Jeraldine said:

In the past, I used to think that people who are not successful (in a material sense) are there because it’s their own fault for not working hard but come to think of it, looking at the bigger picture, upbringing and where you are born really plays a big part. The role of parenting is really significant like if you compare people whose parents are educated in NUS versus one whose parents only have pri 6 education. Well of course, we have exceptions but if you look and observe, you’d see majority of the lower income and their kids are concentrated in the less elite schools.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "jc girl insights on the importance of upbringing and parenting to ensure one survives the education system"

Link

Lucky Tan said:

I'm grateful to the thousands of Singaporeans who work as cleaners to keep Singapore clean, the drivers, the clerks, etc, who are the backbone of our economy. That is why I strongly believe they deserve a decent wage for doing a full time job - they cannot be left struggling as the cost of living goes up and their wages go down. We cannot keep importing foreign labor to depress their pay so that businesses can redirect their costs towards paying for higher rent, higher utilities, higher fees for govt services etc. It is because young bloggers are appreciative of this segment of our population (now living in poverty and struggling to make ends meet) that is why we write negatively about govt policies such as the FT policy that will hurt this group of Singaporeans further.

So who is it that is ungrateful and unappreciative of Singaporeans? These men have also put their bets on progress being possible only if they open the floodgates to foreigners - creating an unlevel playing field for their fellow Singaporeans and forgetting the sacrifices Singaporeans have made to serve the country. These men have created an inequitable system with a huge income gap that puts the many Singaporean families at risk. At the same time, they have paid themselves the highest salaries in the world for their profession. Why should we show them gratitude when they have shown none for ordinary Singaporeans?

Recommended by at82: "Who is grateful and who is not?"

Link

Tom Davenport said:

Singapore is tiny compared to the United States..., but that doesn't mean it can't be a model. Barack Obama keeps saying that we need to buckle down and work hard to build an economy based on real production, not hollow financial chicanery. We need a little more social order, and a little less individualism. Singapore has already pulled off both objectives, and continues to provide a good example of good judgment for the United States and the rest of the world.

Recommended by vantan: "This Harvard Business blogger has a glowing impression of Singapore, but with some caveats. It's also interesting to read the comments that follow as it shows how foreigners perceive us - e.g. Singaporeans have first rate infrastructure but the 'mindset of a developing country'. What are your thoughts on this?"

Link

Common People said:

Common People is a community platform that aspires to re-look and re-think what creative expression means in Singapore today. It can be seen as an on-going project to open up new avenues for creative dialogue and cross pollination of ideas

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Interesting look at Singapore"

Link

King Kong Jane said:

He's a regular at local gigs. He's really good at dancing spontaneously. And he's the uncle I'll always remember for giving us one of our best gigs yet.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Check out this video of a cute uncle who dances super energetically at the Esplanade, to a song by local band King Kong Jane"

Link

Singapore Part Time Jobs documented how not being able to get a part time job led to creating a job portal especially for part-time, contract or temporary jobs in Singapore

Let’s face it, the economy has been bad and projects have been scarce. However, the challenge is not to get worried and overwhelmed. I caught myself whining away when I couldn’t get a part-time job but I really got tired of my rants and complaints. Then I had a Eureka moment and thought “Instead of looking for a part-time job, why don’t I use my skills to create an easy-to-use part time job site for Singaporeans” :)

The goal is to become Singapore’s top part time job site. A lofty one but I know its totally achievable.

Link

Mr Wang said:

I had expected to be blogging about PM Lee's rally speech today. However, I find that I have almost nothing to say about it.

It was .... substanceless.

The PM's rally speech is traditionally the time for him to announce important new developments, ideas and policies for the nation. But this year, none of that happened.

Instead all PM Lee really talked about was racial and religious harmony, and in a way that contained nothing new. It sounded the same as the nation-building chapters of my Primary 3 Chinese language textbook, many, many years ago.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Totally agree with him. It's practically non-news for the entire speech."

Link

Wet Calamari said:

There were a number of artists from Malaysia and Indonesia, and Australia too, and some of them commented that it was awfully quiet; much less traffic then they expected. They seemed disappointed… but I did tell them that today being Friday was still a workday and if we went by last year’s experience, there won’t even be room to breathe tomorrow.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "A taster of what to expect."

Link

Mr Wang Says So said:

I proceeded to check out the available graduate scholarships at the NUS Law Faculty. Alas, I saw that in fact, almost all the scholarships were reserved for non-Singaporeans.

That's still the way it is today. See the current list of graduate scholarships here:

(1) Research Scholarship
(2) Graduate Scholarship for ASEAN Nationals (NUS GSA)
(3) Faculty Graduate Scholarship (FGS)
(4) Scholarship for Young Asian Academics
(5) Microsoft Scholarship

The 1st scholarship is open to both Singaporean and foreign applicants.
The 2nd scholarship is open to students from all ASEAN countries, except Singaporeans.
The 3rd scholarship is open to students from anywhere in the world, except Singaporeans.
The 4th scholarship is open to all Asian students, except Singaporeans.
The 5th scholarship is open to students from anywhere in the world, except Singaporeans.

Is it strange that so many Singaporeans feel marginalised in their own country? No, it is not strange at all. It is clear that in our country today, citizenship often turns out to be a liability.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "In Singapore, citizens are automatically disqualified from most scholarships, just because they are citizens. Amazing."

Link

Mingjie Cai said:

Probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments, I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something "uniquely Singapore". As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Stories and musings from an Stanford PhD and IMCB researcher turned taxi driver."

Link

YouTube said:

"You don't look after your PPS passengers! Are you CRAZY?! ... Are you INSANE?! Do you realize this may cost you your JOB?! Now GET your PPS passengers on the 9.45 flight!"

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "This woman in the clip needs to see herself being viewed by thousands of people on Youtube and maybe see how ridiculous she looks. What an embarrassment ... not only for her but for all Singaporeans and PPS passengers!"

Link

Angry AngMo said:

Obviously I am not Singaporean, which means I am not able to share heartwarming and patriotic moments with you, like singing the National anthem with 25.000 other people, or feeling overwhelming joy about the free “Funpacks”.

Instead I can show you how a foreigner sees and feels about these 2 hours filled with interesting but weird elements, that got me and my buddy asking more then once “Why the hell would you do that!?”

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Angry foreigner criticizes the NDP... at his peril."

Link

YiMian said:

The name Singapore has a Malay origin in Singapura. Legend has it that a certain blind(only reason he could have mistaken a tiger for a lion) prince named Sang Nila Utama came to the island, saw a lion and named it as such (Lucky for us, Harimaupura (Tiger-City) just doesn't have the same kick!). Thus Singa-pura means Lion-City. When Raffles and the ang mohs(=x Singlish term for caucasians) came, they have problem prounoucning Singapura, and soon Singapura became Singapore.

Recommended by strawbee: "Because he gave a super compressed version of how Singapore came about, its geographics and its culture in a single blog entry without being too boring.. "

Link

Your SDP said:

Yesterday, Dr Chee Soon Juan posted on Mr George Yeo's Facebook to invite the Minister to an online debate. This set off an exchange of messages which we think readers might be interested to read.

Dear Dr Chee

May I suggest you write to the PAP as what you propose seems rather formal.

I don't really want my FB activities to be so formal or serious. I am happy to engage as and when issues arise, but I do so as an individual without getting the PAP or MFA involved. Short responses, not long exchanges if possible. So far it has been fun for me and I hope to keep it that way. Hope you understand.

George

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Chee Soon Juan and George Yeo face off on facebook."

Link

Red Sports spots a photo taken by one of their volunteers in the OMY website, with copyright watermark cropped off.

What do you call taking a picture from a website without permission?

In legal terms, it’s known as “infringing intellectual property”.

In everyday language? Stealing.

That’s what Singapore Press Holdings site www.omy.sg seems to have done to Red Sports.

SPH is the company that publishes most of Singapore’s newspapers, like The Straits Times, The New Paper and Lianhe Zaobao. It reported $1.3 billion in topline revenue for the financial year 2008.

One of our volunteers spotted the report below on www.news.omy.sg. See the picture? Doesn’t it look exactly like the Red Sports picture, also shown below?

As if taking the picture isn’t bad enough, they covered their tracks by cropping off the copyright watermark – “© REDSPORTS.SG” – from the bottom right of the picture. They gave information about the date of the picture, the context of the picture but – oh, my! – failed to mention where the picture came from.

What part of “© REDSPORTS.SG” did they not understand?

Photo courtesy of Red Sports. [via this link]

The photo used by OMY can be found in the link below.

Link

Loh and Behold said:

Are you proud to be Singaporean?

Why?

Shouldn’t you just be proud of actual accomplishments?

Is being Singaporean a skill?

I can never understand it when people say “I’m proud to be Singaporean.”

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Gets to the heart of the pros and cons of patriotism."

Link

Slavoj Žižek said:

If there is one person to whom monuments will be built a hundred years from now, Peter Sloterdijk once remarked, it is Lee Kuan Yew, the Singaporean leader who thought up and put into practice a ‘capitalism with Asian values’. The virus of authoritarian capitalism is slowly but surely spreading around the globe. Deng Xiaoping praised Singapore as the model that all of China should follow.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "What is the link between Berlusconi, Ahmadinejad, Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kuan Yew?"

Link

Jeffrey said:

With my tainted glasses, i view everything and everyone in the military as i think they are. NS is a waste of time. These commanders are fierce and have no life. Please. I am smarter than you are, i boast of perfect scores at my A-levels. You are a platoon sergeant who is just over me in rank but in the society outside these fences, you are nothing compared to me, a potential high-achiever. I am biased. I admit it. I like my tainted glasses. They help me see clearer.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "A Melbourn-based Singaporean medical student reflects on our attitude towards National Service."

Link

Oikono said:

One sunny afternoon, I stopped by the Redhill Hawker Center for lunch. Two pretty Chinese ladies walk up to the table of hawkers sitting next to me. The hawkers were giving catcalls to the ladies. One of the ladies gets a hawker to buy her a meal. Walking back, she promises to introduce the hawker to a lady of the night.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Author reflects on changes in Singapore and asks how our foreign worker policy is affecting income inequality and social stability...Interesting stories tell us more about this issue in Singapore - a National Day must-read."

Link

Woonsin said:

My 2 Deaf friends and I were are near One Fulleraton and standing Lamp Post beside River Station for NDP Preview photos however something terrible happened to us and we survived but sadly, sorry for foreigner who got hit in head and bleeding.... Hope he will be safe and blessed..... Do not see some if you cannot take it.

Recommended by Miss Loi: "Looking at the state of those lamps, we'd better give them a wide berth when we're in that part of town."

Link