PAP Economics

The fever swirling around GE has begun to die down, but here I am getting all riled up.

the following equation is from a man who graduated with a first-class honours degree in economics (incidently, he also possesses an M.A. in development economics):

Unhappiness + Others who are happier = Net Happiness

a formula coined by sm goh chok tong in response to concerns raised by singaporeans with regards to the (over)heated property market and the policies of hdb.

in sm goh's words:

"for those who missed out, who can't buy this, can't upgrade and so on, they are really feeling the unhappiness. question is, was the policy good? unhappiness plus those who are happier, in total there's net happiness. there's no such thing called total happiness. i mean, don't believe in it. it's whether we can create net happiness in all of this."

for the old man's sake i really hope what he meant to say was that the government cant please everyone with their policies.

but to the untrained ear, it really sounded as if our ex-PM was telling us to build our happiness on the misfortunes of our fellow citizens, to wise up and not expect to have everything that we want. that we can only be marginally happy at best.

sm goh's remarks naturally resonated with many singaporeans, some of whom were so inspired that they proceeded to make a song out of his words:




funny but i never learnt about the economics of net happiness in school before leh.

Long Overdue

We've been married for four months but our wedding pictures only arrived in the mail this week.

it's a small shame not being able to look at the photographs at the height of our nuptial glow, but we had fun trawling through the pictures anyway.

ken and i arent the posey-posey sort, so we decided to forgo the de-rigueur pre-wedding photo shoot in favour of a short picture-taking session after the wedding (considering how we were blanching at some of the poses our photographer had us do during the shoot, i'd say that was probably a very good move).

surprisingly though, most of the posed shots turned out pretty okay. here are a few of my favourites:

The Bread Factory

All thanks to Ros, actually.

She descended upon my serangoon apartment like a stork bearing gifts, quietly dropping off her much pre-loved breadmaker at my doorstep before leaving for new york.

back when she was in sapporo, the little japanese breadmaker would fill her tiny apartment with the smell of freshly baked bread on cold, wintry mornings. ros thought she would do a good turn by passing her mobile bread factory to the one who resides in okinawa, since the breadmaker would be far too heavy to make the trip to america and rendered useless in singapore because of the different voltage requirements otherwise.

buoyed by her happy memories of crispy onion and bacon bread, i decided to give the breadmaker a test drive. with an electric current transformer my dad salvaged from his workplace, my mom and i succeeded in baking our first loaf of bread this afternoon!

ros, say hello to Walnut Bread:

and this is the nifty little box that made it all possible:

Big Thank You to Ros! : )

出嫁咯！！

It turned out to be the best day of my life.

despite the many hiccups, to me everything was perfect. we ate, drank, danced, sang, laughed and cried. i never knew that so much love could ever exist in one place at one time.

how sweet it is to be loved by so many people. i should be so lucky.

------------------

Preparing the table gifts and favour boxes for the all-important favour cake:

Favour cake boxes with the monogram stickers that i had specially printed:

The final touch - ribbons:

Then finally, ta-daa! My very own handmade 5-tier favour cake!!

Collecting our marriage documents from ROM. Somehow we were both really nervous:

An hour after the wedding - me and his grand foot:

I didnt eat a thing at the reception so it was a relief to finally sit down to a quiet meal with ken:

Him with his ah pek t-shirt and "i'm so gonna drink" pose:

On the way to the wedding after-party (my bro's in the background):

Breakfast the morning after at the Tiffin Room:

Ken wearing my glasses cos he forgot his overnight bag:

Him trying very hard to channel Tony Leung:

The Tiffin Room:

The sumptuous Christmas tree at the hotel lobby:

Checking out:

Exposed

My cyber-stalking tendencies, thrown open to public scrutiny.

moral of the story?
if you are following someone this closely, you either:
1) let them know
2) cover your tracks so they won't ever find out

obviously i did neither and she found me!!

edina, if you're reading this, i want you to know that i'm happy you did. i didnt really have that much fun in secondary school because a lot of people simply assume that you arent made of much just because your grades are pathetic, and some of my best memories from that time are of us in class laughing and talking.

i'd be more than happy to meet up. it's always much much better seeing a person in the flesh than from across a computer screen : )

What's Your Stalking Style?

There's something about watching as people go about their daily affairs.

this smells of voyeurism, but i actually enjoy reading the blogs or FB profiles of people i dont know very well. i mean, the information's all there for the taking, but what's so absorbing about the entire experience is the fact that those people have no idea that i've been catching up (very frequently, no less) on their personal going-ons.

today i stumbled upon the blog (and an extremely active one at that!) of an ex-classmate from secondary school. and she sounds like she hasnt changed the slightest bit since i last saw her some 14 years ago. of course, there are the usual things like work and marriage and the addition of a fat cat, but apart from that she seems to be just the way i remembered her.

the year is 1993 and my classmates are painting banners for the upcoming michael jackson concert at the national stadium. ace of base and pj and duncan rule the airwaves and everyone's favourite radio DJ has to be mark richmond.

the early 90s was the golden age of the pioneering ah lian/ah beng movement. textbooks wrapped in print ads for luxury brands shorn from magazines, valentino paper bags in place of regular school bags, canvas shoes with tucked-in laces, sonia rykiel bags for the girls and long hair combs with sharpened ends for the boys.

she was one of the loudest and most non-conforming girls in class. while that isnt really saying much since we were from a prim-and-proper all-girls' school, to this day i still wonder how her parents let her get away with pencil-thin eyebrows at age 13. she sat in front of me in class so the proximity allowed me access to details of her tea-dance revelling at fire disco and sparks.

not that she would have ever been real friends with me, since i was the one with the geeky gold-rimmed fishbowl glasses and hair with a fringe cut 2 centimetres too high up my forehead. plus the fact that she was the "cool and funky" minah while i was really your typical blend-into-the-wall "guai-guai" chinese girl.

while she has since graduated from her elle shoes and MCM jeans, i was somewhat relieved to find out that her inner minah is still very much alive. she is still loves her labels, although her tastes have become much more expensive with age. and she is still best friends with our class monitress from 1993!

back in secondary school, people like me have always secretly fantasized about being more like the cool girls in class, and i've wondered idly not on a few occasions of how my ex-classmates have progressed since graduation. for that, i'm glad to have found her blog, since it's always a relief to know how the people you used to spent time with are getting along in life.

because really, blessed are the things that dont ever change.

Just One of Dem Days

Overheard in the office toilet.

Female A (while in cubicle): eh, i think i want to go buy burger later.

Female B (preening in front of the toilet mirror): but you ate burger yesterday wat.

A: yes, but the double cheeseburger was so nice i want to eat again.

B: (laughing) the way you eat burger very funny leh.

A: (joining in with more laughter) yah, i separate the burger and eat one.

B: yah yah yah! you eat the bread first then the pickles then you lick the tomato sauce and eat the cheese-

A: (cutting B off) no lah! i dont eat the cheese separately one! all melt liao how to eat separately?

B: (chuckling)

A: shit.

B: what?

A: i think i got urine infection. drink so much water but nothing come out one.

(me in the other cubicle: ????)

B: huh? what you mean? your pee very yellow ah?

B: (coming out from cubicle) yah lor, i always drink so much water but no urine when i go toilet. then got bubbles somemore...

(women exit toilet.)

in two milliseconds we went from double cheeseburgers to urine infections. super duper.

then on my way home i saw a pair of hormonally-charged teenagers eating each other's faces out at a secluded (but still exposed) corner of the mrt station.

just one of dem days.

A Response to Kwan Weng Kin Part II

They published my letter in The Sunday Times today!

A Response to Kwan Weng Kin

An article in The Sunday Times last week prompted me to do what I normally would never have even considered doing - writing in to the ST Forum.

ST's senior japanese correspondent, kwan weng kin (whom i've actually sort of liked up until last week for his usually succinct but informative features on japanese politics and society), wrote a page-long, two-part feature on okinawa outlining its uncomfortable history with mainland japan and the problems caused by the large US military presence in the prefecture.

i thought he did a wonderful job of giving the average reader an insight into the current situation in okinawa in the first part of the article, but the latter portion was full of gross misrepresentation and sweeping generalizations.

i quote here three of his ludicrous observations:

"the prefecture has the highest unemployent rate in japan, yet most okinawans are said not to be unduly worried. in okinawan society, family ties remain very strong and unemployed siblings can expect support from family members - a fact that critics say may, however, rob young okinawans of their desire to become financially independent."

"okinawans are also extremely fond of drinking, especially the local awamori...hangover or no hangover, most okinawans routinely report to work late in the morning after a bout of serious drinking the night before. co-workers however, do not bat an eyelid."

"there is also a widening gulf between young and old okinawans in terms of language. okinawans aged 50 and above are apt to use dialects among themselves. most young okinawans however, influenced by television and radio programmes, speak only standard japanese."

what total bullshit. i have been living in okinawa for three years, been in personal contact with many okinawans and none of my experiences come close to any of the things put forth by kwan weng kin. it is highly disappointing and embarrassing to admit that an experienced journalist from our national paper should resort to mere hearsay and popular stereotypes in covering a story. everything in the article stinks of ethnocentricism, the type of cultural-blinder experience one is apt to suffer from after spending too much time in centres of power.

i decided i couldnt have another person perpetuate another stereotype about okinawa because the place and its people are mired in enough externally-inflicted controversy and misunderstanding already.

so i fired a response to st forum and forwarded the contents of my letter to kwan weng kin's sph email. i'll be posting his response here in the event that he does reply.

in the meantime, here's what i wrote. i hope my letter gets published.
------------------------------
I read with much concern Mr. Kwan Weng Kin’s article on Okinawa (“A Country Within A Country: Okinawa”) in The Sunday Times on 16th May 2010.

As I have been living and studying in Okinawa for three years, I was heartened by Mr. Kwan’s efforts at informing readers about the conditions of a place that remains largely unknown to most people in Singapore. However, I was deeply disappointed to discover that Mr. Kwan has chosen to paint what I felt was a skewed depiction of the Okinawa people and their attitudes towards life and work.

Admittedly, the image of Okinawans as a group of happy-go-lucky merry-makers has been prevalent in most popular discourse concerning Okinawa. Such stereotypes have been further reinforced by the booming tourist trade in Okinawa, which bills the prefecture as an “island paradise” for tens of thousands of mainland Japanese holiday-makers who flock to the islands each year. The battle for the tourist yen thus necessitates the juxtaposition of the average Okinawan against the “typical worker bee Japanese” (as put forth by Mr. Kwan) – the Okinawan makes hay while the sun shines, enjoys the slow life and most certainly drinks too much for his own good.

Throughout his article, Mr. Kwan repeatedly prescribes to such stereotypes and even appeared to suggest that the cause of the high unemployment rate in Okinawa lies not in the many structural conditions plaguing the islands, but with the people themselves. Not only did Mr. Kwan fail to mention how the disproportionately large presence of U.S. military bases may be driving away potential corporate investment, which would help to propel economic growth and provide more jobs, he has also overlooked how Japan’s protracted economic recession might have further exacerbated the lack of work opportunities in Okinawa, which has the lowest minimum wage levels in the nation.

Unlike Mr. Kwan’s account of a widening language gap between the old and young in Okinawa, the imposition of an aggressive language assimilation policy during the Meiji era has meant that most Okinawans under the age of 60 were schooled in standard Japanese and are thus no longer able to speak the Okinawan dialect.

In my personal interactions with Okinawans, I have found them to be a hardworking, optimistic and friendly group of people who are nevertheless deeply concerned with the many social and political problems afflicting their hometown. Perhaps on his next visit to the prefecture, Mr. Kwan should consider venturing outside of the tourist haunts and spend more time interacting with the local people in order to gain a more accurate understanding of the situation in Okinawa.

Empire State of Mind

New York, where dreams are made.

Jay-Z can move from brooklyn to tribeca, have his courtside seats for the Knicks game and cruise down A street in an off-white lexus, but he'd still be "'hood forever".

orchard road will never be times square and the merlion is definitely no statue of liberty, but like jay-z, i am most definitely from where home is.

i wasnt raised in the projects and my streets arent new york, but i love my city too. i love everything from the money-making air in shenton to the noisy chatter and raw smells down at the wet market. why drink starbucks in the morning when you can have teh with kaya toast? fine dining is lovely, but then again, so is dinner at the zi-char stall.

we can all learn to appreciate the finer things in life while staying close to our roots.

so yes, i'm from the heartlands and i'm keepin' it real, cos there is no way anyone can take the singapore out of this girl.

The Pledge

One Newpaper article from Veena about the 822 Pledge Moment generated some minor controversy, most of it caused by this guy called Alvin, who said something about Veena not having the right to talk what it means to be singaporean because she just got her citizenship a year ago.

when challenged, mr. ambiguous maintained that he wasnt making a personal attack on veena, but i read his blog post over and over again and it still stinks of defamation. anyway, i dont claim to write as well as the man so i guess it's possibly the language thing marring my understanding of his views.

if mr. ambiguous is right in saying that veena doesnt understand what it means to live under the laws and requirements of singapore citizenship, then it might follow that we as singaporeans wont be able to fathom how veena feels about gaining official acceptance in the form of a pink IC after 17 long years of living as a long-term resident in this country.

naming yourself one in the "10% of the population who dares to provide an alternate view" ("the view that too many Singaporeans are too afraid, or too ignorant to have", mind you), doesnt serve as justification for having exclusionist and dismissive opinions. i would given him more credit if he had phrased it in a nicer way, but now he simply sounds as if he's pointing a finger at the rest of us and calling us a herd of sheep. in short, you dont earn the privilege of spouting disparaging remarks just by playing the "I'm so different from all you other people" card.

for all its worth, us "90% people" sometimes dont see the point of engaging in debate about issues like this because they will always be people like alvin telling us what we know and how we feel. and guess what? it's not because we dont know any better. it's really just because we dont see the need to justify the fact that we HAVE opinions.

even if i were in singapore, i wouldnt have taken part in the pledge moment because like someone already mentioned, it would just reek of campaign farcity, the kind the government is very good at creating (speak mandarin, dont spit or litter, be courteous, the whole lot). but i checked to see if i remembered the words and i found myself pleasantly surprised that i still do. not wanting to place my hand across my right breast and say the pledge come national day doesnt mean that i dont believe in its contents. the words of the pledge are not conveyed merely as a means to an ends, rather it is a reminder of all the ideals that we should strive for as a nation.

too many of us cling to the tendency of identifying our country with its government. singapore is not, and will never be all about PAP. once we fall into the trap of making that assumption, everything will seem immutable. remember that we are only 44 years into independence. democracy and all the things we think we should strive for as a people are achievable if we know that a country is really about its people. the fact that LDP lost its stronghold in the japanese cabinet this summer after 55 long years; the fact that america only saw its first black president in 2008 is enough food for thought.

i am not blind to the flaws of my country and i do not always approve of the plans adopted by my government. but i do know for a fact that people like us, those were born and bred in singapore, sometimes take our citizenship for granted. maybe even someone like alvin.