What Languages do you speak?

The topic of bilingualism is back. The Prime Minister has urged Singaporeans (particularly the Chinese ones) not to lose their bilingual edge. As always when the Prime Minister says something, everyone has an opinion. There are those who think that Singapore’s “bilingual” policies are a failure and think we should stick to doing things in English and English only (probably parents with kids who can’t pass Chinese – I used to be one of those kids) and a few letters that pointed out the obvious – namely the importance of being multilingual in a world where growing economies are not necessarily English speaking.

I shrug whenever I see both arguments. I flunked the Singapore system because I couldn’t make it in Chinese. My parents spoke English at home and the only real Chinese I spoke was Cantonese with my paternal grandmother and the nanny (Which isn’t a bonus because Singapore is ferociously anti-Chinese dialect). My early childhood was a failure because of my poor command of spoken Chinese and nonexistent command of written Chinese. I only blossomed academically when the family moved to Spain and I no longer had to learn Chinese.

So, I sympathise with kids who struggle with Chinese. It is not an easy language to learn, especially if you are tone deaf. A single word changes meaning the moment you get the tone wrong and the Chinese script is challenging especially if you do not have a visual memory (I don’t). Struggling with the language is especially challenging when you have to deal with everything else in Singapore’s ultra-stressful education system.

Learning Mandarin is challenge for many of us who, while ethnically Chinese, grew up in a non-Chinese speaking environment. The Mandarin that has evolved in Singapore’s daily vernacular is similar to Singlish (a particular form of English spoken in Singapore – though the English are kinder about our version of English than the Chinese). Our bilingual policy is blamed for creating a situation where our local population does not speak good English or good Mandarin. There is, as they say, no such thing as a pure language. In Singapore, it is possible to speak several languages in a single sentence. When I take a taxi, I tell the taxi driver where to go in Mandarin and yet I end up telling him to turn left or right at certain junctions in English.

Having said all of that, I believe it’s wrong to not teach kids the “mother-tongue.” Ironically, I look back at my youth in Europe to understand how people view bilingualism. My Nordic and Dutch friends work on the principle that you are not truly educated if you can’t communicate in more than one language. All my Nordic and Dutch friends speak, read and write in English as well as their mother tongues. How is it such the Nordic countries and the Netherlands have succeeded in producing multilingual people, while we struggle with it.

OK, to be fair to Singapore’s Chinese and Tamil populations, there is a larger difference between Chinese/ Tamil and English as opposed to understanding both Swedish and English. The Asian languages have a different written script and in the example of Chinese, each character represents an actual thing as opposed to the Western alphabet system, where each alphabet represents a sound. Handling an Asian language and a Western one requires you to have a cultural mindset as opposed to two European languages. Then, there’s the issue of spoken tones in Chinese, which doesn’t really happen in European languages.

Yet, that shouldn’t be a reason to give up on bilingualism. The Dutch and Nordic nations realized that they were small and few people outside their borders would speak their language. So, they learnt other languages and have prospered. The Dutch ran an empire that competed with the British Empire, even though the Netherlands is smaller than the UK.

This has become even more crucial in the modern age, where the growing markets are in places like China and Indonesia, which may not necessarily be English speaking. I think my 70-year-old Dad who learnt Thai when he moved to Thailand. His argument is simple, “I want to live in Thailand, I got to learn Thai and not expect them to learn English to accommodate me if I want to live here.”

I take a similar view with Mandarin. It’s not a language I’m comfortable with but when my big spender is from PRC, I speak find the ability to speak Mandarin. Incidentally, that’s the language I communicate with my wife in.

Bilingualism cannot be forced and I do think the Singapore government needs to lose its hostility to Chinese dialects. Yet, Singaporean Chinese should accept that knowing Mandarin is a good thing and should embrace it.  Look, if a Sino-Phobic US President can get his granddaughter learning Mandarin, why can’t the rest of us?

It's Not the Hours You Work but the Work in the Hours

One of the most interesting news stories of the last few days was the fact that Ms. Sharon Au, a former celebrity in Singapore, had been reported to her bosses for sending her colleagues after hours work emails. This story illustrates one of most interesting areas of cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Ms. Au is Singaporean and grew up in a work culture where one is attuned to one’s communications device (mobile, laptop and tablet) because its almost normal to have bosses and customers calling you at any time of the day. The general idea is that you try and be at the customer’s beck and call no matter how inconvenient because if the customer can’t get you, they’ll move their business elsewhere.

The situation has become such that people functioning in the Asian and American (as anyone who has worked in an American bank can testify to), understand that working long hours is part and parcel of being in the work force. The ability to work the hours is a badge of pride. The ability to put in the hours is such that I remember telling a potential employer that “I can work long hours,” because I wanted him to know that I was worth hiring.

However, Ms. Au works in France, where there are laws against sending work communications after office hours. These laws are based on the premise that employees need their “private time,” particularly when they have families.

From the Asian and American perspective, the European focus on having laws that protect “private-time” can seem like self-indulgence. When you come from a culture where the ability to work long hours is seen as a badge of pride, the eagerness to protect “private time” can seem lazy.

However, there is another side to this issue. Americans and Asians may have the ability to work long hours but if you look at global productivity statistics, you’ll find that of the top most productive nations in the world, only four are not European (USA at number 6, Australia at number 7, Canada at 13 and Japan at number 15). A list of the most productive countries can be found at:

https://collectivehub.com/2018/02/15-of-the-worlds-most-productive-countries/

How is it such that the world’s most productive countries happen to be those in places where there are restrictions on your working hours?

The answer is precisely because there is because there is a scarcity of working hours in these countries. The human mind is a wonderfully adaptable thing and there is a case to show that scarcity produces efficiency. Many of the world’s most prosperous countries have become that way because they lacked resources and had to find ways of developing their economies through better education and clever trade policies. By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa struggles with what development economist call a “natural resources curse.” Sub-Saharan Africa has an abundance of natural resources, which have only made despots and crooks (the despots being the crooks in many cases) fabulously wealthy. Why develop the people when all you need to do is to dig things from under the earth?

The same is true of labour productivity. China and India may be the fast-growing big economies but they don’t rank anywhere on the list of productive places. Both of these places have an abundance of labour. In the outsourcing business it is said that a company will pay for a tart from the East End of London more than a roomful of MBA graduates in India. When you have a thousand well educated people willing to pick up trash, there is utterly no need to invest in a robot to do the job.

I remember complaining about how shops shut early and on Sundays in Europe when compared to America and Asia. Mum’s defense of the European way was this – she shops very efficiently because she has to. She plans how much we’re going to need over the weekend when she goes to the shops on Friday because there’s no place for her to go to should she miss anything on a Sunday.

The common saying is that necessity is the mother of innovation. The European companies can’t work their employees more than a certain number of hours (overtime becomes prohibitively expensive) so they have to maximise what they can work from the workers within the set hours. Likewise, the European worker does not have the luxury of taking his or her time beyond office hours hence there is an incentive to finish task within the set hours.

Scarcity is good for the human mind and countries that are seeking to be more productive should look at limiting incentives to be inefficient.

Perseverance is the difference between going bust and creating a Billion Dollars in value

By Mr. Patrick Grove

CEO of Catcha Group Ltd

I had a blast speaking at Tony Robbins’ world-famous Business Mastery event a year ago in Sydney. Sharing my story with like-minded and aspiring entrepreneurs, knowing that perhaps my story might positively impact even a small part of someone’s journey, always gets me going.

The story I shared with the eager audience is the response to a question I get a lot these days - how was I able to take five companies from inception to IPO within seven quick years? In short, what’s been key to my success as an entrepreneur?

The simple answer - perseverance.

Let’s look at iProperty, the first company we took public. Today iProperty is widely recognized as one of the largest and most successful online businesses in the region. However 11 years ago, this was a different story. 

In 2007, newspapers classifieds were the defacto method of searching for property to purchase and rent. The few online real estate portals which did exist were relatively unknown and mostly unutilized. Our business model in Southeast Asia was yet to be proven.

Shortly after the company’s inception, we went out to raise funds to enable us to grow the business across the region. We did ALL the investor rounds, roadshows, pre-roadshows, mini-roadshows, etc. We saw every bank, banker, broker, VC, PE, family office, fund and investor who would meet with us.

The first five people we met said no. The next ten people we met said no. The subsequent 20 people we met said no, and so on, and so on.

It was our 75th investor pitch when someone finally agreed to invest in the business.

The sole reason iProperty exists today is because we persevered.

Imagine if we had given up after the 20th, 30th or even the 74th meeting. It took 75 meetings for someone to finally say “yes, I will give you $2 million for 10% of the business.”

Today that 10% stake is worth $50 million. Today, iProperty is Asia’s leading network of property websites.

Similarly, iflix - which has a 15-million subscriber base across 28 countries, and is emerging markets’ leading on-demand video streaming platform - had 115 rejections before our first investor said yes!

As Ben Horowitz describes in ‘The Struggle’ – sh#t happens. That is the nature of doing business. The grander your ambitions, the greater the challenges you face. The most important thing you can do is persevere.

We’ve had many of those sh#t happens moments where sheer perseverance, and not luck nor skill nor money, kept us going. Some of those moments include:

• Our entire Board of Directors resigning because we were trading whilst insolvent and they didn’t want to be personally liable for our debts.
• Our CFO telling us that our balance sheet was negative (by USD 2 Million!).
• Losing money, EVERY YEAR for 8 years in a row. 
• Not having enough money to pay the monthly salary of my partner and I, for about 23 months in the last 15 years.

I have experienced all of these setbacks and many more. Perseverance allowed us, in the instances above:

• To pay all of our creditors back within 3 years
• Stay alive till the business turned profitable and we had profits to re-invest

Perseverance is the single differentiating factor of successful entrepreneurs and people.

Learning to persevere is one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in both business and life. It is more than just a simple state of mind or being tenacious in the face of failure. Perseverance allows you to accept that you will encounter challenges and occasionally defeat, but in persevering you learn from your mistakes, evolve and move on. 

The road for entrepreneurs is a long and exacting one, both from the initial outset frequently characterized by tough conditions and limited resources as well as ongoing challenges as businesses mature.

Steve Jobs once famously said, “it is pure perseverance, which separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones.” And I have lived and breathed that.

In one last humbling fact, in 2000, after we had almost run out of money and were on the verge of bankrupty, a magazine ran a story on Catcha headlined “Please Stop Dreaming” in reference to our crazy idea to attempt an IPO of our company. Well, guess what, that magazine went bust several years later, and we KEPT DREAMING and we are now 5 IPOs down – with more to come. So here’s to DREAMING and having the perseverance to keep at it.

The Dyson Debacle. Policy intent WAS good. Move on please!

By Mark Goh Aik Leng

Managing Director of Vanilla Law 

I read with interest the response of “BeautifullyIncoherent” in his blog called “TheDyson Debacle- The Difference Between Foreign Investors and Local SMEs. . The thrust of his blog was to highlight the disparity in treatment for foreign direct investments (“FDIs”); as against our local boys/girls who are already invested here.

On the whole I agree with his observations. I do understand also the underlying reasons why we would want to roll out the red carpet to these FDIs. However, I am now wondering whether such a practice has outlived its intended policy reasons? When Singapore was just a developing country, it was a matter of survival that we attract FDIs for money and jobs. I do not think anyone can argue against such a policy and the success which it brought to us.

The world has changed in many ways and is still changing. The most significant of these changes is the ease of doing business overseas. The advent of the digital age, has brought down the cost and barriers to doing business. This does not only bring benefits for the large companies, but also smaller companies.

The irony it seems, is that the larger companies have been quicker to appreciate the change and have been quicker to adapt and exploit this change. To give an an example; in order to shelter itself from tough tax regimes and uncertain political climate like Brexit, they can now easily set up foreign HQ companies in countries where the taxes are lower and the politics are perceptively stable. Command, control and communications are no longer barriers, as there are a  plethora of digital tools which are available to overcome this.

When Dyson announced in May that it was going to invest in a factory in Singapore and give jobs here, did anyone not consider such a statement with a healthy dose of skepticism? I would be very surprised if they were not questioned as to how their plans could be better than attempts made by our local boys/girls back sometime in 2010 to test electric vehicles use on Singapore roads and also grids to support such use. What happened to those tests? What were the results of those test by our local community? If indeed our local tests showed that it was not feasible, why did people believe that a foreign company could do better than our local findings?

Having worked with local SMEs for more than 25 years, I hear from the ground that people who are tasked to execute government policies do not have faith in them. It appears that the top management has got their heart and intent right; however and in reality when it is executed, the stumbling blocks are usually the middle management.

If I had a wish list, I would propose to these middle management people to have faith in our local businesses. While there is some truth that they are slow to adapt; there needs to be patience when working with them. They may appear rough on the outside, but most are good people on the inside. It may seem easier and faster to close deals with large FDIs, but this is a “short cut”, because we are not naive to believe that these FDIs are here for reasons other than our tax regime and our safe haven status.

It may not be that our SMEs are uncooperative; but lack of skills on how to relate with another person in a business setting.

It may not be lack of innovative ideas; but lack the facility of language to articulate their ideas. It may not be myopia; but lack of organisational awareness and skills to manage and work in groups.

The Dyson Debacle – The Difference Between Foreign Investors and Local SMEs

This morning, I got the news that Dyson, the technology company best known for the electronic vacuum cleaner had scrapped its electric car project. This is particularly significant because it was only in May of this year that there was a big fanfare in our local news of how Dyson was making Singapore the centre of its electric car project and there was an even larger song and dance of how Dyson’s boss, Sir James Dyson had decided to shell out pots of money to buy an exceedingly expensive piece of real estate. Now, after all the fanfare, it seems that this “dream project” will not happen and details can be found at:

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/dyson-kills-singapore-electric-car-project-with-closure-of-auto-division

This juicy bit of news has helped to stir a sore spot with SME owners, who have long complained that the government has gone all out to win foreign investment while neglecting the SME community. While the government would undoubtedly dispute this claim and point out to the pots of money that it lavishes out on grants and schemes to help the SME community, there are plenty who would argue that this is more of a PR exercise than actual help.

Having spent most of my working life as a one-man shop and having worked with both the Economic Development Board (“EDB”) and Enterprise Singapore and Spring Singapore, I’m inclined to sympathise with the view that its “foreign companies” that get the lion’s share of glory. A comparison of the government agencies says it all.

EDB, which is all about bringing foreign investors into the country (read – money into the country), works like Aladdin’s Genie. All you must do is to ask, and things will get done. You want a minister to grace your opening, it shall be done. If you need press coverage, they’ll make sure the press attend.

Things are a wee bit slower and Enterprise Singapore, which is all about helping the local SME expand and grow in foreign markets (read – money out of the country) struggles to get a working microphone into its events.

To anyone who has seen the difference in how these organisations work, it becomes clear how the powers that be view things. Singapore, we often reminded, needs foreign investors to give the local people jobs and to generate wealth. Home grown SMEs by contrast, don’t seem to be regarded as doing very much.

This is a shame really. In most parts of the world, the SME’s form the backbone of the economy. While multinational corporations bestride the world and cause us to marvel at their resources, it’s the SMEs who have to stay in the country and make things work for the community they operate in.

In most countries, it’s the SME business that are viewed as heroes of the business world. I take the UK as an example. Napoleon dismissed them as a “Nation of Shopkeepers,” but if you watched the Iron Lady, it was people like Mr. Roberts (father of Margaret Thatcher) who argued that this was the strength of the nation.

In the day and age of disruption, small companies will play an even more vital role in the economy. They’re the ones who do the “innovation” which is so crucial to the modern system. I remember my one of my favourite data analytics entrepreneurs who said, “You put a lot of money into the EDB and bringing foreign investors into the country – but you’d get a lot better returns if you pumped of that money into the SME sector.”

I am by no means denigrating the role of the EDB and the importance of foreign investors in our local economy (I sell to them), this entrepreneurs’ words are worth remembering. An investment in local sme’s would give us better returns in terms of job and productivity growth, which in return would be best for the government’s coffers.

The Problem with Our Youth

It’s been something of a month for people who believe in free expression. It started in Hong Kong, when people took to the streets to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed the Hong Kong Government to extradite Hong Kong citizens to China and then moved onto the world’s most vocal teenager, Ms. Greta Thunberg, dressing down the world’s powers for doing nothing about climate change.

While the pictures coming out of Hong Kong have not been pretty and the usual Tramps have been complaining that Ms. Thunberg is being abused by evil people trying to impose a horrible regime of environmental friendliness and democracy, these have been heartening. It’s good to see Chinese (I stress the Chinese part because I’m living in a Chinese society that claims protest are un-Chinese) people standing up for themselves and its also heartening to see 16-year old kids doing something greater than themselves.

However, I live in a society that does not see youthful activism as anything beneficial. Our media makes it a point to let us see how chaotic Hong Kong has become and I remember one of our talking heads writing a letter to tell our youth that they need to be more “practical.”

To me, this sounds like poppycock or as they say, my people don’t get the point about being young. In most parts of the world, young people are exceedingly idealistic and only become less so when the reality of having to make a living sets in. I think of my history teacher who once said that the most depressing thing about “young conservative” is the fact that young people are not supposed to be conservative.

Many people might say that its all part of the Singapore government’s obsession with control. However, could there be a more sinister fact at play, namely the fact that while young people elsewhere are out trying to save the world, our young people are getting caught doing all sorts of kinky things.

While the Hong Protestors and Ms. Thunberg were out there trying to save the world, the National University of Singapore (NUS) was forced to deal with a spate of “sex” related crimes, where various male students were caught taking upskirt videos or planting cameras in the girl’s showers. The problem was further compounded when one of the guys got let off with a slap on the wrist because the judge didn’t want to ruin the young man’s future (Singapore has a Brock Tylor of its own).

Plenty is being said about all of this so, I’ll leave the legalistic comments to other people. What I will question is the fact that all these guys doing this are all intelligent and from reasonably well to do families. As one a Grab Driver that I was ridding with said, “They’re not ugly – why can’t they just a girl and do what they need to do rather than resorting to these things.”

Let’s put it this way – sexual deviants are always portrayed as being from the lower educated portions of society. Some of them are considered “slow” by “normal” society. Much of the unspoken focus on sexual safety in Singapore remains on the poorer parts of town. Our Red-Light districts are portrayed as being places for foreign workers (read – dark people from Shitholes) to let out sperm rather than planning to rape our pure and chaste women (read – the lighter skinned ones).

Yet, despite all of this, every instance of sexual misbehavior that you read about usually involves someone with a decent job (teacher, engineer etc) or someone with decent world-class education (read – university graduate).

Sure, I can appreciate young men being “silly” when it comes to trying to get laid. I was young and I think I would have been better off in life if I had controlled my small head a bit more.

I also appreciate the fact that everyone has different sexual kicks. I find certain features of women very attractive and I can appreciate that the next guy may not share my appreciation for those said features or the next guy may not appreciate women’s bodies at all. I take the position that one shouldn’t judge a sexual act as long as it is done between two consenting adults and in the privacy of the bedroom.

Apparently, that makes me a little strange in Singapore. We have a brilliant law professor who spends her days trying to keep homosexual sex between two consenting adults in the privacy of the bedroom to be illegal and yet, when you have a couple of boys filming women in intimate moments without consent of the said women, our brilliant law professor is strangely silent.

Something is clearly wrong here and I blame it on the frustrated “moral” conservatives who have taken over our middle class. These are the people who have trained their kids not to masturbate because its immoral or to head down to the red-light district because it is exploitative of women. These are the people who forget that it is not a sign of moral superiority to not act on them.

Building an Exceptional Retail Customer Experience is Not an Option, It’s a Must

By Terry O'Connor
Executive Advisor at Courts Asia

It’s the end of the 2010s, customers are changing and competition is intensifying. Customers who walk into your store have already done their research on the products they want to buy, even before stepping into the store itself. If your tactic to win is through discounted pricing, your best bet would be low margins and eventually insolvency in the long-run.

So what is the best approach for customers who already know what they want?

Make the actual product a “souvenir” , and the exceptional customer experience the ‘product’ of their shopping trip. The winning strategy is to create the feeling  that the shopper is the most important person in the store. If you are solely counting on your low price and good quality product as your unique selling propositions, you are directly competing with every other retailer online or down the street. But when the customers have an exceptional shopping experience in your store, they will return for that experience again and again.

How do you create such exceptional retail customer experience?

It  is neither impossible nor difficult, but it requires training, determination and planning. Retail companies should invest in retail sales training for their employees because employees who are informed, educated and well-trained, will have greater confidence and job satisfaction. When employees know what they are doing and feel confident, it will translate through their expressions and actions, and customers notice this. Your employees are your frontline. If they are confident and happy, so are your customers, and this should be everyone’s goal.

Through the right sales training, your employees will know that first impression matters. Saying basic greetings and having a genuine interest to help customers is the first step towards engaging them and building rapport during their shopping experience.

At Courts, our sales staff are trained to abide by the ‘Customer Service High Fives’, which are five basic steps for a fulfilling shopping experience. This includes  enquiring what the customers’ search criteria are, the purpose of the product and how it will fit into the customers’ lifestyles based on their needs. One factor to bear in mind is as the company gets bigger, uniformity of performance is an issue as well, but this regresses with time, commitment and employees imbuing our customer-centric training.

This method is also practised by Hong Kong retailer, Mabelle, who uses its growing scale to develop consumer insight capabilities. Their store managers understand their shoppers’ profiles (local vs mainland Chinese) and customise assortments and sales pitches to match customer needs. The result: smaller stores with higher sales success rates.

Despite the rising trend of online and mobile shopping, customers still crave the personal touch, evident by the growing preference to ‘ROPO’ (Research Online, Purchase Offline). Hence, our stores are where we create meaningful engagement with our customers in the form of exceptional in-store experience. Retailers need to step up the game in improving the retail customer experience and not solely focus on discounted prices and online offerings. Brick-and-mortar stores are still significant in the retail world, and it is an avenue for retailers to show what they have that sets them apart from their competitors. 

Retailers need to remember that a negative retail interaction has a longer shelf life than a terrific and rewarding experience. Customer experience has become a must – so either evolve or face being obsolete.

Outside Influences are Good for You.

One of the things l liked best about the World Cups is the fact that it gives the “insignificant” countries a chance to shine. Unlike the Olympic Games, the World Cup never because a venue for Superpower Rivalry (USA vs USSR and now it’s USA vs China). The most powerful nations in soccer are the Europeans and South Americans, who while prosperous are not “superpowers” in the sense that we understand the term.

 What is true of soccer is even more true of rugby union, where the only power so to speak is New Zealand, a country that is geographically in a small corner of the globe and its main export is its fantastic landscape as seen in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Yet, somehow, when it comes to the sport of rugby, New Zealand has consistently produced a world dominating team. The New Zealand “All Blacks” are the most successful team in the history of any sport with a 75 percent or greater winning record against any team they’ve played (there is the 25 percent chance the Australians, South Africans, English and French have a miraculous day and the All Blacks have a desire to lose).

So, when we look at Rugby World Cup 2019, everyone expects New Zealand’s All Blacks to storm their way to a record fourth World Cup. Baring a freak case of divine intervention, the interest in Rugby World Cup 2019 will be on who is the runner-up. In this case, we’d be looking at other rugby powers of Australia, South Africa, England and France, though admittedly Wales and Ireland could produce some interesting rugby.

While the results of Rugby World Cup 2019 are predictable, there’s one team that’s caused a stir – the host nation, Japan, a country which has never been on anyone’s map as far as world rugby was concerned. That was until Rugby World Cup 2015, when they upset the Springboks (as the South African National Team is known), one of the three great powers of world rugby (the other’s being Australia and New Zealand). At the time of writing, the Japanese are resting the top of their table in Rugby World Cup 2019, having stunned the likes of Ireland, Samoa and Russia.

If you study Japan’s history in World Rugby, they’ve come a very long way. I remember a time that whenever Japan played a rugby match against anyone, they’d expect to get the stuffing knocked out of them. Suddenly, they are taking on the best in the world and they are more than holding their own. The sudden rise of Japanese rugby is something to be celebrated and in an increasingly polarized and nationalistic world, the success of Japanese rugby offers many lessons, as was outlined in the Nikkei Asian Review, which can be found at:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Rugby-World-Cup/Diversity-strengthens-Japan-on-and-off-the-rugby-pitch

The underlying message about the recent success and improvements to Japanese rugby lies in one simple message – it’s good to be open to the outside world. Japanese rugby has grown by leaps and bounds because its allowed foreigners to play for the nation and to become part of Japans larger society.

What makes this case interesting, is the fact that Japan has traditionally been a very insular society and hierarchical. It took Commodore Perry’s gun boats to bring Japan into the modern world and it took the American occupation under General Douglas McArthur for Japan to develop a modern political system. However, despite these events, Japan has always kept itself ethnically homogeneous and culturally pure. We are talking about a country that refused to import rice because there was a policy that grown-in Japan rice was the only rice suitable for Japanese tummies.

Japan’s periods of modernization’s have been spectacular. The Japanese have a great sense of national pride and after they’ve been forced to open by a modern power, they’ve always managed to group together and grow as a nation. Nobody doubts that Japan is a world-beater in many areas. However, the same sense of nationalism has been an Achilles heel in its refusal to be more open to the wider world. Japan’s economy remains in the doldrums from the crash of the economic bubble in the 1990s

Japan’s rugby team was a microcosm of this. For many years, it remained close to inviting foreign players into its national team, which created a major disadvantage. Rugby, unlike soccer, requires size. The “pure” Japanese are not built for situations where bulk is required, even though, as former England Rugby Captain, Bill Beaumont said, “they played very innovative rugby to overcome the size gap.”

So, on an “ethnic” demographic level, bringing in Westerners and South Sea Islanders helped give the Japanese national team the “bulk” it previously lacked (note, the laws of Rugby Union mean that you can’t just hire people to play for you – they have to live in the country for a number of years and so on).

However, on a more important level, the new arrivals have brought in new ways of working and thinking. They’ve managed to get the Japanese system to be more flexible and even more creative. This is precisely the reason why cultures need to be open to outside influences, while maintaining their very core. Cultures that are open to outside influences must evolve and grow. Cultures that don’t are spared the need to compete and as a result, they stagnate.

Let’s look at the world’s superpower – the USA. If you look at the USA from an economic lens, you’ll notice that the most dynamic and innovative parts are in the West and East Coast. You have Hollywood, Silicon Valley and New York City, thinking of how the world should be, selling of the vision of how the world should be, the financing and production or science of how to create the world’s new reality. These are the parts of America that make it the world power that it is. These are the parts of America that happen to be open to migration and outside influences. Except for Chicago, the bits in the middle don’t produce world-beating innovations. These happen to be the parts with the least number of new migrants.  

This isn’t just true in America. It’s also true of the rising power of China, where the real economic creation is in the Eastern Seaboard (places where Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai are located). These happen to be the areas with the most influences from the outside world.

While I don’t dispute the importance of the need to look after the forgotten people or the people who lose from globalization, outside influences are necessary for cultures to be competitive and to be able to “take-care” of their people. 

 I often look at India as the test case for why “ethno-centric nationalism” doesn’t work. Prior to the opening of India in the 1990s, India’s main contribution to the world was “gurus” who helped a few frustrated Westerners lose their pennies and increased the sales for Rolls Royce. While modern India is by no means perfect, it has lifted people out of poverty, created world class companies (Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro etc.) and Indians are a serious force on the world stage (think Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, Ajay Bangha of Mastercard etc.) 

Now, we have another shinning example of the Japanese National Rugby Team, which went from not being able to get a drop goal past the Western powers on the pitch to beating world powers on the pitch. As sport is often the extension of a wider society, I’ll just say ask the world’s Jingoist who they’d argue against the Japanese Rugby teams results. 

They’re Pissed

Professor Tommy Koh, one of our longest serving and senior diplomats (and a former neighbor of Dad’s) has just given a speech in which he called for Singapore to become a less unequal society and stated that it was “angry voters” who propelled the UK to leave the EU and for the current occupant on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to be plonked into his seat of power. The details of Professor Koh’s speech can be found in the following report:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/tommy-koh-hopes-4g-leaders-priorities-include-upholding-racial-harmony-a-more-equal

Much is going to be said about what the good professor has said, so I’ll leave going into leave the wider debate for the moment. However, I will try and discuss is what Professor Koh called the “Angry Voter “– or namely the voter that is pissed of with the way things are going.

We saw this back in 2016 in both the Brexit Referendum and the election of Donald in America. The party that voted to leave the UK and the voters who backed the Donald were very pissed of with the status quo and were looking at something to blame. While I personally think both the “leave” party of Brexit and Donald are nothing better than secondhand con-jobs, they managed to find a proverbial “sweet-spot” in the resentment of their audiences and won the vote.

One of the biggest problems with angry voters is that they want to lash out and when someone provides a convenient target, they’re willing to believe it. They also have a way of getting upset when the so called “elite” tries to feed them statistics that don’t gel with the reality of their daily lives. Look at the “NHS” bus that the “leave” campaign sent round the British Isles, stating that the UK was sending hundreds of millions of pounds to the EU, which could have been spent on the NHS (the UK’s persistently troubled health system).The fact peddled by the leave campaign wasn’t true but it didn’t matter. Or look at everything said by the Donald. Mexico and China do not steal American jobs (and tariffs on Made in China goods are paid by American consumers not Chinese manufacturers) but hey there is someone to blame for your shitty lot in life.

Could the Singapore government be facing the same thing that the British and Americans faced in 2016? On the surface of things, the answer would be no. Singapore has not seen the levels of government corruption that Malaysia saw a year ago. Furthermore, while the “opposition” has grained credibility with the likes of former presidential candidate, Dr. Tan Cheng Bok, forming a new political party, the opposition is for the moment fragmented and to full of characters enjoying chatting about grand things rather than winning seats.

Having said that, the government needs to be careful in how it approaches voters. There are issues that have hurt the ordinary citizen. I take the example of my elderly aunt, who is a retired civil servant, and would never think of voting for anyone else other than the PAP. However, she’s been hit by huge medical bills that don’t seem to address her health concerns. This is a woman who goes to government hospitals for treatment and when she comes back feeling frustrated that she’s paid money she doesn’t have to a hospital run by the government for something she doesn’t see addressing her issues, nobody is going to blame her for not being happy with the status quo.

This is just one example of what the ordinary people are feeling. Housing, as always, remains prohibitively expensive as are cars. It wouldn’t be so bad if the public transport ran as it should (a place where rich people take public transport) but it isn’t. OK, to be fair, the MRT (subway) system is breaking down less under the current CEO than his predecessor, but the fare we pay is also going up.

The problem this government faces is the fact that its senior members are paid exceedingly well. If the list of best paid politicians wasn’t fixated on heads of state and government, the top ten would all be from Singapore. The list isn’t limited to ministers. The last CEO of the SMRT Corporation was paid in excess of SG$2,000,000 a year (an executive engineer in SMRT makes around a tenth of this).

 Singapore’s government appears to be spectacularly tone deaf to the sentiments on the ground and persist in trying out solutions that worked best in the 60s (look at the way it tries to sue online media in the same way it tried and succeeded with traditional media) and it forgets that the modern electorate is more vocal and has options that the 1960s electorate did not.

Michael More once described Donald as a “political Molotov cocktail” that angry voters had thrown. We don’t need it in Singapore, or we shouldn’t need it. Government doesn’t appear to be threated but it needs to move fast and at the very least appear to be listening to grievances because political defeat is possible.

Ironically, I believe elected politicians should take a leaf from an absolute monarch, the fourth King of Bhutan, who “imposed” democracy on his subjects. His idea was simple – give things to his subjects before they asked for it in a violent manner. Furthermore, he saw to it that his successor would always be seen to travel the countryside checking on the needs of the people (who can forget images of the young king peeling spuds). By moving ahead of those they ruled, the Bhutanese kings have ensured their survival. It’s something elected politicians need to remember before the voters start throwing political Molotov cocktails in their direction.

Appeal

Being an independent blogger, taking on and discussing issues is tough but important work. Keeping the discussion on issues that may not be popular but need to be discussed has a value, especially when it gets people thinking. In an age where everything is about the big collective voice, it has become more important to have platforms that allow independent voices to be heard.

In this regards, the Tangoland Blogs, would appreciate any donations so as to have funds to invest in a platform that does just that. We shall be exceedingly grateful for donations no matter how small, which can be made the following paypal.me link.

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More Gretas Needed

I like Greta Thunberg. She’s exactly what a young person should be – passionate and interested in trying to make the world a better place. As I’ve mentioned in my posting “The Problem with Adults,” she’s done something cool – she’s pissed off some of the most powerful people in the world. I mean, I can’t even get hauled up to the Istana for a scolding from the Prime Minister of little Singapore and yet, at the age of 16, this girl has managed to get a stage at the UN and gotten not just the US President talking about her but also the Australian Prime Minister. I mean, what else makes you a “somebody” than having the most powerful people talk about you.

I think that much my admiration for little Greta comes from the fact that I live in Singapore, where our youth are depressing. The only thing our young people do is to try to be more “establishment” than the actual “establishment.” What does it say about a system where the old farts are more interested in changing the world? While other kids clamored to join Greta on her marches, ours stayed in the classroom and left the marching to ….wait for it……our Minister for Transport, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan (Singapore is threatened by rising sea-levels).

OK, let’s be clear, I’m not against the established order. In Singapore, the established order has done is a good job in delivering basic services. There is clean water for all, food in our belies and a roof over the head for most of us. Majority of Singaporeans live damn well. So, anyone reading this might ask why I keep writing what I do and complaining about this thing called freedom of thought instead of just buckling under the system and excepting my fate.

The answer is simple – we live in a changing world where established paradigms get shattered on an hourly basis. While there is an important place in the world for conventional people, the status quo around the world needs to be challenged. We need more little Greta’s who care enough about something and who get themselves onto the world stage and who are willing to be rude to the most powerful people in the world.

The established order can make you feel comfortable. However, as it is often said, being comfortable can be very bad for you. Sure, little children should be in school and they should not be rude about the established order. Society punishes those who step out of line.

I think of a meme going around the internet from an “old-person” mocking little Greta. It was along the lines of making the kids cycle since they want to not use fossil fuels (no car) and turning down the radiator because that would cause global warming. Well, there’s the thing, if all world’s kids back then didn’t get passionate about things back in the old days, we’d probably still be ridding on the horse drawn carriage – our minds would be unable to accept anything beyond that.

Little Greta is not wrong to tell us to look at the science on climate change. Nobody is saying we should stop driving. What we should be saying is that we know the planet is being screwed, we know using fossil fuels is part of the issue, so let’s dare to imagine alternatives to fossil fuels and work towards it. We’ve done it before, so why can’t we do it now.  

Appeal

Being an independent blogger, taking on and discussing issues is tough but important work. Keeping the discussion on issues that may not be popular but need to be discussed has a value, especially when it gets people thinking. In an age where everything is about the big collective voice, it has become more important to have platforms that allow independent voices to be heard.

In this regards, the Tangoland Blogs, would appreciate any donations so as to have funds to invest in a platform that does just that. We shall be exceedingly grateful for donations no matter how small, which can be made the following paypal.me link.

https://paypal.me/tangligotitdone?locale.x=en_GB