The South Korean ferry tragedy

This is a tragedy that is uncalled for. The death toll is likely to be higher than MH370, mostly beautiful and lovable little children, the darlings of their parents. Many could have survived if they were told to evacuate than to sit tight and wait to be rescued.

Many in the MOE here, including Heng Swee Kiat and the school principals, must be thanking their lucky stars that this did not hit our school children on their frivolous overseas trips all over the world. Should a mishap like this ever happened, no amount of sorry, regrets and remorse would be enough to bring back the children alive.

Time for MOE to stop this nonsense of sending little children in long trips overseas for the so called rich experience. The children are highly susceptible to accidents. Even the adults too will be victims as not many are prepared or have the presence of mind to deal with such emergencies. The Korean tragedy could be greatly minimised if the adults know what they were doing.

Every trip overseas, every long journey by cars, coaches, by ships or planes can turn into a tragedy. Accidents and the unplanned events will happen. It is best that MOE stops such trips and let the parents plan it themselves if they think it is so highly desired, and they assumed the full responsibility for the safety of their children. School principals and teachers should not be made to shoulder such heavy responsibility for something good to have but really not worth the risk and not worth the experience.

We have been lucky. The closest mishap was in the Philippines when a typhoon hit and a few of our undergraduates were there, and lucky enough to tell their tales. When the children are older, young adults, with better survival skills and the ability to look after themselves, the risk are lower.

Those primary school children and lower secondary school children are very vulnerable and best to be safe than sorry. When nothing happens, it is damn fun, damn great to talk about, an ego booster for those involved and the schools. So what?

Kopi Level - Green

The Sinkie mindset – No Choice!

FIFA World Cup Subscription: Singaporeans Taken For A Ride
Senior Minister of State (Communications and Information) Lawrence Wong had claimed that the Singapore government has “no say in” the subscription prices for the FIFA World Cup “Because Singapore is a small market and has a high demand for World Cup matches, FIFA will consider the country’s purchasing power and act accordingly“.
 
The above is posted by Roy Ngerng in his blog The Heart Truth. The reason why Sinkies have no choice but to pay exorbitant subscription fees just to watch the World Cup is the same reason why Sinkies have no choice about what to do with their CPF, that the Medishield Life is compulsory, and many other things, is simply that they have been trained to accept No Choice as an answer. And the reasoning given by FIFA to charge Sinkies higher rate is the same kind of reasoning the govt has been telling the Sinkies, it resonates very well in the minds of the leaders. So they happily accepted this as No Choice, and who is paying? Who is paying?
 
Roy Ngerng pointed to many other countries that are similar in population and income level and are paying so much lesser than Sinkies. Why? No Choice or why they got Choice?
 
Sinkies are brought up to think that there is No Choice when the govt said so. And the govt has been so use to No Choice as the only choice and when confronted by FIFA, it makes perfect sense. They used the same logic, sing the same song, and believe the same clever reasoning. You can’t blame Lawrence Wong for it. He could not see anything wrong with it. In fact the logic of FIFA is perfect and absolutely logical and reasonable to our elite who have been using such logical logic on the Sinkies.
 
Sinkies got choice to pay lower COEs or public housing prices or rentals of HDB shops and food courts? If we can live with so many no choices, what is the difference in the FIFA no choice fee?

PS. Because of our purchasing power, or because we got money, it is very affordable.

A sense of contentment and betrayal

Singapore is not a first world city for nothing. We have a well designed and planned city, expensively laid tiles, and a very clean and safe environment for the children and womenfolk to while their time away. Every time I see the mothers and children of foreign origins walking our streets, our parks, our beaches, our shopping malls or eating places, and to see them feeling so comfortable, so at ease and so pleasing, it gives me a sense of pride and contentment. It is a very good feeling.
 
We are sharing our well planned and safe city to people from all over the world when safety, cleanliness and well organized streets are something they could not imagine back home, when going out or having an outing with their families and children could be a life threatening thing, be abused, be harassed, be robbed, or be bombed. Here they have complete peace of mind with a thing to worry about.
 
We are an affluent people and very charitable, and welcome foreigners to share our good fortune. But this feeling turns to anger when news of how the foreigners are abusing our hospitality, our trust and goodwill in allowing them here. It is unacceptable and downright disgusting to think that the foreigners are cheating on our people, getting our citizens sacked from jobs so that they can replace them with their own kind. It is utterly unforgiveable to think that they are using unfair and deceptive means to discriminate against our citizens and disadvantaging our innocent citizens who trust that the system is fair and equitable. It is sickening to see how our honest citizens, brought up in a no nonsense system and society, and being cheated by dishonest foreigners without knowing it and thinking that they are less able than the foreigners, and thus deserved to be replaced by the foreigners.
 
And it is contemptuous that these things are happening to our citizens and continue to happen and nothing is being done, or very little is being done, to stop the exploitation of our citizens by unfair means by foreigners.
 
How could our people be so generous and so hospital to foreigners only to end up like fools and be victims to their devious scheming and cheating ways? At the very least we should expect our kindness to be reciprocated by kindness and some kind of appreciation and gratefulness. Instead the foreigners are treating our citizens with disgust and contempt.
 
Why should the citizens allow this to end up this way? We have been betrayed by the very people we showed kindness to. And some of these people are not only ungrateful but thinking that they have the right to kick our ass. And some of our jokers actually said that it is true, that we should be grateful to the foreigners who are here to help us.
 
The sense of anger and misgiving over foreigners will grow and get worse. The bashing of the Pinoys wanting to hold their National Day celebration is only the tip of a growing discontentment against foreigners. The huge presence of foreigners has eroded their novelty and the natural graciousness of a people that have been very welcoming to foreigners is crumbling. The familiarity and the abuses by foreigners and their rudeness, their competition for everything the citizens needed will no longer be tolerated. It just went over the edge.
 
But many asses still thing that there is nothing wrong with having more foreigners here and wanting more to come. And they are surprise that the Sinkies are reacting negatively and aggressively. Until these asses wake up from their slumber in the comfort of their private space, they will want to continue to shaft the foreigners down the throat of he citizens and even up their asses and would not relent despite the open display of hostility by the citizens that has never happened before.
 
Keep them coming, the elite will say. They will remain the deaf frogs and will continue to ignore the angry signs appearing. The masses are stupid and cannot see how good the influx of foreigners is, and their feelings are inconsequential to the bigger scheme of things.

Kopi Level - Green

Kishore, what have you been drinking?

“MY BIG Idea No. 3 for Singapore is a simple one: strengthen the Singapore spirit.
Why? If our young men ever go to war to defend Singapore, they will not lay down their lives to defend the physical infrastructure of Singapore. They will do so to save the lives of people who are the strangers they meet in MRT trains or buses. Clearly they feel some kind of spiritual bond with these strangers only because they believe that they are fellow Singaporeans. This is what the Singapore spirit is all about.”
Kishore Mahbubani
- ST Apr 12: “Three stories to strengthen the Singapore spirit”

When I read the above quote I was kind of, what, what is that, who said that? I can’t believe that Kishore said this. I find this quite bizarre really for Kishore to say something like this. And my only excuse for him to say this is that he must be having a glass too many of toddy or Macallen single malt the night before.
 
Why would Sinkies die to defend foreigners who are here against their wishes and with many cheating Sinkies of their livelihood with fake qualifications and recruited because they were of the same kind, and making Sinkies outcasts in their homeland? What kind of bonding of Singaporean Spirit is Kishore talking about? Does he believe that Sinkies are really that daft or duds?
 
Kishore, are you ok?
 
Oh, perhaps he was thinking that Sinkies are angels. Angels are a kind of spirit, unthinking, just doing what God told them to do. So if God said, go and defend the foreigners, the angels, Sinkies in spirit, will go defending and dying for the foreigners who took their seats in the MRT or squeezed them into a sardine can.

Seah Chiang Nee :Top performers on the decline?

‘According to former PM Lee Kuan Yew – and quite a few employers – it was good to have brought in foreign workers to offset the decline.
 
“Over time, Singaporeans had become less hard-driving and hard-striving,” Lee said in a 2011 interview.
 
The hard-talking Lee then upset many people when he said that if Singaporeans were falling behind because “the spurs are not stuck into the hide”, that was their problem.
 
He described the new immigrants from China and the region as “hungry” – helped by parents who “pushed the children very hard”.
 
(Actually, Singaporean parents are often accused of putting too much pressure on their kids.)
 
Lee had often made known his preference for the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hong Kong people.
 
Predictably, some Singaporeans were angry about the remarks that implied they were becoming lazy and ought to be spurred like slow horses.
One retiree said Lee was partly right: “Many middle class Singaporeans are becoming spoiled and complacent compared with (their counterparts in) some emerging nations.”’
 
The above paragraphs were from Seah Chiang Nee’s article on the decline of top talents among the Sinkie breed. The article was addressing the issue of falling talents in Singapore but the facts are contradictory, and so were the comments. The superficial comments that Sinkies are losing their drive to be world beaters did not make sense when the parents are pushing their children to the limits, hot housing them to be not only tops in academics by enrolling them in the best nurseries and kindergartens, but also in many artistic programmes to make them all rounders, the best of the best in everything. And their academic results have proven that this is the case.
 
During my time, or during yesteryears, in every cohort of O level or A level students, to find one with straight As is so difficult. Today, in the many top schools, throw a stone and you will hit a dozen with straight As. How can this be the case if the Sinkies are slacking, lazy and losing the drive to be better? And the latest PISA test proved that our 15 year olds are also world beaters.
 
Is someone talking cock or has his mind out of sync? But if you were to listen to the 3rd World recruiting agencies, given a licence to recruit foreigners for jobs here, they will tell you that indeed Sinkies are all useless, no talent, no skills, no creativity and poor workers. Unfortunately many of our foolish leaders and employers believe the foreign recruiting agents and went along to replace the ‘daft’ Sinkies with ‘talented and skilled’ employees from 3rd World cities and villages.
 
There is a silver lining though. Though the title of Seah Chiang Nee’s article is about the decline of top performers, this is only in general. Specifically Singapore is very lucky that the top talents in govt are not declining and in fact are living proof of supermen and superwomen. Just take a look at the portfolios they are involved in, many have 20 or 30 hats to wear as advisers and helming many organizations, ministries etc etc. They are the natural know alls, born to know everything, like immortals. I think without this group of super super top performers, Singapore would have gone back to the 3rd World long ago. These are the few top performers that are pulling the country out from the rut, with the help of 3rd World talents.
 
I am sure when Seah Chiang Nee said that top performers are on the decline, he was not referring to our top performers in govt.
 
Now what am I rumbling about and sounding so incoherent? My thoughts are all in a mess, and I am all confused with what I said too. What is the truth? Am I confusing everyone or is everyone confusing everyone? But one thing is true, we have the most talented and well trained and well qualified and ‘with a spur stuck on their hide’ taxi drivers in the world, fetching maids and construction workers all over the islands to amuse themselves and to have a good time.

Kopi level - Yellow