When the Fish Bowl is the Centre of the World

 

“You got to be Kidding Me” – An Australian Businessman to a Young Singapore Girl who asked “Where is Calcutta? Where is Bahrain?

Last Friday, I nearly lost it with someone, who was apparently a regular in the media scene. My Chubby Tiger partner had mentioned that she works with someone who promotes Georgian wine and he had proceeded to insist that there is “No such” country known as Georgia. I actually had to show him a map to prove that Georgia, the country actually existed:

https://www.infoplease.com/atlas/asia/country-of-georgia-map

 

 To be fair to this chap, he’s not the only person I’ve meet with a dreadful knowledge of basic geography and I guess if you look at the big picture, there are plenty of people who don’t know basic geography. My stepfather, who once lived in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky, where people had no concept of anywhere outside their Appalachia. He was introduced as someone from “beyond there, yonder.”

However, this isn’t Appalachia or Hill Billys we’re talking about here. The people who are demonstrating their lack of knowledge beyond the Goldfish Bowl of Singapore, are “intelligent” and “educated” people (defined as having a basic degree) and in many cases working with international companies and therefore used to working with people from elsewhere.

The best part about this “lack of knowledge” of basic human geography isn’t even specialized knowledge that you need to be trained to know. Its basic information that you can get from a simple Google search on your smart phone. All you need to do is to just Google a world map:

https://www.mapsofworld.com/

 

Somewhere, somehow, we seem to have developed a mindset that tells us that we’re the centre of the universe and the only truth comes from what we hear from news sources.

Unfortunately, Singapore, despite its strategic location, is a very small place that is barely locatable on the world map. While we’ve been the poster boy of “small is smashing,” our lack of size means that our very survival is dependent on our ability to read the world beyond our shores. If you read Lee Kuan Yew’s books, you’ll see that he developed an ability to read elections better than the local politicians in the USA and UK because our survival depended on it.

Yet, how is it that our local people don’t have the basic knowledge about the world outside. Why can’t we be bothered to do a simple Google search when it comes to anywhere outside? This is a worry question especially at a time when many of us feel crowded out by arrivals from elsewhere and in the job market and we’re told that looking outside Singapore is going to be a must.

Let’s take one my favourites, which was having someone from Saudi Aramco tell me that people had asked him which part of Dubai he was from. Yes, I am well aware that Dubai’s PR machine is exceptionally good at what it does but the reality is that Dubai is only an Emirate within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and even within the UAE, it’s the “second” main component (the main one being Abu Dhabi). Then, even when you look at a map of the region, you’ll understand that the biggest place in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is actually Saudi Arabia:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-the-GCC-member-countries_fig4_364155709

 

 

Another favourite is mistaking Sikhs as coming from Bengal. Yes, the Sikhs from Punjab come from India and so do the Bengalis. A quick glance of the map will show you that it’s around 1,500 kilometres between Punjab and Bengal and it would take you nearly two hours by plane.

https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from-west-bengal-to-punjab-in

 

I think of one of my favourite Australian businessmen who got exasperated with a young graduate who didn’t know where Calcutta and Bahrain where. I remember remaking that she was blessed with a huge chest because that was the only thing worth mentioning about her after this display of general knowledge.

Jokes aside, it seems that we’re not curious about anywhere outside our own little parameters and this becomes even more so when you talk about anywhere that they may consider an “s***hole” country – i.e. filled with dark people instead of pale ones. I think of the time I tried to share something funny with someone and the reply was “I have no time to waste on a dark skinned one.”

Unfortunately, our little Goldfish Bowl is not the centre of the world. Unfortunately, many of the opportunities are coming from places that Donald Trump so eloquently called “s***holes.” Instead of burying our heads in the sand about these places and being callous towards them and their culture, isn’t it time we got curious enough to find out about such places and people in order to maximise the opportunities for ourselves?  

 

 

 

Living in a Goldfish Bowl

 

A few months before Christmas, I had a drink with an Italian and an Asian girl. The Italian started on the topic of how he been misled to believe that Jesus was White when in reality he was from the Middle East. I remember saying, “Yes, Jesus was a Palestinian.” At that point, the Asian girl in the discussion got very upset with me and said “No, he was not a Muslim – he was Jewish.”

It goes without saying, that the girl in question is highly educated and worked in some pretty prominent places. I state this because, I’ve noticed that as much Singaporeans are as a group highly educated, many of them tend to confine how they see people from different parts of the world, through a very strange prism of colonial hangovers.  

You could say that part of this is due to Lee Kuan Yew’s attempt to reorganize race and religion. Mr. Lee, who was a very brilliant man by all accounts had a few quirks. He was, for example, determined to turn the Chinese community a “homogeneous” one, where Chinese dialects ceased to exist and all Indians were “Southern.”

In a way, this was a blessing. Singapore has been relatively peaceful where topics of racial and religious tensions only exist in the history books (or National Education in official speak) or what happens elsewhere in the region.

However, as more migrants from India and China have arrived, much of our perceptions of race and religion are being challenged. This is, in many ways, a healthy sign in that such concepts should be fluid but if handled wrongly, it could move things out of the history books and onto the streets.

Let’s start with the basic facts. Religion and race are separate issues. If you look at the Palestinian community, there is the fact that whilst a majority are Muslim, there are Christians and it’s been argued that the Palestinians today have better claim of being more closely related to the ancient Hebrews of Jesus’s day than many Israelis.

Then, there’s the fact that many “races” in the world are more diverse than we credit them for being and it has become more so. In Singapore, the local Indian population is mainly of Tamil (South Indian) descent. So, we’re told that Indians are Tamil and if you ask the average Singaporean, they’ll tell you that the language of Indians is Tamil. It shocked an aspiring politician I know, when I told him that the national language of India is in fact Hindi rather than Tamil. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, of the Chinese. As a few Main land Chinese girls have explained “They’re better looking than the local Singaporeans because they’re from different parts of China.”

As much as the government likes to bleat about its success in making Singapore “multi-cultural,” “multi-racial,” and “multi-religious,” the truth of the fact was the job was relatively easy. The Chinese were predominantly Southern Chinese and the Indians are predominantly Southern, specifically Tamils. Hence, it was relatively to define “Chinese” and “Indian.” If you were to add the expatriate population, it was for a time, mainly people from English speaking countries, namely Brits, Americans and Australians. So, it was easy to categorize “White” people as being the same.

Talk to enough Singaporeans, and you’ll find that they see the world and its people in the following categories:  

1.    Land of Natural Leaders and Wonderful Looking People where we’re so blessed because they give us our prosperity all that’s good in life – (The USA, The UK and Australia):

2.    Land of People who give us nice cars and brands we want but unfortunately speak funny languages (everywhere in the EU);

3.    Land of People who look similar to us, who give us interesting cuisine and TV shows (Japan and South Korea);

4.    Land where people look like us, could give us some business but they’re just uncouth and slutty (China);

5.    Our cousins the country bumpkins (Malaysia);

6.    The lands where we can sin with abandon because they’re filled with lazy and slutty people (everywhere else in the ASEAN region);

7.    The Land where people have lots of money but we wish they wouldn’t follow the religion that people in the first category don’t like; (the Middle East)

8.    The Land of Smelly People who should be thankful that we allow to clean our s*** (Every country on the Indian Subcontinent); and

9.    The Land where that provides us with sad stories but we don’t really care because they’re a bit dark.

As comforting as it may be to see the world in neat categories and subscribing ethnicities and religions to geographies, the world is not so neat. I’ve noticed that many people in Singapore struggle when people don’t fit into a category. Unfortunately, this does creep into officialdom.

One of the most blatant was from an Afrikaner friend, who went to see the immigration officials and they were stunned. He looks like he’s from category or two but his passport says he’s from a country in category nine. He was asked “What do they call you?” They couldn’t understand when he said “South African” (the place that issued his passport).

Then, there’s the issue of Indian professionals migrating here and the various complaints against them. I do get that there must be a good number from the community that aren’t stand up people. I do get the complaints about people with “fake certs” and so on.

However, one has to get over the idea that people born in category eight are capable of doing the jobs that we’ve been so conditioned to think of as the prerogative of people from category one. I remember someone sending me list of the top tier management of Standard Chartered Singapore, which was predominantly Indian-national and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t emotionally triggered. Here’s the fact, all of them had qualifications from top universities and work experience from large corporations. (As a matter of disclosure, the Indian National Community, where the only community willing to support me during my years of freelancing.)

I remember during the race to replace Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. I was in favour Rishi Sunak getting the job (admittedly based on a bias towards the contributions of the South Asian community.) There were many people in Singapore who were upset with me for the apparent inability to understand than anyone from category eight was not supposed to lead anything (for the record, Rishi Sunak lasted longer than Liz Truss and had to stabilize her mistakes).

Then, there’s the fact that the nations in category one and two, are not exactly the preserve of any particular race or religion. People of different ethnicities and religions have made the USA, the UK and Australia home and contributed accordingly. I think of a customer who was ethnically Vietnamese but as German as someone who was blonde haired and blue-eyed. I remember asking her friend blonde and blue-eyed friend if she was German, in German and it was the girl of Vietnamese decent who replied me, in German.

In a way, it’s quite funny to see how people who “ethnically” look like they’re from category four and beyond but born and bred in categories one and two, discover their attachment to their “homeland.” I think of a British banker called “Singh” who had to put “UK” in his email address. Then, there was an ex-lover who happened to be black but American (Georgia) who used to stress that she had a “US PASSPORT” and had to relationship with the Nigerians who had a restaurant in Sam Leong Road, Little India.

The world has moved on from the colonial era and flows of migration have made the world, on the whole, a better place. Our concepts of race, religion and nationality should no longer be rigid. We should celebrate that you can no longer assume a person’s nationality by his or her religion or race and its time we ditch concepts that should have gone the way of the dinosaur.  

   

“Aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.” – Gary Brecka

 

I decided to take the Neurotic Angel out on my 48^th birthday and when we sat down, I told her that dinner was in honour of me turning 48. She said, “You’re not bad looking for 48.”

This compliment of sorts was the first compliment I had received on my looks for a while. Prior to that, the main comment about my “good looks,” came from my mother who said that I was “gross looking.”

While I am past the age where the need to pose is part of life, it felt pleasant to receive a compliment and how I did go from “gross looking,” as defined by my loving me mother at 38 to “not bad looking” by someone I had just gotten to know?

I am sure nobody will define me as “athletic” or “handsome” but I appreciate the fact that my body remains functional, and nobody seems worried that I may go into cardiac arrest if I walk more than a few metres carrying a piece of paper. If you take the available literature at face value, it looks like I may enjoy my 50s and beyond. This wasn’t necessarily the case when I was in my late thirties and early forties. The army medical officer booted me off reservist duty when he took my blood pressure.

What happened? The answer is simple -Covid lock downs made it such that I adapted regular exercise (mainly walking but latter added body weight) because it was the only loophole to get out of the house.

Whilst exercise isn’t the cure-all (weight loss remains primarily focused on diet), it does make a difference in one’s wellbeing. However, the reason why most of us avoid it and become “time-poor” the moment someone suggests doing some form of physical activity as part of the daily routine.

Here’s the truth, exercise in all forms involves getting inconvenient and uncomfortable. Let’s face it, the truth is, exercise involves getting sweaty (which is especially uncomfortable if you live in the tropics) and sore, with not very much to show for it in the immediate time frame.

Sure, everyone wants to look good (for guys its that six-pack and for girls it’s that toned behind) but when we’re told that we need to get uncomfortable, the desire to “look good,” dims and we start putting our minds to all sorts of easier solutions like taking pills. Much as we complain about getting “stressed” at our desk jobs, we’ll stay in them even if alternatives paid as well because, well sitting at a desk is way more comfortable than say walking around carrying stuff in a restaurant. When the body starts to show signs of failure, we just put it down to aging.

However, when I think of my own physical imperfections, I’m drawn to a quote by human biologist, Gary Brecka, who describes aging as “the aggressive pursuit of comfort.”

https://www.tiktok.com/@garybreckaunscripted/video/7426089193551465734

 

 

Most of us avoid rigorous exercise, particularly from our mid-thirties on wards because we avoid the things that make us uncomfortable. Talk to enough of the professional middle class who have reached a certain level of “success” and they’ll tell you “The days when I had to lift things and run around are long over.” Its as if success is correlated with how much comfort you have or at least how much discomfort you avoid.

We condition ourselves to pursue comfort and convenience. Modern life is for the most part great. We are living far longer than our ancestors could ever dream of and the peasants of today have more comfortable lives than the kings of the past.

Yet, despite this, I’m reminded of a doctor who stated that “life is not meant to be convenient.” He’s got a point. The human body, which inevitably means the human mind is not designed for comfort and plenty but for survival. Let’s go back to the concept of weight loss. It takes me two hours to walk 10km and to burn around 500 calories. It takes me five minutes to put on a thousand over calories by eating ice cream. Why? The body was designed to store calories for periods when food was not available. Hence, it easily stores calories and uses very few calories even in intense physical moments.

Survival is about adaptation and the body adapts when challenged. However, when no challenges are around and things are comfortable, the body will then start disposing of the things it does not need. Think of muscle loss in older adults – it’s a case of “use it or lose it.” Let’s look at every story of a morbidly obese person. The inevitable link between every morbidly person is that they started becoming that way when they refused to leave their bed, even for the most basic functions and then they reached a stage when they were no longer able to move:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4313754/Super-morbidly-obese-790lb-man-leave-bed.html

 

 

 

What is true of human survivability is also true in the corporate world. Businesses that survive are the ones that don’t get comfortable where they are. Monopolies that dominate their market go extinct when technology makes their monopoly irrelevant.

I love luxury and I like being comfortable. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve understood that I can only enjoy what I have now if I am willing to stay mobile and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I think of a recent holiday I had with the Pillow. We had plenty to eat. We spent hours in a nice, air-conditioned room, lying in bed for hours. It was great fun except when we had to go back to reality, we both ended up getting sick. My nose behaved like a leaky faucet and after a week of not doing intense exercise, I decided to start sprinting again. The four bouts of sprinting I went through must have shocked the body because the sniffles seem to have done.

 

 

Comfort in any situation is very nice. However, we need to revive our thinking. Comfort is not the purpose of life. Our purpose is challenge. Yes, there are certain inevitabilities like death and old age. However, if you look at the quality of aging, you’ll notice the people who age the best are inevitably the ones who continue to adapt and challenge body and mind until they are no longer able.

 

My Money Built Your Country

 

One of the great news stories in this part of cyberspace is the story of an Israeli tourist telling an establishment “My Money Built Your Country,” after the establishment refused to let her in when she refused to take off her shoes.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5w5KrPCG0TM

 

 

The young lady in question has been hammered for having a “imperialist” mindset and given that she’s Israeli, her case has not been helped. Having said that, her actions are merely an expression that most of us in well to do countries have when it comes to the “less developed” world.

I first noticed it in school in the UK. I’ve often said that many of my friends from that area found me a bit of a disappointment in the sense that I speak English comfortably and my dad didn’t own a take away or a laundromat, the two businesses everyone associated the Chinese with. I was unusual in that the source of my family’s ability to send me to school had no relation to the UK and located in a part of the world the geography text books had labeled “poor.”

I ended up with some great friends and great memories from that period. However, it was a struggle for people to get used to the idea that someone from a part of the world they had been conditioned to think of as “less developed” could be in the UK and not be overwhelmed by gratitude of being in the UK (if anything, coming back to the UK from holiday in Singapore felt like stepping back in time – the UK and continental Europe was still happy with the VHS when Singapore had already moved onto laser disc – this being the pre-Netflix era).

The currency advantage helped this perception. The British had a three to one currency advantage with Singapore and one can only imagine the advantage they had in the region. It was assumed that I had to be part of the very wealthy because my family which earned the bulk of the money in this part of the world could afford to send me to the UK. Once upset a British Airways hostess who got very upset when I took the view that much of the UK was in the stone age. She kept screaming “we put allot of money in your country,” and when her companion told me that our national football team couldn’t beat a third division Venezuelan team, my only reply was that I was aware that British history consisted of 1914 (World War I), 1945 (World War II) and 1966 (England Won the World Cup).

Then, I moved back to Singapore to settle and found that the attitude wasn’t limited to how Westerners view the rest of the world. Singaporeans are conditioned in a very similar way when it comes to how we view the rest of Asia, or more specifically our neighbors, of Malaysia and Indonesia. As far as most of us in Singapore are concerned, Malaysia (specifically Johor) and Indonesia (specifically Batam), exist to as “cheap” shopping destinations” (the joke being Johor is filled with Singaporean birds going “cheap-cheap). As much as Singapore is wonderfully clean, green and safe, going to visit our neighbours is wonderful because not only is everything is much cheaper, we think of them as places where money solves problems. Bribing cops and customs officials has become something of thrill for people who have been bred to understand that the mere thought of bribing people will get you a ticket to a sticky place.

The downside of these places is that there is a risk of being robbed and even rapped but other than that we tend to see these places as “s***holes” where we can have fun by throwing our money at the natives. As much as I like to say I am an “enlightened” person, I also had a bit of a “coloured” perspective. In my most recent trip to Batam, I was actually worried that I didn’t have cash on me in case I got shaken down for a bribe. I’d been conditioned by my dad who would tell me that every Singaporean and Malaysian gets shaken down for a bribe on their first trip to Indonesia. Mum enforced this by telling me that what she liked about Dad was that he was “innocent,” in that when asked by an Indonesian customs official for a cigarette, his reply was “sorry, I don’t smoke.”

Then, I ended up at the immigration at Batam. The signs were clear “No tipping.” The official stance was clear. Anyone thinking of paying off immigration officials was not going to get away free.

Several things became clear about being in a place that is officially “less developed.” The first is obvious. Poverty is more obvious than it is in the home country. The difference in infrastructure between Singapore and Indonesia is obvious. It became clear when we went from the central part of Batam to the outskirts for lunch and it rained. Heavy rain meant heavy floods.

 

Yet, at the same time the nice parts are wonderfully nice and luxuries are significantly more affordable. Went to a spa and got a facial, bathtub time and a massage for a bit more than a single massage in Singapore. Then, it was off for a drink at the Marriot.

 

Having said that, what becomes clear is that people in the “less developed” world are aware of their situation and aware that things need to change. On the government level, its clear that governments know that they have to do certain things if they want the foreign investment. The most obvious step has been to invest in decent infrastructure. I think of visiting my former in-laws in Vietnam in 2012 and 2020 and the memory of a dirt road turning into a super highway as an obvious example. Then, there are the “financial centres” in places like Dubai and Astana, Kazakhstan, which operate under British Common Law.

Whilst physical infrastructure is just a question of investing money, there’s an even more crucial step in which governments compete in – that is the area of cracking down on corruption. Hence, the “no tipping” signs at Batam’s ferry terminal and new laws that limit presidential terms and keep relatives of the president out of public services in places like Kazakhstan. Many “less developed” nations will inevitably have issues with corruption but the ones that move up in the world will inevitably the ones that do something about it.

The other area to note is that whilst many developing nations will benefit from the presence of people from developed nations visiting and spending, the countries that “make it” will inevitably have to build the local market. In the case of Batam, its clear that Singaporeans and Malaysians are “big spenders” and there are “luxury” developments near the ferry centre awaiting the arrivals from elsewhere. However, what was comforting was seeing the fact that a lot of the local businesses like the hotel I stayed in, the Ibis Styles and the beach clubs were filled with the locals. Ultimately, it’s the locals who provide the bread and butter for the economy and one can earn the “cream” from the foreigners.

Local people from less developed countries are working to come up. In Batam, the service staff spoke in English, even if the standard was not perfect. English lessons are the way to get ready for the international market. People are also willing to go overseas to look for their own opportunities.

Sure, when you’re visiting a country with a less developed economy, your money will be welcome. Nobody is going to turn down a big spender. However, never underestimate people from less developed countries. They may give you good treatment for spending but always keep in mind that they’re waiting for the day when they have the money and also except that whilst you are a “nice to have,” they are capable of living without you.

The Problem with Being Nice

 The big news in Singapore is the fact that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and now Chairman of the Gates Foundation, paid Singapore a visit and announced that he would be making Singapore the Asian Headquarters of his foundation. Given that the Gates Foundation has an endowment of around US$75.2 billion, making it one of the largest charitable foundations in the world, the Singapore Government drooled at the prospect of adding “philanthropy” to the things that Singapore could be a “hub” of. Mr. Gates met everyone from the President down. We even went out of our way to make a song and dance of how Mr.Gates enjoyed a good old fashioned “hawker meal.”

https://mothership.sg/2025/05/bill-gates-mothership-newton-food-centre/

 

 Whilst the powers that be were delighted with Mr. Gates’s visit, there were those who were less happy. Some people thought that since Singapore had voted to return the PAP to government, it was no coincidence that Mr. Gates chose to visit and make the announcement after the election. Apparently, Mr. Gates chose this move to Singapore because his “nefarious” plans to rule the USA were coming to an end because the Trump Administration’s health department under the ever-competent Robert F Kenedy Jr. (“RFK Jr”) was blowing through his scheme and Singapore’s compliant population by contrast offered a more fertile ground for Mr. Gates and his “devious” plots.

 

OK, let’s state the obvious – Mr. Gates is not and never has been a candidate for sainthood. Mr. Gates has been by all accounts an exceedingly ruthless businessman and for the longest of times, Microsoft was known for being “predatory” in its practices. We all use Microsoft, not because its software is the best and cheapest but because we don’t have a choice. As the Old Rogue used to say, “He forced us to use an inferior product.”

Having said that, Mr. Gates did do good things. For one, he made entering the ranks of the super wealthy accessible. Seattle is filled with millionaires who simply went to work for Microsoft and ended up very rich, thanks to their stock options. If you define a successful business as one that makes lots of people rich, then Mr. Gates would be amongst one of the best.

The second area in which Mr. Gates deserves credit is in the way in which he’s tried to use his wealth for the greater good of humanity. Look at the webpage of his foundation and it starts of with a slogan about how every life has value:

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

 

 Mr. Gates has talked about developing better toilets (which may seem obvious if you live in a developed nation but in the majority of the world its different story), research a cure for HIV/AIDS and providing vaccines against ailments that kill millions every year.

Sure, there are criticisms to be made against Mr. Gates and his foundation, but that should not distract from the fact that he’s putting vast resources to fund things aimed at solving major risk. How do you argue that funding research into medication that could save lives be a bad thing?

Apparently, it is. Mr. Gates’s philanthropy is a favourite topic among people who don’t like other people. You could say that he’s the bigger and almost “eviler” version of this group’s previous bogyman – George Soros, who is apparently also trying to disrupt the world and rule it from the shadows.

Unlike Mr. Gates, whom you might call the “nerd made good,” Mr. Soros is a less sympathetic character. He didn’t invent things. He made his money using other people’s money to take on financial markets. His most famous moment came when he announced that he made a killing going short on the British Pound in 1992’s infamous “Black Wednesday.” Mr. Soros, who is Jewish, ended up becoming cast as everyone’s favourite “evil Jewish money manager,” and was attacked for being so by Malaysia’s Never Ending Prime Minister, Dr. Mohamad Mahathir back in the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997.

Whilst Mr. Soros may have made lots of money attacking financial systems, he put his money to good use, trying to fund “Open Societies,” promoting things like free speech and safety for journalist etc. Again, how exactly does someone promoting the struggle for more freedom end up being villainized by people living in countries where things like freedom of speech are taken as a “given.”

 https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/

 

 Say what you like about Mr. Gates and Mr. Soros, but they are at least giving the façade of trying put their vast resources to make things better for people. Unfortunately, this makes a lot of people upset.

What makes these actions of Mr. Gates and Mr. Soros so upsetting? I’m not really smart but it seems the people who don’t like Mr. Gates and Mr. Soros don’t like the things they’re promoting. Take one of Mr. Soros’s fiercest critics as an example – Victor Orban, the current and probably never-ending Prime Minister of Hungry. Mr. Orban hasn’t exactly been cheerleader for anyone else’s rights except his own.

Then, there’s the issue of vaccines. There’s a group that believes that vaccines are evil. Whilst I do agree that not everyone reacts well to vaccines, the record of vaccines is ultimately beneficial. A century ago, small pox was a sure killer. Today, it probably only exists somewhere out there in a secret lab of conspiracy theorist. Four years ago, there was Covid, which killed more Americans than all the wars America has fought. Today, vaccination has made it such that Covid is like a flue.

So, what do the people who don’t like causes like open societies and vaccines think billionaires should be funding? Apparently, whilst funding lifesaving vaccines and open societies, which are more likely to make life better for people living in them are bad things, its perfectly acceptable for billionaires to salute a regime that promoted a genocide and political parties that celebrate what that regime did:

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy48v1x4dv4o

 

 Furthermore, whatever “nefarious” schemes Mr. Gates and Soros are supposed to have, according to their haters, neither of them has ever gotten close to the levers of power. Nobody offered Mr. Gates or Mr. Soros positions in government. Yet, the people who hate them for funding vaccines and open societies have no problem when a billionaire like Elon Musk who funds parties that are trying to echo the Nazi regime.

Sure, billionaires can be a problem. The amount of wealth they control can be an issue in that it may cause resentment. However, they can also be inspiring. Their vast wealth makes them influential in their mere public pronouncements. You cannot
“ban” them in as much you want people to be inspired to create wealth. However, you can and should encourage them to use their power for the greater good and discourage them from supporting the awful.

 

 

 

Study What We Want You to Study

When I was still at school and ended up in discussions on civilisations, I always felt that I needed to make the point to my English friends that the Chinese were living in cities when Europeans were still living in caves.

I think of this era of my life, because I’ve come to appreciate that Chinese history is very instructive to the current geopolitical situation. Whilst the Chinese were living in cities when the Europeans were living in caves, the Chinese also pioneered two of the worst sins of modern geopolitics – namely protectionism and intellectual arrogance. Sure, we started living in cities but 1500AD, protectionism and intellectual arrogance made China so stagnant that the people who were dwelling in caves when the Chinese lived cities, ended up pointing guns at them and the Chinese could only offer spears and wooden shields.

I blame two people for this. One is Confucius, the original bureaucrat who was obsessed with going back to a “golden age” that never existed. Thanks to him, the entire Chinese system was based on going back to a mythical golden age and nobody thought of shaping the future. The other person who is responsible is the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang who built the “Great Wall,” which cost dearly in lives and treasure. The Great Wall is a tourist attraction and we love to go on and on about how its only thing you can see from the moon. The truth is the “Great Wall” was a failure. The “Barbarians” inevitably found a way in.

The Qin emperor didn’t just build a physical wall. He built walls in generations of Chinese. As far as he was concerned, people would only know what he wanted them to know and he proceeded to burn books that he didn’t approve of on a regular basis. So, whilst China and Chinese history is filled with intellectual treasures, its also filled with so much more that could have been.

I start with this monologue, because if you look at what’s going on in the world, you’ll notice that these things from Chinese history are taking place in front of us. Ironically, its not so much the Chinese exhibiting these traits but the nation that was the anti-thesis of these values – America.

Many people have described the current president as trying to be like a “King” of 18^th century Europe. However, he seems more like a Chinese Emperor. Look at what he was bragging about in his first term – building a wall. As an ethnic Chinese, this sounds strangely familiar.

Now, in his second term, he’s on a mission to continue being like a Chinese Emperor. He wants to build walls of the mind. America, which has spent centuries being a free market of ideas, now has school boards talking about banning certain books.

This on its own wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t on a mission to make it worse by going on a war against America’s Universities, insisting that they teach an approved “non-woke” agenda. At the time of writing, Mr. Trump has frozen all federal funding to Harvard University, one of America’s most prominent universities, for refusing to comply with his orders:

 https://www.ft.com/content/5c8bca38-8e6d-4df1-bbb1-d84e0b2a5962

 

Given that Harvard has an exceedingly large endowment fund, one might argue that there’s no reason for them to receive federal funding. However, the issue is not so much the funding but the “interference” from the government and the government’s insistence that it has control over what universities teach. Mr. Trump is essentially arguing that the government needs to step in to stop the universities from teaching a “woke” agenda but whose to say what exactly is “woke” and who is to say that this won’t be used to interfere with the teaching of what the government doesn’t want to be taught, which is, given Mr. Trump’s reaction to medical advice dispensed during Covid, a real possibility.

If you look at what makes America such a dominant player in so many fields, you’ll find that America has inevitably done it through an ability to nurture the best brains into innovative and entrepreneurial ones. America has done this primarily through its universities. It is no coincidence that Silicon Valley, the place that has minted billionaires is centred around Stanford University.

If you look at the top ten universities in the world, you’ll find that only Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London are not American. What does this mean? It simply means that America has the best places to nurture the best minds. America doesn’t just nurture its own. It encourages people from the rest of the world to attend American Universities and then work and even become entrepreneurs, creating jobs and other forms of wealth in America:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/latest/world-ranking

 

 Mr. Trump campaigned on the premise of “Making America Great Again.” He talks about bringing back the manufacturing jobs and undoing years of environmental protections.

Yet, while he’s talking about making America Great Again, he’s going after the very things that make America great. Like it or not, hot beds of innovation and creativity don’t toe the line of dictation from the government.

Sure, China is a communist dictatorship and a highly effective police state. However, it’s a place that has understood that “Greatness” comes from an ability to innovate and create. It’s also learnt the lesson from history that it needs the global community to stay reasonably prosperous. So, when Mr. Trump was rounding up people he didn’t like, the Chinese were opening up to people with the ability to do work.

How it is possible for America to win with Mr. Trump at the helm. He’s trying to compete in the low-end stuff, where China has a clear advantage. Yet at the same time, he’s going out of his way to harm the pillars that make America a world leader in high tech and high value stuff. Instead of making friends, he’s alienating the ones he has. By contrast, the Chinese are keeping their edge in the low value stuff, investing in the high edge stuff and going out of their way to befriend the people Mr. Trump is screwing over.

China got lucky in that it was an ancient civilization and it didn’t feel the negative effects of its arrogance and isolationism for centuries. The world was simply not connected back then. So, the receipts of arrogance took a while to come in.

This is not the case for modern America under Trump. Our technologies have reduced the time it took to do things in the past by many folds. Any loss suffered will be a result of allowing the same arrogance and isolationism that brought down and ancient civilisation.

 

 

More of the Same

 

When will the day come?

I’ve generally stayed out of commenting on this year’s election in Singapore. Although Singapore is my home and as often said, the only country on the planet I actually have a legal and moral obligation to die for, I just didn’t feel fired up enough to talk about the election.

Let’s start with the obvious, you know the results before the vote is even counted. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has won every election since independence and they’re known to use every trick in the book to ensure that they go into the election with every possible advantage. This was clearly seen in the drawing of electoral boundaries prior to the election. So, it should be no surprise that the ruling party cruised home with a comfortable victory, taking 87 out a possible 97 seats.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-votes-test-ruling-partys-monopoly-2025-05-03/

 

 The continued dominance of the ruling party “p****es” off plenty of opposition politicians for the simple reason that despite the complaints about life in Singapore, the ruling party keeps coming back in. One of the most famous grouses about Singapore’s elections came in 2015 when the Secretary General of the Reform Party, Mr. Kenneth Jeyaratnam who told the electorate to stop complaining:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETnYp0CIDxI

 

 As with our elections in 2020, 2015 and 2011, the excitement was generated by the opposition rather than the ruling party. Managed to eavesdrop on a conversation in the coffee shop near the office, and the point was made very clearly was the fact that the opposition party politicians seemed to have “passion,” whilst the candidates from the ruling party seemed to be reading from a script with as much passion as watching grass grow. There was even the contest of prettiest politicians where Ms. Alexis Dang of the Worker’s Party went up against Ms. Sun Xueling of the ruling party:

 https://theindependent.sg/the-battle-for-punggol-alexis-dang-vs-sun-xueling/

 

 While the opposition parties, specifically the Worker’s Party, have been attracting very talented and capable people, the truth remains that “Elections are not won by opposition but lost by governments.”

At the end of the day, the ruling party had not done enough to lose the election. Leaving aside the fact that the ruling party has the levers of power at its control, the fact remains that complaints about the ruling party like rising prices are pretty much the same complaint that everyone else in the world has. When I talk about how expensive things are becoming, my siblings in the UK and USA mention exactly the same thing and the American family points out that populist politics hasn’t exactly made life better.

So, the fact remains that Singaporeans do want the ruling party there but what we want is for the government to be reminded that they work for us and not the other way round. So, for years, we kept two opposition members there (Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Kiang) despite the obvious “incentives” to kick them out. Then in 2011 and 2020, when we felt the government wasn’t listening hard enough, we gave two Group Representative Constituencies (GRC – a case where you vote for a team of MPs rather than a single MPs) to the opposition Worker’s Party. If you look at the guys in light blue shirts (Colour of the Worker’s Party, which differs from the White of the ruling party), you’ll find that their policies aren’t that far off from what’s already there, a fact that other opposition parties often complain about.

You could say that voting for the opposition is more about reminding the ruling party to be less condescending in their public appearances than actual disagreements.

So, how long can this status quo last? It depends on two things, which will need to coincide. The first is decay in the ruling party. The ruling party has yet to elect a leader as corrupt and incompetent as Mr. Najib Razak in neighboring Malaysia.  However, the infamous “Ownself-Check-Ownself” that the ruling party often uses whenever the question of accountability arises, the possibility of producing a leader that corrupt cannot be ruled out.

The second thing that needs to happen is when the opposition produces a team that shows its capable of running things. Thus far only the Worker’s Party has a record of running things. The frustration among the ruling party’s members it that once a constituency “goes blue” there’s literally no going back. The reason was explained as the fact that the guys in blue manage to keep cost and quality the same whereas cost tend to rise in the constituencies run by the guys in white.

As things stand, the Worker’s Party is aware that it isn’t in the position to take over the government. However, its building with what it has. The Worker’s Party is focused on maintaining seats in parliament and then acquiring seats rather than getting media attention. As such, it remains the only possible party to offer an alternative.

Its probably an eventuality when Singapore’s elections become more “normal.” Dominant parties like the Kuomintang in Taiwan, UMNO in Malaysia and the PRI in Mexico have tasted defeat at the ballot box, so there’s no reason why the PAP in Singapore won’t one of these days. However, that day remains yet to come as long as the PAP uses its mandate to work for the people.