Khaw Boon Wan – We support strong family ties

‘Strong families make strong communities and a strong nation. This is why we don’t just build flats; we also help families live closer together.

There are many benefits for such an arrangement. Grandparents can help look after grandchildren, and children can support their parents and grandparents.’

The Chinese text used a combination of two characters to define a nation, ‘guo jia’ 国家. The two characters are country and family. The family is the basic building block of a nation. Without the families, a country would just be a piece of empty land. It is the people and families that turned it into a nation. And Boon Wan must have reflected on this concept when he was doing his meditation, and he is now enlightened. He understands the importance of families and family ties. And he explained that HDB policies are crafted with the building of strong family ties in mind.

Unfortunately many netizens did not see his viewpoints and lambasted him and his policies that they said were bad for families. They quoted things like small micky mouse flats, over priced HDB flats, including his idea of sending old folks to JB nursing homes. They were furious about some of the things Boon Wan suggested that meant well. They see the Medishield Life as a transfer of govt liabilities to the children, to make them bear the cost of providing medical insurance for their parents.

They even called Boon Wan a hypocrite. Now that is a bit too much, to call a good buddhist a hypocrite. Look at the calmness in his face, non violent, always smiling, every angle you look, he is like the laughing Buddha. How can he be a hypocrite? And they even blamed him for young couples turning to their parents to foot the down payment for cheap and affordable HDB flats. How can like that?

Let me attempt, with my not super talent ability, to explain away the wrong perceptions the netizens had of Boon Wan. Yes with good communications, everything can be explained away. I hope my explanation is good enough and not half past six.

Let’ take the first issue of micky mouse flats. I think the original objective by HDB was to make the flats cheaperer and more affordable. Now people complained too small and cannot keep three generations under one roof. Ok, that was a lack of foresight. But they might look at small flats different. You see, being small, everyone will be closer to each other, at least physically, cosy and warm. 

Anyway Boon Wan is correcting that judgemental error and is building 3 generation flats. Swee boh? You people complained and he heard and responding to your feedback and trying to make it better. And he also got give good grants to help the families live together. Children want to live near parents, Govt give them money to be filial. Like that cannot say bad, tiok boh?

What, three generations flat also very small inside? This one I dunno.  Never mind, have faith in Boon Wan. He will make them right, bigger flats, bigger rooms, for happy family ties. Give him a bit more time, and allow the Govt to bring in more foreign workers to help him do a good job. Maybe the small mickey mouse flats were due to labour shortage, so build smaller flats can build faster right? Then again, if the flats are built bigger, got to pay more you know. Nothing is free.

Boon Wan is trying his best. The problems were created by his predecessors, not by him. And he volunteered to do the right things. See, now no more housing problems. Maybe the price is still affordably unaffordable.  Only two years on the job and he solved housing shortage problem. He is good. The National Day Award I want to recommend him for the highest award in public service. What bintang or star they called it?

Maybe he can do more, bit by bit, one at a time. There is this complaint that visiting parents is becoming very expensive. Children want to spend time at parent’s home or grandparents want to help out in children’s home also very expensive. Every time visits parents must pay except on Sunday or public holiday. Maybe Boon Wan can look into this. Oh, he already thought of it, that’s why 3 generation flat, stay together, no need parking fee.  Did someone say don’t drive, save money? And the media also have been encouraging the people to take public transport. Private car ownership no good, take public transport betterer.

This one I dunno want to agree or not. Got car can bring whole families to ‘chiat hong’ either in East Coast Park or go to Malaysia. Whole family, 3 generations all can go, better than staying inside mickey mouse flats. If no car, no choice, mickey mouse flats also must pretend to be good. Quality of life is not about big space small space. It is how you make do with it, go around it, buy small furniture, everything smaller, then can feel big space.

After building so many micky mouse flats, cannot simply demolish them right? And how to cope with 10m population if flats are built bigger and bigger? Like that how? Big is not necessary good you know. This one, a bit physical constraint, can’t be helped lah. We need to have 10m population to have growth and better quality of life. So no car, smaller micky mouse flats must bear with it lah. Today someone wrote to Today forum, make car use prohibitive. This is a brilliant psychotic Sinkie mind at work. And no car can save so much money, no need to pay parking when visiting parents or parents visiting grandchildren.

Ok, now I help explain leow. Take it or leave it up to you. Boon Wan good or bad you all can see. So don’t anyhow hantam him. He is good man, the best in PAP. If he is bad, then no more good man in PAP. You people so lucky to have Boon Wan in the PAP and still want to ask him go back to Malaysia? You dunno how bad things would be without him.