A silly article written by a 'westerner'

It's not my Beijing! Where's the charm and chaos gone? What charm and chaos that this foreigner is talking about her Beijing? Oh, it is about the shabby apartment complex across the street, about bare-bottomed babies, horse draw carts and chickens pecking the sidewalk...that's the real Beijing to this foreigner. And it is regrettable that all these real things were gone and Beijing is now 'unnaturally sanitised and stiffly coiffed, with much of its frenetic grittiness and earthy charm falling victim to zealous organisers who want a flawless event(Olympic).' To this western, Beijing should be as old and charming, and downtrodden as it was for centuries, and the flavour preserved for the visitors to savour. The new Beijing is unreal and disgusting. This is the stereotype view of what a westerner would write or want to see of most Asian cities, the slums and the centuries of neglect, and stuck in time without progress. To be specific, the writer is an Asian wearing western lenses and thinking like a westerner. The article is in Today.

God is beyond reproach

If there is anything, the best position to be in is god. God is the master of everything. He owns everything and controls everything. He dishes out punishment as he deems fit, according to his fancy or which side of the bed he wakes up. Basically, he calls the shot. And the best part of it, he is beyond reproach. It is always someone else fault. He is faultless and above all things. Nothing can stick on him or his spotlessly white garment. Nice, very nice. Please bow and pay your obeisance.

Helping others versus helping self

We have heard that many scholarships were given to foreigners. Many did serve their terms before leaving for greener pastures. Many also decide to stay. Do we have any statistics to show how many we have sponsored and how many are staying or have left. After so many years we should have enough numbers to decide whether it is a worthy or worthwhile investment. We also need to balance the amount of money given to foreigners and the amount given to our own children. Are we giving more, in numbers of scholarship to foreigners than to our own?

The Hollywood clowns!

And there are plenty of them, trying to make meanings out of their dumb decadence lifestyles with an abundance of money and nothing in the head. And Richard Gere came out as one of them. He saw our Ambassador Chan Heng Chee in her beautiful cheongsam in a party in Washington. And he went after her saying 'Oh Ambassador, we must talk about Tibet.' To this clown, every Chinese woman in cheongsam must be from China. Our Ambassador plainly told him that she was from Singapore and walked off. Poor dumb ass stood there trying to figure out what is the difference between China and Singapore. He may not have heard of Singapore at all.

Childcare not for profit!

ERPs not for profit. Childcare also not for profit. Are we going mad? We privatised govt organisations and statutory boards to make them efficient and profitable. And in order for them to exist, they must make profits. Even charitable organisations are thinking of making profits, or at least some of those running them. And here we have the childcare operators saying that making profits is not their main priority. So what are they existing for? Shall we rename them as charitable organisation and give them the IPC status? These operators must be so embarrassed about making profits and became so defensive about their business. Why don't they bluntly quote some big shots saying that it is important to make profits. They can't be fools running a business for nothing. Or maybe there are some kinds of saints. Maybe they are right. All the organisations do not make profits as their priority. It is just incidental. They exist for more noble reasons.