Orchid Revolution?

Ever since the election the government has been bending over backwards to appear responsive to the people. I had strange thoughts creeping into my head – is the whip being passed from the government to the governed? Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo expressed fear that the government may become “terrified of the people” and pamper them too much. A reader wrote in to the Straits Times expressing a similar fear. Though the Speaker’s Corner is empty as usual, could we be in the midst of an Orchid Revolution?

Meanwhile, over at the Maplewoods condominium, a bunch of crybaby residents are whining about construction work on the new MRT line going on outside their development. After hearing their alternative plan, LTA engineers felt it would cause delay, but that that did not satisfy the residents. I guess these Complaint Kings and Queens think they know better than the professionals who have done a remarkable job to date in building a world-class mass transit system. It looks like the whiners will secure a number of concessions, or “goodies,” after their pathetic outburst. Which means we can expect more to come – if not from them, then from many others who will no doubt try to follow their example.

MRT related construction is causing disruption all over Bukit Timah and other areas. Maplewoods owners will benefit greatly when the new line is completed, with a station right outside their door. They will gladly accept the increase in value to their property and the proximity to the MRT. They just don’t want to bear any inconvenience along the way.

There are few things in life as irritating as a spoiled brat – except for a hundred of them.

These foreigners are getting out of control!

Straits Times columnist Sumiko Tan vented some half-hearted gripes about the invasion of foreigners in Singapore. She laments the cacophony of Chinese dialects other than the ones she’s accustomed to, and the foreigners’ penchant for hanging laundry on playground equipment instead of on bamboo poles, balcony railings, and parapets like real Singaporeans do. Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t noticed much change. In fact, when I’m on the MRT and hear the announcement about reporting suspicious looking characters, I’m thinking they all look pretty suspicious to me!

Ms Tan is lucky she didn’t grow up in Miami, which has been subject to a fifty-year invasion of Spanish speakers who make little or no effort to speak English, monopolize many jobs because of that language divide, and disrupt traffic by selling oranges, flowers, and cocaine at your car window. They paint their houses in shades of papaya, lavender, and aquamarine instead of white or beige. Miami streets are named after foreign statesmen and heroes unknown to most Americans. Politics has been dragged into the gutter (more so and earlier than in other parts of the US) and corruption is off the charts. [Disclaimer: I’m not saying the population shift was the sole cause of all of these ills, but merely point out that they resemble conditions traditionally found in South America more than in North America.] Because they have used their political weight to impose an embargo on Cuba, which has loopholes for themselves, the foreigners have more freedom in America than native-born Americans do.

Singapore has always had a rojak population (see how I’ve adapted!), and most of the newcomers are from the same countries as Singaporeans’ ancestors. Foreigners in Singapore generally speak the language(s), have a hard time getting citizenship, keep their noses out of politics, and rarely venture any harsh or non-mainstream opinions. They pay more for medical and other services and are clearly second-class in many ways. Maids and foreign laborers are treated well below second-class. (Okay, so some foreigners do have stronger opinions!)

The bottom line is the world is changing far faster than most people would like, and we all feel alienated or left behind in some ways. Deal with it.

4th of July

After 11 years of celebrating Independence Day with a lonely hamburger, we finally made it to the American Association’s 4^th of July bash this year at the Sembawang naval base. About a hundred US sailors are permanently stationed at the base, which is shared with the British, Australian, and New Zealand navies.

There were several thousand people roaming the grounds and picnicking on blankets, many wearing college T-shirts, athletic jerseys, and other articles of distinctly American clothing. A few bands performed the sort of music you would expect from middle-aged performers – Springsteen, Allman Brothers, and a lot of country music. On this occasion even songs I never really liked sounded good.

I never saw so many ang mohs and so few Singaporeans at one time in Singapore. In fact, the only thing to remind me that I was in Singapore was the long queue for the toilets.

There were lots of organized activities for the kids, and at least one unofficial one – a bunch of adventurous kids were riding down a steep embankment on large cardboard sheets. In the evening there was a modest fireworks display. There was also plenty of food and beer. I had ribs, a pork sandwich, and cole slaw. Margarete and Cherisse had hot dogs, chicken wings, and lemonade. All of the food was reasonably priced. It was so nice to have a meal without rice or noodles!

After our four hour vacation we boarded the shuttle bus back to Sembawang MRT station. The bus traveled just a few blocks, but it brought us from one world to another. I’m sure we’ll be back next year.

These maids are getting out of control!

Maids are in the news again. Maids in Singapore are a hardworking bunch. Many of them have to wake up at 5:00am and work nonstop until after midnight. The first thing they do in the morning is wash the car. They do this every day, even if the car has been unused since the previous day and is still sparkling.

We sometimes hear of a maid who isn’t given enough food. As cheap as food is here, some maids only get one or two slices of bread a day. Fortunately, they can sometimes get a bit of extra food from a neighbor’s maid.

Quite a few maids fall to their death each year while cleaning windows. The government has tried to teach employers how to safeguard their maids, but they still keep splattering on the pavement. I suspect many of them lean out too far because they are terrified at what might happen if they miss a spot. Many employers abuse their maids for the slightest reasons. And the abuse is not a simple slap or punch as you might expect. An informal SORRI survey of newspaper accounts over the last twelve years suggests that the most common forms of maid abuse are:

Beating her with a bamboo pole, broomstick, clothes hanger, or cooking spoon

Smashing her head into the wall

Scalding her with boiling water

Burning her with a hot clothes iron

For some reason, pinching her breasts is also a popular form of abuse.

Once in a while an employer (usually a woman) goes to jail for maid abuse, sometimes for several weeks, but these punishments are very light compared to those meted out for other offenses. I am sure many more instances of maid abuse never become public because the maid is paid to keep quiet, or she is too terrified or ignorant to take action. Some maids are sent home before they even earn enough to repay the loans they took to come here, thus going home in worse financial shape than the poverty that drove them to come here in the first place, simply because they were cursed with a lousy employer.

There has been talk of making it mandatory for employers to give their maids one day off every week. Predictably, most of the talk from the street opposes the idea. Some complain because they need their maids every day to take care of elderly parents, young children, or invalids. But many are more concerned that their maids will get into trouble by getting boyfriends, getting pregnant, or doing part time work. The thinking seems to be "I'm not paying her to have a life, I'm paying her to work."

To these people I'd like to say:

Your maid was a human being long before she became "your" maid. Her time off (if any) is hers. If she wants companionship on her day off that's her choice. If she gets pregnant she'll be on the next flight home, so it won't be your problem. If you're worried about the expense of sending her back and replacing her, that's the risk you agreed to when you took her. And Singaporeans tend to admire ambitious go getters of the non-maid variety, so why is it so bad if a maid wants to earn extra money? They didn't come here because they want to care for your family, they came to make money to support theirs.

In addition to giving maids tests to determine whether they are suitable to work here as maids, we should test would-be employers to determine whether they are worthy of having a maid.

Bank speaks Plain English

OCBC Bank announced that they have adopted the Plain English approach. They will begin using simple language instead of legalese for their contracts with customers.

When I was in law school twenty five years ago we were taught to draft documents in Plain English. For example, instead of writing “cease and desist” we would write “stop.” I thought that was a good idea. When you’re charging a client a princely sum to draft a document it is only fair that said client should be able to peruse and comprehend said document, regardless of the cranial capacity and level of intellect of the aforesaid client. As a young attorney I began using simple language in my documents and turned them over to the senior partner for his approval. He would take out his red pen and change all my “stop”s to “cease and desist”s.

If OCBC can get these past their legal department it will be a welcome change.

SIA to launch low-cost carrier

That was the exact headline from today’s ST. And welcome news it is. I have often thought it would be wonderful to fly non-stop to the US and speed up the miserably long flight I make every year, but SIA’s current flights that go direct to New York have no economy class whatsoever!

It makes good business sense. Let the highly profitable airline take only high-paying business and first class passengers, and start a budget airline for regular people who don’t have $10,000 to spend on a single ticket.

The new airline would focus on medium and long haul flights. Most Singaporeans have done the usual holidays in the region – Bali, Phuket, Hong Kong, etc. This might help them get to more distant destinations, without paying SIA’s usual pricey rates.

There are other synergies as well. Instead of firing their Singapore Girls when they get pregnant, or develop crow’s feet, they could simply redeploy them to the low-end side of the operation.

Singapore Biennale

There has been some controversy surrounding the recent Singapore Biennale, aside from the removal/shutdown/censoring/call-it-what-you-will of the installation piece with the gay porn. It concerns the attendance figures of the event.

The Biennale supposedly drew over 900,000 visitors to its various venues, including the Singapore Art Museum. Over 700,000 “visitors” were passing by public displays, a highly suspect figure. SAM itself drew about 740,000 in all of 2009. The world renowned Venice Biennale drew a measley 375,000 during six months in 2009, according to the Straits Times. The paper further states that about 196,000 attended SAM, the National Museum, the highly publicized Merlion Hotel exhibit, and the Old Kallang Airport location during the two month run.

Dividing 740,000 by 12, let’s say SAM would have had about 62,000 visitors a month, or 124,000 during the entire event. Take that from 196,000 and you get 72,000. I assume the National Museum also gets several thousand visitors in a normal month, and the Merlion Hotel exhibit had so much hype it no doubt lured many thousands of curiousity seekers. Which leaves just a few for the Old Kallang Airport.

I joined the extended family for an afternoon at OKA during the Biennale. It was a weekend afternoon, billed as “Family Day,” yet the place was not crowded by any measurement. Cherisse made three kites, a couple of badges, and a cardboard house at the kiddie art area. I ventured into a few of the buildings to see the “professional” art. And what did I see?

There was one space (a good art critic doesn’t use words like “room,” we prefer “space”) containing the contents of a Chinese provision shop. Lots of plastic buckets, porcelain bowls with roosters painted on them, feather dusters, etc. I guess this was for the benefit of any local or tourist who never ventured into such a shop in Chinatown. Pointless. Another room (I mean space) was filled with huge paper tubes representing who knows what. There was a very fake looking German barn with some real live boys in lederhosen lounging on the hay, which might have qualified as child porn in some places.

I have done a few installation and performance art pieces during my high school and university days, and my idea of art encompasses more than the traditional still life/portrait/landscape kind of thing. But I have to say this was the worst art exhibition I have ever seen, and a few of my friends felt the same way. The best part was a large space (there I go again – damn, I’m good!) filled with hundreds of drawings by local primary school students.

Forget the incredibly misleading numbers, this event was an unpopular fiasco. And I don’t mean to belittle the organizers, the people helping the tykes make their kites, or the primary schoolers. I just hope they do a better job next time.