A depressing day in Tanjong Katong Primary School

A 12 year old girl, Peony Wee, lost her life on a mountain trekking trip to Mount Kinabalu when an earthquake hit the mountain. 2 teachers and 7 more students are still missing. The students were there for leadership training as part of their wholesome education and investment for the future. Our education process is top notched, our students did not just go to school to learn the 3Rs but a lot of other ECA and character development programmes to make them leaders of tomorrow. Only a rich country like ours could afford such a comprehensive and enriching programme unlike the developing countries. Hopefully the product of our expensive education system will produce useful graduates for the economy in the future. If only this comprehensive system was introduced earlier, our PMETs would not be in dire straits today.

While we pray for the safe return of the missing students and teachers, maybe we should take the opportunity to reflect, with hindsight, how much we want to do with our children to make them better adults in the future. Mountain climbing for 12 year olds to me is a bit far fetched though many would thing it is normal and good. The overall picture is that all outings, even within Singapore, would incur some form of risk and could turn into tragedy if fate is unkind.

The Korean ferry tragedy is still vivid to many and still being mourned by the parents of those children that were gone. I thought that would have been food for thought to rein back some of the activities of the schools. Apparently our overseas trips and programmes for students are in full swing and students are encouraged to travel around the world, to many distant countries for all round character development. This is very good if everything turns out fine.

The question is that should schools be involved in such overseas trips that often benefits a few that could afford the cost and many that could not and could only envied? Should such trips be left to the parents and families to their own fancy and not involved the schools? It is good to have such programmes, a great outing, a great holiday to remember of. But as to the real value, it is subjective especially for very young children.

Maybe the MOE may want to rethink and look at the bad side if things did not turn out right like this case. Tragedy that can be avoided shall be avoided. The process of growing up and learning is a life time experience and there is no urgency to do it at the primary or even secondary school level. The biggest training programme and character development will come when the boys get enlisted into NS. That is solid training to turn boys to men at the appropriate time, and if danger is part of the process of growing up, NS training is full of it.

The Mount Kinabalu tragedy is still unfolding and could be worse. 9 are still missing. We do not need a bigger tragedy of the South Korean dimension to regret and think it is unwise to expose our children to it. Let the parents bring their children to Disneyland or the African jungle if they so choose to. The principals and teachers do not need to live with such memories and to regret the rest of their lives.

The Americans are great adventurers and love to go to war to return as victors and heroes. But when the brave young men and women return in body bags, the pain and hurt will last a life time. Having fun is one thing and everyone loves to have fun. Think of the consequences and ask if it is necessary. Is it something that must have or good to have or nice to have but not really necessary?

Saint Lee - by Yawning Bread

Yawning Bread has an article titled Saint Lee where he dealt with the issue of beatification and how the topic of a lese majeste law is in the brewing in Singapore. Actually there was no such thing. The idea came from two articles that talked about lese majeste in the Asian Correspondent and TOC.

In Catholicism, there is this process called beatification where a great dead man may be called a saint and be able to grant wishes to people who pray to him.  In a way this is like Tua Pek Kong or Guan Kong or Sun Mo Kong.  These are Chinese deities that can grant wishes to the masses that turned up to pray in the temples. But there was no formal process to raise them to the level of deities. They became deities by a spontaneous recognition by the masses of their goodness. The Catholic Church has a long list of saints that were beatified, St Joan of Arc, Saint Mary, Saint Nicholas, Saint Mother Teresa and many others by an established system of beatification.

In his article Yawning Bread suggested that the process of beatification was in full swing. The Catholic Church would require a miracle to happen and be accredited to the great dead man for sainthood. And this is no easy task and the Church would appoint a committee of inquiry to go through the life of the great dead man to see if there was a miracle in his life time. A miracle is not something that can be easily faked or created, like the founding of a nation or taking a country from 3^rd World to 1^st World. It has to be something out of this world. The ‘out of this world’ minister salary not counted, it must be really out of this world.

Come to think of it, the miracles in the Gardens by the Bay may come in handy. There are so many miracles happening there. You want snow, you can have snow. You want to have strawberry, raspberry, goose berry, goose pimples, no problem. If they can grow miracle olive inside the domes, what is so difficult about a few berries? The problem is whether these could be considered as miracles. And if acceptable, can these be credited to the good work of the great dead man.

I believe the Catholic Church has a long list of items to be ticked before any great dead man can be beatified and become a saint. The last and most recent saint was St Paul, the last Pope. Correct me if I did not get this right. Would there be another saint in the making? Or would there be a new deity for the masses to pray for protection from evil, for well being and maybe the favourite 4D number?

China – the demon fabricated by the West

Angela Poh Ming Yan, a Ph D student at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies made this comment in her article, ‘For China, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t’, in the ST on 4 Jun 15, ‘To Beijing, the uneasiness and reluctance of regional countries to jump onto the Chinese economic bandwagon is mystifying.’

In a similar vein George Yeo commented that China’s intentions were often misunderstood. George was speaking at a public forum on Asia organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies on 3 Jun 15. ‘China does not intend to subordinate the economic strategies of other countries to its own and is misunderstood by others…the historical basis of the Silk Road…was “not on the basis that we must be the same, or that my values become yours or your values become mine”… instead it was “on the basis that we protect trade and property and there’s a fair exchange, value is added, there’s a positive sum, we all add benefit in the process”’.

While Angela Poh was wondering aloud that whether China do or don’t do it would be damned, George said, ‘Let’s hope that good sense will prevail, that the greater sense will be on all the benefits of exchange. And if you can recreate the prosperity brought about by the Maritime Silk Road, I think all these things will be set in perspective.’

Both were just being too polite to name the devil for demonizing China over a few centuries by the West that the name China is synonymous with evil, expansionism, aggressor, bullying but the reality was just the reversed. If the Asian countries would bother to think and look carefully, they would know who is the real bully, the expansionist power, the warmonger and the evil empire?  Since the eclipse of China as the richest nation of the past, China was a victim of Western aggression and conquest and humiliation. China was broken up, its land seized, and its wealth stolen. China is just picking up the pieces and trying to put together what was rightly part of China without claiming an inch of what does not belong to her.

The West, the western media and the Evil Empire have been relentless in putting down China when obvious economic initiatives like the Silk Road, AIIB, trade and infrastructure development with the rest of the world were branded as bad as if China was conquering its trading partners with a gun and taking advantage of their haplessness like the West did in the past and still doing. The Americans are the one that were starting wars and fighting wars, bully every country that did not want to tow the line, including bullying China by the use of might, but China was blamed as the bad guy.

How so, just read the local papers with all the western slanted articles against China used to feed the dull and unthinking mind of the masses. And this is repeated in all Asian countries. How could they not have a bad image of China like the way they demonized Iran and North Korea daily? Maybe George should ask the local media why they are paying for western biased articles against China when the sources of such articles should be paying them handsomely for the right to put their propaganda on their pages to do damage to China and other countries they chose to rubbish and demonise.

If Channel News Asia has the cow sense to use indigenous staff to report news of their respective countries from their own perspectives and for their own interests, should not the local media do likewise instead of paying to report news from the western perspective and to promote western interests and to dig and ridicule Asian countries with their slanted views and opinions?

What say you, George?

Quotable Quote: Amos Yee 2 Jun 15

“And yes, to the chagrin of numerous people, I have not ‘learnt my lesson’, nor do I see any ‘lesson’ that needs to be learnt. If you are going to try to tower over me and say that you know something important that that I don’t, make sure you have a compelling argument for that. And if your lessons are borne from a corrupt, archaic Government lead by primitive monkeys,…then sorry if I doubt the credibility of your ‘lessons’.

Hopefully history eventually vindicates me. But as of now, district judge Jasvender Kaur has deemed me guilty and the Prosecutor does in fact feel, that 30 months of a place worst than Prison (RTC) should be given to a boy who has posted an internet video. Unless you do in fact relish in my misery, I hope both of you will be able to sleep at night, and live with the fact that right now, as it is written in the annals of history, my blood is on your hands.”

I am not going to say that this is a plea by Amos to the authority nor is it a statement of defiance. They are the words of a young boy facing the State and all its machinery for something that he posted in the youtube that is not politically right or acceptable.

What has happened now is a boy being charged and waiting for sentence for an ‘offence’ and the issue is how serious would the punishment be like. The prosecution has been making recommendations to reform the boy with the assumption that the medicine is fit for the patient and the patient would be a good and nice boy at the end of the reformative regime.

Many people have many different views and so has the boy victim. Are the adults wiser or the boy? What is right and righteous today may not be right and righteous tomorrow. The boy in his philosophical way is leaving it to the future to vindicate him and set him free from the righteous people that are all so good hearted to want to save him and would rightly deserve a place in heaven for their good deeds and intent.

What would the future said of this case? And why would the boy commented that he wish them to be able to sleep well at night and would be at peace with themselves as they live their lives? Is there a war of conscience at work? Who is pricking whose conscience?

There is this lonely feeling that the whole world of conscience has deserted this boy. He is all alone to face the music. There is a sense of helplessness in him. They say, the good shall triumph over evil. Which is good and which is evil may be a matter of subjectivity. Right and wrong is no longer so simple and straightforward.

What do you think?

Cheng Bock and 40 ex PAP MPs to stand for WP

This came from Tan Kin Lian’s post in he TRE titled ‘Nice to hear cabby said PAP to lose 4 GRCs’. And Kin Lian added this, ‘His taxi driver friends had privileged information that Dr TCB and 40 ex PAP leaders will contest under the Workers Party banner. Wow! He made the statements in a most convincing manner. He believed in the reliability of his source. His friends had attended meetings where these matters were discussed.’
 
OK, don’t get over excited by this piece of news. I know it is very sexy. Kin Lian also commented that it is likely to be a rumour. So it is unlikely to be true. But there is a likelihood that it was true because he did not said it is definitely a rumour but likely to be a rumour.
 
How true could this be? In the days when the Oracle is still around this is a definite NO. Who would dare to go against the Oracle and stare him in his face. So, now that he is gone, the possibility cannot be totally ruled out. And there are good reasons for this to be a possibility.
 
Remember, the PAP started very well with many pro people policies that warned the support of the people. Those days it was called winning the hearts and minds of the masses. And they did. And the ex PAP members were the ones that did that. These people have the right thinking and have their hearts in the right place. They are different. If not they would not be able to win the support of the people for so long. If not Singapore would not be what it is today.
 
If there are 40 ex PAP MPs willing to stand with the WP, the game is over. There is no where the young newbies could stand a chance against the seasoned oldies that did it, who had done that, whose great works should be rightly accredited to them, not to the newbies who have done what? All the gloating of the PAP were the achievements of the past by the ex PAP MPs and pioneer leaders.
 
So, if this is true, I also find it difficult to believe, yes, it will be game over. But I also agree with Kin Lian that even if it is not true, it is nice to hear about it. It is a pleasant dream even in broad daylight.
 
Maybe the opposition parties should take the cue and work on these ex PAP MPs, the good men and women of yore.