We have a government-controlled press, and that is no secret. However, I am starting to think our editors need to be sent back to school for writing classes. How on earth can such a headline make it to print?
| Nov 15, 2009 |
PM Lee invited to nuke summit |
| By Teo Cheng Wee |
UNITED States President Barack Obama on Sunday invited Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to a nuclear summit in Washington next year, in recognition of Singapore's role in nuclear security. |
- Mood:
aggravated
I was in Siem Reap back in 2006, with my friends from Museum Volunteers. While we did meet some child beggars, they were very few in numbers. There were a lot of child salespeople - children trying to sell all kinds of trinkets and bags but even then, they backed off once you indicated that you are not interested.
In 2009, the number of child beggars astounded me. The number of children going "one dollar? do you have "tang-guo"?" chills me to the core. And it is not just child beggars who are asking for these gifts. We were at Bakeng for the sunrise, and while we were shooting the temple from the entrance in order to capture the golden glow, children were walking through the temple to get to school, and almost every other child who passed us went "do you have "tang-guo" lady? one dollar?" And the child salesgirl / boys - they were so very persistent that it has become irritating. I actually had to tell off two girls who trailed me up and down a road, and going non-stop "lady, you want to buy - 5 for one dollar, lady, give me a dollar, lady, give me "tang-guo""... up and down the street. I kid you not.
I cannot help but curse the influx of Chinese tourists (whether from China or Taiwan I have no idea) who thoughtlessly gave sweets to these children ("tang-guo" is Mandarin for candy / sweets). Seriously, these children have very little, if any, access to dental care - what on earth are people thinking to be giving sweets to these children? And why why why are tourists giving money to them as if money is nothing? It just encourages begging.
Look, before you curse me for being a hard-hearted bitch with not a drop of sympathy in her blood, I feel sorry for the poverty-strucken circumstances of the Cambodians as much as anyone else. However, there are ways of helping that do not encourage dependency on hand-outs. Here is a link to one NGO that is doing good work for children in Cambodia. Just think - when you give that one dollar, who do you give it to? That old man, that middle-aged woman with a missing limb or that adorable child with the big eyes and tattered clothes? I bet that more often than not, you are giving money to the child. And guess what is going to happen? Do you really think that the child will use that money to go to school? Or rather, will the child (or his or her guardian or in the worst case scenario, owner) stay on the streets simply because it makes more financial sense for him or her to be accosting tourists for handouts rather than be in school studying?
OK fine, you say, what about notebook and pencils, these are good for the children right? My hard-hearted view - no, no and no. What do you think the children are going to do with the notebooks and pencils? If they are at the temple ruins posing for photographs (and then asking for money in return) or begging for money, do you think the notebooks and pencils will be used for school? Or is it more likely that the notebooks and pencils will be sold for money? And if children are trying to sell you trinkets, and instead of buying their wares, you give them notebooks, pencils, sweets or worse, money, what have you done to them? At the least, these children are trying to make an honest living by selling their wares - why treat them like beggars who are asking for handouts? Buy their postcards damnit, or just ignore them. They are not beggars, don't treat them like they are. Don't take away what self-respect they have. Sometimes that is all they have.
- Mood:
hot
An intriguing article appeared in my Inbox this morning, about the teaching of history in schools. In the article, which was published in The Straits Times, the author lamented how our education system has failed in the teaching of history. As evidence, the author cited a case where 15 year olds at a school band leadership camp named their team 'Hitler' because they admired the dictator's leadership qualities, and another where young Singaporeans have no idea who S. Rajaratnam (a founding father of our country), is.
I wonder if the author realises (maybe she does but she is writing in a state-owned paper after all) that history is dangerous. While history can be a tool for "nation-building" (more correctly known as propaganda), the study of history is actually a training of the mind - to read between the lines of contemporaneous documents, the self-serving statements of persons with legacies to protect, and the words of the man-in-the-street, whose views and recollections are necessarily influenced by her circumstances, both at the time a "historical" event has occurred and how she has fared since then. A historian is not a person with a memory for dry facts and figures, but a person who is trained to look underneath the underneath. She does not only have to aware of the biases and the worldviews of the persons she is interviewing or who had written the records she is studying, she has also, to the extent possible, be self-aware of her own biases and her own worldview. It requires a person to be analytical, to be clear-minded and ruthlessly self-questioning and to ask hard questions. It is my two years studying history at A Levels that taught me the merits of doing intense research, of tracking down that one reference in a thousand page book to an obscure research paper that leads you to another aspect of the issue which you had never considered, of reading widely and finding odd correlations and relationships that you never realise exist, and then to put together the various nuggets of seemingly unrelated or distantly related information to form a coherent picture that may be different from what you had believed to be correct.
Teach students history well (goodness that is a load of unwritten and unspoken assumptions here) - and you are teaching them to ask many probing and possibly uncomfortable questions about our accepted view of the past, the carefully crafted story known to every single Singaporean child who ever studied in our education system about how Singapore came to be - the story of hardworking immigrants who through sheer hard work and with no intention of ever settling down permanently here created this modern city state that we call home. The story of how we are an accidential nation, thrown out of Malaysia as we did not believe in special rights of any one race, who nobody ever thought will survive for long as an independent nation state. The story of how, under the leadership of our wise and capable and incorruptible leaders, we have became what we are today. Still a little red dot, but a little red dot that all of us are proud of.
Do we want to put the tools for tearing down this cherished and almost-sacred worldview in the hands of our young? To allow them to become truly independent, tireless, curious questioners? To allow them the means to pull our almost-mytical leaders off their dais?
During my training to become a museum guide at the Asian Civilisations Museum, I learnt that Shiva is the god of death and destruction and is hence feared. However, he is also admired, because the Hindus understand that without death, there can be no new life, without destruction, there can be no new creation.
- Mood:
tired
X thinks work experience can soften us, as we lose the haughtiness from our schooling days and become more aware of our weaknesses (and hence more understanding with regard to those of others as well).
It generated a number of interesting comments, all in agreement. One, evidently a teacher, said:
" I used to tell my students to appreciate the years they have in school cos it will be the only time in life when their hard work will always produce proportionate results. when they start work so many other factors beyond their control come into play."
Perhaps it is part of growing up - but how true. The older I get, the more I felt that meritocracy in the real world is but sound and fury, signifying nothing.
- Mood:
moody
I used to think, the best way to live is to live without secrets, because then there is nothing that anyone can blackmail you on. I used to think that the best kind of person is one who takes another at face value, giving the other person the benefit of the doubt. I used to think that if a person doesn't like me, I must be the one at fault, there must be something wrong with me that needs to be corrected. I used to think that as long as I do no wrong to the world, the world will do no wrong by me.
Now, older, wiser and sadder, I understand that secrets are necessary to protect yourself and persons you care for, that you need to on your guard because not everyone has your best interest at heart, and even if they do, such interests are always always subject to their own self-interest, that you cannot please everyone, and the most important person you must please in your life is yourself and no one else, that even if you do not consciously intend to do wrong to the world, you still ultimately will sometimes somehow do so, and the world will always do wrong to you.
And yet, laugh at me if you will. I still believe that to the extent I can, I must do what I think is right and what I think is good, even if it is unlikely to generate any return for me. I still believe that I should be open and that I should trust people until they have proven that they cannot be so trusted. Even if people laugh at me for being so silly, for not taking care of myself first and foremost, for acting in a manner contrary to my best interests. I am not perfect, I do not pretend to be. I will do bad things, wrong things, thoughtless things, but hopefully always unintentionally and always without malice, and hopefully, when the day comes for me to say goodbye, I can say honestly and truthfully, that on the balance, my good deeds (measured in terms of the lives I have helped to improve, and not in terms of the value of the assets I have amassed) outnumbered my bad ones.
( The short story that triggered this angst ... )
- Mood:
contemplative
There are days when I get really irritated with friends and acquaintances who come up to me and express shock that it’ll cost them S$300 to S$400 to prepare a will. Their disbelief becomes even more apparent when I tell them that those are the rates quoted by the non-specialist. The specialist estate lawyer will charge more than thrice the amount. Usually, these people who end off with a comment on how lawyers are just gorging money for a very simple document. I still remember someone telling me - "I am just paying you to write down what I want, just writing alone you also want to charge so much?"
I hate it when people say that wills are simple documents. They are not. Unless you have lived in Singapore for your entire life, are a non-Muslim, all your assets are in Singapore, you are making outright gifts, and every single person you intend to give your estate to is a Singaporean living in Singapore and above the age of 21. Only in that case can there be said to be a simple will. Oh, and of course, you have clearly thought through how you want to distribute your assets – for example, do you want your son-in-law to share in the fixed deposit if at the time of your death, he is divorced from your daughter, or in the process of doing so?
( Read more... )- Mood:
hyper
This line by Jon Steward about what he assumes the press should be applies to Singapore too, don't you think?
I’m under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I’m under the assumption that you don’t just take their word for it at face value. That you actually then go around and try and figure it out.
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- Mood: thoughtful
My family have been Singtel Mobile subscribers for the longest time. All mobile and land line subscriptions were made in my father's name, except for mine which I transferred to my own name when I started work. Now that my dad is retired and not getting any income, I figured it makes sense to transfer all the subscriptions to my name so that I get everything in one invoice instead having to remember to ask my dad if his invoice has come in.
I called up Singtel and was told that Singtel's policy is to allow a subscriber a maximum of two mobile phone subscriptions and if I want to have more than two subscriptions, I need to wait for six months before I get a third subscription, and a further six months after that to get a fourth subscription and so on. Each transfer of a subscription attracts an administrative fee of S$20. As we have four mobile subscriptions, this means that it will take me a year to have everything transferred to my name and will cost me S$60. According to the customer service officer, it is Singtel policy because Singtel wants to make sure that the subscriber is able to pay the subscription fees.
I tried to explain that I have been paying the bills anyway, so this is really just for administrative convenience but was told that this is the company policy and Singtel looks to the subscriber on record for the fees and this is based on the NRIC number. Singtel can, however, consider waiving the administrative fee for some of the transfers in my case.
So, I asked, Singtel prefers a retiree with no income to be the subscriber on record to look to for fees on three mobile subscriptions and one land line instead of a working adult? If something happens to the retiree over the course of the year and can no longer make payments, what is Singtel's proposed remedy? I may be the person paying the bills but I have no legal obligation to do so unless I am the subscriber on record. I was quite amused, and told her that if that is the way Singtel prefers to run its business, I have no quarrel with it.
There was a stunned silence, before the customer service officer said that she will try to get a waiver of this requirement from her superiors in my case.
Idiots.
- Mood:
mischievous
Very pragmatic words, no? After all, what is citizenship when you can make a dollar stretch a bit longer. The fact that Singaporeans are finding health care becoming so unaffordable that we have to start looking at other (not very-welcoming) countries for affordable health care is just a fact of life, not something that the government should be concerned about. Or at any rate, the government has done its best by suggesting alternatives in other countries, countries that owe Singaporeans no obligations whatsoever.
But of course, this option "is not for the poor, who are heavily subsidised in Singapore", in fact, according to the Minister, "everyone can afford health care in Singapore whether acute care or long-term care," and the suggestion was "aimed at middle-income families who need to pay for the care themselves." [quotes in bold and italics are the Minister's words according to the newspaper report, quotes in italics are by the reporter who wrote this article].
The implication of the above is that our health care now cost so much that only the rich can afford it, the middle-class can't afford it and the poor can afford it only because they are heavily subsidised. How that gels with the statement that everyone can afford health care in SIngapore whether acute care or long-term care I have no idea. Just in case the Minister is mis-quoted and also to get an idea of the context in which the above issue arisen, I tried to search the Hansard but can't find the relevant parts, will try to look for it again and update when I find it.
Under our current system of taxation, the middle class probably pay the bulk of the taxes - investment income is generally not subject to tax, foreign-sourced income of individuals are not subject to tax, hence, it should not be too far off to suggest that for individuals, the main item of income that is subject to tax will be employment income and trade or business profits, which are the primary sources of income for the middle class. So after paying taxes, you are now told, sorry, our health care is too expensive for the likes of you, go Malaysia (where I have personally not been to more than 10 times in my life) instead for cheaper health care. You mean that after setting aside 30% of my salary as enforced savings, after paying my taxes, after paying you bunch of politicans more in salary than the President of the United States of America himself (who has a far more stressful and more shitty job than the load of you guys), I cannot have affordable health care in the land of my birth, where I had stayed and worked and lived my entire life? Come on guys, you gotta be kidding right?
- Mood: irate
It was over Chinese New Year that I realised that the backlash is really from the grassroots - the retirees, the middle management, the small business owners (i.e. most of my relatives who are still in Singapore) - they were scathing about the whole issue, and sound almost betrayed. I have never ever in my life heard my father so furious over anything government-related. For the first time ever, my relatives were urging me to leave Singapore since I actually have the ability to do so - Australia, China were listed as places I should be looking at. Some of them are already planting into their children the idea that they should try to obtain PR in other countries once they are able and then sponsor their parents for PR as well. It was strange - very strange, especially in the earlier years they usually tell me to marry and settle down and stop dreaming of leaving Singapore because this is a good place to live and "all your family and loved ones are here."
I was having my daily dose of the New York Times just now, and I think I found a passage that perhaps explains this surprising change of heart (save one, my relatives had been stauchly pro-government as long as I can remember) - the quote below is in relation to the bonuses paid to Wall Street bankers despite their role in plunging the global economy into its worst crisis since the Great Depression, but it is applicable here as well.
"“This has been building for 20 years,” said Richard C. Ferlauto, director of corporate governance for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “Regular working people haven’t gotten ahead in the economy. They understand that tremendous wealth has been created, and they say, ‘Where’s mine?’ ” He continued: “These guys seem to be living in another universe. So the symbolism of the umbrella stand and the private jet is powerful.” The umbrella stand, of course, was a reference to the $15,000 umbrella stand that the former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski bought with company funds — and that is part of the reason he is now behind bars." (emphasis added)
To apply it to our circumstances - it is the symbolism of the cooking class that has hit most people - the idea that while people like my parents and relatives, who are all honest hardworking peasants who spent within their means and saved religiously, found that escalating costs of living meant that they will be reliant on their children for the rest of their retirement and in event of extreme poverty, may obtain less than S$400 per month from social assistance, whereas high-ranking civil servants and politicans can splurge on exotic holidays that cost more than what most ordinary peasants can earn in a year. These guys live in such a different universe from most ordinary Singaporeans - how can we expect them to understand, really understand, the challenges Singaporeans face in their daily lives and implement policies that are beneficial to Singaporeans? Better perhaps to leave while it is possible to do so, or if not, get the children out.
- Mood: contemplative
Just in case you are too lazy to click the link below and read, I quote:
"MP Charles Chong noted that Mr Tan didn't 'brag' about how expensive the trip was in the article.
'Maybe it made lesser mortals envious and they thought maybe he was a little bit boastful,' he said. "Would people have taken offence if his wife (a senior investment counsellor at a bank) had paid for everything?'" [emphasis mine].
MP Chong, I will be grateful if you can clarify what you are actually trying to say. Are you by any chance saying that your pay package determines whether you are a "greater" or "lesser" mortal? Or are you saying that a permanent secretary is a "greater" mortal than everyone else lower down the hierarchy? Does it take a genius to realise that a public servant writing in the newspapers about a five-week holiday that cost more than the annual salary of more than three-quarters of the population (most of whom are not entitled to five-weeks of paid leave) is in very very bad taste, even in a boom year?
Remember, at the end of the day, however flawed our system of democracy is, we the peasants, are the ones who vote for you, MP Chong (yes I am in your constituency and I am currently quite inclined to make copies of that newspaper report and spend the Chinese New Year holidays stuffing copies into every single letterbox in Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC with the above quotes underlined and highlighted for ease of reference), and are the suckers who paid for your monthly MP allowance of S$13,900 and Mr. Tan's (evidently) top-ranked salary as taxpayers.
Seriously, what is wrong with our MPs and our elite public servants nowadays? Even if they are not the public-spirited persons they hold themselves out to be (and seriously, I have lived 30 years in this world and am not that naive) for heavens sake, common sense people, common sense!!! We are not even talking about political instinct here!
( A Lesser Mortal )
P.S. Just to make it clear where I stand on this. I don't give a hoot where or how Mr. Permanent Secretary spends his hard-earned salary - he got it through his gainful employment and he is entitled to spend it as he deems fit so long as it is legal. The amount of salary he commands is a separate issue that as far as I am concerned, irrelevant in this context. The bone I had with him is the sheer lack of tact and startling lack of understanding of our society he has demonstrated by publishing an article where he wrote almost boastfully about the cost of such a trip and of his management skills and ability. Subtly, understatement, humility - have these values been cast aside and forgotten?
P.P.S. Even though I did not vote for MR Charles Chong in the last elections, nonetheless I apologise as a constituent of the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC for inflicting him on Singaporeans.
- Mood: infuriated
- Mood: irritated
I don't like Coke Zero - it is sweet without the kick of real Coke.
( Of Ill-Health & the Lousy MAS Response to the Structured Products Debacle ... )
- Mood: exhausted
And I just don't understand - what has TV/DVD/VCDs got to offer in comparison? Most TV programmes (especially those lousy Taiwan variety shows) are stupid, loud and obnoxious. Whenever they are blaring on the TV set at home, I get a headache. I am not against all TV/DVD/VCD shows of course - some of them are nice - I like to watch the travelogues and the documentaries and the news channels. But they just cannot compare to the real thing, i.e. the written word.
I love to watch travelogues but it is Lonely Planet or one of the travelogues that I crave for when I feel the travel bug. I had watched a few National Geographic programmes and a couple of History Channel programmes but there is no way they can compare with the depth of magazine or the books. I finally got my hands on the first season of Sex and the City and while the humour is Jane Austen-ish updated for modern times, I'll take Emma or Pride & Prejudice over Sex and the City any day. The programmes are just not meaty enough for me to bite into and feel satisfied. How shall I put it - TV shows are like grape juice, books are like fine wine.
Anyway, the article below (from *surprise surprise* The Electric New Paper) is what set off this rant:
- Mood:
cheerful
This has been a seriously rotten term. First of all, I fell sick for more than a month - have you ever heard of something like that? There is this lousy round of flu that goes around and around and around, and I have not even fully recovered from one bout of flu before I go down once again with awful hacking coughs. Then just when I was on the track to full recovery , I sprained my back (while bending down to put my laptop on my bed - I kid you not!) and was promptly immoblised for another couple of days. And got a scolding from the doctor for exhausting myself. Hello? If you are sick for a full month, you'll be pushing yourself to exhaustion too - do you know how much work (both school and office) can pile up when you are sick and working at quarter-capacity for a month? And with the economy booming away, it is no as if we are swatting flies in the office!
And I hate mathematics - I can do accounting (debit/credit credit/debit is fine), but I hate deriving values from goodness knows what (covariance? variance? standard deviation? beta? z-table? CAPM? WACC?) for goodness knows what, and my numbers always always go wrong somewhere somehow... and I have two such modules this term. Good grief. The professors could be speaking ancient Hebrew and I'll understand about as much, perhaps more actually, since I actually like history.
After all that self-pitying ranting, of course, it is my own fault. I should have known - since I am not good at mathematics, I should be focusing on practising and practising and practising. Instead I got so bored by the classes, I decided to stay back in the office and do my (overdue) work instead. Since I am already behind on my work, I should have slept earlier at night and come to work earlier, catch up on my work, instead of getting distracted in the evenings and spend hours reading NY Times, Huffington Post, Singapore Surf and other websites. I am such an idiot. You would think that all those years suffering through Chinese classes and Mathematics and Physics and Chemistry would have thought me something, but no - I merrily went on to make exactly the same mistakes I made back when I was a teenager. Stupid Stupid Stupid .... why do I never learn?
I have to say this though - never before had I ever been so bored by a subject and so petrified by it as well.
Ten days... groan....
- Mood: grumpy
- Mood: stressed
A huge debate has arisen since the Prime Minister announced imminent changes to the CPF Scheme. Currently, how the CPF systems works is this:
- You put the prescribed percentage of your salary into your individual CPF account, where it earns a fixed interest rate (currently 2.5% for Ordinary Account and 4% for Special Account and Medisave Account). The amount in your Ordinary Account can be used for your own investments, educational expenses and housing expenses at any age.
- When you reach the age of 55, you get to withdraw everything you have saved plus the interest earned in your Ordinary Account and your Special Account, less a Minimum Sum (which should be around S$120,000).
- When you reach the age of 62, you can start to draw down on your Minimum Sum.
Based on his National Day Rally speech, and information given by Minister Ng Eng Hen, I gather the following:
- CPF Minimum Sum draw-down age will be postponed from 62 to 65.
- Not the entirety of the Minimum Sum can be taken out. Instead a smaller sum (minimum sum of the Minimum Sum?) must be set aside to purchase an annuity that will commence payment when you reach the age of 85.
- If you die before you reach 85 years of age, the annuity goes to the "pool" (i.e. to finance the annuities of the other people who lived till 85). Your heirs will not receive any part of that annuity.
- There will be a 1% increase for the first S$60,000 in your combined CPF accounts. However, only $20,000 of the funds in your Ordinary Account qualifies for the increase. The first S$20,000 in the Ordinary Account cannot be used for investments, but can still be used for education expenses and housing expenses. The extra interest will be credited to the Special Account.
- The interest rate for the Special Account will now be fixed to the long-term Singapore Government Bonds rate, instead of the current prescribed 4%.
There are a few things that I don't understand, and I am desperately hoping that the government will provide us with more information soon.
- If the first S$20,000 in the Ordinary Account earns a higher interest rate, then does that mean that when I use my CPF to pay for my HDB flat or my educational expenses, a higher interest rate will apply? For example, I now purchase a HDB flat using my CPF Ordinary Account to pay the monthly instalments of the bank loan. When I subsequently sell the flat, the amount taken from the CPF Ordinary Account plus accrued interest of 2.5% p.a. must be returned to the CPF Ordinary Account. Does this mean that I now have a higher interest expense?
- The current long-term Singapore Government Bond rate is around 3% to 3.3%. This means that effectively, there is a reduction in the interest rate for my Special Account and Medisave Account. The extra 1% on the first $60,000 merely restores the interest rate to the current 4% for the first S$60,000 of my CPF funds. How is this a real increase? Despite what Dr. Ng said, is there any guarantee that the long-term Singapore Government Bond rate will increase in future to 4%?
The part that really disturbs me is the way the government can simply change the rules on how and when we get our own hard-earned money. I am 28 this year, with slightly less than 30 years to go before I reach 55, and slightly less than 40 years to go before I reach 65. But is there any guarantee that I will get the money that I earned with my sweat and tears when I am 55, 65? Or will I be told, around the age of 40 (or horrors of horrors 50), that sorry - due to [insert whatever plausible reason the government can think of], we are increasing the age when you can withdraw your CPF?
The problem with this non-stop changes, be it rates of contributions or ages when the money can be taken out, is the utter uncertainty it creates and the havoc it wreaks on everyone's planning, be it for purchase of a home, or for retirement. How am I supposed to know how much I should set aside for my retirement if I cannot be certain when a substantial sum of money is going to be made available to me? How can I figure out what type of home I can afford if I do not know whether the CPF contribution rates are going to decrease? How can I top up my parents' Medisave account from mine when I do not know whether I have sufficient sums for my own future health care costs? This is ridiculous.
And the thing is this - Singaporeans will plan around this uncertainty (whatever the government may think, we aren't that stupid), and maybe in the process of doing so undo all the good that the government hopes to achieve with their changes to the CPF system. For example, why even regard the CPF as anything more than a home financing scheme, an education finance scheme, pay for your parents health scheme? Plan for your own retirement / health expenses using your own take-home salary and aim to take out as much cash as possible from your CPF account by financing your purchase of your home using CPF or to pay for your parents medical bills or your children's educational expenses. In other words, to the greatest extent possible, use the CPF for your current expenses instead of keeping it for your future expenses. And use the cash that you would have used for your current expenses to finance your long-term investments that should yield a higher return than 3.3%. The fact that this runs contrary to the whole basic idea of the CPF is irrelevant.
And of course, if a significant proportion of Singaporeans do that, the cash balance in the CPF accounts will never really increase. And if our government just looks at the CPF cash balances as an indicator of Singaporeans' preparedness for retirement, it will always be fretting that Singaporeans do not have enough to retire on.
There is of course another solution - I am not sure if it works though - emigrate, give up Singapore citizenship. It may just get CPF to release all your CPF funds. Hopefully.
- Mood:
nerdy
All respect to you people out there who are happily married, but I have seen more than my fair share of unhappy, broken marriages - and I'll stay single and happy unless a really good option comes along, and I am not bothered if no such option ever do.
We pay taxes to support other people who choose to have children (I don't really mind this too much - I am more than happy to pay taxes to keep the kids in school until they grow up and hopefully become presentable in society), we are often the ones left with the care of frail elderly parents (who ironically can't get over their "failure" in getting their children married), the ones who are stuck in the office during peak vacation seasons such as Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year, school vacations (because that is the only time kids can travel since there is no school), the ones who are left behind in the office to pick up the pieces because the parents have to rush off to pick up their children after school, to meet the teachers, because the children are sick, ill blah blah blah. And you have to wonder why on earth is there a perception that married people make better employees.
And of course, my greatest grouse - we can't buy subsidised HDB flats from the government, and are not allowed to even buy HDB flats on the open market until we are 35. I am so sick and tired of the discrimination against singles!
We take care of ourselves and our future, because we know that when we are old there may be no one who can or will take care of us. We contribute more to the economy as consumers because we have so much more free cash than married people (with or without kids). We work longer and harder and are more willing to explore opportunities, accept overseas postings etc because we unencumbered by family commitments. We bring the buzz to a city or a workplace simply because we hang out more, socialise more and find more ways to entertain ourselves. Singles are important. Singles should be favoured, not discriminated against!
My theory - people who are married are just jealous of singles. We have freedom to do what we want, when we want. So they try to tie us down with discriminatory legislation, unfair work practices to "level" the playing field so as to speak. But hey, everyone is by default single unless they choose otherwise, so why blame us for choosing to remain single?
Singles Unite! Stop Discrimination!
- Mood:
Coffee is good
I knew that banks are sharks, but this is the first time I felt the full impact of their damn sharkiness. For some reason, I misread the bank statement that was sent to me last month, and when I paid the bill, I was short by S$34.60. Not a big sum you would think, but when I checked my credit card bill this month, that shortfall of S$34.60 has ballooned to a finance charge of S$102.35!!!!
I was confused initially, since I thought I had paid up the full credit card bill. Imagine my shock, when I realised that I was short by S$34.50 AND that shortfall has ballooned 297% in one month!!! The reason that was given to me by the bank officer was that interest is charged on the entire outstanding sum on my credit card bill. Hence, even though I paid off S$6,630 of a S$6,664.50 bill, I was charged interest on the entire S$6,664.50. Why on earth then do anyone bother to pay part of the credit card bill if they can't pay the full bill anyway? Do even loan-sharks charge such interest? Good grief!
Damn HSBC. Damn my oversight. Damn the fact that I had to pay my school fees last month.
*fumes*
UPDATE ON 10 AUGUST 2007
I called up HSBC Hotline and very politely explained the oversight. HSBC has very kindly waived my finance charges!! *Big Sigh of Relief*
- Mood: pissed off
I heard one of them the first time last week when I was queuing to sort out some banking matters at POSB (Clifford Centre). I went off to search out the second one. Here they are:
I nearly cried.
How many Singaporeans have walked the streets of Cairo and Bombay? How many had seen Broadway? How many have climbed Effiel Tower or the Great Wall? How many know where is the River Kwai? How many had seen the sunset in Kent Ridge Park, let alone in LA? Damn it, are they all blind?
Singapore is where my family is, but many of my friends who grew up with me are no longer around. It is my home, and may be the place I long to see, but should I leave for five years and come back, will I be able to recognise it anymore? Is it my home when I no longer recognise it, when my friends have all left for greener pastures. Will it still be my home when everything that reminds me of home is gone, demolished, in the name of progress and cold hard cash?
I want to make this island amazing in all ways, I want to tell my children grand stories of my grandparents - how they braved the hazards to come to this young nation. Show my children where my grandparents started their business, and where their own grandparents lived. I want to show them where I studied, and where their father proposed. But by that time, will there be anything left? I want to them to know, deep in their bones and their very essence of their being, that this, this is my home, their home, their grandparents' home, but how can I do so, where there is nothing real for them to remember? How can a place be a home when everything is gone within twenty years?
I want to go home every evening, to be greeted with smiles on every face, but instead all I see, are worried faces checking off the days when our lease is due for renewal. I want this to be more than a place, for it to be a home, but how can I, when every place of which I have fond memories, are going, going, gone?
Is there room for me on this island, for me to write grand new stories, to scale new heights and to let my dreams take flight? Is there space for me to make a difference, space for me to seize the day? Is there time for me to live each moment, time to find new ways? Is there a seat on this brave journey for an average Singaporean like me?
- Mood:
sad
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