happy birthday singapore

When gambling in a casino, the house always wins. individuals' pickings, no matter how rich, will always be mere crumbs in proportion to what the house creams off. Of course, the house will always make sure those individuals feel rich and royal, even though they are not. For those who can, they indulge in the occasional fun and fantasy; for those who can't, it's puzzling how delusional their hopes can be. And for the ones awakened, they stay away from the casino at all profits and costs; they know it is simply not worth the while. And if they are parents and good ones, they would similarly lead their children not to temptation.

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I REFER to Ms Heng Siew Cheng's letter, 'Why one couple is resettling in Sweden'', (July 17) and the replies by Singapore Senior Minister of State for Finance and Transport, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua (July 22), and 'Where else can you buy your home in 5 years?'' by Mr Peter Wadeley (July 24).

... Mr Wadeley implies that Singaporeans can buy a home in five years. I disagree. Last year, [Singapore's] median household income was $4,870. Even with grants, an average family cannot pay off a flat that quickly. It is also unachievable for Ms Heng and her Swedish husband, even if their collective income barely breaches the HDB's $8,000 bar.

Mrs Lim's comparison is incomplete. Nine in 10 Singaporeans merely lease their homes (HDB flats are typically 99-year leaseholds). Freehold ownership is higher in Sweden: Forty per cent live in landed property, 20 per cent in freehold condos and 40 per cent in rental flats. Swedish rental flats are akin to HDB flats. The main differences are that there is no downpayment, and the rental contract does not expire.

It is true, as Mrs Lim says, that Swedes spend 13 per cent of their income on housing. But for the money, half of us have our own garden - and precious time - to play with our children.

She suggests it is less expensive to raise children here. It is true that consumer goods are cheaper here and Singapore ranks third globally in per capita GDP (purchasing power adjusted) and Sweden 12th, according to the World Bank. But as more of Singapore's GDP comprises imports and exports, the statistic does not reveal the extent of benefit to its citizens.

The World Bank uses Household Final Consumption Expenditure (HFCE) as an affordability benchmark. Including goods and services provided by the government, it tells how much one has for useful spending, either directly or through tax. Sweden's HFCE per capita, in 2005 figures, is US$30,000, (S$42,000) double Singapore's US$14,000.

Ms Heng is concerned about raising children here. Having lived in both countries, I agree. The United Nations' Human Development Index, based on 350 indicators, tracks 'a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living'. Sweden ranks sixth worldwide, while Singapore trails at 25th.

I am not advocating the adoption of Sweden's welfare system wholesale. But, if Singapore adopts a tiny part, giving parents flexibility and cheaper childcare, it probably means a tax hike of just a few per cent.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Ms Heng to Sweden.

Jan Sundström

school/work

i hadn't even had time to breathe since returning to a flurry of back-to-back things. school started and uni is once more a sea of faces and books and hurry. i presented my paper at the departmental seminar and that went ok, i got resounding compliments but i think it's still theoretically sloppy. i've to spend the next 2 weeks writing the proper draft for the conference. the institute that i'd been working at asked me to consider a more permanent position, which is quite impossible given the amount of work and travelling i'm undertaking. and i had my three tutorial classes today, one after another. it's a sorta deja vu standing in front of a bunch of 19 year old kids and writing things on the whiteboard expounding the glories of studying global politics. i suspect it would be a matter of time i start quoting winterson and shoving her novels down their throats. once again, class dynamics (or is it the time, the feng shui?) seemed to play a huge part; the first tutorial was great and i talked so much i ran over time; the second one was a lil ugh ... (why're they giving me cynical, mocking looks, as if i'm spouting nonsense?); and the third was simply fantastic, so very fantastic i thought i wanted to see them everyday. haha. thankfully it's the weekend, and i'll get some breather, and return to the happy grind again. 

Melbourne

The people who know me would know how attached I am to Melbourne, it's very much an emotional thing, and one that is over and beyond the physical structures that constitute the city. And what a beautiful city Melbourne is; city of gardens, of fountains, of trams, of literature, and gradually, of my youth. 

There're too much of Melbourne to compress into photographs; like the newly refurbished spires of St. Paul's, the white sandstone columns of the Parliament House, Melbourne's architecture is, in contrast to Sydney, rather stunning. And the difference is also in the Melburnians; they just seem to have more laughter and bigger hearts.

I loved how gorgeous, simply gorgeous, and elegant, this lady looked, especially with that rose-lined hat, and in a wet market (Queen Victoria Market) no less. 

Melbourne University, of course. I gave a paper in the Politics department that afternoon. The uni has changed so much, not just in the new buildings still building, and the horrendous looking chunks of student housing, and vapid marketing banners and slogans everywhere exhorting you to thinkMelbourne and/or dreamlarge. bleargh. What happened to that old world of staid sandstones and mildewed hardcover books of outrageous ideas and brilliant thoughts?

Ah. Here. One of the few sandstones (left standing). I never realised how imposing this building looked. 

The Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton gardens. One can appreciate its grandeur only when one's not sitting for exams in there. I still remember being dumbstruck by this exam question: "is realism moribund today? discuss", and hopelessly praying to the high empty ceilings for salvation. I used to live just a stroll away, and looking back, I never fully appreciated how much a privilege it was to live in such proximity to this all.

P's farm, 500km out of Melbourne, 2500ft up in the alpines, and it was quite a weekend up there.

For the sole reason that is P, and his pipe, and his Wagner, and his stories, and, his outrageous ideas and brilliant thoughts. His old world of aristocratic Oxford is fast-disappearing, if not already, and simply watching him, old world aristocratic bearings and manners and all, is inspiration enough. Simply watching him makes me want to be brilliant.

And then collecting and chopping wood, lighting the fire, pouring the wine, and talking into the wonderful hours of the night.

Back in the city, with S who came down from the UK to reunite with us all; and how he verbally wrote my thesis over a coffee at Brunetti's.

And this person, of course, who with wine and cheese and S, finished writing his thesis in his head, and getting quite fat from all the eating and drinking.

Melbourne's evenings are always cast aglow, if not in a wild sky of red, then this spray of gold. 

I'll be reluctant to leave, and I'll leave with much sadness. That's the way with Melbourne, the city will change, but its light will remain. That's the way with old friends you first met right here, and whom you meet again after all these years. That's the way with memories, that once lived in time and were real, and that come alive once more, but are never quite the same again.

oh melbourne

Yes I'll be presenting my paper at the conference in Salzburg in Oct-Nov :) the paper will be published as a book chapter, which means I've secured ONE scholarly publication. Which also means I can't go to Italy as originally planned, and then I'll have to go to the UK earlier than expected.

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For now, hello from Melbourne!!! where it's my third day that I can't stop smiling my happy smile. Returning to Melbourne, I fall in love with this city all over again. I remember landing in Melbourne and instinctively looked for the sky. And it was grey, a glorious Melbourne grey, right in the middle of its grey winter, accompanied by that cold.. a colder cold, a cosier, a kinder cold. And I know I’m back in the city that I love. 

I feel so happy to be back...

What is it about Melbourne? Is it the stubborn memories of those times long past, those early wintry walks to uni and aimless scorching summer in the shade? Is it its laneways and old stones and desultory chapels? Is it its cafes and coffees, cakes and pastries? Is it the artistic air? Is it the trams? The friendlier people? Is it just Melbourne? 

I’m putting up at P’s institute, and it’s an absolutely fantastic place to stay. I love the huge bay windows in my room that let in light right onto the bed. Sometimes while lying on my pillow, right above me is the moon, sometimes full, always surrounded by stars. This place is like a sanctuary for troubled souls, and I feel completely at peace here, all light and all quiet.

In fact I was thinking of going back to Sydney, pack everything up, rent a car, and drive it all down to Melbourne. But a few hours after my arrival, I was asked by a lecturer to tutor three classes for him next semester. Which means I'll have to abandon my capricious plans to escape to Melbourne, and stay put in Sydney. Which also means I'll have 75 first-year undergrads as my students, and I get to play teacher again. *evil laughter*

I'll post pictures soon, probably next week when I return from P's farm: looking forward to spending a few days in the middle of nowhere with no telephone and no net and just the good old peace, quiet, and solitude with a good old pipe-puffing professor. 

esperanza

That's the Esperanza, the Greenpeace ship that docked in Sydney two weeks ago. J and I hopped onto the ferry and cruised over the harbour as well as one of the most beautiful Sydney afternoons to another side, just to have a chance to hop onto the ship and have a tour around. People tend to shy way from Greenpeace because whenever this name appears, images of violent, crazed protestors come to mind. And it's true, Greenpeace can get aggressive (but never violent), and their members are wildly passionate people who care greatly for the environment. You may not agree with some of their tactics and beliefs, but you can't quite say you don't care about our haywire environment and dying planet. At least someone is doing something about it.

I'm tempted to bring in Chee Soon Juan here, for there're interesting parallels. Through skillful use of words and manipulation of phrases and perspectives, the Singaporean propaganda (i.e. Straits Times etc.) so successfully demonised Chee Soon Juan that whenever that name comes up, one immediately think of a raving madman. One almost never remember this was a man who was a university lecturer. Yet all our notions and perceptions of university lecturers - measured tones, eloquent sentences, brilliant minds - don't fall onto our visual imaging of Chee. Why? Have we ever heard him rave, bark, shout? Yes, perhaps, through the paraphrases and skewed reportage from the media, but never in person. Because in fact, Chee has never raved - he's not a madman that we have come to think he is. Have we ever heard him speak at Hong Lim Park, or logged onto Youtube for videos of his speeches and interviews and protests, or read his side of the story on his SDP website? No. Because the media has done the reporting for us. Because we don't need to form our own opinions. Because we don't have a mind of our own. Because ... it's better not to think about it, lest we become another Dr Chee (If only we were half as eloquent and smart and brave). Why are we so afraid of being a Dr Chee? Because we'll lose our jobs, we'll get sued and bankrupted, and have no more money to show off to our neighbours, friends, and relatives. Because deep down inside we know we're nowhere as eloquent, smart, and courageous as Chee. Because deep down inside, we don't want to find out why we are so timid and mediocre. Because we know that if we do, we'll be stripped as naked as the naked emperor.

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One of the biggest reasons why I'll never bring up my child in Singapore is I can never bear to teach him the moral values of truth and honesty. To adhere to these two values in Singapore would be to lead a life of misery, poverty, and incarceration. Truth and honesty gives way to money and power for more money and more power.

Having personally gone through the education system first as a student (it almost destroyed me), and much later as a teacher (I almost destroyed it), I've come to see it as a system that destroys dreams and life and that churns out mindless bots. We end up with kids who ace exams because they can cram, and we dump the rest who can't ace and who can't cram, and either way, we end up with kids who can't speak, can't write, and can't think.

We say we're bilingual but we aren't fluent enough to converse in either language. And when you do, your friends laugh at you, as if you were lolling off a foreign language. We say we're an educated workforce but we can't see beyond the As and Bs and Cs on our empty diplomas. We say we value intelligence, yet can't see past the school from where we graduated and the swanky job title on our name cards. We falsely equate intelligence with qualification, though qualification does not an education make, and intelligence is more than a string of As in Math and Science. We say we're an entrepreneurial country but we need to teach creativity to a people whose creative impulses were snuffed out in their stifled childhood. We say we're best in this and that, but all we do is to copy the world and build it newer, bigger, flashier. We say that without the PAP in government, Singapore would perish, yet at the same time, we pride ourselves in having an astonishingly brilliant and first-rate civil service. We are obsessed with labels and categories and can't see beyond the apparent contradictions and shades of grey. As Oscar Wilde starkly put it for us: we know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. We have forgotten that the most valuable things are also priceless ones. But we don't want priceless ones, we want expensive ones, and preferably more than one in different colours, models, and versions.

We're a country blessed with lots of sunshine, yet life is one big monotone with days of black and white. Singapore can be so much better a country, more intelligent, more gracious, more compassionate, more mature, and happier. Perhaps, also less of a sick joke. But the people don't want to be so. They simply think that any otherwise, Singapore would die, and that is if they even think at all.

It is such people and such thoughts that create today's Singapore - prosperous, but ruined.

When kids walk out of their schoolgates for the last time, no longer a kid, the world before them, what will happen to those wide-eyed innocence and easy laughter? Must they lose them, and lose them so quickly?

a sunday out

Kensington park near my house that I have to past to go anywhere.

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Some years ago, when the people who built skyscrapers and cathedrals finally finished what they had set out to do, that is, to build skyscrapers and cathedrals, one with lots of concrete and the other with lots of sandstone, they discovered an empty piece of land left forgotten right in the middle of the city. They couldn’t remove the land because that would simply and swiftly replace it with another empty piece of land. They didn’t want to build things on it because that would add more weight to an already heavy city. So they agreed to hide the vacant plot. They paved some footpaths and manicured the bushes and the grass that had begun to sprout from the neglected earth, and planted some trees with hard sturdy trunks that were bent at a diagonal, and whatever concrete and sandstone that were left were used to line the little kerbs, shape a fountain decorated with naked angels, and erect a memorial for the war dead, lest we forget. The land that couldn’t be removed was now hidden from view, and to celebrate this simple feat of ingenuity, they decided to call it Hyde Park.

St Mary's Cathedral at the tip of Hyde Park

Hyde Park comes alive on Sundays, as if preparing to go to church. Bordered by thick roads, the sound of traffic is never far away, like waves lapping on a nearby shore. Only perhaps less soothing; only this time the blue is up in the sky, an endless inscrutable dome with no beyond. Sometimes, the church bells toll, and would certainly toll again when the Pope descends onto the city next week, and give his blessings to believers and non-believers alike. I am not a believer – when there is too much light, I step onto a man’s shadow and await another shade. This was just what I did earlier, stepping onto other people’s shadows in the park, while skateboarders went zooming past, catching wind in their wind-ruffled hair, while a dandy in white tapered trousers and brown moccasins and a pink sweater hiding the colour of his shirt played the flaneur, looking at no one but at himself, while a lone youth sat on a corner bench reading the last few pages of a very thick novel, while lovers and pigeons cavorted on the sloping grass beside each other, separated by breadcrumbs and cheese, where a sermon of fire and brimstone was delivered from the pulpit in the cathedral, while its stained-glass windows of Mary and Child looked serenely out, to somewhere, the sound of bagpipes, and the Scottish highlands seemed nearby.

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Japanese and Aussie hiphop dancers

erm ...

F is German and he's just found salvation in the city - bread, pretzel and beer from his hometown

I had something called kassler, that had the b-e-s-t porkribs I'd ever tasted

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Who am I?

The story behind Hyde Park is of course not real. I made it up just then out of boredom. I don't know how Hyde Park came into existence, just as I don't know how I came into existence. There's probably a factual explanation, a truer truth somewhere. Often we don't bother to find out, and it doesn't really matter anyway, because even more often, excavating for the ultimate truth is a futile exercise when there is seldom such a thing as one truth, when there are only multiple truths and that they change with time and they merge into fiction. The question of Who am I always invites a tale, either as pure story or some embroidery. I'm a doctoral student in the humanities who loves literature, doesn't club and smoke and do those fancy shopping and pretty money things and am impressed and fascinated by, and inexplicably attracted to people and things that're somewhat average, quotidian and pedestrian, without affectation and artifice, and especially if accompanied, naturally, by some poetry, coffee, and a waft of cigarette smoke from outside the window, and these are fancies consequent of having spent an inordinate amount of time reading and daydreaming in cafes, buses, trains, and sometimes on planes, and whatever time is left I swim and run, and when I run out of time, I panic and start scribbling out my thesis. But this story will change in time - it might not even, like a dream, come true. But does it matter who tells stories, as long as there are stories to be told?

out of character(s)

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the wizard's wizard

JK Rowling recently delivered an enchanting commencement speech, turning Harvard into Hogwarts.





If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

words

It's eleven at night and I'm in my cubicle in my 'lab'. I spend quite a lot of time in here; it's a great place to be - ultra-modern facilities like movement-activated lights, ultra-hot/ultra-cold/-all-filtered tap, even LCD PC screens (!!!), comfy armchairs overlooking huge bay windows onto err.. the library lawn, my own work desk and PC, book cupboard, meeting rooms, even sofa-beds. If they had installed shower facilities I'd have saved on rent and lived here permanently.

I've been trying to hammer out the paper proper, in time for my Melbourne trip. Over the past two weeks I'd put in scraps and bits, and have some 4000 words now. In a more credible spurt of concentration, I managed to properly think and write, and churned out 1000 words over two three-hour blocks. In terms of having a presentation paper, it's quite done, I've got my ideas in their right place, and supporting evidence marshalled. But I do want it published as a journal article, so I'm looking at 7-9000 words eventually. That means much more work, more editing. And in order not to let this huge commitment go to 'waste', I want to insert it into my thesis, and, that means even more work, even more editing.

Like I'd told S one despairing night, "I really don't know how I'm ever gonna graduate; and on that day I do, ask me how I did it, and I'll tell ya." Thesis-wise, I've written a grand total of one page. That's less than 500 words (out of the final 80,000-word thesis). The semester is coming to an end, and if I'm honest with myself, I suppose I've been quite a waste of time during this period. I've been continually reassured by fellow postgrads that this is Normal, and that It Will Pass. I sure hell hope it will, and quickly.

But essay-writing does get easier over time, with training. I've been marking some first-year assignments, and looking at the things they say, and that reflect their thought-processes, I believe it really is a matter of training (though old habits die hard and I mark out a lot of their grammatical errors). But back to my difficulty, it is concentrating to write, as opposed to reading novels, whining on MSN, youtubing, etc etc etc. I remember writing my very first undergrad Arts essay, a 1000-word piece on 'liberal democracy', and spent almost a month on it. Then as I progressed, the essays I wrote became 2500, 3000, 5000, and the last I heard, I did successfully write a master's dissertation in three months that came back with a distinction *pat pat* (but that is not something I encourage on a regular basis. One can very easily go mad). So if there is one thing that serves to encourage me, it'd be this paragraph. Let me visualise... writing those 80,000 words... word.. by.. word...

I must say my time here so far has confounded my sense and expectations of myself, and I suppose I've come to be better acquainted with who and what I am. And I've only been here three and a half months - who knows what the next three years would spring? The three letters, 'PhD' seem so quick, so easy, one imagines getting enrolled into a PhD programme, spend a few years thinking, reading, writing, and pop out at the other end with 'Dr' prefixing one's name, every step of the way a comfortable stroll. I never believed those who'd gone before when they said it's a test of character that would change one entirely. Now I do; and I'm already seeing myself changing, and not just intellectually. For one with a solitary and quiet temperament, who has experienced not a few of life's tragedies, I've nonetheless never felt so lonely, so unsure of myself, so daunted. It's not loneliness as we commonly refer to - it's a deeper, more consuming sense of loneliness that's not about being bored or restless or alone. It's the constant reminder from the deepest abyss of one's mind, that for all the friends and company and laughter and blue skies out and around, there is a journey that one has to and only one can undertake, with no firm ground, no signpost, no destination. There's only pitch-dark to point the way, to this vague point of light at the far end, another world.

I look forward to being in Melbourne next month, the city I once found myself and always loved and never really left. Just imagine, the wintry air and the laneway cafes, the smell of burnt coffee, the old streets with new shopwindows, the rumbling of the trams, whispers in the art gallery, the echoes in St Patrick's cathedral, footfalls on cobble stones, Old Arts of Melbourne University, rustling the fallen maple leaves. Just imagine - you latch onto the passing airport coach, and then the train, and then the tram, and then the right bringing wind, and spread out before you, is all of Melbourne.

DeGraves Cafe, Melbourne, June 2007

back for a week

I've confirmed all my flights, and I'll also be delivering a seminar paper at NUS during the week I'm in. I expect lots of shopping and eating and catching up with family and friends and be the generally mild but excessively-consuming Singaporean that I've been engineered to be.

Heil Shopping Centres!