Trackback from Singapore Entrepreneurs: Is Outsourcing an issue for our economy?:

Months back, I wrote an article regarding outsourcing as a possible issue facing Singapore economy. The article is based on a couple of other blogs who have commented on the hospitals in Singapore outsourcing their X-rays analysis to India....

Outstanding! This is the GREAT govt SINGAPOREANS VOTED for!

many of our ministers were not born locally. that does not make them any less singaporean. its not about where you were born or what passport you are holding onto, its about being loyal and useful to the kingdom. thats why we are welcoming any foreigners who are willing to be loyal, and moving elderly folks who have outlived their usefulness to gulags in Malaysia
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`If you are not of a certain economic class, you should not even think of going there. You should confine yourself to 4D, Toto or horse racing`

Lee Kuan Yew started to learn Mandarin at the age of 32 and Hokkien at 38. He needed to learn the languages for political purposes. He did better than some of his early day PAP colleagues who were English-educated. One of his old comrades, Dr. Toh Chin Chye, then PAP Chairman, once tried to speak in Hokkien on the Indonesian terrorist act in Singapore during the Confrontasi. Instead of saying “za tan bao za” (the bomb explodes), he said “za tan pun kui” (the bomb separates). At the other time, Dr Toh tried to tell a trishaw puller off because the trishaw was going against the traffic: “One-way! One-way! Buay sai!” The trishaw puller ignored that because he “lia bo giu” lor.

The book "Keeping My Mandarin Alive" was first launched in Singapore last year. The Chinese version title is 学语致用 (xue yu zhi yong – learn the language to use), meant to be a pun of Chinese proverb 学以致用 (xue yi zhi yong – acquire the knowledge and put them into practice). Many southern Chinese mix up “I” and “u” sounds, eg “给予”(gei yu) is pronounced as “gei yi”.(给以). My old friend Dr Tan, a Teochew, used to pronounce “school” as “xie xiao” instead of “xue xiao” (学校).

Next, wonder if the title "Keeping My Mandarin Alive" should be "Keeping My Mandarins Alive"?

Mandarin, a word from Portuguese mandarim, in turn from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantrin counselor, from mantra counsel, refers to a public official in the Chinese Empire of any of nine superior grades or a pedantic official; or a bureaucrat, or a person of position and influence often in intellectual or literary circles; especially an elder and often traditionalist or reactionary member of such a circle. The word also indicates a form of spoken Chinese used by the court and the official classes of the Empire, and nowadays, the group of closely related Chinese dialects that are spoken in about four fifths of the country and have a standard variety centering about Beijing.

It is also the name of a small spiny orange tree (Citrus reticulata) of southeastern Asia with yellow to reddish orange loose-rinded fruits. Some said it is probably from the color of a mandarin official's robes.

How to keep the mandarin officials alive was the concern of the Dowager during the ending period of Qing Dynasty. 垂帘听政 (chui lian ting zheng) was how the Dowager attended to state affairs from behind a screen, manipulating the puppet emperor.

How to keep my Mandarins alive? It is quite a concern for a 83 year-old male Dowager. Whatever it is,

at S$ 26.67 per copy, if the total 55000 copies (Chinese and English versions) are sold, it is about 1.5 Singapore dollars, not a bad sum. Of course, when the sales in PRC pick up, the pirate copies will appear at RMB 10 per copy. Wonder if there will be law suits against the dao ban(盗版)?

Long live Freedom of Speech!

Maybe MFA can recommend they be gassed to death in a gas chamber? I'm sure this wonderful gov't would agree with us.

The key word is `conveniently`
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` And when Squealer went on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death-bed, the admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts disappeared and the sorrow that they felt for their comrade's death was tempered by the thought that at least he had died happy`

Oh, right. I forgot. Now I understand how tough it is to be in the esteemed Mr. Bilahari Kausikan's shoes and, perhaps, other Gov't officials' as well. Just look at the things they have to do.. draw up nice-sounding policies, both local and foreign, buy win votes in elections, repress the people maintain racial harmony, subconsciously pondering methods of conveniently making the lesser-educated riffraff die off, and all these while sucking up to the US! I would say they deserve every cent of their world classs salary. And I'm pretty sure leaders like Hitler would agree with me.

Trackback from The Legal Janitor:

This submission on Tomorrow.sg points to a post from Gayle Goh a National Education dialogue in which, if the blog post is accurate, a certain bureaucrat displays utter incompetence, both in public relations terms and in terms of explaining economic po......

It's not that our bureaucrats are incompetent. It's that they reveal the motivating philosophies of our government.

Would you rather that no one knew how we formulate policies? This is what happens when you hire too many engineers - you forget about the human element.

Cold pragmatism will come back to bite one day.

do you think Lim Bo Seng would have died under the hands of the Japanese if he had learnt to act expediently? not everyone can afford the human element

I think the comment was a little stupid. He could have said, "we will squeeze their balls until the older folk wise up and get themselves upgraded," or "they need to be kicked in the ass so that they will wake up" and even that will be more acceptable than "waiting for them to die off".

The MSM should get a load of this.

You can bet that if a government official made this kind of statement in the US, the MSM over there will hound him until he quit! Only the PAP will keep idiots like Bilahari Kausikan (what kind of fucking name is that anyway)? Can't believe they use out tax dollars to pay worthless shit like this guy..

What they don't realise is that these "more than half of them didn't even complete primary school education" people are the very ones who voted for them.

they seriously cld use a refresher in public relations

Trackback from i-speak: A Response from Mr. Bilahari Kausikan:

I pity the poor bureaucrat for engaging a 17 year old. Anyway, I can eat my popcorn now to watch the rhetoric sparked by this reply. ...

the flip side to their thoughfulness is JAM. when will they concede that their progressive and prosperous package is not a zero sum game?

all the isms have kissed the dusty track. the remaining ism - the biggest dropping ever - will bomb big time. and yet, die we must in our interests.

it is common for loyal subjects to make sacrifices for the good of the kingdom
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`And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand`

talking abt kingdoms. i was reading my usual cartoon daily and there was this picture showing some young aunties walking in the corridors of power in a majestic northern palace. i believe, they were supposedly inducted to wheel and deal with veterans. i was thinking...am i suppose to take comfort with a bunch of young squares and unsophisticated thinkers especially aunties? in the other half of the world, you hardly see this most are younger greys to older greys wheeling and dealing and thats despite the fact they have ample young talents to tap from! here, we shun our grey matters and sack them. mind you, these greying potential have at least 2 good decades to offer! highly controversial. a probable core reason is the the fact that these goons are pliable and made good puppetry. who knows.....but looking at young aunties and squares taking the lead is unnerving. good is very subjective lah.

puppets live for the kingdom. sycophants live for themselves. the key difference is that sycophants survive invasions, change of regimes and paradigm shifts. If you make the expedient choice, you will experience what is good
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`But the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace`

elders are a threat because they have grown eyes all over the body.

peace

die u ASsss!

Hey, I am not suprise at the comment. We have a minister once said that the utility board should raise their tariff because 'they did not make enough money'!

Real politicians will never make such comments. Too bad we have only a bunch of technocrat around.

It depends on what we mean by 'real' politicians. Some regard politicians who genuinely care about their country's people as a myth, at least in Singapore because those who enter politics here are paid 'market rate' so they will not be tempted into corruption.

Those who really care will enter politics even if the pay is peanuts because they are likely to be driven by a deep personal conviction to serve. As long as the government uses money as the motivator to attract 'top talents', we are unlikely to have genuinely caring leaders.

And the state of the country will ultimately reflect on the state of the government. A government that is built on materialism and defines success in material terms, will beget a society that is also materialistic, which is one of the root of our country's problems of marital breakdowns, crimes, and suicide.

Until the means of attracting top talents is remedied, the smiles will only be skin-deep.

Yuan Shikai was an opportunist who betrayed his masters. Dr Sun Yat Sen was an irreligious polygamist. But they were both great politicans and the middle kingdom has benefited much from the strengths of these two sinners
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`I love China, women ..books`

Some or even many may disagree, but all of mankind are sinners. Perhaps, there is a difference between moral disposition and motivation in relation to their relevance to politics. And again, it depends on what the 'benefits' are. Even then, just because there are benefits does not mean there aren't any undesirable consequences.

Incidentally, I have just read in the ST (13 July '06) that Singaporeans are the unhappiest lot within the region, at 130+ position out of more than 170 countries surveyed. I can't remember the exact figures.

Maybe it's time to measure a nation's success in terms of the Happy Planet Index instead of GDP or some economic benchmark. It's well-being vs money.