Old Long Since

 It’s now a matter of hours before 2022 comes to a close and we start on a New Year. Everyone is going to be singing Auld Lang Syne and making all sorts of New Year resolutions that will probably not be kept:

 

 Auld Lang Syne – Copyright Classic FM

After the singing and partying to welcome the new year, many people around the world are going to be worrying about the issues that came up in 2022 and are likely to carry on into 2023. Things like the rising cost of living and inflation are going to be issues that all of us need to deal with in addition to the fact that Covid has not gone.

Since I work in the insolvency business, these pains that everyone else is facing, look like positive signs. Business should boom for us in the “scavenger” section of the global economy as government support for the global economy during the pandemic period dries up. In a way, this is what you call a necessary cleansing where you find out which companies were actually run properly and which ones were engaging in “interesting” practices to keep afloat.

So, how would someone like me look at 2023 based on what happened in 2022? For me, the most hopeful signs for anything were from the world of sport, specifically the retirement of Roger Federer and the death of Pele. Both Mr. Federer and Pele were living examples of what greatness should be about. They were great artist in their fields and at the same time decent people who earned the admiration of competitors. They were honoured as people who made other people better.

Why is this significant? The thing is, the years before 2022 were about “anger,” and people wanting to stick the proverbial middle finger at the world. We had leaders like Trump in the USA and Bolsonaro in Brazil who thrived on the politics of divisiveness. It was “cool” to blame someone else for your problems and wanting to put other people in their place had been a growing fashion. I think of people in Asia who actually liked Trump for being “tough on those black people” for rioting but being perfectly happy with the January 6 sacking of Capital Hill as the people wanting to stand up for their country.

Well, while there’s plenty to be angry about, the politics of divisiveness have been not very good at solving problems and people do want to approach the future with some sense of optimism. Sure, there are signs of despair in the world. The Russians don’t seem likely to leave the Ukraine anytime soon. A right-wing government bent on stealing land has come to power in Israel.

However, there are signs of optimism. In America, the “red wave” turned out to be a “red puddle” and many of the more extreme Maga candidates were rejected at the polls. The most optimistic sign was perhaps in Malaysia, where long time opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim finally became Malaysia’s Prime Minister. Whilst these are early days, Mr. Anwar has made man of the right noises about leading with honesty and integrity.

As a Singaporean, I am actually praying for Malaysia to enter a good phase under Anwar. Call me naïve if you like but I’ve always believed that you can only achieve peace and stability when your neighbours achieve the same. A prosperous Malaysia governed by decency can only be good for Singapore. I grew up in the 1990s in Europe, where nobody was able to imagine a war breaking out in Western Europe and Western Europe had the highest standard of living in the world. However, a generation ago, nobody could conceive of peace in Western Europe. Sure, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked many Europeans out of the complacency that comfort and success brings. However, getting the French and Germans to work together for greater prosperity has ensured that any future world war will not start in the heart of Europe.

So, if the Europeans can work together, why can’t we in Asia do the same. If Singapore can play a pivotal role in making Malaysia succeed, we will too will succeed.

On an individual level, I look forward to looking for new horizons. I was fortunate enough to rekindle trying to build new connections that were placed on hold because of the pandemic. There are possibilities to play a small and insignificant role in making life for those who touch my life, a little better, which I believe can only be good for me.   

The Definition of Greatness

 The news has come out that Pele, the legendary Brazilian football star has died. He was 82 and suffering from colon cancer, so you could say that this was to be expected. However, there is a sense that the world has lost something valuable and for the second time this year, I find myself feeling emotional over the loss of someone I never knew at all (the first time being the Queen).

Why does the loss of a man, I never met, feel so sad? I guess, you could say that although I am as far away as possible from Pele, it feels like he was part of my life for so long. The funny thing is, when I started watching international soccer, Pele had long since retired and the star of international soccer in the 1980s was Diego Maradona. I grew up seeing the magic of Maradona, yet, Pele whom I never saw seemed so much “greater.”

So, the question of what defines “greatness” needs to be asked. In answering that question, I would probably say that the answer lies in “artistry” and “humanity,” which are inevitably hard concepts to understand in a world driven by data and statistics. Pele has statistically done many things which today’s modern superstars are still struggling to overcome. However, the old saying is that “records are made to be broken.” The recently retired Roger Federer, for example won 20 grand-slams and has seen his two rivals overtake his record. Yet, he’s still a leading contender for the “greatest-ever” title. So, nobody doubts that Pele’s records will eventually be surpassed, yet like Mr. Federer in tennis, nobody doubts that Pele will remain the “greatest” in the minds of generations to come.

So, greatness has to be more than something about recordable statistics. I’d argue that a great figure is someone who transcends their profession and all sorts of boundaries like race, class, nationality and so on. They are figures that belong to humanity rather than to a particular group. Let’s take Nelson Mandela for example. He was the first black president of South Africa. However, as far as humanity is concerned, he’s more than a black politician in South Africa. He’s an example of what the rest of us try to emulate.

In the case of Mandela, it’s easy to see the greatness – he was a national leader of high moral standing and inspired hope on a continent where national leaders are better known for inspiring despair. Can the same be said of sports-heroes? Unlike say, artist or musicians, the don’t leave behind something tangible. You can see a Van Gough and you can listen to Mozart but do you know who was the best boxer was two-hundred years ago?

Well, there are two sporting icons that come to mind when you talk about greatness. They are Mohammad Ali and Pele. Both became greater than their respective professions. You don’t have watch boxing to know Muhammad Ali and you don’t have to watch soccer to know Pele. Both men were artist. Watching Ali fight was to watch an artist in action. Watching Pele in action was watching a virtuoso:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-yRhF-VSU

 

 Taken from ebay

As current Brazilian superstar Neymar points out – “Pele turned football into an art.” How do you define an art? Well, I guess you could say that an art is something so beautiful that it makes people stop and look and feel something. Paintings of great masters for example, are so powerful that people stop what they’re doing to admire. For a sports star, you become an artist when even those on the opposite end of the field find the privilege of playing against you greater than the sting of defeat. Former England player described his experiences with Pele as “I was proud to be on the pitch with him.” The tributes from today’s stars also make the point that greatness is also about inspiring others to be great.

Like Mohamad Ali, Pele also worked beyond his sport. After retirement, the man worked tirelessly to give the poor hope and he fought against the corruption in Brazilian soccer, earning him the enmity of fellow Brazilian João Havelange, who ran FIFA at the time. Pele was also accused of having “leftist” sympathies by Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Whilst Pele was a little fond of the ladies (he was married three times), he avoided the hard partying lifestyle of many of his contemporaries, including Diego Maradona (Pele died at 82 – Maradona died at 60). He argued that it was important to set an example.

I never watched Pele play except for the clips of him on Youtube. Yet, he was a presence in my life and I look at soccer matches through image that he created. This is a greatness that lives beyond your prime and even your own life. If anyone deserves to rest in peace, it is Pele.

Can Money Ruin Things?

 

I now live in Singapore where money or rather the lack of it, seems to be the cause of just about everything. One of the most politically sensitive issues is the official correlation between money and intelligence. For years, we have been told that it is essential for us to have the world’s best paid politicians because we need to be able to attract the world’s best people to do the very important job of running the country. A former Prime Minister even went as far as to talk about “sub-par” people earning less than half a million bucks a year.

Leaving aside the debate on political salaries, many of us understand that talent should be well rewarded. Although salary is not everything, it often plays an important part in life and human resource departments are well aware that the “star-performers” in any company need to be well compensated if the star performers are to stay with the organisation.

While I agree that talented people should be rewarded for putting their talents to good use, I do believe that money isn’t the “ONLY” thing when it comes to getting people to do well. This was often brought to me as was growing up in the UK, when I few people did remind me that there was a big difference between “Rugby Union” and “Football.” The difference was all about passion.

The English Premier League (EPL) is one of the most lucrative and even in the 1990s, the EPL paid some of the highest salaries in global football. Every footballer in the world wanted to play in the EPL. However, whilst the EPL was a hothouse of talent, the English national football team was, to put in charitably, rather lacking. Despite the talent and hype in the national squad, England’s national football team have perpetually disappointed. The national team’s fourth place in the 2018 World Cup was considered a best placing since 1990, when the national team also finished fourth. By comparison, in the same time frame of 1990 to 2018, England’s “Old Enemy” (Germany) has won the World Cup twice and to make matters worse, the other great rival of England for everything come out of nowhere to become World Champion twice (prior to 1998, France which was never known as a power in world football).

If England’s national squad had a habit of disappointing, English fans did not – that is if you consider being the most violent thugs a prominent world championship sport. If there was a group that should have been sent to the Chinese army for target practice in Tiananmen Square, it is the fans of the English national squad.

The inability of the national squad to win anything significant and the ability of the fans to cause havoc turn everywhere they went into a trash can, was a lot of money. One of the accusations against the national squad was the fact that the star players were inevitably more passionate about the clubs that paid their massive salaries than the country that gave them a bit of pocket money and supporters with a talent for embarrassment.

If the national football squad was a national embarrassment, England’s rugby squad by contrast, were a source of national pride. If England’s football squad considered it an achievement to reach the semi-finals twice in two decades, the English rugby squad have won their respective world cup and come in second twice in the same time frame. England’s rugby player shave proven that they can stand up to the world’s best (beating New Zealand, South Africa and Australia on a few occasions).

Then, there is the difference in the fans. If England’s football fans where prime candidates for a massacre, their rugby fans were, as a group decent and almost spiritual. Football songs are inevitably mindless. By contrast, the anthem is the “spiritual” – “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

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

 

 Rugby rivalries were inevitably a lot more civilised than their football counterparts. The great rival to the English in rugby is the Welsh whose fans had a wonderfully spiritual anthem, called “Bread of Heaven.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0JDYOA4Ofg

 

 While rugby does generate money, what is generated is nowhere near what is generated in football. Rugby stars earn hundreds of thousands, whilst football stars earn in the millions. Yet, despite the earning less, rugby has managed to stay civilised. Sure, nationalism comes to the fore in international tournaments as it does in football, but it has never boiled down to the nasty level.

So, is there such a thing known as too much money, where people care more about money than the actual game itself. Hence, players who worry more about the club than the country and promoters who bring out the nasty in people to get them riled up to an extent that they’re easy to make money from? The difference between English football and English rugby might suggest that there is a case for this.

I Didn’t Choose to be Born. I Choose How I’ll Live My Life

 

Christmas has come and gone and the question of life is probably one worth asking. Are we, like the “Savior” destined to live a purpose chosen for us by a higher power or do we have a certain amount of choice in how we live that life?

One of the most interesting examples of how this commonly asked philosophical question is being played out, can be found in the United Kingdom (UK). That example is the current dispute between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the rest of the Royal Family. The Duke and Duchess have just released their “documentary” on Netflix that revealed things that the family would rather not have been revealed and the duke’s book “Spare” is expected soon, revealing even more things the royals would rather not be revealed.

 

 Copyright CNN – Ginger Lad becomes Whinger-Ginger

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have managed to get a flurry of headlines written on both sides of the Atlantic and talk show hosts have had material gifted to them. The political right sees the Duke and Duchess as betraying the Royal Family and the rest of the United Kingdom. The “woke” left, particularly in the USA think of this pair as exposing the “racism” in this “outdated” institution.

Many things are being said but there is one thing that is very clear. Life in the Royal Family is the opposite of fun. Sure, they have privileges that the rest of us can only dream of. Nobody in the family is in danger of starving nor being homeless. Things like a “cost of living” crisis don’t affect the royals.

However, there is a trade-off. The day you enter the family, you become public property. The press trails your every move and the public expects you, the royal, to be visible 24/7. Royals do not have “freedom” of speech that ordinary people have. Voice anything that can be conceived as an opinion on anything more serious than the spikes of a hedgehog and everyone will jump on you for “interfering” in the democratic process. Royals go where the public expect them to go and are obliged to see people that they may not want to look at on a regular basis. It’s not a life for everyone. The late Queen did it well, and what she did was considered “service.” However, she seemed to be an exception.

This was the life that the Duke of Sussex was born into. What makes this life particularly hard for someone like him is the fact that through no fault of his own, he was destined to be in that life forever. His brother is destined to take the top job and unless his older brother does something like his great-granduncle, the duke will effectively not be able to do much else other than what other people decided for him.

Then, there is the fact that the poor guy must have had a lousy family environment. His parents spent the better part of their marriage snipping at each other in the public domain and then his mother died when he was still young and his father married the woman that his mother publicly condemned as the cause of the break up of their marriage. This is what most would call the text book screwed up childhood.

However, whilst nobody denies that the Duke of Sussex must have had a traumatic childhood, its hard to argue that he’s a sympathetic character fighting against an evil institution in an evil country.

If anything, the Duke and Duchess come across as complainers. They left their role in senior working royals on 8 January 2020 in the now famous “Megxit,” because they wanted their privacy and to be financially independent. However, since leaving Royal Family, the Duke and Duchess have been aggressively courting publicity in America to complain that they were not getting money from the Crown and their children were not getting titles. Instead of coming across as victims, they are coming across as spoilt brats who expect all the benefits of royalty without the tradeoff. Its not like the Japanese Princess who married a commoner she loved and gave up the privileges of the Imperial House.

It is a shame, particularly for the duke, who once a happy character much loved by the British public. If anything, the duke’s newfound career as a bitch for cable TV is a waste. The man was actually born to as close as having his cake and eating it as possible. As the second son, his chances of being king were remote and he was in the position of having the perks of royalty without the responsibilities as far as it was possible.

His example was ironically his father, who spent 70 odd years without an official “job.” Instead of going onto TV to whine about how screwed up his life, the man, proceeded to find his own purpose, using his immense privilege and wealth to create projects like the Princess Trust, which has helped hundreds of thousands of “disadvantaged” youth as mentioned in the following report from Reuters:

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/with-charles-king-his-princes-trust-youth-charity-goes-2022-09-16/

Harry, Duke of Sussex was on a similar path. He set up the Invictus Games for disabled athletes. Like his father, the duke could have spent his life using his position and wealth to champion causes that were important to him. He could have chosen to use the privileges he was born into to do good – think about it, so many of us have causes we care about in our youth but abandon them as the dreary need to make a living takes over. He could have done something most of us can only dream of. Its such a shame he chose to campaign against his choice to sacrifice the privilege he was born into instead of using it to build a legacy.  

Our Inner Child on Christmas – The Benefit of Cute Cards

 It’s going to be Christmas day in an hour’s time and I’ve been thinking of something meaningful to say and I decided to touch on a tradition I started around two-years back of buying Christmas cards from a colleague of mine, who likes to hand paint them.

My former colleague has a particular talent or at least she has a particular effect on me. She is a 36-year-old woman who has the ability to make her inner child come through. It was just something about her that made you forget the fact that she’s a grown woman. Couldn’t get angry with her because it would be like getting angry with a wobbly-child that needed a hug.

Anyway, she’s managed to get that part of her personality shinning through in her art work and I always get a sense of tummy tickling delight when looking at her art work. I buy her cards and send them out in the hope of sharing the positive emotions that I get from viewing someone’s inner child.

 

 Christmas has been a particularly poignant time for sending out her “cute-cards.” If you think about it, the magic of Christmas comes from awakening your inner child. For one day of the year, you forget all the nasty things and the nastiness in the human race to celebrate that all of us once had. Christmas should be that one day of the year where your heart becomes open to people you meet and deal with. There are kids that you want to squeeze for the sake of it and Christmas is that time when you should want to squeeze the people around you.

The man whose birthday we celebrate on 25 December every year is supposed to have come down to earth to bring humanity closer together. He was a man born in circumstances so poor that in the modern context you’d say that he was a welfare case. Yet, two-thousand years later, we call him the king-of-kings. He was a man who made “love” the centre of his teaching and instead of using his power to rule the universe, he chose to hang out with the dregs of society. You could say that he loved humanity the way a child does before its taught to hate and is given a false sense of superiority based on superfluous things.

So, on Christmas day, we need to have a portion of the man whose birthday we celebrate. Have an open heart to your fellow man. When I look at the “cute-cards” I order, I think of good things like marshmallows and fluffy pillows for at least one day of the year, which gives me the energy to deal with the usual misery of daily life like bills, poverty, plagues and so on for the remaining 364 days.

So, here’s me wishing everyone a Merry Christmas filled with happy thoughts. Buying my “cute-cards” helped me think good things and I urge everyone to look for their inner child for at least that one day in the calendar year.

Paying for Nothing at All

 One of the stakeholders that you end up having to deal with in the insolvency business is banks. The job requires you to do things like shut down bank accounts and making formal request for information on bank accounts. So, a good portion of my time is spent visiting banks.

Waiting in banks for counter service can be time-consuming. Banks, particularly in the counters have been understaffed and processes are, well, a little less than efficient. It’s become even worse. Singapore has not been immune from the global rise in inflation. Interest rates have risen and savings accounts, which used to be a license for the banks to print money (they borrow from you at 0.025 percent a year, lend at eight percent and charge you for the privilege of lending them money), have suddenly become viable assets for ordinary depositors.

So, as much as the banks have touted “digitalisation,” inefficiencies have grown as people flock to banks to open accounts to take advantage of the increased interest rates. Despite all the hype around “digitalisation,” the process of opening a bank account remains untouched by modernity – you still have to go into the branch to open a bank account. Hence, banks like CIMB, which used to be very prompt in getting you the counter are no longer so:

 

 That’s before you take a number for counter service

So, given that bank branches have seen a deluge of customers rushing to deposit funds at their branches, the logical question is what exactly have they done to ease the congestion at branches and making the process of opening an account easier?

One of the most common ways of dealing with customers has been to shut your doors. Both OCBC and UOB have done precisely this on a number of occasions. They have pasted signs on the door saying that they have stopped issuing que numbers. In the case of OCBC’s main branch of Chulia Street, the security guard who is paid by Certis Cisco, then doubles up as OCBC’s customer service man at the door trying to deal with people who wanted to give OCBC money, whilst the actual OCBC staff stayed inside trying to avoid the customers who were actually inside the bank waiting to give the bank money.

Another example of how to deal with an increase in customer traffic has been to increase the number of superfluous staff without actually increasing the number of people who could actually do things for the customers. The most recent personal example came a moment ago when I had to deliver a letter to OCBC on Chuila Street. The que was slowly developing and there was a girl at the counter. Unfortunately, the only thing the young lady wasn’t qualified to receive letters or solve problems. Her main purpose was to press buttons on the machine that issued que numbers. Meanwhile the girl who was qualified to take letters was running around like a headless chicken.

 

Empowering people to push buttons doesn’t exactly help

So, how is it that some of the biggest institutions in a country that prides itself in maximising human resources, forward thinking and planning, have only be able to deal with a situation by effectively shutting themselves down?

One might say that the answer is simple. These institutions have been mollycoddled from the feelings of customers. The regulator takes pride in the fact that the existing institutions win all sorts of accolades in a competition that the existing players have rigged amongst themselves. Bright sparks who manage to come up with an idea that might make the lives of customers easier get side-lined by the regulator and end up working for the existing players instead of competing against them. Hence, whilst developing Asia allows bright sparks to develop viable fintech, the regulators in Singapore make it such that the fintech crowd are forced to become contractors to the banks and the bright sparks who create end up being subservient to the bureaucrats in the banks who are busy defending their turf instead of finding ways to grow it.

The regulators in Chinese-majority Singapore need to look at Chinese history to understand that protectionism only leads to stagnation. China, once the world’s greatest power and civilisation stagnated in 1500 because the emperors believed in their own propaganda. Europe in the meantime allowed for competition, which created innovation and when China met the West 300 years later, she was greatly outclassed and humiliated by a group of powers it once considered not worthy of speaking to. Our regulators need to understand that it does not do our institutions any favours by protecting them from competition.

The Evolution of Greatness

 

Say what you like about the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar but it produced some amazing football, especially in the nail-biting final. The clash between Argentina and France, the defending champions was filled with nail biting tension. It looked like a forgone conclusion with the Argentinians leading by two goals to zero until the dying moments of the game when French star, Kylian Mbappe produced two goals in the dying moments of the game and then proceeded to match the goal by Argentina’ s captain, Lionel Messi, thus forcing a penalty shoot-out.

While the result was heart-breaking for the French, the victory was a nice send off for Mr. Messi, who is hailed as one of the greatest players ever (GOAT) and yet, somehow the biggest prize in global soccer always seemed to elude him. Unfortunately for Mr. Messi, he’s from the country that gave us Diego Maradona, who is considered one of the Gods of modern soccer. So, for all his achievements at the club level, the inability to bring home soccer’s greatest prize meant that as far as most Argentinians were concerned, Mr. Messi was a shadow of Mr. Maradona.

So, for Mr. Messi, this victory was a key moment for him to come out of Mr. Maradona’s shadow and there is no doubt that as this is being written, that life in Argentina is being focused on him. It took a glance at an article in the Atlantic for me to understand that Mr. Messi’s triumph goes beyond soccer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/12/world-cup-2022-lionel-messi-guide-living/672503/

 

Copyright – the Atlantic

The writer makes the point that Mr. Messi’s moment of greatest success comes at what is effectively the dying days of his playing career. Mr. Messi is 35-years-old, which for a professional athlete is geriatric. Yet, despite his age, Mr. Messi remains a force of the field and more importantly, Mr. Messi has managed to do what very few superstars have managed to do – he’s evolved and ensured that whatever success is more than just about him. At 35, he’s not as fast as he used to be but he’s grown wiser and smarter in his playing style and how it gels with the rest of the team.

There is no doubt that there are geniuses in just about every field who can make the difference between success and failure. In modern soccer, there was the example of Diego Maradona who not only led Argentina to victory in 1986 but managed to bring an inferior team to the final in 1990. In rugby union, there was the example of the late Jonah Lomu, who cut through everyone’s defence like a heated rod going through butter.

However, modern team sport is about strategy and while have a genius of the field can make the difference, there is a danger of becoming over reliant on the single guy. After 1986, every team that faced Argentina had one clear strategy – contain Diego Maradona. In rugby union, Mr. Lomu made headlines in the 1995 World Cup until he reached the finals and the Springboks developed a strategy called – contain Mr. Lomu.

Unfortunately for Mr. Messi, the strategy used against him in so many world cups were the same as the one used after 1986. From the day the press started hailing him as the world’s best player. Everything was about containing him.

So, for this world cup, Mr. Messi made his team greater than himself and his contribution was that of a brilliant conductor brining out the best in people rather that single virtuoso. At 35, Mr. Messi wasn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the 23-year-old Mr. Mbappe. He was going to use his team. Mr. Mbappe’s hat-trick was undoubtedly phenomenal and he deserves the Golden Boot award for most goals scored. However, the ultimate prize is not the Gold Boot but the World Cup.

This point isn’t limited to soccer. I think of a law firm I was trying to solicit business from. The Managing Partner made the point his goal was not to become the star performer but to ensure that the cases went to the right lawyers in his firm and that all his lawyers would grow become better lawyers thus ensuring his firm produced good quality work.

Yes, super stars in business are good to have just as they are in team sports. However, businesses that have a strategy of working around a single star have a way of vanishing when said star no longer performs like a star or retires or dies. Stars also have a way of forgetting that the things that made them successful don’t last forever.

As the writer of the Atlantic article points out, just as Mr. Messi understood that at 35, he had to evolve and be the best 35-year-old player, his Portuguese rival, Cristiano Ronaldo was trying to play as a man ten-years younger and failed at it. Nobody doubts that Mr. Ronaldo is a great player but at 35 he isn’t as sharp as he was at 27 and its particularly noticeable at the highest levels of international competition.

The same can be said of people stuck in old paradigms and try to operate as they did a decade ago. Technology changes, people change and the market changes. What was great a decade ago may no longer be great in the current situation. So, as one should always be self-aware and evolve in order to stay great as Mr. Messi did.

Are Singaporean-Chinese, Chinese?

 

I just saw an interview with Trevor Noah on the BBC, where he had to famously defend the remark that “African-Americans” are “not African.” This interview reminded me of one of the most pressing and never-ending debates in nations that are multinational – namely the question of racial identity. Mr. Noah made the point that the problem with hyphenating racial identities was the fact that it underlines the notion that people of a certain skin tone are all the same, which is not true. Mr. Noah’s interview can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYXp4J3jy4

In a way, the question is racial identity used to be fairly easy to define. In Singapore we had four major races, namely the Chinese, Indians, Malays and Eurasians. Our first Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, went out of his way to keep our subdivisions at four, which was most clearly seen in our language policies. Malay was the national language, thus for the national anthem and drill commands. English was the working language, which all of us spoke. Since most of the Indians were from Tamil Nadu, Tamil became the Indian language taught in school as a “mother-tongue.” People from other parts of India, like the Punjabis could learn – Malay at school. As for the Chinese community, Mr. Lee had something that no British colonial administrator had – the willingness and means of going to war against Chinese dialects in favour of Mandarin. In Mr. Lee’s Singapore, being Singaporean-Chinese was fairly easy. I am Singaporean because I was born here, served in the army and appreciated the way of life in Singapore. I was also Chinese because of my skin tone, celebrated Chinese New Year as the main festival of the year and spoke Mandarin when I wasn’t speaking English.

On a certain level, this was a success. Singaporeans of various ethnic groups could take pride in being Singaporean but also being able to communicate with people from elsewhere in a different language. The world was very clear cut. You speak Mandarin with Chinese, Tamil to Indians, Malay to Malays and English to anyone with a drop of “White DNA.”

However, whilst this was very easy, it does not reflect the world as it actually is. People of the same skin-tone are not necessarily the same. I got this lesson early in life as an ethnic Chinese growing up in the West in the late eighties and nineties. One of the funniest experiences was being in Port Angeles (main economic activity – logging), in the Pacific North West of the USA, when an old lady rushed up to me to practice the one Japanese phrase she had been practicing for a while. It was very flattering that she wanted to practice the language on me and it was heart breaking for her to be told that I wasn’t Japanese.

The world is a diverse place and whilst in an ideal world, we should concentrate on the things that unite us, the human race has proved to be very good at dividing itself and at times they take great pride in the things that make them stand out. If you want an East Asian example, the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are very clear that they are distinct, with their own unique language and culture. However, at one stage, most Westerners wouldn’t have been able to and wouldn’t have cared to distinguish between a Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

One of the most amusing examples can be seen in the 1970s hit series “Mind Your Language,” where the Ranjeet, the Sikh character was constantly fighting with Ali, the Pakistani. However, despite the obvious “enmity” between the two, the teacher Mr. Brown pairs them up thinking that they’d get along with someone with from the same part of the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GdBfnKWBs

For Singaporeans, this became particularly sharp, with new arrivals from China and India. Suddenly the little comfortable world a hyphenated identities was rudely shattered. Our new, often Hindi speaking arrivals don’t look upon our native Tamil speaking Indians as Indians. As for our local Chinese community, we also got a rude shock into how far removed we are from our Mainland cousins

I take myself as an example. I am predominantly English speaking and the group I deal with on a daily basis happens to be predominantly English speaking. However, if I need to, I will communicate in Cantonese and Mandarin. However, I don’t have an emotional connection with China as say, someone born in China would have. The fact that it’s a challenge to speak either Mandarin or Cantonese puts a sharp distinction between me and someone born in China.

I try to be aware of these things. I grew up in the UK and back in the days when the UK was an active member of the EU, I grew up understanding that White people were actually a diverse group with their own languages and cultures. So, it was easy for me to understand that just because certain people looked similar, it didn’t make them the same.

I like the fact that the world is not the same. I happen to like diversity and dealing with people who are not like me. So, wherever I go, I try to know a little bit about different cultures to be able to cross those borders. It is, I believe something that we all need to get used to if we are to capitalise on the opportunities out there.  

Rewarding Suicide.

 

A while back, I remember writing a piece about how the internet had created opportunities for people who didn’t fit into the normal nine-to-six routine of an office. I celebrated the likes of Sam Chui, an Australian born Chinese guy who has a YouTube Channel devoted to reviewing airline seats. Another guy that I celebrated is Drew Binksy, a young American, who recently achieved his life’s ambition of traveling round the world.

You could say both Mr. Chui and Mr. Binsky are living a dream. What’s there not to like? Both get paid to travel around the world and have fun and there’s a certain voyeuristic pleasure in watching them. In Mr. Chui’s case, you get to see and almost feel what its like to travel first-class all the time. In Mr. Binsky’s case, you get the pleasure of seeing countries that you’re unlikely to visit. Mr. Binksy in particular also brings a common street level message of peace and love among all of humankind as he shares the joys of his various friendships.

So, I believe that its great that the internet has created opportunities for people who don’t aren’t meant to fit the conventional mold. People like Mr. Chui and Mr. Binksy should be celebrated for following their passions and finding a way of making them pay.

However, there’s a flip side to this sensation of new celebrity, which I’ve recently discovered in my quest to live a slightly healthier lifestyle in my late forties. Thanks to Covid, I managed to get my weight down and I actually enjoyed fitting into cloths. This sparked an interest in trying to tone up and whilst I know I’m probably past the age of ever looking “Jacked,” it would be nice to be able to like looking in the mirror. At 48, I actually feel better than I did at 38 and if I have a regret, it’s the fact that I only took my fitness seriously in my late 40s instead of a decade earlier.

My knowledge of personal fitness comes from YouTube, where I have a host of “fitness experts” sharing information on things like the importance of gaining or maintaining muscle and resting properly in order to lose the fat. The 48-year-old me could do something the 19-year-old me would have been unable to do – take PE as an “A-level.”

However, while fitness influencers have been great, there’s been a perverse group that I have kept me walking daily. This group would be what one could only describe as the “freaks,” who seem to make a fortune trying to invite a host of heart diseases. The main character that comes to mind is a chap called “Nikocado Avocado,” who recently thirty. Mr. Avocado is a YouTube star who has made a fortune eating everything he shouldn’t eat at quantities that go beyond unhealthy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikocado_Avocado

 

There’s something fascinating about Mr. Avocado. His YouTube videos are fascinating in as much as he’s taken our most basic need (to eat) and turned it into something grotesque. In the process eating way more than he should, Mr. Avocado is prone to all sorts of emotional outburst about why his life has turned out the way it has (he has all sorts of emotional issues with his boyfriend) and he also joins other fat people in eating way more than he should. Mr. Avocado’s diets are beyond “normal” and as two other fitness influencers found out, you cannot work off this diet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nxo0P1vTX4

 

A good portion of Mr. Avocado’s audience comes from what are known as the “haters” who are critical of the way he lives. Amongst the “haters” are fitness coaches and cardiologist who make their opposition to what Mr. Avocado is doing very clear.

Mr. Avocado is not stupid. He’s aware that what he’s going is killing him. He’s admitted that his weight has caused erectile dysfunction, thus affecting his relationship, and he needs help breathing and has problems walking to the toilet (needs to travel around the house of a scooter). Yet despite these issues, he celebrates his 400lbs milestone and is now working his way to being 500ilbs.

Like it or not, Mr. Avocado makes a fortune from ruining his body. As the following video shows, he’s actually bought himself a US$2,300,000 penthouse and has an income of around a million a year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJa2thBJ8Fw

 

 His shows are admittedly fascinating and when the fitness coaches and cardiologists lambast him on their channels, more people are inevitably drawn to his videos. If you strip the media business to its basics, Mr. Avocado gets lots of traffic, which means advertisers are drawn to his section of cyberspace.

However, whilst he is undoubtedly a commercial success, we got to ask ourselves if there’s something wrong with us. Why are we rewarding Mr. Avocado to behave in a way that is clearly self-destructive? There’s clearly something wrong with us when we incentivize the likes of Mr. Avocado rather than the millions of obese people trying to get back control of their bodies.

It’s Not What You Have but What You Do with It

 The World Cup in Qatar is now heading into the knock-out stages and say whatever you like about the event but it has produced some amazing displays of beautiful football. More importantly, the teams that have played the most amazing football have been the least expected ones. It started with the Saudi’s coming back from a goal down to beat two-time champions, Argentina, which has one of the best players ever on its squad. Then, four-time champions Germany got rudely beaten by Japan and then, it was the turn of Cameron, to upset world soccer’s perpetual powerhouse – Brazil.

The spate of giant killing is part of a healthy sign. It shows that the global pecking order of world soccer is not a stagnant thing. The minnows of world soccer have been working hard to get themselves onto the world stage and the tournament in Qatar provided them with an opportunity to show that. It also has been a message to the powerhouses of world soccer that they can no longer take the smaller players for granted.

You could argue that sports reflect life and if you were to look into what happened in the three games, there is a valuable lesson. A look at the statistics of the three games shows that the losing powerhouses actually dominated the game. They had most of the possession and more shots at goal.

 

 While the big players dominated the game and had more shots of at the goal, the small guys made the few shots they had count. You can have a million shots at the goal but if non-of them hit the target, your score is still zero. However, if the other guy only has one shot and that one shot gets past the goal, the other guy wins. The score that is important is not who keeps the ball for most of the game but the guy who puts the ball behind the net the most times.

If you boil down football to its basics, the idea is to put the ball into the other guy’s net and ensure that the other guy does not get the ball into your goal. Keeping possession of the ball does make it more likely that you may score but possession without action is pointless.

If you look at small countries and small companies, you will notice that they focus on the things that they can “sore.” Singapore, for example, tells everyone that it does not have natural resources. What it does have, however, is geography and Singapore has focused on making the most of it. Our port and airport remain a source of national pride.

The second point is that small countries can score when they refuse to be intimidated by the bigger player. The Saudi-Argentine game is a good example. Argentina was up a goal at half time, curtesy for Mr. Messi. One might have expected the Argentinians to “shut the gates” after half time and to save their energy for future and stronger opponents.

However, Saudi Arabia’s French-born coach had other ideas, as can be seen by his now famous speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBEE_R5qgtM

 

 One of the key points he makes is that the players should focus on marking Mr. Messi rather than being in awe. Judging by the final score of the game, it looks like the players got the point.

Quite often, people get focused on the “brand” of the opponent rather than on the opponent itself. There’s no doubt that Mr. Messi is a magician with the ball. However, he is as human as the rest of us and the damage that he can do to opponents can be limited. After half time, the Saudi’s found a way of neutralising the threat he posed and focused on the important thing – getting goals.

Just as small football teams can work wonders if they focus on playing the game rather than on the reputation of the other side, small countries and companies need to remember that their bigger competitors are just that – competitors. They are not part of a divine force and if the smaller player focuses on the main objective, they can work wonders.

This World Cup has shown that smaller teams can work wonders can create upsets and the larger powerhouses have been shown that they cannot treat their opponents as a joke Small countries and small companies should take note.

The Toad of Zhongnanhai

 

Like Toad of Toadhall, Jiang Zemin had a few flaws. Mr. Jiang enjoyed his power in the same way that Toad enjoyed having money. However, like Toad, Mr. Jiang had a certain heroic humanity and in an age of extreme nationalist competition, Mr. Jiang’s cooperative approach is sorely missed:

 

 Copyright – BBC

Jiang Zemin, China’s former President has just died. Mr. Jiang was the third major leader of the People’s Republic after Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping and he was China’s main leader during my last years at school and in national service.

China’s section of cyberspace has started coming up with a lot of memes. Ordinary Chinese citizens have been treating Mr. Jiang’s death as an end of a “Golden Age.” While Mr. Jiang was no saint (lets remember, this was the man who happily used the full weight of the Chinese state to crush a Tai-Chi club known as the Falun Gung Sect), he was had something that few world politicians have – he was wonderfully human. This is especially true when you compare him to his predecessors and successors. Mao and Deng had an almost God-Like status and they their political policies were considered religious messages. China’ current president, Xi Jingping aspires to be like that. Mr. Jiang was, by contrast, a more “human” character.

In a way, Mr. Jiang got lucky. He came to power right after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. China had experienced a bloody crack down and the Western multinationals, who were to play a role in China’s subsequent growth were frightened away. He was chosen partially because he was the least offensive to all the factions in the party. Yet, despite this fact, his era saw China’s economy boom, thus lifting millions out of poverty. He saw China into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the peaceful handover of Hong Kong and Macau. Under Mr. Jiang, China had what one could call a “Virtus” relationship with the USA. China made and sold things to America and then subsequently leant money to America to continue buying Chinese goods. If Western leaders were “fooled” into believing a more prosperous China would make China more liberal, it was because of Mr. Jiang, who got on fabulously with then US President Bill Clinton and George W Bush.

So, how did a man whom everyone expected to be just another colourless bureaucrat achieve so many significant things? I believe that if you take a glance at Mr. Jiang, you could say that it was because he was wonderfully human:

One of the most important factors in his success, was the fact that Mr. Jiang was not intimidated by the competence of others. Perhaps it was because he knew that he didn’t have the charisma of Mao or Deng and that as such, his survival was dependent of getting results, that made him that way. As such, Mr. Jiang backed the blunt speaking Zhu Rongji as Prime Minister. Under Mr. Zhu, the army got of private business, over 40 million jobs in China’s notoriously bloated state sector were slashed and urban housing was privatized. China’s economy boomed, even during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. It was Mr. Zhu who flew to Washington to lobby the Clinton Administration into getting China into the WTO, and this was despite nationalist pressures to shun the West after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed during the Kosovo Campaign. Mr. Jiang was not afraid to back a competent subordinate and let the results speak for themselves. Compare that with the relationship between Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. For Mr. Xi, it’s been about the ideology and Mr. Li, despite a reputation as a competent manager of the economy, was never allowed to do much.

Whilst Mr. Jiang was quite willing to crush any form of dissent that he believed would threaten his power, he had a sense of humour and was not above self-depreciation. His portly figure and oversized glasses gave him, according to Chinese netizens, an appearance of a toad and unlike his current successor, Mr. Jiang did not go to war against toads. Comparing Mr. Jiang to a toad became a token of affection. Comparing Mr. Xi to Winnie the Pooh could, well …….If anything, he appeared comfortable enough with the comparison.

 

 While Mr. Jiang was not exactly a liberal reformer in any sense of the word, he was willing to engage in dialogues and whilst his English was faltering, he was willing to engage in discussions in the language with the American media as can be seen in his famous interview with Mike Wallace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNMH2M_jJ0

 

 His openness with the press wasn’t limited to the American media. Mr. Jiang was willing to engage the press in Hong Kong, which under his watch had become Chinese Sovereign territory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GIj2BVJS2A

 

Mr. Jiang was undoubtedly as ruthless as any of his colleagues. He did crush dissent and all threats that the Chinese Communist party perceived. However, he did bring a certain openness and approachability to governing, which China had never experienced before. Given the current geopolitical tensions between China and the Western world, it might seem hard to remember that both China and the West did enjoy a workable relationship. Mr. Jiang deserves credit for getting the Chinese hand to clap in that relationship. In an increasing polarized world, Mr. Jiang’s conciliatory approach will be missed.

Namaste – Ni Hao

 I have to admit that I am not great with languages, even though my social circle at university believed that you were not really educated if you could only communicate in one language and speaking English and something else didn’t count as being bilingual. The only language that operates completely in, is English with German coming a distant second (I speak it well enough to be understood and I can read and write in German but a very basic level.) I can, if push comes to shove, get by in conversational Cantonese (it’s the language I used with my paternal grandma) and Mandarin (thanks to Donald Trump and Brexit, I realized that having some capability of Mandarin would be sensible). However, I am not multilingual and when compared to the guys I was closest with at university, I am a lout.

So, to cover the fact that I am uneducated lout who is only operational in English, I developed something of a means of covering this inadequacy – I learnt key words in many languages. So, whilst I don’t speak anything much other than English, I know how to pepper a conversation with many phrases from different languages, thus sounding more intelligent that I actually am.

Interestingly enough, this “party gag” of mine seems to work exceedingly well in Singapore, which is officially proud of educating a “bilingual population.” I remember attending a Saudi National Day function and dropping the various Arabic expressions (mainly the ones relating to God). The Saudi’s seemed to appreciate the fact that I was using what little I knew of their language in the right context but more importantly, I actually received an email from a young lady who worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gushing over my command of the Arabic language.

This dropping of “foreign” words into the conversation took a particularly interesting turn tonight at a networking function I attended. Ran into an Indian lawyer who works for an international law firm. Although I don’t speak Hindi, I watch enough Bollywood movies to pick up a few words and so I proceeded to use what I had picked up from Bollywood cinema on this chap. Managed to break the ice. Then, he proceeded to do one better by admitting that although he’s ethnic Indian, he’s actually a citizen of Hong Kong and it turns out that his “other languages” are Cantonese and Mandarin.

What both of us concluded was the fact that using a language other than your own is a great opener. I think of a speaker at my lower sixth current affairs who mentioned that people become more receptive towards you when they see that you are trying to reach out to them on their terms. I’ve always kept that in mind and although nearly all my negotiations in life are in English, I try, from time to time to say something in another language. It gives the other side the impression that I do understand them.

 

 Copyright Hays – When you make the effort to communicate in a language other than your own, you demonstrate a willingness to meet the other side on their terms.

I’ve found this especially true in two particular scenarios. The first comes from my days in the Bistrot when European customers came in and I could greet them in German, French or Italian. I like to think that this made me stand out as an Asian boy who realises that White People are actually more than a single group only capable of speaking English and I was rewarded with customers who spent a lot of money with me.

The second area comes when I deal with foreign workers in my day job. These guys are usually in a pickle by the time they see me. Dropping that odd word or two in Bengali or Tamil helps give the impression that I am prepared to try to understand them.

There is a caveat to this and that is that only works when it comes to a language that nobody expects you to speak. My new friend had a similar life experience growing up. Everyone expects him to speak Hindi. Nobody expects him to speak Cantonese or Mandarin. The same has been true for me. Nobody expects me to know a European language other than English. Nobody expects me to know anything of Arabic or Hindi. Everyone expects me to know Mandarin or, much to my Mum’s annoyance, everyone in Singapore thinks my natural state is Hokkien (minus the usual curse words).

Still, that’s no reason not to try and make the effort to communicate in something other than what you’re used to. Linguistic chauvinism has to be the stupidest things around since cigarette smugglers voted to leave the block that made their trade legal. I think of all the idiots yelling “SPEAK ENGLISH – you’re in……” with a sense of pity because it’s a sign that your mind is limited and that is definitely not something to be proud of.  

Will You Give This Up Over One Slap? – Blood Sisters

 

I recently finished watching a Nollywood film called Blood Sisters, which centred around two best friends who ended up running from the law because they killed the finance of one of them, who happened to be abusing her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9sSydb5ec8

 

 The key driver in the story is the fact that the abusive finance is from a powerful family – powerful enough to tell the police what the conclusion of their investigation should be and they know that if the matriarch of the family chooses to make them disappear, the police would happily oblige. The power of this family is such that when the girl who is being abused tells her mother that she can’t go through the marriage because the guy has been hitting her, the mother proceeds to tell her not to be selfish because her father’s business depends on the man’s family and the fact remains, the girl will be “taken care off” in the material sense. Her mother’s line is “will you give all this up over one slap.”

If you look at this incident in this Nollywood series, you’ll realise that the human being has an incredible ability to tolerate abuse if he or she believes that there’s a material benefit and the line “All this over one slap” can applied to anything. In Singapore, this problem is most commonly found in the are of migrant labour. Every justification for mistreating migrant workers works along of the line that whatever we’re doing (unsafe transportation, unsanitary living conditions etc) are just “one slap” and the jobs that the migrant workers do and the salaries they are paid is the “all of this” in the equation.

Generally speaking, the argument covers a lot of things. Migrant workers do put up with their lot in life because they are getting “all of this,” and are not going to complain about “one-slap.” Since nobody complains, everyone assumes that the situation is not abuse.

However, what nobody seems to understand is the fact that just because nobody complains about a situation, it doesn’t mean that the situation is alright. In the show, the situation starts when the girl tells her finance that she won’t marry him because her best friend has the made the point to her that if she forgives her finance for “one-slap” it will be a lifetime of slaps for her.

The question is inevitably where does the line get drawn and in the case of “abusive” behaviour, it usually doesn’t stop at “one-slap,” and it’s been found that if wounds from abuse are left untreated, they inevitably fester and the problem ends up worse. Take the issue of unsanitary conditions in the worker dormitories as an example. The unsanitary conditions in the dorms are the proverbial “one-slap” that the workers put up with because they are getting “all of this” in return. Since nobody complains, nobody deals with the underlying problem. When Covid hit, the dormitories proved to be breeding grounds for the disease and the government has struggled to get the situation under control (so much so that the Minister of Manpower still won’t enter a dormitory unless he’s in a hazmat suite).

We need to find a way of understanding that issues don’t go away because nobody complains. We need to understand that when people complain, they are doing us a service by pointing out that underlying issues exist and need to be addressed. Changing the culture that listens to criticisms is not rocking the boat but ensuring things constantly improve.