Everything has a Place

 

I am currently in London for a conference, which my employer is sponsoring. One of the lucky perks of being on corporate travel, is that my accommodation has been special. I am currently staying in the WarrenHouse Hotel, which is a lovely Victorian Era property which was converted into a boutique hotel. You could say that Warren House is very much part of the England that I would happily move back to at a drop of a hat (which to the relief of an English solicitor I met, I am aware that this is not the only part of England – there’s a part I would rather avoid).

Whilst Warren House isn’t as “grand” as the Westin in Jakarta (where I stayed in an earlier corporate trip), its cozy and everything in well done. It’s the type of place that would be perfect for a wedding venue (not that I am wishing the kid to get married anytime soon). Facilities are decent and, given that I have a foodie website, food is good.

My first meal at the hotel, was a full English breakfast (which consist of eggs, beans, sausage, mushrooms, hash browns and fried bread). I mean, when you’re in England, it would be a sin not to have a “Full English Breakfast.”

Meal was served in an elegant plate. Everything was “just right.” Eggs were poached as per request, mushrooms and bacon were flavourful

This version of an English Breakfast was exquisite and in terms of the quality of food, it beat the full English Breakfast that I had nearly six-months back when I was in Margate for my sister’s wedding. This was my first real English Breakfast in 23-years and it in a “Greasy Spoon,” which was ironically owned by Turks. The food was, well, I guess, the very reason why certain places are known as “Greasy Spoons.”

I’ve actually made a TikTok video on the comparison between Warren House Full English Breakfast and the Greasy Spoon Breakfast:

https://www.tiktok.com/@tang.li0/video/7306660498836147464

 

 Whilst there was no comparison in which breakfast was of a better quality, there was something strangely appealing about the breakfast in the greasy spoon, which the nice hotel didn’t have.

Then, I realized it was the experience. Most of us are going to have the full English breakfast in a greasy spoon. Greasy spoons are places that create memories of a certain community. They are places that have their stories and places where communities come together. If I think about it, the word that I should have used, was refinement. Eating in a hotel was definitely more refined. However, was it necessarily better?

This comparison struck me because I am from Singapore where the world’s highest paid ministers have made comparisons between dishes made in luxury restaurants and in the hawker centre. If I am not wrong, the minister who used this analogy was trying to argue that you had to pay more for the minister because the minister was “better.”

The truth is this, we do may more for certain luxuries because luxuries are made of a certain quality. A Rolls Royce will always be several notches above a Proton Saga. You pay for the experience of being a Rolls.

However, that doesn’t mean the Proton saga is complete rubbish. Like the Greasy Spoon or a hawker centre, it has its place and for certain things its actually better than a Rolls.

So, when we look at things, we need to look at the entire picture. We need to understand that everything has a place and a market. The refined stuff may not necessarily be better at everything every purpose.

Let’s go back to my Full English Breakfast. The food was much better in the hotel. However, it didn’t bring a community together in the same way that the greasy spoon did. Both were the same dish but serving a different purpose.

So, when we look at people, let’s look beyond the superficial and talk about who is better based on how much they have or where they were born. Let’s look at their purpose just like we do between the hotel and the greasy spoon.

 

She Should Never Have Been There in the First Place

 I’ve been lucky enough to know a few people in my life who happen to know some prominent people. So, thanks to social media, I am, on an occasion lucky enough to get the news feed about a posting made by someone prominent. One of the luckiest gems came from Lord Simon Woolley, who is a British politician currently serving in the House of Lords and is the Principle of Homerton College Cambridge. Lord Wooley’s post was on the sacking of former British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman and a copy of his posting is appended below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lord-simon-woolley-387611119/recent-activity/all/

 

 Taken from the Linkedin Page of Lord Simon Woolley

I agree with Lord Woolley. Ms. Braverman who has become probably the first person to get sacked from the same job by two different Prime Ministers, has been something of a controversial figure who has gone out of her way to pander to the worst in human nature.

You could say that Ms. Braverman had given herself a religious mission to save the United Kingdom from the very people who were more than willing to help the United Kingdom by working hard – namely anyone fleeing a war zone or anyone with South Asian ancestry. Ms. Braverman is the person who declared it was her dream to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and blamed those of Pakistani origin of forming “grooming gangs.” A list of Ms. Braverman’s controversies can be found at:

https://news.sky.com/story/suella-braverman-speeding-row-the-latest-in-a-long-line-of-controversies-12886789#:~:text=Ms%20Braverman%20also%20attracted%20controversy,to%20get%20off%20the%20ground.

The straw that finally broke the proverbial camel’s back and got her the sack was when she criticized the British police force for being “too lenient” on Pro-Palestinian protestors:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/13/uk-minister-suella-braverman-fired-heres-what-to-know

 

 Leaving aside one’s views of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is an obvious violation of every ethics code. Citizens of countries that claim to be democratic have a right to protest for whatever they want and the role of the police is simple – they’re there to ensure that violence does not break out between rival protestors. The rules are supposed to be simple – you can protest, march, wear signs etc etc as long as you don’t get violent in your protest with the people protesting against what you are protesting and you don’t call for the extermination of anyone.

Having the person who is nominally in charge of ensuring law and order talk about how the police were too lenient or “not harsh enough” on one side or the other is obviously a violation of that understanding. It should be a “no-brainer” that Mr. Sunak, her boss would have had to sack her.

While the sacking of Ms. Braverman was long overdue, the question is – why was she appointed as Home Secretary in the first place. It’s not that this was Ms. Braverman’s first stint in the home office and Mr. Sunak cannot claim that he didn’t know what she was like. Ms. Braverman who held the job under Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, had to leave the job because she couldn’t follow basic security rules when it came to her official communications. This should have been a red flag against bringing Ms. Braverman back to the Home Office. How can you let someone who can’t keep the simplest of rules to a job which is all about enforcing rules.

We got our answer a few days latter when Ms. Braverman started accusing Mr. Sunak of betraying the deal they had made. It turns out that the unelected Mr. Sunak who had lost the first leadership race to Ms. Truss, was so desperate for the top job that he cut a deal with Ms. Braverman to get support when he got his lucky break when Ms. Truss was forced to resign.

This does not speak well for Mr. Sunak, who, judging by his career at top investment banks and his academic credentials at Oxford and Winchester, is an intelligent man. Based on her record, its clear that one doesn’t need an Oxford Degree to know Ms. Braverman in the home office would be a problem. Yet, Mr. Sunak was so keen to get power that he struck the deal with her.

Ms. Braverman is what you call the awful subordinate who reflects poorly on her boss and the fact that she lasted this long only enforces the impression that Mr. Sunak, who claimed to want to run a professional government, has a flawed character. Ms. Braverman’s existence in his cabinet for the length that was only screams that Mr. Sunak is so desperate for power he’ll sacrifice anything resembling common decency to get it. That is not what people look for in a leader.

The Least; the Last and the Lost

 

My 84-year-old mother-in-law is a devout Catholic and as a result, I’ve had to spend most of my Sunday’s taking her to mass every Sunday evening at Novena Church. Although I am not Catholic (I am a Buddhist student of Christian Theology who has inevitably been blessed by Muslims, Jains and Hindus) I listen in and take in what’s being said. Today’s priest came up with what I thought was a valuable soundbite, which everyone seems to forget.

The service was about the “end of times,” or Judgement Day when Christ returns to judge humanity and the righteous are supposed to be resurrected. The priest made the valuable point that judgement day is not about a check list of how many commandments you broke and kept but about how you treated people, specifically the least, the last and the lost.

What made this resonate with me, is the fact that it seemed to touch on who Christ is and for that matter the Christian and just about every other religion. Read the Gospels and you will notice that Christ is a champion of the downtrodden. He is the ultimate rebel who showed up the respected members of society like the scribes and the pharisees for being hypocrites of the worst sort and offered to solace to the downtrodden like the fishermen, the tax collectors and prostitutes. The man wasn’t interested in collecting money from his followers but told the rich to sell all their possessions to become followers of his. Christ is the first God in human history who made suffering part of the ultimate divine glory:

 

 The King of Kings Showed us that Salvation was in Suffering and Sacrifice

I bring up this beautiful sound bite of the Least; the Last and the Lost because too many people get carried away with what I believe is the “wrong” thing (which I am aware makes me sound as dogmatic as the people I’m slagging off). Too many people get carried away with what I would call the “magic” of religion. Its as if you religion is a bargain where you pray to this or that God in the hope that by doing a certain number of prayers you will get health, wealth and happiness.

Now, I’m not denying the presence and probability of divine miracles. What I am saying is that the miracles are not actually the important part of the faith. Faith, as the Dalai Lama once said, should make you, “A better person.”

I think of the time I went to meet a Rinpoche in the airport. The man had a small entourage who had organized his trip to Singapore. The coffee session was very enlightening. The entourage had plenty of stories about all sorts of monasteries where there were monks who could do all sorts of miraculous things because they meditated on this way or that for decades of their lives and thus achieved so much merit.

Whilst these guys had plenty to say, the Rinpoche (who is supposed to be a living reincarnation who remembers his last life like it was yesterday) sat there looking rather bemused and whenever someone asked him about the magic, promptly said he didn’t know anything.

Now, this is a harmless story about people being focused on the wrong thing. It’s funny and cute in a certain way. What is not funny is when the focus on the magic becomes public policy and it comes a tool of oppression against the very people that just about every religion claim to champion. Think of India, which is officially secular but contains most of the world’s Hindus. Whilst the concept of “Untouchability” has long been abolished in the Indian constitution and legal system, you still get a large segment of the population getting the s**t kicked out of them because someone many thousands of years ago considered them unclean. Economic reforms have been doing their work in uplifting people beyond cast beliefs but its not happening fast enough.

Then, there’s the proverbial Holy Land to the Abrahamic Faiths. Three religions call this spot of the desert Holy and yet a host of very Unholy Things keep happening there in the name of the one God that all three religions claim as theirs.

If you leave you the main protagonist of this conflict (namely the Israeli Government and Hamas), you’ll find that the single worst group of people in keeping things in the Holy Land anything but Holy, you’ll find that they are inevitably the Zionist Christians. This refers to the group of Churches that believe that Christ will come again when the Israelis controls all the land. This is a group that has tremendous wealth and power or at least enough power to remind American politicians of both parties about which side they need to support. Hence, whenever a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians breaks out, you’ll find the most powerful man in the world doing what the Prime Minister of a strip of desert tells him to do.

Again, I don’t want to disparage belief in prophecy and whilst my study of theology is rather rusty, I don’t see how supporting a government that has on record killed 0.5 percent of a population of a territory (as reported by the Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/gaza-rising-death-toll-civilians/ ) could be an act of Holiness.

Let’s remember, the Gospels are very clear. Jesus was on the side of the least; the last and the lost. As horrific as the October 7 attacks against Israel are, indiscriminate bombing of people who are the definition of the least; the last and the lost and calling it self-defense if not something Jesus would condone. If anything, the Zionist Churches who are actively supporting the bombings need to ask if getting Jesus to return is in their interest at all.

Rolls Royce Government

 One of the funniest things about living in Singapore is that you often get told off by people from elsewhere whenever you suggest that things in Singapore are less than perfect. If you talk to enough foreigners about Singapore, you’re going to looks of “what are you complaining about,” whenever you try and complain about Singapore. It’s not just the people from the developing world but you get expats from American and Europe pointing out to you that life in Singapore is pretty good. I’ll always remember a Dutch fellow telling me “Singapore – where else is there?” Leave it to our foreign-born friends to make the point that whilst our ministers are highly paid, they’re worth the pennies.

If you leave out the usual gripes of the online crowd, there is a case for saying that the Singapore government has on the whole done a decent job. By and large the majority have plenty to eat and shelter. Our last riot was in 2013 and the one before that was in 1969. When people in London complain about constant train strikes, we in Singapore have experienced a grand total of three (3) major strikes in our history as a modern nation.

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

To enhance the feeling that the Singapore government is the Rolls Royce of Government’s, the faults of the governments in the rest of the region (specifically Malaysia and Indonesia) get highlighted. We’re told that entering the Malaysian state of Johor is to volunteer the get robbed at knife point. A good portion of us will inevitably have stories of being shaken down for bribes in Malaysia and Indonesia which will inevitably be followed up with the point that this simply doesn’t happen in Singapore. I think of IMPact 2013, when the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Teo Chee Hean was asked about Singapore’s high cost. The reply was that other places in the region may look cheaper but there were hidden cost unlike Singapore where “What you see if what you get.”

I don’t doubt that there’s a certain level of low-level corruption in the region which somehow doesn’t exist in Singapore. Not worrying about being shaken down by anyone in a uniform is actually one of the better things about being in Singapore.

However, that doesn’t mean that Singapore is going to be “perfect” forever or that government officials in other parts of the world are necessarily corrupt and incompetent. I’ve started to know this from three international experiences I’ve had recently.

The first round took place around two weeks ago when I had to stand in for my boss at the Restructuring, Insolvency & Governance Conference 2023. The Guest of Honour was Mr. Rabbin Hattari the Permeant Secretary of the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises.

 

 Opening of the Restructuring, Insolvency & Governance Conference 2023

Mr. Hattari speaks fluent English and has PhD in Economics from George Mason University. It becomes clear to anyone who listens to him speak that Mr. Hattari knows what he’s talking about.

One of the things that struck me about listening to Mr. Hattari speak was the fact that he didn’t try to sugar-coat reality. He told the audience that there would be pain in restructuring of state-owned enterprises (people inevitably get fired through no fault of their own). However, he then argued that this was necessary for the long-term health of economy. It would lead to a greater sharing of wealth.

 

 Mr. Hattari sums up his speech

I can’t tell you if every Indonesian official is like Mr. Hattari. However, the fact that Mr. Hattari has got wo where he has is a good sign for Indonesia. ASEAN’s largest economy is slowly but surely getting its governance right if it is getting people like Mr. Hattari into prominent enough positions. It won’t happen overnight, but there are reasons for Indonesians to feel optimistic about the future of its governance.

If Indonesia had reasons for some optimism, I was stunned by Kazakhstan, the land that too many of us know as Borat’s homeland. I had the privilege of being invited by the Kazakh Embassy to a conference on the Astana International Financial Centre (AFIC), which is modeled on the Dubai international Financial Centre (DIFC). The Governor of the AIFC, Mr. Renat Bekturov, who has a Master’s Degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Leicester proceeded to outline what Kazakhstan was doing to attract investment.

 

 Renat Bekturov, Governor of Astana International Financial Centre provides a list of what’s on offer

Some of the things includes things like:

1.     Presidential terms of now limited to a single seven-year term;

2.     Direct relatives of the president are not allowed to work for the government;

3.     Language of commerce in the AIFC is English;

4.     Law in the AIFC is English Common Law; and

5.     Judges are hired from the UK.

 

 The things on offer for Investors in Kazakhstan

It struck me that the Kazakhs had understood that having rules was essential to success and ironically this conference took place at a time when “super-strict” Singapore was loosening the rules on ministers and the president doing things beyond their jobs:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-proposes-new-laws-president-ministers-hold-roles-foreign-and-global-organisations-3899721

 

 

 With the Governor of the AIFC

Since I didn’t go to Dubai this week, I went to the Poland-ASEAN Fintech Forum, which was held at the Singapore Business Federation Building today (14 November 2023). The point was made that Poland, which was effectively part of the Soviet Block 33-years ago, has now got a modern infrastructure where Fintech companies can be built:

 

 

 The state of the Polish IT scene:

The Executive Vice-President of the Polish Association of Banks, Mr. Wlodzimierz Kicinski, actually talked about trying to export “Blik,” Poland’s payment system into Central Europe and beyond:

 

 With the Executive Vice-President of the Polish Bank Association:

The message is clear. Places that were once poor and desolate are waking up to the importance of having good people in government. Their transformation won’t be easy. It won’t be as fast as it was in Singapore (let’s never forget that Singapore is a tiny place where its easy to control) but if they keep on this path, there’s no reason to suggests why they won’t be able to achieve prosperity and stability.

As Singaporeans, we can no longer assume that we will have the Rolls Royce of governments (if we actually had one in the first place). Its therefore imperative that we always ensure that our government machinery is always top notch. The rest of the world wants to catch up and they are taking the right steps.

Let the Lights Shine

 This is what you could call an aspirational piece which came about because it so happened that today is the official celebration of Diwali or Deepavali, the Hindu Festival of Light. This ancient festival is the celebration of the triumph of the light over darkness.

 

 Celebrating the moment when light overcame darkness

By coincidence, this was also Remembrance Sunday, the day in which the world marked the end of the First World War. This was a pivotal moment in world history because nobody had seen a war as bloody and as miserable and as destructive as World War One. The Western World (which was at the time the centre of global decisions) was shocked and various leaders like US President Woodrow Wilson vowed that they would do everything to ensure that the world would never see anything as destructive as a World War. You could say that the ending of World War One was the first major instance in modern history where global leaders saw the light and tried to avoid going back to the darkness of war.

 

 Was this the First Festival of Light?

Whilst history shows that the world leaders who vowed to avoid another war as bad as the First World War would fail in their efforts, the world seemed to get the message after the Second World War. For all its failures, the United Nations has done what its predecessor, the League of Nations failed to do – it has endured and whilst the UN has by no means been super successful, it has help keep things under control. In Europe, which was the continent where both World Wars started, there was the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), which would eventually lead to the European Union. The original idea behind the EEC was simple – ensure that the France and Germany would tie their economic interest so closely together that they would never go to war (Franco-German rivalry being at the heart of both World Wars).

For all its faults, the EU has succeeded brilliantly in its original aim. Today, nobody living in Western Europe can conceive of a war breaking out on the continent. Two generations ago, nobody could have conceived of Western Europe being at peace for any period of time.

It would seem that humanity valued light over darkness. Sure, there’ve been plenty of nasty conflicts around the world. I’m old enough to remember when we cheered the end of the Cold War but then we the daily news became about the slaughter in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. However, by and large, the conflicts that we’ve seen since 1945 have been contained and as awful as they’ve been, they didn’t get worse.

However, things look like they could be changing. Today, you have the Russians in Ukraine. Suddenly, the thought of a great power conflict breaking out has stopped looking so remote. Then, if the Russian invasion of Ukraine wasn’t bad enough, you had the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which has led to the even more brutal Israeli response in the Gaza strip.

Slaughter, which was once a word that people dreaded saying, has become sanitized and part of everyday speech. Politicians who never saw day in combat have discovered that they can appear manly (they usually are) if they talk tough and send the troops out to die. So, here’s the question, why do we seem to be heading back into the darkness of the 1920s and 1930s?

I guess there are a multitude of reasons and those are best left to the intelligentsia to list out. However, I would argue that the problem is that we’ve become so used to living in the light that we forget what the darkness looked like or that darkness looks and feels attractive or at least something to be glamourized. To many people with the wrong outlook in life are getting into positions were playing with lives seems like fun rather than serious business.

Take the Israeli example. We’ve gone from Yitzhak Rabin to Bibi Netanyahu. Mr. Rabin got us the Oslo Accords. Bibi built his entire career on condemning the Oslo Accords to history. While Bibi Netanyahu did serve in a combat unit, he was never a “real solider” in the same way that Mr. Rabin was. Yitzhak Rabin fought in wars. He knew what the darkness looked like and so he worked to bring the light.

We need leaders who have been in the darkness because they know the difference between light and dark. People like Mr. Rabin in Israel knew that he had to sell certain sacrifices to ensure Israel would be safe. In Rwanda there was a darkness and you had a leader who knew what that darkness looked like, and so, whilst Rwanda is not a rich country, it’s been trying to get into the light.

We need leaders who know the darkness and know they have to get us into the light. The object of Remembrance Sunday is to ensure we don’t get back to the dark – it’s something we should commemorate once a year so that we don’t have the need to make it a regular event.   

So, what if I am Biased?

 I don’t often get many people writing on my blog. Most of the people who comment on what I write either comment of TRemeritus or the Facebook page of the Independent Singapore. However, in my piece “An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind,” I received the following comment:

 

 I suspect the Anonymous commentator was either an Israeli or someone, probably a Christian Zionist who took issue with the fact that I stated that Israel, as the greater power had the responsibility to end the cycle of unholy violence in the Holy Land.

As with a lot of emotional comments, I think the chap didn’t actually read my piece nor did he or she fully understand the meaning of bias nor did he or she want to get what I was saying. At no time did I try to excuse the October 7 attacks on Israel. I was quite clear that the actions went above any moral call of “resistance.” I was also quite clear that I accept that Israel has a right to defend itself and to go after the perpetrators.

What I do take issue with, is the response. Yes, killing 1,400 people is awful. However, responding by killing 9,061 people in response is not the answer either – unless you want to believe that the life of an Eastern European decent practicing the Jewish faith is worth far more than that of a Semite practicing the faith of Islam. Just as the actions of Hamas cannot be justified in the name of resistance, the bombardment of the Gaza strip cannot be justified in the name of “self-defense.”

Leaving aside the morality of trying to out kill each other, there’s also the practicality of things. If you look at the situation, it’s clear that the latest round of violence is going to continue and never stop. Israel will not be secure and the HR department will have a never-ending supply of recruits. The message that Hamas’s HR department is simple – “there’s no point making peace with the people who bombard you and starve you,” and when you make that the reality on the ground, a people with no hope will bite.

Arguing that “we gave them land in 1948 but they said no,” is not a viable excuse to take more of what little they already have. Sure, it might seem like a mistake on the part of the Palestinians not to have accepted the offer in 1948, however, let’s not forget that when the late Saudi King Abdullah proposed Israel withdraw to its 1967 borders in return for diplomatic recognition by all 22 members of the Arab League, the then Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert gave him the proverbial middle finger.

https://alianzaporlasolidaridad.org/voluntariado/palestinians/

 

 The pattern is clear, land for the Palestinians is getting scarcer and while everyone has argued that Israel has the right to defend itself, it needs to stop giving an incentive for people to attack it. Jewish settlement in what is nominally Palestinian land only encourages people to hate people of East European decent.

Israel is a miracle in so many ways. However, keeping the Palestinian population hemmed up is only creating a powder keg that will keep things uncertain and dangerous. Again, let’s look at the American response to September 11, 2001. America invaded Afghanistan and two-decade latter and 20 trillion dollars later, the Taliban are back in charge. They also invaded Iraq, which gave is ISIS, the people who would make Saddam look like a Teddy Bear.

So, if I am biased for saying that the response to October 7 is going to make the problem worse, what does that make the people who created a response that was worse than the original problem?

 

Perspective.

 

I’ve been sent to Jakarta to attend the Restructuring, Insolvency & Governance Conference 2023. It’s my first time in Jakarta. My previous experiences of Indonesia were confined to Bali, which was back in the days when dad was doing well enough and I was the age where having parents spend on you was normal.

So, this is my first “real” experience of Indonesia proper. On an intellectual level, I am aware that Indonesia is the “big boy” in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is easily the largest nation in our part of the world both in terms of land mass and population. In terms of market size, Indonesia is “The Place” to be.

However, whilst I am aware of the size of Indonesia, especially when compared to the rest of the region, I suffer from an emotional blinker that many Singaporeans suffer from when it comes to the rest of Asia. Given that we are by far and away the most “advanced” place in the region, our view of Indonesia (and everywhere else in the region) get clouded by a certain smugness. Ask the average Singaporean what they know of Indonesia and its likely t be “haze,” “maids,” “second wives,” and “satay.” Given that Singapore is the odd ball in the region where the Chinese are in the majority, Indonesia is also the place that gets brutal with the Chinese once every so often.

Our level of development has been such that a good portion of us, particularly the Professional class, probably feel more at ease in the West than we do with the rest of the region. Talk to a given professional in Singapore about “opportunities” in the region and they’ll probably look at you with a blank.

Its particularly obvious when you visit airports. Since I have Vietnamese family, I will say that there is no contest between Changi and the two main Vietnamese airports of Noi Bai in Hanoi and Tan Soon Nhai in Ho Chi Minh City. Let’s remember that airports are usually the first-place visitors see and so countries that want to earn tourist dollars invest in them. That’s not the case in Vietnam. The system is designed to make you miserable, especially when you’re leaving. In the case of the Vietnamese airports, there is a reason why you need to arrive two-hours before your flight. By the time the check in counter, immigration and security are done with you, you’ll be lucky to get onto your plane.

However, I’ve argued that whilst Singapore’s airport is easily the most swanky in the region just like Singapore is the most swanky place, it would be wrong to dismiss the region as a source of things we enjoy but don’t want to talk about.

My Indonesian experience actually started as checked in for my flight at the Singapore end. Indonesia requires you to fill out a customs declaration and you can do it by scanning a QR code. Once you complete the form, which takes all of five minutes (which beats any of the American forms), you get issued a QR code which you download and show to customs on arrival, which is duly scanned. The form actually has a list of flight numbers coming in from a particular destination:

 

So, the first point that should be understood is that our neighbours, who whilst less advanced than us in so many ways, are investing in modern technologies and adapting it for situations that suit their needs. As much as we talk about innovation in terms of creating new products or services, we also need to remember that innovation also applies to adaptation and this is something that does take place in third world countries.

The second point is that developing countries are slowly understanding the need to invest in infrastructure and the importance of making an impression. This is very clear when you head to the toilet at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The toilets are well kept and pleasant. There’s nothing like awful toilets to put off potential money spending visitors.

 

 Sure, Soekarno-Hatta isn’t as “flashy” as Changi but it’s definitely not an “S***hole” place designed to make you miserable. In fact, it’s quite an impressive place. The longest part of clearing immigration and customs was the walk.

So, the lesson is clear. Our neighbours, which may be less advanced in many ways, are actually catching up. They are hungry and willing to invest in the things that matter. So, what can we do in Singapore? I believe that we need to change our perspective and understand that our prosperity and stability are because of our region and not in spite of it. It is time for us to be the dynamo for the region rather than trying to stand apart.

They Won by A Point – The Point is They Won

 

The Rugby World Cup is over. The tournament saw a historic fourth victory for South Africa’s National Team, the Springboks over the New Zealand All Blacks in what most described as a “thriller,” where the Springboks emerged victorious over an All-Black team that had, against character, lost discipline in the initial stages and saw the captain sent off:

https://www.eurosport.com/rugby/world-cup/2023/new-zealand-v-south-africa-rugby-world-cup-final-live_sto9855397/story.shtml  

 

 As with the last time these two sides met in a Rugby World Cup Final (back in 1995), the New-Zealand All Blacks were the bookies favorites. The All Blacks looked like they were going from strength-to-strength. They lost the opening game to France but and had to put in some heavy defensive tackles against the Irish (Who were at the time the top of Rugby Football Union’s world rankings) in the quarters. By the time they reached the semi-finals, the All-Blacks looked like they were in awesome form when the steamrollered the Argentinian Pumas.

The South Africans by contrast, had a tougher time of things. They lost a match to Ireland in the group stages and only beat France in the quarter finals by a single point and England by a single point in the semi-finals.

 

 

 

 

Yet, despite only getting into the final by a single point in the semis and quarters, the Springboks did get into the finals and despite winning by a single point in the finals, they won the tournament for a historic fourth time.

There’s a life lesson to be drawn from this, which is the fact that many of us often lose perspective. We down play our defeats and blame the defeat on everyone else except ourselves and when we win, we tend to blow the win into something out of proportion.

Let’s start with the topic of defeats. Nobody likes to lose. However, in every contest in life, be it sports, business, politics or even one’s personal life, one is bound to face some form of defeat. There is a saying that goes like this – “The only way to remain undefeated is not to play the game.”

If you look at the two sportsmen who transcended their sport, namely Mohamed Ali in boxing and Pele in soccer, you will notice that they did “lose.” Pele was a magician on the field but he couldn’t save Brazil from going home after the group stages in the 1966 World Cup. However, despite the disappointment, he came back and brought the legendary Brazilian side to win the 1970 World Cup in style.

In the case of Mohamed Ali, it was even more pronounced. He “lost” the best years of his professional life because he was banned from boxing thanks to his refusal to serve in the military during the Vietnam War.

Then, if you look at his tremendous career, you’ll notice that it wasn’t a case of Ali destroying people magically in the ring. He faced people who could and did beat him. Everyone remembers his trilogy against Joe Lewis, including the “Thrilla in Manila.” Ali won two of the three and Frazir made him work for them. His famous upset victory over George Forman in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle,” was famous because he was having the “c**p” beaten out of him but somehow survived long enough to tire out the seemingly indestructible Foreman. Even in his one-sided defeat at the hands of Larry Holmes, Mohamed Ali refused to go down.

So, if you look at the “champions” in just about every sport, you’ll notice one very clear thing – all of them have learnt to handle defeat. The recently retired Roger Federer in tennis is one of the best examples. Mr. Federer went through a “dry spell” of nearly five years. After his win at Wimbledon in 2012, he didn’t win a single grand slam tournament and everyone thought that it was it for him in the list of “greats.” Then, at the age of 37 (geriatric by the standards of professional sports), he came back and won the Australian Open against his greatest rival Rafael Nadal, who happens to be five-years younger and has a leading record against Mr. Federer.

In World Rugby, New Zealand and South Africa tend to steamroller everyone else. However, coming into this tournament, they were not the obvious favourites. Ireland and France were the two top teams in World Rugby. The All-Blacks lost to France and South Africa lost to Ireland. However, instead of complaining and giving all sorts of press conferences about how something else was to blame, they went back to the locker room and used the defeat in the group stages as a lesson in what they needed to do.

Then, if you look at the fact that the South Africans only won their quarters, semis and championship match, you’ll find that most of us are likely to get obsessed with the fact that they won all the key matches by single point. What we’re unlikely to talk about is the main point – the point that they won all the key matches. At the end of the day, the key is not how many points you win by but the fact that you win.

Let’s put it this way, our wins and losses are often about getting through various stages in life. A win in life is often about getting through the various stages rather than all conquering, life-setting event.

I live in Singapore, a place where the academic system is torturous. Parents and schools go all out to make their kids the national champion in PSLE (Primary School Leavers Exams), N-Levels, O-Levels, A-Levels and degrees. Its national news when some kid tops this or that exam on a national or international level.

What everyone forgets is that each exam serves mainly to get to the next stage. A champion of O-levels is not necessarily going to be a champion at A-levels. We’re discovering that a champion at getting a degree does not necessarily make a champion getting the job done.

So, the lessons from sports are simple. Learn from defeats. Look at each defeat as an opportunity to learn. Look at each win in perspective. What is the end goal and where ensure that you do what it takes to win to get to the next stage rather than think of the individual win as a be all and end all.

 

Getting F****

 

I generally don’t post about insolvency issues even though I’ve worked in the Insolvency industry for around a decade. The reason is simple. I am not a qualified insolvency practitioner and I am not in the position to give “advice.”

However, there was a discussion on Linkedin about the fact that the staff of Flash Coffee were not getting paid because the company was in liquidation. While I am not a qualified insolvency practitioner, I’ve often been broke (still am most of the time) and been in situations where payment has been delayed, I thought I’d have a crack and giving my two cents worth.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jobs/flash-coffee-ex-staff-will-not-receive-owed-salaries-in-near-term-union

 

 Not getting paid for work sucks. As much as we talk about money not being everything, it is one of the key reasons why we go to work. Money remains the essential element in ensuring that we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. Like it or not, we have bills to pay at the end of every month.

So, when you don’t get paid for the month, you get f***ed. The mortgage or rent, phone bills, transport bills still keep going whether you get paid at the end of the month. Unless you have a huge cash cushion, not getting paid for the month is something that can put you into the financial dog house. So, what can one do about it?

Well, the best thing to do is to expect the situation. Most of us go to work with the guaranteed expectation of getting paid. For the most part most of us get paid on a regular enough basis to take the mindset that getting paid is a given, its merely a question of whether you can reach a stage of getting more.

However, what most of us in the private sector forget is that our employers are enterprises of one sort or another and by their very nature required to make money. The reality is that businesses can fall into financial difficulty and the reality is that jobs are expendable and like or not businesses go down and your salary can be delayed and denied.

So, start on the premise that being screwed is a very real possibility. As long as you, as an employee, accept that you can get screwed as a possibility, then you can prepare for it. Accept that you will need to put money aside. You will need a side-hustle or an investment portfolio that can replace your main income should you ever need it.

It also pays to understand that there are obvious signs if your employer is facing financial difficulties. The most obvious one comes when getting your basic salary is a struggle. Look for something else the moment your salary is a problem for your employer. The logic is simple – if he or she cannot pay you for a month – what makes you think they’ll be able to pay you for the next?

Now, what happens when your employer goes under and a liquidator replaces the directors as the main point of contact in the company?

The only thing you can realistically do is to fill out what is known as a Proof of Debt or POD. This form should be provided to you by the liquidator. This form means that you “officially” are recognised as a creditor of the Company. For Singaporeans reading this, you can find out more about the various forms that need to be filled out in an insolvency situation:

https://io.mlaw.gov.sg/corporate-insolvency/forms/

As a creditor you have the right to attend creditor’s meetings and you have the right to find out what’s going on.

However, you need to understand that the liquidator is duty bound to minimise liabilities for the benefit of ALL creditors. Your legal employment will be terminated because everyday you are legally employed adds to the liabilities, which inevitably means that there is less for the everyone.

Now, one needs to look at being paid from an insolvent Company. Under Singapore’s insolvency regime (which should be similar to most Common Law jurisdictions), there is an order in which certain people get paid.

https://io.mlaw.gov.sg/corporate-insolvency/information-for-creditors/#:~:text=Moneys%20recovered%20by%20the%20Official,expenses%20incurred%20in%20the%20liquidation.&text=Those%20who%20are%20entitled%20to,Restructuring%20and%20Dissolution%20Act%202018).

 

 

As an employee, your salary ranks as a preferential payment. Hence, once the liquidator has taken his or her cut, the salaries become the next priority, even ahead of the tax man.

However, you, as an employee who is owed money needs to understand two key things. First and foremost, the only way anyone gets paid is from what’s left over of the Company. Think of the liquidator as a butcher trying to carve meat from the bones of a carcass. You only get meat if there’s meat to carve off.

So, once a company enters an insolvent situation, you have to be prepared for the reality that there simply isn’t enough money to pay off ANY creditor.

Then, the nature of the debt also changes. In a normal situation a salary is what you get for doing work. However, in an insolvent situation, even if the debt incurred is a result of salary owed, its more like an IOU. There is no obligation on the part of the liquidator to pay you within a certain time frame as in the case of a normal salary.

Liquidators do not just make payments to creditors. There is a statutory requirement for them to advertise their intention to pay and then details of the payment. Such advertisements are usually in the “notice” section of the financial press (in the case of Singapore, it’s usually Business Times).  

Treat any employer like an elderly relative, where you do what you need to do and they will need to do in a relationship marked by obligations. However, expect that one day, they will pass on and the obligations they once had to you will no longer exist and treat what you get from the will as a bonus.

Better on the Playing Fields than the Killing Fields.

It’s going to sound wrong but what the world really needs right now is to look at what happens during an England-Germany football match. You get 22 men on the pitch kicking a ball and two halves of the stadium trying to outdo each other with all sorts of insults. The tabloids in both countries come out with all sorts of insulting headlines about each other. The Brits like to remind the Germans that they won the war. The German press runs headlines like “God Save the Queen – From her subjects.” It’s been going on for years and despite all the not very attractive expressions of jingoism, nobody dies and most people have fun.

England and Germany were at the heart of two World Wars. Both sides lost millions and there were scars. However, since 1945, England and Germany have actually been friends, who have traded together and prospered together and today, nobody can envision England and Germany going to war. So, how did two nations, which were mortal enemies at the start of the twentieth centuries, end up as good friends towards the end? Well, there are plenty of factors involved but the one that stands out is the fact that feelings of national chauvinism got transferred from the battlefield to the football pitch.

There is a lot to be said for the saying that “sport is a substitute for war.” Nations that play together have a way of avoiding conflicts. Think of that famous rivalry between South Asia’s nuclear powers – India and Pakistan. They’ve fought four wars (all won by India) and always seem to be on the verge of another. Yet, somehow, a full-scale war hasn’t broken out since 1999. Well, whilst Indian and Pakistani politicians may find each other to be the most convenient enemy, the people of both India and Pakistan have managed to live out a good portion of their “rivalry” on the cricket pitch. Great friendships between Indian and Pakistani players like the one between Pakistan’s legendary fast bowler Wasim Akram and India’s legendary batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, have developed:

 https://www.hindustantimes.com/cricket/sunny-bhai-they-ll-hate-me-in-pakistan-wasim-akram-s-explosive-revelation-about-controversial-tendulkar-dismissal-101670126243468.html

 

 So, if India and Pakistan have avoided plunging the world into a full out nuclear war by playing regular enough cricket matches, why can’t the rest of the world’s geopolitical rivals do the same. Again, I lived in the UK where we had the annual “Five Nations” (now known as Six Nations), where the Scots, and Welsh took on the English, French and Irish. They enjoyed indulging in “NOT” being English during the match and then went back to being part of the smaller components of the UK. Can you imagine if the former USSR had arranged for something similar between the component parts. In the Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand had the Bledisloe Cup, which allowed the smaller nation many moments of triumph against its larger neighbour. Can you imagine if the Arab League and Israel had a regular football tournament? Won’t solve all the issues but it would plant the seed of people-to-people understanding.

I’m a Singaporean and I think Singapore could play a role in hosting an annual “Israel-Palestine” football game. Like Israel, we are a non-Muslim nation in a Muslim neighborhood. We have, however, a significant Muslim population. We can get commercial rivals to sponsor the various teams too. Think of the billing it would be.

As kids, we play with other kids. We play with the kids in the neighborhood and we don’t worry about their social status, race or religion. We just know them as the guys and girls we play with. Then, our parents start telling us about differences of race, religion and so on. As we get older, we get corrupted and become nasty brutes to each other.

 

 So, isn’t it time we go back to childhood and learn to play together. Its time we realise that the guy on the other side isn’t some slur – he’s just the guy you want to beat on the pitch and then go for a meal with when the game is over. Surely the world would be a much better place if we relived the experience of playing together and releasing our competitive and more aggressive tendencies to the playing fields rather than the killing fields.