What kind of Singapore do you want?

Someone is suggesting a 10m people island with everything futuristic, everything beautiful, like everything is free, filled with beautiful people unlike the type of people we have today. The future of Singapore is a city of young and vibrant Singaporeans, healthy, good looking, good smelling, forever young and will never grow old and will never die. And yes, everyone will be smart, no duds, no morons.

Or can there be another alternative, like a 3m population, with a lot of space for everyone without having to stress the little things, without having to squeeze oil from rocks, squeeze more out of everything, where life is more leisure than pressure, like living in a pressure cooker?

Is a 10m population the only way to go forward? And is a 10m population a static thing and all population growth ends at 10m? Is Singapore’s meaning of existence is to fill up this piece of rock with more and more people? And keeping the population at 3m means disaster, no growth, no progress, no good life and no anything?

Shall Singaporeans be happily looking forward to a futuristic city, living high in the sky and below under the earth? And such quality and stylish living will be free or how much will it cost to live in such a city? Will people like cleaners, security guards and taxi drivers be able to afford to live in such a fine city? What about the retirees with no income? Can they also afford to live in such high quality place?

Or would there be like dungeon like sewerage tunnels for those who cannot afford to live high up in the sky, or in good class bungalows on earth, on stylish caverns  underground?

Singapore Botanic Gardens – A UNESCO World Heritage

Singaporeans must be very happy that they had achieved another great title for working so hard to make the Botanic Garden a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Everyone is now so proud of this Garden. But when credit is due it must be acknowledged and rightly go to the people that worked so hard to make this happened. What is the name of the founder of the Gardens? According to Wikipedia, ‘The first "Botanical and Experimental Garden" in Singapore was established in 1822 on Government Hill at Fort Canning by Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore and a keen naturalist…and Lawrence Niven was the first Superintendent and landscape designer….Henry Ridley became the first director in 1888….Professor Eric Holtum pioneered orchid hybridisation and became the director from 1925 to 1949.…. from 1942 to 1945, Hidezo Tanakadate (田中館秀三), a professor of geology from Tohoku Imperial University, took over control of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the Raffles Museum.’

The present Director is Nigel Taylor. In between then and now there is a long list of British Directors overseeing the growth and development of the Gardens like the British have never left Singapore. In this garden they are still in charge. And thanks to their contributions, the Garden is now a World Heritage Site. And the British would likely be here for a very long time as there is unlikely to be a local that will have the talent and skills set to run the Gardens for another century, unless Tharman thinks it is time to train a local to take over in 10 years time. We really cannot do without foreign talents running the show.

I have another reason to feel happy and relief that the Gardens have acquired this status and also for the presence of the British in managing the Gardens. Without the British, the 74 hectares of Gardens could be history. How could such a valuable piece of landed property be left to waste in the hard of the city, the choicest real estate in the island? Imagine how much it would fetch, how many good class bungalows could be built on it, or how many thousands of 50 storey condos could be built on it?

Let me do some mental calculations, 1 sq ft is $3,000. Multiply this by 50 times for a 50 storey condo, it would mean 1 sq ft of land could fetch $150,000. A unit of 1,000 sq ft would be $3m and a condo of 50 units would be $150m. You can keep on multiplying and the numbers would drive one to nuts.

It is simply crazy to leave this piece of real estate as a garden. How can we afford to do such a thing? We need space and good land for 6.9m or 10m people! As a developer, this is really too good to be missed, and a lot of revenue for the govt too.

Thank God, this piece of real estate is now safe and sound. No one can touch it with its UNESCO status now. But don’t be too sure if a rogue govt is in place in the future, or a dictator takes over the island. For now it is very safe. Thanks to the foreign talents and the British Empire for this World Heritage Site. May they rule the Gardens forever. They have worked so hard for the Gardens over two centuries.

Tiger Woods – A lame duck without his dad

The golf prodigy, the young man to break all the records in golf’s history, is today a pathetic self and is as good a piece of old furniture in the golf course. His glory days are over the day his dad left him. He thought he could go on on his own steam without his dad. The momentum was there to let him continue to win a few more tournaments in the couple of years after his dad left him. But without the intelligence and discipline of his dad, he is a lame duck, a spoilt kid looking for help, doing things that his dad would not have approved. And his game crumbled to dust. It’s over Tiger.

During his heydays, at his peak when he is in contention for every title his is playing, he listened to some jokers to change his swing. Without his dad to stop him from listening to bad advice, he went along foolishly to change his winning swing. Can you believe that? He changed a swing that was winning all the trophies for him because his wise coaches told him to? His dad would have told him not to do anything stupid like that, do not change unless it is broken. Without his dad, he could not think properly and was led by the nose by ill advice from people pretending to want him to be good, but actually undermining him and paving the way for his downfall.

Today, a few years after his dad was gone, when all the goodwill and measures had been eroded, he could not do anything good, and is looking like a dud. Instead of being at the top of the leaderboard he is first at the bottom. One wonders how the best golfer in the world could become the worst pro golfer in such a short time?

Tiger Woods is still Tiger Woods himself. What is the difference between then and now? He is still working very hard trying to be the best. The only thing missing is his dad. I think that is the main reason why his game collapsed. There is no dad to guide him and protect him anymore. He is on his own and left to live among the sharks out there and they are all there to kill him without him knowing. And whatever little talent he has got, there is no dad to make good of it while jokers around him are leading him to his demise as a has been golfing great of yesteryear.

It is so pitiful to see Tiger Woods in such a sorry state. Everything is falling apart without him noticing. And everyone is still clapping when he struts around in the course. Where has his greatness gone? Or where did his greatness came from?

Good bye Tiger. The time has come to depart gracefully while you still can. There is no daddy there to prop you up anymore, no daddy to look over your shoulders, no daddy to ward off the sharks hanging around to do you harm. You will be consumed by the wolves in sheep clothing.

PS. I thought he would do better than Jack Nicklaus.

Humility – From immortals to aristocrats

We once have to grudgingly live with the idea that there were immortals floating above the plebeians and plebeians needed to know their proper place in the hierarchy of human beans and immortals. Today we are seeing a different kind of humility, instead of floating in air like immortals, they have come down to earth as aristocrats. We are now in the good company of nobilities and aristocracy as highlighted by the comments of Hsien Loong. I thought we are a Republic.

This is what he said, “You want people to stand up, not scrape and bow. But if you don’t have a certain natural aristocracy in the system, people who are respected because they have earned that and we level everything down to the lowest common denominator, then I think society will lose out.”
The comment was posted in an article in the TRE on Tharman’s view on the innocence of youth and the privilege of the young to speak their mind. The author quoted the Oxford dictionary as saying Aristocracy is “a form of government in which power is held by nobility… a class of society comprising of people of noble birth with hereditary titles”. I think some people may have earned their rights to become aristocrats but many are aristocrats by virtue of their noble births. They are born into a life of luxury and nobility and must be respected and accorded the courtesy for being what they are.  Look at Britain and the infamous nobles making a fool of themselves? Being rude to the nobilities and aristocracy by the peasants is something to be frown upon. The former know their special place in society and the peasants also better know their place too before it is too late.
There must be a class distinction between the two classes of people or there will be disorder. As long as the natural order is in place, there will be peace and harmony on earth. Yes, my lord. The relationship between the nobilities/aristocracy and the peasants is more sustainable and liveable than between the immortals and the human beans. Immortals are called ‘hsien’ in Chinese. And being ‘hsien’ they can ‘hsien’ the people for all they like with their magical powers. But nobilities and aristocracy are still human beans except for their noble birth and good fortune. Technically they can’t ‘hsien’ the people like the immortals.
Let’s get use to this new and natural system of aristocracy in paradise. Forget that we are supposed to be a Republic where the country is owned by the people, where the people are the real master of the land. Remember, there are nobilities and aristocracy with their noble birth rights and rightful place in society. And thank God, no more immortals or ‘hsien tao’ around.

No need for so many universities

We used to have Singapore University and Nantah. Now we have University of Singapore, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore Management University, USIM, SUTD, SIT, Yale Singapore Joint Campus and many others in the private sector joining here and there. What is the purpose of so many universities? Is it not the official view telling students there is no need for a university education when such a thought goes against the need for more and more universities?

There is also readily available graduates from the best in the world and the best from the village universities of 3^rd World coming here for our choosing, the so called cheap and good. And there are millions of fakes and those genuine degrees from quality degree mills to choose from. There is thus no need to provide universities for our young when we can get them free from the whole world.

There is another reason why there is no need for so many expensive universities. Why spend so much money building universities with the best facilities money can buy to be filled with foreign as lecturers and non academic staff, practically the whole university staff are foreigners except for the clerical jobs and cleaners. Maybe the cleaners are also foreigners. Where are the job opportunities for the citizens? Oops, we our policy is to hire the best from the world, regardless of nationalities. I remember.

And why build universities staffed by foreigners and to be filled by foreign students and paid by tax payers’ money as well in the form of generous scholarship? Is there a need to spend so much public money doing this? Wait a minute, if the foreign students return home, they will have fond memories of Singapore and when and if they are in positions of authority, they will be kinder and look at Singapore more favourably. There are so many whens and ifs to happen to benefit from this huge expense. Just hope they don’t return with a lot of hate for Singapore and Singaporeans.  

If the universities are built as business concerns to generate economic growth, for more revenue for the state, that is a different matter. If the universities are self sufficient financially, making money from the foreign students and providing good jobs for our citizens, that is a good proposition and is most welcomed.

But if the universities are built with tax payers’ money to feed foreigners as lecturers and staff and to finance foreign students to get their education and we pay for it, what is the point? Do we need to spend this type of money, so much money to hope for some good will and kindness?

Are we really doing these kinds of things with our taxpayer’s money? I hope not. If it is, there better be a rethink and use the money more wisely to invest in our very own children. We are not the Santa Clause to the whole world. We are not slaves and servants to the whole world. We don’t owe the world an obligation to provide jobs and university places for them. We are a small little dot with limited resources. We are not a super power with super power ambition and interests.

Anyone got any figures to confirm that this is or not the case? Anyone knows how much we have spent annually on this inexplicable myth?