Lands of the Dal

 

A letter to George Bush,

Dear GW Bush s/o G Bush,

I am from Singapore, the capital of kiasuland. We are a country that looks like a drop of cum at the southern end of the penis of asia. When the northern country erected the 2 tallest penis in the world, we have to build 2 hairy balls to complement them.

Now that they have paid US$900m to send one Dr cum Model cum Mamak Cook to the ISS, we must do the same. May I remind you that we have paid BILLIONS to buy some new military planes recently. HINT HINT.

Nevertheless, we are a country that believes in meritocracy, so I am sure our candidates for astronoughts will be picked based on their ability and family connections, rather than the fact we let your warships DOCK FOR FREE at our naval base.

We have plenty of good breeding stock available. We have young military officers who can ensure that your commanding officer will not shirk from his duties or he will send an email to report him. We have a older chap who used to run a charity and he can help run a campaign to raise funds for NASA. We also have an adventurer who loves this country so much that he took up citizenship AFTER he climbed Mt Everest for the Penis of Asia country. We also have 1 million foreigners who can do the job at half the price of locals. This is what makes our country unique.

So let us know where to queue to submit our application form for going to ISS via the space shuttle. If need to, kiasuland can buy the whole bloody thing with our foreign reserves, and ship off our aged people there as rental here is more expensive than in outer space.

We await your favourable response, but hurry up as the lease on the US embassy is going to suddenly expire if you take too long.

Signed

Harry Lee

 今早起来，女佣说“Sir,家里没米啦”。。哟 ！吃得可真快，我得赶快去买。 可我钱包里就只有哪张五块，那够买米？这可真伤脑筋啊。 骑了脚车，就往巴刹 的方向行。心里可不好受，想往当初，一天赚一万块也是 小儿科，每晚吃喝玩乐花一两千是常事。。。 为何会轮落到这个地步？ 能借的都借了，能卖的也卖掉了， 能当的也都当完了。。。 想着想着，哟我到那啦？ 裕廊东 ！ 我 怎会来到这么远 ？ 还好， 这里是市中心，有银行, 一定有提款机。 赶快把提款卡放进提款机，按 了一按， 迎面儿出得字目（sorry, your account do not have sufficient amount ). 户口没钱！ 悲啊。。。 就在这一刻，我看到一间杂货店，里面的老板好像知道我得困境，拿了一大包白米只收了我 那五块，还送我一瓶食油。真好心，谢谢你啦。 我扛了那大包白米 ， 高兴的骑了脚车回家。来到了金文泰，突然迎卖面来了一俩大卡车，我赶快闪辟，结果撞倒了路边的栏杆，脚车翻了，人也跌倒了，那包米转眼都撒在路上。完了，完了，该什么办？ 我周围的人都看呆了，我哭了，我真的哭了，天啊！ 就在我哭的最伤心的一刻，我听到一把好熟悉的声音。 “Sir your call on the phone" 我醒了，还好 只是一梦。。。。

A week ago, I sat down for a coffee with 2 University mates. 3 Engineers minted from the same school, many years ago.

We suffered through endless nights of studying, stared blankly at lecture notes during our first year back in school after 2.5 years of NS, cursed our lack of enjoyment over stacks of books and once in a while, peeped over one another's shoulder during exams.

We couldn't have been more different graduating. One with First Class Honours and a job as Process Engineer lined up in a HUGE US manufacturing MNC before he graduated, one with no Honours and me, well...thought I could outsmart the school system but got outsmarted and "awarded" an extra year in School.

Fast forward back to present, the only one still a practicing Engineer was our bookworm kiasu, first-class honours buddy. We were talking about our individual choices, why we left Engineering and how it would be from here on out.

Mr. First-Class honours was still in the same manufacturing line, Mr. No-class honours was in IT for the past 5 years, Mr. Retain-one-year ran his own small little business.

The fact was, my friend in Engineering was pretty distressed. He saw it coming, his company has been restructuring, moving product lines away from Singapore or building factories overseas with Engineers seconded from Singapore for contracted periods of time. Soon it would be his time to go. He knew it, and it would happen soon. Funny thing was, he wanted to go into Banking/Finance or just become a remisier on his own.

He is no ordinary person. Once he set his mind to something, he made sure he got good at it. During Uni, a lecturer we all considered as racist and never gave Asian students good grades, gave him a distinction after he bitched about his Credit pass all the way to the top and stood amidst the Board of Appeals chaired by the Dean. He would stand behind me in a retarded stupor as I played Blackjack in Jupiters and after a set of cards, follow my winning hands and stay from most of my losing ones.

But now he wanted out of Engineering. BIG TIME and BADLY. He had practically blitzed the ST701, ST Classifieds, Jobstreet, JobsDB etc with his resume and wrote tons of Cover Letters explaining his intention to enter into the Finance/Banking Sector. He even took IBF certifications to qualify for the relevant jobs. I related my experiences of finding a crossover job, citing all the nonsense I heard about "lack of experience", "no relevant degree", "too old" before venturing out on my own. I even mentioned that perhaps with the IDR, revival of Batam/Bintan economic zones, Engineering would shine again.

He listened intently with the same retarded stupor like back then at the blackjack table. I told him not suffer the same indignation, start his own business, I could help him finance some of it.

I'm glad I was wrong and, as usual, under-estimated him.

Today, in 1 months time, it will be goodbye Mr. Big-MNC-Engineer, Hello Mr. Big-Foreign-Bank-Relationship Manager.

Well, the catch is, he would have to sell "Wealth Management" Products and go through 3 months of vigorous training with kids in their 20s. Maybe even see him around Bugis MRT canvassing sales. But goodness knows that in a few years time, I would have to grovel to him for financing my business. :)

His story is an exception to the norm. Stay as an Engineer in Singapore and you will be prodded like cattle in a slaughterhouse toward the light at the end of the tunnel that leads to an untimely demise. The sooner you wake up and see the world of diversity around you beyond your factory walls, the brighter your future is ahead of you.

Get out while you can. Engineering Degree perhaps, but Engineering Career in SG?

Forget it.

Smell it. Taste it in the air. It is there.

I woke up in the middle of the night, a sense of polity denied. Cold shuddering and unwholesome freeze, blown by the air of stale rotting flesh, a man, a son and his unholy dotted empire. Why have it come to this? It truly is not what I see. I walk to my little China made box of circuitry, thinking how to express the cold ends of my fingers. I know I live in happiness and harmony. I know I am thankful for all these. I am confused by the self same smell of rotting polity. 

The means of my expression is littered with hounds of the rotten regime, thus I am sure this is the device of the governor to contain the freedom of expression by fear. This I am sure. For all the doubts of happiness, I am sure I am contained from expressing conscience polity. 

How do I reconcile with my conscience polity? To do nothing is one option within the choice of life. It is one of silence in perpetuity. I closed my eyes and thought about the other option of this choice. In black I will walk for conscience polity in one September day, to mourn the death of conscience, in the faintest hope for the return my departed soul of polity and choice.

We are made human, to be subject of the same confusion of choice. The act of choosing is deep in our soul. With all the greatest endowment, there is nothing like having the right to choose; who to rule, how to be ruled, and in what fashion bound by the restraints of law. It is not what is in me that I yearn for, but what I cannot see that I want; the heart of the matter, the freedom of my soul. Everyday does not pass till I ask - How free am I, how lasting can this silent submission last before the true dictator test us in our path? I ask not to be more than what I am now. I do not yearn for anything other than the freedom to be.

The pure, wonderful and humane concepts in our history have always been corrupted in some way by the offspring they sire. The Catholic Church , a religious institution meant to be a shining moral beacon and it's hideous progeny (courtesy of Mary Shelley) of rich, fat Monsignors bloated with trappings of wealth. Where does the wealth come from? Plebians the likes of us.The Shaolin Monks who are suing a Japanese for belittling their martial prowess, when they ought to have laid down the concern for reputation in their Buddhist pursuit of enlightenment. Praetorian Guard established by Augustus as a personal retinue for protection became so powerful they could bestow Emperor titles on those with sufficient aurei. So tell me did history not teach us or have people chosen to live, looking at the world through rose tinted lenses.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Most students think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Rather, I believe that education is not an "instrument of exploitation" but rather has "noble ends", teaching us how to think properly; intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education.

Academic study and achievements are not mere tools for personal advancement. They should be utilized in the pursuit of happiness for others, and university study should be devoted to serving and contributing to the lives of those unable to pursue advanced learning themselves. The purpose of education indeed, is to cultivate wisdom to protect the nameless ordinary citizens of our world.

Education should aim to foster capable individuals- capable leaders, in particular, to protect the people. The world we live in seethes with egoism, arrogance and intrigue. Those who dwell therein never know when they will be betrayed or brought down. It is a frightening world where the weak and deprived are dominated, abused and taken advantage of by the rich and the powerful.

What then, can enable one to hold on to one's integrity and commitment to justice in such an environment?

You cannot win simply by numbers or going through the motions. Strength and ability are important. No matter how many people you have on ur side, if they are not strong, they will vanish when crisis arises.

Let us reaffirm the important task of education to foster capable leaders who will use their strength and ability, their intellect, knowledge and wisdom to protect the people, revive their spirit and strive for the peace and happiness of all humanity.

I have been considering to apply for medical school. I feel that being a doctor is a very practical profession that combines hard, honest work (many professions end up being dirty... e.g. criminal law or finance with all the insider trading) with status (people respect doctors) and a decent pay ($6-8k, quite comfortable) and most of all, utility. My other interests would possibly be journalism or law, but i am sure that a doctor can still write in his free time, while a journalist or lawyer will never be able to practise medicine.

Well, medical school is not that easy to get into. 6000+ applicants, 600 shortlisted, 250 taken in. That's a 3% success rate, and i'm sure that amongst the 600 shortlisted, 4A students are a dime a dozen. To show the extent of the competitiveness, Harvard, Yale and Stanford boast a 9% admission rate, while other Ivy League universities such as Cornell or UPenn range from 15-20%. Hence, getting into NUS med sch is 3 times harder than getting into Harvard which is often acclaimed as the best university in the world and the gold standard of American education. Perhaps this can be attributed to the intake- 250 per batch for medicine compared to 1800 for Harvard. But that still doesn't change the odds.

The environment in Raffles Junior College isn't exactly very conducive for making new friends. The environment is so competitive that many people either have no time for their own social life or are so suspicious of the people around them that they do not make true friends. Moreover, people here are hypocrites. They always pretend that they will do badly for examinations and pretend to not know anything about studies when you try to approach them for help, and it always happens that they are the ones who score better than you do.

They are losers, literally. They will always mock at you for studying or what they refer to as "mugging", when they do so at home too, and maybe in even greater intensity and longer periods of time. If you do not want to study, do not stop others from doing so. You have your own life, I have mine. You have no right to determine what I do with my life because I know very well what is good for me and what is not. If you want to say that I have "no life", why not take a moment to evaluate yourself first.

Very often, many of the people who said that to me are far worse off than me. Maybe I should not use the word "worse" because there is nothing wrong with me, but just in case they find me too cocky, I shall stick to it. Think about your own life and compare it with mine. I live my life happily. I know when to study hard and when to play hard, unlike some people who wants to dissuade me from studying so that they will do better than me. That is a indicator that they are losers. In addition to all that, I contribute to the society by doing volunteer work. Do you?

Spend a moment asking yourself the questions I have asked you in this prose. You do not have to tell me the answers but if you still think that you are worthy enough to lecture me on living my life, go ahead, but before that, I shall share with you this quote:

"看看别人,想想自己." It literally translates to looking at others and reflecting on yourself. It's a very simple but meaningful quote which has stayed with me all my life since I heard it, as a piece of advice for myself in my social life. Very often, we do not like a person's behaviour but we do not realize that we, ourselves, actually display the similar behaviour. Instead of confronting that person for that behaviour straight away. Why not reflect on yourself on whether you display a similar behaviour and correct yourself before you consider whether to confront him.

Peace out.