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.

If You are Gay - Jolly Well be Gay

I’ve been fortunate in life. One of the strangest blessings I’ve had, has been to enjoy a very lucky sense of timing. When the tragedy in New Zealand struck my army batch, I was in Singapore waiting to get deployed. When the Admiral Duncan in Soho was blown up, I had the good fortune of visiting the countryside and we only realized something was wrong was when I noticed that the entire Soho region (where I was living) had been cornered off by the police.

I described myself as lucky because I’ve managed to be close enough to events to know and feel what was going on but I’ve never been close enough to getting killed or traumatized. In the case of the Admiral Duncan bombing back in 1999, I only saw the gruesome pictures on the front page of the Times, even though I lived a five minute walk from the street where the Admiral Duncan was on.

I remember the Admiral Duncan because, like the recent shooting in Orlando, this was a crime targeted at the “LGBT” Community. A part from the location and the killing (nail bomb versus shooter), the main difference between the Admiral Duncan incident and the Orlando shooting was the fact that back in those days, ISIS didn’t exist and it wasn’t cool for nut jobs to murder in the name of Islam.

I guess, that last fact made things easier in the Admiral Duncan incident. Politicians had nothing to exploit except grief and shock at this most senseless and barbarous of acts. There was no bogeyman in the shape of militant ISIS supporters for the likes of Donald Trump to exploit. Lawrence Kong and his fellow “men of God” also didn’t have much to say about the killing of the LGBT.

Unfortunately things have changed. Donald Trump has decided that there’s more profit in playing up the worst in an intrinsically decent but frightened people. ISIS declare that they speak for Islam, contrary to the opinion of the billion people who actually follow Islam. So much noise is being made about this and nobody is looking at the real issues.

The first issue is the fact that a mentally unstable person had easy access to military grade hardware and the means to inflict massive casualties.  Yes, despite the horrors of this massacre, America will not change its gun laws. The ever powerful gun lobby continues to pressure politicians from all sides of the aisle. Ads about how guns don’t kill people are being posted all over the internet. Arguments about how this shooting may have been stopped if an ordinary person had the means of shooting the shooter are already being used.

These arguments have been used again and again and again by the National Riffle Association (NRA) and they’ve been proved wrong by every incident of gun violence. Think about it, checks at airports got tighter after September 11, 2011. When a man was caught with a bomb in his shoes, it became almost mandatory for people to take off their shoes before going through an airport scanner. By contrast, America remains unable to stop people who have no business holding military grade hardware getting hold of that hardware despite the numerous shootings.

Something has got to give and it would reflect badly on a nation that has been the engine of the world’s innovations in the last two centuries, if innocent people get gunned down because unstable people had access to fire arms.

Surely someone has to realise that you cannot argue that it is a violation of constitutional rights to insist that someone has to wait 45 days to purchase a handgun but its not a violation of rights to make a woman wait 45 days to have an abortion.

The second issue that needs to be looked at is the issue of acceptance or getting people to accept themselves. Reports that Mr. Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter was himself a homosexual, reminds me of what a homosexual acquaintance of mine told me after the Admiral Duncan was blown to bits – “Bet you that was done by a queen.”

While, I don’t believe Islam was responsible for the Orlando shooting, I do believe that Islam, like the other Abrahamic faiths, needs to find a way of adapting to the acceptance of the LGBT community. Like it or not, homosexuals and lesbians are a part of society and while I am hardly a champion of gay rights, I do believe in the words of Singapore’s most famous homophobe, Professor Thio Li-Ann, ”Homosexuals are only titled to the rights that everyone else has,” – which should mean that they’re entitled to live in peace like the rest of us.

I’m not about to join “Pink Dot” and take part in Gay pride events and I don’t think I’d be overjoyed if any of my kids announced to me that they were gay.

But while I may not be a champion of gay rights, I do believe that gay people should be gay and not be taught that they are dirty or evil. If a person is gay, they should be encouraged to accept that as who they are and not to think of it as evil. Science has shown that you cannot turn gay people straight (though Fleshball claimed she could) and like it or not, homosexuality and same sex unions are part of human history.

I remember discussing the issues of gay rights with a gay friend. I mentioned that from what I’ve seen, the biggest homophobes are usually the biggest homosexuals. He agreed. He told me that he used think it was a sport to beat up gay people until he realized that he himself is gay.

I believe Omar Mateen was brought up to be a good Muslim, who believed that being gay was a sin. Unfortunately, he himself was gay and that enraged him to point of being unstable. I don’t believe that Omar Mateen is the first homosexual who got enraged to the point of being a danger to himself and to others. Unfortunately, nobody has really done a study on it because everyone believes that you can avoid the topic of a person’s sexuality by ignoring it.

Yes, there should be certain boundaries in society for people to live in peace. However, we should generally encourage people to be who they are and not to think of who they are as something evil and to be destroyed.

I think of Girija Pande, the Chairman of Apex-Avalon, who once said that he believed that one of the greatest strengths of the Chinese people was the ability to live and let live. He argued that this helped Singapore achieve the racial and religious harmony. It’s something we should think about whenever we think of the LGBT community around the world.

Views on the Champ and the Troll

I've been lucky that the late boxing legend, Mohammad Ali died around the same time that Alice Fong, Singapore's most famous online celebrity (the woman who got caught dressing down a deaf mute at a food court - for more on Alice's moment of fame -click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEHV_jQGiqU). Both characters happened to be perfect examples of one of my favourite topics - heart or the lack of it.

Let's start with the late boxing legend. Mohammad Ali was without the "Greatest" boxer to walk the planet. He didn't have the best boxing record (The only heavy weight to ever retire undefeated in Rocky Marciano) nor was he the hardest hitter in the game (Both Mike Tyson and George Foreman come to mind in terms of having raw punching power). He did, however, have plenty of "heart" and this was the very thing that made him transcend the sport. For many of us around the world, boxing was synonymous with Mohammad Ali.

Ali wasn't afraid of challenges. He took on opponents who were bigger and stronger (think of George Foreman) and he was willing to give it his all. His two key fights that we all remember are "The Thrilla in Manila" (Against Joe Louise) and "The Rumble in the Jungle" (against a very young, very fit and very hard hitting George Foreman) because he had opponents who were willing to go the distance with him. In the case of the Thrilla in Manila, we had two men who were giving everything they had. In the Rumble in the Jungle, it was a case of Mohammad Ali taking punishment and pain from a far more powerful hitter and then winning against all odds.

The man had courage and passion and we loved him for it. Despite the odds, he refused to be cowed and for the most part he got away with it. In his final fight against Larry Holmes, it was clear that Ali was outclassed. The body had simply taken too much punishment over the years to carry on. However, Ali refused to go down and take an easy count. His pride and courage remained even when his body was no longer able to carry on. This refusal to give up affected his opponent too. Towards the end, you could see Larry Holmes crying with every punch he threw and he felt no elation in his victory. Somehow, Ali could still win when he wasn't winning.

We, the adoring public loved Ali because he had a heart to stand up and take the punches that life threw at him. He simply wasn't afraid to live.

At the opposite extreme, we have Alice Fong, who flies of the handle over small issues and can't see what the fuss is about.

I don't think she's wrong to be upset over the mistake that was made and in her defense, she would probably have been foul to the coffee shop staff even if he wasn't a deaf mute. Speaking as someone who does wait tables, I accept that service staff do make mistakes and customers have a right to address it.

However, while addressing an issue is acceptable and even commendable, it is unacceptable to fly off and hurl verbal abuse at people, particularly those who happen to be in a vulnerable position.

You find that people who do that, often have self-esteem issues and are secretly terrified of the world, hence in an effort to prove their superiority, end up going over the top with people whom they perceive as being lower than them.

While the actions of Ms. Fong are bad in themselves, what's worse is that she seems unable to see why everyone is getting upset. She's "appologised" but somehow, somewhere in there still needs to try and justify herself and her actions (Oh, the guy wasn't wearing a tag to show that he was deaf - erm are you saying that you wouldn't have gone of on him if you knew he was?). She's even gone as far as to threaten to sue people who write nasty things about her for that incident.

We revile Ms. Alice Fong for the very same reason why we adored Mohammad Ali - she lacks the heart that Mr. Ali had in abundance. While the champ fought and beat people stronger than him, Ms. Fong thinks its OK to fight with people smaller than herself.

Seriously, we need more Mohammad Ali's and less Alice Fongs. How do create a system where those with courage can succeed and those without get pushed into the garbage bags of history?

"Excuse me, can you tell me if she's a horrible person or nice person who doesn't have the muscles in her face to smile."

Two of my least favourite customers decided to patronise the Bistrot tonight. As anyone can probably guess, these two ladies in question happen to be Singaporean Chinese graduate working professionals from well to do families - or should I say the unfortunate aspiration of what every in Singapore tries to be.

I don't know what it is, but when I see them, I end up blessing the fact that I've had an unconventional life, sheltered from the need to ever be part of this group. Both ladies think they're very beautiful and they strut around expecting normal people to agree. Unfortunately, the only people who might be inclined to agree are Caucasians (who are notoriously bad at looking at beauty in Asian women beyond the obvious private parts) and local Tamils who are so desperate to be part of the majority racial group. The ladies in question are the living embodiment of what an Irish school master called,"Beauty is skin deep but ugliness goes down to the bone."

What I dislike most about the two ladies in question is the fact that they literally spit on anyone who isn't deemed to be "in their class." One of them thought she was being generous when she invited the previous chef to drink with her and then proceed to empty out her friends empty wine glasses into a cup just for him. The ugliness of the character involved became so obvious at one stage that an Indian National customer asked loudly enough if they young lady was either a horrible person or a very person who lacked the facial muscles to smile. A former colleague from Italy got the shock of her life when one of the sisters of this young lady slammed a glass and demanded that it get filled with water.

In fairness to these two young ladies, Singapore is filled with uppity little things that think it's acceptable to treat those lower than themselves like shit. You'd imagine that after 50-years of miraculous economic growth and prosperity and exposure of everything that the world has to offer, that you'd get a population that had a better outlook on life.

It's probably my blessing in life that I ended up working in a restaurant. It opened my eyes to the realities on the ground. After a certain time, you'll realise that the problem in Singapore is not that we're letting too many foreigners, but we're not exposing the shit to the realities of life.

I have soft spot for Filipinos, and it has nothing to do with bar girls. Fact of the matter remains, our entire service sector would collapse without this community. They work hard, put up with lots of crap and still manage to smile and they do it for criminally low amounts of money. I think of Rafe, my back up guy at the Bistrot. He runs the show. He knows how to work the systems and he knows where is where and what it what. The same is true of Joey, his counterpart at the busier Pizzeria and Grill. Both these guys often double up as the dishwasher, kitchen help, cleaning boy and if they are truly unlucky, baby sitter of Mama Ka-Ni-Na.

I also have a high degree of enthusiasm for PRC Chinese. I think of the guy who used to come in an insist on ordering "Nieu Pai" (steak) and it always had to be the best (read - most expensive) and paid in cash.

I don't see why anyone should ever complain about PRC Chinese and the way they pay in cash. Give me the PRC Chinese who insist on buying the best and priciest in cash over the twat from the North of England with his silly Singaporean Chinese girlfriend who would always try and pull of the "I forgot my wallet" trick at the end of the evening.

While tipping isn't exactly great in Singapore, I appreciated Norwegians or at least my favourite couple, who would tip me exceedingly generously from time-to-time. My other group of regular tippers are Sikh (and I don't wear the Kara to work).

In the four years I've worked in a restaurant, I've come across enough of particular nationalities to be able to form fairly accurate stereotypes. Unfortunately, the least pleasent ends up being the well to do local people, who shouldn't be.

I guess you can say that paying customers, have a right to expect certain things from the people they pay. I think it's called a "Service Level Agreement," or SLA in professional jargon. In a restaurant, you expect your server to be fairly attentive and pleasent when the food is brought to you. In a professional service firm, you expect the guy on the other side to know what he's talking about and to be attentive to your needs.

However, I believe that there is a line between good service and abuse. In the case of the restaurant, the ladies cross that line. Come on, if you want to appreciate the man who put his heart and soul into preparing a tasty meal for you, do it from the heart and not in a way that shows the world that his you're pet dog.

If you want to be demanding, you should also reward well. One can argue that I'm being an ass for complaining about two ladies when I worked for the Saudi government, an organisation that's known for getting most value out of you. Difference here is that the Saudi's took care of basic needs (Shangri-La) and rewarded people for a job well done.

Did it occur to them that my Filipino guys would have enjoyed a tip, no matter how small, for putting their heart and soul into serving them? Nope, what they wanted  was simple, a cheap meal with a mandatory 10 percent discount and wine without corkage.

Needless to say, they get away with it because, some of the right people cannot see beyond a ladies private parts. My restaurant owner considers them "good customers" with spending power and encourage other so called "Good spenders." He's French Caucasian with a strange fetish for angry faces. Hence, he's willing to wave corkage charges for cheap people as opposed to other "regular" customers who actually spend money on good food and don't go out of their way to make people who happen to be a darker shade of pink to try and feel bad.

Here again, lies an important lesson. Why you indulge self-centred brats, you make bratism an accepted form of behaviour. Hence, we have an island filled with Pundeks and Ka-Ni-Na's who refuse to work but expect to be fed for free. I think of Singapore Chinese Graduates complaining about PRC Chinese women stealing men in the same way I think about Pundeks and Ka-Ni-Na's complaining about foreign workers - the foreign workers work while the Pundeks and Ka-Ni-Na's do not. Likewise, when you have to look at the persistent scowl on our well to do graduate working professional Singaporean Chinese ladies, you'll understand that paying the price for a PRC hooker is actually more pleasent, at least the PRC girl speaks one language well, dress appealingly and most importantly - smiles despite doing a crappy job.

Here in lies the lesson - developing facial muscles to smile is actually worth the effort. You can make people want to help you rather than avoid you.

The Hungry and the Full

I just survived a dinner session with Daddy and the other half. This is the first time that Daddy (or any of my official and unofficial parents) had met Huong and sat down with her. Huong, to put it crudely isn't the girl respectable Singapore would expect me to have a one night stand with let alone be married to for 4-years.

Anyway, despite the language issues, my father ended up expressing an appreciation for the fact that Huong is from Vietnam and has hunger like people from Vietnam and other less developed countries. My Dad, who had once told me that sayings about the woman being true, seemed to think that I've found a woman who had the ability to kick me the correct proverbial kick up the bum whenever I needed it.

I'm glad that my Dad has seen the positive in my marriage to Huong. Most people who know me worry that the woman is using me for something or other and I'm more likely to get love, tenderness etc etc from someone with a more similar background.

Well, there's true to a certain extent. There was more cuddling with my previous wife and Joyce, the ex-girlfriend. Both were educated in the "respectable" institutions and with Joyce, she had the skills my family considered a sign of good breeding - namely the ability to play the piano and as my sister once said,"At least this one knows who Glenn Gould is."

However, neither of my respectable Singaporean Chinese girls had a sense of perspective or reality. Gina wanted me to rent a condo with her when I had no job and when I had a job, she expected me to call her and speak to her for at least two hours a day and whenever the phrase, "I am in a meeting," the reply was inevitably, "What is that supposed to mean?" Joyce was great when it came to sex but she had as much common sense as an ant stuck in a bag of M&M's. She actually thought being in debt to Citibank's credit card department was God protecting her. For some reason she had to find a way of turning everything good about our relationship we had into something that wasn't.

By contrast, Huong has ambition and like the migrants into Singapore and other developing countries, she has a way of trying to turn adversity into something good. To her credit, she's put some of my parasites to work (instead of complaining that I'm not kind enough to the parasites) and whenever I've been out of work, she's found opportunities to increase my income (although I'm working two jobs at the moment, she still encourages me to work  towards entrepreneurship.) To her mind, everyone needs to work and its also best to be independent from any particular source of income.

The lady has hunger and with hunger comes optimism. This isn't an uncommon trait in people from less developed countries who move elsewhere. Somehow, they're freed from whatever was holding them back and can't stop running. Adversity becomes a challenge.

Intelligent nations recognise this and try to be generous with migrants. America is the prime example. Waves of migrants, whether they were from Europe, Asia or Latin America have come in and revitalised areas that have been run down. It's the migrants who run small shops and make a fortune out of the things we throw away. I lived in the UK and witnessed how the "Paki" immigrants made communities function by setting up and running corner shops. An Indian banker from Citibank, who has his UK permanent residence status makes the point that England will not function without Polish migrants.

Now, I live in Singapore and I notice the same thing that I noticed in the UK. It's PRC Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Bangladeshis and Pinoys who get things done. I think of the Bistrot, where I've been the one that customers enjoy interacting with the most. Yet, despite all that, it's Rafe, the Fillipino guy who gets things moving. He knows how to work the various systems in the restaurant and he knows where things are kept. He works for longer hours and less money per hour. Simply put, the restaurant would cease to function without him.

Despite what middle class Singaporean Chinese might think, statistics have shown that migrants tend to be more law abiding than the natives. When you operate in the shadows, you tend to want to stay away from authorities. By contrast, the natives can't get enough attention from the authorities.

Migrants make things happen because they're hungry. Their hunger is a powerful revitalising force for any area. One only has to look at how the Filipino's in Singapore revitalised Lucky Plaza.

Unfortunately, the natives usually don't see it that way. Trust you me, being kind to people like injured Bangladeshi workers won't be looked on to kindly, especially if you have the misfortune of housing them in a respectable neighbourhood.

Look at it this way, the natives get more worried about the migrants than they do about the faults among themselves. Think of public drinking laws that were imposed after the December 13 riots in Little India, because the natives got frightened that the migrant darkies were not happy about having one of their own killed. Apparently darky migrants can't hold their liquor and that might upset social order. However, nobody seems bothered when the local Mamak decides that the only way to solve the issue of being unemployed is to drink beer and then drink even more.

We. the natives have forgotten that  life requires a certain sense of dynamism and instead of being frightened by migrants, we should embrace them so that we can see the beauty in the things we take for granted. 

Staying Worthy While Jobless

The question of employability has become something of a hot button issue with Singapore’s formidable army of keyboard warriors, thanks to a member of the ruling party referring to Dr. Chee Soon Juan, one of the more prominent members of the political opposition as being “worthless” because he was “jobless.”

You could say I am either the best or worst person to write something about this because I’ve been jobless and worthless for a long time. I spent the better part of a decade being in and out of formal employment. I remember PN Balji, the founding editor of the Today newspaper, advising me to stop wasting time looking for a formal job as I had reached my early thirties and been able to sit in a job for anything more than a year.

A decade later, I’ve now managed to overcome that big gap in my CV by holding down not one but two jobs for more than two-years. Ironically, while I was unable to hold down a job in PR, the industry that I’m best qualified and even described as a little talented in, my two jobs are in fields where I am either overqualified for (waiter) and not qualified at all (insolvency). 

The steady career that everyone thought I’d have has been (based on the fact that I went to school in “England”) never quite materialized but somehow it has been put me in the unique position of being able to talk about all sorts of topics that everyone wants to talk about but no one actually wants to be.

Let’s go back to the comments about Dr Chee. I’m not a fan of the man but I do acknowledge that he has been unfairly treated and in this day and age of a more restless electorate, he may actually get into power one of these days.

I also look at the comment that “he is worthless because he is jobless.” The surface level, the meaning of the comments are obvious – Dr. Chee is officially a worthless shit because he’s not held a steady job for I don’t know how long. It’s implied that Dr. Chee is has just mooched off everyone else and now wants to mooch of the State aka you and me the tax payer.

I’m going to leave Dr. Chee’s situation to my fellow bloggers, but I will say that being jobless can make someone feel useless. For anyone who has been jobless for more than a year and known to be jobless, you find that people look at you differently and sooner or later you start to think of yourself in the same way that everyone sees you – useless and helpless.

A job, as they say, is more than just a means of making a living. As well as being the thing that brings in your monthly pay cheque, a job reflects you as a person and where you’re supposed to stand in society. This is especially true in status conscious Asia (not that Westerners are immune from status consciousness but the disease is especially strong amongst Asians). Universities and other educational institutions adore Asians because Asians as a rule will throw money at educational institutions and ensure their kids don’t cause problems all in the hope of the kid getting a “respectable” job and therefore becoming respectable people in society.

The social nature of having a job is such that my jobless friends have invented themselves as “life coaches.” In return for buying them dinner or a pack of smokes, they will gladly advise you on how to handle your career but selling stories from the careers that they had or in some cases, thought they had. It’s what they call the great social trade off. If the rest of us are trying to sell time for money, the jobless, especially the long term jobless sell stories for food, drink and top ups for all of life’s other basic necessities.

When they can’t sell you stories about their past, the long term jobless will then hide and disappear from the scene. – Why does anyone want to be seen in places where one is not particularly well thought off?

So how does one get out of this feeling of worthlessness? I guess the key here is to define who exactly are you worthless to? I know a friend who has taken his time out to be with his wife and kids. Another one takes time out to be with his elderly parents. In that sense these two have found people they can be worth something to.

Then, the next step is being able to find an income of sorts. While nobody expects you to be a millionaire, it’s generally expected that you have the ability to pick up a round of drinks once in a while. If you’re jobless and not making money, you avoid situations where you have to pull out your wallet. Having an income, even if it’s a miniscule one, helps you to stay in circulation by putting you in a position where you actually can afford to pick up a round or two.

For me, I kept myself in circulation by inventing myself as a freelancer. I tried to pick up a bit of work here and a bit of work there. Didn’t make much money at first but I could afford to travel around by MRT and I could afford to have a beer or two.

Later on, I was lucky enough to find a way of attracting some high profile clients like the Saudi Embassy and GE Commercial Finance. GE refused to write a cheque to an individual and so I had to set up a business with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and therefore could claim that I was a consultant (Dad calls it’s the fancy way of saying no one will offer you a job) with my own consultancy.

The only downside with freelancing is that it is next to impossible to save money because when you make money, it tends to go quickly because you got to tide over for the periods when you don’t have any jobs coming in. I only really got to keep money when I started working the night job at the restaurant and had a small income that paid my running expenses while I fished for bigger income from PR projects.

The key here is staying in circulation. Having a job gives one self-worth and an income. However, in this day and age where job security doesn’t really exists, you got to find ways of staying relevant, especially during the periods when you are likely to be out of a job.

Never go into hibernation for example. Hibernation only works if you are a bear and if you have the reputation of a superstar.  Most of us need to stay in circulation. The late Lee Kuan Yew described man as being a social animal that needs to be surrounded by his fellow man. Staying in circulation creates circumstances where we get find our next meal.

Being jobless can make you worthless but it’s not the end of the world unless you want it to be. There are ways of staying alive and one merely has to open ones’ imagination.  I was jobless when I tried to get into the area that everyone thought I could be a star. I stopped being jobless when I crossed industries, taking the skills I learnt from the industry I thought I was meant for and doing elsewhere.

It’s not that I’m special; I merely refused to believe I was worthless because the alternative was worse. Just because you don’t have a steady job, you don’t have to be worthless unless you chose to be. 

How Racist Can We Get?

The topic of race relations has come up again in Singapore's landscape. A few days ago, PrimaDeli had to appologise when one of its top hiring managers openly refused to hire someone to decorate cakes because that the lady in question happened to be Malay and had to good sense to place the reason her not getting hired onto social media. Much later on, Ms. Grace Fu, our Minister for Culture, Community and Youth had to make some comments in parliament about how we need to keep the racial balance secure in order to keep society secure.

The internet is filled with comments on the topic and I guess one has to ask, how racist is Singapore? For me, the question is both an optimistic "not really" and a depressing "Yes." 

Let's start with the optimistic scenario. On a certain level, Singaporeans have shown that they are incredibly open to people of all sorts of colours. I often find myself going down to Waterloo Street to say prayers because I find one of the most Godly places in Singapore over there - the Hindu Temple. While the decor is obviously Indian, you'll find that the devotees for the most part are ethnic Chinese who found something with them to cross the cultural barriers and worship with ethnic Indian Priest. As one friend of mine on Facebook says, "This is as it should be." 

The spirit of intercultural worship has even hit home. When I first started out with Huong, I noticed that she was very clear where she saw the divine - with Kuan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) in the nearby Taoist Temple. She once got upset with me because the string I wear across my neck, which was given by a Tibetan Rimpoche was not quite in line with the Chinese/ Vietnamese divine system. Huong ensures that our home has a shrine to Kuan Yin but these days, she also ensures that she pays the necessary respects at the Hindu temple whenever we go down to see Kuan Yin on Waterloo Street.

Food and language is another example of how Singapore has merged cultures beautifully. Singlish, our local version of English has borrowed shamelessly from Hokkien, Malay and Tamil. You find members of the Tamil minority here, who speak fluent Chinese dialects without thinking anything of it. My course commander when I was on my basic gunner course back in the late 90s, spoke Hokkien as if it was his natural language. This is even true of Chinese dialects. In Cantonese in Singapore, we call the cops "Mata," after the Malay word for eyes - in Hong Kong they are "Jeng Chak" (closer to the Mandarin word for "Jing Cha")

You also find Indians munching always at Hainanese Chicken rice and Bak Kut Teh (Herbal Pork Rib soup) and Chinese guzzling on roti prata as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

When you look at the basics of life in Singapore, you see the beauty of letting people live and let live. Somehow people find ways of cooperating together and various aspects of culture get exchanged and enjoyed. I look at people of my father's generation. Somehow everyone managed to pick up everyone else's mother tongue and somehow everyone got along. On the personal front, my  daughter, Jenny, has made a Malay girl her best friend. 

I believe that if you let people find the opportunity to know each other, you create the opportunity to create diversity and unity at the same time. I am a living example of that - ethnically Chinese and culturally British. On a normal given day, I don't feel particularly close to ether culture. I am merely both. There are aspects of British and Chinese culture that I like and dislike to adapt accordingly.

What depresses me about the race issue, is that in many ways, we have institutionalized it. Let's go back to the case of PrimaDeli. I agree with the company for sacking the employee. You should never NOT hire someone based on their race or your previous dealings with them and if you are stupid enough to tell someone that you are not hiring them based on that, you deserved to be sacked. No business should ever want its customer base to know that it discriminates against a certain portion of the community.

Having said that, I sometimes wonder if the manager in question was fired for stupidly expressing an opinion rather than because this is what the Company believed in. I've tried to recommend people for jobs and was told,"Ai ya, Malay....don't want ah." One of my favourite Englishmen tells me about the time his son applied for a job at the annual FI event. Anyone who happened to be White or Chinese got jobs in catering and guest relations. Anyone who happened to be black or darker than pale became a cleaner. I'd love to hear how anyone with a rational mind would argue that this is merely a coincidence.

You can find plenty of examples of how racism in Singapore is accepted by the general population and you can either love it or leave it. Once again, it was a European customer of mine, who told me that he's noticed how customers who are exceedingly sweet to me, treat Rafe (my Pinoy colleague) and Yvonne (my Malaysian Chinese colleague) like crap. Admittedly, I am more outgoing than Rafe - hence he does the general work, while I front the customers. While he's a permanent staff at the restaurant and I am a part-timer, everyone assumes he works for me.

While there are personality differences, I believe there's something deeper in the way he gets treated and I get treated and I don't think this is right. I may be the more popular showman, but he's the man who does the real work. The main difference here is that I happen to be the right colour and speak the right way. It doesn't speak well of people who treat my colleagues badly and never dream of saying a cross word to me. 

Politicians adore being seen as defenders of multiculturalism. Government had good fun arrest a few bloggers who posted nasty things about the Malay Community. However, I also believe that politicians need to keep racial divisions simmering. How else can anyone be seen as a defender of a race if that race does not feel that I might be persecuted?

Policies like quotas on public housing had a good purpose in that it prevented ethnic ghettos from forming. However, I question the language policies, where the government went on an all out war against Chinese dialects and tried to define race on its own terms - which only became problematic when you had an influx of non-Tamils coming to Singapore - suddenly your average Singaporean needed to understand that Tamil was only part of the term "Indian" rather than the only part.

Rather than trying to keep the "racial" balance to what it was in the 60s, surely we should be making it even more diverse. I don't have an issue if I was ethnically no longer in the ethnic majority as long as I could still make a decent enough living. 

 

How Times Change!

It's been a while since I've accessed my PC at home but since I'm having a bout of insomnia, I thought I would try and bash out a few thoughts.

March, is something of a special month. The 9th of March for the guys from 23 SA 7th Mono Intake is a particularly sensitive month in that this is the day that we commemorate we lost two of our own in Waiaru, New Zealand those 19-years ago. Both Ronnie and Yin Tit were young men who had their whole lives ahead of them and they had so much potential to offer the world until that very day when they were blown away by a faulty fuze in live firing accident that was supposed to the crowning glory of our national service (we were the first batch of artillery gunners to go down under to fire our home made FH2000 155mm caliber howitzer, which as the official press would never stop reminding us - the only one of its kind in the world).

This year, the anniversary was a particularly interesting one in the sense that it coincided with the news of the death of Private Dominique Lee. Private Lee had died from an allergic reaction to a smoke grenade. As things would have it, the officers in charge had screwed up - for some reason they decided to go over the top and instead of releasing the maximum of two smoke grenades, they decided to release six. The parents have sued, the courts have taken the side of the Ministry of Defense and cyberspace is filled with things to say.

As someone who lived through two unnecessary deaths in the SAF, my initial reactions are thus:

1 - What a waste of a young life!

2 - How times change..............

Private Lee like, Ronnie and Yin Tit was a young man who had his life ahead of him. I think of the various experiences that I have gone through since the incident and I look at the usual Facebook updates from friends from my batch. In those days we were boys in our 20s. Today, we're men in our 40s with wives and kids. Most of us have had good careers and done an amazing number of things.

The experiences that we've enjoyed are experiences that Ronnie and Yin Tit never got, through no fault of their own. They were cut down at a time of their lives when they should been ready to launch their lives. While time has healed the pain of their demise, I don't think anybody will not think that the loss of young lives was anything but a tragedy. Now, the SAF and the rest of us have to add another name to the list.

My second reaction is that times have changed. When the accident in New Zealand took place, I remember very clearly that the reaction of the SAF as an organisation was one of damage control. Things just happened and they happened quickly. The chaps in Bravo Battery (the battery that saw the incident there and then), were sent back to camp and the exercise was continued without live ammo.

We in Alpha battery, the battery that was due to go out, had to decide if we were ready to "support the mission" and then accept and say farewell to our lost friends. We had our senior officers trying to urge us to find the enthusiasm to go and there were endless briefings about what happened.

Our Routine Orders ("RO") that very night proceeded to advise (for want of a better word) that the standard line with the media would be "NO COMMENT" (something which I would learn in my later stint in PR was something you NEVER tell the press in a crisis - I wonder why Mindef would not hire me to do their PR ;) )

There was no online dissent in those days. We were just upset and angry that our friend had to die for no good reason.

The worst that happened was that that the then Chief of Army, Major-General Han Eng Juan got scolded on behalf of his superiors by Ronnie's mother at the funeral.

Despite the fact that the Committee of Inquiry chaired by Tan Gee Paw (who interestingly enough was PUB chairman when I was at BANG PR working on their account) found that there was obvious faults in the procurement of ammunition, nobody was charged, nobody said anything about the faults in the system and nobody sued anybody. In my later years in reservist, the Committee's findings were reduced to - "Oh, the fuze was made in China, now we don't buy fuzes from China anymore."

By comparison, the case of Private Lee has been well documented. The parents have had the chance to take the Ministry to court and while lots of things in cyberspace are merely noise, in this case its more than justified. The premise is simple, we the parents entrust our sons to the officers of the armed forces - short of war we expect our sons to come home safely. We do not expect military officers to cause the death of their men through their own arrogance and stupidity.

As a former member of the SAF (like every Singaporean man), I'm disappointed with the organisation for having such a short memory. While most of the officers in the SAF are good and responsible people (or at least the ones I was lucky to work for), I still can't believe you get regular officers who can be irresponsible.

A friend of mine got it right - the said officers need to be thrown into the smoke chamber without the gas mask. They need to feel the pain so to speak.

It's good to see an active citizenry making government organisations account. While, many may not be satisfied with the outcome of the court case, it's good to see people like Dr. Ng Eng Hean, Minister of Defense feeling the need to come out and say something.

The SAF, for all its faults, is not a bad organisation. It serves a useful enough purpose and we need to support the organisation for what it does. We also need to ensure that the organisation is held to account. Military officers are responsible for their men. In their organisation, they are superior and so are their responsibilities - it's not wrong to insist of this.

We also need to ask ourselves how far we bring this new sense of wanting to make the government more accountable. There have been several incidences since Swift Lion. In every case, the fault has ended with the officers in charge.

Swift Lion was unique in that it wasn't the military who was at fault. It was the fault of the defense procurement, both on the larger scale within the Ministry and the defense contractor. These are big organisations with big budgets and in the case of Singapore Technologies, big profits.

Can we hold these organisations to account? I really hope this something we don't find out the hard way.

Too Much Emphasis is Placed on the Letter and Not Enough on the Spirit of the Book

I’ve had the good fortune to stumble across two letters online, which reminded me of one of the wisest things someone ever said to me about religion. The person who spoke these words to me was a Malay Muslim driver who was one of the guys driving us around during the visit of the late Saudi Crown Prince Sultan back in 2006.

We were talking about Islam and how Muslims managed to get on in the modern world with its temptations of drinking, smoking, fornication and so on. The driver talked about how he had to drink in a previous job as he had to entertain clients from other parts of Asia where it’s simply understood that you bond over many bottles of hard liquor before you actually strike a deal. Despite doing that, he didn’t feel any the less true to the faith. The topic then turned to the topic of the Saudi’s and their reputation for being “Bad Boys” outside of Saudi Arabia. He mentioned to me that the Arabs unlike the Malays had the benefit of reading the Quaran in its original but somehow they had got lost. He then looked at me and said, “Ah….too much emphasis is placed on the letter of the book and not enough on the spirit.”

I always remember these words because in the last few years, we’ve had too many people in prominent places getting worked about other people not following religious text accordingly. The Middle East provides the best example of this, where you have Muslims, Christians and Jews at each other’s throats – and that is despite the fact that they all claim to worship the same God. If that wasn’t bad enough, you get them fighting amongst themselves. In the Muslim world you have the showdown between Shia Islam and Sunnie Islam. In Christendom the Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants have been fighting each other as long as the Sunnies and Shias. Even the 13 million Jews in the world are not immune – just think of the way the Israelis have to deal with the tensions between the non-tax and military serving Orthodox Jews and everyone else

.

Talk to anyone obsessed with the “text” for long enough and you’ll end up asking yourself if that person has lost the plot. My favourite example comes from the usual debate on homosexuality in Singapore. This topic will inevitably get the Churches getting organized and mobilized. The Thio Family get particularly worked up about this and write long and glorious legal text about why we should stop consenting adults from doing what they want to do in the bedroom because of what St Paul wrote so many years ago

.

To be fair to the family Thio, they’re not alone in this. Good Muslims are supposed to abhor homosexuality as much as good Christians. However, after a while you start to wonder if the Thios are really doing what God wants them to do.

Why do people like the Professors Thio Li-Ann and Thio Su Mien feel this sudden urge to “save our souls” by bringing us to the Good Book whenever the so called LGBT comes out to play but they are conspicuously absent when it comes to our ever growing inequality problem. Jesus was far more vocal on the plight of the poor than he was in what consenting adults did in the bedroom.

Have people lost the plot. There are things in religious text that aren’t always Godly. The Old Testament, the much revered book of Judaism, Christianity and Islam happily encourages the Children of Israel to kill off every man and enslave the women and children of the lands they take.

Religious text like other text need to be treated as other text – look at them in their context. Look at who wrote them and at the times they were written in.

But if you focus on the spirit of the books, your reward becomes so much clearer. Think of the way Jesus urged us to love one and other. Think of how the Buddha urged us to control our desires in order to free our mind of the suffering.

God in his infinite wisdom gave us brains and the power to look at the spirit. It’s such a pity that we often find ourselves ignoring this gift by hiding behind the text. 

Being An Asian Society Doesn't Make It Right to Justify Paying Someone Based on Nationality.

Read a letter in the Straits Times, our local board sheet, a few weeks ago that argued that it was ridiculous and economically dangerous for Singapore to demand equal pay for people regardless of nationality. I got pissed off because the article was effectively a defense of “race-based” pay, where people are paid according to nationality and ethnicity rather than the job they do and more importantly how well they do their job. You can view the letter at: http://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-on-the-web/equal-rights-for-all-workers-not-possible.

I’ve written a reply, which has not been published and so I thought I’d try and publish my thoughts myself.

 “Race-based” pay should be a controversial topic but somehow, everyone in Singapore seems to take it for granted and accepts it as normal. While, I am told that things are changing, I’ve found that Asians tend to accept that White people should get more merely for the fact that they are white and dark people should get less merely for the fact that they are dark.

One of the most prominent examples of this mentality came when I was asked why I had turned down the restaurant manager’s job three times. My reason was very simple – my predecessor, a Belgium was on a salary of $4,500 a month and I was being offered $2,500 a month for exactly the same job. One of my chefs told me, “You can’t think like that – he’s an ‘Ang Moh (local Singapore slang for Caucasian).” I turned down the job and the job was taken by a Malaysian Indian who started out on S$2,300 a month (the said Malaysian Indian having more experience in the restaurant business than the Belgium he was replacing.)

To me, the idea of being paid significantly less than someone for doing the same job does not make sense. Many people would argue that I’ve had the good fortune of being able to reject certain offers. While my income sources are by no means high, I’ve had various sources of income at a single time. So, I can take the stance that I don’t work for significantly less than someone else because of my nationality. My Pilipino colleague in the restaurant bit his teeth and worked alongside an Italian girl young enough to be his daughter and doing exactly the same job as him but being paid significantly more because, well he needed the job and the job probably pays him more than what he might be able to earn back home.

Still, does that fact make it right to pay people based on their nationality? I don’t think so and I don’t think any right thinking person should think so. I think people should be paid more for certain things but nationality shouldn’t be one of them.

Let’s accept the fact that a nation might not have certain skills that the economy requires. In the old days you needed “management” skills, which more often than not came out of the West. Hence, you had the wave of Western expatriates who were sent overseas at great expense of the company to run the business in far flung corners of the world. These days the skills are more often than not, technical – hence, the world has seen an increase in the number of Indian Expatriates.

OK, I am an expat kid (step-dad, Lee was a senior creative man the agency sent all over the world) and so I guess I accept that you have to pay people a certain premium and provide certain perks for people to relocate around the world. Few people would move out of their home/ comfort zones unless there was an immediate benefit to it. We need certain skills and talents and so we pay for it.

There should be benefits for taking risk and quite often one of the biggest risks that people take is leaving their comfort zones.

At the other end of the scale, you have the migrant workers who leave their homes and work in conditions many of us would consider dehumanizing. Yet, they’re willing to do it because jobs are scarce at home and what they get is better than what they’d get if they stayed. I also understand doing the jobs nobody else will do because –well, I’ve been doing it for some time.

Generally speaking, I accept that many of the Westerners in Asia and now an increasing number of Indian nationals are where they are because they provide much needed skills. We shouldn’t begrudge them their pay packages because they’ve taken a certain amount of risk to leave their homes and they do bring benefits to the places where they end up. I remember speaking to Tham Khai Meng, Global Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather, who proudly declared that Singapore kicks ass in the global advertising scene. I credit the fact that we were open to global talents like Neil French working here. Guys like Mr. French recognized top local talents like Mr. Tham and brought them up. Good expats are good for local talents.

What I disagree with is the fact that people accept that skin colour should be a reason to pay someone more or less.

Ironically, in Asia, it’s often the Westerners who look beyond race and nationality as a reason for paying someone. While my Asian co-workers at the restaurant urged me to accept a lesser amount than my Belgium and Italian colleagues, it was a Danish customer who told me that I should ask for $5,500 a month based on what I had delivered in terms of customer experience.

Asia is home to about three fifths of the human race. We as a continent need to look beyond our “cast” system and raise and reward people based on their talents and not their nationality. The Westerners have learnt to look beyond nationality (not that the West is free of its prejudices) surely we can too. If we need Westerners to be our moral compass, then I think the talk of the Asian century will remain just that.  

The Remarkably Unremarkable Year

It’s now close to the end of 2015 and it’s time to bash out the usual musings of the year. The immediate thought that comes to mind is the fact that I’ve got no major highlights to talk about in the way I used to, which in itself is probably the most remarkable thing.

For most of my thirties, I was actually a man without a steady job. I lived mainly on freelance work that I could pick up and I dated a few unusual women. Now that I have hit my early forties, I’ve gone from being a man with no steady job to a man working two steady jobs concurrently. The last two-years of financial stability come at a time when I’ve become a bit more stable in my personal life too.

I’m coming to the end of my second year as an insolvency executive at Wong Mann & Associates PAC. The job isn’t one that I’m naturally qualified to do in as much as I don’t have the training in accountancy and sitting in an office at a desk have never been my strong points.

However, the experience has been enriching and been a good study of human nature at its worst. I’ve met people who were decent enough to do what was needed to do to ensure those who once looked up to them would not suffer when they flattered and I also had the dubious honour of dealing with people who thought nothing of cheating those at the bottom of the ladder. In a funny way, the insolvency game is a good training ground for any potential entrepreneur – life is filled with examples of not what to do in the course of running a business.

I also continue to work at Bruno’s Bistrot in Telok Kurau. We’ve managed to build a decent relationship with a good group of customers and the revenue stream looks reasonably stable. I’m also glad to mention that my old colleague, Andy Ting, the former chef of the Pizzeria & Grill has now moved down to the Bistrot as the main chef there, so our staff meals have become exceedingly good. Andy is a passionate chef who takes great pride in his work. Each meal he prepares is a work of art.

In between working full time on both jobs, I continue to provide publicity and brand building support for Apex-Avalon, the venture between Mr. Girija Pande’s Apex Consultants and Avalon consulting. The year proved to be a good one in as much as Mr. Pande was invited onto Bloomberg and CNBC Asia to discuss Sino-Indian business relations, a topic which will provide businesses around the world with their greatest challenge and opportunities.

It was also good to reconnect with the team from Polaris. Although the project didn’t produce the desired results, reconnecting with Polaris comes at a time when the Company moves into a new phase of its existence. The products business has been hived off into a different Company and the service business looks set to prepare for new management and the development of new working cultures will hopefully lead to better things for a Company and brand that looked after me so well and opened the doors to many of the moments that have blessed my life. A friend of mine says he believes that if my moment comes it will probably be dealing with India, something which Polaris introduced me to.

On the family front, we lost my Auntie Siok Liang, wife of my mother’s cousin, Alan. Auntie Siok Liang had battled cancer for over 14-years and she took great pains to record her battle and yet my last memory of her was as someone who was joyful and happy. Somehow, whenever you were in her presence, she always made it a point to create a happy atmosphere around her. I pray that this woman who created joy despite her suffering is now at peace and her family will have comfort.

On a happier note, my Dad married his long time girlfriend, Judy. It’s nice to have another stepmother and its good to know that my father has a companion in life who loves and accepts him. I believe my stepmother will ensure that my father will enjoy his twilight years.

Just as my father settles down, it looks like the decision I made to get Huong to become my life partner all those years ago has proven to be a wise one.  The woman has a knack for creating opportunities out of nothing and to her credit she’s constantly reminded me that success comes from working with other people.

Our most precious “project” remains a 16-year old girl…our daughter (yes, legally she’s mine) Ngyuen Thu Thuy, who now goes by the name of Jennifer Tang or simply Jenny. Now, I get called “Daddy” whenever she wants something. She’s a smart girl and although she hates to admit it, quite likes having Daddy around.

For me, fatherhood to a teenager has been challenging. She’s going through a phase where she wants her freedom and to set her own rules. In many ways, she’s a grown woman but yet she remains a child. Not sure how I can convince her that school isn’t an invention of parents to screw up their kids. I’ve told her that I don’t intend to be an eighty year old man struggling at McDonalds to feed a grown daughter.

Yet, in her own way, she admits that I’ve been good for her life and in her own way, she does what she can to look out for me. My family, especially my mom has come to accept that there is an instant granddaughter and want to make bring her into the family. I guess there’s nothing more to ask for.

The Problem with Peace

The recent Paris bombings have reminded me of a friend of mine who once made the point that in ones daily work life, it’s often the “client” who is the most dangerous person. His line of thinking was simple – we spend so much time focusing on the opposition that we forget that the people who are supposed to be our backers don’t always have our interest at heart.

I think this friends remarks because nothing has been more true when it comes to the long and elusive search for anything resembling a peace plan. Both the democratically elected Israeli officials and the autocratic Arab leaders on the other side have worked hard to avoid it. Why have they done so when poll after poll has shown that what their people want is peace?

The reason is simple – making peace takes courage and peace makers die. What’s more important is that the peace makers are always killed by their own people. The late Anwar Sadat of Egypt was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood not long after he became the first leader in the Arab World to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The late Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who didn’t like the fact that Rabin had returned land that Israel had taken by military force in order to secure peace.

We have to remember that war and violence may be horrible and costly but there are beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are more often than not, the people with power and money. In the Middle East, Israel remains a convenient bogyman for leaders in the Arab World as at allows the leaders of the Arab world to blame social issues faced in the Arab World on something else other than the failings of government.

Much as my fundamentalist Christian friends may beg to differ, the same is true on the Israeli end. Peace, as far as most Israeli leaders are concerned, is very bad. If you look at Israeli society, you’ll find that Israel is the best living example of “totemism” at work. People identify themselves by what they are not. The “common enemy” is the nation’s best friend because this gives the nation shared values.

Think of it this way – in 2002 and 2006, the late Saudi King Abdullah provided a brilliant solution to the problems of the region. Israel would have to give up its occupied territories and return to its I966 Borders in return for diplomatic recognition by all 22 members of the Arab League. Both Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Nethanyahu (who has built a career shredding the Oslo Peace Process) described the plan as a “Non-Starter.”

Why did they do that? Well, a part of it is due to who were their backers. Mr. Nethanyahu has built his career on the premises that it is impossible to make peace with the Arab world. This has won him allies on the far right of the Israeli political spectrum and more importantly, it allows him to control the religious right in the USA, which provides American funding for the Israeli establishment.

Then you have to look at the fact that much of the Israeli “myth” has been built on the fact that Israel is a plucky bastion of sanity in an insane region. As far as most Westerners are concerned, Israel is an oasis in a desert filled with nasty Arab Muslims who have an irrational hatred of Israel. Imagine what would happen to that core myth if the said Arabs started behaving like nice peace loving people.

Let’s put it this way, the pain and misery of the Middle Eastern conflict makes people happy. Terrorist groups like IS and Al Qaeda are happy because it gives them a “just cause” to fight for. Right wing anti-migrant parties in the West are happy because it gives them something to talk about and makes them relevant to voters. Security forces love conflict because governments throw money at them. Politicians who never served a day in the military want the conflicts to go on because they can pretend to be men at someone elses expense. Movie makers love conflict because it gives them powerful stories to sell tickets and banks love conflict because they loan money to high browning customers who will pay whatever interest rates you charge them.

If one follows the money trail, it is very clear that peace is very bad and war is very good. Therefore, politicians and the people who count tend to talk peace but do very little about brining it about because peace would screw up a working system.

However, as the late Yitzhak Rabin once said, “We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions.”

Mr. Rabin, a former military man, was right. He had the courage to understand that Israel would only get peace if it returned land it had taken by military force. He had the courage to ignore the “Zionist” nut jobs in AIPAC. He took decisions for Israel rather than for Zionist lobby groups and he could give the Israeli public what it needed.

Unfortunately, Mr. Rabin’s assassination by the very people he was trying to protect (Jewish migrants to Israel), taught every player in the Middle East conflict a lesson – the fact that trying to change the status quo had a personal cost.

For a brief moment, the Middle East had hope. That was thanks to the likes of Mr. Rabin who had the courage to go down the path regardless of the personal cost. The world is a poor place without the likes of Mr. Rabin. May he rest in peace. 

Farewell to the Big Man

Many of my friends in Asia are often surprised by the fact that although I’ve lived in England for most of my formative years, I’m not much of an “Anglophile.” However, there is one aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture that I’ve adopted and grown to love – that it the game of rugby. For me, rugby union as a game, embodies many of the values of the British and their rougher cousins, the Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans – namely the ability to tack a few knocks, get up again and somehow play a good game. As I get older, I appreciate the game all the more because, it seems to me that the guys playing rugby union have stayed far more true to the values of what sport should be – namely friendly free flowing competition that brings out the best in people. Although rugby union has become a professional sport, you hear allot less of the “gamesmanship,” “money politics” and “steroid abuse” in rugby union than you get in soccer or American football.

So, it was really sad to read about the demise of Jonah Lomu last weekend (November 18, 2015). Jonah Lomu was, as they say ‘rugby’s first superstar.’ Mr. Lomu was what nice people would call a “freak of nature.” He was physically imposing (6.5 feet tall and over kg). Yet, despite being huge, he was quick and agile. The man could run the 100 metre sprint in less than 11 seconds (pretty darn good for a non-Olympian and bloody amazing for a man that size.)

When Mr. Lomu broke onto the scene in the 1995 World Cup in South Africa, he became an overnight sensation. His ability to cut through defences and score tries was sensational. Much as it pains most Englishmen to admit it, nobody can forget the way the English national team got blown away by Mr. Lomu in their semi-final encounter. The images of him leaving Mike Catt and Tony Underwood (English rugby players who are by no means puny characters) sprawling on the ground as they tried to stop the rampaging Mr. Lomu are etched in minds of ever rugby purist.

What made Lomu’s prominence so significant was the fact that he game at a time when Rugby Union was an amateur game. The laws of the game were such that the superstars of the game were simply not allowed to earn a penny from playing rugby. The laws on amateurism were such that the ruby players weren’t even supposed to make money from endorsements through the fame of playing rugby. At best, one could use rugby union was a means of getting into the semi-pro code of Rugby League or even American Football.

Jonah Lomu’s performance of the ruby union world cup in 1995 helped to bring rugby to the world and attracted commercial opportunities. The Dallas Cowboys, one of the NFL’s most famous sides, offered him $10 million. He was also offered an opportunity to commercialise and profit from the try that he scored against England.

Jonah Lomu turned down the money. He wouldn’t change codes even though the money offered by the Cowboys was far more than what he could have earned in a lifetime of playing ruby (even today, rugby salaries don’t even come close). He said quite openly that he was there to be part of the All Blacks.

Most interestingly, he turned down the opportunity to commercialise on the image of him running through the English line during the 1995 World Cup – his reason was simple, he didn’t want to cause pain to Mike Catt, the English player that he ran over on the way to scoring that try.

Many celebrities including sports stars to charity work and support causes. Jonah Lomu was more than that. He was a man who turned down greater commercial opportunities for the love of his game and his respect for his fellow players.

Mr. Lomu was a big man in every sense of the word. Not only was he physically imposing but he had a big heart, which made him a gem of a character. He will be missed by the rug