Days Of Past Futures: Parte the Seconde

[Please check Parte The Firste first.]

“Oh no, no no, you don’t need to apply for PR. That’s not necessary,” said HR person at another ambush [E@L means "meeting"] the following week.

~~~~

Over the prior weekend, E@L had pressed SEND on a letter to the CEO and the HR person about his situation regarding the Expat Package he’d been on since he negotiated it and they (the same *they* as they ever was, in the sense that The Four Tops are still The Four Tops despite complete personnel change several times over) had signed it nine years earlier.

E@L suggested in his email that the CDHCC4 (CosmoDemonic Health Care Company #4*) make some changes to the offer that had been thrust under his nose the previous week, specifically to support him in a belated request to the Singapore Family Government for PR (Permanent Residency), the successful receipt of which would provide them with a more benign way of castrating his lifestyle. 

Would they support his application for PR, and/or, OK, wait until Xmas to implement said changes even if PR had not completely come through, he suggested by way of reasonable compromise. 

Only then all those wonderful features that make life worth spending on would be cast asunder. The money that enabled him to buy delicious craft beer as his drinking cohorts wallowed in such mass-brewed poisons as Tiger, Asahi, or even Carlsberg (“I am not a pauper,” he would say as he paid $20 for a small bottle of zesty craft XPA or sour while they paid a bargain $9 for 2-4-1- pint of their shudder-inducing brew.); that enabled him to travel to Europe for a fortnight each year; that enabled him to put money away for a rainy day, such as the financial tropical thunderstorms that deluge one should a serious illness occur (again, heaven forfend). 

PR had some benefits - he would be able to stay in Singapore for 6 months without a work visa, should the bottom fall out his employment (ha, as if), and look for re-employment (maybe CDHCC#2 would have him back?). He could legitimately win the lottery, or buy an apartment (shoulda bought a place in 2005/6) with lower stamp duty. He could get cheap health-care. (As if he's gonna need that.)

PR had at least one limitation - he would have to contribute a fair chunk of his already greatly reduced salary to the CPF (Central Provident Fund), the country's pension. And by all accounts it would be difficult to get it all back, if and when he decided to leave Singapore.

~~~~~

But HR person cast his suggestions for support  in a PR application and a delay until Xmas aside with an amount of eagerness and urgency, E@L thought in retrospect eighteen months later. 

“No no no, you didn’t need to apply for PR! That’s not necessary. 

"After considering your letter, we agree it is a too sudden a change for you [You smug, overpaid, under-performing leech - E@L could hear under her voice], and we have decided to delay the retraction of your housing allowance and utilities allowance until the end of this financial year. So you will still have your allowances for another six months, and that will give you time to find a cheaper apartment. However, [pause]... we will be stopping your business class flights.” 

Shock horror. He hardly travelled anymore anyway since his change of role. [Did E@L mention that?] 

Of course E@L didn’t wish to lose E@LGHQ, and said as such, without the acronym. He explained that he had already sent an email to his USA-based landlord asking for rent reduction due the CEC (Current Economic Climate), and if a sub-let of one of his bedrooms could be made official. The rooms were already taken on part-time/full-time sub-rosa terms, but he thought he should make at least one room official. The landlord later replied in the affirmative for both suggestions, allowing a 15% cut in rent - down to merely outrageous - and he just needed a work-permit for the proposed "new" tenant, to check over, for legal reasons, with the condominium’s management.

HR lady and silent CEO were fine with this. "We're OK with you staying wherever you can afford. It will no longer be our concern."

~~~~~

A reprieve, therefore, temporarily, for 

E@L

* OK all you smarty-pants, what's the reference?

In Unrelated News: Umbrella Sales Have Plummeted

E@L has noticed, or their presence has been thrust upon him by the number of diversions and obstruction to his perambulations lately, sheltering awnings being constructed on footpaths (motorised-scooterpaths, motorised-skateboardpaths, shared-bikepaths) all around District 11 in recent months. He first noticed it when bus-stops were becoming linked to other bus-stops and to MRT stations with these rain aggregators and warm-air accumulators, and when very high shelters were being built over the driveways of condos and the petroleum dispensing convenience stores in his vicinity.

Rain aggregators? Because there is no guttering, the water falls in sheets from either side in drops larger than rain itself and, if there's a wind, it blows them onto the pedestrians (scooter riders, skateboard riders, bicyclists) with an enhanced density no matter where they traverse under the awning.

Warm-air accumulators? Because the hot sun blasting onto the roofs of these shelters warms them up like an oven to cook the scalps of passing alopeican pedestrian (etc.), while the exhaust from passing traffic gathers in its lees to makes the air taste stale and noxious.

And what happens when one walks in their umbrage, expecting an alleged degree of protection, as could possibly be the case, E@L concedes, in certain instances, and one had therefore left home sans umbrella and sans beret, but then, without warning, they stop. One becomes bereft of their shelter on exiting District 11, E@L supposes. E@L will tell one what happens. When the weather is inclement, or extra-clement as the case may be, one gets wet, and the bald ones get frontally, parietally, and temporally scorched.

Is this the Singapore one is comfortable (oh so comfortable) living in?

Add to this the luminal pollution! Singapore already has the highest light pollution score in the world, and when the many globes in these pathways are turned on at night, they will add (by reflection from the expanded areas of concrete beneath one's foot presumably) to this plethoric aura, it could jump a few places even higher!

By the way (way = path, geddit?), speaking of concrete, in order to foot (foot = walk, geddit?) the stands for this urban extravaganza, some of the paths do have to be widened, and so the council of District 11 (did E@L tell everyone he lives in District 11?) has decided it is an opportune time to build over many of the open drains which festoon the area. Shame! These rain-water runoffs do not sit filled with noisome stagnant "water" as in many other SEA cities (Bangkok, Jakarta, take a bow) but act efficiently when the downpour hits, and their lusty bubbling sounds are most restful E@L finds, from the shelter of his umbrella as he trudges in sodden sandals down the slight rise from Spooky Mansion* on Gilstead Rd. Hardly any of the children from the adjacent kindergarten fall in and get washed away, never to be seen or heard from again. Those open spaces are often the homes to well-rooted trees of prodigious size and they really add to the indiscrete charm of this bourgeois part of town. E@L will miss them (the trees, the gutters, the bourgeoisie), as he often does, fortunately, when rolling home mostly inebriated and partially disoriented from a night at various pub trivia events (his sole social encounterings these long, wearying days).

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

But E@L's sense of outrage is actually more of political and economic nature, and the prior observations are demonstrative of mild (indeed hypothetical) inconveniences to himself. Grumpy E@L Syndrome. Something akin to the infamous existential angst the great German writer Thomas Mann experienced when confronted (y-fronted) by the inconvenience that No.4 size underpants were too small, and No.5 size underpants too big. "Acid indigestion and constipation!" he exclaimed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The true cause of E@L's adversarial stance to these structures is their demonstration of the outlandish profligacy of governmental expenditure - viz: it must cost a fucking fortune. Yes, surprise surprise surprise, the Singapore Gahmen has shit-loads of money. Obviously. Money to spend on completely unnecessary projects like these. (Take a fucking umbrella, people. You live in the fucking tropics! It's either going to be fucking hot, or fucking hot AND fucking raining at 2pm!)

Point being: they could be allocating this money elsewhere - especially social welfare (how many aunties and uncles cleaning up after in hawker centres for a pittance because they have no other income, or a living pension, or family support?), and a minimum wage... The Gahmen can complain about the loss of billions on bad investments, yet still have money floating around to fund grandiose extension to the MRT systems (already brilliant) and these dicky-little footpath covers. Jaysus!

~~~~~~~~~

Singapore political blogger Yawning Bread recently asks the question as to why would a country feel proud that hawker food is really cheap, and answers that it should be a national embarrassment that many Singaporeans don't make enough money to afford anything more elaborate. Hawker food for Singaporeans could be thought of (if it wasn't so brilliant) as the equivalent of what Maccas is for the indigent and for poor families in other countries. YB's issue is that lack of a minimum wage is screwing the spread of income, and income disparity is the underlying reason for cheap food in hawker centres.

Maybe we ought to be ashamed of our hawker prices and food court scene. The contradiction between the wide demand for cheap food and the high per-capita GDP suggests something really wrong with income and wealth distribution in Singapore.
~~~~~~~~~

When E@L hit the town in 2004, he purchased the most brilliant laksa he had ever had for $2.50. Now, 15 years later, in certain stalls in certain hawker centres, he can buy an equally damn good laksa for, maybe, $4.00. The YB link above cites a mothership.sg article on a hawker stall where the $1 price of a nasi lemak has remained unchanged for 32 years. You can't tell E@L that costs of producing this deal of a meal haven't risen extortionately.

And people says there's such a thing as progress!

~~~~~~~~~

Mind you, since certain changes *cough* have progressed (regressed?) at work, E@L's salary is not a million miles/dollar from what it was in 2004, and in fact it is a tad reduced from those yawning heights, plus he doesn't get business class flights on long hauls anymore. Even so, he remains a (slightly less) ridiculously overpaid expat, dragging away employment opportunities from locals, and he can go to Woolies and rack up a $200 bill in a heart-beat. (You can too, rich reader!)

Or E@L can get a taxi to a hawker centre, as has often done, which may seem perverse ($15 ride to get a $10 feast - including a large Tiger) when the MRT and buses are so cheap and convenient.

There is a bipolar wage level in Singapore... Income disparity. Do we blame capitalism, fascism, the PAP/Gahmen/Lee family, cult of personality, Thomas Picketty, Obama, Reagan & Thatcher & Malcolm Fraser, cultural Marxbrothersism, libertarianism, communism, Ismism?

Or do we blame "foreign talent" such as

E@L?


*Spooky House.

Design and Discrimination

E@L and some of his colleagues were in a meeting all afternoon yesterday with two Head Office bigwigs (head of design, and ex-president) who were there to tell the wonders of what they had been doing all these years to justify their stay at the Fullerton Hotel while the our corporate profits tank. [No, they're not tanking, actually. Stock prices are up 15% in the last three months. You should have bought in 2008, as should have E@L. 300% recovery. Anyway, /digression.]

They only spoke Japanese, but their slides were in English. Nevertheless they read each line, or E@L gathered they did by the tracks of the laser pointer, in Japanese. Then each phrase they had spoken had to be translated for us, and the translator also used a laser pointer to go over each point on the slides carefully. Tedium. Once, the speaker and the translator got a bit lost / confused. They chattered on in Japanese while they perfected the oral translation -- for 4min and 35secs. For the ONE SLIDE - and it was already written there in English. How do I know it was 4:35? One of my colleagues who i thought was taking notes but was actually working on next week's training schedule, timed them. E@L was wondering which of us would get shot when we were the first to stop clapping after one of Stalin’s four hour speeches.

~~~~~~~

Turns out these guys weren’t all that boring, deep down. After a tea-break they got into some much more interesting freestyle speeches. AND it turns out one of them could speak English moderately well after all! (There’s 4:35 of my life I’ll never get back.)

They had graduated up to near-god status in the medical ultrasound world from their base experience designing washing machines, all those years ago [Tom Stoppard reference]. This caused a suppressed snigger up the back. Not because there is anything wrong with this company's washing machines, they’re quite good in fact, it’s just washing machines don’t have printers, and neither does our latest ultrasound model.

However the main guy said, interestingly, that he went to design school with the most famous unknown legend you’ve never heard of, Fukuda Tamio, who was the key design consultant whose famous(?) 1993 report to Samsung triggered a major turn around in their industrial philosophy, by pushing for higher emphasis on design for convenience, not just better technology. This was in their mobile phone business - back when they were battling Motorola (remember them) and not Apple.

According to legend, as recounted to E@L yesterday, Samsung Electronic’s President, Lee Kun Hee, read Fukuda-san’s report on a flight from Seoul to Frankfurt and was so charged by it that he called for a meeting of 200 executives from around the world in Frankfurt in just two days time, to discuss its implications and the turn around in thinking it demanded.

“Change everything except your wife and children,” he famously said, in a what we would now call a sexistually [new word!] discriminatory speech, to the jet-lagged execs on that landmark day.

And the rest, E@L’s acquaintances, is history.

~~~~~~~

Speaking of discrimination...

~~~~~~~

Yeah, so there had been 18 odd people of various ethnicities sitting, fascinated, in the room. A dozen approx at the boardroom table and six less important types (like E@L) up the back in chairs against the wall, passing secret notes and giggling, like at the washing machine and printer hilarity. When the slide said “circuit bore”, it was not a self-disparaging comment on the travelling roadshow lifestyle of the speakers, but a misspelling of “circuit board”. Stop laughing, ow, my jaw hurts, my belly is in cramps from this punitive tsunami of amusement and jocularity.

This morning E@L sees one of those people, a guy from the adjacent office, walk through OUR office on a short-cut to the toilet. Sigh, They do it all the time. One day, someone’ll catch E@L in mid snooze…

E@L asks his cute (but married) Chinese colleagues - who had been sitting next to him at the back wall yesterday - if she knew the name of that senior guy, the Indian man, who E@L sees all the time but could never remember his name since they were first introduced two years ago, who works in the office next door, important, finance maybe, the man sitting to Yai-Wan.

CBMCC: What Indian man?

E@L: You know, the Indian guy. The balding one with glasses. Is it Danesh?

CBMCC: There was no Indian guy there yesterday.

E@L: Of course there was. The guy next to Yai-Wan. [In this instance E@L’s memory was clear - Yai-Wan is also cute.]

CBMCC: That was Takazumi-san.

E@L : No, there was an Indian guy BETWEEN Yai-Wan and Takazumi-san.

CBMCC: There was?

E@L : … You just don't see brown people, do you? They're not real to you. It's like they’re some sort of non-people.

CBMCC: Noooo (laughing)... I didn’t see anyone, because Tim was in the way, that’s why. I really couldn’t see him.

E@L : I KNOW you couldn’t see him! That’s my point! It’s because he’s of the melatonin enriched races isn’t it? Because of the colour of his skin! He might as well not be there. Singapore will have 9million in 2125 and you won’t even see 3million of them! You Chinese are just so… so fucking… so racist!

She was pissing herself laughing at this btw (it's the way E@L tells 'em), couldn't believe she didn't see him, but it was due to where she was sitting. Yeah, right. Like there were thousands of people crowding the room.

E@L: Oh Singaporean, why li dat so racist one?

CBMCC: (hitting at E@L with her tiny fists) Nooooo! It’s not like that!

~~~~~~~~


Ooooooh, yes it is.


E@L

PEP, EP or PR. IKYN.

His Personalised Employment Pass lasted for 5 years. It gave E@L, well, 5 years of hassle-free residence in The Little Red Dot (TLRD {aka: DWTDP}). It was not Permanent Residence (PR) but, hey, no need to pay 15% of his salary into a lame-arse, opaque investment, Gov't superannuation scheme, viz: the Community Provident Fund (CPF). But he does pay about $50 more for a game of golf (GOG) than a PR would.

No, with this PEP E@L could stay in TLRD for an extra six months after any termination of employment (as if they'd let him go!) in order to seek an equivalent fat package from one of the other big players in the field (not including Philips, burned his bridges there). Otherwise it would be only a month before a visa run would be required, and an apartment in Surat Thani secured.

OK, it's cool, E@L is in a BigCompany(tm) these days, his preferred employer swallowed yet again Jonah-like into the belly of some fresh corporate beast. And that size company means an efficient human resources (HR) department that will sort it all out, right? *wobbles hand*~~~ish...

Ah, no-no-no! An eight storey building, all one company, right? Right? Wrong. Each division is a separate entity with its own HR. Only 45 people in our sub-company. One lady doing it all. Sigh. Corporations these days, what can you do?

Yet E@L's PEP was on the cusp of expiring. He had until Friday.

Our lone HR lady had faxed the paperwork to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) three weeks ago. We all figured it was going through the internal machinery; chuffa-luffeling through those pipes behind the walls; turning under the power of springs and cogs; sucked up by singing vacuums; whirring dizzily through the typewriters; faxes and teletext machines, concentrated on by bespectacled men in suits in Dickensian offices; with cowering amanuenses scribbling down the wisdom of great men's opinions on the suitability of foreign talent (FT) these days; photocopied here and there; stamped by officials with their square Chinese name stamps and their round Chinese company stamps; initialed by execs; digitalisised [sic] and whisked as fast as electrons into databases and random access memories (RAM) (And then, one day, I got in!); glowing on tri-colored crystal displays; duly filed and uploaded; dutifully backed-up; emailed and copied to all; archived; printed; stored; checked and sorted; all done and approved.

Just waiting for the call.

~~~~~~~

However.

On Wednesday, still no news. E@L was at the ANZAC dawn service (no, shamefully, he was fast asleep) and hence late for work. The HR lady and E@L's office manager (OM) had been checking online for his application's progress through the MOM and thought it rather ... strange ... disconcerting ... that there was no record of E@L's application at the MOM's on-line, check your status, don't bother us we're busy, information site.

"We can't get in, to check the progress. There is no record of your application having been filed," they (HR lady and OM) told him as he placed his kopi (upsize, still warm, carried all the way from Tampines Central Mall) on his office desk. He stood erect, his fists on the desk in front of him, looking sternly over his still-slightly fogged (aircon -> 100% humidity -> air-con) sunglasses. He tried to look like a bigwig who was going to say something serious. HR lady was fidgety. She was apologetic and looking awkward. Perhaps she was worried than E@L would be upset. Mmmm, thought E@L, and HR lady waited, turning her head slightly side to side, (she's not from the sub-continent), dancing from foot to foot...

"Mmmm", said E@L. "Without that employment pass (EP) I'm grounded, work-wise, right?" She nodded. Thinks: OK, that's it, down tools, work finished, no visa, no more slaving over a hot tablet playing Words With Friends in the office. He'd have to do that all that tuff stuff by the pool at E@LGHQ instead.

"Whatever," shrugged E@L. It sounded a good deal to him, as he repacked his man-bag with Samsung 7.7 Tab (new toy, not really happy, font-size too small), his Kindle, reading glasses and a fifth of bourbon. "Let me know."

"Ah, no, you can still work, at least until Friday. I am sure we can get a 30 day extension. But you will have to go online to cancel your current PEP." That might, she said, sort out the some issues, like with overstaying his visa. But he needed a SingPass.

A what?

He needed to register and obtain a password (forgotten it already) that will allow him to access the government's many sites that are interactive, where official things can be, um, interacted with. Like cancelling PEPs for example. He took an hour off and wandered to the CPF building where he could check in with a little old lady (LOL) at the SingPass desk to obtain this on-line avatar. FIN (no idea) number of his PEP, passport sighted and a new password (he has so many different passwords - not, he has two and no idea which this one is) was on its way. She looked up, smiled, and said he could now log-in and bring down the structure of the entire electronic edifice of Singapore should he so desire. Or just cancel his PEP.

Back to the office and puts fresh kopi, upsize, on the desk. Log-ins. Follow instructions, as printed out by HR lady.

"There is no record of an application for a replacement EP. Please enter a valid reason for PEP cancellation," said the computer screen. Valid reasons? E@L has not finished his contract of employment and leaving the country. He has not lost his PEP. He is not pregnant. WTF?

Mmm. Back to paragraph one.

What to do? If nothing came through by Friday, E@L would become an "overstayer" and essentially a criminal in the eyes of Singapore's notoriously forgiving uncompromising judiciary. The fine? The cane? The noose? Even worse, his BigCompany(tm) could get fined, and they don't want that says HR lady. And E@L would have a black mark on his passport for sure. Overstaying is not an option. Must get an extension or do that visa run on Friday.

Travel-wise, (for work) even with an extension, temporarily, he is screwed. He'd have to hand over the current (expired) PEP at outmigration and come back in on the white entry form for a maximum of 3 months of doing nothing - on a tourist visa - as no work is allowed (unless you are run by a snake-head in orchard Towers or Geylang). Work-wise, maybe some gardening coming up.

PR lady and OM were on the phone all day (well, three or four calls) and kept getting no help at all from the MOM Help Center. Eventually someone twigged that the PEP work visa renewals are done manually - there was none of the above-spoofed electronic complexity. Further investigations showed that the file was sitting in someone's in-tray. Had been for weeks. And today was that person's day off. IKYN.

Sigh.

E@L was on the web almost instantly seeking a solution to this devastating dilemma. It was a terrible situation, the world was falling down around his ears, and all other senses and body-parts related to his head. OMG! E@L was in a frantic panic!

He had to make an urgent decision! Book a flight for Phuket or Hua Hin? Maybe Koh Samui. Bali? Cebu? How could he decide at short notice? Either that or skip to the Malaysian border at the causeway, hand in his PEP card, as mentioned, play a GOG (so much cheaper than as a non-PR in Singapore), fill in a white tourist form, as mentioned, and all would cool. Except work.

~~~~~~~~

Eventually, early Thursday, HR lady got through to the hyper-efficient doofus at the MOM (in this country which is a paragon and bench-mark of efficiency world-wide) who had overlooked the urgency of E@L's PEP application. He, for only a man could fuck things up as grandly and as casually as this, banged a few contact points on his keyboard and the required information was officially in progress.

This meant E@L could go in to MOM (in person) on Friday and pick up the Temporary 30 Day Extension for both his work visa and something for the immigration people.

(Sigh. E@L had been planning to work from "home" on Friday. He had organized with some friends to head to Marina Bay Gold Club (MBGC) for an expensive GOG first thing in the morning! Cancelled now!)

OM went with him. Appointment was in the afternoon. He could have played the GOG after all!

Look at all fancy chairs for the staff, said OM. E@L thought they looked like Aerons, certainly something Hermann Millerish. OM tells E@L that the enormous amount of money (from PR and citzens' CPF no doubt) spent last year on seats for bums was quite controversial at the time. They are Hermann Millers. E@L paid more for a non-Miller. Damn.

Temporary visa notes handed over quite quickly by another LOL, no smile this time, but E@L wondered if those comfy chairs were not part of the problem. He knows that lazing back on them is immensely, emotionally soothing (he had lazed, emotionally soothed, amazed, on Aeron chairs in the Philips office in Hong Kong all those years ago). Had Mr Paperwork-In-In-tray been asleep? Maybe, like E@L, he was internally retired.

~~~~~~~~

Notification of approval of his work pass came through this Thursday, 6 days after the PEP period ended, a month after the application was submitted. The PEP was, as E@L mentioned in para one, a 5 year pass. It turns out that this can only be given once. It has to be replaced (if the application is accepted) by a conventional EP.

This time E@L was only granted a 1 year EP? WTF? He will have to go through this again in 12 months. It's almost like Singapore doesn't want E@L to stay!

~~~~~~~~

Perhaps he should apply for PR to avoid this threatened annual thing?

While one of E@L's buddies, who is essentially a pauper, was denied, several of E@L's better paid buddies have been granted PR easily. A few years ago this was. They walked into PR-hood as if MOM was giving away quasi-citizenship with MacDonald's Happy Meals at that time.



But he it is getting harder and harder to obtain PR these days, despite the Gahmen's own recommendations that more and more FT and PR are required up for a declining population (or to make more kids?). And not unsurprisingly there continues to be quite a controversy (nicely understated by mrbrown) about dilution of the Singaporean population and its (Chinese?) identity.

(This is not a Singapore-only debate. World-wide, easing of immigration laws thanks to the need of corporations [those who truly run the world, not governments] in globalization campaigns for easy flow of workers, has led to increasing conflicts, calls for isolationism and a sometimes vicious backlash against those who support immigration. These attitudes are prevalent in Australia too [a nation of genocidal immigrants], where refugees on leaky boats are hassled and turned back, and where Pauline Hanson gets elected to State Parliament?)

Anyway, EP or PR, it gets complicated.

E@L

I <3 Singapore - ish.

This post is not *just* a shameless piece of self-aggrandizement (see prevous post) but after nearly 8 years here, E@L is forced to admit that he agrees with the opinions expressed in the following article.

Ten Reasons Why I Love Singapore.

~~~~~~~~

Six or seven years ago E@L would have ripped this article to shreds or at least rewritten it, emphasizing the negative aspects of the Singapore attributes that have been given a jocularly positive spin in this article.

Something like:

1. Efficiency
Yes, slave labour, stimulated by the threat of being burned with a hot iron or thrown out a 19th floor window, or merely by the promise from a snakehead people-trafficker of a salary marginally above the starvation levels of poverty you have left your family to wallow in at home (c.f. Slumdog Milionaire), will give you that.

2. Late-night Singapore
Late? LATE? You've never been to Hong Kong then. E@L once heard the expression: "If New York is the city that never sleeps, Hong Kong is the city that doesn't even blink." Singapore, even at its liveliest - when kids in pyjamas are playing in the Clarke Quay fountain at 11pm - can't match it.

3. Anytime, anywhere
Nothing that you want. Everything that you already have. Such as "Singapore is a Fine City" fridge magnets. Grant you the omnipresent hookers though.

4. The small details matter
Like the 20c charge for the wet napkin, whether you use it or not.

5. Cheap parking
OK, parking is cheaper than Sydney, but that's not saying much. The COE ensures that rational people avoid private transport. Only the poor are gullible enough to go into massive debt to buy a status symbol at twice its actual price, whereas the comfortably well off (i.e. E@L) call a taxi.

6. Reliable service
Reliably rude, off-hand and dismissive.

7. Changi Airport
Terminal 3. WTF. Built on a scale that anticipates the days when humans will be 30ft tall and can walk 2km in 7.8secs from a standing start. Ever lost luggage coming into Singapore? The people in the miniscule Lost Luggage Cupboard are usually asleep or absent or both. Never encountered such an inefficient bunch, and E@L has had lost luggage all over the place.

8. Predictable weather
God is laughing. Ha.

10. A multi-cultural city
Bloody whingeing Australians everywhere you look.


E@L

On The Bedpost Overnight

What is Singapore coming to? Yesterday, guess what E@L found on the sole of the left hand foot of his new walking shoes?

No, no that.

It was chewing gum!

USED chewing gum! Chewed up and spat out chewing gum! I felt like giving LKY a personal call to point out that the No1 son is falling down in his vigilance against the creeping tide of non-Asian Values!

~~~~~~~~~~

The history, just cheeking it up on Stickypedia, of the chewing gum ban is mouth-wateringly interesting. It was the new MRT subway system that prompted the ban as vandals - aka cheeky kids - were plugging over the sensors which prevented the doors from closing properly. And so it was the Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and not Harry Lee who stuck to his gums [sorry] guns in implementing this crackdown on illicit mastication with Singapore Statute Chapter 57, the Control of Manufacture Act.

But ban chewing gum? IS THAT ALL! E@L is thinking, what! old chums, hardly much of a punishment, eh? Cane the rambunctious little rascals, trousers down, six of the best, never did us any harm. As we used do for your typical common or railroad urban artists, wherever they be from.

The ban is not complete, as sugarless chewing-gum has been available in Singapore since 2004 for it can't be denied, apparently, that calcium lactate can boost the strength of enamel. This medicated gum can only be sold by dentists or pharmacists now and the gum is RFID controlled and DNA tagged. Hand over that ID card you cheeky kid, we've got you sequenced. Any problems with the MRT doors and we'll know if it was you! ... No, stop crying, lad, I was only having a laugh, big boys don't cry, here have a lolly...

(aside 1) Bringing a large bag of chewing-gum packets purchased in the Hong Kong airport in through carry-on luggage is not something E@L would ever unless it was for a pretty lady, because it remains illegal to import.

(aside 2) One finds it a tad ironic to consider that what we are chewing is basically flavored latex (or artificial substitute), and it was on the back of the Malayan rubber plantations that the port city of Singapore rode to its pre-war prosperity.

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There was some gnashing of teeth and chewing of the fat during the time when USA and Singapore were going through free-trade talks (remember that hilarious one about Free Trade and Democracy going hand in hand, so funny) at the turn of the century. [I'm looking for reports on the Dreyfus Case, or I go wool-gathering in Antiques Shoppes when I hear that phrase.] Staunch defenders of the Rights Of Man were there to assist our world leaders make the right decision...

Here we see GWB smiling, smirking, leering - what is that stupid look? - as PM Tong stabs himself in the back of the hand with a pointy-nib pen, surrounded by members of the Wrigley's Iraq task force (see below).


--- "In 1999, United States President Bill Clinton and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed to initiate talks between the two countries for a bilateral free trade agreement (USS-FTA).[5] The talks later continued under the new administration of President George W. Bush. Details of the closed-door negotiations are unknown, but it became apparent that by the final phase of the negotiation in early 2003, there remained two unrelated issues: the War in Iraq and chewing gum." (from the above linked Wiki) ---


IKYfuckingN.

Yes, that's why they were there, because if Wrigley's doesn't stand up for Truth, Justice and the (vaguely formulated - no-one has ever convincingly explained to E@L what exactly is meant by this) American Way*, then who will! And why were Wrigley's brought in, you ask? Was there no wriggle room in the negotiations, couldn't they stretch things more, was there no bounce in their step, were things stuck in the craw and wouldn't go down, would the fruit of the discussion not be juicy? Yes Wrigley's should, indeed, must be involved in the battles which threaten the good of humankind and its salivary secretions. And their long term philosophical profit.

Singapore, indeed everyone should heed the sage advice offered by Wrigley's who fought strongly enameled tooth and nail for the Iraq War Juicy Fruit Concession or JFC [requires disambiguation], when they had this to say, and not tongue in cheek either, about the efforts they put in to encourage Singapore to relax its ban.


--- "There's many examples in our history of things that may have not made short-term financial sense but was the right thing to do in a philosophical or long-term sense," said Christopher Perille, Wrigley's senior director of corporate communications. (ibid) ---


Believe it or not he was talking about Singapore Oral Latex Laws and not the Iraq War. Truer words were never choked upon.

E@L


* What about the Asian Values, what about the Singaporean Way? --- '... as a sovereign state, Singapore had the right to formulate its own policies based on its own unique political and cultural values.' ---

Freedom Come, Freedom Go...

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Several snippets that highlight the contradiction that is the beloved Little Red Dot, i.e. Singapore.

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1: Singapore once again rates highly in the 2011 Heritage Foundation (and WSJ) Index of Economic Freedom. A close second behind Hong Kong, and just ahead of Australia,

[ Aside: Australia comes in 3rd presumably because the Huge Mining Coroprations of Australia recently showed the ease with which they could a) rip the guts out of the country, b) sell it to China and c) change any government that has the temerity to say, "Whoa, enough already, you greedy arseholes, what about letting the small companies have a go? Here's a tax on your obscene profits (that's money left over after all that needed to be spent has been spent) that will provide funding for a scheme that will guarantee truly fair competition for small exploration companies as opposed to the monopolies and cartels that you behemoths call capitalism."

But I came here not to praise Australia, but to bury Singapore.]


An article in Asia Times Online deconstructs the Heritage's methodology, and makes not just a few points about this so-called freedom. For a start they are talking specifically of economic freedom here.

This is not First Amendment friendly stuff. They examine how easy, for example, it is to run roughshod over worker's rights, and sometimes, when they fall out of the trailer trucks that carry them to the construction site, workers themselves. Sorry I meant to say the "flexibility" of the workforce - flexible enough to bend over backward in order to get any job and to be hired and fired on a whim. Slavery would rate highly on this sort of index - oops, did someone mention how some domestic workers are treated here in Whip-a-poor?

According to the Heritage website, "Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself."

That roughly translates as work, consume, die peoples. When I was growing up in Oz, this was not was meant by freedom.

The blinkered simplification of a word like "freedom" without qualification, almost reminds me of the times that George H Bush used to come to the Asian Tiger economies sprouting talk of how free markets and free societies run hand in hand, or was it run with wolves in sheep's clothing?... *cough* *cough* "hhhuuuurrrrrkkkk* Oops, sorry, choking on a bit of vomit there...

John Raulston Saul tore that simplistic truism of Bush Snr's a new arsehole as I remember, in The Collapse Of Globalisation, a few years back.

Then some genuine irony, I mean a conundrum - Hong Kong which ranks #1 in the Economic Freedom Index, also rates extremely highly in freedom of speech and freedom of association, to the point of near anarchy! The exact opposite of what Singapore maintains is the essential political stance for its own economic success! How come?

According to Joe Studwell's Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, it is not because of their political systems at all, but because the families that run them are slightly less corrupt and self-serving than the families that run the countries around them. (About 20 families run Asia. One family runs Singapore and takes in about 60% of its GDP.) It's a lay-down misère (in Australia that means a certain win, not a certain loss) for business where to invest in Southeast Asia or lower China. Fascism or anarchism, it doesn't make a difference if the ports are free and pay-offs are minimal.

Anyway, point of story, don't confuse your freedoms...

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2. In completely unrelated news about freedom (of speech and association), the leader of the Singapore's main opposition party, The Singapore Democrats, Dr Chee Soon Juan, appeal has failed and has been fined $20,000 and given a 20 week jail term (again).

His crime?

Speaking to people.

Talking to people.

Out loud.

In Singapore.

Where you need a licence to talk (or write on a blog, See point #5, below).

Dr Chee is the guy who, in a previous period of incarceration (he's in jail more than he's out of it) was sprayed with cold water and made to stand in front of an air-conditioner. It's not water-boarding but it's not 100% pleasant either, even in Singapore's constantly hot, muggy weather.

Of course that fact that this blatantly political result has gone through in a period leading up to what the ruling family party, the PAP, laughingly call an election, does not reveal anything about the judiciary in Singapore. Not one bit.

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3: Singaporeans are disappearing race(s). In a town that complains of too many foreigners (like me), the locals are not doing enough fucking to breed more locals. The birth rate of 1.16 is way below what is required to replace the population let alone grow it. At this rate Singapore will invert into its own belly button in 20-25 minutes, which is about the time it takes for a Singaporean to find his dick and put on a condom. According to the authorities, it is the Singaporean's fault for not having babies. Too lazy to fuck.

Izzy, who camped at E@LGHQ for fortnight over New Years, put me onto a great quote from blogger Menwongth.

One of my friends, a born-and-bred white-collar Singaporean in her early thirties, married with no children and no intention of having them, commented that some species just don't breed in captivity.

That's not a hundred miles from the truth Gerald Giam (linked above) of the Worker's Party, says; the falling birth is due to "too busy at work, cost of living too high, education system too stressful for children (and their parents), cannot find a place of their own to stay." (My emphasis.)

It's not increased competition from "foreign talent" (like me) but from cheap, unskilled workers for the service industry out of mainland China or skilled(ish) builders from the sub-continent who can be hired for up to a 1/3 lower salaries. The Singaporeans have to work longer, faster, cheaper in order to compete.

Too busy. No place for privacy, no time for sex, lah.

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4: Domestic workers are overpaid. When the wages of slavery rise to the point that Singaporeans rebel, does this mean they are threatening to match the conditions of Hong Kong, where maids can earn more than double, up to about $S1,000 per month and, horror of horrors, they get a day off each week!

Not quite, but an easy solution strikes me. Maybe those Singaporeans who have been squeezed out of work by the foreign talent can drop their extortionate domestic helpers, and utilize the free time given by their own unemployment to wash their own dishes, do their own ironing, fall out their own windows and wipe the arses of their own incontinent aged parents (who themselves lost their employment as Kopitiam cleaning aunties due to foreign talent).

And the ladies might also find the opportunity to squeeze out more babies and rescue the country from irrelevance.

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5. The website where I read most of these stories , The Online Citizen (via Facebook actually) has been gazetted, whatever the fuck that means, to register as a political association, despite being merely a conduit for political news from a variety of sources.

This means, even though it is a loosely (dis)organized community blog, not an organisation, it has to conform to rules that apply to political parties, such a transparency in its leaders and funding and the banning of foreign sources.

The immensely wise and amusing Singapore blogger mr brown, himself once silenced by the Singapore media authorities, takes this latest news to ad ridiculum lengths by suggesting that even taxi-drivers should be gazetted.

[Singabloodypore, run by a former "foregn talent" from Scotland, is also on still top things in Singapore as well.]

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Enough for the moment. Bangkok work is quiet, hence the lengthy blogging. Time to go for a blowjob massage.

E@L