Be like an Ape In Heels

In less than a week’s time, the world will see the end of the Obama Era and welcome the Trump Era, when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45^th President of the USA. Much has been said about the difference between the two men. The rabid right wing of American politics is celebrating the end of what they have termed the “worst” presidency in history, while the rest of us are left, perplexed by how the American public ended up voting for a man who found a genius in bringing out the worst in people.

Much has been said about the contrasting character of the two men and nothing better illustrates the contrast in character between the two than in their families. Even discounting the presidency, the Obama’s are exceedingly successful professionals (he was Professor of Constitutional Law and she was a partner in a law firm) with very quiet personal lives. The Trumps by contrast are exceedingly colourful. Donald is on his third marriage as is his first wife, Ivana.

You could say that my sympathies should be with the Trump’s. Most of my friends would describe my family as being colourful. My late theology teacher once told me, “Dear boy, you collect fathers like most people collect postage stamps.” He had a point. My mother is on husband number three. I’ve also collected mothers in a similar fashion, my dad got married two years ago to his third wife. My siblings and I have not escaped the “curse” of unusual relationships. I am on marriage number two (I am also on husband number two to my wife.) and my sister has a same-sex relationship. The only one of my siblings who seems to have something resembling a “normal” relationship, is my brother Max, who got engaged to his long-term girlfriend, over the Christmas holidays.

My family is a “patch-work” family and as my sister wisely said so many years ago, “I wouldn’t swop it for anything in the world.” Despite all the various breaks and reattaching of relationships, I like to think that all of us have turned out quite alright (My sister and I used to get very impatient whenever the excuse of he/she is from divorced parents so he/she behaves like this because we were from ‘broken’ homes and were nice). Likewise, you could say the same for Eric, Donald Junior and Ivanka. Despite the very public divorce of their parents, the three eldest Trump children look like normal guys who actually had to work for a living.

While, I should have every sympathy with the patchwork nature of the Trump family, I have one very serious objection to the Trump family – his choice in wife number three, Mrs. Melania Trump.

Let’s make it clear, I have no right to be judgmental about a person’s private life as my own is far from perfect. However, when that person becomes a public figure, like the President of the Most Powerful country in the world, then it’s a different story because that person’s life story becomes a story for everyone else to emulate.

On a very personal note, I’m all for being a lad. If the Donald at the age of 70 has the means of getting a much younger woman with the “assets” that all men seem to value in a woman to want to bed him, then I’d say good for him or I think – hey, when I’m 70 and a young girl wants to jump into my bed, I’d be very happy.

But as my mother reminded me this holiday, I’m not just me anymore. There’s a teenage girl, whom I have chosen to take responsibility for. The job of father is an interesting one in that it contains two elements. There’s the basic every day element of making sure there’s some food on the table. Then, there’s the element of what you want your child to be. It’s easy job when you are father of a son – you want the little bugger to be an improved version of yourself. When you’re a father to a girl, things become a little more complicated, because you want her to be better than you and probably to end up with someone not like you (especially if you happen to be a rascal.) You want to be able to look at her and tell her to be like so and so and not like so and so.

In the case of the Obama’s, there was an exceptional role model for what every woman should want to be in the First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Let’s start with the most commonly said thing about Mrs. Obama – were she not First Lady, she would be an exceedingly successful corporate lawyer in her own right. She is a graduate of Princeton University (not the easiest place to get into let alone graduate from) and Harvard Law School. By the time the young Barak Obama went to work for Sidley Austin, the sixth largest corporate law firm in America, as a Summer Associate, certain Michelle had become a full-time associate (guess who reported to who?). Mrs. Obama was also an Assistant Dean at the University of Chicago.

In the 8-years of the Obama Presidency, Mrs. Obama found herself become a champion of a variety of causes that people cared about without becoming obviously politically ambitious in the way that Hillary Clinton did. Michelle was the champion of this cause and that cause without shoving it down to the public that you were getting two for the price of one.

There were no scandals in the Obama White House. The President came back to his wife every night. Somehow, they made sure that the camera caught them giving each other loving glances. The woman also protected the family by doing what she could to keep the kids grounded – it seems Sasha Obama had to get a Summer job.

Let’s leave out the fact that Michelle always took care of her appearance. She never made it obvious to be the stuff of ones’ “wank fantasies.” Instead, she made it a point to be presentable and to ensure that any man would be proud to bring her out and present her to the people he cares about. In short, this is the woman who makes a man.

It’s easy to raise a daughter with Michelle Obama as First Lady. You can just say be like her – smart, beautiful and happy. She’s got enough in life to be with a man for the sake of love. She’s with Barak Obama because she wants to be with him not because he’s the source of her fortune.

Different story with the current Mrs. Trump. I have to confess, she is the stuff of “wank fantasies,” in as much as she’s good a well-endowed chest and a “come f** me look that appeals to men in a “wow, here’s an easy lay,” way.

But here’s the problem with fantasies, particularly “wank” ones – if there’s nothing beyond the “come f** me” looks, the reality is rather disappointing. I ask every male reader to think back to the time they’ve lost all interest (including doing the deed) with the girl you admired from afar, then got turned off when you finally spoke to her.

Apparently, the current Mrs. Trump worked as a model and there have been plenty of her half nude photos going around the place. During the campaign, Mr. Trump said that there was nothing to be ashamed about. He’s right, she looks nice on the covers of a “Man’s Magazine.”

However, her inability to come up with anything original to say during the presidential campaign leads one to ask – do you want her off the pages of the mens mags? It’s all very well to have a tart that the lads will be jealous of but there has to be more to the woman by your side when you are arguably the most powerful man in the democratic world. American elections are brutal on the spouses of presidential candidates because we want to know who the guy we’re trusting our lives to has as a bedrock of emotional and intellectual safety, not because we want to jack off over her. Nancy protected Ronald and took care of the finer touches in the White House, Both Michelle and Hillary were smart enough to challenge their husbands intellectually. Barbara and Laura Bush provided stable homes for the family. Hard to see Melania providing any of the above.

Perhaps Mrs. Trump does offer something to Mr. Trump that we’re not aware of. However, even that doesn’t seem likely. Mrs. Trump is not moving into the White House, while daughter Ivanka and husband are moving to DC. It’s most likely that Mr. Trump will use daughter as the woman by his side rather than wife, which really doesn’t say her much about the wife.

Now that Melania is going to be the First Lady, I suspect that father’s of teenage girls are going to be in for a tough time. Try telling her that going to school is important. Try telling her that its important to achieve things on her own? Why bother when all you have to do to ensure you have a lifestyle few could dream about is to look good enough to get onto the cover of a wank mag and hope that one of the reading wankers old enough to be your grandpa but with plenty of money will marry you. The main role model has done precisely that.

The World’s Biggest Shopping Mall – Boring Sia….

The Evil Teen and I just returned from a holiday in Germany, where she got to meet her new grandma, auntie and uncle. It was her first experience of life in Europe and as things would have it, she ended up getting a bonus experience of the Middle East when we had a 20-hour layover in Dubai.

Personally, I like Dubai in as much as it’s as close as I’ve gotten to the Middle East region since I worked for the Saudi’s in 2006. I like hearing the sound of the Arabic language and there’s something special about seeing people wearing their traditional robes amongst the ultra-modernity of an airport. 

I don’t feel alien when I deal with the Middle East and dropping the various Arabic terms for the Almighty in everyday conversation come fairly naturally.  I believe that if anything decent is going to happen to me, it will probably involve the Middle East and Arabs (the group that will do me a good term is likely to be Indian).

You should say Dubai fits nicely into my world view. It’s easily the most “open” place in the Middle East. When I first went to Dubai in 1994 to visit my stepdad who was living there, everybody outside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman) needed a visa if they were to move beyond the baggage claim in the airport. The GCC has remained fairly closed to the outside world. In 2006, the Saudi government even insisted that those traveling on United Nations passports had to apply for a visa before entering Saudi soil.

So, my first experience of the new Dubai on this recent trip was a wonderful change. Dubai has become the shinning exception of openness in a region known for being closed. They have a “smart gate” system, where people from certain countries (namely those countries that may produce tourist) may waltz in and out of the city as and when they feel like it. Thankfully, Singapore is on that list and so, instead of spending my day in the airport, I actually had the chance to visit Dubai properly. The immigration officer, who was a UAE National, was the friendliest one I’ve encountered – ever. So, much so that I believe that the USA needs to send its immigration officers to Dubai for training.

The day was spent in the Dubai Mall, which is attached to the Burj Khalifa. The Dubai Mall is probably an expression of Dubai’s ambitions. This four-story mall is the world’s largest by gross area, covering an area of some 500,000 square meters and doesn’t include the hotel complex next to it. There’s an ice rink and a four-story high aquarium that has proudly been named as an “underwater zoo.” Despite the various economic calamities, the Mall has seen a steady increase of visitors since it opened in 2009. The mall even has its own train station (I actually had to double check that the stop for the Dubai Mall was called – Dubai Mall.)

You could say that the Dubai Mall is a microcosm of Dubai itself, which is pretty much Singapore on steroids. I come from Singapore, which is practically a giant shopping mall of a nation and it’s got to say something when someone coming from Singapore is actually impressed by shopping mall.

If one takes the Dubai Mall as an extension of Dubai itself, you’ll end saluting the Al-Maktum family of Dubai for creating prosperity without oil in a region where oil is pretty much the only economic activity around.

How did they do it? Well, for a start, Dubai is exceedingly open to foreigners. If you hang around the Dubai Mall, you’ll realise that its exceedingly cosmopolitan. The work is done by Filipino’s and Indians with a sprinkling of Caucasians from the West. The customers come from all over the place. You’ll see Westerners mingling with Indians and Orientals in the shops. Apart from the men and women in Thobe and Abaya’s, the only sign that you’re in the Middle East are the odd announcements in Arabic and the call to prayer.

The Dubai Mall provides a home away from home for the well to do. Well to do visitors at the Burj and the adjoining hotel come to shop at the mall. Likewise, visitors at the mall can visit the Burj and stay in the hotel. Dubai as a nation tries to be pretty much the same to the neighborhood. Two of the largest investors are Saudis and Iranians, who also treat Dubai as the place to go to for fun or the things they can’t do at home.

The mall isn’t cheap either. I guess you could call it a case of prosperity breading prosperity. Well to do tourist and shoppers are supposed to spend money to keep the local economy ticking. Cheap back packers need to visit. I changed 70 Euros thinking I’d had more than enough and ended up worrying that I might end the day without – when I heard the price of a travel adaptor, the Evil Teen decided that we could do without charging our phones….

There’s much to like about the Dubai and the Dubai Mall. It’s capitalism at its best and everyone around the place is happy making money. You’re not going to get an Arab Spring in Dubai because as far as Dubai is concerned, it’s already summer.

And yet, I can’t get the feeling that there’s something lacking in Dubai in the same way that there’s something lacking in Singapore. I think of my first encounter with my former editor-in-chief, Mr. Khaleed Al-Maeena, who told me, “You in Singapore, stop being an ape to the West and start respecting your own culture.” I probably say those words were most apt when it comes to Dubai. Nearly every brand known to man is in Dubai. Short of starting an Islamist plot against the government, you can probably do pretty much what you want. Yet, and yet, I’m do ask myself – what is there especially unique to Dubai. I often ask the same question about Singapore.

In Singapore, the answer for most people is to head to the food court and to grab a prata or a plate of char kway teow – which are incidentally not unique to Singapore, you can get it in Malaysia too but these are things that remind you that there is perhaps something in Singapore that isn’t an imitation of somewhere else.

In Dubai, I didn’t get anything that was authentic to Dubai or the Arab world’s culture. There was a food court with plenty of burgers or fried chicken but I didn’t see “Kapsa Rice” or “hamoor” (fish unique to the Arab/Persian Gulf waters). One can only take so much of shopping and big brands (and that’s coming from someone who spent a good portion of his life building brands). In the words of the Evil Teen, after we couldn’t find a local version of the kway teow – “Borings – sia”

I understand the drive to modernity and I applaud places like Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore for prospering in tough regions. These places have made it by being open to the world – you could say they true meritocracies.

Yet, there’s something missing when the drive to modernity comes at the expense of your own soul so to speak. Hong Kong has a special culture. Wan Chai is as much a part of Hong Kong as the Peak. I feel a sense of culture when I speak Cantonese to people from Hong Kong. Apart from street food, Singapore has that special version of English – Singlish.

To be fair, I didn’t have a chance to get to know Dubai the way I know Singapore and to a lesser extent, Hong Kong. So, I hope Dubai, in its hyper drive to modernity remembers that it needs to keep something of itself. The thobes and abayas are probably the greatest relief I see on the streets of Dubai – it’s a sign that people In Dubai and the rest of the Middle East keep their culture and show that their culture can exist alongside the “international” global order. Contrary to what Donald Trump will tell you, you can be unique and global at the same time.

The Year of Silly Jokes

It is nearly the end of  the Year and so I thought I would bash out my usul end of year thoughts as I am not sure when I'll have the brain power to sit before the computer to pen my thoughts into something remotely coherant.

At the time of writting, the year has been marked by two obvious facts. This has been the year for celebrities to drop dead. On Christmas day it was George Michael and in the last two days it was the mother-daughter duo of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fischer.

The other was more seroius - this has been a year of political surprises. First, there was Breixit, where the British famously decided to leave the European Union. I agree that the European Union needs to be more resposive to the needs of people living the Union itself and there are regulations that have made the EU look simply 'fucked-up.' Having said that, the EU has on the whole been a force of good and it has been the force that has made a continent that no one could concieve of a lasting to peace into a continent where nobody can imagine a war on the continent. Say what you like about the EU but it is something of a model for many regions about the world.

If the Brits can do something 'good' America proved that it could do one better - it voted for Trump as its next President. How does the world manage with an incompetent bully as the head of its only superpower is something we have to learn to live with for the next four-years. For me, I take some comfort in that I've never been dependent on American companies for a living and I bless the fact that I have the ability to stand up to White American Executives who model themselves after Mr. Trump. Trod on me and I'll knife you.

On the personal front, I celebrate another year of working 2-jobs. It has been tough but I have managed to continue working in the liquidations industry and at Bruno's Bistrot concurrently and have built up my CPF savings to a level where the prospect of being totally penniless in my old age looks a little less certain.

It has not been a year of great achievement, unlike previous years I don't have anything to talk about on the professional front. However, I like to see that fact as being a necessary phase in life - of quietly learning more skills, maintaining old networks and building new ones. Being in the liquidations industry has exposed me to more publics like government officials and bankers, which I never really did in my previous incarnations.

I also enjoy my life in the restaurant and remain closest to the colleagues that I work with. After four-years, the faces that I see on a daily and weekly basis have become like part of a cozy family, who continue to appreciate me and my little girl.

On the personal front, we lost my Mah-Mah or father's mother. She was over 90 and her passing was expected and thankfully peaceful. I remain overwhelemed by the friends who remembered me at her passing.

I've now introduced Jenny to my father and mother. Not sure how the gradparent-grandchild relationship will develop but at least the seeds have been laid. I hope the girl learns to appreciate building roots with her family.

I  hope that 2017 provides some respite from the Year of Silly Happenings and somehow new opportunities will avail themselevs when calmer heads prevail. I look forward to a calmer and wiser 2017.

When the Jobs Don't Come Back

You got to hand it to US President-Elect, Donald Trump for being able to focus attention on himself. Everything he says is – interesting and somehow, whether you like or loath him, he gets you talking about the issues that he wants to talk about. Luckily for us, there are times when the issues that he is interested in happen to matte to us. – This month, his pet topic is jobs.

Mr. Trump came to power on the premise that he would restore manufacturing jobs and he’s touted the fact that he has personally saved 1,200 jobs that Carrier, a manufacturer of air conditioners was about to ship off to Mexico. While the claim to have personally saved so many jobs is, like everything else Mr. Trump does, up to debate, Mr. Trump has a valid point – jobs are precious and every government in the world needs to work at creating them.

Jobs are valuable for the simple reason that this is usually the one source of income that we have. However, a job is usually more than just a means to make a living. It’s usually an expression of ones standing in society and human dignity is often tied up to the all-important job.

Just think back to a local election in Singapore where one of the ministers called an opposition “worthless because he had been jobless.” Unfortunately, the minister has a point. People who do not have jobs are regarded as “worthless” scoundrels who live off the rest of us. It’s particularly true for men as society still deems them the main bread winners for the family and a man who cannot earn a living to support his family is ….well, the less said the better.

When politicians like Mr. Trump tell you that they are going to get you your job back, they’re not telling you that you’re getting the chance to earn money. They’re telling you that they will restore your worth as a human being and you get your place back in society. What can be more appealing than that?

Unfortunately, the question that we all fail to ask the likes of Mr. Trump is how? How, exactly are the likes of Mr. Trump going to restore our dignity? The usual answer is that they usually find someone else to blame. Migrants are often a popular target and its especially easy when the migrants don’t look or sound like you. Hence, Mexicans get bashed in America, in the UK it’s the Poles and Pakis and over here in Singapore we blame Indian Expats, Filipino maids and Bangladeshi construction workers. The other popular one is a different country – in the old days it was Japan and today it’s China. As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, China has royally screwed America by taking away the “manufacturing jobs” that belonged to hard working white people.

I hear people in Singapore resonating with Mr. Trump. Apparently, here is a politician saying what we all think – life would be better without dark and poor people who have the unfair advantage because some snooty liberal who has never lived your harsh life has made it so.

Unfortunately, this message is economically wrong and if one were to forgive my bias of coming through, morally so.

It’s a fact of life, that countries go through different stages of economic development. Certain industries grow in certain countries because those countries happen to provide the things that those industries need. However, nothing last forever and sooner or later, the people become less willing to put up with the downside offered by the industries than they used to be and sooner or later the relationship between industry and country changes and the country something else to do and the industry finds somewhere else to go.

America used to have a strong manufacturing base. It had the people who knew what to do and it was a great market for most things. It made sense to make in America. Then, things changed. The usual story is that the Japanese and Chinese found out that they could make things better and cheaper and so the American manufactures left home and set up shop elsewhere. While, that is one side of the story, the other side of the story is that young Americans found that they would rather design and dream up things rather than make them. Why would anyone want to slog on a production line when they could make just as much, if not more designing the said things from a far more comfortable environment.

Let’s look at China itself. At first, China built itself by becoming the factory of the world. However, China has moved beyond making thing. The young do not see manufacturing as a path to prosperity but a cause of smog filled pollutants. If you look at the top fortunes in China, it’s increasingly in IT and other higher end things. While the global logistics chain runs through China, the Chinese are looking for other things to do and hopping to move the making of things out to places like Vietnam and India, which is trying to take more manufacturing from China.

Then there’s the obvious point that a wealthy China and a wealthy India are good for America and the Western world. Chinese who, a generation ago could barely afford flour in their soup, have now become good for Europe’s luxury brands and American universities. The same is true for the Indians who can now afford to buy things they couldn’t even dream of a century ago. As, was pointed out during the 1994 NAFTA debate, the best way to stop Mexican immigrants from coming in, was to create enough well-paying jobs in Mexico.  

Now, it’s easy to say all of this but how do you explain this to a 40-year old man who has spent the last 30 years of his life doing particular job and all of a sudden is kicked out of work through no fault of his own? How do you convince him that the guy is Tijuana or Guangdung, who got the job where the plant was moved to is not his enemy?

The reality is that you can’t because you’ve never felt the same pain. Losing a job that you’ve been doing most of your life all of a sudden and through no fault of yours is like being told you’ve got some fatal disease – it sucks and nobody will ever understand you because they’re not in your shoes. In this situation one is usually vulnerable to quacks. In the case of the jobless rust belt worker, the demagogue telling you he’ll punish migrants and other nations and greedy corporations to give you back your old job suddenly sounds that much more appealing.

However, life is not like that. When you get sick, you got to take medicine. When you lose your job, you got to find something else to do. Easier said than done. How do you change industries and start over again?

I think the best way usually starts with the mind. You look at the pluses and minuses of the situation and focus on the pluses. When I first started work at Bruno’s as a waiter, I took the view that I was moving in the right direction because I was getting a regular income with CPF but still had time for to earn bigger and better money when the freelance projects came in. When I got the job in liquidations, I took it as an opportunity to open a new facet of my life and to look at developing a new set of skills and meeting a new set of people (lawyers, bookkeepers, valuers etc)

You could say that I got lucky. For me, there wasn’t much of a choice. I was heading into old age with little to show (admittedly I don’t have a lot to show but I have momentum in something resembling a pension). The evil teen had entered my life and did I really want her to see me (the main male role model) being a miserable sod blaming the world and developing all sorts of addictions or did I want her to see the main male role model try and earn his crust in one way or another?

For me, it wasn’t much of a choice. It’s like I said to my favourite Northern English Twat who likes to play the “I forgot my wallet” trick, “At least I work.” (he had tried to remind me of my lowly status by asking “You still working here.”)

Jobs are fluid and the sooner we expect that, the better off we’ll be. Bashing foreigners and other countries is fun … but totally unproductive and indulging in it only leaves you as poor and miserable as you were when lost your first job.

Don’t be a Prisoner of Your Own Style

As an ethnic Chinese who grew up in the Western world, Bruce Lee movies were and in many ways, still are one of the greatest forms of escapism. Bruce Lee movies were a relief from the hum drum message that you were part of a small and vulnerable minority that should be grateful to embrace the Western world. Here was a small Chinaman who could kick the crap out of bigger (often stronger) and more numerous opponents because he had the secret of “Chinese” Kung Fu.

As well as being a great fighter, Bruce Lee was a genius at selling himself as the hero of the downtrodden Chinaman. He evoked a sense of racial pride in us. The small Chinaman could win because he had an ancient Chinese secret. 

The truth was rather different. While Bruce Lee sold his “Chinese” heritage, he was in actual fact an open-minded thief who would happily adapt techniques and skills from other cultures that suited him and worked best for him. He summed things up – a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick no matter what style of fighting you practice. He was willing to experiment until he got things right. If a boxing punch worked better than a Wing Chun punch at range, he’d use a boxing punch.

The man intrigued people. American fighters like Joe Lewis (the White Karate Champion not the black boxer) and Chuck Norris who had mastered ancient Japanese martial arts like karate and Tang So-Do rushed to be his students. Why would the reigning tournament fighters of their day even bother trying to be students of a street punk who had never fought in the ring.

I think part of the reason was because Bruce Lee had a philosophy of being adaptable and of using whatever he could to kick the crap out of people who were intent on killing him. This Wing Chung man learnt Filipino Martial Arts (Eskrima) and made the nuchuks his own (nunchuks are not Chinese). While known for his one-inch punch and kicking ability, there is a video where he happily instructed his students to bite the opponent.

The man understood that fighting was like life. You need to play the cards you have rather than wish you had others. The man was short sighted and one leg was shorter than another. His build was skinny (word has it that he used to watch Mohammad Ali matches and get frustrated that he was trapped in a weak Chinese body.) Yet, he devoted himself to the study of close quarter combat (starting in Wing Chun and later on borrowing from Karate, Eskrima and Boxing). He worked with what he had – short sighted so you learn to fight close quarters; one leg shorter than the other so you get your side kick working for you. You’re skinny so you focus on speed rather than on brute force (Chuck Norris is recorded to have commented that the man never stopped moving).

Bruce Lee was also a proponent of the best technique being what worked best for you. As mentioned earlier, he started in Wing Chung, which is about close quarter combat. It suited him because it played to his strengths and not to his weaknesses. His short sight would have precluded him from being any good at Tae Kwon Do.

Human beings often take pride in being at the top of their game. The world is filled with masters of this and that. The truth is that while we do admire masters of an art, life is often broad based and constantly changing. Those who fail to change or try to hark back to a golden age often get the stuffing kicked out of them. We become as a former president of Bennet & Coleman said, “Prisoners of our own business model.”

One of my favourite examples of the need not to be trapped by your own style or your mastery of your style can be seen in the Hong Kong movie Ip Man, the Legend is Born. The most prominent scene for me is when the young Ip Man meets Leong Bik, his fellow Foushan resident in Hong Kong. The young Ip Man takes pride in the fact that he knowns “Authentic” Wing Chun. He gets the stuffing kicked out of him by Leong Bik (played by Ip Chun, son of Ip Man), who practices something that looks like Wing Chun but isn’t because it’s not in the traditional definition of what “Authentic” Wing Chun should be. The young Ip Man complains “That’s not Wing Chun” as he ends up sprawled on the floor. The old man tells him “What comes from my fist is Wing Chun” and he points out that the rules can be changed.

Have a look at the following clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Tadpp1x-E

Moral of the story – know your craft but innovate and experiment. Don’t be afraid of change. The fighters that became stuck to their craft have inevitably lost out to those who were willing to change and use what worked best for them.

Controlling the Genie

The American Presidential Election is over and everyone is stunned with the victory of Mr. Donald Trump. Everyone I know, with the exception of the boss in the liquidations job (he predicts Mr. Trump will be very good for business) and friends and family from what I call the ‘crazy right’ (I won’t equate their views with Christianity), was stunned and nauseated.

Despite having a history of managerial incompetence, disdain for the working man, Donald Trump’s campaign based on racism and sexism proved to be shockingly effective. People came out to vote for him and despite a few high-profile cases, very few people actually came out to vote for him.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump is merely the most successful of a brand of politicians who have played up to the worst in people. One just has to think of Marine Le Penn in France or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or Viktor Orban in Hungry who have campaigned against immigration and the bashing of people of another colour. While these politicians were frightening, non-of them will wield anything like the influence that Mr. Trump will now have.

The optimists amongst my associates have told me that Mr. Trump was merely playing up to his electorate and once in the Presidency, the American system of checks and balances Unfortunately, not only does Mr. Trump have the White House, the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress (admittedly, he doesn’t get along with most of Congress). They’ve also pointed out that Mr. Trump will probably be constrained by advisors who will tell him what’s what.

There are some signs of optimism. Mr. Trump’s speech was somewhat magnanimous when he promised to be a President for “all Americans.” A PR Chinese Official who was interviewed the night before on Singapore TV said of Mr. Trump, “He is a second rate, lousy businessman – but businessman all the same, so he should be pragmatic.” Well, let’s hope Mr. Trump does try and be pragmatic.

Unfortunately, the personality displayed by Mr. Trump on the campaign have shown that his ability to be pragmatic often take second place to insults to his ego and more importantly, Mr. Trump may have unleashed an emotion in the public that he will find hard to control – Anger.

Mr. Trump was very successful at appealing to an emotion that a certain group of people felt. Older, less educated White people, who felt alienated by the forces of globalization, immigration and technological change. Look at where Mr. Trump won, it was in the States that were predominantly older and depressed. Mrs. Clinton took the entire West and East Coast as well as Illinois, the home of Chicago, a large trading city.

The so called “silent” majority who voted for Mr. Trump will now expect him to deliver. While they will forgive certain promises being broken, they will expect him to provide some semblance of what he promised – namely an ideal world where simple jobs are available and you don’t have to deal with too many people who look different from you.

This is a promise that Mr. Trump will not be able to keep. America has been the centre of the forces that have made the world on the whole, a better place.

Globalisation and open borders have brought problems but on the whole, they’ve helped spur prosperity and innovation. So, the question is, how much of the door will Mr. Trump’s followers expect him to shut and when the consequences of shutting the doors come in, will they not turn on Mr. Trump.

It’s an issue Mr. Trump will now have to deal with and the rest of us will have to find a way of living with it as he struggles to balance the forces he’s unleashed. 

The White America I Know.

I had a quick coffee with a friend of mine who said that he noticed that all my Facebook posts showed that I hate the current Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. He’s right. I can’t stand Mr. Trump’s candidacy and I can’t fathom how anyone with a brain and a heart could even consider what he says seriously. The idea that he could actually be the president of what is the most benign superpower in the history of the world is not just frightening, it’s repulsive.

I’ve had people tell me that Mr. Trump would be good for America because he speaks his mind and he’s doesn’t care about political correctness. I’ve had people tell me that he’s the outsider we need to shake up the rotten system that has made America a very unequal place. More importantly, I’ve heard people tell me that he’s expressing what White America wants to hear – he is the champion for White America.

To be fair to Mr. Trump, he’s made this election entertaining. The comedians have had a field day with him. I’ve become particularly fond of watching him get lampooned by Trevor Noah and John Oliver. I also give him credit for dragging out Melania, who has all the physical attributes I am attracted to in a woman.

While, all this is very nice and very entertaining, I do believe that the Presidential election should be about something more than what my sister calls my dirty little pleasures. At the very least, a President, particularly one as venerated as the US President, should try and embody the best of a nation. To a large extent, many of the previous presidents have tried to do this. Whatever, you may think of them and the actual results of their policies, both Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton tried to be about opportunity. The Bushes sold a message of America as a force of freeing up the world from tyranny. Obama got people excited because America had looked beyond colour and elected a dark-skinned man who happens to be very intelligent.

Sure, America’s not perfect and has screwed things up for many parts of the world. However, when you look at the overall picture, America and Americans have been a force for good. When people tell me that Trump is speaking for White America, I am very offended because the America and the White America that I know is nothing like the one he’s supposedly speaking for.

I guess you could say that I hit a major jack pot when I ran into White America. The first strike was when my mother married, Lee, my first stepfather. Lee took me into his life and loved me without ever thinking whether I was his flesh and blood. Whenever we transferred, he’d make it a point that I was able to receive the same good things that my sister, his flesh and blood received. The love and affection that he provided me didn’t just end with him. He made it a point that I became part of a family – which included his parents, Grandpa Hart and Grandma Milly. I remember, Old Hart telling me, “I’m so used to thinking of you as my grandson that I forget that my son isn’t your dad.” Then, there’s my stepsister, Carol and her family. Although there’s not been a legal relationship between us for 20 odd years, she and her family continue to welcome me as part of the family.

My second strike with White America, comes in the shape of my step-grandmother, Joan, mother of my stepmother, Nora (Dad’s second wife and Max’s mom). Joan, bless her soul was one of the kindest people you could find. She didn’t just take me in as her grandson but also welcomed my friend, Joe, who would drive up 5-hours from Indiana to spend the Sumer with her in Chicago. Of all the Christmas presents that I treasure the most, is the fact that she compiled a list of every email I wrote to her while I was at university.

Yes, I’ve had my run ins with what you’d call arrogant American expatriates here but thanks to my experiences of family in “White America” I know that on the average, White American’s are decent people.

Yes, it’s sometimes funny to see how untraveled many White Americans are. To many, a long-distance holiday is going to the mall in the next town. However, while they may not travel out of their home state, Americans are probably the most welcoming people on the planet, a view also echoed by veteran Saudi Journalist, Khaleed Al-Maeena (A view he echoed in 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, which many Arabs were against). Lilly white American families has created plenty of programs for kids from the brown, black and yellow parts of the world to taste life in the good parts of America.

My family in “White America” has become diverse and nobody seems to bat an eyelid. There’s me from Singapore. There’s a step-nephew who married a Jewish girl and a step-niece who married a Muslim convert. A step-brother of mine, married a Chinese girl. My “White American” family isn’t a wealthy Beverly Hills living one either. They feel the pain and issues brought about by America’s economic climate. Yet, never have I heard any one of them begrudge the people from elsewhere. If anything, they respect the Mexican guys for working hard.

This is the White America that I know. So, when I look at people getting excited by Mr. Trump and his rhetoric against Mexicans, Muslims and so on, I’m stunned. I don’t understand how people outside America can cheerfully tell me that he’s speaking for “White America.”

Donald Trump isn’t speaking for White America because I know White America and he’s saying the things that I know the real White America would be offended by.

It Could Be Worse

As the American Presidential heads into the final few days, I’ve noticed a few people in cyberspace questioning the state of affairs of the world. How did the world’s “greatest” democracy come to a stage where the people are left with a choice of a dubious, power-hungry who may have compromised national security by using her private email server and an incompetent demagogue who has a history of turning business deals to shit and is currently making being a racist rapist (man goes to trial for child rape later this month) into an activity of trendy frat boys (not that he actually did any sport)?

Americans must be wondering how their system, which has been touted as the “greatest” model of government and an example of how everyone else should create a society, has been reduced to this awful choice – a case of daily scenes of the awful doing the awful. Is this, as they say, the prime example of how democracy doesn’t work?

While this year’s election has been a case of the nasty doing the nasty, the pessimists have missed the point of what makes democracy tick. The purpose of a democracy is not to produce the best leadership but to provide the most efficient and bloodless way of removing bad leadership.

When you live in a democratic system, you can get frustrated with the way things work. Good leaders with good ideas end up disappointing and only achieving a fraction of what they promise because along way during their time in office, they were either blocked or had to compromise with different parties. FDR, one of America’s greatest champions was consistently thwarted by the Supreme Court. More recently Barak Obama spent more time dealing with a Republican dominated Congress that was openly determined to screw him up because he happens to be a shade darker than them.

Democracy at times can seem like the opposite of a system that promotes meritocracy and action but are the alternatives any better? Surely, a better form of government would be a “Divine” or “Benevolent” dictatorship – a case of the ruling elite being selflessly devoted to the well-being of the people.

Dictatorships or places that are ruled by one unchallenged party can produce miracles – governments that actually function for the benefit of the people. I live in Singapore, which has all the things you’d expect in a functioning democracy (elections, courts etc) but for the most part was run by one unchallenged man – our former Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. Mr. Lee and his team literally grabbed the nation by the scruff of its neck and made it into a clean, rich and green paradise.

While Singaporeans may complain about the government and the lack of any form of opposition, the efficiency of the government has performed such a good job that everyone from outside ends up looking at us and saying, “What are you complaining about?” An Austrian fellow even told me, “In Singapore, at election time should be about saying “Thank You PAP.”

The likes of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton would never exist in Singapore. The slight whiff of scandal surrounding Mrs. Clinton would never have been allowed let along Mr. Trumps “inflammatory” rhetoric. Our politicians may lack entertainment value but they all have rather clean cut records – in Singapore “boring” is a virtue.

However, as Bhutan’s former King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk argued – how guarantee that your successors are as benevolent as you. King Jigme was true to his word – he abdicated in favour of his son and moved the monarch from an absolute one into a constitutional one. People cried when the king told them to choose their government rather than have him tell them what to do. Bhutan has to be the only case in the world where the King imposed democracy on the people rather than got himself overthrown or had his powers curtailed by the people.

King Jigme Singye Wangchuck clearly understood that ruling and leadership are more than just about your own performance. It’s about ensuring the place gets better after you leave the scene.

Let’s look at the example of another monarchy – Thailand. Everybody acknowledges that King Bhumibol was a benevolent king. While, in theory, only a constitutional monarch with no actual power, the late King Bhumibol had so much moral authority that no politician or coup leader would even consider taking power without his blessing.

While, Thailand has draconian “les majeste” laws that make insulting the king or the royal family a criminal offence, nobody doubts that the admiration and affection for the late king was genuine. Yes, he had a good PR machine, the Thai people felt his affection for them and in return gave it to him. The King was to all practical purposes the one thing that stabilized the Thai national psyche, which has been torn by conflicts, military coups, corrupt politicians and so on.

Unfortunately, the saintly King Bhumibol is dead. The next king is the current crown prince, Prince Vajiralongkorn. Prince Vajiralongkorn has a reputation for being the total opposite of his father. While King Bhumibol was a king who used his fortune to improve the lives of his people, Prince Vajiralongkorn is known for indulging in every vice known to man and likes to grant high military ranks to his poodle. While King Bhumibol was the living example of monarchical dignity, Prince Vijaralongkorn is known for showing up at the airport sporting fake tattoos and dressed in a singlet.

Unfortunately, this is a monarchy we’re talking about. The rules of succession are clear – the throne stays in the family no matter how competent or incompetent they may be for the job. Yes, life was good when Bhumibol was king but now he’s gone and we’ve got a nut on the throne.

In more extreme circumstances, removing bad dictators can be bloody. Africa is awash with examples of rulers who should not have been around to rule. Zimbabwe is stuck with Mugabe who is living and still on the hot seat well past his sell by date. Let’s not forget that Mugabe was a hero, on the scale of Mandela, when he came into power. Then, he realized that he liked being in power and couldn’t live without it and he’s stayed on regardless of what happened to everyone else. Further north of the continent, you had Mobutu in Zaire who had to be removed by a war and the war has been going on and on and on since then.

The choice of Trump or Clinton can seem depressing. However, the fuck ups can be voted out in 4-years and the country is not going to be plunged into a civil war. The alternative of a system where a fuck up needs to be removed by force of arms is worse.

How is he my Enemy?

You have to hand it to the Americans but nobody else does showmanship the way they can. As an example of the American ability to put on a good show, one need look further than the current presidential election, where the two most reviled presidential candidates of all time have managed to make this the most watched election of all time. It’s an election where a wooden and uninspiring candidate in the shape of former first lady, Hillary Clinton has managed to have every one of her reported sins ignored by the media because her opponent is far more effective at getting free publicity.

Donald Trump, the property developer, reality TV host and now Republican Party presidential candidate has a magical ability to compel journalist to write down everything he says. His magic comes from his ability to make being downright unpleasant into something that’s almost trendy. He’s done so by stoking the fears of a group that once took being at the top of the social tree for granted (white men) by attacking everyone else, namely women, the educated and migrants.

Mr. Trump has been very good at stirring up the worst in a decent people. He’s used lies and made up facts and turned it into a jingoistic call of the average working man. The Economist described Mr. Trump as having made fact and fact checking him a form of snobbery. Mr. Trump has unfortunately been particularly successful at winding up people against one particular group – Migrants, whether they be Mexican (bunch of rapist) and Muslims (ban the lot from entering the USA).

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump is merely a very successful jingoistic charlatan who has plays of the fears of the unknown. Europe (the half of the West) as seeing a rise of Far-Right Nationalist like the National Front in France. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and arguably the most powerful woman in the world has recently taken a beating in the polls because she decided to open the country up to migrants from Syria. The Japanese in the mean-time struggle with an aging population and stagnation because it seems better than opening up the country to migrants.

The arguments against migrants is simple – we’ve heard the lot before. You have things like, migrants come over here and steal jobs from hard working local people and sponge of us the hard-working tax payers. Migrants are accused of committing crimes; they’ll robe and rape you the moment you give them a chance. If a migrant works in the shit, our natives will inevitably turn up their noses and tell you that its inevitably better than what they came from. If the migrants happen to be Muslim, they’ll tell you that letting them in is like welcoming Al-Qaeda through the back door.

I hear these arguments and I shudder. I worry when friends of mine give these arguments credence. In a funny way, I should be a champion for people like Mr. Trump and his global brethren. Statistically, I match Mr. Trump’s audience. I am the Singaporean version of a white male displaced by globalization in America and Europe. I am the only Singaporean Chinese man with a graduate degree waiting tables in my 40s when people my age from elsewhere are taking up “plum” and glamorous jobs. I should be angry at the Indians and Pinoys who have marched in here to take the jobs that were supposed to be mine.

Yet, I don’t feel angry. I can’t bring myself to feel anger against the Filipino customer service officer at the bank or the Indian IT programmer. I can’t bring myself to feel angry at them – if anything, I get angry with the natives to speak with righteous anger against them.

I look at my blue-collar persona and the people who have made up my world in that sphere. I’ve had the usual human interactions with my Pinoy waiters and Indian cooks. I know these guys. We go through a restaurant seating together and we then have a good laugh after work is done. In some cases, I get to know their families as well.

I ask myself, how is it that people like Mr. Trump have figured out that the people like my work colleagues in my night job are the enemy? They put in their sweat and toil to ensure that people like Mr. Trump and his followers have a good meal when they come into the restaurant. They mind their own business after the service is over. I want to understand how my colleagues and friends are “my enemy.”

It extends beyond my collar persona too. I think of the days when I was a free-lancer. My clients, namely the people who were willing to take a chance on me, where inevitably from elsewhere. I ask myself, how is the Indian National Banker my enemy? If anything, the presence of the Indian National banker provided me with a business opportunity that might never have existed. The message of people like Mr. Trump fails to resonate with me because I keep looking at the people I know in my daily life and I keep asking myself, “What is it about these people that makes them my enemy?”

Let’s look on the national scale. How are Mexican immigrants picking fruit in California the enemy of local Americans? While I don’t deny Mexicans in America or Algerians in France or Turks in Germany or PRC Chinese in Singapore and Hong Kong commit crimes, anyone will tell you that on the whole, the migrants are law abiding and hard working. They perform a necessary role in comfortable society by doing the uncomfortable. 

Whenever someone looks at me and tells me that migrants are the enemy, I am tempted to grab hold of them and to get them to point to random bloke in the street who happens to look foreign and ask them how that person is my enemy.

Mr. Trump and his brethren around the world can make good speeches by talking about how certain communities are the enemy. I have yet to hear one of them point at people like my work colleagues and explain to me how they are the enemy in a compelling and sane way. 

In Defense of the D****

One of my favourite comic characters of all time is "Wicked Willie," a talking penis who happens to have a very close and friendly relationship with the man that he happens to be attached too. Like all good sibling relationships, Willie and Man argue, commiserate and enjoy life together.

I think of this comic strip when I'm with my guy friends because there's much truth expressed about the relationship between man and his penis. Men have a strange bond with their penises that women simply don't have with their vagina's. If you observe popular culture, you will notice that men give their pricks pet names, talk about the things that their pricks can do and generally worry about it. Most of all, we are always obsessed with the size of our prick. By contrast, women don't seem to care much for their vagina's. While boys spend their days talking about the size of their pricks, women seem to have utterly no interest in their vagina's unless they have a yeast infection, its the time of the month or when they concede to have sex.

Man as a species has been screwed by his prick on plenty of occasions. We are, as I suspect and many women might be inclined to agree," tied to our pricks to the point that we are obsessed with the size and functionality of the "wrong head." I challenge any man reading this to deny that he's never allowed the head between the legs to overrule the head on the shoulders.

I have to admit that I am guilty of letting my small head think for me. I only have to think of the countless occasions when I've agreed to do something (usually spending money I know I don't really have) because I've wanted to impress a girl that I was hoping to go to bed with.

My only defense when it comes to thinking with the small head instead of the big one, is that I am not alone. Singapore is populated by highly educated (we're talking about top 10 global university league), highly successful (head of department in MNC level) executives who have discovered a compulsive instinct to give away half their monthly salary to village girls from third world countries all because of the need for sex (The expat will proudly proclaim that the girl adores him and his p*** and then you'll realise that the only word of his language that she speaks is "you give me money now.")

One only needs to think of that wonderful retort by Judi Dench playing M in the movie "Tomorrow Never Dies." She's told by an admiral, "You don't have the balls for this." She replies, "I don't think with them."

 Men are proud of their pricks. At one stage in life, having a prick meant that you'd be king of the world. As a friend of mine says, "Sticking it into someone never sounds as bad as having someone stick it into you." We always assume that the prick gives the man to the dominant one during the sexual or that most primal of acts.

Unfortunately, technology has become such that brute power is being reduced to rubble. Men, who have the advantage in terms of brute power are being increasingly sidelined, while women who don't have an additional head to interfere with the decision process have prospered in the modern world.

Feminist are getting increasingly smug about this. They'll remind you that because they don't have dicks, women are not inclined to go for brutal combat activities like war. They don't need to show off their toys and they just get on with the business of whatever they were supposed to be getting on with.

So, you'd think that the dick is now going to go the way of the dinosaur. Whereas having a dick was once considered something to be proud of, it's now become and handicap and we, the male of the species are destined to spend the rest of our lives doing nothing much except waiting for the day when some random woman decides to have a bit of fun (apparently gladiators in Ancient Rome were occasionally used for the purpose of pleasuring Roman women of high standing.)

I don't like to believe that the dick is destined to go the way of the dinosaur. I believe that there are moments in life where dicks can do things for society and using your dick to make decisions from time to time isn't necessarily a bad thing.

This point was brought to me by a White American Jew a few weeks back when we were having drinks. We found that we had a sweet spot - we were both eyeing up the same type of women regardless of race, language or religion. At some point during the conversation, he declared that,"My dicks isn't racist."

That thought was being basic at its best. I guess you could say that this is the revenge of the average guy on a society that insist that you need to be ultra brainy and ultra good at thinking with the big head on the shoulders. There are times when the little head has a point.

Let's look at it this way, everybody has the same physical anatomy. Men have their penises and women have breast and a vagina. Sex basically involves a penis entering a vagina. The pleasure that both parties are supposed to feel during this most basic of acts comes from a host of other psychological factors.

When the big head is involved in the process of sex, people find themselves getting into all sorts of factors. For men it's usually things like; is she pretty? Does she scream loudly in bed. Women get a bit more complicated; is rich, does have a career, will he like kids etc etc.

Some of the big head's concerns are valid. For example, if a man likes kids, a woman's maternal instincts. If he's successful, it's going to be turn on because it means he can provide.

However, the big head is often prone to overthinking, which can be bad in that it stops any action. I go back to the original Wicked Willie series when man asks a half naked girl, "Do you love me or do you love me because I am a millionaire." Willie's advice is,"Who cares"

Stopping an act through overthinking is a very mild sin of the big head. The big head often has a habit of developing ideas of its own, which aren't necessarily correct or beneficial to anyone except the big head.

Let's look at the various ism's like racism, sexism, ageism and so on. These are inventions of the big head that has decided that it needs to classify people by all sorts of categories to make itself feel superior. The big head also has a habit of trying to get uppity about its own creations. Think of the Donald Trump voters who are being told that Mexicans are rapist and crooks who are stealing their jobs. This isn't true, the Mexicans in America are merely doing the jobs at the Trump supporters wouldn't do for love or money but this is not something that the big head on the shoulders of Trump supporters want to believe in so the big head keeps stroking up all sorts of funny thoughts which are ultimately not very funny when they are put into practice (it;'s funny to make racist jokes, it's less funny to be beaten up because some twat doesn't think you're good enough to be in his neighborhood because of your colour.)

The small head doesn't get complicated. It just ask if you find the woman hot and if you want to go to bed with her. At that point you act. The small head cannot not be bothered with the imaginary benefits of having an ism. It merely ask if you want something and then gets you to work towards it. Things are reduced to their most basic and life sometimes becomes much easier when things are at their most basic.

So, there are times when the small head should be allowed to dominate the decision making process. Would Brexit have taken place if the English used their small head. Hard to think of any right swinging Englishman voting to keep out good looking chicks from the rest of Europe. Hillbillies might be less inclined to vote for Trump and his wall if they understood that this was going to keep away the good looking Latina babes.

You shouldn't use the small head to do the majority of the thinking. However, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't listen to it. There are times when following the small head can lead to interesting things.

What Should the Government Do?

The Singapore Government is generally regarded as an exceedingly efficient and effective organisation. If you ask anyone who has lived in Singapore for any length of time, they'll testify to how well thought out everything in Singapore seems to be and they will undoubtedly give credit to the one organisation that is everywhere - the government. To it's fans, the Singapore government can achieve just about everything possible.

There is, however, an exception. That failure lies in its ability to produce "world-class" people. While we may be the perpetual "Asia-Pac" and "Global" hub for huge corporations, we have yet to produce a Nobel Prize winner, a readable author, a noteworthy film director, actors who can be watched outside MediaCorp's direction and an Olympic Athlete. At best, we only seem able to brag about the people from elsewhere who want to live here. Much as I might get "flamed" by the online crowd, the truth of the matter is that we need the so called expats to come here and run the show.

This issue has been bugging the heck out of the Singapore Government. In its usual fashion, the government has convened the usual gathering of experts and set up an array of programs to throw various sums of money at any aspiring artiste or athlete. The closest we came to getting "world class" winners was when we hired a few young ladies from China, who promptly won a few bronze medals and a silver (against their fellow Chinese who stayed with the motherland) and once they collected the money, they went home to China. The government got to bask in some glory and the public had a field day bitching about how we, the tax paying public, were being screwed by our government that was being screwed by ungrateful bitches from China (for the record, in Singapore it's acceptable to be screwed by White People but totally unacceptable to be screwed by anyone darker than a shade of pink.)

This happy scenario has changed recently thanks to Mr. Joseph Schooling, who won our first-ever gold medal at the recently concluded Rio Olympic Games. Not only did Mr. Schooling win the gold, he did it in style by beating the greatest swimmer ever (Michael Phelps) and breaking the Olympic Record. The government was quick to jump on Mr. Schooling's success and the gold was celebrated by a full house of parliament.

As usual, the online media had a field day bitching about how the government had nothing to do with Mr. Schooling's success and that somehow it was a shame for the rest of us to get involved with celebrating this new champion. The government, in its efforts to do the right thing by the people is now scrambling to do what it can do to make more champions.

Let's take a step back and ask ourselves if this is actually necessary. Why is the government on a mission to produce Olympic champions or artiste or even Nobel prize winners? Is this even the business of the government.

I don't believe it is the business of any government to get into the business of trying to help produce Olympic Champions or any form of artiste or Nobel Prize winners. If you study the track record of governments trying to select "winners," you'll find that they are very bad at doing so. Sure, the Soviet Union and it's Satellite states produced plenty of Olympic Champions but the human costs were high - one only has to look at the cancer and sex change statistics of the old East Germany which came from athletes who had been pumped up with steroids beyond any healthy level. The Soviet Union did produce plenty of artiste, but all of them made it a point to defect the moment they had the chance and all of them took the first chance they could to hit back at the state that screwed them.

If you take Joseph Schooling as an example, you will realise that he's the product of success despite the state. His story echoes plenty of the success stories of other professional athletes in the West and of artiste who made it big - his parents had faith that he had a particular talent and took the socio-economic risk of downgrading their home to be able to send him to the USA so that he could get the training he needed (think of Leopold Mozart who gave up everything to ensure Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could become the Mozart or how Mike Agasi who drilled tennis into young Andre).

The Schoolings took the risk that young Joseph would succeed and thankfully they're faith has been repaid. The state has given Joseph enough prize money to make up for the money his parents spent and nobody should deny Joseph a penny of the endorsement deal that he's just signed with Nike.

However, the key point here is that the Schooling family took a risk. There was nothing to guarantee that young Joseph would ever achieve the success that he's just achieved. The nature of professional sports or art or science is that only the very few succeed. Most of the people in these fields struggle just to have a glimpse of the "Middle Time." We all look at the massive million dollar salaries that movie stars make but nobody looks at the fact that every waiter in LA is an "actor" waiting tables while waiting for his or her big break.

The truth of the matter is that you got to be something of a risk taker if you want to be in sport or an artiste. You got to have hunger to succeed in fields where the odds of basic survival are non existent. 

Entrepreneurship is about believing and creating things that are unlikely to come to pass.

Governments, including the Singapore government are by their very nature designed to work for the masses. Governments measure success by the "overall" statistic and not by any particular record or instance of brilliance. Governments will always talk about GDP figures rather than individual fortunes. The success of an education system is based on literacy rates and not on individual prizes.  

The Singapore Government has done a brilliant job at this and to deviate from this approach would be damaging to society. It's like asking a lion to adapt a vegetarian diet. 

Alternatively, Singaporeans should ask themselves if they are prepared to pay the costs of less equality. In the USA, you have the best universities in the world. You have more Nobel Prize winners and you have more great contemporary artiste than anywhere else. Yet, you have a school system (especially in the inner cities) where kids can't read after nine years of formal education. We have less brilliance than the USA but all but our most mentally impaired can communicate in more than one language and even the most dense can count. 

To a certain extent, the government can play a part by building infrastructure (more labs, more swimming pools etc etc). New Zealand does a brilliant job in ensuring that the All Blacks will never be lacking in basic facilities. However, beyond that, its not the job of government to "nurture" winners in sport, art or science. At the most, governments can help create a culture where risk taking is less frowned upon but other than that, governments should stick to do what they do best. 

The Value in Leaving.....

Perhaps it was purely a coincidence but on the very evening that Singapore was celebrating it's first ever gold medal in the Olympics, I had a conversation with a young lady who mentioned that while Donald Trump may not have put things very eloquently, he had a point when he discussed immigration. Her point was simple, if a person is really valuable, a country would not let him go - the Mexicans who are leaving to America were the drug dealers and rapist.

I bit my lip because she was young and trying to the plaything of a friend of mine. However, its something we should look at especially in light of Singapore's first ever gold medal winner. Mr. Joseph Schooling at the age of 21 is the living example of what every person in the world should be - mobile.

Let me state for the record that I am often guilty of parochial xenophobia. While I spent a good portion of my life as an expat kid (thanks to my stepfather's job), I've returned to Singapore, the land of my birth, wondering and refusing to understand local sentiments about race and geographical treatments. Contrary to what my fellow Asians might believe, being someone's colony is something to be proud of.

Having said all of that, I actually believe that migration and mobility are actually good for the human condition. Staying in one place and mixing only with your own kind is unnatural and bad for you. Whatever, I may have said about the expatriate community, you have to give them points for getting out of their homelands to raise themselves up the corporate ladder. Moving shows that you have enough ambition to want to change your life. As a friend of mine often reminded me, "You can't blame the Ang Moh's (local Hokkien slang for red heads - reference to Caucasians in general) for wanting to move here. Would you rather stay and be an ordinary person or move to somewhere, where the people worship you?"

If I respect people at the higher end of the social scale for "moving" from their homeland in the expatriate class, I have nothing but admiration for the poor and unwashed masses who come in from poor, underdeveloped countries to wealthier nations to do shit work so that they can do right by their loved ones. It takes guts to move to place where you have nothing and are most likely to be spat on as part of a sport by the natives. It's tough enough going to work everyday to make a living. Now, imagine doing it when you are far away from every emotional support that you've ever had.

Migrants develop a certain sturdiness to them because they don't really have a choice. It's called "Make or break." They do the lousiest jobs that the natives would rather not do and contrary to what Donald Trump would tell you, they end up using less social services because they simply don't want to get into the radar of the authorities.

I don't deny that there are migrants who commit crimes (rape, murder, robbery etc) and I don't deny that because they are vulnerable, migrants can be easy prey for criminals, the migrant community throughout the world will usually be harder working and more law abiding than the locals.  

When I lived in the UK, the "Pakis," "Niggers" and "Rastas" were too busy doing things like running corner shops and driving mini-cabs, while the White Anglo-Saxon got drunk and begged you for small change. Walk down my old haunt in Soho and you'd find that the guy asking you for spare change was inevitably a native of the absent colour.

Now that I've moved to Singapore, I notice something similar. In the restaurant, I work alongside Pinoys, Koreans and Taiwanese, who simply want to earn their coin by working. By contrast, I have met too many local born Singaporeans who have simply decided that there's far more pride in asking for treats than in being seen to make a living in a lowly job.

The guys who move are the guys who make things happen in the country they move to. They are the guys who form better people-to-people ties between nations and cultures. Put it simply, every Indian expat and Indian worker who comes to Singapore, becomes a link between Singapore and India, a market that Singapore will need to be in.

I think of my friends in the Indian Expat community. There's Girija Pande, the Chairman of Apex-Avalon who is building "made in Asia" management talent. There's also Suresh Shankar of Crayon Data, who set up a data analytics firm in Singapore that got bought out by IBM and now, he's building another firm that will revolutionize how we choose things.

People like these gentlemen, have shown that the world is a big place. You don't need to be limited by geography for some antiquated vision of nationalism. Suresh for example, is taking advantage of Singapore's legal infrastructure and global reputation for stability and combining it with the large talent pool that is available in India. Modern technology allows you to do make the most of what various countries have to offer.

Which brings us back to Mr. Schooling, who was born here and raised here. This is home for him. Yet to further his ambitions, he had to be sent for further education in the USA, where he had access to the coaches and the facilities to bring him to where he is today.

Had Mr. Schooling not left Singapore and stayed here for the sake of being Singaporean etc etc, its unlikely he'd be able to do what he did for Singapore. He left Singapore and ended up bringing the type of value to Singapore that we had not been able to achieve despite the millions spent on trying to import talent from elsewhere.

Let's ditch ideas about what constitutes a good citizen based on birth. Let's look at what people do by their sweat and let's give people credit for taking chances in moving out of their comfort zone. Let's salute people like Mr. Schooling's parents who understood that opportunities are global and sent their son overseas so that he could win us glory on the international stage. 

A thought for National Day

It's Singapore's birthday today. As a nation, we will be getting together to celebrate 51-years since we were booted out of the Federation of Malaysia.

It's going to be quite a celebration and I believe it's something worth celebrating. Although I have my complaints, the nation I've chosen to call home for the last decade and a half has gotten much right despite the odds. It's worth remembering that we are celebrating an accident of history. The man who is credited for creating Singapore as a successful independent nation, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, started his political career by campaigning very hard for us to be a state within the Federation of Malaysia. Mr. Lee started out by arguing passionately that Singapore was too small to survive on its own and yet his greatest of success was proving that very idea wrong.

Perhaps it took fatherhood to make me realize it but Singapore has gotten the key things right. We may not be the hippest place around but we've got the basics right. We are what a nation should be. We are rich, clean and green. As a father of a teenage girl, I can't stop thanking my lucky stars that I live in a city where safety exists - I don't worry that something will happen to my little girl if goes out at night (not that she does - these days smart phones keep the kids at home).

Singapore is a great place to be in so many ways. As someone who was born in Singapore but raised in a small town in Southern England, I also found myself in a unique position in terms of East-West relations. I may have looked exotic in a sea of blonde and red heads but I was amazingly un-exotic in almost every other respect. I sometimes wonder if my classmates were disappointed that I wasn't a bit more exotic. I spoke English at home and my Dad didn't run a take away or a laundry mat. My Dad also shelled out for school fees that most ordinary English people won't have paid and he did so with money made in Singapore rather than through the generosity of some NGO that the school was running charity drives for so that we could help people in the third world.

If I look back at my life in the West, I think the most amazing thing that being born a Singaporean gave me, was a feeling that living in the West wasn't better than living where I came from. My parents sent me to England because they felt this was where I'd get the best education rather than we needed to move there because life was so much better there.

I do acknowledge the good in Singapore through the eyes of my wife, who comes from rural Vietnam and has experienced hunger (defined as not having enough food on the table). This place is paradise to her.

While there's much to be grateful for, I do think there are areas of Singapore that need to be changed. One of my pet peeves remains how we treat people who have come from developing Asia. Yes, Singapore isn't the worst place for people to be but there is something wrong when everyone in a well to do society doesn't seem to think its dreadful for people work at the princely rate of S$18 a day (12-hours) and not get paid for several months because ....hey its apparently better than what they're getting back home.

I recently felt this through a new friendship I've made with a Bangladeshi worker, who's trying to collect money owed to his brother his previous employer, who had been wound up by an order of court. I remembered agreeing to meet this worker in person. A few my colleagues were actually worried that something might happen to me.

Well, I did meet the man, who insisted on buying me tea. We spoke about his life in Singapore and he asked if I could help his brother find another job in Singapore. He was so touched that I actually came down to meet with him.

I find this unusual for a normal society. What do we have against treating other people like people, especially when they do all the hard work that we won't do.

I know people who feel differently, but as we celebrate years of incredible success, I do think that we need to find a way of remembering the people who did the hard lifting.

Falling in love with your profession

I've been thinking of a way of making one of my biggest weaknesses on my CV into something of a strength, namely the fact that I've never really worked for a multinational (the closest being an internship in Citibank and two weeks at RappCollins) or the government (the exception being two and a half years in National Service and three months as a school teacher.)

I've thought of it and its tough because I live in a society where anyone with a brain cell would have made it a point of serving in either of these entities by the time they reach my age - the grand old age of 42 (well not quite until November) and they would be established in their careers. Normal people my age would be able to call themselves an "Industry" person.

Since I've not reached that stage in life, I think the approach should be to avoid it altogether and be grateful for what's not taken place. This is not to say that I don't have a skill that makes me marketable. I believe that more than a decade in PR and meeting the most socially diverse range of people I could ever imagine (street walker and jail birds to ambassadors and central bankers), I have enough people management skill to get me through most jobs.

What I mean by the blessing of not having "multinational" or "government" work experience, lies in the fact that I've never had the luxury of falling in love with a particular profession to the extent that I see everything in life through the prism of my chosen profession, which I believe is one of biggest failings of many working professionals. We become so involved in the "industry" where we build our "careers" than define our "lives."

I like to think that I've never fallen into that world view and I like to think that I've managed to stay human and therefore grounded. I think it was my Uncle Jeffrey, who was also one many bosses, who would drum it into me that I was my own best judge of what was newsworthy.

Too many PR and Comms people get obsessed with the fact that they are PR and Comms people. They spend so much time with a client or product that it becomes the centre of their lives and they expect everything to evolve around it. This becomes very worrying when they pitch to the press and discover that the press won't write the story as they think it should be written. Erm, sad fact of life - the press isn't paid to write the story you want them to write. If they did, the client wouldn't need you, the persuasive PR person - they'd get the ad sales people to take care of things.

We forget that we're also consumers of the media as well as the people who plant the stories in the media. We are part of the process of news creation and to be effective at that, we need to know the people what people watch and read and want to watch and read.

Being obsessed with your profession isn't limited to the PR field. In the restaurant game, you get to chefs who forget that they exist for the customer's taste buds. Yes, the customer likes your cooking and eating at your restaurant but they need to taste something that they like to taste. A good chef instinctively knows what appeals to the pallets of the customers because ...well, he or she inevitably someone who eats the food as well as cooks it.

At the end of the day, we're all human beings with the same needs. We live in the same ecosystem doing our part within that said eco-system. Unfortunately too many of us become so obsessed with our part of the system that we forget that we are part of the larger system.

If you fall in love with your part of the system, you tend to lose sight of the larger picture and ironically, you lose sight of the value that your part of the system contributes to the wider system. Advertising people used to be accused to being obsessed with winning awards (among themselves) that they forgot that their industry was merely a part of the larger business cycle. Today, agencies are struggling to find relevance and revenue.

Remembering your insignificance can be a blessing because it makes you more aware of everything else. You become aware of what the other sides of you think and do, which makes you more effective. I write for the press because it makes me more effective at pitching stories to them. I eat at the restaurant I work at because it makes me see things from the customers view. I am a consumer as much as a producer, which actually enhances things. -

Goodbye to the Land of Banana Regulations and Dreams of Significance

June 23 2016 was a day that sent the global markets into turmoil thanks to the British Public taking the decision to leave the European Union in a referendum. The once almighty British Pound took a massive tumble and other financial markets followed suite.

My Facebook page became filled with comments from friends in the UK. The younger ones, who were mainly my sister's friends who had grown up seeing me as an older brother, were horrified that the country had descended into a racist mess, though a few of them celebrated their "Independence." Of my British friends who are in business, like Terry O'Connor, the CEO of Courts were mainly disappointed, though there were exceptions, most notably Neil French, the former Global Creative Head of the WPP Group.

There is no doubt that the after effects of "Brexit" are going to be felt around the world for sometime to come and there's going to be plenty of discussions on the internet. So, what's going to happen.

Firstly, its clear that the European Union ("EU") has an issue. While I believe the common goals of the EU are on the whole good, it should be clear to everyone that whatever benefits of being in the EU are, they have either not been felt by the man on the ground or at least not communicated. When the "Brexit" vote became clear, there was talk sufficient chatter going around that the French, the Dutch and others would follow and demand an exit to the union.

The key issue was of course, the issue of immigration. The key supporters of the exit vote in the UK were white working class people who had been cut out from traditional jobs. As one of my favourite English boys used to say, "When I was unemployed, I blamed it on the Poles." Its all very well to talk about your export market and being part of the largest trading block in the world when you are trader in the City of London moving billions around with a click of mouse button. It's something different altogether when you are from a working class suburb and you've been out of work for the last year because all the jobs you used to be able to do are now taken by people who are different from you and willing to work harder and for less.

The second point that the EU needs to look at is the issue of excessive regulation. As one Dutch guy said, "They even have laws governing what type of bananas can be sold." Such regulations lead to the issue of sovereignty and more importantly what does the EU want to be. Is it a super trading block or a super national state?

When the EU was started as the European Economic Community (EEC), there was one overriding aim - to prevent another war from breaking out in Europe through closer integration. World War 1 and 2 were partly built on a "Franco-German Rivalry" (Bismark vs Napoleon III), so the founders of the EEC reasoned that if the French and Germans stopped fighting and trading, they'd get used to the idea of being prosperous by working together, they would never go to war.

That objective has long been fulfilled. Within a generation, the European continent has gone from nobody being able to conceive of lasting peace on the continent to nobody being able to conceive of a war between two European states. For Germany, the EEC and EU has been a salvation - it has allowed Germany to transform from being a militant aggressor to the benign sugar daddy of the continent.

However, while people are happy to trade with each other, it becomes a different story when you talk about imposing culture from elsewhere. As HSBC's brilliant "World's local bank" campaign proved, the more global we become, the more attached we become to things we are familiar with. EU regulations on cheese, bananas and chocolates only made people more attached to their "local" items.

Ironically, this point is best illustrated by the UK itself. The UK or Great Britain is not one country but four that have become one superstate united by a common language, a common currency, common laws, a common sovereign and an increasingly common culture. The superstate known as the United Kingdom has existed far longer than the EU, where people have had longer to live side by side in each other's different kingdoms. Yet, despite everything, the Scots still see themselves as Scottish, the Welsh as Welsh and so on. The Scots have even gone as far as to demand various referendums to get out of the UK. If you look at the "Brexit" campaign, you'll note that the same arguments were used in the Scottish independence referendum.

The EU needs to sell itself better to the man in the street and it needs to do some internal soul searching about what it wants to be. The problem remains, the EU was a project conceived by the people at the top with very little input by the people from the bottom. Somehow, the bottom needs to be persuaded to follow the top.

Britain will survive as it always has. The British found a way of surviving without their Empire. Instead of being number one in the world, they managed to become very successful being being the best friend of the new number one (the Americans). At the same time the British joined the EU and became a fairly active member.

While nobody doubts that the UK will continue to survive, the question remains, "Will Britain be a significant player on the global stage." The British might want to take a look at Japan.

Japan was an incredible success story. At one stage, when world looked to Japan as a new economic leader. Two decades later, the Japan is now a buzzword for stagnation. While still prosperous in many ways, it is clear to the rest of the world that Japan doesn't really lead anything at all. I remember one of my favourite journalist saying that it was lucky that former Prime Minister, Juichiro Koizumi use to visit the Yakasuni Shrine because it was the only way people really cared about what went on in Japan.

The British have certain advantages that Japan doesn't have. The English language remains the world language and the British have been far more open to the outside world than the Japanese.

However, there are several issues. Firstly, one of the key reasons for rejecting EU membership was immigration. A few people who were interviewed had argued that they objected to the EU's liberal policies on accepting Muslim migrants from places like Syria but were perfectly fine with the more educated ones from Europe. Unfortunately, rejecting EU membership means not only keeping out Syrian refugees but the well educated ones from Western Europe.

The British have been very successful of being the middle man between great powers. One of the reasons why the City of London has become the world's financial centre was because American banks looking to establish a base in EU could do it in London. Likewise, European banks that wanted to be in an English speaking country, they merely had to cross the channel.

Britain was the English speaking gateway into the world's largest trading block. It was the ideal place for the Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Chinese, Indians and so on to start a venture in the EU.

Without EU membership, Britain loses the very thing that made it relevant to foreign investors. For sure, Britain will still get foreign investment but it's not likely to be what it used to be. Furthermore, Britain will now enter trade negotiations on its own rather than as part of a big block. It won't make a difference it you are dealing with Singapore. However, size helps when you deal with China, India and the other large markets.

Britain will survive Brexit but it will have to get used to doing so as a lesser player on the global stage. As long as her people can get used to being part of a normal nation, that may be no bad thing.