If a Lion and Chicken Enter a Boxing Ring – We’ll Pump the Lion with Steroids and Amputate the Chicken to Ensure a Fair Fight.

 I’ve been accused of not having much sympathy with people with professional qualifications or a lot of wealth and money.

To be fair, the people who have accused me of this, have generally been right. While I generally don’t go out of my way to offend people with power and money (I generally try not to offend people), I don’t give them much sympathy either.

I think of this as a boxing match between a chicken and a lion. You end up giving emotional support to the chicken because no matter what it does, it’s going to end up as dinner. The lion on the other hand could fight blindfolded and with one paw tied behind its back and still emerge victorious.

However, I’ve realized that this personal philosophy of mine doesn’t gel with what the rest of society, lead by the government thinks. Our system goes out of its way to cut off the chicken’s feet and pump the lion with steroids so as to ensure that the obvious outcome is just that. Our political, business and dare I say, legal culture is all about ensuring the proverbial lions get pumped with steroids and the chickens have their feet amputated before they even step into the boxing ring.

This became very obvious to me when I supporting PN Balji during the Susan Lim affair. Say what you like about Dr. Lim’s undoubtedly hefty medical bill, but she did perform a service and was not compensated for it. The government went out of their way to ruin her practice and her distinguished medical career because she had the audacity to charge the one patient on the planet with the ability to pay any medical bill for work done. I think of people who felt morally outraged that by this dastardly action. One of the worst humbug statements being “Not even doctors in the US or UK charge so much.”

However, while the government was out batting for the Sultan of Brunei to get free medical treatment, a government hospital was sending my aunt, a retired civil servant pink slips for my uncle’s medical bills. My Uncle died penniless. In his decade he had no income whatsoever to speak of because he was ill. As I’ve said, I’m probably not the only person to see something like this.

The Singapore government went to battle for the Sultan of Brunei to get free medical treatment from a Singaporean doctor employing Singaporean medical staff but at the same time going after Singaporeans living on a government pension for the bills run up by their deceased relatives who didn’t have the means to pay for basic medical care.

Fast forward a decade and we had another similar incident between Liew Mun Liong and his former maid, Ms. Parti Liyani.

We had Mr. Liew, who has probably made something north of a few hundred million, going out of his way to use tax payer resources to frame his former maid, whose last drawn salary was probably not more than S$600.

What did the powers that be do when the evidence of what can only be described as a clumsy attempt to frame Ms. Liyani came out? Well, we had our Minister of law promising to investigate what went wrong and you had the future head (assuming his predecessor is serious about retirement) going out of his way to remind the rest of us of Mr. Liew’s great achievements for the country – never mind the fact that he had been exposed as someone who was willing to screw up a maid for having the audacity of not wanting to work beyond what she was legally supposed to work.

Well, to be fair, Mr. Liew retired and our Minister found out exactly what went wrong and duly corrected the “mistake,” by ensuring that the judge who had the audacity to acquit Ms. Liyani, to deny her obvious claim for compensation against the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC).

Something is rather interesting here. Why do the powers that be feel obliged to rush to the defense of anyone with power, money or both whenever they’ve been caught doing something horrible but at the same time doing everything to ensure that those without money and power know their place?

The next case that we should observe is that of Envy Holdings, which involves a massive fraud. What’s particularly interesting is the fact that among those defrauded are prominent members of the legal community like the former President of the Law Society and the general counsel for Temasek International as well as the head of a large investment company. Full details of the story can be found in the link below:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/notable-names-among-alleged-victims-in-new-cheating-charges-against

 

Copyright – The Straits Times

All these highly intelligent people, with access to whatever information they needed, actually pumped in money into a investment firm that was NOT regulated or licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) promising very sexy returns. The question that should be asked is how was it possible that none of these very prominent and clever people smell a rat? However, why is there a need to admit to being stupid and greedy when someone else will clean up the mess?

The Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) has been quick to act. Mr. Ng, was arrested in February of this year, charged in March and had further charges slapped against him. Sure, cheating people is wrong and it’s good to see CAD acting so quickly.

However, CAD doesn’t always act so quickly. I can think of an instance where the investigation continues and the director is happily sitting behind the wall of bankruptcy protection (good luck to anyone trying to sue) and going about his usual business.

In Singapore, government has shown time and time again that it can work brilliantly. I have people from Europe and America telling me they wish had a government like ours. However, my question is why does government only seem to work brilliantly for those who don’t it and so painfully for those who need it most.  

“I’ve read Mao Tse Tung. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist.” – General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 There used to be old joke among my friends which talked about a general being interviewed by a reporter about teaching kids how to use a gun. The reporter questions the general and argues that teaching kids how to shoot makes the killers. The general’s retort is “You’re equipped to be a prostitute but you’re not.”

Interestingly enough, the world got to see the real-life version of this joke being played out in the American Congress when Matt Gaetz, the Congressman from a district in Florida whose main combat experience has been dealing with sex trafficking allegations and any attempt to increase funding to combat human trafficking, decided to grill the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for allowing member of the American military to study “Critical Race Theory.”

Despite his best efforts to deny the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s any speaking time, his criticism with rebutted by General Mark Milley, a combat veteran who has seen action in places like Iraq. The general explained to the Congressman that it was important for members of the military to be well read and to understand the country that they were sworn to defend. Details of the exchange can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ZOQOJcdCQ

 

Copyright CNN – Combat Veteran versus Veteran Combat Against Sex Trafficking Allegations and Preventing More Power to Deal with Human Trafficking.

As with the usual exchanges between politicians from prominent families and members of the military, it was the former who made sense. The General explained that studying an ideology did not make you a believer of that that particular ideology and if you wanted to “combat” that particular ideology, you had to understand it. He gave the example of how he read communist thought from the like of Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao and had not become a communist.  

For coming up with a common-sense answer, General Milley, who had nominated as Chairman of the Joint Chief’s by Donald Trump, earned the ire of Tucker Carlson, a talk show host who believes that facts are a political conspiracy. Mr. Carlson, proceeded to call the General all sorts of derogatory names and went as far as to insinuate that the General only got his job by “sucking up” and by implication was somehow part of the corrupt swamp. More on Mr. Carlson’s ire can be found at:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fox-tucker-carlson-white-rage-b1872849.html

This latest exchange in America is unfortunately just the latest example of how inconvenient facts can be dismissed as being a “right/left wing conspiracy.” Critical Race Theory, which seeks to provide a theoretical frame work or a set of perspectives in which institutional racism can be examined, is the latest example of an academic discussion that one side is dismissing as a conspiracy of the other. If you listen to Mr. Gaetz’s criticism of studying critical race theory, you’ll realise that the main thrust of his argument is that it should not be studied because it will make one side feel that they’ve been screwed over and therefore be divisive. The fact that Mr. Carlson, who has a history of denying the need to discuss racism, seems to agree with Mr. Gaetz only confirms this.

Unfortunately, I can’t dismiss this as something particular to America or the Western world. It also happens in Singapore, a nation that takes great pride in being “regardless of race.” The critical difference between denying the obvious in Singapore and the West is that we’re actually much better at it. We can make morally ambiguous things sound reasonable.

Let’s start with the obvious place – the messenger. In America, the people who deny the existence of racism and argue that any attempt to discuss racism and the feelings of “hurt” that the aggrieved party might feel is in fact worse than the racism itself, are inevitably those whose sanity you are likely to question. Think of Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor-Green.

In Singapore, the guys doing the same are inevitably the intelligent and somewhat rational people. Interestingly enough, the guys denying racism and any discussion of racism are inevitably the guys who from the minority community.

Let’s look back at the “Blackface” incident, which involved a Chinese comedian painting his face black and brown to impersonate an Indian and a Malay. Two Singaporeans of Indian descent made a rap video to express their displeasure at having their community parodied, which earned them official ire for stirring up racial divisions.

Interestingly enough, the Minister leading the charge against the two was non other than Mr. K Shanmugam, who is of Tamil decent and Amrin Amin, a Member of Parliament who is of ethnic Malay. More can be seen below:

 

The government got upset with the people who spoke about their feelings getting hurt by something which denigrated their community. Using a member of the “minority” community to lead the charge gave the government “cover” from accusations of racism.

Interestingly enough, you had the same minister rushing to comment on how shocked he was at the extent of racism in Singapore in the latest incident. It was as if Mr. Shanmugam had realized that we can be quite racist despite our official claim of being otherwise.

Singapore has also been pretty good at giving room for steam to be let off whenever an incident takes place. Just look at the current incident involving the “racist lecturer” accosting the interracial couple. All sorts of discussions involving racism are suddenly appearing in the main stream. Little worms of racism are being allowed to come out of the woodwork like the lady who beats a gong every time her neighbour tries to pray and the lady making racist remarks on the train. These discussions will appear for a while, the government will look good and then that will be that.

What is missing is the fact that the question of institutionalized racism. The only attempt to question if the system itself, came from our new finance minister, Mr. Lawrence Wong who had to answer a question on the claim made by the ruling party that the country is not yet ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister.

No one, for example has questioned if a non-Chinese military officer will ever make it to become Chief of Defense force. Why, for example, haven’t we had a non-Chinese Commissioner of Police since independence (the last non-Chinese being John Le Cain in 1967). Are we seriously lacking in talent for the job from the minority communities? Sure, the military has argued that we can’t have Malay-Muslims in sensitive positions as our most likely enemies in the war situation would be Malay-Muslim majority nations. However, can you use that argument for the police?

I’m not trying to suggest that our institutions are inherently racist. However, its surely worth having a public audit and discussion on the wider topic. Still nobody discusses these issues in a serious manner and you get the likes to the government’s favourite lap dog, the Fawning Follower, writing about how there is “No Racism” in Singapore.

Sure, our record looks pretty good from the outside. However, that doesn’t mean problems don’t exist and denying the problem, no matter how “slick” you do it, isn’t going to solve anything – unless there is no intention of actually solving anything. 

The Only Difference Between us is that while You Like to F** Girl’s C**ts, I Prefer to F*** G** A**

 It’s Pride Month, where the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender and Queer (best known as LGBTQ) community around the world celebrate pride in their chosen sexuality. There are all sorts of events for the community to come together and celebrate being LGBTQ.

As with anything involving human sexuality, the month does bring out the strongest of passions. On one hand you have the extremely religious who point to any “Pride” event as being a sign of how far society has degenerated. On the other extreme, you have the LGBTQ community which argues that “Pride” events are very necessary to combat the discrimination that they face.

 

Copyright – Indy Pride, Inc

I don’t get the passions over human sexuality. As a straight guy, I get turned on by the usual bits of female anatomy and I do think its abnormal for man to get turned on by the male anatomy as opposed to the female bits. Having said that, I do get that there are men who prefer the male bits to the female bits and would probably deem me abnormal for having the “turn-ons” that I have. Why should it bother me that another man gets turned on by different things?

When it comes to dealing with sexual behavior between consenting adults, I believe the line from The Fabulous Baker Boys should apply – “Who I f*** and who I don’t f*** is none of your f***ing business.”

Unfortunately, this piece of wisdom is never actually applied when it comes to what people do in the bedroom. In Singapore, we only need to look at what happens whenever there’s a discussion on the now infamous 377A clause which prohibits a private act between two consenting adults in the privacy of their bedroom. Somehow, everyone forgets the very principle that who two adults chose to f*** is none of anyone else’s business. I remember having this discussion with a lawyer, who tried to convince me that “society did not approve of homosexuality.” I actually had to ask her how non-approval of society was a legal foundation for anything. When two individuals get together in the privacy of the bedroom, they are f*** each other not the rest of society.

Still, we have a status quo of “legal ambiguity,” which in turn does a more effective job of f***ing society that what the individuals do in the privacy of their bedroom. It makes a total mockery of the concept of rule of law and ironically enough, makes “Pride” necessary.

I am a straight Chinese fellow. From where I stand, there should be no reason for anyone to have a “Pride” event to announce that they are proud of their sexuality just as you don’t need a “Black/Blue/Purple Lives” movement. There shouldn’t be a need for such things. All lives should matter and nobody should have a special period for celebrate their sexuality.

However, that is clearly not the case. “Black Lives” came about because it is clear that “All Lives” clearly don’t matter or at least some lives matter more than others. Likewise, you need “Pride” month/week/day because if you’re part of the LGBTQ community, everyone else is going to do their best to try and adjust your sex life for you and they’re going to try and make you feel miserable for it.

Nobody for example has ever explained in a reasonable and logical matter as to why people of different colours or different sexualities should have less rights than the rest of us. What is it about them that makes it justified for us to treat them less than human?

Take, for example, what exactly is a “Gay Man.” Why is it such that we think it’s perfectly acceptable to deny them the right to have sex with their chosen partners or to settle down in matrimony? Are they less manly and therefore less worthy of the privileges of being a man?

I think of a gay friend who explained it as follows, “The only difference between us is in what we like to f***. I like to f*** guy’s a*** and you like to f*** girl’s c***. Other than that, I like all the manly things you like, such as drinking beer, watching a game and getting into fights. That’s the only difference.” So, why can’t he have the same rights that I have when the only difference between our manhood is where we like to put it?  

Long Live the Conspiracy Theorist

 It’s now been made official that Parti Liyani, the Indonesian maid who had been acquitted of theft by her former employer, the former Chairman of Changi Airport, Mr. Liew Mun Leong, will not be getting any compensation for the pain that she had to endure. The high court has dismissed her claim against the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) for compensation. The full report can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/high-court-judge-dismisses-parti-liyanis-bid-compensation-says-court-must-not

 

Copyright -Today

The Judge, Justice Chan Seng Onn, who had famously acquitted Ms. Liyani of theft last year, noted that she had failed to meet “the "high threshold" for proving that the prosecution was frivolous or vexatious.”

Justice Chan, argued that the public prospectors would have reviewed the evidence and found that there were significant grounds to bring the matter to court and could not be swayed by hindsight.

I am not a legal expert so I shall leave the technicalities of the findings to the better qualified.  However, as a layman observing the course of justice, it would appear that the message is quite clear – Ms. Liyani was very lucky to get acquitted and the best thing she can do is to quit while she’s ahead. If last year’s acquittal was a victory for justice, who is the dismissal for compensation against the AGC a victory for?

Well, the most obvious answer is that this is probably a victory for conspiracy theorist. One can only ask, how it was that the very same judge who found that evidence against Ms. Liyani was so lacking that it had to thrown out but a year later, that very same judge now found that the prosecutors who brought the case must have found enough to justify sending it to court.

Another question that the conspiracy theorist will undoubtedly have a field day would be on the question of what went wrong. When Ms. Liyani was acquitted last year, our Minister of Home Affairs and Justice (In the Singapore Context, writing and enforcing the laws is somehow not a conflict of interest) made some comments about how “Something had gone wrong.” The cynics at that point asked “What exactly went wrong?” Was it the obvious “miscarriage of justice” or was it the fact that the wrong person won the court case? So, if Mr. Shanmugam was talking about the later, the question now is, did someone take Justice Chan out for a cup of coffee and had a quiet word with him about getting things right?

The set back in Ms. Liyani’s quest for justice has only given conspiracy theorist plenty to talk about. The government should make an effort to get some clarity in its communication if it is to prove that we really are a society ruled by laws.  

Why is it a Privilege to let you Shit on Me?

 One of the funniest things about the incident involving a racist lecturer accosting an interracial couple, was the fact that there were actually people who had sympathy for the “racist lecturer.” While the majority where rightly sympathetic to the couple for being accosted, I came across enough people who felt that it was wrong of the couple film the incident and to make it go viral because they would be endangering the man’s livelihood. One of the most interesting postings on the matter came from a Facebook friend who posted something that looked like a cheap shot at making the victim look like the conspirator:

 

 

This was interestingly just one of the strangest posts on the subject. When my previous pieces on the subject were picked up by Tremeritus, I actually had two comments from people trying to explain to me why the racist lecturer was justified to do what he did:

 

I guess, if I were to read these sentiments correctly, the old lecturer was correct because he was expressing his feelings against a dangerous trend that would ruin the core tenants of Singapore – namely the fact that we have a Chinese majority, running the place with the help of a few white expatriates. If I am to read these basic sentiments, it seems that Singapore’s Chinese majority is feeling under threat in the same way that America’s White Majority felt – hence the rise of Trump.

Unfortunately, these sentiments towards the ethnic minority communities in Singapore are not limited to my online interactions. One of my former juniors from my last agencyjob had to deal with someone who refused to understand why Malay and Indian communities got upset over “brownface” and “blackface” things when the Chinese and Caucasians don’t get upset over “Yellow Face” and “White Face” things. It is after all an obvious fact that Malays are generally brown, Indians (specifically Tamils) are black, Chinese are yellow and Caucasians are white. A copy of the exchange can be found bellow:

 

The point that many of us in the ethnic majority forget is not the fact that certain races are usually a certain skin tone but the context in which they are used. What people forget is the fact that in Singapore Caucasians are a privileged minority and the Chinese are the dominant group, both numerically and economically. These two groups are the ones with the power. Hence, they can afford to be magnanimous and no one is really going to mock the Chinese and the Caucasians.

It’s different for the other two groups. Let’s put it crudely, making of Indians for being dark is almost a given in Singapore. So much so that when two rappers complained about a Chinese comedian putting on a “blackface,” the Indian Minister for home affairs and a Malay Member of Parliament attacked the Indian rappers for having the audacity to complain about being offended. Mr. Amrin Amin, who called someone a “Snowflake” for disagreeing with him on what constituted “racist” was very firm that the “stern action” needed to be taken to people who got offended by being on the wrong end of racism:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/stern-action-needed-in-response-to-preetipls-disturbing-video-amrin-amin-135101478.html

Generally speaking, Singapore’s race relations are pretty good. I’ve argued previously that we’ve not had a “George Floyd” moment and the ensuring race riots. Everyone seems to get along and we’re reminded that unlike our neighbour to the north, we do not have openly discriminatory laws.

However, it appears that our “racial harmony” is based on a very racist understanding – which is the fact that the Chinese will be top dog and the ethnic minorities need to be reminded of their place. Which means, the ethnic minorities need to understand that they better learn to accept skin colour jokes in return for the “good life” granted by the grace of the ethnic majority.

What’s particularly disturbing is the fact that people in positions of power are expressing this attitude. The most disturbing moment came last year when Dr. Tan Wu Meng, a Member of Parliament from the ruling party took issue with something that Mr. Alfian Sa’at, who is ethnic Malay said. The incident can be seen in my posting on the matter:

https://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/2020/06/youre-lucky-we-let-you-live.html

Dr. Tan literally said Malays are lucky the Chinese allow them to live in Singapore and somehow Dr. Tan kept his job. If we were serious about “regardless of race,” the ruling party would have hung Dr. Tan out in the press.

I think of my own experiences of being an “ethnic minority.” I lived in a town in Southern England where the number of non-whites could be counted on one hand. The number of ethnic minorities in the town I lived in was pretty much reflected in my boarding house photo:

 

 

For the record, my experiences were pretty good. The colour of my skin was incidental in my relationships with the people I formed. Of course, it did help that I was going to a school where kids came from families that were relatively well educated. It did help that I spoke English as well as the natives and equally important, I was more than willing to have an active part on the ruby pitch in my initial years (which latter declined and I ended up in tubby ice cream land).

However, that’s not say that I never experienced racism. Once in a while you’d get the odd group of punks driving past you yelling “Oi ….Chinky Chinaman.” Ya, sure, it’s just a name but its not exactly fun and games to be on the receiving end of this type of thing. You try and comfort yourself in the knowledge that these are “uneducated” people who will never come to anything much.

When these things happened, the guys I hung out with, were always there to comfort me and I remember people would fight for me. “Don’t be racist to my friend” were words used in my favour.

I became exceedingly aware that I was not an Englishman and I had dreams of wanting never to wear Western cloths outside school uniform. Used to enjoy wearing Bruce Lee cloths. I was told I looked good with a mandarin collar but would probably get beaten up in town.

The message from my home was “learn to use words” rather than your fist and I was “lucky” to live in England, so one should appreciate the good things, and in fairness there good usually outweighed the bad.

So, when it came to “racial identity,” it was very clear to me that I was never going to be a white man nor was it something to desire or aspire to. I didn’t really speak Chinese, except when I went to take away (and I didn’t really like the guy who sold Chinese food but I took comfort in the fact that it was one of the rare occasions I could speak Cantonese rather than English). However, I lived in England, had a good life and more importantly really good mates.

One also learns not to take things to seriously. For me, it was sometimes quite funny to hear how “Chinese people” spoke English or as my mother would say “Kitchy little accents.” However, while I could laugh at certain things, there a reached a point where things did get out of hand:

 

Not my proudest moment. I was an 18-year-old who beat up a 13-year-old kid plus I was known as the captain of the Karate team. So, in a sense, I had reached a low level to resort to violence. However, at that time, I had said I wanted the Mr. Miyagi impressions directed at m to stop and they wouldn’t do it. Telling the teacher (which my Dad was surprised that I didn’t do) would only have made things worse and so I did what I said I would do – I wacked the bugger. I needed to get the message through that I was tired of the Miyagi jokes and needed to make them stop. Unfortunately, while I know what I did was probably wrong, I don’t feel remorse. In fact, I enjoyed reliving that incident and regret not inflicting that extra bit of hurt and that’s 30-years after the incident. A part of me regrets not doing enough hurt for his parents to complain against me and then being able to tell them that this is the price their kid had to pay for going overboard on the Miyagi jokes.

Mentioned this to some of my friends in the dorm. Was told that I did the right thing in sorting out the guy.

I look back at this incident and I wonder how many Indian and Malay guys must wish we in the ethnic majority limit the “dark” jokes. How many times have these jokes gone overboard and yet the Indian chap on the receiving end laughed along because “we” drilled it into his head that it was his privilege to be hanging out with us.

Being a certain pigmentation is a fact of life. It’s not something that should entitle one to privileges nor should it be something that invites you to be a target from everyone else. Education and the right to make a living are not granted by the will of the ethnic majority – they are rights of citizenship. I do believe nobody should take anything too seriously but the joke should not focus on a single person all the time for their pigmentation. We in the ethnic majority need to understand that our friends in the ethnic minority are human and have certain limits that we need to be sensitive to.

Age is Inevitable. Poor Health is Optional

 

One of the most prominent activities of last week was helping clear out a gym that had gone into liquidation. As with all liquidations, it was a sad end to what could have been a promising business. However, as with all cases of crisis, there were some silver linings. For me, it was meeting up with the community of fitness freaks who were looking to buy equipment. It was good to get to talk to people in the know about a topic I’ve only become interested in, in the latter part of my life.

I’ve never been one for physical fitness. The only physical activity I enjoyed at school was karate and when the club closed down, I ended up doing everything possible to get off the compulsory games period (I elected to do squash and never made it near the squash court – ended up spending pocket money on Haagen Daz cookies and cream, clearing out a small tub by myself every week). It goes without saying that I ballooned and I paid a hefty price for my minus levels of fitness during Physical Training Phase (PTP) and Basic Military Training (BMT).

I got fit enough to qualify for command rank and then proceeded to royally balloon again. I failed the Individual Physical Fitness Proficiency Test (IPPT) several times much to the annoyance of my commanders and so I buckled up and got fit enough to end up two- and half-year service by passing whatever fitness measurements were required of me.

University was a three-year long drink fest and when I came back to Singapore to settle down, I managed to contend with myself with the fact that I would have remedial training (“RT”). I was, for a long stretch, unemployed and RT put money into the pocket ($10 per session) and got me fit for a certain stretch. However, in 2006, it looked like I was going places and I decided that I no longer wanted to get involved in the army which would only screw up my self-employed (only income). I revived an old back injury and as things would have it, the medical officer (“MO”) freaked when my blood pressure was taken. It was off to hospital, which then prescribed pills for me.

My national service career began closing in 2006, which was a period where I was able to get decent enough freelance jobs. I ate well and drank well. Signs of physical deterioration where already there as far back as 2005 (A GP told me to “Lose weight and I don’t mean for cosmetic reasons” when I went to see him for a bad back) but it was the period of 2006 onwards where the signs of too good a life started to show.

Never thought much of it. When people told me, I was getting fat and gross looking, I sort of politely nodded and proceeded doing my own thing. Who cares if you’re fat and gross looking if you can get work, feed yourself relatively well, buy a few rounds of drinks and dare I say getting laid regularly enough? Here’s a picture that my stepmother took of me on a family holiday in Hong Kong. The only thing a friend could say about me was that I had a “nice one-pack.”

 

Me – Age 34 in 2008 with a nice single pack.

Life seemed to continue as normal. I didn’t have much reason to discover fitness. The signs of being obviously overweight crept in and I tried to use wardrobe tricks to make myself a little more presentable. Stopped wearing ties because it was obvious, I was starting to look like a sausage that was being overstuffed. Stopped wearing tight t-shirts.

The saddest part to this was the fact that I could no longer inherit cloths from my dad. The old man is a prominent fashion photographer and takes extreme pride in looking presentable. He spends good money on cloths and as I was growing up, I was one of those rare creatures who had the good fortune of being able to take my dad’s cloths and look trendier than most of my contemporaries. However, in his late 60s he started going on all sorts of diets that helped him slim and remain ageless, while I was in my mother’s words looking older than the generation before me (her and her cousins).

 

Two Generations with their better halves sometime in 2017

While I did get away with wardrobe tricks, there were limits to what keeping your cloths lose could hide. Here’s me with an old school friend who dropped by in 2017. If you look closely enough, it was obvious the belly was starting to show and between the two of us, it was a case of the Western fantasy of Asians never aging being shattered – I look considerably older (I’m only two years older)

 

Both of us were in the same school – as students

I did make an attempt to try and control the diet. Cut out the rice at night. Attributed my weight gain to drinking at night, which had a follow-on effect of night snacking. Managed to go down from the 97-100kg range to the 90-kg range. However, the tummy was still visible even with being careful about keeping my cloths lose enough, as this November 2018 photo of me in Abu Dhabi indicates:

 

I was actually dressed up to meet a VIP contact

Cutting out rice at night had its limitations. I hovered around the 90-93kg mark all the way up to the circuit breaker in April 2020. Here’s a picture of me in March of 2020. Kiddo decided to take a snap of me and play around with the app. What’s noticeable is that I was clearly not suited to wearing that body hugging rugby jersey.

 

Was I a ball in the days when I had to play the game?

I’ve talked about how I’ve started moving more and watching the diet more. I generally like feeling lighter and I do things in my late (or Mid) forties that I would have had disdain for in my twenties and thirties – namely I exercise and check out videos on which muscles to work.

Part of the reason why I’m more focused on health is that I’ve figured that I’m happiest in a semi-self-employed situation. I’m probably past the age of developing a decent corporate career so I just focus on having enough work to get by. Having worked in the Bistrot for over seven years, I’m also quite content with the fact that as long as I’m relatively healthy and willing to get my hands dirty, I should be able to find something to do.

However, there’s only one problem with that outlook. You need to stay physically healthy. Not only are medical cost prohibitively high (a bypass being reason enough to mortgage the house), you don’t get paid when your sick if you’re self-employed. You could call my new interest in ensuring the body functions at a time when it starts to show signs of wear and tear a form of insurance. I don’t have “old age” savings so to speak, so I need to stay healthy and able to work. When I took a blood pressure reading in April of this year, a friend remarked on social media that I wasn’t due for a bypass anytime soon – which a relief:

 

No heading for a bypass soon – not going to have to take sell the home

It’s also a good confidence to the ego. It’s nice to be able to wear cloths that you thought were beyond you. I’m particularly fond of the rugby jersey:

 

I did play rugby at one stage and I wasn’t the ball:

More interestingly enough I am also not embarrassed topless, though my mother did complain that I was posting a few too many topless shots of myself on social media:

 

The One Pack is being reduced – slowly but surely.

Based on what I’ve been watching on TV, it looks like my fitness goals will have to change from weight loss to toning up. Loss of muscle mass is as much as issue as having too much fat. Of course the age of being body beautiful has long gone but it does feel good when people notice that you are looking fitter. I do have more energy, which in part comes from a healthier lifestyle. While I may not have had a sudden epiphany of what I want to do to make billions, I am very sure that I don’t want to go back to being stuck behind a desk 24/7. It’s not healthy and its not going to benefit anyone if I kill myself. So, I do my best to limit my office time to the work that makes me move rather than the work that makes me fill out forms.

While I am long past the age of being body beautiful, I am convinced that in my latter years I need to ensure that most important of muscles remains functional. It seems to be working just fine as my last reading a few days ago:

 

I have a target to improve on this

The Value of a Token

 

The Fall Out from the “racist attack” on an interracial couple last weekend has spurned on more stories. We now know that the man who confronted the couple is a senior lecturer at a polytechnic (which only enforces my desires not to be too associated with the well-educated professional class). I’ve also noticed a lovely story in the Today newspaper about the victim who owns a gelato shop. It seems some of his customers actually mistook him for the hired help. The story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/8days/eatanddrink/newsandopening/victim-racist-rant-owns-gelato-shop-was-told-indian-guy-cant-be#mdcrecs_s

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of incidents like this. I’ve known of senior business executives who have been mistaken for “driver” whenever they’ve gone to meet their Chinese staff. Sad to say it, our perceptions of race and success are intertwined. While we’re all siding with the couple because they were victims of “racism” at its worst.

However, while we may find obvious racism like that abhorrent, many of us will automatically assume that an organization’s hierarchy is dependent on skin colour and I’m not sure if many of us would bat an eye lid at paying someone with a fairer complexion more. I think of my favourite English family that I used to drink with me. They said that they noticed that during F1 seasons, whenever kids applied for part-time jobs for the race that anyone brown or black would instantly get posted to do cleaning while anyone yellow or white was sent to customer service.

This is type of racism is actually worse in as much as its accepted as a natural fact of life. We abhor the lecturer confronting interracial couples. We hate the woman who bangs a gong every time her neighbour tries to perform a prayer ritual. Yet so many of us automatically assume that people of a darker shade must be nothing more than the hired help and therefore less worthy of human dignity.

What can be done? I guess the only thing to do to support more entrepreneurs from minority communities and try and promote successes from minority communities. We need to somehow find ways where it becomes normal to see someone from the ethnic minority as the boss. Interestingly enough, the US army remains one of the most successful organisations in getting the black community into leadership roles.

While I can’t elaborate on what can be done to solve this, I can talk about the fact that people seem to have found a way to profit from our innate biases. It’s what one might call the value of a token. Interestingly enough, I noticed this when I worked at the Bistrot and had to deal with the reverse problem (Only long-established customers knew Bruno, who is a French white boy was the owner and I was the hired help – most customers assumed it was the other way). I remember a customer telling me, “I get it – you’re the Chinaman who puts the Ang Moh in front and you control things from behind.”

There is, as they say, an industry for being a “token pale skin.” China was probably the largest market for this as the following story explains:

https://www.businessinsider.com/now-china-is-hiring-white-guys-in-suits-to-make-the-country-look-good-2010-6

Chinese companies found that having a white man in a suite gave them something of a value add and so they were willing to pay for it. The white boys who did it, didn’t have to do very much.

Think of this as the reverse comprador system with a twist. There was a time when the Hongs (old British trading houses) always had a comprador to act as a go-between themselves and the local Chinese in Hong Kong.

The most common example of this is in Malaysia. If you look at any given Malaysian company of the Bursa Malaysia, you’ll find that the chairman is inevitably a Bumiputra whilst the CEO or the man doing the day-to-day work is Chinese. How did that happen? Bumiputra laws were designed to give Bumiputra’s a leg up in business when competing with the Chinese and “raising the lot of ethnic Malays.”

The results were a little different. The “token” Malays (many of them related to royalty) got rich by being just that – tokens. The Chinese continue to control much of the economic activity and the lot of the average Malay hasn’t really risen to comparable levels (though having said that there is a sizably Malay middle class).

 

Why is he really there?

Human ingenuity has found a way to profit from our lesser selves. In a way its good to see how the human mind works around things. However, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that its acceptable or good for society at large. We must still work towards untangling assumptions about race and economic success.

 

The Convenient Racist

 The hottest non-Covid related news in Singapore has come from a random Chinese guy who confronted an interracial couple and started berating them for being “racist” because they were “interracial” and not dating within their own community. The guy in the relationship, who happens to be ethnic Indian, was told that it was “predatory” for an Indian guy to be dating a Chinese girl. The girl had the good sense to video the entire exchange and it’s become an internet sensation. Details of the story can be found at:

https://mustsharenews.com/man-calls-out-racist/?fbclid=IwAR3lbsBuFKR6s3WnevZiblwlKmKrzzTz-pKLSLkCzJtW-N3oebUCrK_oCcs

The confrontation which was recorded can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHFhIufT1Tc

 

As this story involves Singapore’s much hyped up “racial harmony,” the powers that be were quick to weigh in. Our Minister of Home Affairs and Justice (for some reason, its not a conflict of interest to be both write and enforce the laws in Singapore), Mr. K Shanmugam weighed in and expressed his anxiety that Singapore’s race relations might not be moving in the right direction. The story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/viral-racist-video-draws-concern-including-shanmugam-whos-not-so-sure-anymore-about

The only positive thing that one could say is that this is probably a “lone nut” incident. As a generalization Singaporeans tend to keep their feelings pretty much to themselves and only vent online. Whatever is said of our feelings towards “race,” its usually kept to online post. Furthermore, this incident is particular in as much as its “race-specific,” rather than “nationality-specific.” If you look at the “anti” sentiments online, you’ll notice that they’re directed towards “Indians from India” or “Chinese from China” rather than Singaporeans of Chinese or Indian descent.

It’s also heartening that Singaporeans of all races did come out to support the couple as the following tweet shows:

 

Having said all of that, the experience was undoubtedly traumatic for the couple. There should be no doubt that what they had to encounter was disgusting and should not have happened to them in the first place. Mr. David Parkash, the man involved has taken to Facebook to express his feelings:

 

While this incident is disgusting, we should take stock as to what we need to do in order to improve our intercommunal relations. This incident has shown that while Singapore’s race-relations are pretty good (we’re not about to experience a “George Floyd” moment, more can be done and the powers that be can take a more active role in trying to get people to “mingle” more. Sure, whenever something happens, the government will come out swinging the club for racial harmony and making all sorts of announcements about how racial harmony is hard won and cannot be taken for granted. We have laws like ethnic quotas in housing estates to prevent “ghettos” from developing.

However, while these measures have been successful, do they go far enough? While race-relations are good on the surface, we’ve not reached the stage where people think of “skin-colour” as incidental and to a slight extent, the system keeps a simmering of racial tension around because, well it’s convenient.

Let’s start with election season and the hunt for the next Prime Minister. Singapore likes to present itself as a multi-ethnic place that does not discriminate against anyone, unlike say, our neighbour to the north that has very specific laws that discriminate in favour of a certain community.

Yet, despite that, we still an official line that the “Older Generation is not ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister” and that’s the official version. You have politicians who still talk about how dark certain parts of the country are because the majority of people there are South Asian labourers.

While I’m not going to go into the semantics of whether the older generation is ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister. What I would question is why is a government, which is so proud of fostering “racial harmony” not leading the effort to change things?

I’ve argued in a previous posting that the best way to do that is through fiction. In America, there was David Palmer, from the show 24, who was a black president long before Barak Obama. Get people used to seeing possibilities on TV so that they will get used to it in real life.

The second area where the government needs to pay attention is to the concerns of ethnic minorities. When ethnic minorities voiced their “disapproval” of an advertisement where a Chinese comedian donned “brown makeup” to play a member of an ethnic minority back in 2019, they were effectively told to be less sensitive. The minister leading the charge was non other than Mr. K Shanmugam who actually accused an Indian rapper for complaining about the “Brownface” Why do we not listen and solve things when they’re relatively harmless rather than wait till interracial couples get accosted on the streets.

Do we need to wait for our “George Floyd” moment? I’d like to think that as a society we won’t get to that stage. However, it will take leadership that will take a more proactive role in encouraging genuinely good relations between our many communities.  

Small Is Smashing

 Your Local Economic Rice Stall Gives You Something Tastier, Cheaper and Dare I say More Nutritious compared to the Big International Fast-Food Joints.

I make no secret of the fact that I can’t stand offices. One of the best things that the circuit breaker did for me was to get me away from an office and the nonsensical power games that impotent bureaucrats need to get sexually aroused. In this day and age, I don’t see why people cannot work where they choose to work provided there is a decent enough internet connection. The only thing of value to come out of an office, from file or in a meeting is an agreement to fill more files and have more meetings.

However, while I take personal delight in the demise of the office, I need to remember that lock downs do hurt businesses like retailers and food outlets. These institutions provide many of us with a livelihood and more often than not, it affects those who are less well off.

As such, its heartening to see post on social media encouraging people to support small outlets and small businesses. One of the more encouraging ones came from my former agency junior who has since become an entrepreneur and a voice for the less fortunate.

 

While I don’t have anything personal against fast food chains, its really encouraging to see people talk about the need to support small enterprises. Having been a freelancer for the better part of my working life, I can attest to the fact that despite what the government tells you, life as an entrepreneur in Singapore is hard. Lee Kuan Yew’s most successful and unforgivable acts was to find a way of imprinting into our DNA an aversion to small, local risk takers. His message was simple, Singapore is simply too small to create economies of scale and so its best that we just do what we need to do to keep multinationals and the government happy.

While encouraging multinational investment did play a role in creating prosperity, the consistent message that Singapore is too small has ended up creating a dependency mentality. In the minds of many Singaporeans, you can’t do anything of quality unless you’ve been in the civil service or been “taught” by someone from elsewhere. I look back to the last year I did anything that I was really proud off – namely 2013 when I served the Indian Institutes of Management Alumni (IIM). This was a group that had the money to hire the likes of Hill & Knowlton but chose to go with me, a little nobody. After working for the IIM Alumni, I was invited to pitch for a job for a quasi-government agency. Before I even started on the presentation, the chairman started with “Don’t you see being a one-man show as a weakness.” The mentality of this very prominent sometime civil servant was very clear and the message to me was “You’re a nobody – shouldn’t you feel ashamed of not being part of a Western multinational?”

One of the key reasons why I’ve never bought into the “foreigners are stealing our jobs,” mode is simple. When I, a small nobody Singaporean with a proven track record of being able to do the job, it was the people from elsewhere who gave me the jobs. My “own kind” preferred to give the jobs to foreign companies. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one-man show who had that experience. A few of my friends who started their own shop admitted that their first big break was inevitably from someone from elsewhere.

So, with this background in mind, I’m really happy to see Singaporeans trying to encourage each other to support small mom and pop shops in this pandemic. The point is simple, McDonald’s and KFC can weather the storm. The small food stalls need customers.

While I’m encouraged to see people giving “moral” support to our local businesses, I believe that our support should not be based on a charitable desire but on the fact that our small businesses have the capability to deliver more value for their customers than their larger competitors from elsewhere. This fact was brought home recently when I had a look at where I was choosing to eat.

As a matte of full disclosure, I enjoy “fast-food.” There’s pleasure in KFC, McDonald’s and the rest of them. I also appreciate the business model that the fast-food outlets provide. As is often said, “Nobody can produce hamburgers at the same scale and consistency anywhere in the world in the same way that McDonald’s does.” You also have to appreciate the HR systems of the fast-food joints and how they train people.

However, I’ve found myself spending less time in fast-food restaurants because, well, I’ve found that the hawker stalls, particularly the “economic rice” stalls offer something that has more variety, tastier, cheaper and dare I say more nutritious than what the Fast-Food joints are offering.

 

My local food joint offers variety that you don’t get in a fast-food joint.

Ever since I’ve become more home based, my meals have become fairly standard. I walk out to the economic rice stall and my standard fare is rice, two vegetables and a meat (usually chicken or pork.) They’re fairly generous with the portions and the most that I’ve ever spent is six dollars (that was when I had a fish). I spend on average three to four dollars per packet. If I want a canned drink, I can either go into the nearby supermarket or visit the drink stall and pay a further two bucks (average price is around a dollar seventy).

 

While I do enjoy my fast-food, the economics of fast-food don’t make sense. KFC for example will charge three dollars and eighty cents $3.80) for a single piece of chicken:

https://www.kfc.com.sg/Menu/A-La-Carte/Chicken

 

Not to be outdone, McDonald’s sells a buttermilk crispy chicken at eight-dollars and forty cents ($8.40). That’s just a bit of chicken, a bun and a few bits of relish. If you go for the meal, the price goes up by another dollar for fries (a few wedges of potato) and a soft drink (sugar water).

 

While both KFC and McDonald’s do offer something enjoyable, I don’t think they’re offering the best value to most consumers. From my perspective as a consumer, the local economic rice stall simply offers much better value. Again, I’m not against burgers or fried chicken but why should I pay so much more for that when the local guy can give me something better.

Likewise, multinationals and big brands do offer good things that we can spend our money on. However, the question remains – are they offering the best deal. Who is to say that our local SMEs are not offering something that may have more value?

 

This skinny guy lived in a diet of rice, vegetables and a bit of meat when he had the chance. He ended up leading people in combat against three big powers and won.

 

This guy lives on a diet of fast-food. End result – overweight, scrambling for money despite proclaiming billions and based on his accusations of other people being rapist – he’s probably impotent too.