Empty Vessel

The Singapore government plans to spend an additional S$700 million a year on measures to boost its flagging birth rate. Currently, it spends about S$900 million a year.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday night that a baby brings much joy, but can also be a logistic and financial challenge, so a slew of measures will be implemented by the government to create more time and more funds to help parents cope with their children.

Paid maternity leave will be extended from 12 weeks to 16 weeks, and the extra four weeks can be taken anytime during the baby’s first year. It was previously extended from eight to 12 weeks in 2004.

There will also be a larger baby bonus for first-time parents, more tax incentives to encourage mothers to work, more incentives for the fifth and subsequent children, and more financial support for couples who go for In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment.

On top of that, Mr Lee said parenting is not just the mother’s responsibility.
“I used to change nappies, in the days before Pampers. So you’ve actually got to fold the cloth, you’ve got to put it on, you’ve got to put the safety pin, I haven’t pricked any baby yet. If I can do it, that means anybody can do it,” he quipped.

Emphasising that parenting is a job for both parents has influenced some policy changes which he hopes will help to shift attitudes. Childcare leave, which can be claimed by either parent, will be extended from two to six days per year.

Government to spend S$700m more on pro-family measures, 18 Aug 2008

Channelnewsasia

I knew it! I knew it! Once again, we longsuffering dads are treated like an afterthought by the Gahmen.

What was in that NDP Rally Message for us Providers Of Spermatoza and Masculine Role Models? Here’s what I heard:

“Here, take a few more days leave. Never mind that your wife needs one month for confinement, the extra four childcare leave days should be enough okay. Oh yes, don’t forget to turn up for reservist where you won’t see your wife and newborn for the next month or so”

“Claim more baby bonus as a tax break. But don’t blame us if you want to drive a car to ferry the kids around town and you kena the ERP chain of gantries. Can always take the supercrowded MRT mah, even with your stroller.”

“Have five kids or more lah. We know the tax breaks are enough for the first five years. After that, if all your kids want to go uni at $100k a pop, that’s your problem. Your wife going back to work in her cushy job soon right?”

We guys ought to really protest. All the benefits are going to women, and it’s assumed that guys don’t play a major part in their childrens’ lives.

Well some of us dads do try, and the Gahmen isn’t encouraging other fathers-to-be to try either.

Those policymakers just don’t get it. And I want to know how many married guys were involved in making this New Baby Bonus which I am sure will not move the birth rate up by a significant measure.

They forget it takes two hands to clap. For goodness sake, the Gahmen is not the other half that wives need as much help they can get from - we husbands are. But where are we in this wonderful Singapore Fertility Equation? We’re nothing more than the petri dish or the titration tap.

PS: Got quoted in Today on Aug 20th!

Wikipedia picture of Nan Hua students. Picture by Mailer Diablo.

Our education system has evolved over time, in response to the changing needs of our nation, as well as the external environment. We have a first class education system that is respected internationally. But we can always do better. We want to maintain high educational standards that give every Singaporean student a valuable cachet and recognition worldwide. Moving forward, we want to create more space and focus in our system to impart values to our children. We want to nurture each child, to believe in himself and be self-sufficient, to care for his fellow man, and to be able to contribute to the larger society around him. These are simple goals of any public education system, but few can say that they have delivered. Singapore must aspire to attain these worthy educational goals. MOE will lead the way, but to succeed, we will need all stakeholders to support these initiatives.

- Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, at the 4th Anniversary Public Lecture at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, on Thursday, 14 August 2008, at 11.30am

Educating The Next Generation

All great and good, dear Minister, but I’d also like the education system to be able to sport the following.

1. Impart (not teach) a proper history of modern Singapore and why we are the way we are today.

I doubt anyone reading this blog has a clear understanding of how Singapore came about. What we read in history textbooks in secondary school was sanitised and severely truncated. For eg. there was never a clear explanation why Singapore was booted out of Malaysia (ie. LKY vs Malay nationalism), because of the desire to maintain racial harmony in class. It took me years after school to finally see the bigger picture and hidden facts of the past. Kids today will probably learn more reading Wikipedia’s SG entry and the PAP-Umno conflict page. The first step to true nationhood is understanding your roots, and we don’t know it at all. Racism simmers under the surface of the society, but we often brush it aside as if it doesn’t exist, and many Singaporeans have no idea what type of region the small island is surrounded by.

2. Teach a view of Singapore that is not just through the Gahmen’s lenses.

This is going to be tough, given that PAP ideology stretches throughout the civil service and has been embedded for decades. There are many good things about PAP ideology (which they and media supporters keep harping on incessantly). But teachers need to be able to give a balanced perspective on all things. When foreigners criticise Singapore, it’s not always because they want to tell us how to run the country, but because they simply have a different viewpoint. The Singapore way is to tell this guys to shut up and cover our own ears…or sue them. What happens in the end? Our people grow up, see reality for themselves, and leave the country for good because they don’t want to be nagged at anymore. 

Brain drain doesn’t only occur because we are better educated academically, but because we may not want to stick around with people with closed minds and hearts. Teachers and students need to be able to question and prod the system that nurtures them, but the system still encourages rote learning at all levels. GP classes need to stretch minds, not impart fixed views. I guess scholarly policymakers don’t grasp this concept - Nationhood starts from the buzzing classroom, not some boring government public campaign or social studies textbook. Look at the French as a classic example - they argue about everything to death but they love the idea of France.

3. Get more teachers who actually know what the real world is.

I don’t know if anyone realises this - but teachers are being churned out like crazy out of NIE, and they become teachers without having any experience outside of the school system. As they are not affected by profit and loss margins, they don’t know the realities of the business world, economic shakedowns, the relationship between government and businesses, you scratch my back I scratch yours, ERP and parking costs, 360 degree employee feedback mechanisms and so on. These are things important for students to learn about because the world is getting increasingly flat and more competitive. I see young people today entering the marketplace thinking they deserve a mid-level manager’s post immediately because they have some fancy graduate or masters’ degree.

Wake up, kids, everyone needs to start at the bottom to excel at the top. Grades mean little in the long run when you cannot perform.

Of course, the question is why anyone doing well in the business world would want to teach a bunch of students and not get the pay they are used to.

4. Stop stressing on just performance but on individual development.

Obvious statement right? Every child is special, and every child develops at his own rate. Our system is unforgiving and does not recognise soft skills (another reason for the low levels of cultural development here). Self-expression and creativity is not truly encouraged because it does not help raise the school’s academic ranking or make parents desire to send their kids there. When some schools enter music competitions, the intent to win it is far greater than the intent to expose the students to musical expression.

Some kids don’t do well at studies, but they are potentially great leaders because they sport abnormally high EQ levels. Yet are teachers or the system able to nurture these people to reach their natural height of abilities? In ACS where I came from, there were teachers who could, and we appreciated them for there effort with eternal gratefulness. But it’s a thankless job when the majority are just focused on finishing the curriculum for the day.

5. Let the kids have fun

Duh. Many students spend too much time studying in Singapore, too little time hanging out, falling in puppy love, getting into hijinks etc. People learn life lessons from the mistakes they make, and I fear there is little room for such minor infringements in many schools to let students tumble and pick themselves up.

I was just at Sim Lim Square doing window shopping with my son when we went into one of my old haunts on the 2nd floor. A reputable shop among a whole bunch of dodgy retailers, I’ve been buying stuff from there for a decade. I can probably count a few MiniDisc players, several camcorders and LOTs of earphones.

So I chatted up salesman Mr J. about upscaling DVD players and asked, “Hey, how come all the Sony HDTVs have been dismantled? You guys refreshing the displays?”

He shook his head and said they’re doing a clearance and will be closing down the shop soon. “It’s hard to do business these days. Customers are smart, they know how to compare prices, and with the 7% GST and NETS charging extra, it’s so difficult to make money. The boss decided to close shop.”

“So where are you going to go? You guys have been here over ten years right?”

“I don’t know, probably join another company.”

It’s always sad when an old established retailer is forced out even though they’ve been running an honest (at least to me) business and trying their best to keep things going.

Rising costs is not just something the papers write about in a detached manner, nor is it just annoying us with spiralling food prices and ERP charges.

There are people’s jobs at stake here and if you think about it, little is being done about it from the top. Many policymakers don’t see or work with people like Mr J., they just read about him and forget about it.

Today, I also read a commentary in the Straits Times about how a minority of people polled felt that the National Day Parade was an excessive waste of money, but overall, people still looked forward to it.

Well it’s just a newspaper straw poll and having conducted many of those, I’d say readers should take it with a big pinch of salt.

Yes, NDPs serve a ceremonial function and should remain a fixture for the masses who may not have anything to do on the public holiday, the thing is - how much of our money is being spent on it and why should it be so high?

How much can NDP committees outdo the previous year’s anyway? I haven’t been paying close attention, but it also appears there’s a real limit to improvement in show content, and there are diminishing returns.

To revive some buzz, they built a floating stage which basically has little use the rest of the year, and destroyed the Marina Bay landscape cum watersports facilities.

As a kid, I went for one or two NDPs and really enjoyed it, but as I grew older, I got increasingly upset with the way our money was being spent on it.

One thing our Gahmen needs to learn how to do better is how to manage its impression management. In tough times, it has to appear like it’s cutting back on trivial expenses and that it is roughing it out with its people.

Unfortunately, it usually has to wait till some controversy arises - I remember the uproar when LTA said it was going to build some expensive building to house its staff, but later backed down and quietly moved into the old Kedang Kerbau hospital premises.

There’s also recent news that the Gahmen is hiring more “information officers” to better manage communications to the public. But man, the stuff that I’m talking about, you don’t need any PR professional to figure out or implement. You just need someone who thinks with his head and heart.

Ultimately, I think NDP is an okay thing, especially for young and old folks. ESPECIALLY if I’m not called up to stand in the parade and its rehearsals.

But for those of us who have to pay taxes, it can also be a show of how the Gahmen is thinking about our needs and feelings.   

Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, 2008. Photograph by Bullit Marquez/AP

For hundreds of years, China has been bullied and put down by the West. These days, when people mention China, they associate it with cheap knock-off goods, paranoid Communists, Tibet, Sichuan earthquakes and so on. The news has been filled with nothing but how the Olympics were going down thanks to the polluted air in Beijing.

Even our own Singaporean Chinese…many of them look down on their mainland cousins as being backward or money-grubbing.

But last night, China really reminded the world who has been boss for thousands of years, and that it really only took a breather in the past few centuries.

The opening ceremony might have been a symbolic piece, but it sure symbolised many things.

1. China has the money to do anything it wants if it desires to. US$20b is no joke man. No other country would have even dared dreamed of spending half the amount just on an opening ceremony.

2. China has a disciplined population willing to do its political will. Just observe the hundreds of taiji exponents flipping around with perfect timing. I was studying the look on their faces - it was nothing but pure focus (and fear of messing up, of course).

3. China is the Asian hothouse of creativity and execution. Forget the Italian Renaissance. Zhang Yimou’s ability to orchestrate the show, implement the technology and knock everyone’s socks off is just the tip of the iceberg. Not many people realise this, but for the past few decades, the Chinese have been travelling and absorbing as much as they could from other countries. The transfer of technology and knowledge has been massive and unprecedented, and last night’s show was just one demonstration of what the people have brought home.

More than anything else - like the fancy ancient costumes or different dialect groups dancing - the ability of China to wow the entire planet is probably just the first step in its true revival and re-ascent to power. It may not supercede Hollywood for many decades or even centuries, but in all other fields, the dragon has stirred. Indeed, last night was a good reminder of what the word “majestic” meant.

PS: Of course, the whole Olympic ceremony made our own National Day Parade look like a waste of time. We were at Weizheng’s house and everyone lost interest when the musical fountains got turned on. NDP costs plenty of money too, but it’s not really relevant in a time when there is such a big detachment between the people and the government. Want to celebrate National Day? First ask how many Singaporeans want to put up the flag in front of their house first. It is not out of laziness we do not do so, but a general discontentment with the Gahmen’s way of governing. The Chinese put on a show to prove their worth - our Gahmen puts on a show that has no real meaning anymore.

Yes, the girl can now fly!

1. Man, I’m double the age I was at 16.

2. I have one-tenth the amount of hair follicles I had at 16.

3. I have still the same number of buddies as when I was 19. Just that we need to catch up more often.

4. I have two more versions of me running around the house since I was 26. Not exact copies though, goodness knows where they got their extra powers from.

5. I’ve got another half whom I married at 25. Muak!

I shouldn’t be advocating violence, but this stupid photog really deserves getting throttled by Li Yapeng for trying to sneak pictures of the family and their baby in Bangkok.

I did a few paparazzi assignments in my time and hated it totally - people’s privacy and family are sacred things. How would you like it if someone kept trying to take photos of you yawning in public?

For that, Li Yapeng wins my Righteous Paternal Anger Award. 

And Faye’s still my fave Chinese singer!

Man, I sure didn’t see this coming.

Of all the women in the world to play Conan’s female counterpart Red Sonja, I sure didn’t expect Rose McGowan to be casted. Well, that’s because she’s a muse of Robert Rodriguez, who’s producing this movie. Ok, make that girlfriend.

While she may have the bosom to carry this off, I’m not sure if she has the alpha-female look that will strike fear into hearts of everyone in Hyperborea.

Some things you can be sure of….

1. It’ll look a bit like 300 and Sin City put together - you know, high contrast computer visuals married with live actors to make for a Frank Miller comic-book look.

2. Conan will probably make an appearance, although nothing has been confirmed yet. C’mon, you can’t have one without the other. However, Arnie shouldn’t reprise the role as he’s really too old.

3. Roy Thomas, who helped create the character, will probably have some say in the script, just like he did in the Arnie Conan movies. I recently bought Savage Sword of Conan volume 3 and I must say his writing really improved over the issues.