Lessons from China

Some may think this is ludicrous. What can we learn from China, a developing country, and we are first world, China learnt from us. But don’t forget that this developing country is the Number Two superpower now, and is the economic powerhouse, the factory of the world and the biggest owner of American debt.

What can we learn from China? Revisit China in the 60s and 70s, about the same time we became independent and went industrialization. China was still a backward impoverished agrarian country. They have leapfrogged ahead of us now. Why and how?

Inspiration is what that takes China to what it is today. The Chinese were inspired to be a big power, to over take the Americans, to be respected as a rich and powerful nation, to be a rich civilization, PRIDE. Yes pride to be themselves, to believe in themselves, to slog to be where they are today. This is something that we can learn from the Chinese, the belief in your own people, your people’s talent and ability and the pride to succeed, to be a better people and nation.

For the last couple of decades, we have sunk so low that we have no pride in our people anymore. We believe our people are daft. We import idiots, fools, conmen, tricksters, cheats and all and sundry, and called them talents, and pay them like hell. We no longer want to rely on our people, our own talents. We want to buy talents, get talents from everyday, even faked talents, and think that is the way to go forward.

We choose to school and train foreigners to be our talents. We choose to employ foreigners as talents and kick our own talents aside. We don’t believe in ourselves anymore. We don’t believe in our own people. We neglect our own talents. We discriminate against our own talents. No, foreigners cannot and did not discriminate against Singaporeans. It is us, our system that allows them to do so. It is our own making. The fault is with us, not the foreigners.

The people are inspired by faked logics and deceptions to believe that they are losers. And more and more foreigners are employed to be CEOs and in top management in many public funded, govt and govt linked institutions. We are inspired to be a sick and untalented people, needing foreigners to help us, to make our lives better. We are told we needed help from foreigners. And we believe.

Is there anything we can learn from the Chinese in China? They inspire their people to believe in themselves, that they have talents and can compete with the world, with no need to import or rely on foreign talents. They just do it, by themselves.

Inspiring a people to believe in themselves is fundamental to the growth of the people and the nation, the progress of a people, the uplifting of a people to a better country and a better life. Is there anyone out there to inspire Singaporeans, true blue Singaporeans to greater height, to scale the highest mountain? Is there anyone out there to tell the Singaporeans that they are the best, and the best they can be, without the need to look towards half baked third world fake talents as our inspiration, as our saviours?

We need leaders to inspire our people to greatness once again.

Contribution from foreigners to our economy

We had dengue before, but not to this extent. If not put under control, the whole island could become a dengue cluster. We knocked out TB for decades and it is making a grand entrance in this island again.

Now the newest disease descending on this island is chikungunya. It is spreading, from the highly populated foreign worker enclaves in Sungei Kadut and Kranji it is now spreading towards the nearby affluent district of Bukit Timah. First our foreign workers brought them in, and now their generosity is shared by our rich and famous, our elite. The non elite in their high rise flat may be less risky as their surroundings are made up of concrete and not foliage and forests.

Chikungunya is not a native here. Thanks to the foreigners, it is going to be a permanent resident soon. We would not issue them with citizenship, but chikungunya will not go away. And this is only the beginning. What else will the foreigners contribute to our economy to improve the lives of our people? Are there any diseases that have come on board and not reported?

80 year lifespan a threat to retirees

A longer lifespan is conventionally seen as good, as people can now live longer. Not many would want to know that this could be a curse to many in particular those that have ill health with the soul or life being trapped in a rotting and malfunctioning body that costs much more than anything to be alive. But this is only a biological problem.

The other big issue is the social problem. Our whole structure of employment and retirement age are screwed. You can no longer retire people at 55 or 60 or even 70 when they need an income to keep on living. And added to the problem is the art of inflating away huge debt into the future. The savings or pensions of retirees will be eroded at blinding speed that the once enough pension or savings could last so much lesser time. Inflation will reduce their spending power and whatever savings/pensions that were enough would not be enough.

Now I can understand why the smart ones would want a million dollar to keep their good life forever. Those with a few hundred thousands will be caught in the inflationary trap. They would not believe their savings could be expended so rapidly. And that is only confined to normal expenditure without incurring big expenses like medical bills.

With a public housing scheme that is designed to soak up the incomes of buyers under the affordability concept, many will be making just enough to pay for public housing and nothing left for retirement. And no one is seeing this flaw and keeps blaming the people for not saving enough while allowing property prices to rise.

How can anyone save enough when the price of public housing is pegged to what they earned? And to sustain this Ponzi Scheme, the prices must keep going up, which means the need to print more money, leading to unceasing inflation at ever higher rate.

The problems of the oldies will only snowball as the inflation based economy cannot be stopped and the value of money will simply shrink and fritter away. With more oldies joining the ranks of longer lifespan, this is going to be a very critical issue when the number hit the million mark.

Wake up Chinese – Serdarlah Cina

Apa lagi Cina mau was the headline of Utusan Malaysia after the GE. The shrinking support of UMNO/BN had led to angry cries by the ultras blaming the Chinese for not supporting BN. This attack on Chinese voters was refuted as not a Chinese tsunami but an urban shift of Malay and non Malay voters to PR. There was a lull as if the ultras have simmered down and things going back to normal.

Yesterday Utusan Malaysian again attacked the Chinese with another headline Serdarlah Cina and sanctioned by the collective voice of its editorial under Awang Selamat. The paper’s continued attack on the Chinese calling them greedy, ungrateful amounting to racist started last week. This is an indication that the moderates of UMNO and Najib are losing ground and the ultras are now calling the shot and setting the agenda, a dangerous trend for Malaysian politics. And Mahathir apparently is in charge.

Last week Mahathir wrote in his blog that the Chinese are racists for not voting for the UMNO, MCA, MIC Kongsi, the BN. Only by voting for this BN Kongsi would the Chinese be seen as not racists. He does not question whether the policies of this Kongsi is racist or non racist.

The Malaysian Chinese actually voted for another Kongsi with two Malay majority parties, the Keadilan and PAS. Why are they called racists by voting for a Kongsi that is 2/3 Malay majority? Shouldn’t they be accused of voting for a more Malay party? In this sense they are racists by voting for more Malay leaders.

In terms of policies, the PKR is in many ways more multi racial than UMNO with its Malay Ketuanan policies. So who is the real racist? This looks like a case of the racists accusing the innocents of being racists. And if Najib fails to take control of the situation, Malaysia may be heading to a road for more turmoil.

The Wake up Chinese call is quite appropriate in another way. The Chinese are political naïve and condescending, thinking that others in power will be kind and generous to them. In a way this can be seen down south when foreigners are being brought in in great numbers and thinking that foreigners are benign and will be fair when the original Singaporeans become a minority. This naivity will have serious consequences when foreigners become a majority and assume power in the future, just like what is happening to Malaysia. Serdarlah Cina!

Fundraising through indiegogo.com

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paintings-of-gods/

I have initiated a fund raising project at indiegogo crowd funding site above. You are most welcomed to contribute to my project to promote this new mixed media art form of mine. You can do so by being a contributor, ie buying a painting through indiegogo or help to inform your friends about this fund raising project.

This project is not just about raising fund but to share the paintings of gods or Mother Nature to as many people as possible.

Many thanks.