the most popular singaporean serial

'In Parliament' - the most popular Singapore TV Serial I am going to be glued to the TV sson. So will all the Singaporeans and even foreign workers. Singapore parliament will be more colourful if the parliamentarians have their way. I am not talking about Lily Neo's elegant Beijing cheongsam or Ho Geok Choo's Versace. Neither am I referring to Eng Hen's Zegna or Mah Bow Tan's yellow and blue jacket. Parliament is going to be very colourful with dialects. Imagine Choktong saying, 'Lin peh pah si buay chow.' And Low Thia Khiang interrupting him saying, 'Tee ah, aga aga thio hor ah.' They will be so popular with the Ngee Ann Kong Si and Hock Kien Huay Kuan that these associations will start Teochew and Hokkien classses for their members. And Mah Bow Tan will not want to lose out by delivering his HDB speech in Hylam. He may engage Ngiam Tong Dow to be his private tutor to brush up a little on his mother tongue. All just to please his Hylam Clan. And Hsien Loong would be pressured to prove to his Khek Association that he can speak Khek as well. Then Inderjit, Jayakumar and Vivian will have to speak in punjabi or Tamil or whatever Indian dialects that are their mother tongues. The Malay MPs will have an easier task. I think Malay is the only dialect maybe with a little slangs from different parts, but basically Malay. And Singapore Tourism Board can promote visits to Singapore Parliament. Now Jack Neo, please move aside. When the talents speak dialects, your dialect movies will not be able to compete. The good thing is that there will be more jobs for translators and interpreters. And while the mother speakers were enjoying themselves in their nuances and flair of their dialects, no one will be able to understand them except listening through the translators. Parliament will thus have extended sessions to cope with the extra time needed. Now that will be Uniquely Singapore. And China will follow suit to abolish Putonghua and Shih Huangti will turn in his grave. And no sweat. China too will become a more colour nation with 2367 dialects to be spoken across the nation. Wow, Singapore is going to set a world trend, speaking dialects and mother tongue. And India will ban English in its Parliament.

nkf story - Grilling of the Minnow

Grilling of the Minnow For the whole of last week, the NKF story was centred on a subplot to grill a minnow, Jayaraman. He was made to be as guilty and look so bad in the eyes of everyone. The counsels had more or less painted a picture that he was a willing party to all the actions that he did, submitting memos for payments to Forte, rushing the payments out, despite his claim that the system was not up to specs. The question is how guilty is this minnow? Could he do otherwise when he was over powered and over ranked? It seems that he was a middle manager who feared to lose his jobs and was sticking to it come what may. He knew that something was wrong but the bosses sidelined him and made him do what he did, in a way comprising his opposition to the whole deal. Can we blame him? And if he is a foreign talent, he would be even under more pressure to tow the line. And the powers he had to contend with are so overwhelming that short of leaving the job, he will just have to do the necessary administrative chores as told. If he was a foreign talent, it would not be easy for him just to walk away without a job. He just have to bear it out. This grilling of the minnow is just an appetiser for the main course. Looking at the pace of it, looks like the main course will only be served in six months time, at least.

Singapore buckling under Thai pressure

Singapore buckling under Thai pressure After the comment by Kishore that Thaksin had done an unkind act to us, I saw this headline in Today's paper, 'Was Thaksin a good friend after all?' The article by PN Balji speaks for itself. In the face of Thai pressure we are questioning our actions towards a good friend albeit one who has been ousted by a military coup. Thaksin had been a good friend before, a very good friend of Singapore when he was Prime Minister. Bilateral relations was at its best. Now that he is out, that the Thai military junta wanted him to disappear, should we tow the line and tell Thaksin to quietly disappear too. Shall we tell Thaksin that he is no longer useful to us and we do not need such a friend? I think if we do such a thing, we will lose big in the international community. We will become a fair weather friend. We need not accord Thaksin the honour and protocol of a Prime Minister, but we can accord him some decency as a former national leader, as another national stateman. This is the least that we should do. Unless Thaksin has been found guilty of a crime, becomes a criminal, that will be another matter. Other national leaders should see comfort in how we treat a fallen national leaders. For it may be their turn the next time. The politics of ASEAN and in fact the world is such that one can be in power one day and in disgrace the next. The military coup leaders may think that it will not happen to them. It will. Singapore must treat every dignitary with some respect and decency. It is bad if we spit out the cherry when some one tells us to do so.

opposition parties should hire a consultant

Just musing on a Sunday morning. The 666 event is passed 6 months. Now is the time to prepare for the next general election. And Choktong is giving some tips on how a general election shall be fought, how and what to plan, and what to pledge and promise during the election campaigning, and what to do after winning the election. The opposition parties shall learn from the wisdom of Choktong. Maybe even engage him as a consultant to map our their next election strategies. Then the next election could be interesting to watch.

myth 65 revisited

Myth 65 'The income gap will only get wider' I wrote about this myth some times earlier. It was then like the gospel truth. The income gap would continue to grow wider and nothing could be done about it. Everyone that was important said so. And better still, it was caused by globalisation, so not anyone or any govt's fault. So if I continue to earn my millions, I should continue to ask for more. It is just the natural thing due to, yes, globalisation. My multi million dollar salary is the fault of the international environment. So don't blame me if I feast myself or help myself. Who would ever believe that the income gap will be narrowed when the high income earners will stop getting more? It just cannot be if you have the right to pay yourself crazy. Who is to stop you from doing so. It is my own company. Better still if it is a public company. The small shareholders just have not enough clout to stop me from paying myself and my directors. And my directors and independent directors are all my friends. And if we sign praises for each other, soon everyone will believe we have done a great job and believe that we deserved to be paid even more. Would this myth go away? LKY said so. Yes, this unstoppable widening income gap will narrow. This is the headline in the Sunday Times today, 'S'pore income gap will narrow: MM. Now we will have to see which is which. Which way will the globalisation wind blows? How to stop the forces of globalisation? Or how to stop myself from paying myself?