10/31/2005

singapore a global city

that is our aspiration. we want the best of the world to be here. we want to transform ourselves into something like a new york, london, zurich, amsterdam, manhattan, copenhagen, paris. but then again we can't be like these cities. these are europeans cities and only europeans will flock there, with a few asians who share the same taste for lifestyles and arts and culture. we can never be like any of these cities. they are too eurocentric. then what can we be? what kind of talents would be attracted to our shores? a few westerners perhaps. but mainly asians. no matter how, we are an asian country and no matter how hard we try, we cannot change the characteristics of our society so drastically. neither can we make it so appealing for the real european/american talents to flock here to make this a home or temporary home. we would probably be attractive to some asian talents from china, india, maybe some asean countries. if we are not too ambitious and more realistic, we could have a small pool of western talents in the midst of a pool of asian talents. that maybe what we will become. we are particularly attractive to asians who are not too comfortable with their home countries but desire the comfort and efficiency of a western styled city and still a little bit asian. and yes, we will be the palee or loontoon of the east. but at the lower level we are indeed a global city with at least half a million foreign workers from south asia, myanmar, thailand and china and of course an army of filipino and indonesian maids. in between these two groups we have a big group of so called foreign talents that are no better than our local boys and girls. and in our quest for more foreigners, we inadvertently devalue the worth of our own children. are we selling our souls(citizens) to the devil in exchange for some material trappings of a global city?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good suggestion on how to make Singapore a truly global city

By yantau
Our leaders want to leave their distinctive marks in history.

We commoners get dragged along helplessly and many will become casualties in their relentless drive to reach for the stars.

Some of us get taken in by all that fantasies, our pride swell at all the leaders' talk of becoming no.1 in the world but at any rate our brains remain small.

Like sheep being led to the slaughterhouse, eventually we lose our relevance as foreigners swarm in.

We soon become marginalised in our own homeland. Yet when troubles brew, we're the ones sent to the battlefront to shed blood.

Only the ministers remain secure in their jobs, and often complain that good leaders are hard to come by. These are lean times when workers quickly become unemployable when they reach 50. Why can't we streamline our Cabinet the way company restructures and favours younger staff?

In the best interests of Singapore, why not open our cabinet positions to the best talent in the world? And all the MPs' jobs should be open to well-qualified foreigners, too.

It's fashionable these days to think out of the box. Our government leaders command the best salaries in the world so we'll have no problem attracting an all-stars team. Consider, so many illustrious world leaders who're now jobless:

Zhu Rongji, Bill Clinton, Dr Mahattir....we can even persuade existing leaders to jump ship - Tony Blair, Hu Jintao, George Bush... we have the money to draw them in. And then we become truly global.

http://www.littlespeck.com/informed/2004/CInformed-051016.htm

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

in the animal farm, the pigs, after tasting power and the good life, become self serving and self preservation in whatever they did. the scenario in the animal farm is a classic example of what human nature is all about.

the population of singapore are being led to seek a pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow. it is proverbial as the pot of gold is not meant to be there. yantau put it rightly that the people were easily led to believe in all the glittering pictures and a glamorous future which are not for the masses. the integrated resorts is a good example of what is or is not for the people. the irs are for the foreigners, the tourists and the elite. most of the commoners will not be able to afford to pay for the richness in the resorts.

as for paying top dollars, everyone knows. pointless to repeat it. it is there for all to see. how many really deserve the top dollars if the quality of their work is a measurement of their worth?

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