them), your job is basically to get the basic unit to execute things. While you have some leadership authority, you are primarily the bridge between the boardroom and the shop floor. An officer has the advantage of a rank that says he’s entitled to lead. There is that distance between you and the men to say that you are the boss.

The NCO doesn’t always have that luxury. You have to be close to the men so that they feel compelled to do what you say but you also need to except orders.

In later life and having worked several industries (PR, advertising, insolvency, food and beverage and retail), I’ve noticed that the key skill is the ability to manage people.

One of the key problems with management is that it’s constantly presented as a top down thing. You are told that you manage when you can get your subordinates to do things. The thing that management schools generally fail to teach you is the need to manage up or “boss management.”

As an NCO in a military unit, you got to be able to command your specific unit but you also have to learn how to manage your bosses and believe me – you have plenty. In professional armies like the USA and UK, an NCO has to manage the men and very often his boss – the young officer, who in many cases is often young enough to be his son. Learning how to tell your boss he’s a total idiot in such a way that he understands and does something about it while still showing the proper deference is a skill. In corporate sector, the easy way out is to avoid telling your boss there’s a failing.  In the military, where you deal with lives in life-ending situations, it’s irresponsible not to acquire the skill.  

I’m not saying that SISPEC taught these skills perfectly but the experience made one aware of the need to acquire such skills.

In my current existence, I find myself learning to manage. I am essentially a bridge between various competing interests like bosses, clients, staff, colleagues, suppliers and so on. I don’t always do it perfectly, but the experience of going through SISPEC (nearly 30-years later) made life easier.

National Service wasn’t something I wanted to do. The job was forced upon me. However, when I look back, I’m grateful to the experience. It was wonderful preparation for later life.

Boys - Let the Cougars Hunt You Down!

As the French election draws to a close, I thought I would drop a line on the topic of being with an older woman since there is a possibility that the next “first lady” of France is significantly older than her husband. I am, of course, talking about Emanuel Marcon, the current front runner who is married to a woman 24-years his senior and the woman who has given him seven step-grandchildren and the ripe old age of 39.

What’s interesting about this, is the fact that Mr. Marcon’s marriage to an older woman is the fact that it’s been positioned against the marriage of the 70-year old Mr. Trump to a much younger woman. Not even the most extreme “Trump Haters” have questioned the marriage of a 70-year old man to a 46-year old woman. Sure, there have been comments about Mrs. Trump’s propensity to plagiarize speeches or to sue people ruining her chances on cashing in on being First Lady, but nobody has questioned a woman marrying a man old enough to be her father. Mr. Trump is actually somewhat respected for having a woman with a “hot-bod” walking next to him in public. Having a significantly younger woman is probably one of the better things Mr. Trump has done – most men overlook his record of being a miserable failure of a husband because he’s snagged their “wank fantasy” (cool – we like electing old farts who get young babes) and most women have an “understand” Mrs. Trump for making an advantageous marriage.

By contrast, Mr. Marcon gets flack for marrying a woman significantly older woman. His sexuality is being questioned and quite a few people have wondered if he’s got a “mummy fixation” (would you trust a Mummy’s boy to run the country?). The fact that Mr. Marcon has been a loyal husband makes people question him even more. I think the person who summed it up best is a Finnish friend of mine who suggested that Prince Charles had a screw lose because “What type of man kicks out a beautiful blonde and replaces her with an old hag.”

Perhaps its nature. Men are supposed to be providers and a man is supposed to be at his most attractive when he’s at the peak of his earning/hunting powers. A young boy of 17 may be physically fitter than a 30-year old but hey, he’s just a boy. By contrast, nature says women are supposed to be fertile and nature is such that a 17-year old girl is fertile and desirable whereas a woman in her late thirties is less so, even if the 30-year old woman is better educated, more mature and earns her own keep. My late Uncle Richard went as far as to advise me, “Make sure your next wife is half your age – no point having a girlfriend unless she’s very young and there’s no such thing as a good-looking woman over 25.”

While I have come to accept that I may not be expressing pedophilic tendencies every time I look at a woman 12-years younger than me, I have a lot of sympathy for men who like older women. I was one of them and I have to thank two ladies who touched my life.

One of them is around 12-years older. We met when I had came back from England for military service.  I was 19 going on 20, while she was 32. The fact that she’s black was probably a bonus (Chinese guys and black chicks is something that really happen in Asia). The point is this, the relationship made me feel like I had something special on the rest of the guys. I was 19 and there was this worldly-wise woman who thought I had something special to offer the world and wasn’t afraid of letting me know.

The other is someone I met when I came back from university to serve an internship in Citibank Singapore. She’s 6-years older, Malaysian Chinese girl. She’s a beauty of the highest order, sweet and mild mannered yet strong. She’s worked most of her life and when she first approached me, I was thrilled. It really felt good that she had an interest in me and I saw her pretty much as everything a woman should be. My tag line with this particular lady is this – she turned an old nightmare of “settling down” in an HDB flat into a dream to work towards.

Neither relationship turned into anything concrete but I’m glad to say that I’m still a friend to both ladies, even if it’s mainly on Facebook.

Both of these ladies set a special tone for me. An older woman was the way to go. Sure, a younger one might be fresher to look at but if you’re looking at life-long commitment, you really want someone who will be like a good bottle of wine and gets better with time.

It’s like this, a younger girl may look prettier and fresher but young girls want to be adored. It’s easy to impress a young girl. Spend a bit of money on her, show her you can resemble whatever fantasy she may have and she’s yours. 

An older woman on the other hand, is more willing to accept you for who you actually are and somehow, when you have one in your life, you get driven to do things. To get an older woman to be interested in you is also more challenging because she’s been around. It’s easy for a woman to impress a man as long as she’s got tits and not obese.  It’s more challenging for a man to impress a woman into talking relationship, especially when the woman has seen more of the world.

Although I’m far away from my late teens and early thirties, I still take this view. Getting a worldly-wise woman to give you two looks is a challenge.

Hence, I hand it to Mr. Marcon. He met the Mrs. When she was his teacher. He was a mere 15-year old boy and yet he managed to find something to impress a decent looking woman, who had everything a woman could want. She actually gave up her life to be with him (and that’s with parents warning her to stay away until he was 18).

What I’ve said about an older woman having the ability to drive a younger man is very true for the Marcons. Prior to running for President, he was actually a minister and before that, he had a very successful career at Rothschilds. He’s actually credited her as the reason for his success.

By contrast, the Trump marriage is boringly obvious. When the current Mrs. meet Mr., Trump had been an established brand name for decades. The signs of luxury and luxurious living were all there. On his part, she had a nice pair of tits. There’s nothing to suggest that either of them have created something more an interesting than the old-fashioned trade off that women have made for the last thousand years – financial security for their bodies.

I used to be very proud that I would never have anything to do with a younger woman and for quite a few years, I actually stuck to that.

I’m a little less adamant about my no younger women rule. I was involved with an older woman who was a nightmare to hang around and expensively boring. I’m married to a younger woman who is level headed and very sharp.

Having said that, I still maintain that the best option is to go for a woman who wants to make you a better man, despite her age. Perhaps I’m the wrong person to give relationship advice but a man who can look beyond what makes his loins stir and goes for the woman who makes him special, is someone worthy of respect.

Did You Think the Devil Would Look like the Devil?

You got to hand it to Marine Le Pen but she stands out by looking good. Unlike Trump in the USA, you don’t find anyone talking about how she’s artificially enhanced herself (Orange Tan) nor does she exaggerate things about herself (think the hair of Trump or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands). Every shot of Ms. Le Pen is well thought out. She looks elegant and when she speaks, she is well spoken and on the surface sounds exceedingly reasonable. While Ms. Le Pen is past the age of being a “sex-bomb” she could easily pass off as someone you could consider growing old with.

Unfortunately, everything that I’ve just said is precisely what makes her perhaps the most dangerous of all the demagogues who have risen to prominence on the global political stage. While people like Mr. Trump in the USA or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are larger than life characters who make outrageously outlandish statements about this and that, Ms. Le Pen is attractively normal and sane.

As much as I dislike Donald Trump, I give him credit for being able to stir passions and to get people talking. Some of my blog post have been Trump inspired and I’m not alone. While Mr. Trump may rile against the media, his very rise to the presidency has been exceedingly good for the media, especially the newspaper business, which has been facing something of a decline.

Mr. Trump had a genius for saying things that upset or emboldened people. If you consider the fact that we live in an age where people around the world are pissed off with the way things are, Mr. Trump managed to push all the right buttons by riling us up against the things we were pissed off by. I like to think of voting for Mr. Trump and his policies as going for a binge drink because you hard day. Dealing with Mr. Trump’s attempts to run the country is the hangover that you get from binge drinking.

To be fair to Mr. Trump, he is what he is. His message is vile and his delivery is just as bad as his message. You could call Mr. Trump a rabid dog that you bring home just to piss off the rest of the family. A rabid dog is obviously rabid and anyone who touches it without gloves is pretty much responsible for whatever happens to them.

Ms. Marine Le Pen is a different kettle of fish. If Mr. Trump is a rabid dog, Ms. Le Pen is the loveable pooch that you bring home because you think that she’s going to make the kids happy. Then, once you’ve brought her home, she attacks everyone who tries to visit you and pisses all over the furniture.

This is precisely something Ms. Le Pen has devoted her political life to doing. Her predecessor as President of the National Front, her father John-Marie Le Pen was one of Europe’s crazy racist politicians, who was right wing to the extreme and proudly racist (he once promised to deport France’s winning football team because they were of Arab and Negro decent).

Le Pen senior said outrageous things and he was a rabid dog. While he had an appeal to certain segments of society, the majority would never have voted for him because – well would you give the car keys to a rabid dog? The old man managed to stir strong emotions, while 22 percent of people in France had a favourable view of him, 63 percent had an unfavorable opinion of him. You’re talking about a man who was accused of torturing people during the Algerian Wars and was persecuted for assaulting someone (note – Mr. Le Pen actually got involved in the doing of awful things, unlike Mr. Trump who talks about it).

Mr. Le Pen had one fluke back in the 2002 Presidential Election, when he made it passed the first round, beating the Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The French electorate quickly came to their senses and ensured that Jacques Chirac (Not known for being the most honest of politicians) had a crushing victory.

Ms. Le Pen understood that the harsh far-right policies of the National Front made them unvoteable and has devoted her life to “De-demonizing” the party. Today’s National Front is not the “anti-Semitic” talk shop that it used to be. The “softer” image of the National Front under Ms. Le Pen has made it vote-able. In the 2011-2012 Presidential Election, she managed to come in third behind Nicholas Sarkozy and Francoise Hollande and ended up with more votes than her father did in his best showing of the 2002 election.

Today, Ms. Le Pen enters the second round of the Presidential Election with a very realistic of becoming the next French President. In 2002, when her father made it past the first round, it was a sign that the election would go to Jacques Chirac. Today, Ms. Le Pen trails her rival by a mere two percent in the polls and given that her rival is an inexperienced outsider, her chances are realistic.

How did she do it? The English comedian John Oliver says, “She has dangerously normalized the National Front.” People who would never have voted for her father because they thought he was a crazy old man, have happily voted for her. In many ways, her father was easier. He was a devil that who looked like the devil – admitting anything positive about him was an endorsement of being a racist thug.

Ms. Le Pen is different and more dangerous. Papa Le Pen was obviously the worst in us and in rational moments, we would never want him around us in a bar let alone in the seat of power in one of the world’s biggest economies. His daughter by contrast has made it such that we find that thinking at worst is perfectly normal.

If you look and listen carefully to Ms. Le Pen, you’ll realise that her message is essentially the same – racist, protectionist and nasty. Yet, its packaged better. You’ll never catch Ms. Le Pen saying revolting things like the Holocaust is a “mere detail of history.” But she’ll convince you, a well-educated person, that it’s perfectly normal to hate black, brown and yellow people.

The other area where Ms. Le Pen presents a danger is the fact that she has a reasonable image of competence. Mr. Trump made his inexperience in politics an electable strength and glossed over his business failures. However, once in power, the Trump administration has proven to be spectacularly incoherent.

By contrast, Ms. Le Pen has succeeded in running her party and instead of citing mad ideologues like Steve Bannon as an inspiration, Ms. Le Pen has paid tribute to credible people like the late 1988 Nobel Laureate, Maurice Allais. It makes her less frightening to a rational person, which in turn should make her terrifying.

We live in an age of instants. We like instant food, instant gratification and instant information. On one hand, we should celebrate technology and the way it makes life easier. On the other, we should worry that life isn’t encouraging us to think and analyze. Anyone with a brain cell should be able to recognize the faults of a Donald Trump. His appeal may resonate with some. He may touch us at the right moment, when we’re feeling down. However, a right-thinking person will see that Trump’s message is essentially faulty and in many ways, morally wrong. He is an obvious snake oil salesman who sells by bringing out the worst in us.

Ms. Le Pen is more frightening because she isn’t obvious. Instead of getting us to do something for the heck of it, she slowly persuades us to think that out worst qualities are actually perfectly normal.  Whether she wins or loses this election, she has already done damage by making the worst instincts in any society normal and acceptable. I can only pray that the French electorate prove more sensible than the British and American ones and reject her at the polls. A racist thug in a pretty face is still a racist thug. 

The Christian Beast

Last Thursday the Evil Teen decided that she wanted to watch the premier of Beauty & The Beast, which was a Disney live adaptation of its famous animated classic.

The movie had a boost of popularity thanks to a round of protest by the National Council of Churches (NCC), who had protested the movie having a “Gay Moment.” I posted something to the effect that the obsession with “Gay Moments” and “Gay Agenda’s” was a sign that Singapore has a large population of repressed homosexuals who hate themselves for being gay and therefore become extremely homophobic. My comments drew a few laughs but offended a friend of mine who admitted to being an “ex-homosexual.”

With this bit of background in mind, I went to see movie and true enough, I actually noticed the “gay moment” when one of the characters seemed to have an unhealthy devotion of his more outgoing male friend.

While, this was probably a “Gay Moment” (which someone else told me I only noticed because I was psychologically conditioned to look out for it), no rational person can say that it “promoted” the “homosexual lifestyle.” If anything, it should have been the “sensitive” homosexuals protesting about the stereotyping of the “LGBT” community as being effeminate and a group deserving of ridicule.

What’s even more interesting about the movie was the fact that it was filled with what one can call good Christian values. The so called “Gay Moment” was such a minor part to a film that was the living embodiment of Christian teaching.

The premise of the story was simple. A handsome and wealthy prince who screwed his people would not give shelter and food to an old, ugly hag who offered the one thing she had – a rose. Feeding the poor and giving shelter to the needy is right at the heart of Christian teaching. Christ tells us the parable of the widow’s mite – saying that God valued a single coin donated by an old widow than the vast riches donated by the wealthy. The teaching is simple – God doesn’t value the absolute amount but what you give from your heart.

The Prince finds damnation when he’s turned into a Beast. It’s always winter wherever he is and his only companions are his possessions (the servants got turned into possessions). The moral of this story is obvious – wealth can be a curse if all you have are possessions. When you lack love, you realise that having a lot of things is meaningless.

In the end, there is redemption. The Beast becomes tender and learns to love when he meets our heroine, Bell. This feisty young girl is cowed by his hideous appearance and sacrifices herself so that her father can have his freedom. In the end the Beast accepts that part of loving someone is learning to let them go. He recognizes that he needs to let Bell go to her father when he sees how much it torments her that she’s not able to be with her father in his hour of need. He lets her go with the full knowledge that she may never come back to him and he’ll be damned to live out his days as a Beast and even more friendless than when he was before (the talking objects become inanimate ones if he’s damned to be live out his days as a beast).

What is more Christian than that? Doesn’t the Bible say, “Man hath no greater love than he who would lay down his life for his fellow man.” This is what the Beast risk when he lets her go. He has learnt to love something greater than himself.

Perhaps the only thing more Christian than learning to sacrifice for the one you love but showing love and mercy to someone who not only hates you, but tries to do you harm. He practically allows “Gaston” the show’s knave to murder him, until Bell comes back and he fights back. Then, at the point when he’s in the position to deliver Gaston’s just deserts, he shows mercy and allows him to live.

Again, Christ is very specific on this. In both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, he tells people to “love your enemies as yourself,” to “bless those who curse you.” In that very moment of giving mercy to the man who would destroy him (Christ behavior), the Beast becomes more human than the entire village of people who followed Gaston on their quest to murder the Beast because ….well that’s what Gaston told them.

It’s funny how the National Council of Churches never wanted to talk about Christian values like mercy and love. Somehow an insignificant moment of what they deemed unnatural was more important than the overwhelming theme of giving undeserving love and mercy. How funny that Christ who said far more about sheltering the poor and blessing those who sought to do you harm was something that the churches didn’t want to talk about.

What a shame that our men of God don’t want to talk about love and compassion when these are central of God’s teachings. 

Killing the Golden Goose to Stay on the Yellow Brick Road

Whether you like him or loath him, you got to hand it to Donald Trump for his genius for creating great talking points. Whenever Mr. Trump’s fingers hover above the tweet button, the world’s journalist start to salivate. Mr. Trump has made “Old Media” sexy again. The “dying” newspaper has had a fresh lease of life and television is booming. By being “politically incorrect,” Mr. Trump manages to stir passions on a whole range of issues like sexism, racism, immigration, taxes and so on.

Despite the obvious signs of chaos and incompetence from the White House, Mr. Trump’s supporters continue to love him. In fairness to Mr. Trump, the reason is obvious, he’s trying to keep his promises. He’s actively tried to bully companies into keeping the old-fashioned manufacturing jobs in America and he’s actively removed bits and pieces of environmental legislation to get oil pipelines 

moving through whenever they were supposed to go to – damn the environmental consequences.

 Mr. Trump’s supporters are thankful to their man for trying to restore things to how they used to be.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump’s supporters have forgotten one basic point in life – namely the fact that change is inevitable and industries will get disrupted. In each instance of disruption people get thrown out of work as old industries die but many more people get employed in better paying jobs as new industries take their place. Think of what happened when we moved to the motor car from the horse drawn carriage. People lost jobs as grooms, stage coach makers and so on but many more people got employed in car factories.

Anyone who is gone past primary school would realise that disruption and change are part of life. Businesses and people that acknowledge disruption have a way of hanging around and thriving for a very long time.

I think of my own little nation of Singapore. We were built by a leader who was able to handle disruption. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, our founding Prime Minister, started out as a loyal colonial subject. He took pride in the fact that he didn’t speak Chinese and spoke English of the English as opposed to this bastardised thing called Singlish. Mr. Lee was educated in the finest of English schools and was destined to be a glorious and grateful servant of the colonial master. However, he grew up in a time when people of colour didn’t want to be ruled by the colonial power and, more importantly, Mr. Lee quickly found out that it was not his people, the prim and proper English educated that moved things. It was the rough and ready Chinese speaking that caused revolutions. What did Mr. Lee do? He and his band learnt how to speak Mandarin and Hokkien, the language of the streets in a mere 6-months. Harry Lee became Lee Kuan Yew and the rest is history. Mr. Lee didn’t fight disruption – where possible, he tried to anticipate and prepare for it. He went into China, anticipating China’s rise and he even checked his own emails until his final days.

Singapore has thrived because we had a leader who understood that disruption was a fact of life. There are other examples.

The two examples that come to mind are Shell, one of the largest oil companies in the world and Phillip Morris International, the largest cigarette company in the world Both Shell and Phillip Morris are global giants. Both are leaders in their fields, which contain vast pools of money. While oil prices took a tumble in 2014, “big oil” remains just that – “Big.” The same for Phillip Morris. The tobacco industry remains buoyant despite the vast taxes levied against cigarettes and the various limitations placed on the industry anytime soon.

Nobody would imagine oil or cigarettes going out of business anytime soon. Yet, Shell isn’t sitting in a shell. If anything, Shell has decided to prepare for the future. On 15 May 2015. Shell announced that it was setting up a “Green Energy Division” to invest in low carbon and renewable energies like wind. Nobody imagines oil going out of business anytime within the decade. Yet, here you have one of the major oil companies, a company that has a turn over comparable with the GDP of many countries, setting up a business that many imagine to be the antithesis of its core business.

Phillip Morris has also done something similar. In its newly relaunched website, the world’s largest tobacco company declares, “Designing a smoke-free future” and asks the provocative question of “How long will the world’s leading cigarette business be in the cigarette business?” The world’s largest cigarette company, which owns the top brands in its market, has decided to find ways to kill its golden goose to create its future.

Both international giants are trying to behave like the start-ups of Silicon Valley. How successful will they be? What Shell puts into its renewable energy business is still a drop in the ocean in its overall turnover. The cynics, which include many government officials, remain skeptical about Phillip Morris’s claim that is researching ways to make its products less harmful.

However, the fact that the international giants are trying to anticipate and prepare for disruption to their very core industries is a sign that they want to continue thriving for a very long time. Shell wants to prove they can be a player without oil. Phillip Morris is promoting a future where is doesn’t need its golden goose.

Giants take a long time to adapt because the need to do so doesn’t happen until it’s too late. However, here you have an example of two giants trying to disrupt themselves before the forces of economics do it for them. These are giants that have the foresight to acknowledge reality and prepare for it.

If huge corporate giants with huge bureaucracies can make the effort to anticipate the end of the golden goose, surely someone on an individual scale should be able to do the same. Focusing and preparing for a future without your golden goose is surely a better activity than listening to the likes of Mr. Trump and their promises of restoring a past that wasn’t quite there.

American Incompetence May be Good for the World

I’ve decided that I am going to attempt to be nice about the new US President for a change. No, I haven’t become a rabid dog of the Republican Party’s worst aspects but I think its high time that I sit back and try and say something nice about a public figure I can’t stand.

Mr. Trump has shown that he has a talent for bringing out the worst in people. He campaigned on platform of racism, homophobia, sexism and hypocrisy. While he indulged in calling every one of his opponents “corrupt,” he himself was indulging in practices that would make his opponents looks saintly (think about it, the Clinton Foundation isn’t perfect but at least some of the money goes to causes – the Trump Foundation raises money for the good cause of buying more portraits of Mr. Trump to be placed in properties owned by Mr. Trump.) Once in office, Mr. Trump has not disappointed those who despise him and those who loved him.

 In a Presidency, less than a week old, he’s already picked fights with the media over the size of the crowds at his inauguration, made moves to criminalise abortion and to increase trade protectionism by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP.

Coming from a small trading nation in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Trump’s speed in killing the TPP has been viewed a major worry. We, the small Asia-Pacific nations are terrified at the implications. We grew our economies on American investment. Our prosperity for the most part depends on the willingness of the American consumer to buy the goods made in our part of the world. Suddenly, Mr. Trump has thrown a spanner in the works. What do we do?

While the prospect of a more protectionist America may seem gloomy, the rest of the world actually has an important opportunity to do something very important – develop independence. In just about every way, America has been the “vital” nation that underpinned everybody’s social and economic well-being. America was not only the crucial market for many companies, it was also the “policeman” of the world, ensuring that neighborhoods stayed safe. US troops have kept the ASEAN region stable and Singapore, my home remains a safe and prosperous haven for the world to do business and prosper because of it.

So, without America or American involvement in world affairs, what can the rest of us do? I believe the answer would probably be to increase trade and cooperation with other people. The Chinese for one have relished Mr. Trump’s rants about protecting America from the forces of globalization. While Mr. Trump ranted on about the size of the crowds at his inauguration, China’s President Xi Jinping was making the right noises about avoiding a trade war (nobody wins) and how globalization for all its faults has in actual fact been a force of good to the world’s most prominent investors at Davos. The comparison could not be more stark. Mr. Trump looked like a petulant child begging to the smacked while President Xi looked like a statesman.

There’s no doubt that China is a “must-be” in market for businesses around the world. It’s not just the number of consumers in China but their spending power is increasing. One only needs to look at where luxury items are being sold these days to understand the power of the Chinese consumer.

However, as many of us in the small Asian nations can testify to, the increasingly powerful China plays by its own rules. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas ruled against China and in favor of the Philippines. The Filipino’s found that their victory was hollow – nobody was going to enforce it on China. More recently, Singapore learnt the same lesson – we sent military vehicles from Taiwan via Hong Kong and hey presto, the said vehicles got held up in Hong Kong customs.  The Chinese hadn’t forgotten how our Prime Minister decided to crack jokes about the pollution in Beijing to an American audience. We trumpeted our “legal” rights over the terrex vehicles and the Chinese gave us the middle finger.

The realities of big power politics will become starker. The Americans like the British before them made a pretense of playing by some sort of rules. The Chinese have shown that the only laws that matter are the jungle variety. Think of what happens in the jungle when the elephants decide they’re going to throw their weight around – there’s not much anyone else can do.

The world will need to accept China’s rise and adapt to it. The most sensible way would be to trade heavily with China and to offer the Chinese the things they don’t have (clean air would be a good start), but to look for and build up alternative markets.

In Asia, the most sensible alternative would be to build up India. The Bloomberg Columnist, Andy Mukherjee argues that Japan should use its technology and wealth to invest in India – something that seems to be possible given the close ties between Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe.

However, as many business people can attest to, dealing in the India market makes dealing with the Chinese look like a walk in the park.

Still, this is something that needs to be done. The admittedly few parts of India that work, work exceedingly well and what sensible business person does not want to be in two-billion consumer markets.

Asians, Africans and even Europeans need to understand that dependence on one particular market is no longer enough. China and India are two exciting possibilities but there are others. Eastern Europe and Latin America come to mind as do places like the Middle East.

Aside from trade, America has also been the source or the inspiration of ideas and innovation. First it was manufacturing, then it was in IT. America comes up with the revolutionary ideas and the rest of the world eventually gets a share of the pie by trying to do it cheaper. This has especially been true in Asia where we’ve prospered by taking American ideas and doing them cheaper – Chinese manufacturing and Indian IT come to mind.

With Mr. Trump actively making America more isolationist, the world can no longer depend on America as the hot bed of revolutionary ideas. Innovation must come from within the various countries of the world. It’s time to build up our people at home and at world class levels.

I remember explaining the Singapore Scholarship system to an Englishman. He said that he was surprised that we sent our best to the West instead of building up our own institutions to challenge the West. Well, I guess it was easier and quicker to send someone to Cambridge in those days than to build Cambridge or Harvard, but now thanks to Mr. Trump, we need to build our Cambridge’s here.

There are some encouraging signs. Pollution in China is pushing China to do more to move away from heavy manufacturing. In fact, China’s wealth is increasingly being built Silicon Valley style – While the State Own Companies have the size, its companies like Xiaome and Alibaba that excite the world. Chinese innovations like WeChat may have yet to reach beyond the China but as the Economist pointed out, they are beating the likes to Uber and WhatApp in the products and services that they offer.

The smaller Indian Companies are also recognizing that doing things cheaper than the West will not be enough to ensure their survivability. I remember 3i-Infotech and Polaris stressed that they were “product” companies (so much so that Polaris’s service business got sold off to Virtusa and the products remain under a Company called Intellect Design Arena). Raymond, who was my main supporter at Polaris explained it this way – “Services means we think like an IT guy helping make the certain functions for the banks cheaper – Products means we think like bankers and use IT to improve banking.”

The signs of hope are there but Asians, Africans, Arabs and so on, need to effectively grow up and fly the nest provided for by the All Powerful American parent. Mr. Trump has made it clear, he’s not interested in supporting the world. It’s time that the world took the bold step and tried to support itself.

Be like an Ape In Heels

In less than a week’s time, the world will see the end of the Obama Era and welcome the Trump Era, when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45^th President of the USA. Much has been said about the difference between the two men. The rabid right wing of American politics is celebrating the end of what they have termed the “worst” presidency in history, while the rest of us are left, perplexed by how the American public ended up voting for a man who found a genius in bringing out the worst in people.

Much has been said about the contrasting character of the two men and nothing better illustrates the contrast in character between the two than in their families. Even discounting the presidency, the Obama’s are exceedingly successful professionals (he was Professor of Constitutional Law and she was a partner in a law firm) with very quiet personal lives. The Trumps by contrast are exceedingly colourful. Donald is on his third marriage as is his first wife, Ivana.

You could say that my sympathies should be with the Trump’s. Most of my friends would describe my family as being colourful. My late theology teacher once told me, “Dear boy, you collect fathers like most people collect postage stamps.” He had a point. My mother is on husband number three. I’ve also collected mothers in a similar fashion, my dad got married two years ago to his third wife. My siblings and I have not escaped the “curse” of unusual relationships. I am on marriage number two (I am also on husband number two to my wife.) and my sister has a same-sex relationship. The only one of my siblings who seems to have something resembling a “normal” relationship, is my brother Max, who got engaged to his long-term girlfriend, over the Christmas holidays.

My family is a “patch-work” family and as my sister wisely said so many years ago, “I wouldn’t swop it for anything in the world.” Despite all the various breaks and reattaching of relationships, I like to think that all of us have turned out quite alright (My sister and I used to get very impatient whenever the excuse of he/she is from divorced parents so he/she behaves like this because we were from ‘broken’ homes and were nice). Likewise, you could say the same for Eric, Donald Junior and Ivanka. Despite the very public divorce of their parents, the three eldest Trump children look like normal guys who actually had to work for a living.

While, I should have every sympathy with the patchwork nature of the Trump family, I have one very serious objection to the Trump family – his choice in wife number three, Mrs. Melania Trump.

Let’s make it clear, I have no right to be judgmental about a person’s private life as my own is far from perfect. However, when that person becomes a public figure, like the President of the Most Powerful country in the world, then it’s a different story because that person’s life story becomes a story for everyone else to emulate.

On a very personal note, I’m all for being a lad. If the Donald at the age of 70 has the means of getting a much younger woman with the “assets” that all men seem to value in a woman to want to bed him, then I’d say good for him or I think – hey, when I’m 70 and a young girl wants to jump into my bed, I’d be very happy.

But as my mother reminded me this holiday, I’m not just me anymore. There’s a teenage girl, whom I have chosen to take responsibility for. The job of father is an interesting one in that it contains two elements. There’s the basic every day element of making sure there’s some food on the table. Then, there’s the element of what you want your child to be. It’s easy job when you are father of a son – you want the little bugger to be an improved version of yourself. When you’re a father to a girl, things become a little more complicated, because you want her to be better than you and probably to end up with someone not like you (especially if you happen to be a rascal.) You want to be able to look at her and tell her to be like so and so and not like so and so.

In the case of the Obama’s, there was an exceptional role model for what every woman should want to be in the First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Let’s start with the most commonly said thing about Mrs. Obama – were she not First Lady, she would be an exceedingly successful corporate lawyer in her own right. She is a graduate of Princeton University (not the easiest place to get into let alone graduate from) and Harvard Law School. By the time the young Barak Obama went to work for Sidley Austin, the sixth largest corporate law firm in America, as a Summer Associate, certain Michelle had become a full-time associate (guess who reported to who?). Mrs. Obama was also an Assistant Dean at the University of Chicago.

In the 8-years of the Obama Presidency, Mrs. Obama found herself become a champion of a variety of causes that people cared about without becoming obviously politically ambitious in the way that Hillary Clinton did. Michelle was the champion of this cause and that cause without shoving it down to the public that you were getting two for the price of one.

There were no scandals in the Obama White House. The President came back to his wife every night. Somehow, they made sure that the camera caught them giving each other loving glances. The woman also protected the family by doing what she could to keep the kids grounded – it seems Sasha Obama had to get a Summer job.

Let’s leave out the fact that Michelle always took care of her appearance. She never made it obvious to be the stuff of ones’ “wank fantasies.” Instead, she made it a point to be presentable and to ensure that any man would be proud to bring her out and present her to the people he cares about. In short, this is the woman who makes a man.

It’s easy to raise a daughter with Michelle Obama as First Lady. You can just say be like her – smart, beautiful and happy. She’s got enough in life to be with a man for the sake of love. She’s with Barak Obama because she wants to be with him not because he’s the source of her fortune.

Different story with the current Mrs. Trump. I have to confess, she is the stuff of “wank fantasies,” in as much as she’s good a well-endowed chest and a “come f** me look that appeals to men in a “wow, here’s an easy lay,” way.

But here’s the problem with fantasies, particularly “wank” ones – if there’s nothing beyond the “come f** me” looks, the reality is rather disappointing. I ask every male reader to think back to the time they’ve lost all interest (including doing the deed) with the girl you admired from afar, then got turned off when you finally spoke to her.

Apparently, the current Mrs. Trump worked as a model and there have been plenty of her half nude photos going around the place. During the campaign, Mr. Trump said that there was nothing to be ashamed about. He’s right, she looks nice on the covers of a “Man’s Magazine.”

However, her inability to come up with anything original to say during the presidential campaign leads one to ask – do you want her off the pages of the mens mags? It’s all very well to have a tart that the lads will be jealous of but there has to be more to the woman by your side when you are arguably the most powerful man in the democratic world. American elections are brutal on the spouses of presidential candidates because we want to know who the guy we’re trusting our lives to has as a bedrock of emotional and intellectual safety, not because we want to jack off over her. Nancy protected Ronald and took care of the finer touches in the White House, Both Michelle and Hillary were smart enough to challenge their husbands intellectually. Barbara and Laura Bush provided stable homes for the family. Hard to see Melania providing any of the above.

Perhaps Mrs. Trump does offer something to Mr. Trump that we’re not aware of. However, even that doesn’t seem likely. Mrs. Trump is not moving into the White House, while daughter Ivanka and husband are moving to DC. It’s most likely that Mr. Trump will use daughter as the woman by his side rather than wife, which really doesn’t say her much about the wife.

Now that Melania is going to be the First Lady, I suspect that father’s of teenage girls are going to be in for a tough time. Try telling her that going to school is important. Try telling her that its important to achieve things on her own? Why bother when all you have to do to ensure you have a lifestyle few could dream about is to look good enough to get onto the cover of a wank mag and hope that one of the reading wankers old enough to be your grandpa but with plenty of money will marry you. The main role model has done precisely that.

The World’s Biggest Shopping Mall – Boring Sia….

The Evil Teen and I just returned from a holiday in Germany, where she got to meet her new grandma, auntie and uncle. It was her first experience of life in Europe and as things would have it, she ended up getting a bonus experience of the Middle East when we had a 20-hour layover in Dubai.

Personally, I like Dubai in as much as it’s as close as I’ve gotten to the Middle East region since I worked for the Saudi’s in 2006. I like hearing the sound of the Arabic language and there’s something special about seeing people wearing their traditional robes amongst the ultra-modernity of an airport. 

I don’t feel alien when I deal with the Middle East and dropping the various Arabic terms for the Almighty in everyday conversation come fairly naturally.  I believe that if anything decent is going to happen to me, it will probably involve the Middle East and Arabs (the group that will do me a good term is likely to be Indian).

You should say Dubai fits nicely into my world view. It’s easily the most “open” place in the Middle East. When I first went to Dubai in 1994 to visit my stepdad who was living there, everybody outside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman) needed a visa if they were to move beyond the baggage claim in the airport. The GCC has remained fairly closed to the outside world. In 2006, the Saudi government even insisted that those traveling on United Nations passports had to apply for a visa before entering Saudi soil.

So, my first experience of the new Dubai on this recent trip was a wonderful change. Dubai has become the shinning exception of openness in a region known for being closed. They have a “smart gate” system, where people from certain countries (namely those countries that may produce tourist) may waltz in and out of the city as and when they feel like it. Thankfully, Singapore is on that list and so, instead of spending my day in the airport, I actually had the chance to visit Dubai properly. The immigration officer, who was a UAE National, was the friendliest one I’ve encountered – ever. So, much so that I believe that the USA needs to send its immigration officers to Dubai for training.

The day was spent in the Dubai Mall, which is attached to the Burj Khalifa. The Dubai Mall is probably an expression of Dubai’s ambitions. This four-story mall is the world’s largest by gross area, covering an area of some 500,000 square meters and doesn’t include the hotel complex next to it. There’s an ice rink and a four-story high aquarium that has proudly been named as an “underwater zoo.” Despite the various economic calamities, the Mall has seen a steady increase of visitors since it opened in 2009. The mall even has its own train station (I actually had to double check that the stop for the Dubai Mall was called – Dubai Mall.)

You could say that the Dubai Mall is a microcosm of Dubai itself, which is pretty much Singapore on steroids. I come from Singapore, which is practically a giant shopping mall of a nation and it’s got to say something when someone coming from Singapore is actually impressed by shopping mall.

If one takes the Dubai Mall as an extension of Dubai itself, you’ll end saluting the Al-Maktum family of Dubai for creating prosperity without oil in a region where oil is pretty much the only economic activity around.

How did they do it? Well, for a start, Dubai is exceedingly open to foreigners. If you hang around the Dubai Mall, you’ll realise that its exceedingly cosmopolitan. The work is done by Filipino’s and Indians with a sprinkling of Caucasians from the West. The customers come from all over the place. You’ll see Westerners mingling with Indians and Orientals in the shops. Apart from the men and women in Thobe and Abaya’s, the only sign that you’re in the Middle East are the odd announcements in Arabic and the call to prayer.

The Dubai Mall provides a home away from home for the well to do. Well to do visitors at the Burj and the adjoining hotel come to shop at the mall. Likewise, visitors at the mall can visit the Burj and stay in the hotel. Dubai as a nation tries to be pretty much the same to the neighborhood. Two of the largest investors are Saudis and Iranians, who also treat Dubai as the place to go to for fun or the things they can’t do at home.

The mall isn’t cheap either. I guess you could call it a case of prosperity breading prosperity. Well to do tourist and shoppers are supposed to spend money to keep the local economy ticking. Cheap back packers need to visit. I changed 70 Euros thinking I’d had more than enough and ended up worrying that I might end the day without – when I heard the price of a travel adaptor, the Evil Teen decided that we could do without charging our phones….

There’s much to like about the Dubai and the Dubai Mall. It’s capitalism at its best and everyone around the place is happy making money. You’re not going to get an Arab Spring in Dubai because as far as Dubai is concerned, it’s already summer.

And yet, I can’t get the feeling that there’s something lacking in Dubai in the same way that there’s something lacking in Singapore. I think of my first encounter with my former editor-in-chief, Mr. Khaleed Al-Maeena, who told me, “You in Singapore, stop being an ape to the West and start respecting your own culture.” I probably say those words were most apt when it comes to Dubai. Nearly every brand known to man is in Dubai. Short of starting an Islamist plot against the government, you can probably do pretty much what you want. Yet, and yet, I’m do ask myself – what is there especially unique to Dubai. I often ask the same question about Singapore.

In Singapore, the answer for most people is to head to the food court and to grab a prata or a plate of char kway teow – which are incidentally not unique to Singapore, you can get it in Malaysia too but these are things that remind you that there is perhaps something in Singapore that isn’t an imitation of somewhere else.

In Dubai, I didn’t get anything that was authentic to Dubai or the Arab world’s culture. There was a food court with plenty of burgers or fried chicken but I didn’t see “Kapsa Rice” or “hamoor” (fish unique to the Arab/Persian Gulf waters). One can only take so much of shopping and big brands (and that’s coming from someone who spent a good portion of his life building brands). In the words of the Evil Teen, after we couldn’t find a local version of the kway teow – “Borings – sia”

I understand the drive to modernity and I applaud places like Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore for prospering in tough regions. These places have made it by being open to the world – you could say they true meritocracies.

Yet, there’s something missing when the drive to modernity comes at the expense of your own soul so to speak. Hong Kong has a special culture. Wan Chai is as much a part of Hong Kong as the Peak. I feel a sense of culture when I speak Cantonese to people from Hong Kong. Apart from street food, Singapore has that special version of English – Singlish.

To be fair, I didn’t have a chance to get to know Dubai the way I know Singapore and to a lesser extent, Hong Kong. So, I hope Dubai, in its hyper drive to modernity remembers that it needs to keep something of itself. The thobes and abayas are probably the greatest relief I see on the streets of Dubai – it’s a sign that people In Dubai and the rest of the Middle East keep their culture and show that their culture can exist alongside the “international” global order. Contrary to what Donald Trump will tell you, you can be unique and global at the same time.

The Year of Silly Jokes

It is nearly the end of  the Year and so I thought I would bash out my usul end of year thoughts as I am not sure when I'll have the brain power to sit before the computer to pen my thoughts into something remotely coherant.

At the time of writting, the year has been marked by two obvious facts. This has been the year for celebrities to drop dead. On Christmas day it was George Michael and in the last two days it was the mother-daughter duo of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fischer.

The other was more seroius - this has been a year of political surprises. First, there was Breixit, where the British famously decided to leave the European Union. I agree that the European Union needs to be more resposive to the needs of people living the Union itself and there are regulations that have made the EU look simply 'fucked-up.' Having said that, the EU has on the whole been a force of good and it has been the force that has made a continent that no one could concieve of a lasting to peace into a continent where nobody can imagine a war on the continent. Say what you like about the EU but it is something of a model for many regions about the world.

If the Brits can do something 'good' America proved that it could do one better - it voted for Trump as its next President. How does the world manage with an incompetent bully as the head of its only superpower is something we have to learn to live with for the next four-years. For me, I take some comfort in that I've never been dependent on American companies for a living and I bless the fact that I have the ability to stand up to White American Executives who model themselves after Mr. Trump. Trod on me and I'll knife you.

On the personal front, I celebrate another year of working 2-jobs. It has been tough but I have managed to continue working in the liquidations industry and at Bruno's Bistrot concurrently and have built up my CPF savings to a level where the prospect of being totally penniless in my old age looks a little less certain.

It has not been a year of great achievement, unlike previous years I don't have anything to talk about on the professional front. However, I like to see that fact as being a necessary phase in life - of quietly learning more skills, maintaining old networks and building new ones. Being in the liquidations industry has exposed me to more publics like government officials and bankers, which I never really did in my previous incarnations.

I also enjoy my life in the restaurant and remain closest to the colleagues that I work with. After four-years, the faces that I see on a daily and weekly basis have become like part of a cozy family, who continue to appreciate me and my little girl.

On the personal front, we lost my Mah-Mah or father's mother. She was over 90 and her passing was expected and thankfully peaceful. I remain overwhelemed by the friends who remembered me at her passing.

I've now introduced Jenny to my father and mother. Not sure how the gradparent-grandchild relationship will develop but at least the seeds have been laid. I hope the girl learns to appreciate building roots with her family.

I  hope that 2017 provides some respite from the Year of Silly Happenings and somehow new opportunities will avail themselevs when calmer heads prevail. I look forward to a calmer and wiser 2017.

When the Jobs Don't Come Back

You got to hand it to US President-Elect, Donald Trump for being able to focus attention on himself. Everything he says is – interesting and somehow, whether you like or loath him, he gets you talking about the issues that he wants to talk about. Luckily for us, there are times when the issues that he is interested in happen to matte to us. – This month, his pet topic is jobs.

Mr. Trump came to power on the premise that he would restore manufacturing jobs and he’s touted the fact that he has personally saved 1,200 jobs that Carrier, a manufacturer of air conditioners was about to ship off to Mexico. While the claim to have personally saved so many jobs is, like everything else Mr. Trump does, up to debate, Mr. Trump has a valid point – jobs are precious and every government in the world needs to work at creating them.

Jobs are valuable for the simple reason that this is usually the one source of income that we have. However, a job is usually more than just a means to make a living. It’s usually an expression of ones standing in society and human dignity is often tied up to the all-important job.

Just think back to a local election in Singapore where one of the ministers called an opposition “worthless because he had been jobless.” Unfortunately, the minister has a point. People who do not have jobs are regarded as “worthless” scoundrels who live off the rest of us. It’s particularly true for men as society still deems them the main bread winners for the family and a man who cannot earn a living to support his family is ….well, the less said the better.

When politicians like Mr. Trump tell you that they are going to get you your job back, they’re not telling you that you’re getting the chance to earn money. They’re telling you that they will restore your worth as a human being and you get your place back in society. What can be more appealing than that?

Unfortunately, the question that we all fail to ask the likes of Mr. Trump is how? How, exactly are the likes of Mr. Trump going to restore our dignity? The usual answer is that they usually find someone else to blame. Migrants are often a popular target and its especially easy when the migrants don’t look or sound like you. Hence, Mexicans get bashed in America, in the UK it’s the Poles and Pakis and over here in Singapore we blame Indian Expats, Filipino maids and Bangladeshi construction workers. The other popular one is a different country – in the old days it was Japan and today it’s China. As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, China has royally screwed America by taking away the “manufacturing jobs” that belonged to hard working white people.

I hear people in Singapore resonating with Mr. Trump. Apparently, here is a politician saying what we all think – life would be better without dark and poor people who have the unfair advantage because some snooty liberal who has never lived your harsh life has made it so.

Unfortunately, this message is economically wrong and if one were to forgive my bias of coming through, morally so.

It’s a fact of life, that countries go through different stages of economic development. Certain industries grow in certain countries because those countries happen to provide the things that those industries need. However, nothing last forever and sooner or later, the people become less willing to put up with the downside offered by the industries than they used to be and sooner or later the relationship between industry and country changes and the country something else to do and the industry finds somewhere else to go.

America used to have a strong manufacturing base. It had the people who knew what to do and it was a great market for most things. It made sense to make in America. Then, things changed. The usual story is that the Japanese and Chinese found out that they could make things better and cheaper and so the American manufactures left home and set up shop elsewhere. While, that is one side of the story, the other side of the story is that young Americans found that they would rather design and dream up things rather than make them. Why would anyone want to slog on a production line when they could make just as much, if not more designing the said things from a far more comfortable environment.

Let’s look at China itself. At first, China built itself by becoming the factory of the world. However, China has moved beyond making thing. The young do not see manufacturing as a path to prosperity but a cause of smog filled pollutants. If you look at the top fortunes in China, it’s increasingly in IT and other higher end things. While the global logistics chain runs through China, the Chinese are looking for other things to do and hopping to move the making of things out to places like Vietnam and India, which is trying to take more manufacturing from China.

Then there’s the obvious point that a wealthy China and a wealthy India are good for America and the Western world. Chinese who, a generation ago could barely afford flour in their soup, have now become good for Europe’s luxury brands and American universities. The same is true for the Indians who can now afford to buy things they couldn’t even dream of a century ago. As, was pointed out during the 1994 NAFTA debate, the best way to stop Mexican immigrants from coming in, was to create enough well-paying jobs in Mexico.  

Now, it’s easy to say all of this but how do you explain this to a 40-year old man who has spent the last 30 years of his life doing particular job and all of a sudden is kicked out of work through no fault of his own? How do you convince him that the guy is Tijuana or Guangdung, who got the job where the plant was moved to is not his enemy?

The reality is that you can’t because you’ve never felt the same pain. Losing a job that you’ve been doing most of your life all of a sudden and through no fault of yours is like being told you’ve got some fatal disease – it sucks and nobody will ever understand you because they’re not in your shoes. In this situation one is usually vulnerable to quacks. In the case of the jobless rust belt worker, the demagogue telling you he’ll punish migrants and other nations and greedy corporations to give you back your old job suddenly sounds that much more appealing.

However, life is not like that. When you get sick, you got to take medicine. When you lose your job, you got to find something else to do. Easier said than done. How do you change industries and start over again?

I think the best way usually starts with the mind. You look at the pluses and minuses of the situation and focus on the pluses. When I first started work at Bruno’s as a waiter, I took the view that I was moving in the right direction because I was getting a regular income with CPF but still had time for to earn bigger and better money when the freelance projects came in. When I got the job in liquidations, I took it as an opportunity to open a new facet of my life and to look at developing a new set of skills and meeting a new set of people (lawyers, bookkeepers, valuers etc)

You could say that I got lucky. For me, there wasn’t much of a choice. I was heading into old age with little to show (admittedly I don’t have a lot to show but I have momentum in something resembling a pension). The evil teen had entered my life and did I really want her to see me (the main male role model) being a miserable sod blaming the world and developing all sorts of addictions or did I want her to see the main male role model try and earn his crust in one way or another?

For me, it wasn’t much of a choice. It’s like I said to my favourite Northern English Twat who likes to play the “I forgot my wallet” trick, “At least I work.” (he had tried to remind me of my lowly status by asking “You still working here.”)

Jobs are fluid and the sooner we expect that, the better off we’ll be. Bashing foreigners and other countries is fun … but totally unproductive and indulging in it only leaves you as poor and miserable as you were when lost your first job.

Don’t be a Prisoner of Your Own Style

As an ethnic Chinese who grew up in the Western world, Bruce Lee movies were and in many ways, still are one of the greatest forms of escapism. Bruce Lee movies were a relief from the hum drum message that you were part of a small and vulnerable minority that should be grateful to embrace the Western world. Here was a small Chinaman who could kick the crap out of bigger (often stronger) and more numerous opponents because he had the secret of “Chinese” Kung Fu.

As well as being a great fighter, Bruce Lee was a genius at selling himself as the hero of the downtrodden Chinaman. He evoked a sense of racial pride in us. The small Chinaman could win because he had an ancient Chinese secret. 

The truth was rather different. While Bruce Lee sold his “Chinese” heritage, he was in actual fact an open-minded thief who would happily adapt techniques and skills from other cultures that suited him and worked best for him. He summed things up – a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick no matter what style of fighting you practice. He was willing to experiment until he got things right. If a boxing punch worked better than a Wing Chun punch at range, he’d use a boxing punch.

The man intrigued people. American fighters like Joe Lewis (the White Karate Champion not the black boxer) and Chuck Norris who had mastered ancient Japanese martial arts like karate and Tang So-Do rushed to be his students. Why would the reigning tournament fighters of their day even bother trying to be students of a street punk who had never fought in the ring.

I think part of the reason was because Bruce Lee had a philosophy of being adaptable and of using whatever he could to kick the crap out of people who were intent on killing him. This Wing Chung man learnt Filipino Martial Arts (Eskrima) and made the nuchuks his own (nunchuks are not Chinese). While known for his one-inch punch and kicking ability, there is a video where he happily instructed his students to bite the opponent.

The man understood that fighting was like life. You need to play the cards you have rather than wish you had others. The man was short sighted and one leg was shorter than another. His build was skinny (word has it that he used to watch Mohammad Ali matches and get frustrated that he was trapped in a weak Chinese body.) Yet, he devoted himself to the study of close quarter combat (starting in Wing Chun and later on borrowing from Karate, Eskrima and Boxing). He worked with what he had – short sighted so you learn to fight close quarters; one leg shorter than the other so you get your side kick working for you. You’re skinny so you focus on speed rather than on brute force (Chuck Norris is recorded to have commented that the man never stopped moving).

Bruce Lee was also a proponent of the best technique being what worked best for you. As mentioned earlier, he started in Wing Chung, which is about close quarter combat. It suited him because it played to his strengths and not to his weaknesses. His short sight would have precluded him from being any good at Tae Kwon Do.

Human beings often take pride in being at the top of their game. The world is filled with masters of this and that. The truth is that while we do admire masters of an art, life is often broad based and constantly changing. Those who fail to change or try to hark back to a golden age often get the stuffing kicked out of them. We become as a former president of Bennet & Coleman said, “Prisoners of our own business model.”

One of my favourite examples of the need not to be trapped by your own style or your mastery of your style can be seen in the Hong Kong movie Ip Man, the Legend is Born. The most prominent scene for me is when the young Ip Man meets Leong Bik, his fellow Foushan resident in Hong Kong. The young Ip Man takes pride in the fact that he knowns “Authentic” Wing Chun. He gets the stuffing kicked out of him by Leong Bik (played by Ip Chun, son of Ip Man), who practices something that looks like Wing Chun but isn’t because it’s not in the traditional definition of what “Authentic” Wing Chun should be. The young Ip Man complains “That’s not Wing Chun” as he ends up sprawled on the floor. The old man tells him “What comes from my fist is Wing Chun” and he points out that the rules can be changed.

Have a look at the following clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Tadpp1x-E

Moral of the story – know your craft but innovate and experiment. Don’t be afraid of change. The fighters that became stuck to their craft have inevitably lost out to those who were willing to change and use what worked best for them.

Controlling the Genie

The American Presidential Election is over and everyone is stunned with the victory of Mr. Donald Trump. Everyone I know, with the exception of the boss in the liquidations job (he predicts Mr. Trump will be very good for business) and friends and family from what I call the ‘crazy right’ (I won’t equate their views with Christianity), was stunned and nauseated.

Despite having a history of managerial incompetence, disdain for the working man, Donald Trump’s campaign based on racism and sexism proved to be shockingly effective. People came out to vote for him and despite a few high-profile cases, very few people actually came out to vote for him.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump is merely the most successful of a brand of politicians who have played up to the worst in people. One just has to think of Marine Le Penn in France or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or Viktor Orban in Hungry who have campaigned against immigration and the bashing of people of another colour. While these politicians were frightening, non-of them will wield anything like the influence that Mr. Trump will now have.

The optimists amongst my associates have told me that Mr. Trump was merely playing up to his electorate and once in the Presidency, the American system of checks and balances Unfortunately, not only does Mr. Trump have the White House, the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress (admittedly, he doesn’t get along with most of Congress). They’ve also pointed out that Mr. Trump will probably be constrained by advisors who will tell him what’s what.

There are some signs of optimism. Mr. Trump’s speech was somewhat magnanimous when he promised to be a President for “all Americans.” A PR Chinese Official who was interviewed the night before on Singapore TV said of Mr. Trump, “He is a second rate, lousy businessman – but businessman all the same, so he should be pragmatic.” Well, let’s hope Mr. Trump does try and be pragmatic.

Unfortunately, the personality displayed by Mr. Trump on the campaign have shown that his ability to be pragmatic often take second place to insults to his ego and more importantly, Mr. Trump may have unleashed an emotion in the public that he will find hard to control – Anger.

Mr. Trump was very successful at appealing to an emotion that a certain group of people felt. Older, less educated White people, who felt alienated by the forces of globalization, immigration and technological change. Look at where Mr. Trump won, it was in the States that were predominantly older and depressed. Mrs. Clinton took the entire West and East Coast as well as Illinois, the home of Chicago, a large trading city.

The so called “silent” majority who voted for Mr. Trump will now expect him to deliver. While they will forgive certain promises being broken, they will expect him to provide some semblance of what he promised – namely an ideal world where simple jobs are available and you don’t have to deal with too many people who look different from you.

This is a promise that Mr. Trump will not be able to keep. America has been the centre of the forces that have made the world on the whole, a better place.

Globalisation and open borders have brought problems but on the whole, they’ve helped spur prosperity and innovation. So, the question is, how much of the door will Mr. Trump’s followers expect him to shut and when the consequences of shutting the doors come in, will they not turn on Mr. Trump.

It’s an issue Mr. Trump will now have to deal with and the rest of us will have to find a way of living with it as he struggles to balance the forces he’s unleashed. 

The White America I Know.

I had a quick coffee with a friend of mine who said that he noticed that all my Facebook posts showed that I hate the current Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. He’s right. I can’t stand Mr. Trump’s candidacy and I can’t fathom how anyone with a brain and a heart could even consider what he says seriously. The idea that he could actually be the president of what is the most benign superpower in the history of the world is not just frightening, it’s repulsive.

I’ve had people tell me that Mr. Trump would be good for America because he speaks his mind and he’s doesn’t care about political correctness. I’ve had people tell me that he’s the outsider we need to shake up the rotten system that has made America a very unequal place. More importantly, I’ve heard people tell me that he’s expressing what White America wants to hear – he is the champion for White America.

To be fair to Mr. Trump, he’s made this election entertaining. The comedians have had a field day with him. I’ve become particularly fond of watching him get lampooned by Trevor Noah and John Oliver. I also give him credit for dragging out Melania, who has all the physical attributes I am attracted to in a woman.

While, all this is very nice and very entertaining, I do believe that the Presidential election should be about something more than what my sister calls my dirty little pleasures. At the very least, a President, particularly one as venerated as the US President, should try and embody the best of a nation. To a large extent, many of the previous presidents have tried to do this. Whatever, you may think of them and the actual results of their policies, both Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton tried to be about opportunity. The Bushes sold a message of America as a force of freeing up the world from tyranny. Obama got people excited because America had looked beyond colour and elected a dark-skinned man who happens to be very intelligent.

Sure, America’s not perfect and has screwed things up for many parts of the world. However, when you look at the overall picture, America and Americans have been a force for good. When people tell me that Trump is speaking for White America, I am very offended because the America and the White America that I know is nothing like the one he’s supposedly speaking for.

I guess you could say that I hit a major jack pot when I ran into White America. The first strike was when my mother married, Lee, my first stepfather. Lee took me into his life and loved me without ever thinking whether I was his flesh and blood. Whenever we transferred, he’d make it a point that I was able to receive the same good things that my sister, his flesh and blood received. The love and affection that he provided me didn’t just end with him. He made it a point that I became part of a family – which included his parents, Grandpa Hart and Grandma Milly. I remember, Old Hart telling me, “I’m so used to thinking of you as my grandson that I forget that my son isn’t your dad.” Then, there’s my stepsister, Carol and her family. Although there’s not been a legal relationship between us for 20 odd years, she and her family continue to welcome me as part of the family.

My second strike with White America, comes in the shape of my step-grandmother, Joan, mother of my stepmother, Nora (Dad’s second wife and Max’s mom). Joan, bless her soul was one of the kindest people you could find. She didn’t just take me in as her grandson but also welcomed my friend, Joe, who would drive up 5-hours from Indiana to spend the Sumer with her in Chicago. Of all the Christmas presents that I treasure the most, is the fact that she compiled a list of every email I wrote to her while I was at university.

Yes, I’ve had my run ins with what you’d call arrogant American expatriates here but thanks to my experiences of family in “White America” I know that on the average, White American’s are decent people.

Yes, it’s sometimes funny to see how untraveled many White Americans are. To many, a long-distance holiday is going to the mall in the next town. However, while they may not travel out of their home state, Americans are probably the most welcoming people on the planet, a view also echoed by veteran Saudi Journalist, Khaleed Al-Maeena (A view he echoed in 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, which many Arabs were against). Lilly white American families has created plenty of programs for kids from the brown, black and yellow parts of the world to taste life in the good parts of America.

My family in “White America” has become diverse and nobody seems to bat an eyelid. There’s me from Singapore. There’s a step-nephew who married a Jewish girl and a step-niece who married a Muslim convert. A step-brother of mine, married a Chinese girl. My “White American” family isn’t a wealthy Beverly Hills living one either. They feel the pain and issues brought about by America’s economic climate. Yet, never have I heard any one of them begrudge the people from elsewhere. If anything, they respect the Mexican guys for working hard.

This is the White America that I know. So, when I look at people getting excited by Mr. Trump and his rhetoric against Mexicans, Muslims and so on, I’m stunned. I don’t understand how people outside America can cheerfully tell me that he’s speaking for “White America.”

Donald Trump isn’t speaking for White America because I know White America and he’s saying the things that I know the real White America would be offended by.

It Could Be Worse

As the American Presidential heads into the final few days, I’ve noticed a few people in cyberspace questioning the state of affairs of the world. How did the world’s “greatest” democracy come to a stage where the people are left with a choice of a dubious, power-hungry who may have compromised national security by using her private email server and an incompetent demagogue who has a history of turning business deals to shit and is currently making being a racist rapist (man goes to trial for child rape later this month) into an activity of trendy frat boys (not that he actually did any sport)?

Americans must be wondering how their system, which has been touted as the “greatest” model of government and an example of how everyone else should create a society, has been reduced to this awful choice – a case of daily scenes of the awful doing the awful. Is this, as they say, the prime example of how democracy doesn’t work?

While this year’s election has been a case of the nasty doing the nasty, the pessimists have missed the point of what makes democracy tick. The purpose of a democracy is not to produce the best leadership but to provide the most efficient and bloodless way of removing bad leadership.

When you live in a democratic system, you can get frustrated with the way things work. Good leaders with good ideas end up disappointing and only achieving a fraction of what they promise because along way during their time in office, they were either blocked or had to compromise with different parties. FDR, one of America’s greatest champions was consistently thwarted by the Supreme Court. More recently Barak Obama spent more time dealing with a Republican dominated Congress that was openly determined to screw him up because he happens to be a shade darker than them.

Democracy at times can seem like the opposite of a system that promotes meritocracy and action but are the alternatives any better? Surely, a better form of government would be a “Divine” or “Benevolent” dictatorship – a case of the ruling elite being selflessly devoted to the well-being of the people.

Dictatorships or places that are ruled by one unchallenged party can produce miracles – governments that actually function for the benefit of the people. I live in Singapore, which has all the things you’d expect in a functioning democracy (elections, courts etc) but for the most part was run by one unchallenged man – our former Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. Mr. Lee and his team literally grabbed the nation by the scruff of its neck and made it into a clean, rich and green paradise.

While Singaporeans may complain about the government and the lack of any form of opposition, the efficiency of the government has performed such a good job that everyone from outside ends up looking at us and saying, “What are you complaining about?” An Austrian fellow even told me, “In Singapore, at election time should be about saying “Thank You PAP.”

The likes of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton would never exist in Singapore. The slight whiff of scandal surrounding Mrs. Clinton would never have been allowed let along Mr. Trumps “inflammatory” rhetoric. Our politicians may lack entertainment value but they all have rather clean cut records – in Singapore “boring” is a virtue.

However, as Bhutan’s former King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk argued – how guarantee that your successors are as benevolent as you. King Jigme was true to his word – he abdicated in favour of his son and moved the monarch from an absolute one into a constitutional one. People cried when the king told them to choose their government rather than have him tell them what to do. Bhutan has to be the only case in the world where the King imposed democracy on the people rather than got himself overthrown or had his powers curtailed by the people.

King Jigme Singye Wangchuck clearly understood that ruling and leadership are more than just about your own performance. It’s about ensuring the place gets better after you leave the scene.

Let’s look at the example of another monarchy – Thailand. Everybody acknowledges that King Bhumibol was a benevolent king. While, in theory, only a constitutional monarch with no actual power, the late King Bhumibol had so much moral authority that no politician or coup leader would even consider taking power without his blessing.

While, Thailand has draconian “les majeste” laws that make insulting the king or the royal family a criminal offence, nobody doubts that the admiration and affection for the late king was genuine. Yes, he had a good PR machine, the Thai people felt his affection for them and in return gave it to him. The King was to all practical purposes the one thing that stabilized the Thai national psyche, which has been torn by conflicts, military coups, corrupt politicians and so on.

Unfortunately, the saintly King Bhumibol is dead. The next king is the current crown prince, Prince Vajiralongkorn. Prince Vajiralongkorn has a reputation for being the total opposite of his father. While King Bhumibol was a king who used his fortune to improve the lives of his people, Prince Vajiralongkorn is known for indulging in every vice known to man and likes to grant high military ranks to his poodle. While King Bhumibol was the living example of monarchical dignity, Prince Vijaralongkorn is known for showing up at the airport sporting fake tattoos and dressed in a singlet.

Unfortunately, this is a monarchy we’re talking about. The rules of succession are clear – the throne stays in the family no matter how competent or incompetent they may be for the job. Yes, life was good when Bhumibol was king but now he’s gone and we’ve got a nut on the throne.

In more extreme circumstances, removing bad dictators can be bloody. Africa is awash with examples of rulers who should not have been around to rule. Zimbabwe is stuck with Mugabe who is living and still on the hot seat well past his sell by date. Let’s not forget that Mugabe was a hero, on the scale of Mandela, when he came into power. Then, he realized that he liked being in power and couldn’t live without it and he’s stayed on regardless of what happened to everyone else. Further north of the continent, you had Mobutu in Zaire who had to be removed by a war and the war has been going on and on and on since then.

The choice of Trump or Clinton can seem depressing. However, the fuck ups can be voted out in 4-years and the country is not going to be plunged into a civil war. The alternative of a system where a fuck up needs to be removed by force of arms is worse.