Friends later told me how turning Nepal into Singapore was a standard election slogan. Evidently such talk was a hit with the masses, and it certainly boosted the fame of a country only roughly the size of the Kathmandu Valley. But a good economy and clean streets doesn’t quite sum up the Singapore I know. As someone born and bred in this tropical nation, I feel compelled to tell Nepalis who want their country transformed into mine: be careful what you wish for.

Imagine a bunch of Singapore’s brightest minds taking over Nepal from here on. Initially, things look good. An army of municipal workers cleans out rubbish and filth on the roads. A new fine on spitting and littering is imposed and enforced; many Nepalis get a ticket and grumble about it. But because everyone is so happy about the newly clean streets they accept it and move on.

Meanwhile, employment is rising as construction workers are employed in a massive infrastructure upgrading programme. Again, there is a general sense of optimism as jobs are created and people are working.

But soon, things start to get strange. For one, all worker unions are consolidated into one mega union, and this entity seems more interested in persuading workers to work for longer hours for the same wages than in organising the next strike. For good measure, strikes are outlawed altogether, and demonstrations are also banned.

No more taking to the streets with banners and effigies, no matter how legitimate your grievance is. The armed police force is on hand to deal with anyone who thinks this law is flexible. Yes, the men in camouflage blue actually start doing their job instead of redirecting traffic to facilitate protests. After all, Singapore is where police with batons and shields arrested four people staging a silent, stationary protest in 2005.

Newspapers thinking this is unfair criticise the Singaporean managers in editorials and reports. They are slapped with defamation lawsuits and several close down. A few editors are even arrested on the charge of inciting hatred against the government. Before you know it, licenses are required to publish newspapers, with full discretion of issuance with the communications ministry.

Of course, even in this imaginary world, the Singaporeans can’t run the show forever, so Nepali leaders have to step up to the plate. People say Nepal needs a ‘developmental dictator’ and (in private, at least) Nepali politicians seem to agree. What they don’t seem to realise is that the first part is infinitely more important than the second, and that all of them have shown very little interest in the former while displaying an aptitude for the latter.

Still, all that is in the past in the New Singaporean Nepal. No more populist talk from now on. Singaporean leaders are just about the only ones in the world who consistently promise higher taxes and still get elected. No more petty political squabbles either, but of course that’s easy if one party completely dominates parliament, like the situation in my country.

Most Nepalis see the shiny skyscrapers, the glitz of a higher standard of living and the promise of a better life when they think of Singapore. It’s undeniable that I have enjoyed all these as a Singaporean, but being a citizen here allows me to see the other side. No one talks about the sacrifices—the lack of civil rights, freedom of the press, multi-party democracy, to name a few—that went into the Singapore story.

Are Nepalis ready to make such sacrifices when it has become second nature to take to the streets? More importantly, are the politicians ready to discuss nation building instead of spending time jockeying for power? Something tells me everyone would just spit in disgust at how far-fetched a real Singaporean Nepal would be, with or without the anti-spitting fine.

This story was first published in the Nepali Times on February 26, 2010.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, it drew loud cheers and applause from the audience.

Then, the iPhone’s role was immediately obvious. It combined three much sought after functions into one mobile device: a music player, a phone and a web browser.

Of course, devices that have all these functions (and probably a dozen more) already existed before the iPhone, but none were able to deliver the kind of satisfaction as a decent mobile web browser until the iPhone came along.

It is also important to note that the original iPhone shipped with just 14 applications (and you couldn’t add more because there was no App Store), and that 14 applications include the essential phone and SMS function, as well as boring apps such as Stocks, Weather and Calculator.

Guardian technology columnist Stephen Fry wrote that because “first release of iPhone was 2G, closed to developers and without GPS, cut and paste and many other features that have since been incorporated… [nobody had] predicted the “game-changing” effect the [original iPhone] would so rapidly have as it evolved into a 3G, third-party app rich, compass and GPS enabled market leader.

I disagree with that. Just watching the recorded stream of the iPhone’s keynote announcement, I knew I wanted one, and I knew many of my friends were clamouring for one as well. And even without the 140,000 third-party applications and games available to iPhone users today, GPS or cut and paste, it was enough to drive the audience into a near frenzy.

Clearly, the iPhone filled a void that many people were looking for.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the widely anticipated iPad some three years later on January 27th 2010, the reaction was lukewarm. There weren’t as much cheers or clapping, and reverse shots of the audience showed them mostly looking bored.

So what went wrong?

I think it went wrong seven minutes into the keynote, where Mr Jobs preceded the introduction of the iPad with the opener: “The question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle, something that’s between a laptop and smartphone?

“In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks,” he said. “Better than the laptop, better than the smartphone.”

And the tasks Mr Jobs outlined?

“Well, things like browsing the web. That’s a pretty tall order. Something that’s better at browsing the web than laptop? Okay. And e-mail. Enjoying and sharing photographs. Videos, watching videos. Enjoying your music collection. Playing games. Reading e-books.

“If there’s going to be a third category of device, that’s going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. Otherwise, it has no reason for being.”

This is an excellent thought process, and various technology pundits have correctly asked themselves this question before the announcement of the iPad. John Gruber from Daring Fireball wrote in December: “If you already have an iPhone and a MacBook; why would you want this?

“Successful new gadgets always seem to occupy a clearly defined place alongside, or replacing, existing devices,” he wrote. “But how much room is there between an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and a MacBook (or other laptop computer, running Windows or Linux or whatever)? What’s the argument for owning all three?”

Mr Jobs went on to dismiss existing solutions such as the netbook.

“The problem is, netbooks aren’t better than anything. They’re slow, they have low quality display, and they run clunky old PC software,” he said. “So they’re not better than a laptop than anything, they’re just cheaper. They’re just cheap laptops. And we don’t think that they’re third category device.”

Great, so far so good. Sure, many people own netbooks and like their netbooks, but the fact that an Apple’s tablet was so widely anticipated clearly shows their dissatisfaction with these sub-notebooks, and the desire for something better, something like what the Apple did to mobile phones with the iPhone.

And then there was the question about what kind of ingenious solution Apple might offer with its tablet to solve the problem of holding up and interacting with a relatively heavy device for a long period of time.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Andy Ihnatko wrote before the iPad was announced: “You want to try to figure out the UI of the [Apple tablet]? Go get yourself a comic book, or any other rectangle that measures roughly 10” on the diagonal. Hold it as though you’re reading what’s on the surface.

“While you’ve got it in your hands, imagine that it’s a sheet of thin steel. That’s heavy, isn’t it? Hard to hold up for long periods of time.”

Of course, everyone was confident that Apple would deliver the perfect solution by the time the tablet was announced, given that they’ve been at it for allegedly four years.

And then, Mr Jobs whipped out the iPad, and sure enough, the design was gorgeous. But how was he going to use it? He couldn’t possibly have used it standing, given the weight and size concerns that Mr Ihnatko had brought up. Placing the device flat on the table is an option, but it’s an inelegant and non-ergonomic solution.

And so, he went on to sit down in a strategically placed sofa, legs crossed, with the iPad resting on his crossed leg.

That was disappointment number one for me. If you’ve watched the promotion video by Apple, you’d realise that the model who was using the iPad was yet again strategically positioned, this time lying inclined on a sofa with his knees drawn upwards to form some kind of rest for the iPad.

It was thus ironic when Apple’s design chief, Jony Ive, said in the promotion video that “I don’t have to change myself to fit the product. It fits me.”

He was of course referring to how you could hold the tablet in any orientation you want, but not how you could have hold and use the tablet comfortably in a more common situation such as on the train or on the bus, unless of course you wish to cross your leg like Steve Jobs (which might seriously piss the person sitting next to you off), or sit reclined on the floor like the model in the promotion video.

Putting it flat on top your legs is not an elegant solution. Just look at how Mr Jobs had to crane his neck downwards as he placed the iPad flat on his legs to type an email. Perhaps that is why except for the brief moment where Mr Jobs sent out an email, the entire keynote mostly avoided typing on the iPad altogether.

And notice how awkward it was to do multi-gestures involving both hands? When Apple’s product marketing chief Phil Schiller demonstrated a multi-gesture in Keynote, he had to interrupt his original way of holding the iPad—holding it up upright with his left hand, and touching the screen with his right hand—and place the iPad down flat on his lap, all the while trying to make sure the few hundred dollars device doesn’t slip from his legs.

Ergonomics aside, Mr Jobs continued to demonstrate the features of the iPad to an unimpressed audience. Why were they so subdued this time round when they were cheering during the iPhone’s demonstration?

Well, I’m guessing none of them were really buying it when Mr Jobs said the iPad is far better than their iPhone or laptop at the key tasks. Could a device that does not even appear ergonomic to use be really better than their iPhone at any of the tasks, which is so intuitive to hold and could navigate even with a single hand, or a laptop which could do everything?

And let’s remind ourselves of the tasks that the iPad is supposed to be far better at doing than both the laptop and the iPhone:

1. browsing the web,
2. e-mail,
3. enjoying and sharing photographs,
4. watching videos,
5. enjoying your music collection,
6. playing games,
7. reading e-books

Let’s start with e-mail. Since keying in text on the iPad does not seem any easier than the iPhone (in fact I believe it’s far more difficult given the way you’d need a flat surface to be able to type on the iPad), I can’t imagine e-mail being far better than either the laptop or the iPhone.

Enjoying and sharing photographs? Perhaps, I could imagine it being useful to show potential clients my works.

Watching videos, well this one probably has some truth to it; better than the iPhone with the bigger screen, and better than the laptop with its lighter weight. But again, due to the fact that we folks in Singapore cannot buy videos off iTunes, and that the iPhone/iPad only plays video encoded in specific formats, it might be easier to play non-compatible videos via VLC on the laptop than to spend time encoding them to be able to play the videos on the iPad. Further, because the iPad doesn’t do Flash, it will not be able to play web videos from any online video sharing site other than YouTube. That locks the iPad out of many videos that aren’t available on YouTube. So I won’t say that the iPad is far better than the laptop in watching videos.

Enjoying your music collection? Thanks but no thanks. I don’t need nor want to carry a 9.7″ device that weights 700g to enjoy my music. I’d use my iPhone any other day. Far better at listening to music on the iPad than the iPhone? No way.

Playing games? Again, the larger screen would probably help. But looking at the demonstration of Need for Speed Shift on the iPad, I couldn’t help but think that the larger screen is going to make touch controls even more difficult than on the iPhone. Notice in the demonstration that changing the view of the driver (which involves touching the car located in the centre of the screen) requires the player to extend his thumb all the way into the middle of the iPad, which is four times larger in size than the iPhone.

Reading e-books, however, seems like the biggest draw. Apple’s implementation of its online bookstore, and its well-designed native reading application makes the iPad a serious contender to Amazon’s Kindle. The store and its larger screen will make the iPad a better reading device than the iPhone, while its more compact size, the vertical orientation and lighter weight will make it a better reading device than a laptop.

The problem? Well, unless you live in the United States, there won’t be iBooks or the e-book store available on your iPad. So once again, Singaporeans will be left out in the cold, just like how we have not been able to purchase music from the iTunes store since eternity.

So out of the six key tasks that Mr Jobs has listed, e-mail and music are duds relative to the iPhone or laptop, it remains to be seen whether the larger screen estate (and heavier size) is truly a boon for games requiring touch, videos are probably a tie with laptops due to the concerns I’ve pointed out, e-books seemed to be better than the iPhone or the laptop—with reservations of course—and photos seemed pretty neat and is probably better than the iPhone or the laptop, but I’m not sure if that alone is worth the price.

So that leaves us with key task number one—browsing the web. Almost everyone who had used the iPad at the event raved about the speed in rendering webpages relative to the iPhone. Let’s assume that these people were right, the iPad is indeed a speed demon at browsing the web, and the larger screen estate is awesome. Giving the iPad the benefit of doubt since most of us have not used one yet, we assume that the iPad is far better than the iPhone at browsing the web.

But far better than the laptop? That’s a tall order indeed.

The laptop of course, cannot possibly be slower than the iPad, and it definitely has a larger screen than the iPad—both in terms of screen size and resolution. So what could make the iPad far better than the laptop at browsing the web? Ergonomics? I think not. Intuitiveness? Maybe.

But as much as I’d love to own the iPad so that I could replace my MacBook Pro aas a primary browsing device, I simply can’t. I just can’t access some sites that I need to on a frequent basis due to the lack of support for (1) Java and (2) Flash.

I’m not too sure about our friends in America, but all internet banking sites in Singapore require Java to log in, and Java is unlikely to be supported on the iPad. That means I still need my laptop whenever I need to check my transactions or make any bank transfers, which I need to ever so often.

Pundits such as Mr Gruber have again and again noted how the absence of Flash on the iPhone is a good thing due to (1) it’s poor performance on OS X, (2) poor reliability on OS X, and (3) the fact that having a de facto web standard based on proprietary technology is not a good idea. I agree with them all, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the absence of Flash support means that I can’t completely replace my laptop with the iPad as my primary surfing device.

So even if the iPad is more intuitive at browsing the web than the laptop as some who have used the iPad says, it is still an incomplete web browser. An incomplete web browser cannot really be far better.

I’ll excuse everything that the Apple bashers could come up with: no camera, no multitasking, no external storage, etc., because that was not what the iPad was suppose to excel at. Those features are purely secondary if the iPad could really be far better at the things it had set out to be, but it is not.

Towards the end of Mr Gruber’s piece on the tablet before it was announced, he answered his own question: “And so in answer to my central question, regarding why buy The Tablet if you already have an iPhone and a MacBook, my best guess is that ultimately, The Tablet is something you’ll buy instead of a MacBook.”

I had hoped that that was the case. But unfortunately, the iPad cannot replace the MacBook completely, but sits between the iPhone and MacBook. And because the iPad was not clearly far better than both the iPhone and the laptop at the key tasks that Mr Jobs had highlighted, he has failed to convince most people that the iPad has a reason for being.

All that said, until the masses can get their hands on the iPad, and when reviewers can really spend time using one, some of my observations—such as how ergonomic it is to hold and use in daily use—could still be proven very wrong. But others, such as being far better at playing your music, is just plain silly.

I hope I could be pleasantly surprised when I lay my hands on one in 56 days time. Like David Pogue says, “the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential”.

Ironically, the audience seemed most excited when Mr Schiller demonstrated the iWork suite on the iPad, which was not even one of the key tasks that the iPad was supposed to be far better at. Clearly, there is a demand for the iPad to be as capable as the MacBook.

The iPad definitely has the potential to revolutionise mobile computing when more powerful apps are out—just think about the possibility of a decent mobile Photoshop with multitouch gestures—but the first version is unlikely to be the one to do so.

If Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam were alive today, he would be 84 years old.

He would have been out of bankruptcy, back in politics and preparing for the next general election due 2011.

And he would still be the principle dissident of Singapore, which would be great.

But because I attended his memorial held on his birthday recently at Hong Lim Park to commemorate his passing in September 2008, it means that he has not been around for quite a bit.

And that leaves me with a discomforting feeling.

That’s because you’ve got to have dissent and opposition in any society and no one stuck it to the establishment better or as well as Jeyaretnam did.

Which brings me to the point of this missive: The more vocal and persistent the oppositional voices in any given society, the better.

But how and why is that possible, you might ask?

And from which bleeding-heart, tree-hugging liberal did I get this crazy idea from?

Well, let’s start with the who first. He is Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law school professor who came up with this idea that conformity of thought and the stifling of alternative views has a polarising effect.

It tends to drive people into opposite directions and sometimes they can go pretty far off either way. What is left is little common ground in between for any consensus to prevail, simply because there is no way for engagement to exist.

And that is not a good thing.

Basically, people who keep sharing the same ideas with their own kind end up going off tangent – and fall off the proverbial edge.

Well, Sunstein is liberal, yes, but bleeding-heart and tree-hugging, he definitely is not.

In reality, he is known for being pretty empirical and thorough. And not to mention prolific. And he happens to be working in President Obama’s administration these days.

Sunstein, as a legal scholar and researcher, conducted extensive studies to find out about the effect of diversity of views on people. He carried out his research primarily because he was in law and was always interested in the formulation and presentation of opposing arguments.

What Sunstein’s research pointed to was that conformity of thought through the lack of alternative viewpoints – in extreme cases – can lead to widespread terrorism and extremist fundamentalism.

This is where people take matters into their own hands, and do things that do not consult the general sentiments of other factions in society. And the outcome is usually more harmful than good.

And he even wrote a book in 2003, Why Societies Need Dissent, to make an academic case for the need of oppositional voices.

As Sunstein argues, places in the world today that are hotbed for terrorism are also places where open discussion is stifled.

So, for the sake of a vivid illustration, imagine what happens when one potential terrorist walks all over town the whole day and the only other people he gets to talk to are potential terrorists.

Their extremist conversations would naturally lead to greater polarisation of their already polarised views.

And then they will make bombs. Blow stuff up – including themselves. Which is all not very good for society as a whole.

So to prevent polarisation of views, society needs to let opposing views confront each other head on. It lets off steam and also allows the more valid views to prevail.

This is simply to ensure that there is lessened conformity of thought because society would be prevented from being pushed off into nasty extremes by the sheer volume of diverse perspectives available.

And as I would argue, a prime Singaporean example would be the AWARE takeover last year launched by a group of religious women who took it upon themselves to right what they saw was wrong with society.

If they decided to take over an established women’s organisation and operated more publicly, spoke to more people other than themselves about their intentions and what they were truly up to, several thousand women (with some men in tow) would not have showed up at the extraordinary general meeting last year to cast their decisive vote of no-confidence for the covert operators.

But the damage was done and one religious faction took a public beating in the media as a backlash.

So why does dissent need Jeyaretnam?

Jeyaretnam was a public figure and opposition politician who was democratically elected to act as a representative for the people. As part of Singapore’s political legacy, he is pretty much similar to David who was elected to face Goliath.

When he made it into parliament, what he said mattered and it became an issue of public record, and quite naturally, generated public interest.

And this is what we need.

We, the people, need elected representatives who are able and willing to go into parliament to say things that count, and even to say things that run contrary to what is being said by the dominant faction.

And it all has to be said publicly, subjected to the scrutiny and prying eyes and ears of the populace. Even if some others do not really like or agree with what is being expressed.

But that is not the point. The point is even dissidents need to find some form of expression that counts, and there is nowhere better place to put forth that view than in parliament.

This situation is rather different from, say, being an anonymous blogger whose dissent is never going to surface into public consciousness. The alternative views might be critical enough, but it fails to reach a critical mass.

It was a plus point that Jeyaretnam was sincerely interested in reforming the system and made it to parliament in the hopes of seeing those changes through.

And even if he managed a less-than-genial retort from the ruling government in the past, he created some forced dialogue. That is important because engagement between opposing camps is what makes a progressive and democratic society, well, progressive and democratic.

Last but not least, I do not know if Singapore will ever see the likes of another personality like Jeyaretnam who would run the risk of being financially ruined time and again just to make a point and be heard.

As more of the socially-minded and politically-astute populace become increasingly well-educated and even world-weary from having traveled overseas extensively, what Singaporeans need and demand in the coming times is their basic right to engagement.

This is because something tells me that consensus-building style of governance and reactive tail-wagging is nowhere close to being on the same level as engagement with the hearts and minds of the populace.

The polarisation of views in society today might be more severe than what the ruling elite might realise or acknowledge. The result of a silenced populace, especially in Singapore’s case, is itself a manifestation of a society that has gone to one extreme to shut itself up.

In 20 years’ time, we might be wondering whether this present epoch was the turning point where we might have missed an important transition.

Perhaps we needed someone who could have expedited this transition from where we all seemingly agreed to where we can agree to disagree.

And it is at such a time that Jeyaretnam shall be sorely missed.

Common responses by people who commented on the move are that a wedding is a private affair and why should couples have to pay to use these music. This was also the view expressed by a newly-wed interviewed in the article: “A wedding is a private event where you invite your close friends and relatives to celebrate together; not a public performance where you charge an entrance fee.”

Having just done a video montage for my brother’s wedding some two months ago, and being a stock photographer who for a living depends on payment from customers who use my works, I’m naturally keen to follow the development of this.

As far as I remembered, the issue of using copyrighted music in wedding videos first came up in photography and videography forums, where some questioned whether it was appropriate at all for these photo- and videographers to be using copyrighted music in their portfolio without paying the artistes.

There are two issues at hand: one, is a wedding truly a private event, and two, should composers and lyricists be paid for use of their intellectual property?

While Singapore laws do not explicitly define “public performance”—a right that is granted to copyright holders—US laws defined it as “to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered”.

A typical Chinese wedding dinner in Singapore involves at least hundreds of guests; it would be a stretch to compare a dinner with a few friends hosted in the privacy of one’s home to a wedding dinner with a hundred guests hosted at a public place.

My guess is that those who are upset are mistaking a public event with a commercial event. Regardless of whether the exhibitor have profited from the public performance of the copyrighted material, the copyright owner is deemed to have lost a potential source of revenue for the performance of his work when no royalty is paid to him.

Next, should composers and lyricists be paid for use of their works during a wedding? Most people who have expressed their unhappiness with the private-event reasoning seemed to think not: after all, these celebrities are already making big bucks, so why go after small private use like a wedding function?

But the royalties for public performances are not paid to the celebrities who sang the songs, but to composers and lyricists who have to earn their income through remuneration collected when their works have been published or performed.

Take David Cook’s Come Back to Me, which was composed by a Norwegian songwriting duo Amund Bjorklund and Espen Lind, and its lyrics written by Zac Maloy. Since the song was authored by three people, they each own one-third of the song. The authors Amund, Espen and Zac each gets an equal cut of mechanical royalty from the publisher for each copy of the recorded song sold. David Cook gets a cut too under a different deal arranged with the publisher.

But when Come Back to Me is performed in public, only the music authors Amund, Espen and Zac receive performance royalty, usually split 50/50 with the song’s publisher. Cook doesn’t get paid for merely singing the song, because he did not create the music and thus does not own the copyright.

Of course, there is also an increasing number of singer-songwriters, such as Jason Mraz and Lady Gaga, who’ll receive royalties for both the sale of their records as well as for public performance of their works. But that is hardly enough reason to justify not paying them for use of their work.

The problem is further compounded when people cannot detach the physical ownership of a work with what they can actually do with it. After all, if I bought the music on a CD, I should be able to do whatever I want with it right?

But that could not be further from the truth under copyright law. Ownership of a music CD or a film on a DVD merely grants the owner of the media the right to play the music or screen the film in a limited number of private settings and occasions. The owner of the media cannot for instance, make copies for resale, create works based on the original, or in this case, perform or display the work publicly.

Here’s another scenario: if someone commissioned me to take a portrait of them for personal use today, and he became famous 10 years down the road, he is not suppose to make a profit off the portrait by printing and reselling them.

But despite having the full legal grounds to pursue action against couples who flout the law, music authors are unlikely to go after the couples themselves for the offence lest a public backlash against them take place (it has already happened judging from the deluge of complaints over the internet).

It is clear that couples would not have to deal with these licensing issues themselves. They would, continue as they already do, approach wedding photo- and videographers with their requirements for their montage—including the list of music that they want included.

It is up to the photo- and videographers to take a profit cut to stay competitive, or try raising prices to cover the extra costs. Of course, it is only fair that couples manage their own expectations and be prepared to be more selective about the songs they want included to lower licensing costs.

But ultimately, music authors ought to be paid their deserved income when their work is used.

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

At the Ministerial Forum a month ago, you talked about helping new citizens adjust to life in Singapore. Have you also considered the early immigrants who are having trouble adapting to this fast-moving country?

Allow me to elaborate with the story of my father:

My father’s migration to Singapore didn’t start off with a good omen. It was September, crazy weather and choppy waters at the South China Sea. He slept among boxes and crates in a cargo ship for 10 days—how long it took to get to Singapore from China’s Fujian province in 1956.

At that time, Singapore and Malaysia were colonised by the British. People could cross the causeway freely. My grandfather, who had been working in Johor Bahru as a truck driver, crossed over to the other side to reunite with his wife and seven-year-old son.

Three years later my father moved permanently to Singapore. It was 1959, the same year your father became the first Prime Minister of Singapore.

Not wanting to study, because he didn’t like to, my father quit school at 13-years-old and got a job. His first employment was at Orchard Road. My father, barely educated and Hokkien-speaking, used to work in Singapore’s retail hub!

All right, maybe retail hub to be.

As you probably know, Orchard Road was very different then. There was no Takashimaya or ION Orchard. What most would remember is Cold Storage, the first to bring ice-cream to Singapore, occupying the basement of what is Centrepoint today. The rest of the area was blanketed by mom-and-pop shops, one of which my father worked in.

Mr Prime Minister, here I’ll like to take a break from the story to ask you a question. How much did you earn for your first job? $100? $1,000? Or was it $10,000? I earned over a thousand a month as a part-time waitress.We were both lucky, sir. My poor father was paid a meager $40—exactly the amount his housing cost!

Struggling to make ends meet, he thought he could make more money as a trishaw rider. But he naively rode it like a bicycle. Once, outside the Subordinate Court, the vehicle stubbornly went onto the opposite side of the road towards a charging truck! He was thrown off a few meters all cut and bruised.

The abrupt flying experience taught him to keep his feet on the ground. So he started selling bananas by the kilos at Tanglin Halt, street-hawking style. Like everyone else in the 1960s, he laid his goods on the floor and squatted behind them.

You know sir, my father still likes to boast about how long he used to squat. If only he could read a traditional scale as well as he squats, he wouldn’t have sold the fruits at a loss!

Despite this series of unfortunate events, there was no doubt he could find a way out. As you can see sir, Singapore always had a place for him wherever he went. In return to the abundant opportunities, my father made the most of it eventually.

He soon found a job in the Coca Cola factory at River Valley Road. You might remember drinking the popular soda off a glass bottle as a young kid. For $3.50 a night, my father had to unload 22 trucks of those empty bottles.

And amid the mad rush to make a living, he still found time to practise lion dance and performed in Singapore’s second national day celebration!

At 20, my father clinched a deal with a Malaysian plantation owner to sell his vegetables at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre. He remained in this business for the next 40 years, up till today.

Unfortunately, as he was working tirelessly, Singapore changed—it progressed in leaps and bounds. I swear to you, Mr Prime Minister, that my father had tried to keep up with the times.

He taught himself to read and write Chinese, and acquired a pretty good knowledge in Chinese medicine I must say. But as years went by, Singapore had moved so quickly into the future that my father could no longer run shoulder to shoulder with her.

Orchard Road and Clarke Quay are now devoted to the young and the foreigners. My father can’t fit in with the fancy bars and restaurants, and god forbid, the reverse bungee jump. The places where he shed sweats of hard work have since been cleaned up and developed to be more inviting, but paradoxically, more rejecting at the same time.

Have you been to any of the malls sir? I would advice you to bring a guide if you visit one. One after another, they grew so big, so tall and so inconvenient for the aged. The escalators are a challenge to their wobbly legs (that’s 421,000 pairs assuming legs turn jelly after the age of 65), the lifts are hardly enough and the toilets are always at the next and the next and the next corner.

Outside, Singapore is like a table of mahjong tiles. Every now and then buildings are shifted, thrown in or removed. My father finds his way around through trial and error. The road signs, all in English, are practically redundant to him. And so he is damned when the roads are reconstructed, which happens ever so often.

His problems with language also interfered with his efforts to participate in my school life. I used to dance and emcee many concerts in secondary school, but my father only attended once. He was so bored out of his skull he never showed up for any more, until I graduated from college this July.

Just as I had expected, the ceremony, held entirely in English, made him feel out of place. When the graduating class was invited to rise from our seats to thank our parents with a round of applause, my father wasn’t aware of its significance.

I had asked the valedictorian to say a few words in Mandarin, but he rejected my request. He said it would be discriminating against the minority groups. I understood the sensitivity of the issue but it left me with a bitter taste.

Please do not be offended sir, but I feel that the valedictorian’s approach bore an uncanny resemblance to how your government handles many issues, especially pertaining to race, language and religion.

Many a times you stay put at the traffic junction to avoid causing any accident.

For instance, if we have to put up street signs in the Chinese language, we have to do so in Malay and Tamil too. So if there’s not enough space for all four, we just make do with a sign only in the English language.

But we’re not moving forward either sir.

Individually these issues may seem trivial to you, but together they conspire to reject and exclude my father, and those alike.

Please do not point my father to the parks and community centres (or even house him in Johor Bahru). Are these the only things that Singapore can offer to her pre-independence population? Do you really want to herd them into places out of convenience, and compel them to hang out with people they don’t know and may not want to interact with?

Or if you sir think this will require too much work and money, we could wait till everyone in that generation kicks the bucket. Let’s assume the youngest of that generation is 50-years-old and the average life expectancy is 80, it’s impossible to ignore their needs for 30 years, don’t you think sir?

Moreover, at the lightning speed at which Singapore is progressing, I doubt this will be a problem contained within one generation. We too will have our time of failing eyesight and restless legs, which cannot be made exception by any amount of education or technology.

But what I can do with these privileges given to my generation is to write you this personal letter, Mr Prime Minister, hoping you would understand what Singapore is becoming to my father, and eventually you and I.

The words struck me not only because it had come from a journalism professor, but also because I could never understand why I would ever want to be a journalist elsewhere.

Journalism is after all about public service; wages are low, hours are long and the pace is frenetic.

I could not imagine myself rendering such a service to a place where I did not belong, no matter how free or liberal the press was.

When the university dramatically pulled out an article on opposition leader Chee Soon Juan’s visit to campus on my eighth issue, it became clear why the professor had said those words to me.

To most people, the Enquirer was born overnight as a knee-jerk reaction towards the censorship of Chee’s visit in the Chronicle.

Just this month, the Straits Times described the Enquirer as “a direct response to the university’s administration” for stopping the Chronicle from reporting on Chee’s visit.

The truth could not be further than this.

As dramatic as the censorship of Chee’s visit was, it was definitely not the first time an article had to be edited or played down to avoid offending the powers that be, or in extremely rare cases such as the Chee saga, removed entirely.

Chee’s visit was however the only time in recent history that the president of the university—and the publisher of the paper by virtue of its funding—had intervened to order a removal of an article.

Most of the time, decisions to edit, downplay and censor potentially sensitive stories are made within the confines of the newsroom and the school, by the people who oversee the student editors.

In the Chronicle, all news and opinion pieces are deemed sensitive, having the potential to libel or anger someone more so than a lifestyle or sports piece could.

By this reasoning, they go through a mandatory and elaborate vetting process, requiring the clearance of the chair of the school before publication.

Some common methods of playing down a sensitive story in the Chronicle were to place it in a corner of page six, to remove an accompanying photograph or illustration to make it look as boring and unimportant as possible, or to bury the lead deep down the story.

Such actions, while nowhere as dramatic as an outright removal of a story, are equally effective in neutering contentious content.

More insidiously, it gave the illusion of a relatively free press until the Chee saga took place.

To be fair, this group of people supervising the Chronicle, some listed on the masthead and others not, are not homogeneous.

Some are highly professional, editing only to ensure fairness, clarity and accuracy. Others might even push the boundaries, allowing a critical opinion or editorial to be published.

But most of the time, the stories in the Chronicle are ultimately sanitised under the care of a teacher adviser.

Such instances of censorship are not overly difficult to spot upon close examination, and are probably still happening frequently beyond the control of student-editors today.

Take for example the trial of David Widjaja’s death. In spite of the intense public interest as well as the controversy over how the Widjaja family had disputed the findings, the story was relegated to a quarter page on page five.

Moreover, some nine out of 13 paragraphs were spent laboriously detailing the coroner’s findings before finally touching on the Widjaja family’s unhappiness over the verdict.

And somehow, the Chronicle didn’t see it fit to cover the Widjaja family’s protest over Indonesian vice-president-elect Boediono’s visit to NTU, nor his call to the coroner’s court for a fair trial in late July.

But of course, in retrospect, the Enquirer did not even manage to provide any substantial coverage of David Widjaja’s death, especially when many were expecting us to.

It was a period of great difficulty as all of us were away on our professional internship, with two of the top editors overseas in Nepal.

When the Enquirer first started, some professors at our school were concerned that it could siphon off an already sparse group of reporters.

Others believed that ultimately, pragmatism would triumph over idealism—why would students bother spending their time writing for something that offered neither extra-curricular points nor academic units?

When we returned to school after our internship some two months ago, one such faculty member remarked that he had been looking at our site, only to find nothing on it.

He added, smugly, “I told you so”.

Would it have been better then for us not to pursue this project simply because it would have been easier not to, or because it would be too difficult to succeed?

Evidently, because of various problems and challenges, we had not been able to do as much as we had first set out to one year ago.

But the in-depth reporting approach and independence of the Enquirer was key to publishing important stories that would probably not have made it into the Chronicle.

The first was an analysis of the satisfactory/unsatisfactory option, which had created a furore among NTU students when NUS started letting its students exercise the option after their grades were made known.

We sought out and interviewed the union leader responsible for leading the change at NUS, spoke with NTU’s divisional director at the office of academic services for a definitive stand from the authorities, studied other models adopted by eminent universities around the world, and came up with our own recommendation in an editorial.

Next, we dealt with the university’s president, Dr Su Guaning’s attempts at renaming the university to “Nanyang University”.

It was a story of utmost sensitivity, involving the university’s top administrator’s failed attempt to rename the university and touching on the raw nerve of Nantah graduates who saw nothing to do with the present-day university.

Despite this, we secured many interviews with Nantah graduates and even managed a comment from the provost of the university to comment on the issue (Dr Su declined numerous interview requests).

Both of these stories would never have seen the light of day in the Chronicle.

Even if they had not been shot down from the outset, the main teacher adviser would have the drafts thoroughly sanitised of any references remotely offensive to the authorities.

In addition, the authorities would not have bothered speaking to student reporters from the Chronicle, knowing full well that they could summon and speak to the teacher adviser, who is of course a staff of the university.

It happened when my reporter covered a story that had blogs abuzz about how NTU had took out online advertisements on Google under the headline “SMU Singapore” (the headline of the final story was “NTU’s quick fix for SMU search glitch”).

And it happened again when the authorities decided to downplay the inconveniences brought about by the construction work for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games (the headline for the final story was “Our chance in the global limelight”).

Effectively, the work of Chronicle’s reporters were mangled at will to please the authorities, and the student editors merely bystanders in a paper purportedly by the students, for the students.

Perhaps only a greatly watered-down version would have been published in the end, defeating the very purpose of journalism that seeks to investigate and analyse.

The Enquirer is not a response to a single instance of censorship. It is an ideal where journalists who value the freedom from non-editorial influences can fearlessly report.

It is a platform where journalists could serve their community here without compromising on their values and beliefs. Doing what we set out to do takes considerable time, effort and manpower.

If the editorial team must account for some of the failures of the Enquirer, chief among them is the failure to get student reporters excited about such journalism in NTU.

Integration of Singaporeans and new immigrants will require more than just the National Integration Council alone, members of the audience said after the ministerial forum.

Though most of the audience interviewed were positive about the role of the council in fostering integration, some remained skeptical about the extent to which the council alone can effect changes in social and cultural integration.

Mr Pang Li Jian, alumnus from NTU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said forming such an organisation will lead to integration but it will not be significant.

“It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks,” the Singaporean added, expressing his concerns regarding the inflexible views of the local elderly towards foreigners.

Final year Communication Studies student Ms Toh Lee Hoon also shared the same view. “The general sense I get from hawker talks especially with the elder folk is that they view foreign workers as rivals, instead of ‘team members’,” she said. “They do not see the reasons behind the influx of foreign workers.”

During the forum, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at length about the issue of integration and the coming initiatives of the council as one of the government’s “greater efforts at fostering integration.”

The council, set up in April 2009, comprised members from the public and private sector, as well as the community. Its goal will be to ‘drive the integration agenda forward through a concerted effort’ according to Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng earlier this year.

The Straits Times reported in February that 20,513 foreigners took up citizenship while a further 79,167 took up permanent residency last year – an increase from 17,334 who took up citizenship and 63,627 who became PRs in 2007.

In addition, the paper also reported of a $10 million fund that organisations can tap for projects to help immigrants and Singaporeans to get to know each other better.

As integration becomes a pressing issue, many whom the Enquirer spoke to gave suggestions to make integration more effective.

“The initiative will be more effective if it targets the younger segment of the society,” said Mr Pang. He believes that children, when imparted with a strong acceptance towards foreign friends and cultures since young, will grow up and continue this drive of social integration to their children as well.

Meanwhile Mr Goh Wei Han, a doctoral candidate in Computer Engineering believes that the desire to integrate has to come from within, local and foreigner alike. “Internally, they must want to open up and mingle with one another,” the Malaysian said.

“All parties must understand the importance of cultural integration and are willing to work together towards achieving it,” said final year Business student Mr Hindri Susanto. The Indonesian added that the government would need cooperation from both Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans.

The reality for transient foreign workers is this: When times are good, you are hired to work in Singapore to help build this cosmopolitan city. When times are bad, expect to be the first to be sent packing.

This was revealed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the ministerial forum where the government’s stand on the role of transient foreign workers was spelled out in no uncertain terms.

According to PM Lee, in wake of one of the toughest crises experienced by Singapore to date, transient foreign workers bore the brunt of the severe job losses in the first half of 2009.

“And why did it happen? Because the impact was absorbed by the foreign workers and the shrinkage in the work force was taken up by the foreign workers,” he said, “and we have 20,000 foreign workers net; (some) lost their jobs, left, gone away, and they have absorbed and buffered us from the impact.”

Currently, transient workers, employed solely for work purposes, comprise slightly more than half of close to a million foreigners working in Singapore, with more than 100,000 foreigners introduced to the labour force annually in recent years.

Meanwhile, during this same six-month period of crisis this year, PM Lee revealed a little known fact that the number of Singaporeans employed has gone up – with a net employment gain of about 7000.

However, he stressed that this policy of hire-and-fire affects transient workers in particular as they are foreigners hired specifically for work in sectors that Singaporeans typically shun.

And he added these are the workers who not here in Singapore as long-term immigrants because transient workers are solely hired to work and do not settle here for the long run as citizens or as permanent residents.

“More than half of our non-citizens are in fact foreign workers like this. They are here temporarily as long as the economy needs them,” PM Lee said.

“Most of them are transient foreign workers, here to work, not to strike roots,” he said.

Not only do such foreigners serve as a buffer during slumps, their resources can be tapped during periods of economic boom to develop Singapore into a vibrant and economically robust city comparable to New York and Shanghai, he said.

However, Singapore’s casual approach towards employing and dispensing of foreign labour is unsettling.

Mr Roy Wu, a third-year Electrical and Electronic Engineering major at NTU feels such a move would appear to take the efforts of foreigners lightly.

Regarding transient foreign workers absorbing the impact of the weakened economy, Mr Wu said, “As a foreigner, I would feel insecure and feel quite discriminated.”

“Foreigners are a buffer in the work force and used for growing the economy,” he said. “They come to work and when the economy is not good, they are asked leave.”

But others feel that the casual treatment of foreign workers is just one issue among many others.

Ms Felicia Liu, a recent graduate from the National University of Singapore, said the issues faced by foreign workers are triple-fold. Many of them not only rely on a strong economy to find employment but are also subjected to fierce competition among themselves and realise that they are not welcomed the moment there is a downturn.

Ms Liu, who is Singaporean, said, “Foreigners become dispensable goods to us. It is a tough reality for them and it makes some Singaporeans uneasy about how we can commoditise labour this way.”

However, Ms Eveline Danubrata, a final year student from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information said transient workers face tough circumstances whether they are working in Singapore or in other countries that employ them.

And this situation is not about to change.

Ms Danubrata, who has studied in Singapore for nine years and received her Permanent Resident status in 2007, said, “Foreign workers who go to another country to work, in Singapore or overseas, face the same kind of competition so it is not very different.”

All hail new media! Without it, we wouldn’t have four different ways of saying: “Yes, the ministerial forum was awesome.”

An online poll with the question, “How do you find the ministerial forum?” offered “inspiring”, “refreshing”, “fantastic” or “innovative” as answers.

Still, about 3000 people actually bothered to take part and more than 50 had decided what they felt about the forum even before it took place.

No surprise that “innovative” was the most popular choice at press time, since the other choices were even greater declarations of the forum’s brilliance.

But perhaps it was the Internet’s fault that attendance was less than stellar since students could pose questions to the PM on twitter instead of turning up in person.

There were unoccupied seats scattered around the bottom level and the upstairs area was found almost empty.

The last ministerial forum had Lee Kuan Yew gracing the event and the response was so overwhelming a video feed had to be set up, beaming the Minister Mentor live onto another large lecture theatre.

At least this time the question and answer session was more candid and certainly laced with less decorum.

Two years ago, people were breathlessly declaring their honour to be in the same room breathing the same air as the big man himself.

This time around, at least the people who came up to the microphone remembered to ask questions.

At the post-forum reception, the organisers of the forum got really organised.

Arranging themselves and student leaders in three groups, they patiently waited for the Prime Minister to work the room and make his way to them. Lest any of the students strayed from their herd, their group numbers were written on their name tags.

And only those who had a circle round their name tag number could speak to PM Lee – the others, merely formed the backdrop. The consequence of opening your mouth in his presence without the circle of approval was anyone’s guess.

Finally, don’t forget the inaugural twitter dialogue for any ministerial forum. Students were invited to tweet questions to the PM and one of them (not the best, in my opinion) was picked to be answered.

The ironic tweeted question on how new media affects personal interaction should have made way for “How long will you stay in the hot seat before you pass on the baton?” or “do you think Singaporean women should do National Service for at least one year?”

Even acknowledging the electronic showers of adoration (“pm lee u rock…” and “sir, impressive!”) would have been nice.

Oh wait, the PM did wave to the crowd when the moderator drew his attention to “I love u pm lee!”

Wonder if Ho Ching was smiling at that point of time.

How much money is a Singapore citizenship worth?

Budget packages, GST credits, CPF top-ups, subsidies for public housing, education, health and so on.

This slew of financial benefits offered to a Singapore citizen, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, is the reason why a permanent resident from Malaysia recently decided to apply for Singapore citizenship after living here for many years.

Speaking at Nanyang Technological University Student Union’s Ministerial Forum, he told the crowd made up mainly of undergraduates, “I asked her why do you need this? You are a PR, your family is here, there is no problem.”

“She said: ‘If you take citizenship, you get (financial) benefits!’”

While the former American president John F. Kennedy could once proclaim to his citizens to ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country’, such patriotic declarations today might simply drive people to immigrate elsewhere instead.

The onslaught of globalisation has shifted today’s dynamics of citizenship towards the people. The ease of uprooting from one country to another has made each of us consumers in a supermarket world of countries.

The product: Citizenship.

During the forum’s Question-and-Answer session, one international student asked PM Lee on the benefits of becoming a Singapore citizen.

Another haggled with PM Lee to provide affordable housing to attract foreign talent like him to stay in Singapore.

Citing his fiancée and himself as an example, the PhD student from China said it was hard to make Singapore his home without a house. He could not afford a condominium, nor was he allowed to buy a new HDB flat as both his fiancée and him were permanent residents.

Hence, in this global fight for talent, how can Singapore tweak its citizenship scheme into an attractive card that a top talent would want in his or her wallet?

Show them the money.

The lure of low income taxes and attractive subsidies has definitely made Singapore the destination of choice for many. Thus, PM Lee pledged at the forum to sharpen the difference in these benefits so that “citizens come first”.

But how different would citizenship be from a credit card subscription then? If the choice of where to make a home boils down to the place that gives you the most monetary benefits – then what happens when there is no credit left?

To brand our citizenship by highlighting only its financial benefits surely attracts the wrong kind of people.

After all, a nation is nothing more than an “imagined community”. To tie the imagination entirely on money would mean the people, and the country, could be gone in one economic recession.

It is why the appeal of a Singapore citizenship must go deeper. People should want to be citizens of Singapore because of what they can and will do to make it their home.

The pink card in your wallet and the red passport you use to travel is not a key to more money. Rather, it symbolises where you’re from and who you are.

As a popular credit card advertisement puts it:

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s a credit card.