Rilek1Corner

Tag: Singaporeans

  • Long-Term Expat Considers Singapore Home

    Long-Term Expat Considers Singapore Home

    I’m coming up on my 13th year in Singapore.  We don’t say “back home” anymore. This island, with its hum and harmonious society, is home. After 20 years overseas, it’s the U.S. that feels foreign. What keeps us here? The easy answer is, it’s the future. We are in the Asian century. Southeast Asia is on the ascent with Singapore as its regional leader and hub. This is neither by accident nor default, it’s because Singapore Inc. has gotten so many things right. This is a forward-thinking, culturally diverse contemporary entrepot, exporting not only goods but also ideas.

    Singapore, with few natural resources save a strategic maritime position, long ago realized that education was a matter of national security. It scours the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for top students and brings them here on full five-year scholarships to challenge local kids. The students then take their ideas back home with them. Singapore’s six universities are steadily climbing up the league tables. Here, math and science geeks are the cool kids and studying is an honorable pastime. By and large, it’s a meritocracy. We like this, not only because it’s good for our kids to be in this kind of environment, but also for the knock-on effects.

    Singapore gets a rap for being a nanny state. This is generally from those who think the Western model of democracy should be adopted wholesale. Living here for so long has helped me understand how (and why) Singapore has made it work. I’ve also seen how Singapore is exporting “democracy with Asian values.” Much to my benefit, the universities and think-tanks host lectures and workshops. They publish. They bring in heavy-hitters as resident scholars. Countries come through to soft-sell foreign policy, and look for partners. There’s an energy that comes with being a hub.

    We originally chose to come to Singapore with the notion that it was a good jumping-off point to explore Southeast Asia. This is true and we’ve done that, but you don’t need to leave to experience a variety of cultures. Food ennui? Time to dive into an old neighborhood to ferret out the best laksa (local coconut curry with mussels, rice noodles, bean sprouts, and belacan (shrimp paste), and roti prata. Want to see living religions? Hindu festivals are sprinkled throughout the year; Indians travel to Singapore especially for Thaipasum, when the local Buddhist temple uses margarine for its butter sculptures because the real thing will melt in the heat.

    More importantly, when it comes to cultural diversity, by and large, people do more than just “get along.”  This is a big plus. The U.S., among other countries, could learn the art of social harmony. Many places in Asia welcome expats, but most are dominated by one culture. Here, the hodge-podge mingle, happily for the most part. We want our kids to feel more than at home in diversity; we want them to be fluent.

    I like to think that we got beyond the “expat experience,” which has more to do with mindset than tenure. Singapore has a reputation for being “Asia Lite” and there’s no doubt that it’s clean, comfortable and safe, with a bit of exotic. You can treat it like a long-term resort experience. But it’s only “Asia Lite” for those who skim the surface, the people whose experiences are spent primarily in expat circles or institutions. It’s true that Singaporeans, like many locals who are wary of foreigners, can be difficult to get to know. But unless you do this, you’ll always be an expat and an outsider. A Singaporean friend invited me to breakfast at her home with a group of her friends, where the eight of us sat around her huge dining room table and ate very local food. All of the friends were at least second-generation Singaporeans. When the conversation turned to “what is a Singaporean?,” nobody had the answer, but everybody agreed that it was an educated and adaptive creature, aware that its destiny depends on constant improvement and growth.

    When we arrived, there were 4.2 million people; now there are 5.4. Most of that growth has come from immigrants, not all of whom are fully embraced. This is the trade-off that has some of the old-timers grumbling—and keeps folks like us living here. Every other week there’s a new place to eat, adventure to try and park to stroll.

    We sometimes think about retiring here. We have Singaporean friends, old neighbors, who stop by simply to catch up. Our boys grew up across the street from each other. Come Chinese New Year, we will convene at the home of the matriarch, in a public housing flat.  We will all play cards or mahjong (“lite gambling”) and the kids will go home with “red pockets” (fancy envelopes with small amounts of cash inside). As parents, we appreciate the Confucian values of respect and harmony, and admire the focus on family.

    Besides getting to know the local people, digging into Singapore’s history has made the place come alive. As a Chinese studies major and WWII history buff, it doesn’t get better. I can run by munitions dumps, artillery mounts and Japanese shrines. A neighbor invited me on a battlefield archaeological dig where we extracted real Japanese and British bullets. The Ford factory, where the British surrendered, always gives me a frisson when I see the table where it really happened.

    Arts are another reason to stay. This is not New York or London, but it’s way ahead of anywhere else in Asia, with Australia included.  Music? The Yong Siew Toh conservancy is an offshoot of Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute of Music. Here you can listen to violin competitions, piano master classes and student recitals almost every day of the week. Juilliard String Quartet will be in to brush up student’s skills in March. Art? The government just designated a dozen old Army barracks as an art zone, dedicated to galleries. The new ArtScience Museum’s current exhibition is on DaVinci, which dovetails nicely with the world’s first public exhibition of a study for the Mona Lisa at the Arts House at Old Parliament. For natural history buffs, the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum will open in April; it inherits the Raffles Museum’s collection of more than 500,000 specimens.

    Singapore isn’t perfect, of course. The monotonously humid climate with never-moving sunrise and sunset is one of the two main drawbacks. We are just back from Lapland in Finland where we stocked up on winter weather. How nice it would be to run in the snow and sleet. The flip side, especially when you are not running enough, is that you only need one season’s-worth of clothes. My Birkenstock collection ranges from casual to formal.

    The other drawback is constant construction. I don’t think we have ever gone for more than a few months without a house going up or down within a few hundred feet. Driving is like a slalom course with the construction of the subway snaking its way under major arteries. But these are minor gripes. We are well-governed, safe, stimulated, and well-fed. More importantly, we’ve got a foot in the future.

    Kirsten Conrad is Principal of AsiaCat, which promotes research and conservation of wild cats. She has an AB from Harvard in East Asian History and an MBA from Duke University. She lives lives in Singapore with her husband and two sons.

     

    Source: www.wsj.com

     

  • Study Reveals That Online Arena Is Not A Digital “Wild Wild West”

    Study Reveals That Online Arena Is Not A Digital “Wild Wild West”

    The online political arena is, contrary to popular assumptions, not a digital “Wild Wild West” where blogposts are irrational, emotional and one-sided, according to a new study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) released on Wednesday (Feb 11).

    One of the findings looking at the correlations between blog type and identity, objectivity, emotionality and partisanship showed that the more political a blogpost is, the more objective it is. This is “counter-intuitive”, as it goes against conventional assumptions that highly-political content tends to be irrational, said Dr Carol Soon, a research fellow at IPS and one of the authors of the study.

    Additionally, blogposts with “low” political content tend to be more pro-Government or pro-Opposition. “High” political content blogposts, on the other hand, tend to be more anti-Government and also more anti-Opposition, Dr Soon noted.

    Blogs with low political content are also more likely to post identifying information about their writers.

    The study also looked into identity and its impact on how objective, emotional or partisan a blogpost was. It found that there is no relationship between a blogger’s identity and objectivity.

    Dr Soon said: “This challenges the assumption that people who blog anonymously tend to be less objective.”

    As for emotionality of the posts, the study found there was no relationship between emotionality and the author’s partisanship to the Government or the Opposition.

    Of the 195 blogs studied, only 6.7 per cent were labelled as “5” – indicating the use of expletives. On the other end of the scale, 20.5 per cent were found to be “1”, or “very calm”.

    Other observations:

    • About 70 per cent of the blogs were not completely one-sided in their commentaries. A third scored between “3” and “5” in journalistic objectivity that offers alternative viewpoints in their posts
    • Political blogs tend to be two-sided in their approach – perhaps an indication that balanced arguments are more persuasive than one-sided blogposts, said Dr Soon
    • Journalistic objectivity and being unemotional go hand-in-hand

    Mr Tan Tarn How, a senior research fellow at IPS and one of the study’s co-authors, provided caveats to the study. He said the length of time – June and July 2014 – was short, and that the sample size of blogs and posts studied were small. A total of 197 blogs and more than 1,000 posts were analysed in the study.

    Facebook data was not factored in because access to the information was not readily available, the study’s authors said. Twitter data was analysed but the 140-character nature of the microblog meant meaningful analysis of a standalone tweet is not possible, they added.

    Dr Soon said: “(The study) has enabled us to empirically establish that the internet or the online space is not as much of a ‘Wild Wild West’ that we have feared it to be. Moving on, if we can develop big data tools to help us up-scale the effort, we can use it to look at Twitter and public Facebook pages for instance. From there, we can hopefully get a more representative indication of the online space.”

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Kiasu Is Oxford English Dictionary’s Word Of The Day

    Kiasu Is Oxford English Dictionary’s Word Of The Day

    Singlish is often frowned upon as the poorer local cousin to the Queen’s English but do you know that some Singlish words have found their way into the hallowed Oxford English Dictionary (OED)?

    Along with promoting the latest December 2014 quarterly update – which contains new words such as BYOD (bring your own device), un-PC (not politically correct) and g’day – to its online database of 60 million words, OED also selected an interesting choice for its Word of the Day on Feb 11.

    “Kiasu” was featured. It is not the only Singlish word to be accepted by the OED. Does this mean we can play the word in Words With Friends now?

    In the meantime, here is a quick primer on Singlish in the OED.

    “Lah” and “sinseh” included in OED’s online debut

    OED’s maiden online version, which was launched in March 2000, contained the Singlish words “lah” and “sinseh”. Ironically, this inclusion was announced just a month before then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched the Speak Good English Movement, aimed at stamping out Singlish.

    “Lah” is described as a particle used with various kinds of pitch to convey the mood and attitude of the speaker, with examples such as “Don’t act tough lah” gleaned from author and former New Paper journalist Sylvia Toh.

    According to OED, “sinseh” refers to a traditional Chinese physician or herbalist in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

    Singaporeans’ favourite catchphrase was admitted in 2007

    “Kiasu” (noun and adjective) officially made it to the big time in March 2007, together with now-ubiquitous words such as wiki (which means quick and is also short for Wikipedia) and technopreneur.

    The term is used to refer to a person “governed by self-interest, typically manifesting as a selfish, grasping attitude arising from a fear of missing out on something.”

    Here is one of the examples cited: “I know I always think mean things of Alisa about her being kiasu and pretending not to study, but..I realise that she probably also feels insecure about her own intelligence.”

    How are new words chosen for the OED?

    Once a word gets into the dictionary, it is there to stay forever. OED reportedly adopts a conservative approach to language, keeping out newfangled words until they become widely used.

    An editorial team in charge of new words actively monitors the Oxford Reading Programme (an electronic collection of short extracts drawn from a huge variety of writing) and the Oxford English Corpus (entire documents sourced mostly from the Internet). If there is evidence that a new term is being used in a variety of different sources, it qualifies as a candidate.

    These are then selected for entry based on what the team judges to be the most significant or important, as well as being likely to stand the test of time.

    Former Straits Times journalist Janadas Devan also noted in a 2007 interview that the Internet has played a large role in legitimising some words approved by the OED.

    Why is OED’s Word of the Day special?

    OED claims each word is “carefully selected for a particular reason”, be it for the word’s interesting etymology, a long and fascinating history, or simply because it’s novel and amusing. It can also be connected with a particular event or important date.

    Why do you think “kiasu” was selected?

    Trivia: It will take approximately 753 years for every word in the dictionary to be featured in Word of the Day. And that is if nothing else is added.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Why I Left For Malaysia…

    Why I Left For Malaysia…

    In 2013, I packed my bags, quit my job , withdrew my entire savings from the bank and left for Kuala Lumpur (KL) with my husband. To me, leaving Singapore was one of the most difficult decision I had made in my life. It was not a surprise that none of my family members or close friends could not understand my decision.

    I spent a year thinking deeply before I finally came to a decision.  But when I excitedly announced my plans to people around me, I have received no positive responses. None of the people around me were supportive. Instead, many have asked me why I have chosen to relocate to Malaysia when most Singaporeans are leaving for countries with a higher standard of living like Australia, Canada or USA.

    So, why am I leaving Singapore when plenty of Malaysians are trying to get into my country? Even my Malaysians colleagues are very surprised when they learnt that I am actually a Singaporean. I was even told by several of them that a lot of their Malaysian friends have actually renounced their Malaysian citizenship to become Singaporeans. No Singaporeans would want leave Singapore for Malaysia. Why I have not follow the norm?

    Well, it all began with my Malaysian husband who desperately wanted to be back home permanently. Of course, we fought several times because of this issue. We could be in a long distance relationship which I thunk I can never accept. However, we never have the intention to break up. We simply could not because we just love each other too much.

    So, we were left with only two options – Continue to live our life in Singapore or get married and settle down in KL.

    After giving much thoughts to this matter, you would know that I have chosen to get married and relocate to KL with my husband. This is seriously the most difficult decision for me to make in the entire 22 years of my life. In this blog post, I shall be documenting my reasons that eventually led me into making my final decision.

    Pros of Living in Malaysia

    1. Transport system

    Certainly, KL does not have the best transport system in the world. But at least, it is definitely efficient enough to transport me to most of the places in KL without frequent breakdown or delays. In fact, I always find the trains in KL to be more efficient than the ones in Singapore. Similarly, trains are relatively crowded during peak hours too. But definitely, not as crowded as in Singapore. I found it very stressful and mentally draining to commute in extremely overcrowded trains everyday when I was still in Singapore. It was even worst when trains started to breakdown more frequently than before as I have to spend more time on commuting everyday.

    However, buses in KL tend not to arrive on time as traffic congestion can be pretty bad during the peak hours. So, waiting for buses in KL can be rather frustrating at times. I will try to avoid commuting by bus in KL as much as I could.

    The bus services in Singapore are still far from being reliable or punctual either. Just like the trains, delays are common nowadays. Even when the buses managed to arrive on time, they are usually packed like sardine.

    Singapore used to have one of the best transport system in the world. However, in recent years, I started to feel very disappointed with our transport system. I actually find commuting to work in Singapore to be more stressful than the work itself.

    Now, I feel really glad that I have made the right decision to relocate to KL. Certainly, I would never want to experience the stress of commuting to work ever in life again.

    In Malaysia, a country where public transportation is still lacking, living without a car is difficult and inconvenient. But luckily, cars are available at pretty affordable price in Malaysia, but not really cheap if you are considering the fact that the country actually manufacture its own cars. Unlike in Singapore, I am really glad that I do not need to pay a hefty price to bid for a piece of paper in order buy a new car in Malaysia. All I would need to pay for is only the price of the vehicle itself. Of course, not taking into the account of bank loan interest, road tax and insurance.

    Car Ownership

    KL is often well-known for its terrible traffic congestion, no matter the time of the day. So, be prepared to find yourself caught in a jam for at least an hour if you are driving your way to work.

    Parking

    Most of the time, you probably do not need to pay a fee to park your car unless you are driving into major shopping malls, business buildings or city areas. If not, you could just park in any empty space which you could find around the vicinity. However, in certain areas, you would need to look out for any traffic police who may appear any time to issue you a summon for illegal parking.

    Living with car in Malaysia has gave me plenty of freedom and convenience to travel around and explore the rest of the country. I find this so much better than having to squeeze into a crowded train or bus just to get to any shopping mall in Singapore.

    3. Public holidays

    Malaysia has one of the highest number of public holidays in the world, currently ranking number seven in the top ten countries after Thailand, Indonesia, India and Hong kong. Just in KL alone, I would be enjoying at least 18 days off from work a year for free. Undeniably, this is the most awesome part about working in KL!

    Now, I believe many of you might start to question whether Malaysians do ever work. Of course they do. In fact, working overtime is quite common, but for me, I usually get to knock off from work on time at 5.30pm. The latest would be 6pm for me. Most of the colleagues, including my boss would probably leave the office by 7 pm.

    Working in KL enables me to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Other than working in the office, I am happy that I actually have plenty of time for my family and personal life as well. I enjoy the slower pace of life in KL very much. Now, I am glad to have escape from the hectic Singapore lifestyle for good.

    4. Compulsory CPF contribution

    Put aside the conversion rate, the salary package is really not that bad in KL. Currently, I am earning so much more as compared to the times when I was still working in Singapore. Furthermore, it is not a mandatory for me to contribute to CPF (known as EPF) in Malaysia. Certainly, I do not mind even if it is a must for me to make a contribution to EPF too. Unlike Singapore, EPF can be fully withdraw after reaching the age of 55. It will become part of my retirement fund.

    CPF vs EPF contribution & interest rates

    In addition, I did a quick comparison between Singapore CPF and Malaysia EPF contribution and interest rates.

    EPF Vs CPF 1

    In Singapore, employed Singaporean citizen up to the age of 50 are obligated to contribute 20% of their wages into their respective CPF accounts every month. The employer, on the other hand, are required to contribute an additional amount equivalent 16% of the employee’s monthly wage.

    Whereas, in Malaysia, employed Malaysian citizen up to the age of 60, earning less than RM 5000 per month, are obligated to contribute 11% of  their wages into their respective EPF accounts. Correspondingly, the employer are required to contribute an additional amount equivalent 13% of the employee’s monthly wage.

    However for employee who earns more than RM 5000 per month or above, the employer are only required to contribute an additional amount equivalent 12% of the employee’s monthly wage to their EPF account. For employees aged 60 and above, they may opt to continue to contribute to their EPF account at a reduced 50% rate,

    I would prefer the EPF system, where I would have more spare cash to spend. Perhaps I could do some long-term investment if I wish to. There may be a chance that I mismanage my finances and left me with little savings for retirement. But who can be sure of that? I would prefer to plan my retirement myself while enjoying my life. Undoubtedly, deducting 20% from my monthly wages is definitely going to result me missing a lot of things in life. The even bad news is that CPF cannot be fully withdraw even when employees have reached their retirement age.

    EPF Vs CPF 2

    Furthermore, CPF have been paying a fixed interest rates to its contributors, which has remained unchanged over the years. CPF interest rate for its Ordinary Account is fixed at 2.5% annually. As for its Special, Medisave and Retirement Accounts, the interest rate is fixed at 4% per year.

    EPF has a guarantee a minimum dividend rate of 2.5% annually, but usually, it is much more higher. A 6.35% dividend rate is declared in 2013, the highest ever payout in over a decade.

    Which is the better system? I shall leave it for you guys to judge.

    5. Cost of living

    When compared to the cost of living in Singapore, KL is still an affordable city to live in. Although the cost of eating out in KL is higher than in Singapore, the price of housing, healthcare and public transportation remain at affordable levels. It is relatively cheap to rent a room in KL. With RM 600 per month, you could probably rent an entire 3 rooms apartment that is located outside of the city area. There are plently of rooms for rent in a semi-detached house for as low as RM 250 per month too.

    A condominum that is located outside of the KL city would probably cost about RM 600k. Apparently, this is how much a 4-room HDB flat would cost in Singapore. If I have an option, I would definitely choose to live in a condominum.

    The ridiculous high cost associated with raising a child in Singapore scares me very much too. How am I going to raise a child when I am struggling to feed myself?

    6. Obsessed with paper qualification

    Singapore is an extremely competitive society obsessed with paper qualifications. A thing which I always hate because it give rise to elitism in our society.

    I am always not a very ambitious person. All I wanted in life is to have a job that will give me a decent and stable income. I once thought that completing university will help me to make enough income to lead a comfortable life. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

    Having an university qualification in Singapore is no big deal, especially for those that are obtained from a private institution. In fact, based on my personal experience, private diplomas and degrees are often not recognized by the government sectors.

    Between work experiences and paper qualifications, I believe most employers in Singapore would prefer to hire the better educated candidate rather than the one who only have plenty of work experiences.

    A local degree holder would naturally fetch a higher pay than a private degree holder. To me, this is absolutely frustrating because I seriously think that private university are no way inferior to the local university. Throughout my three years in private university, I spent two of the years working full time in the day and attending part-time classes at night. I gained experiences which are never taught in books. But that does not help me to start anywhere higher than those who actually graduated from a local university. I got even more frustrated to know that even a foreigner who holds a foreign degree from some unrecognized university is offered a better pay package than me.

    Furthermore, being overly obsessed with chasing paper qualifications actually makes Singaporeans apathetic to changes around them. Singapore is an emotionless society filled with not really ‘nice’ people. I do not mean that Singaporeans are not nice and friendly. But rather, our niceties does not seem to go beyond the surface level. Most of time we are just too obsessed with striving for excellence that we forget about caring for others.

    To put it in other words, Singapore education system is rigid and very result-orientated, which does not encourage innovative and creative individuals. I believe this is also the reason why Singapore has not been very successful in producing as much entrepreneurs as Malaysia.

    I have never encountered such problem while I was seeking for employment in KL. Paper qualification is important too, but without relevant experiences, chances of you securing an employment will be lower. Most Malaysians I have met are very friendly people who I could easily start a conversation with.

    7. Flexibility

    In Singapore, everyone simply just follow what the higher authorities say we should do. Although we often question the golden rule set by these people, eventually, we will still do whatever we are told to do. In fact, we have become extremely reliant on the rules set by higher authorities that we started to lose our own ability to solve problems.

    The society lacks the flexibility to handle new challenges. Singaporeans are generally ‘trained’ to follow rules. I must say that we really did a good job on that. But sometimes, I really feel that our society is just too structured and rigid, which does not really encourage creativity.

    I would not deny that Singapore is indeed a very fast and efficient country. But it comes with a price. A higher quality of life will naturally leads to a higher cost of living. Did I asked for that? Not really. I just wanted a simple and not so stressful life.

    Cons of Living in Malaysia

    I believe every city has it good and bad side. KL is definitely is not exception as well. Having listed all the good aspects of living in KL, let us look at some of the bad aspects of this city now.

    1. Ringgit – the weaker currency

    Undeniably, the weakening currency is always the bad thing about working in Malaysia. To be frank, I was actually surprised by the price of goods in Malaysia. All of a sudden, I realized that I could no longer buy as much products as before. Yes, it is certainly very frustrating, especially for those who just love shopping very much. But at least, I have learnt to spend my money more wisely now.

    My Singaporean friends often told me that the cost of living in Malaysia is very low, thus I would have nothing much to worry about. I always thought so too. But I would probably ask them to stop comparing apples to oranges now. Cost of living in Malaysia is low, but not as cheap as we assumed it to be. Without the high exchange rates between SGD and MYR, Malaysia, or particularly KL, can quite an expensive country to live in. Locals who are earning their income in Malaysia are struggling to make ends meet every month due to the high cost of living. Eating out is expensive where a plate of chicken rice will easily cost you RM 5. Then I will see people starting to convert the RM 5 into SGD and thought that is really cheap.

    However, if you gave it a deeper thought, if you are earning SGD, I believe you will be spending your income in Singapore too. Thus, it is not very right to convert and compare the price of goods in Malaysia with those in Singapore.

    The weaker Ringgit also makes travelling seems almost impossible most of the time. For Southeast Asia countries, except for Singapore, it is still fine. However, if you wish to visit Europe, I believe you would need to have at least RM 15k in hand.

    2. Language barriers

    In Malaysia, where unlike Singapore, Bahasa Malaysia is the national language. Thus, it is relatively important for one to be conversant in Bahasa Malaysia, especially when you plan to set up a business in Malaysia.

    Communicating with the Malaysian Chinese living in KL is not a problem as most of them can either speak Mandarin or Cantonese. However, I find it difficult to engage in a conversation with the Malay population, who usually communicate in Behasa Malaysia. Even so, I am glad that there is actually quite a number of them who are rather fluent in English language. But still, it is important and good for me to master some basic Behasa Malaysia if I have decided to stay in KL on a long-term basis.

    3. Higher crime rates

    Crimes are pretty rampant in Malaysia nowadays, especially theft, pickpocketing and rapes. In Malaysia, I have to stay alert and be very careful with all my personal belongings at all times. I could no longer enjoy the kind of safe environment like I used to while I was still in Singapore.

    4. Lesser career advancement & opportunities

    Comparing to Singaporeans, Malaysians are less ambitious. Most of them are easily satisfied with a decent and stable job, thus job hopping is actually less common. As a result, there are actually lesser career advancement opportunities available in the workforce. Companies in Malaysia seldom send its employees for trainings too. Most of them would not see the need to.

    To an extent, this is not an absolutely bad thing. At least I would not feel the pressure and stress to constantly upgrade myself to survive in the competitive society.

    Conclusion

    Do I see myself moving back to Singapore someday? Well, probably, but chances are not high. Currently, I feel really satisfied with my life in KL. But for certain, I do not have the intention to give up my Singapore citizenship. After all, Singapore is still my homeland.

    I used to love my little red dot very much and feel very proud to be a Singaporean. However, life has become so stressful and tough in Singapore in the past decade. The Singapore which I have knew is changed. Will I be able to earn enough to even feed myself? I am not very confident with that. Even if I could, I am not satisfied with just living with the bare minimum, struggling every month to make ends meet. I also hate to share our limited spaces with all the foreigners who Singapore welcomed in with open arms.

    We could have postponed our plans where we continue to work in Singapore and only relocate to KL once we have enough savings to provide us a comfortable life. But how old we would be when that time finally comes? It is better that we start everything anew when we are still young.

    If I were to become rich someday, I might fell in love with this city once again. But now, I am satisified with my life in KL. Apart from that, I also enjoy exploring the rural side of Malaysia very much.

    Elin Chow

    *Article first appeared on http://elinchow.blogspot.sg/

     

    Source: www.therealsingapore.com

  • K Shanmugam: Hindu Endowment Board Should Find Out Wishes Of The People

    K Shanmugam: Hindu Endowment Board Should Find Out Wishes Of The People

    Calls for musical accompaniment at the Thaipusam festival should be looked into, said Minister for Law K Shanmugam, speaking at the recording of MediaCorp’s Tamil current affairs programme Ethiroli.

    “We should find out the wishes of the people. The Hindu Endowments Board will see how we can fulfil their wishes. They have to consult the people and see how to proceed,” said Mr Shanmugam.

    Edited excerpts from the interview which will be aired on Wednesday at Feb 11, 9pm on Vasantham:

    Foot processions have been banned since 1964, following riots. But the Hindu festivals Thaipusam, Panguni Uthiram and Firewalking have been exempted from this ban. Can you explain this?

    Following the racial riots in 1964, it was thought that there should be no religious foot processions in a multi-racial, multi-religious society like ours. Hence a law was enacted to ban all religious foot processions.

    However, Hindus were given an exemption, and since 1964 the government has allowed street processions during three Hindu festivals – Thaipusam, Thimithi and Panguni Uthiram.

    Others have asked for similar permission for processions. The Catholics have asked. The Chinese have asked. We’ve received applications asking permission for processions during Prophet Mohammed’s birthday. The Government, the police have rejected these applications citing the ban. Only Hindus have been given permission.

    At the same time, it’s fair that everyone expects the Hindus to conduct these foot processions in an orderly manner. We should find out the wishes of the people. The Hindu Endowments Board will see how we can fulfil their wishes. They have to consult the people and see how to proceed. The police have to agree to this.

    Musical instruments were allowed during Thaipusam several years ago. Why not now? Can this rule be relaxed?

    The ban on playing music during processions was imposed 42 years ago in 1973. Sometimes there has been music. They may not have enforced the rule very strictly. In some years, they would have enforced it strictly. But the ban has been there since 1973.

    Over the last few years there has been a gradual relaxation of the restrictions. The Hindu Endowments Board relaxed some of the restrictions within the temple premises. And outside the temple, the police also have been assisting in whatever ways they can.

    At the same time it is true that many believe that our Kavadi bearers should have music accompaniment. So it’s fair that many ask why music accompaniment is being banned. It’s something that we have to look into.

    These restrictions are in place because there are concerns that in a multi-racial society, the lack of restrictions may lead to problems. In fact these restrictions are a result of incidents in the past. If we are confident that they will not happen again, if we are able to assess it confidently, then we should say it. The Hindu Endowments Board should consult with the people. It should then discuss with police.

    Catch the full interview on Ethiroli at Feb 11, 9pm, on Vasantham.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

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