Healthy Endings

I recently had an article of mine published in the Straits Times, Singapore’s national (only) newspaper. I decided to catch onto the fact that there were several letters in the forum talking about how marriage was the bedrock of stability and society and anything that made ending it easier was bad for society and so on and so on. I decided to argue that the problem wasn’t so much the ease of divorce but the ease of marriage that was the cause of societies problems. My letter can be found at https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/ease-of-getting-married-may-be-the-problem.

[The premise of my letter is that instead of making divorce more difficult, one should make marriage more difficult. As thing stand, it’s ridiculously easy to get married. One merely needs to be over 21 and able to find witnesses. Everything else is a formality and I stick by the argument that nobody really values things that come easily.

My letter got a few likes, including likes from two lawyers and my favourite Pudding decided that my letter was a total waste of a good read because my premise was faulty and I should realise that society does respect marriage hence it makes it easy to get married and very difficult to get divorced (I’m on my second marriage and she’s in her second relationship).

The next day, the press decided to run another article from someone who appears tragically young, who decided to start quoting from a political lobbying group called the Institute for American Values, which argued that unhappily divorced adults were not happier unhappily married adults and that children of unhappily married adults were not better off than divorced parents. That letter can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/hold-on-to-time-tested-values-amid-rapid-changes?&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany

Such articles have the benefit of making me so happy that I come from a patchwork family and have been continuing the task of adding more patchworks. I think too many people miss the point of marriage or get stuck in a some ideal of what it should be.

I’m either the best person or the worst person to talk about this but I believe that marriage is about partnership. It’s about two people who can’t live without each other despite known all the awful things about the other. A married couple should have shared ideals and goals thus having something to keep the individuals together despite the differences that individuals bring to the table and yes, physically attraction should also be part of the game.

My marriage to Gina failed from day one because we didn’t have shared goals. There was nothing in the union to bring and keep us together. OK, that’s not quite true – the sex was fantastic and part of the reason why I allowed her to blackmail me into signing the paper was the fact that I didn’t want to lose a regular sex partner. She on the other hand wanted me to buy a flat quickly and to “settle down.” She was so happy when I got a job in the civil service (teacher), which I couldn’t run from fast enough. The idea of “this is the rest of your life,” sent shudders down my spine. In the words of the late Old Rogue, “She had fire-place written all over her.” I think she got violent when it was clear that I didn’t share her goals.

My marriage to Huong is working out better. Despite our many differences, there are things that keep us together. She’s someone who is more than a quick shag in the bush and hence we struggle to build a home and family and find unity in the struggle of building that.

Marriage is a partnership which should ideally bring out the best in both parties. One always thinks of the saying, “Behind every good man is a woman,” and my mother actually says that her marriage to my Dad made her a more confident person.

I don’t dispute the fact that a stable marriage is the best breeding ground for socially well-adjusted people. The African-American Community in the USA has provided us with plenty of statistics linking criminal behavior to dysfunctional families.

What I do dispute is the notion that a happy, well adjusted family means the biological parents remain together and I disagree with the notion that children become worse off when their parents separate. My sister once said that she felt offended when the discussion came to difficult people being the way they were because they had parents who separated – we weren’t arseholes and our parents had separated (many times as a matter of fact.)

I look my situation and I believe that while a part me wishes my parents marriage worked out, I don’t believe I’m any worse off because it didn’t work out. If anything, I got lucky in that respect and it’s probably in later life, when I got married and divorced for me to appreciate them. My parent’s marriage failed but they didn’t fail me (even if they might disagree whenever I fuck up).

Why do I say that? I believe that my parents had the chance to do what they did for me because when their marriage reached the stage where it was clear they couldn’t live together, they had a chance for clean break. The marriage ended and both of them could move on.

To my mother’s credit, she only brought decent men into our lives. Both stepdads, Lee and Thomas loved Tara and I like their own. The patchwork family, particularly with the American family, somehow gelled. I think I’m the only person in my social group who gets invited to an ex-step-nephew’s wedding. Biology was never an issue with my stepdads, who took their role of being instant dad’s quite seriously.

My mother also worked hard to ensure that I kept my relationship with my father healthy. I’ll never tire of mentioning the fact that she would push me to write letters (pre-internet) to my Dad. I’d protest but she’d push on and guess what, I have a somewhat normal relationship with my father.

I also credit my Dad for ensuring that the financial support would always be there for both me and Max, despite whatever differences he had with his ex-wives. Both of Max and I have never really starved and both of us are educated men because my dad ensured that the funds were there. My final year of university coincided with one of his darkest points financially and he told me, “You will finish university even if I have to beg, borrow or steal the money.”

With my family background, I cannot argue that biology is essential in making the family unit work and it’s quite clear that I am a beneficiary of someone who benefited from a situation that most people would call disastrous. I can appreciate that I’m lucky in the sense that I had the right elements – namely the adult figures in my life at the time happened to be decent enough people who found a way of working things out for my benefit. Not everybody gets that lucky in the genetic lottery the way I do.

Decent people who make bad situations work are hard to find and I guess you can that the statistics hold – children of divorce parents get fucked up.

So, what about the guys who stay together for the kids or worse – to preserve their legacy. I think of a friend of mine who is a naturalized citizen who built up a successful business. This chap married a woman who extracted a heavy price from him – her family have moved into his flat, she’s slowly but surely taken over operational control of the business and her friends are forced upon him. The man is so happy with his family life that he’s out drinking every night and he spends his waking hours plotting how to avoid going home. The kid is left to the grandmother’s (a heavy gambler) care because both parents are officially “too busy” for him. The kid is growing up materially well off but I’m not sure how fun it is growing up in a household where dad does everything possible to avoid mum and gang.

I don’t think it’s respecting marriage to keep unhappy people together. Yes, nobody goes into marriage hopping it would end but we have to accept that people do fall out of love and letting people have a clean break is actually good for everyone. I think decent people who become anything but decent when they are around their significant others because that significant other is a source of pure misery.

You don’t respect an institution or protect minors by forcing miserable people to stay in a situation that is increasing their misery. You help them find a clean break that works out in everyone’s interest.

The People You Snub.

One of the biggest fights that Gina and I had in our turbulent marriage was the fact that she always felt that my parents and the people around me snubbed her. It didn’t help that at the time, I was living with my father who lived in a swish condominium opposite the Shangri-La Valley Wing (a place often inhabited by VIPS like former Chinese President Zhang Xi Min) and she lived with her family in a Housing Development Board Flat in the North of Singapore. I remember going out with her on an occasion and not wanting to follow her home and she lashed out at me, yelling, “Is it because I live in an HDB flat.” Another of her out burst was against my family’s group of friends, who consisted mainly of prominent members of the advertising community – she felt they were weird and at one stage stressed that her father’s business associates were just as rich as the well to do executives my father knew.

In fairness to my ex-wife, my friends and family really did think I was married to trailer park trash. In fairness to my family and friends, they disliked her for reasons other than the ones she felt. My Dad said, “It’s not about snobbery – her father could probably drown me in his cash,” and in fairness to my Dad he is actually quite comfortable with Huong aka the Ruthless Half, who has a better claim to come from the gutter than Gina ever did i.e. Vietnamese village girl who barely speaks English, as opposed to Gina who did go to a recognized university of sorts.

While my ex-wife and family didn’t get each other right, I bring up the topic of how she perceived by family because it highlights one of the major issues of our time – namely the cultural and communication gaps between people. We often assume that culture gaps are about things like race and religion. The talking heads of the West often enjoy talking about how you’ll get a clash of “civilizations” or about the “North-South” divide and the struggle between light and dark-skinned people. While these are valid discussion points, I believe the biggest cultural misunderstandings and conflicts happen between “social” classes in the same place. Trump was elected by White Skinned people from rural Pennsylvania who lost touch with white skinned people in Manhattan and Beverly Hills. I live in Singapore am living on the bridge of being in the world of corporate restructuring and waiting tables.

I’m something of an oddity in both worlds and I guess that gives me an insight into both. The funny thing is both worlds are very similar. People in both want the same thing – namely to earn enough money to build a decent enough life for themselves. Yet, they’re incredibly unable to understand the struggles of the other. While collar people for example, cannot understand why I would ever want to work a blue-collar job and the well-meaning ones often feel they have an obligation to rescue me from the dregs of being a blue-collar worker. 

I can appreciate my well-wishers. Blue-collar work is financially unrewarding for the hours that you have to work. In my blue-collar existence, I earn the princely sum of $10 an hour and I’ve worked there for six-years. My co-workers are barely paid S$2,000 a month and they easily work eight hours a day and six days a week, including public holidays (which is actually the busiest time to be in a restaurant). The mathematics aren’t exactly in favour of the worker.

Having said that, I don’t understand why people feel that I need to be “rescued” from my blue-collar existence. Just because the financial rewards are lesser, it doesn’t mean that the existence is without benefits. One of the benefits of being in a blue-collar existence, for example, is that you have tend to have peace of mind. When the restaurant shuts, I’m not obliged to think about the place until the next time I enter the place. By contrast, in my existence in corporate restructuring, there’s always the nagging feeling that I have to jump at a moment notice because of this or that.

White-collar people also have a tendency to forget that life exists beyond their own and the worst part is that they forget that life is often fluid and the way of the white-collar worker isn’t the only way. Which brings me back to the point that Gina once made – her father’s friends, aka the small time Chinese businessmen were as wealthy as the high flying multinational executives that my parents knew. She’s right.

The executive class often overlooks the fact that knowledge isn’t always from books and more importantly, the key to success boils down to guts. My former father-in-law sold eggs for a living and somehow managed to put two kids through to university in a country that doesn’t subsidize much. Think about it – the old man had to sell a commodity where the margins are calculated in cents and its easy to get undercut by the big boys and somehow, he managed to put his kids through to school. I stress this point because how many of us can gather this type of money by doing that?

People from the rougher side of life have knack of looking at things that matter. I give the example of Zen, my favourite flesh ball from the rough streets of Geylang (Singapore’s red-light district). Somehow, flesh ball has a way of measuring people up pretty accurately. How does she get this ability? She’s probably been screwed more than enough times than most to have learnt the hard way. I take the example of Huong, who looked at a girl I had brought to a function – she said, “That girl only wants money from you.” She could pick this up from one glance. Interestingly the young lady in question said the same thing on my other half but qualified it as, “I’ve done my research and it’s proven that Vietnamese girls only want you for money.”

They also network much better and as my father said to Huong on his first meeting – “You are from a third world country where people still help each other. “I look at the communities formed by the foreigners from the poorer parts of Asia and I notice that people help each other and that’s how they manage to thrive.

Somehow, my white-collar friends can never understand how people without a degree can obtain money. It’s such a pity that they have this blind spot because if they were only able to look at the things that matter, they’d find a way of prospering for themselves too.

I remember going to see the fancy high-priced lawyers we were working on in a case. The client was an old Chinese businessman who could not speak English and who operated out of a hole in one of the streets that needed to be cleaned up. The client threw cheques at the lawyers. It occurred to me that it wasn’t the guys in the suites throwing the money……………..I believe this is something many young professionals need to understand about the way the world works.

When the Boys Don't Come Home/

The issue of safety of our national servicemen is once again in the news thanks to the death of Private Dave Lee Huan Xuan. Private Lee, a young Guardsman (the second toughest group in the Singapore Army after the Commandos) had completed an 8km fast march and had to be treated for signs of heat stroke. He was pronounced dead on Monday 30 April 2018, a mere four months after his enlistment in January of this year.

The family is understandably upset and they want answers. The SAF is once again in a situation where it has to answer for the life of a young man.

Coming from a batch of National Servicemen that lost two of its members in a tragedy some 21-years ago, I feel obliged to comment on the death of every young national serviceman because it says many things about our society just as it did all those years ago when we lost Ronnie and Yin Tit.

Based on the available information, it seems that this case is a tragic mishap. Even in the dark days of the late 1990s, it was always standard practice for every trainee on every fast or route march to consume water. It was always standard practice to ensure that was the trainees got plenty of rest the night before and it was, even then, standard practice to ensure that such marches did not take place during the hottest time of the day. Given the increased knowledge in medical science and the pressure on the SAF to ensure safety of its soldiers, I believe that the safety procedures should have become even more stringent.

The commanders need to answer one basic question – did they adhere to basic safety procedures. If the answer is no, then the chain of command needs to answer for it. The organization needs to show that it did everything humanly possible to ensure that Private Lee was fit enough to on this march.

As with the case of Private Dominique Sarron Lee, who passed away coincidentally on the 9^th of March 2014, the parents have the internet. Unlike Ronnie’s parents, the parents of Private Dominique Lee and Private Dave Lee have a venue to demand the adequacy of justice. What do I mean by that?

Back when Swift Lion took place in 1997, the Ministry’s first action was to convene a “Committee of Enquiry,” which was chaired by Tan Ghee Paw (who would be PUB Chairman when I was working at BANG PR on the PUB account). The job of the Committee is to look into the facts and to find out what happened. If you look at the news article into the death of Private Lee ( https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/national-serviceman-19-dies-after-heat-stroke) – you will note that this is standard practice.

The question is, what happens after the Committee has done its job? In Ronnie and Yin Tit’s case, the answer was bugger shit all. In the reservist trainings that I went to after the incident, we were always told – “Oh live firing is perfectly safe – we found out that DSO (Defence Science Organisation) had bought a faulty fuze from Island Ordnance Systems (http://www.islandordnance.com/cat.asp?sessid=31756635) , an American Company that outsourced the manufacturing of the fuze that killed Ronnie and Yin Tit to the Chinese. The action taken can be summed up as “we’ve now found a new supplier so everything is OK.

Human beings have short memories. We allowed the families of our fallen comrades to get over their grief. Time healed the wounds and that was that.

I don’t know about you but I have difficulty with that and reading reports like the report on Private Dominique Sarron Lee’s death (https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/04/18/pte-dominique-sarron-lees-brother-decries-inadequate-punishment/) makes me all that more cynical about the system.

I don’t blame the SAF for existing. Singapore does need an armed force to deter potential aggressors. I don’t dispute the fact that we need the national service system because we don’t have the manpower to field a large full-time army. I even see the non-military benefits of having national service – I wrote my dissertation on the subject.

Having said that, the SAF must remember that it is a “people’s force.” Like the rest of the government, the military exist to serve the people and not the other way around. Commanders are responsible for the safety of their men and I believe in what the Great American General George Patten says – “My job isn’t to make sure my boys die for their country – I’m there to make the other son of a bitch die for theirs.”

A military commander is given greater privileges than his men (the military remains mostly men) and so should his responsibilities. Holding back someone’s career and pay for being negligent over training standards will never feel acceptable. Telling us that it was all bad commercial practice isn’t enough.

We’re not mercenaries. We don’t fight for out country because the pay is good. I remember my battery commander, Captain Lam Sheau Kai (Now General Lam, Commander Combat Support Service) asking us if we’d be willing to continue the mission right after the news of Ronnie and Yin Tit’s passing. Our reply was simple – it this was war, we’d continue no questions asked – but it wasn’t – it was a training fuck up and we didn’t see why we should be happy (we were also asked if we would follow orders – our reply was that there was no question about us following orders – the question was whether we would be happy about it.)

As humans, its easy to die to protect those you love or for the ideals that you can believe in. Asking someone to give you his or her life when your track record suggests you have your material gains at heart is another matter all together  

Don't Call me Boy

It wasn’t my finest moment today but I ended up storming out of the office after throwing a few kind Hokkien words at the Living Desert who had made the mistake of commenting of my cleaning the company shredder after jamming it. It didn’t help that the company Grinch, an Irishman who reads Breitbart News, decided to add in his ten cents to a machine he has utterly no connection with.

I’m not proud of being in a situation where I couldn’t think of wanting to do anything else except to do damage to someone who usually inspires feelings of puppy dog cute and to the Grinch. I just saw red and it took control to prevent myself from doing violence on the spot.

However, what I will say is that this incident evolved around the shredder – a machine that is often used by lawyers, liquidators, accountants and anyone who spends any length of time around pieces of paper regarded as “confidential,” or “classified.” The shredder in this office is often used as it is shared by at least six-people dealing with special documents. While the machine is used by six-people, only one person seems to have any knowledge of how to clear the shredder – me. While it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to clear a shredder, it usually requires a little bit of movement beyond the office doors and its considered degrading work by people who have qualifications. So, when two people who have never even cleared the shredder decided to become experts on clearing the shredder, I snapped.

I raise this very personal incident because it touches on one of the most prominent subjects today – namely the subject of inequality. If you look at statistics relating to the subject, you will note that the world is becoming even more unequal, where the “haves” seem to be getting hold of more of the pie and share of the ever-increasing number of “have nots” seems to be growing regularly.

Singapore, the country that I’ve called home for the last two decades is a particularly good example of how the ‘haves’ have visibly increased their share of the pie and the ‘have nots’ have seen their number grow and their share of the pie shrink. Our hyper efficient government takes great pride in the fact that an increasing number of billionaires have decided that having a home in Singapore is a necessity and at the same time thinks nothing of exploiting people from less fortunate countries. When you talk about the maids being paid a “princely” salary of less than SG$500 a month, the standard reply is that, “It’s a lot of money where they came from.”

One of the most interesting things about “inequality,” is the fact that it’s not produced many revolutions. You would expect the ‘have nots’ to get angry enough to do something pretty violent and nasty in order to get a more “equitable” share of the pie. However, they generally haven’t. Why is that?

The answer, according to the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Dr. Raghuram Rajan, is chance or rather belief in the system. Dr. Rajan argued that the poor don’t rebel if they believe that there’s a chance that they can improve their lot or if not the lot of their kids if they merely work hard and play the game well enough. 

Rebellions only happen in places where the poor see their lot as being stuck there for all eternity no matter what they do. America, despite the inequality remains fairly peaceful. Every penniless migrant to America believe that he or she can achieve the “American” Dream if he or she works hard. By contrast, the Middle East got shook up by the Arab Spring because people found it impossible to achieve anything for themselves whatever they did.

The other key factor is behavior. A few years ago, the Algerians in Paris rioted because they were tiered of being addressed as “tu,” (the informal French version of “you,” usually used by an elder when addressing a junior.) A similar point was made by “African-Americans,” in the deep South who rioted in the 1960s – they were tired of being addressed as “boy.”

I believe here lies the crux of the matter – people can accept income inequality but up to a point, they won’t accept being treated as anything less than human. The poor are not asking for a hand out nor are they asking for pity. What they are asking for is a bit of dignity and respect.

I think of the Little India Riots in 2013, when a group of Indian and Bangladeshi workers rioted and the police had to struggle to contain the violence. Much of the chatter was around how people of South Asian origins could not handle their liquor and didn’t understand our local culture of respecting law and order.

What many people forgot was the fact that an Indian worker was killed and when the police came onto the scene, they seemed more intent on protecting the bus driver who had run over the worker than in providing justice for the worker who had been killed. It was, as they say a clear-cut case of disrespecting people.

The rage of an individual is an ugly thing. The rage of a mob is worse. The best is to ensure that there is no reason for rage and in a society of ever increasing despite between the have’s and have nots is to ensure that those who “have” remember to allow the “have nots” to see a glimmer of hope and to respect menial task as a stepping stone into better things.

SMEs – the challenge of creating jobs amidst innovation

Can Singapore show the way?

By Gurdip Singh - Correspondent Press Trust India (PTI).

Published in http://www.fii-news.com/smes-challenge-creating-jobs-amidst-innovation/

Girija Pande 

Technology is fast changing manufacturing landscape for large enterprises in every country. These enterprises are consequently restructuring and often downsizing. Consequently it is essential to simplify the regulatory architecture to create meaningful jobs and innovation in the Small and Medium Enterrise (SME) sector in future.

Ancillary links to large industries with long term supply/services contract to help scale and internationalise;
Availability of trained manpower; and
Burden of regulations which cost and more importantly waste precious time.

As India progresses with growing its Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Singapore-based industry veteran Girija Pande shares his views on recent developments in SME sector globally – especially reviewing what Singapore is doing to remake this sector for future challenges.

Pande’s thoughts are important and urgent both for Indian MSMEs/SMEs and the regulatory agencies in India. India is one of the world’s fastest growing economy with millions of MSMEs/SMEs upgrading to be Tier II or Tier III players in the global manufacturing space.

 Girija Pande, Chairman Apex Avalon Consulting Pte Ltd of Singapore and Past President of Tata Consultancy Services Asia Pacific, writes:

Quote:

I must confess I have like many others – including many governments of late – taken a strong liking to SMEs and their future.

With Digital tech revolution creating Manufacturing 4.0 with Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud-based technologies, it is clear that in the medium term, large industries in manufacturing or services will need to ‘reinvent’ themselves to survive.

In this decade-long restructuring, these enterprises will certainly not be able to create large scale jobs as in the past, in fact many of them will be downsizing employment.

All Governments have understood this oncoming disruption – hence the sudden priority on growing MSME/SME sector in each country.

India needs to urgently grasp this disruptive moment and focus on how to accelerate employment in the SME sector by deregulating it as fast as possible.

Globally, SME sector – which includes both services and manufacturing including startups, listed/unlisted companies and the non-profit or social sector – will be the one to create bulk of jobs in the medium term in most economies – some even in the new gig economy.

My contention is that for SMEs to continue to innovate and create meaningful jobs for the bulk of our relatively lesser skilled brethren, we need to prioritise rightsizing the current SME regulatory architecture, amongst other measures required to keep them going.

With a bit of innovation applied to a dream, this store can become

Consequently, from the point of view of employment any regulatory change which can improve their survival chances is welcome, certainly for the vast number of ‘mom and pop’ businesses.

I have observed these SMEs closely from many angles. I have created one, mentor a start up, serve on Boards of a Fintech Fund and a listed SME company. I also work with small social organisations which deliver very useful services to the community.

These have given me insights into their unique problems which were not apparent to me when I was running large global companies around Asia, the largest being Tata Consultancy across the Asia Pacific markets.

Challenges that these SMEs face can broadly be grouped under four broad areas:

Availability of risk and working capital;

Many solutions are being proposed in countries about how to tackle shortage of capital and manpower for this sector but it is the regulatory cholesterol which in my opinion presents the greatest challenges to their growth.

Singapore is similarly grappling with this challenge despite its well known efficient economy.

The Singapore SMEs are also ones which will create bulk of future jobs. Being a high cost open economy with manpower constraints, Singapore’s SME sector, unfortunately, faces greater challenges to survive in this volatile and uncertain world.

This Store 

The recently formed Enterprise Singapore (ES) defines SME companies being those with turnover under S$100 million -constituting nearly 90% of enterprises in Singapore.

Of these nearly 160,000 small/micro enterprises with turnover between S$1 million to S$10 million – constitute 80% of the total.

This could be a useful guide to define what constitutes SMEs.

These micro enterprises employ nearly half a million Singaporeans while all SMEs (with turnover under S$100 million) employ nearly 2.2 million – over 70% of the total employees in Singapore.

Most of the focus has been on provision of finance and Government agencies in Singapore have done a reasonable job with grants and tax incentives.

Many trade associations – including my own, Singapore International Chamber of Commerce – are attempting to assist SME members with links to larger Multi-National Corporations'(MNCs) working on Industry Transformation Maps (ITM) created recently to improve enterprises productivity and to assist in digitising them.

These efforts are laudable but still not sufficient till we right size the regulatory architecture impacting SMEs.

This will require a delicate balancing act by many Government departments who need to be focussed on cost/benefits of each and every regulation and look to light touch where possible. Undoing regulations to promote ease of doing business is a major thrust of the current US government as well as the Indian government.

One shining example in Singapore was the waiver of compulsory audit of annual accounts of SME’s with turnover under S$1 million announced few years ago. Similarly not levying Goods and Services Tax (GST) on such enterprises. For start ups and micro enterprises such simple regulations are a boon beyond belief.

However, there are many more in the statute book which could be modified or eliminated pragmatically. Could we for example, in some instances, move towards reporting rather than approval based regulations in some instances?

SME’s will not need to wait for approvals but work to build or grow their enterprises and report compliance when done. Time is of essence for SMEs and anything that can be done quickly and painlessly can make a difference between success or shutdown.

Do we need listed SMEs to fill up pages on sustainability as required by Singapore Exchange rather than a one pager? Many other instances abound, I am sure and we will find them as we look deeper.

Singaporean bureaucracy has a sterling reputation for innovative thinking. For example Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken an excellent lead to create a unique regulatory sandbox to allow startup Fintechs to innovate and prosper. This is likely to make Singapore a Fintech hub in Asia.

Is there a need to create such a regulatory sandbox for SMEs under Ministry of Trade and Industry or Enterprise Singapore, where myriads of regulations which impact them are reviewed in detail for their applicability to SME’s, some retired while others put in such a sandbox for trials.

It will certainly go down as Innovation Singapore style. It may also save many SMEs from possible extinction. Unquote.

-/fii-news.com

Sticking with Your Own Kind

I recently had an argument with someone who had the potential to offer me a job. He stated that he was willing to offer me $2,500 a month to work for him and it was more than what I was getting. I then pointed out to him that I knew how much he was paying an Italian girl who was working in the same job, which was $1,000 a month more than me and I also was fully aware of what he was paying a Belgium fellow, which was $2,000 a month more. My point to him was that I brought in far more business than the Italian or Belgium but was being offered considerably less to do the same job.

In a fit of desperation, he conceded that while I did a good job for him, the Italian girl in question had “big boobs,” which the customers liked. Still didn’t hold water because I did point out to him that my bald head and fat tummy was still bringing in more money to his pocket. I gave him a way out – mentioning that this was a discussion that we should avoid when both us had just finished one beer too many. However, it was very clear that it wasn’t fun for him to be in a situation where he’d have to tell me that I was the wrong colour.

I think of that incident because it reminded me of what a good Australian friend of mine once posted on my Facebook wall – people tend to stick with their own kind. He made the observation that his Chinese manager had a tendency to hire Chinese and the Indian had the tendency to hire Indians. He further observed that it wasn’t limited to race – he noticed that short people hired other short people and I then pointed out I am a bald man who was hired by another bald man.

All these anecdotes point to one single truth – as much as people talk about opposites attracting, we’re ultimately more comfortable with people who are like us. People who are intrinsically different from us are somehow scary and we somehow find ways to avoid people that are outside are comfort zone.

I, for one, am guilty of this. When I first meet people, the questions that I ask, are those that are designed to look for a common experience, something that says, “we’re the same.” When I meet a Singaporean man, one of my first questions is inevitably, “Which army unit did you come from?” National Service is, after all, the one shared experience that all Singaporean men have and, in my mind, the army unit sort of defines the individual’s character. I remember my day job boss hiring someone whom he was impressed with because the guy did his ACCA whilst still serving in the army. I cringed because if he had time to study, it meant he wasn’t out there with the guys in the field – this was a desk jockey (he turned out to be a nice enough kind but……….)

Being a combat troop in National Service - Not an experience I relished but one that I take pride in and having gone through

I have reference points with people from other parts of the world. I remember meeting a New Zealander who didn’t like sport and I just blanked out – Kiwi who doesn’t appreciate the All Blacks – something must be wrong there.

So, as you can see, that as much as I preach the value of diversity, I am often guilty of looking for comfort zones and staying with my own kind, whether its an “own kind,” based on race, religion, sports team etc. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to bond with someone whom you have something in common with than someone you don’t.

My father will probably shoot me for this remark, but I thank the thousands of pounds he spent on sending me to England because it taught me to appreciate rugby and cricket. Somehow, most of my patrons in latter life would be Indian Nationals and the ability to talk intelligently about cricket and Indian politics was the best way to ensure that I remained on their radar. I also ended up meeting plenty of Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans.

Chucher's College, the place that taught me to appreciate Rugby - a game that would help me bond with Kiwis. 

The ability to bond across cultures is a priceless gift and being able to find “you own people,” is inevitably a wonderful thing.

I am also grateful to Churcher's College for teaching me to appreciate cricket.

However, there is a downside to it in that you tend to get “group think.” When you throw the same people together, you’re bound to get people thinking in exactly the same way and do things exactly the same. Take the Singapore government as a wonderful example. Everybody in the Singapore government tends to have the same background – Same junior college, same military unit, same university and same post graduate school. The common trend amongst our military top brass for example is – basic degree in Cambridge and Business School in the USA.

The good part of the system is that, you get genuinely smart people running the show. Dummies may make it into Cambridge but they get weeded out quickly. The downside is that you get people from the same experience, the same background looking at things in exactly the same manner. So, while things work relatively well in Singapore, you tend to find that the same solutions that were great in the 1960s being applied to the problems in the 2010s.

In a way, diversity has to be forced into the systems. I know of a venture capital firm run by former clients of mine, where the two partners take pride in the fact that they are like “chalk and cheese.” These venture capitalists celebrate their differences because they feel that their strength lies in their differences. Their results seem to speak for themselves.

Perhaps, the answer is thus – give people reasons to come together. Give people reasons to bond and find common ground. Find a reason for giving raising up people who are different from you because in the end, diversity, however painful it is to put into practice, is good for us because it forces us to grow beyond out comfort zones.

The Insecurity of the Majority

When the Oaf in the White House got himself elected two years ago, many people said it was because he appealed to a sense of “Empowerment” to a group that is supposed to be the top of the proverbial food tree – the white man. The Donald spent an entire campaign taking cheap pot shots at the groups that do work such as Mexicans, women and the disabled and the so-called masses lapped it up. Finally, here was someone who was speaking about the suffering of the “real” people and not giving a damn about the so called “political correctness” that had caused so much suffering to the “real” people.

As awful as the Donald is, I allowed to be a form of amusement. I actually felt that somehow, we in Singapore, are little bit better. Sure, the different races take a few pot shots at each other but when push comes to shove, we are all Singaporeans. I think of the curry incident, where Singapore Chinese joined their Indian brethren, after a family of China-born migrants made complaints about the cooking of curry.

My faith in “my” people was a little shaken today when I read the comments of a post by a Singaporean of Indian decent who had a very nasty encounter with a woman who didn’t think twice about going down the racist route. The posting can be found at:  

https://www.facebook.com/hunter.helmsley.106/posts/10156591923548888

The story is disturbing in itself. At the very least, the woman in question should have been shot for being stupid. When you work in customer service, you don’t go out of your way to insult people because you never know who is going to be your next customer.

Leaving aside the nature of the post, what I found particularly disturbing, was the comments that people left behind. OK, there was some optimism in as much as the majority of comments were sympathetic to the guy who posted the post.

However, there was a small minority who didn’t get the point. One even went as far as to call the poster, “Just a driver trying to blow shit up,” and then said his experience wasn’t “racism.” Another chap described the incident as “The tone might be inappropriate, but expecting everyone to be PC in everything? Really?” – That was incidentally from someone who couldn’t understand why people with dark complexions get upset when their darkness is used against them, because white, yellow and brown people apparently don’t get upset when their whiteness, yellowness and brownness is brought up.

When I posted something about how I’d have sacked the woman in question, someone actually posted that I would never make it into management because I didn’t protect the staff from “an allegation becos of doing her duty.”

While those posting were thankfully in the minority, I find myself asking, are we, the majority (I am ethnically Chinese, which means I’m part of the majority of Singapore’s population), forgetting that just because someone is of a different ethnicity or culture, it doesn’t mean that their complaints are not valid.

I question whether the Chinese Singaporean is starting to feel the same pressures that the White American was supposed to be feeling – namely, the fact that you’re no longer the dominant species?

I do see inter-communal tensions. Since I deal mainly with Indians, I see it most in the Indian communities, where our local Singaporeans have woken up to find themselves competing with people from India who happen to be as well educated or if not more so than they are. Hence, you get the local Indians complaining about the “snooty” expat Indians with “fake” qualifications and you get the other side, which basically thinks the majority of our local Indians live in two-room HDB flats.

I also see it in the Chinese Community, where the term “Chinaman” refers to the roughest and crudest of people. Our local Chinese girls are also finding it harder to compete with better looking and more stylish women from the Mainland. I remember one of my female acquaintances verbally expressing the idea that every girl from China was an AIDS factory. I also had a girl friend from China who thought that Singaporean Chinese girls were not pretty because they came from the wrong part of China (roughly translated – We, China girls are from Beijing and Shanghai, so we are pretty – Singapore girls are from Guangzhou and Fujian – so less pretty. My Aunt’s only reply was “OH FUCK OFF.”)

However, I’ve not seen much tension between the races. While there are jokes amongst the Chinese about the Indians being “black,” but by and large, inter-racial relations in Singapore are pretty good. So, I’m kind of surprised that there are people who are expressing sentiments that can be summed up as “Ohh stop whining, you’re lucky to be in our society.”

Seriously, Singaporean Chinese are in no danger of being displaced on the top of the socio-economic food tree in Singapore. All you have to do is to look at the higher echelons of any government organization (especially the military), and you’ll realise that the Singaporean Chinese is not in any danger of being shut out of the plum jobs. Having said that, I guess you could have said the same thing about the White American man. Obama was only half a black man who ran the country through a cabinet that was predominantly of Caucasian decent and somehow, it seemed that the White man felt left out and disempowered enough to vote for Trump and his bashing of people who do work.

I’ve had Singaporean friends tell me that they can’t hack it in Singapore because its getting expensive and the foreigners are to blame. I’ve heard the same thing from Europeans and Americans. The world is becoming different and old socio-economic patterns are changing and while I believe that this is something that should be celebrated, it will leave people disenfranchised.

In places like Detroit, you had a car industry that kept working class white people in decent paying jobs. Then, the car manufacturing went to places like Japan, then China and dare I say the robots are also moving in. For the working class white man, it can be very unsettling when the thing that gave you a good living goes elsewhere.

Likewise, in Singapore, the average Singaporean had a perfect niche between East and West. As one Singaporean British Airways Steward said, “They used to hire us because we spoke English and Mandarin. Now, the PR Chinese are learning English, so the airline hires them instead.”

As painful as it is, this disruption is a good thing. It forces one to use ones’ wits and think of different ways of survival. You got to think of doing things better when you don’t have the advantage of incumbency.

I don’t see why the Singaporean Chinese needs to feel threatened in his homeland. We just need to accept that things are changing and we got to find new ways of doing things. You can’t fight it and we have to acknowledge that our friends from ethnic minorities have their special value too if we want to progress in a changing world. If you can’t recognize someone because “ALL Of YOUR ARE SO BLACK,” then you might want to consider migration – to Mars.

Let’s Go Easy on Loudmouths

I’m going to do something very unusual – I’m going to be nice about the oaf occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I’m going to be nice about him because despite the crap coming out of his mouth, the guy merely a “talker” rather than a doer. As was brilliantly said in the classic series “Yes Minister,” – “Always deal with the difficult part in the headline.” In the oaf’s case, it’s a case of say it – say it even more loudly and if necessary put on a show of actually doing something but not actually doing it or doing it in such a way that the powers around you manage to stop you.

Take everything he said about China as an example. On the campaign trail, he couldn’t stop talking about how he was going to punish China for “raping the American Economy.” Once elected, he made a few noises and raised a tariff or two but the moment President Xi Jin Ping stood in front of him, the Donald was like an obedient school boy eager to please the Principle, even going as far as to bring out his granddaughter to sing for President Xi in Mandarin. A clip of Ms. Kushner speaking Mandarin can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzM7XoVVGQc

I bring out the example of the Donald and his management style because life is filled with little Donald’s who believe that the way to be tough is to look like you’re tough. I’m not saying that these guys are duds. As is often said, they had to have done something right to get to a certain position in life. However, they are, more often than not, the type that only get so far because they can’t help themselves from living on bullshit and anyone with half a brain, a cool head and half a testicle quickly understands that this is often the easiest guy to deal with as long as you can live with the amateur theatrics.

Donald Trump is a wonderful example. In fairness, he actually had the brains to ensure he was born into a well to do family and somehow, he always made sure that Daddy was willing to bail him out whenever he got into the shit (It’s a skill – well to do Daddy’s didn’t get to where they were by being stupid and quite often they are hard on their own flesh and blood). The Donald eventually built a moderately successful business by bragging about how great he was (Seriously, who sues Forbes for ‘underestimating’ his wealth?). Somehow, some smart people bought into the hype and helped him move up without actually looking at what was behind the hype.

As much as I remain stunned that he actually got voted into the White House, I have to credit the Donald for doing something right to have tapped into something that compelled otherwise decent people to want to vote for him.

Having said everything that I’ve just said, there’s one fatal flaw to the man – there’s actually nothing beyond the hype. I think of the people who voted for him because they thought he was going to bring his business brilliance to running the country. Well, they’re partially right, he’s running the country exactly the way he ran his businesses – in a totally disorganized manner with no inclination of competence. In the year that this administration has been in power, they have only passed ONE bill despite controlling both houses of Congress and most of the governorships. He has bungled things that a mongrel could pass with flying colours (Denouncing Neo-Nazis) and his White House has lost staff faster than Usain Bolt on speed. This is the only administration that has gotten itself investigated within a year of being in office (By contrast, it took Bill Clinton 5-years for the Lewinsky scandal to come out and it was a similar time frame for Ronald Regan and the Iran-Contra Scandal).

You get away with being undisciplined in businesses because most businesses are small enough not to matter. The Trump Organisation is private organization that manages to be private enough for people to cover up the obvious holes. The White House is a different matter – your every move or your every failure is a matter of public knowledge.

The Donald, as they say, is only an example of a leader who got there by hype. As much as one should want leaders who are more deserving, these are perhaps the easiest characters to deal with. They usually have an obvious weakness – huge egos. Stroke their egos and they actually end up being quite easy to manipulate.

Once again, look at where Donald Trump has had the most success in his foreign policy. He’s managed to piss off traditional allies in the Western World who face similar public appearances that he does. Did he expect Emmanuelle Marcon to let him crush his hand for the television cameras? The French would not allow their President to be seen to be bullied by an American. Neither would the Germans allow Angela Merkel to look like Trump’s patsy. Even the British, who have traditionally toed the American line have actually cancelled a State Visit.

By contrast, Trump has done very well with the Saudi Royal Family. It should be noteworthy that his first trip overseas was to Saudi Arabia. Despite slamming President Obama for bowing to King Abdullah, the Donald actually curtsied for King Salman. A video link can be seen below:

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

It should be noted that the Saudi’s flattered the hell out of the Donald and reaped their rewards. The curtsey for King Salman was a very small price to pay for promising to buy billions of dollars-worth of American hardware. They saw it to it that Trump would be flattered at every moment he was in the Kingdom and the Donald loved every moment of it. A video of his tour to Saudi can be seen below:

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

Saudi Arabia flattered an ego in need of flattery. In return, the Saudi’s got him to curtsey before King Salman and more importantly, the Donald has come down hard on their Shia Rival across the Gulf, Iran and ignored their war in Yemen and he’s barely battered an eyelid over the blockade of Qatar. Despite coming into power on the promise to ban migration from Muslim countries, Saudi’s remain able to travel freely to the US of A.

The Chinese have also understood that flattery and appearing to kiss arse without actually coming near the proverbial behind works wonders. President Xi never seemed annoyed by the Donald’s comments on labeling China a currency manipulator. The Donald may blabber on about this and that, but the President remains calm and smiles politely:

The Chinese have made it a point of being very hospitable to the Donald. An example of the hospitality extended to the Donald can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na3lcejmqZ4

Somehow, the man who had it in for China and Chinese raping of the American Economy cannot help but gush over his Bromance with “President Xi.” Let’s put it this way, would you expect an American President to endorse the Chinese President lifting term limits and allowing himself to stay in power indefinitely?

Why have leaders from autocratic systems found it so much easier to get along and get what they want from the “Leader of the Free World,” than those from fellow democracies?

One could say that the Arabs and the Chinese have had centuries of learning the art of court intrigue, which the Europeans have not. Then again, that’s not quite true because European history is filled with double dealings – just ask any Pole about what happened when Adolf and Joseph screwed them up.

Perhaps it could be the fact that in a democracy, leaders have to appear to do what their subjects want. The British, French and Germans, expect their leaders to have some sort of public image that goes beyond money and power on the international stage. By contrast, a leader in autocracy merely needs to ensure that the subjects feel well taken care of not to rebel. Hence, King Salman and President Xi can tap into the Donald’s weak spots – namely money and power.

Which then leads to the next awful thought. Perhaps the Chinese and Saudi’s have something that makes the Donald think twice before doing anything stupid – namely the fate of the Trump Organisation. – Who is to say that King Salman didn’t politely hint to the Donald that there are Saudi Princes with money to spend on units in Trump Towers? Who is to say that President Xi didn’t suggest to the Donald that US policy might have unfortunate consequences on potential expansion plans in China. We will never know.

Loudmouths and braggarts can be exceedingly annoying. They can be painful to deal with, especially when they happen to be in positions of power over you.

However, if you understand what they want and if you have the ability to flatter on one hand, dangle a bribe on another and ensure that they understand that the hand currently stroking the testicles with tender loving care could turn into a vice like grip, then the loudmouth and braggart will find a way of giving you your long term objectives.