Tapping on the Diaspora

I mentioned that I met Professor Yu Wei Shin, nearly a month ago in my piece “I KNOW I AM ATTRACTIVE – I JUST DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ATTRACTIVE TO.” (15 July 2020), via my Linkedin feed. Professor Yu had mentioned that he had read my pieces on TRemeritus and that he was an ex-Singaporean. My brief acquaintance with Professor Yu got me thinking about who these ex-Singaporeans are and whether we as a nation could tap onto people like him. I’ve invited him to give us a glimpse into his life and his feelings towards Singapore. In the brief glimpses that I’ve had of the man, it is clear that Singapore is failing to make the full use of our diaspora. Here is a well-educated man, who is building a high-tech product in his later years (A point I stress as Singapore is a place that considers you ancient and useless after 45).

The Professor has given me a short blurb, which I hope you will enjoy.

Tang Li – Singapore 20 July 2020

According to reports in Singapore’s Parliament, there are around 1,000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship every year. Many of those who have given up their citizenship and moved elsewhere are well-educated and found success in their new homes. Many also yearn to return to Singapore to share their accumulated knowledge, skills and experience, to semi-retirement, which they would do so at no cost to the tax payer.

Unfortunately, our current immigration system does not recognize that there might be a diaspora out there who could do many things for Singapore. Once you leave and renounce your citizenship, you are deemed to be like every other foreigner and if you wish to return to Singapore to work, you need to apply for an Employment Pass. In my experience, this is a discriminatory process. Ex-citizens are regarded as “traitors” for having the audacity to give up their citizenship and the system seems to prefer those who never had ties to Singapore coming in. I take myself as an example, despite have two PhD’s and conducted ground breaking scientific trials, I was advised twice “Do not apply, and if you do, your application will be rejected.”

This is sad. I think of other countries that have prospered because they tapped on the skills, experiences and even capital of their diaspora. China, for example, tapped on the diaspora in its early stages of development. India has a system known as the “Persons of Indian Origin” (PIO) card, which makes it easier for anyone of Indian origin, regardless of passport to come and contribute something to India.

Why do most of us give up our citizenship? We do so for a variety of reasons and I believe that most, if not all, of us give up our citizenship as a last resort. However, our heart is still very much anchored in Singapore- a little red dot of their forefathers, and where they were born and spent many years growing up. 

In my case, my father is Singaporean, though he returned to China to die. I was born and grew up in Malaysia, went to New Zealand to study, worked, then immigrated to Australia to work, before coming to NTU to teach in 1984.   You could say Singapore got a good deal from me. None of my education was paid for by the Singapore tax payer and I came with a PhD and with 10 years heavy engineering industrial experience. Apart from my 19 years of lecturing, I was very active as town councilor (in charge of environment matters), presidents of learned societies and consultancy to SME's, PSA, Philips, Seagate, Mobil Oil, Mindef, MFA, CleanSeas,

I only applied for Australian citizenship because of my mother's dying wish and my wish is to return to SERVE SINGAPORE UNINTERRUPTED!

While I may have renounced my Singapore Citizenship, I’ve been able to contribute in the following ways:

1.     At 56, I studied Master of Occupational Therapy at the University of Sydny and then PhD (Medicine) at University of New South Wales, graduating at 60 years, so that I can help solve some of the chronic disorders of the elderly in Singapore (-- stroke, elderly falls, etc).

2.     Even before I graduated, I returned and conducted a major clinical trial for hip fracture prevention together with Tan Tock Seng Hospital, for several hundred HDB residents, under a Government grant, using Prof Cameron's hip protector invention (USyd).  He is the internationally renowned "Father of Hip Protector".

3.     From 2012-2016, I returned as Visiting Consultant at Nanyang Polytechnic, and conducted 3 major clinical trials with TTSH using my invention: Robotic Lower Limb Rehab System, for sub-acute and chronic stroke patients, and elderly falls prevention -- all very successful!

4.     Now, together with my PhD university mate Dr Wong (www.apppliedrobotics.com.au), and Nanyang Polytechnic, I am inventing a revolutionary wheelchair system that even the Brits have no solution. It will solve many of the social economic problems in Singapore and beyond, ease the manpower shortages in nursing homes and hospitals and create many skilled jobs in Singapore!

5.     Going forward, we plan to establish a virtual Disabled Mobility Technology Research Centre, combining the expertise of University of Wollongong in Australia and NYP. 

Singapore spends millions on educating and nurturing "foreign talents" in its education system. We work hard to attract expatriates from the West and India.  We should also not overlook people like me. We have the talent and the desire to serve. Why can’t you make it easier for us, people who have the established emotional connection to come back to contribute?

Incidentally, my father served in the British Navy to defend Singapore during the war and suffered PTSD, which lead to family violence and divorce! Also, two of my children were born in Singapore, and three of them attended primary and secondary schools in Singapore. It hurts to be told on twice, "do not apply, and if you do, your application will be rejected"???

Prof YU Wei Shin
PhD(Medicine)(UNSW), PhD(Mech ENgg)(Canterbury, (BE(Hons)
Sydney

“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.  

Bullshit Jobs – Chances for Misfits

One of the things about the internet and the advent of social media is the creation of what some people would call bullshit jobs. For someone like me, a misfit who screwed up a traditional career, the creation of bullshit jobs was a godsend of sorts. We, the world’s misfits, suddenly had an avenue to express ourselves, build a personal brand and in some cases make a few pennies (the more successful ones have made a lot of money)

I started blogging back in 2006. I started the blog with no particular vision in mind and back when PR work was plentiful, blogging it didn’t occur to me that blogging could be anything more than a place to store my rants or at least the rants that the mainstream would not publish (this being in the days when the mainstream offered stringers a few dollars for their rants.)

For me, I only looked at blogging as a potential source of income much later. It was at a stage when I noticed that I had a follower or two and the numbers started going up. While my adsense account is currently suspended, I did notice that my income could go from a few cents a month if at all to about a dollar or two on monthly basis. I’m not making enough to give up anything else but I figured that getting a few pennies here and there for something I’m going to do anyway is better than not getting anything at all. I’ve also reached the stage where I ask for the odd donation from readers, though I’ve not been terribly successful at this.

Despite not earning enough, blogging has helped get my name about and its always good to have a place where people might find you. One day, I hope blogging might help finance an old age pension when the body is no longer able to wait tables and nobody in corporate wants an old dude.

While I was a gradual convert to blogging and volgging as a job late in life, I’ve been following guys who have been very successful at it. Watching this makes me wonder how things could have turned out if I took the plunge and set my mind earlier on.

 One of the guys that I follow from time to time is a guy called Sam Chui, who reviews first class seats on airplanes. He’s living the life that most can only dream of. I, for example, can only look at internet pictures of first-class cabins and indulge in fantasies. At this stage in life, I wouldn’t fly in Etihad’s residences because even if I had US$20,000 to spare, I’d be thinking of things like paying down debts like the mortgage. However, it’s nice to see one’s dreams in action and I wonder what life would be like if I could actually get paid to live the high life. A sample of Sam’s videos can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN1q2NCNRPg

Another fellow that I’ve grown very fond of is a little Jewish boy called Drew Binsky, who decided early in life that he wanted to travel to every country in the world. He’s managed to do it by making travel videos.

While Sam Chui lives the life of luxury, Drew Binsky does things at the ground level and I like the fact that he likes to portray the optimistic side of the places he’s been to. In a way, he’s doing important work by showing us that we’re probably more similar in our wants and needs than in our differences. One of the videos that I remember is the one on why this American Jewish boy loves Muslim majority nations. Amongst his favourite places are Iran and Syria, not exactly the place where you’d expect an American Jewish boy would be welcomed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxJiBNXtjZI; and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4NfkKCqDQk

Mr. Binsky’s videos are a god send in a world dedicated to stressing the differences between cultures and stressing the need for conflict. Mr. Binsky is doing us a service by showing us people at a ground level:

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

The other things that I give Mr. Binsky is the fact that he tries to get a picture of what the cost of living is like so that his Western audience can understand costs of living elsewhere. One of his main themes is what US$10 can get you in various places. Take a look at the following videos:

Madurai, India - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugwDTDwb6Vc ;

Lagos, Nigeria - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrRLCoKmLLA; and

Karachi, Pakistan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrRLCoKmLLA

There’s something appealing about people having the ability to do what they love and being able to earn a living from it. The age of so called “Bullshit” jobs has shown us that the standard nine to five or nine to six in an office is not the only way that one has to live.

However, while the idea of getting paid to live your dreams is appealing, it’s also a lot of hard work and quite often you have to find your earnings elsewhere. I remember Alex Au telling me to not think about monetizing my blog for the very reason that I’d be beholden to my paymasters, thus not being able to be truly independent.  However, I’m in the “social commentary” business, which is notoriously unrewarding in the financial sense. There are other spaces where people have made a decent living. It is, however tough work as Mr. Binsky explains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS4bXlN2Ovw;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FfDJFAgVI0

The key to success in a “bullshit” job of being a blogger or vlogger is content and traffic. The higher the traffic, the more you can get out of the people who pay. However, this takes time and effort to develop.

The creation of bullshit jobs has helped the world. It has created an avenue for those who didn’t fit into the standard corporate world. It has created happiness, which is something we should all celebrate.

Awfulness and Stupidity - the Second Mover Advantage

One of the things that used to irk American policy makers was the fact that their Asian bugbear at the time, was Japan, which had a talent of copying everything that the Americans invented and making them cheaper and, in many cases, better. The most noticeable was in the automobile industry, where the likes of Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi ended up bruising the Detroit Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) in their domestic market.

What the Japanese demonstrated was called “Second Mover” advantage and rather than inventing brand-new things, they found a way of improving on what existed. As is often said in the area of work place efficiency, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you can use what you already have.

There are lots of examples of how the second mover has gone onto surpass the original. 

Unfortunately, for many people at risk of getting coronavirus or being suffocated by burning forest, the most prominent second mover is Mr. Jair Bolsonaro, a proud Trump imitator who revels in the name of “Trump of the Tropics,” and has a secondary job of being President of Brazil.

While Mr. Bolsonaro has not made the headlines that the original Trump sitting in the North of the Rio Grande has, he’s had a way of surpassing the original in the things he says and does. It should also be said that while Brazil isn’t the world power that the US is, it is a country that counts. Brazil is the “B” in the “BRICS,” and with an area of 8,515,767 square kilometres, it is the fifth largest country in the world and its population of 210,147,125 it is the sixth most populous nation on the planet. Brazil’s nominal economy is estimated at 1.86 trillion US dollars, making it the ninth largest economy. It is by far and away the country that counts in South America. In the pre-Bolsonaro days, Brazil was regarded as the most benign of the BRICS. Here was a large market with lots of resources. However, unlike China, Brazil is democracy that values human life, unlike South Africa had something other than natural resources and unlike India, it was comparatively free of communal strife.

Mr. Bolsonaro has decided that these things were a crock of shit and that ordinary Brazilians were being screwed for being nice to the rest of the world. It helped that his predecessors had legal issues (euphemism for being corrupt) and Mr. Bolsonaro, like his idol in the North of the Rio Grande was swept into power on the promise to make things right for Brazil’s poor.

His first decision of helping Brazil’s poor was to allow the Amazon Forrest. Mr. Bolsonaro used to line that we’ve grown very used to in Southeast Asia – economic development takes priority over preserving the environment. In other words, we’re going to get rich whether the lefties in the West like it or not. The result has devastated much of South America, covering neighbours in a smog like haze, which many of us in Southeast Asia are familiar with and potential natural resources provided by the forest have been squandered.

When French President, Emanuel Macron called him out on this, Mr. Bolsonaro publicly announced that the French President was merely jealous because his wife was better looking, which had nothing to do with the issue at hand but seemed to satisfy a certain sense of lost masculinity in Bolsonaro voters.

Mr. Bolsonaro, like Mr. Trump had the good fortune to preside over an improving economy and so the masses forgave him. The covid-19 struck and the truth of Mr. Bolsonaro’s tough guy with a heart for the people was revealed.

While the Original in the North tried to downplay the seriousness of the virus and then started looking for scapegoats and then prescribed unproven cures, Mr. Bolsonaro has been remarkably constant in his handling of covid 19. That is, he’s been remarkably consistent about disregarding the reality of the devastation brought about by the virus. Despite losing his health minister and justice minister, Mr. Bolsonaro has decided that it is perfectly acceptable to trash the advice of his own healthcare officials. Mr. Bolsonaro refuses to stay in orders, attends rallies and likes his big crowds. As with his hero in the North, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters blame the “left win” media for trying to tarnish their hero.

Where Mr. Bolsonaro outdoes the original Mr. Trump is in his belief that the virus is no big deal. The Trump and his supporters when down playing deaths caused by the virus at least make the effort in giving their nonchalance a little bit of context, such as “more people are killed by the flue” etc.

Mr. Bolsonaro is quite open about the fact that he really doesn’t care about the deaths caused by covid-19 and the potential risk to national health. As Brazil’s death toll reached past 5,000 – his only thoughts were “So What?” More can be found at:

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/so-what-bolsonaro-shrugs-off-brazil-rising-coronavirus-death-toll

Another area in which Mr. Bolsonaro trumps the Trump is in the way in which he encourages the public to undermine stay at home orders. While Mr. Trump tweets his encouragement for protestors against stay home orders, Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army officer, has lead from the front and gone as far as to call for the military to intervene (though, as President, one wonders why he’s calling from the military to intervene, when as President, he could order the military to do so). More can be seen at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/brazil-bolsonaro-joins-protest-coronavirus-curbs-200420042616860.html

Unlike the US, which was born as a democracy and had 200-years to build its institutions, Brazil has on the scale of things only just achieved things that make society prosperous like a government for the people and rule of law. Mr. Bolsonaro is working to undermine these things, which cannot be good for Brazil, South America or even the wider world.

At the time of writing, Brazil has 102 thousand cases and over seven thousand people have died.  It looks like Mr. Bolsonaro is trying to catch up and perhaps surpass his hero in the North of the Rio Grande. This cannot be good news for Brazil’s poor in the overcrowded favellas.  

What is the problem exactly?

The Singapore Government, which was praised as the gold standard in managing the coronavirus has been struggling to show that it has grip on things. The dramatic spike in cases of coronavirus has come from the one area that was simply ignored – in the areas that were housing Singapore’s vast number of foreign workers.

In fairness to the Singapore Government, it has scrambled to take care of this sudden nightmare, offering to house and feed the workers. Unfortunately, this has placed the government in the cross hairs of two conflicting groups. The first group is the group that thinks the government is doing too much for the foreign workers and pampering them. The other thinks that the government is making a royal hash of things. This conflict is best exemplified by the recent outcry over the provision of meals to the workers, which can be found at:

http://theindependent.sg/photos-of-govt-provided-meals-for-foreign-workers-thrown-in-trash-explained/

The outcry over meals provided to the foreign workers has gotten the Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Mr. Zaqy Mohammad (as a matter of full disclosure, I know Mr. Zaqy on a personal basis and once organized a training session for his grassroots leaders), trying to explain the logistical issues in providing food for over 200,000 workers. The story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/dorm-meals-are-getting-better-zaqy

Reading these stories makes me ask, “What exactly is the problem that we have when it comes to dealing with dark skinned people from poor countries?” Singapore is a wonderfully efficient and comfortable society in so many ways. I remember a young Englishman who is married to one of my favourite reporters from the BBC Asian Business report, telling me that his life is actually pretty good. He pointed out that Singapore, while small, is in the centre of so many things and unlike England, you actually start dealing with things at a national and international level as opposed to having to go through counties and so on.

Unfortunately, its very different when you it comes to dealing with the guys working at the bottom of the proverbial heap. This isn’t the first time when our society has had problems coping with the idea that people from third world countries doing menial jobs are entitled to the same things like food and rest like the rest of us.

Think of the time when the government had to step and mandate that domestic workers get one day a week off all the way back in 2012:

https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-domestic-worker/employers-guide/rest-days-and-well-being

Apparently, giving a maid a day off was a challenge for some people, who reasoned that if they allowed their maids to have a day off, they would end up in “bad company:”

http://twc2.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Madetowork-Dayoff-Report-2011.pdf

Now that the maids have a day off, the visible sight of maids and dare I say, construction workers “chilling out” in public places like parks offends the sensibilities of our local population:

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2155193/singapore-domestic-helpers-day-park-rankles-some-residents-who-complain

The most prominent example of how the sight of poor people having a good time offending our local population came from my favorite young pork guzzling on a Ramdan day Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who once exclaimed, “The workers are terrible, they have sex with maids.” I had to explain to him that workers and maids had urges too and just as nobody complained about his sex life, there was no reason why he should complain about the sex lives of workers and maids. I’m glad to report that a spell at university in Australia has helped him understand the human perspective and the fact that idea that workers in menial jobs are also humans is not a leftist conspiracy.

Seriously, why is it so difficult for us to understand that construction workers and maids are human beings too and worthy of basics like having a day out to chill and being fed a decent meal after a hard day of work? It’s that simple. I cannot stress enough times that nobody is asking for “special treatment.” Let’s note that with the exception of the 201s strike by bus drivers from China (which was a justified protest against race based pay), none of our foreign workers have actively protested and demanded higher wages (though they have protested not being paid for work done, which, contrary to what a few members of our local population may think – is not a strange thing to protest.)

If we can get around the idea that people from third world countries are as human as we are, we may solve a lot more issues. If for example, we understood that cramming a group of grown men into a small room, after working 12 to 15 hours a day in the hot sun paying $10 per person per day for the bed space was not an acceptable way of housing people, we wouldn’t to quarantine them and have the logistical issue of feeding them.

Again, nobody is asking to be pampered. Nobody is asking for extra comforts. They are just asking for some basic rest and nourishing meal after a hard day of work. Letting them have these simple things in our self-interest as it allows them to work more energetically and productively for us.