China got money!

China got plenty of money, $2 trillion in reserve. With so much money, China does not need any donation or help for the Sichuan victims. Is this what My Paper is trying to say in its front page article? I must agree. People with a lot of money should not be given more money. People who are earning millions should stop whining and demanding for more. Why? Simple, they got plenty of money. Anyway, just to ease my conscience, and to do a little for humanity, I still a few dollars to the Sichuan Earthquake victims. Never mind if China has a lot of money. It is personal. You do what you think is right or what that makes you feel good. You want to give, just give. Don't want to give, don't give. What about those who got millions and still think they need more? Does My Paper has a view on that? Never mind lah, they need it, and if they are able to take it, let them take lah. It would be nice if the msm take up such an issue for discussion. And if a rich country like paradise got hit by a natural disaster, I think many people will also ask the same question. Should they help paradise? Paradise got money what?

Legislation for whistle blowers

Singapore is like a Third World nation when it comes to the protection of employees' rights. Corporate Governance advocate Mak Yuen Teen. There is a serious need for legislation to protect whistle blowers if Singapore is serious about reducing fraud in the workplace. I think this is asking too much. As the culprits of abuses in corporation are mainly inflicted by the management. Why would they want to push for such legislation? In my experience, we have perhaps one of the most disciplined and docile workforce. And management often were very high handed and got away with it because no one dare to scream. Legislation is absolutely necessary to prevent further abuses in the corporate world.

Is there a gag order?

Or is there a unwritten order not to engage bloggers in cyberspace? Or is it a crime or a sin to be seen in cyberspace for official or professional journalists and reporters? More likely it is a kind of self censorship. Without the official nod, without anyone saying it is ok, better stay clear of cyberspace. I have on many occasions quoted journalists and reporters on their articles and views, with their names clearly written. I was hoping that they would come by and add in their views or to offer some alternative views. It was always silence. I have yet to see a journalist or reporter engaging the bloggers in cyberspace. For that matter, people in authority. Are they afraid that their names will be tarred with feathers? Or are they afraid that their views will not receive the same silent approval, or be attacked and they could not defend by censorship or by not printing the rebuttal? Cyberspace is the most level playing field one can get in a discussion. Everyone is free to post, from king to pauper. But titles are not respected. It is the view that carries the weight. When will official and professional journalists and reporters feel safe and comfortable to write and post freely in cyberspace?

Something slips by

We were ruled by the colonial masters and fought for our independence, to be free people, and to be able to determine our own future. Has anything changed? Yes, we got rid of our colonial rulers. We were no longer ruled. Did we? Have we gone to sleep and woke up to realise that we are being ruled again? We are now talking of the rulers and the ruled, or the rulers and the many rules. And the rulers are not denying that they are the rulers. Or at least no one thinks that such a perception is misplaced and needed to be clarified. Maybe the rulers are happy to let it be, to continue ruling. And the people also contented to let it be, to continue to be ruled. Is this political development, progress? Or have we gone back to the medieval days where kings and princes were born to be great and the people to bow in their presence? Long live the king! After more than 40 years of independence, this feeling of being ruled is creeping in and surprisingly very comfortable. Is this the mentality of Singaporeans, that they loved to be ruled, needed to be ruled, and wanted to be ruled? Without being ruled, without rulers, they will feel unease and lost? In the next general election the campaign should be, 'Elect your Rulers!' Then we need not live with the hypocrisy that we are electing people's representatives to Parliament.

The schools gone by

Some of the bloggers here reminisced about the days gone by when we studied very little and still got by with our lives with very little. Those were times when Standard 5 or equivalent of Primary 6 could land one a job as a Chief Clerk(tua chye hoo) in an organisation or even as a senior civil servant in the colonial civil service. And one could wear white long pants and white shirts, to be whiter and more similar to the white lords. Educational standards then were very low. Qualifications of teachers were equally low. It was a case of the blind leading the blind. The aim was to be able to learn the 3 Rs. That would be adequate. The colonial masters did not see the need for the locals to be too highly educated. The first Chinese secondary school, The Chinese High School, was a communal effort by the Chinese community to educate their own children. No, not the responsibility of the govt then. They paid for everything, including land and building and the teachers' salary. And school life was simple. As children, did we study? Play was all we knew, or staying out of the cubicles we called home. Sometimes home was a folding bed, or bed was a corner of a floor inside the cubicle if one was lucky. Or it could be the corridor or 5 footway. Staying out was the norm, at least for the children of coolies and odd job labourers. The outdoor was the living room. Tuition or proper guidance by parents in education was a luxury that few could afford. Even if some parents tried, the teachers were mostly school dropouts, whose parents could put them through a few years in school but they failed to progress to secondary school or at best Secondary Two. Anyway, who cared about education when parents too were illiterate and did not know anything that the children were learning in school except ABC? Life was simple and no big dreams. The common big dream of the labourer mothers was the 'tua chye hoo' or a pen pushing job in an office. That was a great achievement and improvement in the quality of life. A 'tua chye hoo' was the senior administrative staff in an office, and could often earned enough to own a car. In the minds of the children it was play and quickly grow up to work. Those who failed early were the joy of parents. They could start work earlier, in the kopitiam as kopi kias, or helping the kok kok mee to peddle the streets for business. When poverty was everywhere, no one felt that poor or miserable. The little corners of wealth were in the Bukit Timah, East Coast and Orchard Road areas when the Ang Moh resided and those enclaves of the babas who were mainly civil servants or working with the British forces as clerks. Stress? The only stress was when the legs were covered with cane strokes left by abusing parents. How to hide them in shorts at schools. Other than that, many passed their lives aimlessly. Life was unstructured and so was elementary education. What's happening today to our children? Striving to be the best that can be. We spent our times singing 'God Save the Queen.'