I’ve noticed two stories on the Independent Singapore
(a website that occasionally picks up pieces from this blog), about the link
between money, income, status and relaitonships. The stories can be found at:
These stories illustrate something fundamental about
Singapore. At the surface level, you could say that the relationship between
money and relationships touches on the key social issue caused by the influx of
foreigners. Much of the focus on the discussion of foreigners has been about
jobs or specifically the “threat” of other Asians (specifically Indian
Nationals) taking “professional” jobs from the local population. While its received
less attention in recent months, the issue of foreign girls (specifically
Mainland Chinese) “stealing” from old men through “dubious relationships” has
also been part of the key complaints about the influx of foreigners since 2004.
One does not need to be a data scientist to understand
that there were plenty of Mainland Chinese and Vietnamese girls who selling
their bodies in the redlight district. There were also plenty of old men throwing
away their pension money on young, nubile things, mainly from the Mainland
China and Vietnam. When Covid Clusters started exploding in dodgy karaoke
lounges, everyone was focused on the evils of “dogy Vietnamese girls.”
So, I get it that Mainland Chinese and Vietnamese
girls are as well liked in “PMET Singa-Land” as Indian Nationals with
professional jobs. There are dodgy Mainland Chinese and Vietnamese girls just
as they are Indian Nationals with dodgy degrees. However, as with the Indian
Nationals (let’s remember that whilst you have the lot with dodgy degrees, you
have the lot from IIM and IIT – places that produce Fortune 500 CEOs, something
which our “world class” universities have yet to do), we not only have to ask
ourselves if tarring every Mainland Chinese or Vietnamese with the same brush
is fair, we also need to ask ourselves if we’re any better?
Whenever a Singaporean man ends up going for a
Mainland Chinese or Vietnamese girl, you’re bound to get a flurry of comments
on how the man is going to get screwed for money. You will also get a load of
comments about how Singaporean men are “Marrying Down” and as one of my
colleagues from my last agency job said “Singaporean men can’t live up to the
standards we set for them.” Apparently Singaporean Chinese men cannot take
independent, intelligent women in the same way that their Western counterparts
can (though having seen what many white guys end up with, it’s a natural
instinct to question the judgement of a White Man on Asian women as it is to
question a White Man’s work ethic).
However, as the stories in the Independent would
suggests, the “standards” that are being set have less to do with character and
more to do with earning power. I mean, if a young student feels that she’s
being short changed over a branded handbag, it does reflect something about her
value system and what she’s been brought up to expect. Given that this is a
university student we’re talking about and not a farm girl, the question
remains what type of “elite” class are we raising.
Let’s face it, unless you are Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk,
money plays a key role in survival. I go to a job and deal with people in
suites who make me want to puke because I need to pay bills and my job puts
food on the table. Let’s also be perfectly honest, we all like nice things.
Between sleeping on a park bench or a fluffy bed, I chose the latter?
However, whilst money is important and material things
are nice to have, we need to question if these things should be the defining of
one’s character. I believe that for some, money is merely a commodity to be exchanged
but to many, money, career and whatever they own, define them. I would argue
that this is where we need to distinguish between a prostitute and a whore.
To an extent, a prostitute is someone who has sex for
a living. Every girl on the street corner of Geylang is a prostitute. It’s
their job. They have to sell a fantasy to whichever customer comes their way in
order to ensure they have money. You could say, all of us are prostitutes
because we get f** for a living in one way or another and somehow, we need to
sell fantasies to the clowns that pay. However, our job does not necessarily
make us who we are.
A whore on the other hand is a different story. A
whore doesn’t necessarily walk the street corners of dodgy places hopping to
turn tricks. What a whore does is to try and get a paying person who will keep
paying. Whereas the transaction with a prostitute is clear (money for a good
time), its not necessarily so with a whore. Whores may actually have a genuine
love for you as long as you have money. One of the most distinguishing signs of
a whore is how she treats other people, particularly those whom she perceives as
“lower” down. I remember a young Pinoy girl who married one of the partners in
the Bistrot. With me, she was pleasant. However, I used to get very upset when
she was talking to the Pinoy guys. Didn’t have to understand Tagalog to get the
idea that she was reminding them that she had risen above them – and they were
the ones doing honest work.
The issue I had was not so much her relationship with
the partner in question but the fact that she couldn’t help but lord it over
the Pinoy guys who she used to hang out with. The message was clear – she was
too good for them.
Whilst all of us are to an extent prostitutes, we
actually have an option of not being whores. Yes, we all put on a façade to do
what we need to earn to get the coin – but we can choose how we behave when we’re
in a position of having money.
I know great guys who have made pots of money but it
never seemed to affect their personality. I think of Hans Hofer, founder of Apa
Guidebooks who was happy to take the tube in London and was also happy to do
drinks in ULU (University of London Union). I also think of Arun Jain, current
MD of Intellect Design Arena, a listed company, who had no issue jumping onto
the MRT (apparently has no issue with the tuk-tuks when he’s in India). Mr.
Jain’s personal net worth is probably north of the US$100 million. These guys
are examples of men who chose not to be whores when they made lots of money.
They chose not to be whores.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2zsf4Kg_9I
By contrast you have the “professionals” in places
like Shenton Way, who are officially “respectable” but after a drink or two,
you realise that they make the residents of Geylang look like the saintly division
of the Salvation Army.
There are professional accountants who are very insistent
that they are professionals and therefore you have to speak to them in a
certain way. However, they think its perfectly acceptable to whistle at
waitresses to summon them and whilst payments for their fellow professionals
will flow, there’s always a cash flow issue when it comes to issuing payment to
people like the stationary company.
This is the type of behavior that makes what goes on
in the whore houses saintly. In the whore houses, you have girls who will f***
the wealthy (the wealthier the better) so that they can give the money to the
poor – specifically the families they’ve left behind. By contrast the
respectable whores will screw over the poor so that they can give money to the
rich. I remember one of them was very upset with a Vietnamese girl for “cheating”
a Caucasian lawyer. Complained that the gave her money but she “screwed other guys.”
What was not mentioned that the Caucasian guy was a lawyer who managed to get
himself “barred” from entering Singapore, a country that can’t get enough of “Caucasian”
Professionals, whilst the girl in question built a business, sold it and travels
in an out freely. The man must something to an extent that even the Singapore government
wouldn’t be able to cover for him and we need to ask – really, who is the
dubious one here?
Let’s understand that there is a difference between a
prostitute and a whore. Let work towards making it easier for the people trying
to make a living and at the same time, let us bring up our young with values
beyond the material. A nation of whores is really no nation at all.
No comments
Post a Comment