Schooling is “One of Us” and a “True Son of Singapore”

By MIKOspace

Singapore’s First Olympic Gold – Going Back to School with Schooling

Joseph Schooling, a teen Singaporean with multiple ethnic heritage personifying the best of the country’s multi-cultural demography, has captured singular glory and distinction for his country, who is incidentally celebrating our 51^st Birthday, with the country’s First Olympic Gold Medal at the 100m Butterfly Swimming Event at the Rio Olympics. He has also bested his idol the 22-Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps into 2^nd place shared with 2 other competitors by over half a second.

Singapore’s first Olympic Medal was won in 1960 by Tan Howe Liang who won the Silver Medal in the Weighting (Lightweight Category) in Rome, Italy. To date, athletes from Singapore have won a total of 5 medals at the Olympics including Schooling’s Gold.  The other Silver and 2 Bronze Medals came from Table Tennis, respectively from the 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London) Olympics.  

Schooling’s Gold Olympic Medal and Howe Liang’s Silver Medal struck at Singaporean national pride in a much more radically fundamental way – both of them are home-grown original Singaporean athletes.  

The other Singapore Olympic Medalists - Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu – were formerly from China who adopted Singapore as their home country and thus became eligible to represent Singapore at the Olympics.  For the record, Singaporeans have happily welcomed them as fellow Singaporeans and proud that they ended our Olympic medal drought in 2008.    

In essence, Joseph Schooling is “One of Us” – a 3^rd generation Eurasian Singaporean who is “a true son of Singapore” to quote his Father, Colin, in The Sunday Times.  Joseph studied in Singapore’s top Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) for 8 years before going to the United States to pursue his swimming passion and studies.

Schooling’s Olympic Gold Medal achievement will revive debates as to whether we as a nation have done enough to consciously groom and develop local athletes. The same debates will also debunk our narrow obsession with academic excellence as the ONLY definition of human talent deserving of social investments and cultivation.

Gold Olympian Schooling did not have the benefit of the massive investments, to the tune of several thousands of S$$, that went to the National Table Tennis players who have very, very few homegrown Singaporeans.  Singapore has paid beyond money, coaches and amenities to include our valuable and prestigious Citizenships in the desperate attempts by sports officials to ignore local talent development in favour of the easier method of buying ready foreign ping-pong talent to represent Singapore.        

In ACS, Schooling benefitted from his School’s objective “to nurture all-round development and help students achieve their potential outside the academic field”.  Another top elite school, RI, had 20 years ago decided to drop soccer from their list of games and co-curricular activities (CCA) because she had not been the soccer champion over the preceding years despite repeatedly producing the nation’s top students.  Wonder what happened to the lesson “Don’t Quit” in their development of youth for leadership! 

In ACS, the School Motto is “The Best is Yet to Be”.  In 2012, Schooling finished badly, actually last, in Heat 5 of the 200m Butterfly Swimming event after Olympic Officials objected unfairly to his cap and goggles. He returned dejected and disappointed, but determined to go at it again by focusing on the 100m.  His story is now Singapore’s history.  Would he have been so encouraged if he were in RI instead of ACS?    

As Singapore prepares herself to celebrate Schooling’s Olympian Gold Honour for Singapore, we should not forget the many Singaporean athletes who could have brought Singapore earlier to the Olympic Gold Medal if only they had been carefully nurtured, adequately funded and provided with the sports eco-system and infrastructure to grow into the stature of Olympian qualifiers, like we did for the National Table Tennis Team.

Athletic and all human talent development begin when young in schools. The wise adage “if you want life-guards, first develop swimmers” is so true. 

Singapore can certainly afford to buy all the 2016 Olympic Gold and Silver Medalists, offer them “special” Singapore “Dual”-Citizenships; and I am sure there would be even more Gold Medals and “Majullah Singapura” refrains in the 2020 Olympics when they represent Singapore in Tokyo. This approach would certainly be meaningless and the accolades short-lived, as they provide neither impetus nor emulation model for the younger generations of Singaporeans.  Again, we will be wasting our money and resources just to ensure the career promotion of certain sports officials. 

From a helicopter’s view, there are the broader related issues of talent development in Singapore. Talent excellence must and should embrace to include as many forms of talent as possible, given Singapore’s only true asset being our human resource.    

Many Singaporeans are receiving accolades as they excel beyond our shores as musicians, actors, entertainers, bankers, commodity traders, business men and women, inventors, researchers, entrepreneurs, logisticians, engineers, management consultants and University Professors.  And then some.  Yet, they are very seldom recognized nor cited for emulation locally simply because they do not belong to the “Scholar” Elites.  Many Scholars however, having gravitated easily along pre-planned career paths, could succeed only within the protected environment of the Civil Service. Very few senior Scholar-Civil Servants are actually sought after by headhunters for the private sector. 

True talent is visible to all, and the impact of real talent is to add value to benefit others, especially to encourage their fellow countrymen and women, as well as the coming generations not only by bringing honour and glory to Singapore, but to propel her to ever greater heights of authentic excellence and achievements in many talent domains.

The Schooling lesson to our educators, talent developers, sports officers and political leaders is to go back to School for a re-imagination of our talentscape and to re-calibrate the limitless talent possibilities of our children and their grandchildren, so as to have more Schoolings for Singapore.

Kim Jong Un, the trend setter of man's fashion

Remember Adolf Hitler's look, I meann his hair and his moustache? He was a class of his own, ann individualist that set his own style. Hitler's look might be different but he did not change the look of man's fashion in any way or not in the way Kim Jong Un did. Kim Jong Un and his awful looking hairstyle is the trend of men all over the world today and has been that way for several years.

Initially I thought only silly Asians or fashion imitators would adopt this ugly looking hairstyle as fashion, as the in thing. Then when I watch the European footballers and now the Olympics, even the Americans and many European athletes are sporting the same awful looking hair style that was a laughing stock during the early days of National Service. The 4 by 2 look would turn heads then, and attract all kinds of humiliating remarks and comments.

Today, this 4 by 2 with greater exaggerations, is cool. Looking ugly is cool. Looking different, weird and out of place, worse than a nerd, is attractive, I think they think so. And all thanks to Kim Jong Un for setting this trend. The barbers and hair stylists have a lot more businesses to do and more hair to cut.

When would the fashion world be honourng this man for his great contribution to manhood, that man need not look pretty, but anything, even ugly, is acceptable and desirable, and welcome him to the Hall of Fame in the fashion world?

I must say some men could carry this unusual, offbeat or obiang hairstyle well. But many just look anything but good. It is a piece of bizarre art on the head and paraded everywhere, in the streets and in parties of the high society and fashion conscious. This is the best revenge Kim Jong Un inflicted on the west and the silly believers that believed his grandfather was mad, his father was mad and he is also mad. Now he made the world mad to wear his hair style to look like him.

Thank you again Kim Jong Un, if the wearers of this hairstyle know where it came from, they might start to throw for their stupidity. It is North Korea! Not the cool Korean wave from South Korea. And it orginates from Kim Jong Un.

Joseph Schooling - Singapore's golden boy in Rio

Picture courtesy from TRE. He looks so Singaporean.

The elusive gold medal in the Olympic Games finally arrived, in style, in Olympic record time at 50.39. What is more special is that it was brought home by a true blue Singaporean, a third generation Singapore born Singaporean. This gold medal does not come with all the controversies of foreign talents, of mercenaries, but home grown and hard work. This is a medal that all Singaporeans can be proud of.

Schooling won his 100m butterfly in the company of the swimming greats in Phelps, Le Clos and Cseh, all wanting to win this event to add to their cupboards of gold medals. And there was Joseph Schooling standing there up front to deny them this glory.

Would this home grown talent spur a rethinking in the sports field, to think and have faith in our very own children, that we should start to grow our own timber again, though 30 years late? See how much wasted opportunities for our children, how much time and money wasted on the foolish dream of money can buy everything, including honour!

This crazy fad of buying talents transcends all fields of enterprise in the island that was once proud of our own talents and our ability to be better than the best in the world. But for the last 30 years Singaporeans have been living in a sick belief that we are daft and useless in everything and anything from anywhere, from little third world villages, are better than us. And many silly Singaporeans believe so even today. And they are still bringing in plane loads of rubbish to replace Singaporean talents and our children and expecting Singaporeans to down grade to become security guards and taxi drivers.

No, all the craps about upgrading, skills upgrading, are really skills downgrading, income downgrading, expectation downgrading, and downgrading of pride and dignity.

Schooling may be a champion in sports, in the swimming pool, but his triumph should open up the eyes of dead gold fish eyes, to see that Singaporeans are not 'has beens' and can be the best', and be proud people once again, not daft in their own countries, not good enough for everything and we need foreigners to replace them, replace their genes and see to their extinction.

Well done Joseph Schooling. Your victory is more than a victory in the swimming pool in the Olympic Games. Your victory is a victory for all Singaporeans, that there is still life and goodness and talent among Singaporeans. We are proud to be Singaporeans again. No need to hide behind foreigners, behind mercenaries for our glory. We should end this silly pursuit of buying foreign talents to do us 'proud'.

The case for restrictive laws for sub judice

This troubling development to this cosmopolitan city where everyone in any position of authority is deemed a super talent, some even think they are immortals, is quite uncalled for really. The assumptions for such laws came at a time when the judges and legal officers were quite ordinary in a way, like lay people, easily swept off their feet by public opinions. And there was this jury system where the jurors were common lay persons that were even easier to listen to the winds, with very light ears and did not have a mind of their own.

We have abolished the juror system, so this problem with lay persons making legal decisions is no longer a problem. We now have eminent and learned judges making legal decisions, very fine men and women with very fine training and education, people who think law and definitely cannot be influenced by lay persons writing their opinion pieces in the social media. Or would they? The main media would definitely not utter rubbish to influence the judgment in court when a case is in proceeding.

Read this again for the reasons for sub judice laws, ‘Both statutory and common law contempt of court are concerned with the possibility that a juror, witness or lay judge may be influenced by material which is published about active legal proceedings.’

We have done away with jurors. There is still possibility of witnesses being influenced by public opinions. And lay judges? Do we still have lay judges today in our courts? I have heard of judges, I have heard of lay persons but not lay judges. This is the first time I heard of lay judges in the above definition from outlaw.com. Can I safely conclude that our judges, well trained professionals, are not lay judges?

Is there really a case to invoke such restrictive laws on sub judice in this smart nation? A smart nation cannot be filled with stupid people right? And definitely not stupid judges that will go with the flow… of public opinions. Or at least people put into authority, especially in the courts of law, having gone through a tough regime of legal training, can they be easily influenced by public opinion despite their legal discipline? Or would a simple gag order, forbidding learned judges from reading the social media to protect them from bad influence in the social media do?

Have we advanced as a people, as a nation, to rise above antiquated laws that were introduced at a time when judges too were not so learned, could be lay judges, to protect them and the legal system? It would be very serious if our learned judges of today could easily be influenced by lay people making their lay opinions.

Are we regressing as a people, as a nation, to think that ancient laws and practices are still useful and practical to our highly educated, highly trained and highly discipline justice system?

Can we trust our learned judges to be able to distinguish between chaff and the real stuff in a legal proceeding? Or do we think that the learned judges are just as fickle as the lay people? What is the brandishing of this sub judice law trying to say? Would it undermine the integrity and intelligence of our learned judges, that they need such an ancient law to protect them from making wrong decisions?

Why I did not bother to read about the latest CPF schemes?

It does not affect me at all and would not affect may CPF holders today and in the future. Savings and more savings are luxuries only for the rich and people with a lot of money to save. Many will be living a hand to mouth existence and savings and more savings will mean they need not have to eat and live today and hopefully they will live long enough to benefit from their savings.

I will leave it to those who still have some CPF savings to sweat over these attractive schemes. To those that would not be affected, why bother? And many people down the line, the young, are unlikely to benefit from whatever schemes that they are scheming. How so? How much can the young of today, and the parents of today be left with in the CPF is they have to pay for their million dollar properties and the compulsory Medishield Life and all the minimum sums to be locked up?

No need to bother about those unable to afford million dollar properties as they would not have much to put into their CPF anyway. The 3 or 4 rm HDB flats would have exhausted whatever they put into their CPF, nothing much left to be schemed or benefit from any schemes.

True or not?