My Mid-Life Food Crisis

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Update 3 Feb 2013: I’ve switched from the HPB iDat app to MyFitnessPal, which provides a much better food database, nutrition breakdown, user interface and it syncs properly across devices. The problem with locally created apps, especially those from govt. agencies, aren’t very well maintained or designed. But it was a good start and I do thank HPB for it.

Late last year, I got infected by a really bad case of athlete’s foot (that’s foot fungus if you’re not an athlete). It refused to heal despite all sorts of medicine being used, and I had to stop jogging for the whole month of Dec and the early weeks of Jan because it became too painful to even walk. I’ve since ditched the useless Western medicine and am using an ancient method of vinegar soak (50% white vinegar, 50% water for 20min twice a day) and it’s killing the fungus with an unholy vengeance.

The infection forced me to stop eating heavy foods and reduce my snacking, because I knew I couldn’t burn them off with another long run. This was especially miserable during the Christmas season when people are supposed to be making merry and gobbling food.

But that didn’t change my thinking on food, which was to “live to eat”. Two years of running with the Nike+ system gave me more stamina, but I gained about 3kg rather than losing weight. I love my pork lard, dry noodles and curry rice!

Then a few weeks ago, I purchased a digital weighing scale to replace the old spring version which has been showing the wrong readings for years. The new scale came with a fat percentage analyzer, and to my horror, my fat count was over 24% (healthy is 20% or under).

Didn’t help that my BMI was borderline overweight at 25 (it should be under 25). I’ve been mildly unhappy with the gradual disappearance of my jawline over the past few years too, and the weighing machine sparked the decision to change my eating habits for good.

Some fundamentals in adjusting food habits:

1. Data is critical. Most of the time, we make decisions without the right information. Working in journalism and Microsoft has taught me a healthy respect for collecting relevant data before acting. One of the reasons why I never lost weight since my army days is because I haven’t actually bothered to research what I was eating. How many calories was I actually eating a day? What is the trajectory of my unstoppable weight gain?

2. Exercise is unavoidable. Thankfully I have been jogging regularly over the past six years to ensure I don’t fail the IPPT fitness test. But I needed to ditch the rudimentary Nike+ Sportband pedometer because it was always showing a longer distance than I actually covered (due to my smaller strides). And the Nike+ website is a continual disaster with login failures and all sorts of problems. I can’t believe how a great company like Nike can tolerate having such an abysmal online experience for runners. I’ve covered over 900km with the Sportband and I was getting really fedup with the Nike site and my lack of weight loss.

So, I spent a day researching on calorie counting apps, and remembered the Singapore Health Promotion Board folks telling me about their iDAT (Interactive Diet and Activity Tracker) app. I downloaded it and was astounded to find all sorts of local food and their respective calorie figures in the database. It also comes with a basic GPS feature to track your various fitness activities.

The iDAT app’s main screen, which shows you a quick summary of your calorie intake versus requirements. The green bar shows your daily baseline requirement and the yellow bar shows calories expended by exercise. The orange bar refers to how much you’ve consumed so far in the day.

So I decided to do a simulation of my usual intake of delicious SG food and it wasn’t a good report card. It’s scary how many calories our local food contains. We know they aren’t healthy, but the numbers are sobering. My baseline benchmark is a bowl of minced pork porridge, which is about 320 kcal and not the most exciting meal out there.

	FOOD	CALORIES (kCal)
BREAKFAST	Breadtalk curry bun	214
BREAKFAST	Soya bean drink with sugar	138
LUNCH	Chicken Rice	666
LUNCH	Soft Drink	133
TEA	Ice Milo	175
TEA	Biscuit	150
DINNER	Economy Rice with 2 veg and 1 meat	580
DINNER	Ice Lemon Tea	87
SUPPER	Crispy snacks	200
	TOTAL	2343

Give or take, the average SG male needs 1800-2000 kcal a day on average to keep going. Of course, I don’t eat such rich food at every meal but with an excess of 343 kcal a day, one will gain 1kg in just 22 days if you lead a sedentary lifestyle and don’t exercise.

“Calorie In” must be balanced with “Calorie Out” to maintain the same weight. When you take in less calories than you expend, you’ll experience a calorie deficit which then leads to weight loss. Vice versa too.

According to online wisdom, 1kg of body weight is equivalent to 7700 kcal. To burn off 1kg of weight, you need to have a calorie deficit each day of 500 kcal over 15 days. The reverse is true – overeat by 500 kcal per day and you’ll gain 1kg in 15 days. The advice is not to have a deficit of more than 1000 kcal per day for healthy weight loss. The HPB website has much more info and you should do your research there.

Now what puzzles me is – why didn’t I know all this facts on weight management before? Why is it nobody teaches this in school or provide such advice when dishing out gems on healthy living? My suspicion is that most people never bother to find out until they meet a nutritionist or read a blog post like this.

Anyway, armed with this data, I reworked by daily diet to look something like this:

	FOOD	CALORIES (kCal)
BREAKFAST	Gardenia Softmeal Bread 2 slices	137
	Cheddar cheese spread (thin)	30
	Kopi O Kosong	5
	Apple Raw	96
LUNCH	Wanton noodle soup	290
LUNCH	Cordial Drink	88
TEA	Wheatmeal biscuit	110
DINNER	Economy Rice with 2 veg and 1 meat	580
DINNER	Ice Lemon Tea	87
SUPPER	Nestum 3-in-1 drink	110
	TOTAL	1533

Overnight, I would have shaved off 800 kcal from my usual unhealthy diet. Even with a baseline calorie requirement of 1800 kcal, I would have a deficit of 267 kcal. This would theoretically lead to a loss of 1kg over 28 days. I don’t stop myself from eating my favorite mee pok or fried rice though, I just eat half a portion and substitute the rest with colorful fruits to ensure I don’t feel hungry.

Here’s another day’s reduced diet mix.

Now all my friends know I’m an impatient guy and I like to see quick results, so when you add exercise to the mix, the calorie deficit increases even more. To cut the long story short, jogging about 6km at a moderate pace (say within 35 min) will burn about 400 kcal, or roughly the equivalent of a bowl of dry wanton mee.

So if you choose to exercise every day, you can still stay slim even if you eat like most Singaporeans do. However I personally think that exercising everyday at that rate is dangerous as your body doesn’t get enough time to recover, so I do it every alternate day.

My current goal is to lose 3kg so my BMI goes down to about 23, and with the above focus on diet, data and exercise, I’ve lost about 1kg in the first week (which is deemed the safe limit for healthy weight loss). This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually bothered to lose weight seriously, and it’s not as hard as it seems. My jawline has redefined itself and my jeans are already looser.

However, there was a day I cut back too much (about 1200 kcal deficit) and I spent the whole day feeling a little faint and sleepy, so don’t go to the extreme and go bulimic on me please. Once I reach my desired weight, I will recalculate my daily requirements so I can maintain the weight.

This is the park connector route that I take to work. There are several traffic lights to cross though.

This is the park connector route that I take to cycle from Bishan to work in the Marina Bay area. There are several traffic lights to cross though. Thanks Jerry and Dom for figuring this route out for me!

And last week, I finally got a bicycle (has it been 12 years since I last cycled on my Giant?) so that I could keep up with the cycling goblin kids. Also, it’s a great way to get together with the AC dragonboaters who are all now in the same phase of mid-life crisis, going on SG park connectors like we are primary school kids again. I cycled to work for this first time this morning at a casual pace along the Kallang canal route, burning about 285 kcal over 11.7km and 51min, and I tell you, it’s lovely not having to worry about hell drivers in the rear view mirror. It’s also great to be able to cycle with the boys you grew up with over the past 30 years!

On the flipside, this means I’ll be riding my Ducati Monster less now

Now I know I’ve been annoying my Facebook friends by posting all sorts of calorie information on various foods (do you know one cup of roasted salted peanuts has 1000 calories?!?) but really, once you start getting into the data, you can’t stop. After one week of reading the iDAT app, I can tell you offhand the calorie count of most local food.

The younger version of me will pooh-pooh this and say “one should enjoy life and your food”, but I’m not young anymore and my metabolism is really slowing down. Strangely, my palate has also changed – I don’t really hanker after char kway teow or other oily food anymore.

Gone are the days when we used to be athletic dragonboaters or gung-ho army officers, and there’s no point trying to relive the days of the past. Aging is inevitable and if we choose to ignore reality, there will be a price to pay in days to come. Good food can be had in this food paradise, but just in moderation (and I really mean in moderation) while keeping the discipline to not over-eat or snack unnecessarily. I’ve stopped adding milk to coffee and take Coke maybe once a week. No more regular snacking on Collon or Cheezels too.

I must caution you though – once you embark on this path I took, you’ll never look at local food the same way again.

Why the PAP got Hammered in Punggol East

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The news is out – Workers’ Party won over 54% of the votes in Punggol East while the PAP only garnered about 43%. It was not unexpected though, because some key trends were glaringly clear throughout the short hustings period. You’ll read plenty of analyses in the media this coming week, but I thought I’d get ahead of the pack first.

(I won’t even bother to write about Reform Party or Singapore Democratic Alliance because all they did was to waste their own elections deposits and everyone’s time with their poorly thought-out campaigns and rhetoric.)

In highly connected Singapore, elections are now run on social media. The rallies’ real impact was created when shared virally. And Dr Koh’s “Everyone has a car” quote may have been out of context but damaged his campaign more than anything else IMO.

The influence of traditional media was minimal unless they are fully online like Today, which did an excellent job of tweeting updates and doing follow up reports.

What the PAP needs is a truly strong communications expert who is able to strategize every bit of their PR. It can’t be an old media “expert” but someone who knows how to wield and shape online sentiment. Right now, it’s pretty obvious that person has not been hired yet. I remember before GE2011, the PAP brushed off online comments as “Internet chatter” and I wrote that they’ll regret that.

PAP folks post a lot on Facebook but never respond to any comments. So they shouldn’t even bother because they’re treating FB like it’s a print newspaper.

The big guns no longer have any major impact on the vote. Everyone from the PM to Kee Chiew came down to Punggol, and the more they said, the angrier the people got (at least online). The population of Punggol is younger than most mature estates, and the young people are fed up with all the wrong policies of the past 15 years. The residents are also immune to all the Gahmen announcements on transport, Baby Bonus and housing fixes being trotted out in the space of one week. Too much and too late.

The PAP has long prided itself on incorruptibility and integrity. Then their rising star Michael Palmer messed himself and his party in the worst possible way. You can wear white clothes, but you need to practice what you preach. That is why the PAP’s old mantra of being clean has lost much of its power over the people.

Li Lian represented the common Singaporean facing all the daily bread and butter issues. Dr Koh represented yet another rich guy the PAP wanted to parachute into the Cabinet. Seriously, who do you think the people want to vote for? Sob stories of a poor childhood do nothing if you have two cars.

There is still much resentment on the ground after GE2011 – a general sense that nothing has really improved today. Wages have lagged behind costs. Frequent breakdowns of the MRT remind people of forced overcrowding and poor transport management. Sky high COEs remind people of inflation. The education system reminds parents that children are unnecessarily stressed. Is this the country that the PAP has built where only the rich can be happy?

In the space of a by-election, it was impossible to deal with all those major issues, though some attempts were made. Even with the pay cut, our PAP ministers are still earning a lot (and we don’t know the extent of their performance bonuses). The issues we face are not the same issues they face.

That’s why whether it is a by-election or general election, it’s about connecting with the voter lah. So simple, yet so difficult when you don’t have to take the train to work.

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Thoughts on 2012

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Another year flies by and I thought I had better pen some thoughts down before I forget them.

An Instagram photo of the clouds over Bishan, 28 Dec 2012.

1. Photography is now in the pocket

In the mid 2000s, I used to conduct a few photography workshops in partnerships with Canon. Back then, my mantra to the audience was to use as high a resolution a digital camera as you could afford, because you’d never know how big you need to print them or what kind of HD displays you would be using them in the future as photo frames. I scoffed at phone cameras because they were just so primitive then (they were horrid).

Today, that mantra has gone out of the window as the old adage of “having a camera with you at all times” is more important than the actual megapixel count. Smartphones can now do spot exposure, HDR processing to overcome high contrast scenes and have really good color reproduction. And the most amazing thing is that you can share them instantly on social media, rather than wait a few days to get 4R prints and then another few weeks to show them to your friends.

If I go out with the kids and forget to bring my Olympus Pen along (the full frame Canon 5D sees very little action today due to its enormous bulk), it’s still ok because a modern smartphone has a really really good image sensor. And I don’t print photos anymore, photos are now shared by default on Facebook and Instagram, and this blog no longer hosts photos like it used to.

Isabel in soft focus, Instagram style.

Instagram has been a great tool that I have grown to appreciate. While some pros may decry the use of vintage filters, I love it because the same effects are much more difficult to achieve in Photoshop, and if you choose to take photos first and Instagram it later, you still retain the original image. And I’ve always been a fan of square 1:1 ratio images. In the past we used to fantasize about owning medium format cameras just to get that square look…today who cares?

I predict that compact cameras will become obsolete within the next five years, and dSLRs will once again become the domain of pros instead of consumers.

2. Xbox Rawks

The Xbox ambassadors and the rest of the usual gang of suspects at Dance Central Championships. You won’t find another group of more energetic young folks elsewhere (excluding this botak lah)

For the past year, I’ve been the business lead for the Xbox 360 in Singapore, the fifth guy in the job since the product was launched in Singapore during the early 2000s. While I have been driving the marcoms for Xbox and our other Microsoft retail products in the past five years, it’s a whole different ball game to be actually doing product management for such a complex product line.

And till today, I still have to tell people I don’t spend all my time playing games. It’s a continuously challenging business to manage, and while I can’t write much about all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, what we did publicly was truly fun and groundbreaking this year.

The explosive finale of the Dance Central Championships 2012 at Plaza Singapura.

Dance Central Championships came about because we’ve always wanted to bring Xbox to the masses in a big non-traditional way. It blew our minds when over 1000 people signed up and the finale was simply electrifying as contestants did the most amazing moves on the stage. The finale coincided with the launch of Kinect Star Wars and it was a pleasure to work with the 501st Legion of Star Wars enthusiasts. Trust me, you don’t see such passion very often – these guys live and breathe the Force.

Halo 4 launch, 6 Nov at Funan. We’ve never packed the crowd in like this before.

The Halo 4 launch was something of a full circle thingy. When I joined Microsoft in 2007, my second day of work was the Halo 3 launch at Suntec. While we had to scale this one down due to budget constraints, we organized a Royal Rumble-style Ultimate Deathmatch as our first tournament in many years and it was truly gratifying to see fans line up to see who would be the last one standing.

In my previous job as a journalist, I wrote many stories, but I could have never imagined writing a story like my past five years in Microsoft and being part of the amazing Xbox journey.

3. The Goblins

The Tan family, Xmas 2012

Isaac will be ten years old soon, and Isabel will be eight. Feels like yesterday that Goy and I were still pak-tor-ing (going out on dates). Sometimes I get a bit disoriented and forget that I’m a father to two kids. With them yakking and cracking jokes and arguing all the time, sometimes I feel more like their older brother. Especially since I don’t feel so grown up myself.

It’s really not easy to inculcate solid values and be a good role model to the kids, and often I fall short. But I’m glad the kids make it a fun journey…most of the time. And they are the main reason that I…

3. Fought the education system

It started one day when Goy showed me this ACS Primary sample mathematics exam paper that was so ridiculously tough I lost my cool. I said, “That’s it, I’m writing a letter to the papers.”

One letter led to another, and before I knew it, I had sent and gotten six letters published, and other letter writers contributed their thoughts too. The letters are archived here in their original unedited form (the Today letters have since gone offline, such a pity)

Crippling learning with unrealistic standards

It’s a strong foundation that counts

Is the Education Ministry really listening to parents’ feedback?

Why would people want to have kids in Singapore?

Getting to the root of kiasuism (this was a guest column for Today’s National Day Rally edition)

It is not me who is kan cheong

Did the letters help the situation? I think it did, because since the first letter, education has become a bigger talking point in the public space. The Gahmen stopped publishing names of top PSLE scorers this year and while the problem lies more in the sheer unreasonable breadth of the primary school curriculum, at least they’re doing something.

The problem with the education system, I suspect, is that there are too many layers and differing approaches, and no single visionary who can articulate what kind of education system is good for our kids. To solve this problem at the root, we need leaders with actual field experience and I am awaiting the day when an acclaimed educator become the Education Minister.

I’m not saying that the current Minister Heng is doing a lousy job, it’s just that the PAP’s way of appointing ministers needs to take into account that a finance/army/civil service guy may not appreciate the nuances of education like an ex-teacher would. To change the world, we don’t need technocrats and administrators and policymakers. We need people who know what it takes and are willing to risk everything to improve our children’s lives.

I’m done with letter writing for now, because I was starting to sound like a broken record.

4. My Monster.

My Monster 1100 Evo at one of the old Seletar airbase buildings. Vintage filtered with the help of who else but Instagram.

I first started riding army bikes in 1996, and enrolled in the civilian Class 2B course in 2007. Only in 2012 did I finally realize the long-time dream of owning a Class 2 (400cc and above) bike and after much consideration, I chose the Ducati Monster 1100 Evo and it is an exhilarating ride. I have written about it here.

Seriously, 16 years is a pretty long time to wait, but I guess I was too busy in between.

5. People moving on.

Several colleagues have left Microsoft and I am deeply grateful for all the things they have taught me and gone through with me. Great friends are hard to find in any workplace, and I’ve been blessed with knowing so many talented folks since I started working in 2001. All this sounds very clichéd, but our personality and attitudes to life are often shaped by the meaningful relationships we have and cherish.

And my ex-boss Ben Tan has so many classic lines that I remember by heart. Eg. “Don’t wrestle with pigs!” “Stack them high and watch them fly!” (referencing mass stacking at retail). “How do you get from good to great?”

An old SPH friend, Chee Kin, left us suddenly this year. He was a kind and funny mentor during my journalism internship years, and now I can’t crack anti-Sun Ho/China Wine jokes with him anymore. Quite a few friends have passed away (the first guy during Primary 5) and it is always a grim reminder that our days on earth are numbered and unknown to us. All the more reason to enjoy life for what it is and never regret the things we do. It’s either now or never, people!

6. Passing another violin exam

A shot of my violin and my teacher’s violin.

To many kids, passing the ABRSM music exam is no big deal, since everyone is doing it (usually not by choice). To an adult like me, who has no natural innate gift in music, clearing my Grade 5 exam was a big accomplishment.

This was a frightening exam to go through, because I realized that I still could not get rid of the jitters and shakes whenever I played in front of a teacher or examiner. I concluded that I simply did not have stage performance confidence – an irony because I have no issues giving speeches in front of huge crowds. Goy helped me overcome this (mostly) by constantly practicing with me with the piano and I learnt how to minimize the tonality issues. I just managed to score a merit rating and it felt like a distinction already.

I continue to learn the violin because it’s too late to just stop now, when I’ve worked at this for over 11 years, and because every lesson is such a humbling experience for an arrogant nature like mine. Violin is truly a great antidote for the inertia that threatens to subsume me every day.

As usual, I don’t think too hard about the future and what I want to do in 2013. Everything happens according to God’s plan and all I ask for is to be happy in the things I do and achieve contentment at all times. I feel the edginess and impatience of the mid-life crisis (all the old AC boys are experiencing it) and we have to keep remembering to get together lest one of us disappear from sight without warning.

Pok’s wedding in KL, probably the last time we will look relatively young. Age will hound us from here on.

And 2012 was great because the last of the dragonboat gang – Pok and Naveen – finally got married. Now they’ll understand what we married men have been talking about during our Adam Road suppers

Riding The Monster

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I didn’t realize how similar the curves of Gardens by The Bay were to those on the Monster until I parked the bike and looked through the lens. This is a truly fortunate combo of the right dawn lighting, street lighting and juxtaposition. Christmas Eve 2012.

The Ducati Monster 1100 Evo is my first Class 2 bike and it was a shocker to ride during my first 24 hours with it. The engine vibrated terribly, you can’t go slow in the carpark (or actually below 40kmh) without clutching in halfway, and the engine is always complaining if you don’t rev enough. And if you aren’t careful, you’re breaking the speed limit…by a lot.

But what a pleasure it is!

Having only ridden bikes like the SAF hybrid street-scramblers (about 185cc, from Honda and Yamaha), learner bikes in Bukit Batok Driving Center (Honda 125s, 400s and 600s) and my Kawasaki Ninja 250R, I did not know a modern motorcycle could be as rough as a Monster. The Japanese bikes were really easy to handle with smooth engines and clutch controls, while the Monster is the complete opposite.

Its torque-y engine lurches forward, always eager to get off the stop line. You can hear every mechanical whirr and click when the wind isn’t rushing through your helmet. The engine gets hot enough to sear your thighs red though the jeans if you decide to do multiple short trips (I have a photo to prove it). The tiny tank only holds enough fuel for 140km before the fuel reserve light comes on, so frequent trips to the petrol station is mandatory.

However, once you get used to those quirks, man, you learn to love this Italian stallion (no, no, not Stallone) and its unique character – arrogant, impetuous and always challenging you to take a firm rein or just buzz off.

If you’re going to own a high capacity bike, why not own one with character? I’ve always loved the Italian approach to art and science, driven forward by ego and passion and a deep understanding of aesthetics. That’s pretty much like my own personality, as my friends would readily tell you. So a Ducati is a natural fit.

I was considering the Ducati Streetfighter 848 at first, but the Monster’s classic design language spoke directly to me while I could never love the aggressive lines of the Streetfighter as much. As well as the lower seat height The Streetfighter probably has more in common with modern anime-inspired Japanese bikes like the Kawasaki Z1000, the latter of which was one of my earlier candidates for the Class 2 bike but it was just too bulky with that gigantic inline-4 engine.

Upper Peirce Reservoir is one of my favorite locations for any bike photo shoot. But be careful of the monkeys who always look for a chance to grab your gear and run away gleefully.

The current Monster design is superior to the original 1993 forebear, with a much more muscular trellis frame, stouter tank and a well balanced mix of smooth curves and twisted metal innards out in full view. Even though the Triumph Street or Speed Triple is arguably a more well-rounded machine for city use, (the triple engine is much smoother to ride at all gears, as I’ve experienced with the Triumph Daytona 675) there is no contest in the looks department.

The Monster engine may vibrate incessantly but once you hit the sweet spot at each picky gear, it’s really enjoyable. The exhaust sound is a sweet mix of bassy low notes and happy mid-tone barks and I think the matte aluminium stock pipes look superior to any third-party alternatives. I removed the odd-looking flyscreen and now there’s nothing to obstruct my view as I soak up the beautiful sunsets or empty morning roads. It responds nimbly due to its compact shape (a neighbour thought it was a 400cc bike, and really, it is just a little bigger than a Super 4), and the bike just commands so much presence whether moving or stationary.

I don’t know if this same affliction hits other Ducati owners, but I now have a weakness for Ducati apparel even though they are quite pricey (A Puma-Ducati tee is usually about $50, and it’s hard to find good discounts even with free shipping from the online apparel store). To make you feel even more special, Ducati sends you a membership card all the way from Italy embossed with your bike’s frame number. You can’t do much with the card but it’s the thought that counts and most companies don’t do this sort of consumer marketing anymore.

With the crazy COE prices for cars (S$81.8K for 1600cc and below as I write this!), Japanese bikes getting more expensive now due to the high yen, and European bikes coming down in price due to the weak euro, I suspect there are going to be more Ducatis, Triumphs, MV Agustas and other continental bikes on our roads in the next few years.

But I could be wrong – there’s still a strong stigma against bike ownership in Singapore thanks to the reckless riders on the roads, as well as inconsiderate drivers. To make things harder for bike class upgrades, the Traffic Police tests are getting harder to pass with more stringent testers. My Class 2A and Class 2 tests were no walks in the park. Taking a minimum of over three years to get a Class 2 licence (400cc and above) is very long, but then again, I do understand the rationale behind this restriction. I don’t think I could have respected or handled the power of a Class 2 bike during my early biking days in the army.

One just wonders how long people will tolerate the high car prices before considering going the patience-draining motorbike licence route.

Off topic: I’ve always wondered about the high population of Honda Super 4 owners in SG – don’t they ever think of upgrading to a nicer looking bike if they could afford it? The Super 4 is the equivalent of my Corolla Altis – a nice bike for daily commuting, but nothing more. I was dead set against owning a Super 4 during my year of Class 2A ownership because it’s enough to be an everyday Altis owner

In recent weeks, I’ve been scouting Singapore for the right backgrounds to take portraits of the Monster, and here’s a small gallery with more to come:

Found this beautiful backdrop on Christmas Day morning at Punggol Way. The footpath is much narrower than it looks.

Another shot at Punggol Way.

This was taken at Gardens by the Bay itself.

Changi Coastal Road, along the pathway at the carpark, at dawn.

I installed these drop-dead gorgeous Rizoma Circuit 851 mirrors but removed them soon after because the mirror is so small you really can’t see much of what’s behind you. Sigh, it would have been the perfect naked bike mirror.

Changi Coastal Road, as the sun rose. Most of my shots are taken in the early hours because the family is sleeping then, and so is the rest of Singapore. This way one can ride the Monster the way it’s meant to be ridden – without stopping

A week of ridiculous statements

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It’s been a busy week of news and I’m pretty upset, not so much by the news but the jaw-dropping things the Govt people say as a result of the news.

Meritocracy

“The labour movement is “uncomfortable” and “concerned” with the calls for equal jobs, equal remuneration”…Mr Lim said that equal remuneration would not take into account the standard of living in Singapore as opposed to other regions, and this would be unfair for local workers who have to support their family members here. - Labour chief Lim Swee Say with regards to the strike by the China-born bus drivers in Singapore.

For all the talk about meritocracy in Singapore, it doesn’t exist from what I see. The rich/poor gap widens every day, because things are stacked up against the poor and lowly educated.The rich can ensure their children get all the help they need to get a top-tier education, and the poor struggle to make ends meet while trying to figure out the convoluted English in today’s primary school papers.

Now we are asked to ponder: Why shouldn’t we pay foreign workers less than a local worker for the same amount of work done?

Does this mean, if I go overseas looking for a job, I can ask for a higher salary since the cost of living in Singapore is so high?

Please.

I can tolerate a higher cost of living if it means that there are more opportunities for locals AND foreigners to find jobs that can pay the bills here. The cost of living is shooting up because of ridiculous housing prices (especially that of public housing), unfettered increase in rentals by greedy landlords, and an education system that forces so many parents to fork out money for tuition. (I shan’t include cars since it’s deemed a luxury item these days.)

What is being done to manage those costs? Not very much, until the next recession comes along and all the bubbles burst (except the recession-proof tuition centers)

The last thing I want to tell my children is “See, look at that foreigner over there. He earns less than the Singaporean guy doing the same job because you deserve to be paid more for being born here.”

“Do you know that we have to pay that China bus driver so much less, and make him stay in a dirty dormitory because otherwise you will complain about the high cost of transport in Singapore?”

Pay people for the work they do, not who they are. And for goodness sake, treat our foreign workers with dignity and respect. They’re here to earn a living just like the rest of us.

The SMRT

“The purpose of fare increases is not to boost the short term profits of PTOs. It is also not just to improve salaries of bus drivers but to improve service to commuters while keeping public transport operations commercially viable.” - Lui Tuck Yew, trying to clarify what he really meant when he said the public had to bear fare increases so they can pay bus drivers better.

Lui Tuck Yew’s recent statements on public transport have been derided endlessly by the public, but he wouldn’t keep quiet. Ironically, he hardly replies to the near-100% negative statements on his postings. I wonder if he even reads the comments from his angry “fans”.

Let me lay it out in a simple formula that is easier than today’s PSLE questions:

Profitable SMRT + Billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize their fleet + A lucrative COE/ERP system hell bent on making us take public transport = Poorly maintained train lines + dismal living conditions for hardworking foreign drivers + An ex-CEO who goes scot-free for today’s mess + no real penalty for angering commuters all the time = Can the Transport Minister fix problems first before saying so much?

I do feel sorry for so many SMRT workers who have to take the heat daily from commuters for bad management and government decisions. The SMRT is a difficult entity to manage across all its lines of businesses, and honestly, it does a pretty good job day-to-day in ferrying millions around this tiny island.

But someone needs to tell Mr Lui to stop destroying whatever is left of their public image and commuter goodwill with his mindblowing PR skills.

Come clean with the financial numbers and tell us how much it’s going to cost with the proper data and projections – we’re not that dumb you know. Apparently we score very well globally in mathematics.

Employees and the right to privacy

“When we heard this happened, we all felt sorry for her (Ms Laura Ong) to be caught in that position. On one hand, we would like to not add to her pain by disclosing her identity, yet at the same time this case has attracted much public attention.” - Lim Swee Say on why the People’s Association revealed the name of Michael Palmer’s lover to the public.

So a high-flying Speaker of Parliament has an affair despite knowing better (and he’s a lawyer to boot). There goes his career and reputation, and it’s all his own doing.

It is obvious that his lover will be outed by social or traditional media sooner or later, but for the People’s Association to reveal her name publicly in connection to the case…that’s unacceptable.

If you say you don’t want to add to her pain…DON’T.

Who is the one in the wrong who has shamed the PAP for his lack of integrity and moral fibre? Who has caused a potential by-election that will cost a lot of time, money and political points?

Why add a tremendous amount of pain to a woman who probably didn’t fully understand how this could turn into a media inquisition? If you’re going to reveal her name, why not go all the way and issue a press release with high resolution photos of her mugshot? Why not add in statements that this woman has had an affair with the Speaker and that’s why she’s quitting?

Seriously, this is a week which has shown how poor the Govt. is at diplomacy and public communication.

Simi National Conversation about happiness and what not?

This IS the National Conversation and it’s not going well.

It’s not me who is “kan cheong”

3 Replies

This post has been published as a letter in Today, 10 Oct, under the headline “To educate is not to hothouse“.

In May this year, I was so outraged by the steep difficulty in a primary school exam paper that my wife showed me, I wrote my first letter to Today about the unrealistic standards in our education system. It was followed by a flurry of letters by other parents, and by National Day, this had become a national conversation of sorts.

I was glad to know that I was not the only one who thought that the system has become distorted.

In the past few weeks, I have been equally cheered and perturbed by the many discussions around the PSLE. There have been extreme calls to dissolve the PSLE, which the Prime Minister has wisely cautioned against.

Academic exams serve a simple purpose – they reinforce learning of concepts and they test a person’s ability to perform under pressure. There is no gauge of the learning achieved without an objective evaluation.

Exams also force a person to consider – what are the consequences of not doing well? The decisions that we make before each major trial, often determines the path our lives will take.

The problem with the PSLE, is that it makes people so focused on a moderated aggregate score, that our children no longer have a chance to dream about what they want to be, what they want to aspire to. For many today, their only distinct memory of primary school life is filled with endless homework, tuition lessons and stress.

It is obvious (perhaps not to the Ministry of Education) that our children are over-burdened with the curriculum’s sheer volume and difficulty. Parents with degrees struggle to solve key PSLE mathematics questions. Accomplished writers wonder what is with the convoluted English that our children are forced to memorize. Why do we still have Speak Good English campaigns if our education system is so stellar?

It would be fodder for a comedy if it weren’t a sad reality.

I wouldn’t know how the Ministry is dealing with the massive amount of feedback to date.

All I hope the policymakers will do is to remember why our children go to school in the first place – to receive an education, and not to undergo hothousing with things they can scarcely understand at their tender age.

The simplest way to resolve the differing expectations and standards between schools is to standardize all primary school exams. Other letter writers have raised this idea as well and it is worth considering.

What if most of the kids do well, some educators may protest. How do we differentiate the good performers from the mediocre?

To that, I say: Why should we penalize our children for meeting the clear learning standards laid down for them?

Take the national Class 3 driving test for example – as long as students don’t get immediate failures or breach 18 demerit points, they are allowed to immediately drive on the road any car they can afford.

But today, the school curriculum is not clear at all. I see children tested on topics that aren’t in the textbook. I see tough questions designed to only demoralize young minds, not build them up for greater things. I look into my son’s eyes and despair when I see his struggle to understand why this education system is so brutal on him and his friends.

The Prime Minister has told us parents not to be “kan cheong” and let our kids have their childhood.

I’m trying my best, sir, but the current system of unrealistic and unbalanced standards is the one that contradicts everything you and I desire for our next generation.

Getting to the root of kiasuism

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