The Story of Ah Q - A Parallel To Singaporeans Today

 
"The True Story of Ah Q" is an episodic novella written by the famous Lu Xun, first published as a serial between Dec 1921 and Feb 1922, comprising 9 chapters - considered among the masterpieces of modern Chinese literature.

The character of Ah Q in Lu Xun's short noval has given rise to a unique expression in China called "Ah Quism".

"Ah Quism" is the attempt to find cheap moral victory in defeat and failure. A typical Sinkie trait, which is now being displayed through the speeches of PAP leaders in Parliament over the last three days.

In the story, Ah Q is continually defeated, by his fellow low-lifes, by respectable people and by revolutionaries.

Yet he keeps turning each and every situation around in his head afterwards, in order to feel good for himself.

For instance, while being beaten by loofers, he loudly denigrates himself as being as low as an insect, thus showing himself to be the "foremost self-belittler" - and certainly being "foremost" in anything is admirable, is it not? So, in this manner he is spiritually superior again to his persecutors.

To some people, "The True Story of Ah Q" may be confusing because it seems to have no moral centre.

Ah Q is motivated by self-interest, even when he tries (and fails) to join the revolution. None of his persecutors nor his victims seem to be people of any integrity.

The ending is tragic and ironical. Ah Q had wanted to join the revolutionaries in order to enjoy a better life and higher status but he failed to do so because he overslept and missed the train. Later the revolutionaries, the very people whom he had looked up to, framed him up for the crimes they have committed. Ah Q was arrested and executed. He signed on his death sentence note as Q instead of O, the standard signature for illiterates in those days.

Ah Q was executed for the crimes of others, yet he died without any regret nor protest. This is what most Sinkies are - always suffering in silence without making any protest, yet still can feel great about their existence and predicaments. Chronically tragic!

This all seems to be a lawless and sadistic black humour.

To really get the morals of this story, you must understand the historical context: China had just gone through a bourgeois democratic revolution in 1911, overthrowing the last imperial dynasty and setting up a Republican Government the following year.

However, the new government could not throw off foreign domination (by Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia and USA) or bring about needed reforms to improve the lot of the people.

So, in 1919, the famous May Fourth movement began with a student protest in Beijing. And several decades of political upheaval and bloodshed on a mass scale followed, before the eventually victorious Maoist Revolution set China on the path to what China is today.

It was in the confusing Republican period that Lu Xun started writing, placing the story of Ah Q in the turmoil of the incomplete revolution of 1911. It was a time when many Chinese looked to Western ways (like our bananas) to overthrow ancient Chinese traditions rooted in the feudal system.

A character in "The True Story of Ah Q" is just referred to as the "Imitation of Foreign Devil", an affluent Chinese person who adopts the fashions of the West.

The "revolutionaries" in the story are an ambivalent lot, far from the ideologically driven revolutionaries who came later.

Ah Q is thus both a ridiculous figure — with his self-centred ignorance and his psychological "victories" - and a pathetic low-life unable to compete in a vicious environment made more difficult by foreign powers dominance.

While laughing at Ah Q, the reader somehow also understand his confusion and applaud his hapless attempts to improve his situation against all odds. 

SSO

PS. Posted on behalf of SSO

The narrative to insult and belittle Singaporeans continues

 ...we should immediately stop describing foreigners who come to work in our country as foreign “talent”. This term was used by the elites and the MSM as a clever ploy and euphemism to mask the horrendous number of foreigners,which the government was allowing in,who were coming to our shore to earn a living.

If I go abroad to work,no one will ever describe me as a “foreign talent”. I would be described as a foreigner working in a particular country, which is not my homeland.

And how do we know if a particular foreigner is a real “talent”? What if he has a fake degree or qualifications? Why is he a “talent” when the Singaporean who has earned a degree from the 11th ranked NUS or 13th ranked NTU is not described as a “talent”?

So, let’s stop putting foreign workers on the pedestal by elevating their status as “talent”! I shall forever banish the phrase “foreign talent”from my own use. I shall remember what my teacher in Primary school taught me and describe them non-judgmentally as foreign workers.

Lim Tean 

Never in any country would its leaders repeatedly and continuously belittle and insult its own citizens as daft and stupid and praising unknown foreigners, many from pariah back lane universities or with fake degrees, some did not even go to universities, as talents. And there was very little effort to verify where these fakes came from, or casually do a simple routine formality and claimed to have done the due diligence.

When would Singapore leaders stop belittling Singaporeans from three of the world's best universities as non talents to be replaced by fake talents? When would this insult stop?

For continuously harping on this silly myth, even the fake foreigners think they are really talents or at least better than the graduates of our world class universities. Maybe our world class universities are fakes and so their graduates are equally fakes and our leaders knew about these or believe in this and thus prefer the unknown fakes.

It is unbelieveable that our graduates from world class universities are being looked down upon and despised and trampled by the foreign fakes allowed to come in so easily and freely to shit on their heads, interviewed them and told them they were not good enough, or be their bosses and pushed them around.

When would this nonsense of smearing our own citizens and graduates stop?

Comments from TRE

 

FTs Trash LTs:

September 1, 2020 at 11:26 pm  (Quote)

The foreigners are talented at their game and know the loop-holes, while locals are losing their grip. Even the scholar-civil servants cannot or will not do anything about it because they are bound by trade agreement. Some of these foreign “talents” came in with fake degrees, six-month diplomas, or degrees from unranked universities and yet managed to land themselves in cushy jobs. Who is helping them enter the country? Who is giving them jobs?

 

Pioneer:

September 2, 2020 at 12:57 am  (Quote)

Foreign talent ? More appropriate phrase is foreign trash. The word “talent” used by the Parti Against People to describe every foreigners, has lost its true meaning. Those with talent is someone who is specially gifted, and not any Tom, Dick or Harry coming to our shore. Many of these so-called talent are from 3rd world countries where their countries cannot find jobs for them. So, the main purpose they come to our land is to earn money.

 

Foreign Talons!:

September 2, 2020 at 8:24 pm  (Quote)

Shame on the Gahmen for bringing in these FTs “Foreign Talons” who are literally clawing the livelihood out of innocent Singaporeans- no thanks to our “goondu” Ministers who are not street-smart and get conned into signing the CECA. The only way to free ourselves from the claws of these hawkish opportunists is to rescind the CECA or has the Gahmen foolishly gone to a point of no return?

Choking China and hassling Huawei: The American way

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oluuHNQzbs

Listen to this 4 minute video by Mario Cavolo, a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Guns are not dangerous in white America, blacks are

 I have been watching the mass protests in the USA starting from the knee choke on George Floyd to the latest 7 bullets buried into the back of Jacob Black. And can you believe it, even being unconscious, in a coma, paralysed, and lying in a hospital bed, he was handcuffed to his bed, for a crime that no one knows. He is still dangerous to the white police laws without threatening the police, and not carrying a weapon.  Subsequently, the police claimed they found a knife in his car floor board. Is that the reason to pump 7 bullets into him first and then search for incriminating evidence like a knife in his car? Dead man tells no tales. This is the injustice the blacks are facing in this evil country.

Then there was this 17 year old white youth running among the protesters carrying a machine gun slung across his shoulder. He shot three protesters and then walked calmly towards a convoy of police armoured vehicles. He was not arrested. He was not shot. He was not dangerous. 

From all the protests and mass demonstrations, even after nightfall, not a single black man carry a gun or a weapon. This is quite a strange phenomenon. The blacks seemed to be deprived of guns or feared carrying a gun. Only white men carry guns. There are many white supremacist groups, eg the American Wolf, all carrying their guns everywhere and the police did not feel threatened. They are deemed not dangerous, even with their automatic weapons of mass destruction.

A black man without a gun is dangerous. Why? The black man is dangerous, not the gun, not the white men with guns. Being a black man is dangerous enough to be shot at the slightest suspicion, no need to be violent. Being black is dangerous. A black man walking on the street is a danger walking on the streets in the USA.

This is unbelieveable. Anyone screaming racism? 

Hey, this is America, the land of the free, freedom, democracy, justice and equality and human rights. Free land from the native Indians after massacring 100m of them. Free labour from the African slaves, now the forefathers of the current victimised blacks.  Freedom for the whites but shackles for the blacks. Democracy, justice and equality and human rights for the whites but not for the blacks or coloured. 

How come the blacks did not have the basic human rights to be treated fairly as another human bean?

Time To Terminate CECA Is NOW!

Below are 7 points put up by SSO for the termination of the CECA NOW.

1. Terminate the CECA and renegotiate a new purely trade agreement with India on a fair basis.

2. Exclude the exchange of talents/professionals. cloud the new agreement solely on trade and investments - a free trade agreement not a free flow of personal agreement.

3. Playing with the approval and termination of their EP and SP is stupid. Because the clause clearly stated that Singapore has to approve whatever transfers come from India. If not, India can sue Singapore government. It even include the dependents of the India's natural citizens.

4. As long as the CECA is not terminated, Singapore is legally binded to honour whatever that are stated in the CECA documents signed by both countries PMs.

5. Cunning Modi has already threatened Singapore leaders twice regarding this CECA thingy, once openly and once on the sideline.

6. Singapore must get our of this legal entanglement at the earliest time. This is the ripe time.

7. The COVID-19 PANDEMIC provides the opportunity to remedy our mistakes!

PS. Posted on behalf of SSO.