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Singapore National Education
Part 40
by mr brown
Week of 10 April to 18 April 1998
(Feel free to distribute for non-profit and non-commercial purposes but keep my byline, email address and URL intact please. Thanks)
I have also learned lately:
1. That a local egg farm is making massive donations to the needy and making the news. Seng Choon Farm is donating one egg to charity, out of every 66,667 eggs they process. The total donation is 4680 eggs over a period of 3 years. Or 60 eggs every two weeks.
Assuming that the cost of a dozen eggs is about $1.30 (I am being kind here), that means they are donating about $0.46 cents a day.
Man, I hope this does not bring down the nation's economy.
2. That $0.46 a day for 3 years is a good price to pay for publicity in the local newspaper and gushing praise from Matthias Yao, MP for Macpherson.
3. That 10,000 Singaporeans and tourists descending on your shopping centre is great business but 10,000 Filipino maids is a fire and safety hazard.
4. That those Pore Packs (wear-and-tear for blackheads on the nose) are getting so popular that they are now selling one kind for ladies, one kind for men and they are working hard on a new model for Barbra Streisand.
5. That one of Malaysia's finest minds, Works Minister Samy "Toll Man" Vellu (of the Second Link toll charges fame), announced to the world of his wish to build a 200km tunnel to transport water from Pahang to Kuala Lumpur and build it in 45 days.
In that one statement, he has successfully united the peoples of Malaysia and Singapore, in universal agreement that he is the Missing Link. Archaeologists all over the world rejoice.
6. That Samy "Peking Man" Vellu is planning to beat Singapore by building a satellite (The Mana Boleh One, or MB-1) in 3 days and send it into space in 2 days, thereby beating ST-1's launch.
The MB-1 satellite is part of the Multimedia SomethingOrOther (better known as CyberKaya) and will be used to transport water from Pahang to Kuala Lumpur. Toll charges have yet to be confirmed.
7. That many local conveyancing lawyers are finding prospects bleak in the present economic downturn and property slump. Law firms, especially those who specialised in property transfers, are either downsizing or shutting down, ending an era of making obscene amounts of money for shifting a couple of papers around (except for the COE scheme, which is still alive and kicking).
Faced with a poor job market, many young lawyers seeking alternatives to working in a law firm, like working in legal departments of banks and companies, pursuing further studies, or going abroad to look for work. I hear that there is plenty of litigation work in the United States, especially in the White House.
Shameless plug: For those of you job-hunting, here are a few tips on what not to put in your resume.
8. That in the midst of the poor job market, some fresh graduates may want to consider a cutting-edge career in a major growth industry. You can be the boss you always wanted to be, with no experience or capital needed. No, I am not talking about insurance sales. I am talking about kickstarting your working life as a Sim Lim Square Fall Guy.
The starting pay is $2500, and all you have to do is to register a computer company under your name, man the computer store at Sim Lim Square selling pirated CD-ROMs and take the brunt of any police action like hefty fines and jail time.
Benefits for shortlisted Managing Directors include paid leave to finish jail sentences (salaries will be paid to family if Fall Guy is "outstation"), company-covered fines, and comprehensive health and dental plans.
9. That Ayer Rajah Community Centre (CC) was upgraded recently at a cost of $9 million dollars, and has features that are friendly to the handicapped. The new building has spacious lifts with lower-placed Braille buttons, barrier-free ramps and bump-free flooring. The CC won a Commendation award in the first Singapore Institute of Architects-Handicap Welfare Association (HWA) Award for Handicap-friendly Buildings.
No MRT station won this year.
10. That skateboarders and rollerbladers will not be allowed to use the new handicap-friendly ramps in the four-storey Ayer Rajah CC for recreational purposes.
11. That in MPH, this sign was seen: "'Prepare your Children's English for Primary One' by Preston publishers". (Thanks George and his girlfriend)
12. That there is a sign attached to all keypad counters at Superbowl Marina that says "BEWARE OF YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS". (Thanks Dawn)
Shameless plug: For more English for Fun and Profit, read the Best Hong Kong Film Subtitles.
13. That if you run a Social Escort agency, it may not be a good idea to use the picture of a well-known former model in your Yellow Pages ads. Especially if she has the clout and the cash to sue your sorry ass off.
14. That an insurance agent will probably offer to watch "Titanic" with you ("Life very short, hor?") but will very likely try to stop you from watching "The Rainmaker" ("Lies, all lies!").
15. That, in a moment of solidarity, Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir joined in the fight against the bush fires raging for the past 12 days along the highway leading to the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Donning a gas mask, Dr "Backdraft" Mahathir ventured a few metres into the bushes to spray his water.
16. That the leader of the world's only superpower, President Bill Clinton, was paid US$200,000 (S$322,000) as his salary last year. His wife, Hilary, made more money on the royalties of her book "It Takes a Village", US$281,898, which she will be donating to charity.
Her next book, I hear, is going to be a mystery, tentatively entitled, "Just How Much Money Do Those Million-Dollar Ministers in Singapore Earn Anyway?" Chris Carter may also be basing one of his X-Files episodes on this dark well-kept secret of Singapore Politics.
17. That an eight-year-old boy, Mick Soh, was scolded and slapped by a man for misbehaving in an MPH bookstore. In total understanding of his mistake and deep remorse at his wrongdoing, Mick told the man to "get lost" and made a face at him.
Some feel that the man was wrong or excessive in his actions ("But my poor baby was defenceless!"), while others felt that the boy got what he deserved ("One day this same brat will buy an air-gun to shoot at crows and hit Indian workers instead.").
And then there are those who feel that the man should have slapped the parents of the boy instead, for doing such a lame job of controlling their child.
18. That in our day, getting scolded or slapped by a stranger in public usually meant that we would get a worse hiding from our parents for obviously bad behaviour and making our parents lose face. These days, a brat of an eight-year-old who gets reprimanded and slapped by a stranger has to undergo psychiatric treatment for the trauma.
I suppose the treatment is necessary as it was so obvious that the kid was traumatized, as seen by the traumatized way he told the man to "get lost" and that traumatized monkey face he made at his assailant.
Then again, what used to be called "being bloody naughty" is now called being "very exuberant".
19. That, while I am not advocating violence against children (though sometimes, it is very tempting), something that a parent said gave me some pause for thought. A Mrs Christine Ho, 40, a homemaker, said, "He is the adult and he should have been able to control his emotions, even if the child could not." Funny, when we were eight years old, we already knew how to control our emotions and even go to the toilet ourselves. Maybe kids take longer these days.
I say, "He is the adult and he should have been able to control his emotions, even if the child's parents could not control their own child."
20. That an apostasy bill will be tabled soon in Malaysia's Parliament. Muslims who give up their faith or commit apostasy face up to three years' imprisonment or a maximum fine of M$5000 or both.
So if you want to get into Malaysia in future, it may not be a good idea to put "Apostate" under the "Occupation" or "Religion" column of your immigration form. And oh, that column that says "Sex"? It's for gender, not frequency.
21. That the world's greatest communist leader, Pol Pot, has died of heart failure in Thailand. Plans are underway for a Memorial Project to be built so that the masses can come and piss on his grave.
22. That a local insurance company (of the "Please sign the Smoking record book before you go for your smoke" fame) has a life policy that covers 30 major illnesses, like cancer, kidney failure and heart attacks, including one called "AIDS due to blood transfusion & occupational hazards".
This is a new disease, not to be confused with "AIDS due to sexual relations with an unfaithful husband". So if you get lung cancer from smoking two packs of Benson a day, that's okay, because your policy covers that. But if you get AIDS from your no-good husband, tough.
23. That the PMs of Singapore and Malaysia are meeting at the Second Link on 18th April, Saturday, to sign a plaque and cut a ribbon to declare the S$1.3 billion bridge officially open.
Their presence on the bridge will represent the largest number of users on the bridge since it was opened for public use.
24. That the official opening of the Second Link also marks its induction into the Singapore White Elephant Hall of Fame, joining such esteemed luminaries such as the Teleview project, the Suzhou project, the Micropolis acquisition, Executive Condominiums and the escalator outside Wisma Atria that leads to the office elevators.
25. That Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines (MAS), a PUBLIC company, will be undergoing "restructuring" (spelt in some English-speaking countries as B-A-I-L-O-U-T) to help its principal shareholder, Tan Sri Tajuddin, repay some of his M$800 million PERSONAL debts.
Other MAS shareholders can be confident that this latest move will go a long way in benefiting them in the least possible way and can rest assured that their hard-earned money will go a long way in helping an upstanding member of the Malaysian community pay his own debts.
PM Mahathir Mohamad summed up everybody's views on the revamp. "As far as I can see, he has done nothing wrong. Why should we bother about it?" he told reporters.
By Lee Kin Mun (Copyright 1998)
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Other writings may be found in the Website "BrownTown" at http://www.mrbrown.com
