March 2006
Let’s Empower Them For Our Own Ends
The New Paper on Jan 15, 06: “Money stunts quite enough: Hong Kong charity shows have since moved on. Why shouldn’t we?” Let me see… For one, the folks in HK are not quite as kiasu in proving a ‘national’ point that we are motivationally successful and people-loving. The other more important point here is that we can never really ‘move on’ from being… ‘juvenile’ in our entertainment ways. Can you imagine Singaporeans growing and wising up? How scary is that to our Masters? “Use your brain” only when you’re told to do so, get it?
Why do you think all that juvenile-humor on our breakfast radio shows is still so popular? You certainly don’t get a Singaporean Howard Stern who dares ask probing national questions around here. They’d label it being irrelevantly political.
Someone wrote to The Sunday Times that same Jan 15 to say: “On an MRT ride, I noticed a girl sitting opposite me take out a nail file to file the fingernails of her boyfriend. As she finished each nail, she would brush the filings off his jeans. After a while, she started digging his fingernails as well. I could not hold my tongue any longer and told her she was being inconsiderate. But she shot back: ‘Come on, it’s only powder!’ The couple filing their nails seemed educated enough. They spoke well and they wore T-shirts with smart-alecky slogans.”
I had a similar experience at a downtown cinema recently. A young funky Indian couple (no doubt funky cos even in the cinema-darkness I could see the guy’s mini-mohawk hair-do) was seated next to me and was especially chatty and giggly. After a while, I turned to the guy and asked if he intended to carry on his conversation as we’re all watching a movie. His response was: “But we were not talking loudly, what.” Being Mr. Nag here and not easily dismissed by a defensive Singaporean retort, I told him flatly: “But I heard it all!” That silenced them for a while, but only for a while. In no time, the giggly conversation started again, this time with the shuffling of kropok snacking to boot. I found an empty seat across the aisle and moved away… too glad to leave the ugly Singaporeans be.
That’s the kind of young people we have today in Singapore, I’m afraid. And yes, I’m GENERALIZING because it is fair enough to. Good on the education system and on the youths’ parents, I’m so proud of them! As the usual Singaporean retort goes: What can we do? I’d say the same, lor, and leave the System here to think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the people of Singapore who are proud to call themselves Singaporeans.
I love it when the national mentality – drop-on-the-floor-still-pick-up-sand (“let’s learn from our honest mistakes and move on…”) -- trickles down to the psyche en masse. Not that there’s anything wrong with moving on from mistakes, just the hair-splitting nature of how some mistakes are ‘nationally’ more honest than others! Mull on that, y’all!
“Slog all day for $700 a month? Some do,” Lydia Lim reported on Jan 21, 06 in the Straits Times. Guess she’s doing us a favor by telling our State Ministers who are among the highest paid in the world (if not the highest)! Sweet Lydia, while telling Big Brother she just happens to appear like she’s telling us! Consider it my prerogative to argue it that way. The last say, babe!
“Opposition MPs will be ideal when the next general election rolls around, but only if it is a decent opposition” – The Sunday Times piqued on Jan 29, 06. But that’s it, there’s really no ‘decent opposition’ in Singapore! How else to account for them being sued by the Gov?
I do love it when General Election season hots up. The kiasu instinct rears its ready head for a full-on shameless… last say. To wit: “Govt hits out at Workers’ Party’s ‘Time Bombs (Manifesto)’ (The Sunday Times, Jan 22, 06). It concerns the Workers’ Party call to abolish all Residents’ Committees and Citizens Consultative Committees, among other things, saying -- “they are eyes and ears of the Government”. The Government’s retort: “These grassroots organizations are necessary to bring racial and religious committees together, keep them together and play a role in crises.”
Right on, I say. How else can we get the filing-nails’ parents to band together to karaoke? Or to think they’re in one happy cohesive paradise? The same ones who wonder what could be wrong with our youths all over the trains and jeans and cinemas! Let the opposition parties bring on the noize! We have the best last say!
“Help for needy is long term, not polls ploy: PM. Measures are not sudden development but ongoing and meant to lift everybody up” (ST, Jan 23, 06). Now, why would any Singaporean doubt the sheer coincidence of the “sudden development” happening around Election season? I wouldn’t! The next day… “EDB forecast: $8.5b investment flow and 25,000 new jobs” (ST). So, vote with confidence always, y’all; not that voting is related to these cash benefits. Not at all! I do love the ‘national transparency’ agenda. Obvious is as obvious does. Staying mum does equate to being ignorant. Splendid.
“Plenty of morality lessons on parenting, communication and filial piety… preachy and obvious.” Is that the Straits Times in a nutshell? Alas, it’s the pot calling the kettle black from ST film-critic Ong Sor Fern panning Jack Neo’s I Not Stupid Too. Fabulous!
“Japanese government rapped for supporting scandal-hit Internet whizz kid” – was a headline on Channel News Asia spotted on Jan 23, 06. Would you ever see one here that says Singapore government rapped… Never! Never say never? Singapore can!
Oh look, Big Brother has shot himself in the foot again through one of his most earnest henchmen Warren Fernandez. In his Thinking Aloud column in ST (on Jan 21): “For the annual conference by the Feedback Unit to discuss ideas… on the agenda, are ‘big picture’ discussions on how to empower people…” My, think of the implication of that agenda! Not that dodo Singaporeans would. Implication? What’s that?!!
What is your problem, cantankerous X’ Ho? I hear some blast away. Problem? Well, I can just hear Big Brother, if asked a question like that. Problem? No problem. Nothing we can’t handle. So, simply put it down to me learning well in pushing for my last say!
You could even say I’m the self-elected Miniscule Mentor and chief disciple of the cheap art. – X’ Ho
