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Coffee Shop Talk - Changes today comes unbidden </TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
Subscribe </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgF noWrap align=right width="1%">From: </TD><TD class=msgFname noWrap width="68%">news155sg <NOBR></NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate noWrap align=right width="30%">Dec-27 5:28 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT noWrap align=right width="1%" height=20>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname noWrap width="68%">ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 1) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft width="1%" rowSpan=4> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>17570.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>Saturday December 27, 2008
Changes today comes unbidden
Insight Down South
By SEAH CHIANG NEE
Twenty-five years ago,when the government had a stronger hold, the day unfolded according to plan. Today’s news headlines reflect its vastly changing citizenry.
ONCE tearfully boring, Singapore is fast becoming a vibrant world city, but I am not sure whether the excitement is the sort that the people truly want.
By nature, Singaporeans are largely predictable, compliant and un-enterprising, preferring to follow set rules rather than initiate new things.
They like things safe and tested. They are not called kiasu (afraid to lose) for nothing.
The new Singapore is exciting and progressive, of course.
But some are finding the vibrancy – which has helped to make it the richest state in South-East Asia – a bit too fast for their social good.
Like the hawker who saw her teenage daughter’s semi-nude photos on the Internet, but chose to ignore it rather than confront her. “I didn’t want her to run away from home again,” she explained to a reporter.
Or the employer, whose foreign maid gave birth to a baby after a medical test had failed to detect pregnancy. She had to pay S$67,000 (RM163,000) for the Caesarean birth, a sum that could buy a sizeable house in many countries.
And the 24-year-old woman, who was beaten up in a dark area by five men; they just wanted her hand-phone.
All these were newspaper stories in the last few days, small potatoes for some cities elsewhere, maybe.
But not so for staid and regulated Singapore, where in the past, headlines often happened on official decisions.
Other unscheduled news in recent days included:
Bank demonstration
A woman cancer patient, hobbling on crutches and wearing a large cardboard sign around her neck, staged a lone demonstration in the central banking district.
The non-English speaking woman was persuaded to invest, and then lost, S$50,000 (RM122,000) in allegedly safe DBS structured notes and other investment products, and wanted compensation.
It was shocking news. Such demonstrations are rare and always resulted in the hapless protestors being charged. The fact that she was not arrested is unprecedented.
Victimised foreigners
A total of 179 workers, mostly Bangladeshis, were found abandoned by their employer – moneyless, hungry and facing the prospect of being homeless when they lost their jobs.
A tearful victim said: “I don’t know what will happen. I have not eaten for a day.” Caring Singaporeans contributed food and essentials before the government intervened with the employer to make sure they get their back pay. Such victimisation is bound to worsen as the recession gets worse.
Tourism icon breakdown
Some 170 people were stuck in mid-air while riding in The Singapore Flyer, the world’s largest observation wheel, when it failed for six hours because of a major fault, requiring a commando-type rescue operation.
They were trapped in their capsules high above the island.
Three hours later, the first passengers – five Malaysian tourists – were lowered to the ground using rope harnesses from their suspended capsules.
Banking woes
Singapore’s DBS, South-East Asia’s biggest bank, announced one of the largest rights issues in the city to raise S$4bil (RM10bil) – within only 10 days.
It is symptomatic of how badly Singapore, including the banks, has been affected by the US financial meltdown. DBS had earlier retrenched 900 staff.
It is a part of a worsening financial and economic picture for Singapore, a mega decline of an ambition gone sour.
Political controversy
A controversial comment by Transport Minister Raymond Lim raised a storm of criticisms. He had been trying to explain why bus fares had not dropped along with oil price (from US$147 (RM358) to US$35 (RM85) a barrel),
He had said: “This is because the public transport fare is not directly linked to oil prices. We link it to national factors, like the inflation and wage levels in the whole of Singapore.”
It contradicted past government – and bus operators’ – explanations that raising fares were justified because of higher fuel costs.
It has again raised questions about whether, collectively, the younger political leadership is capable of rallying the people to face an uncertain world.
For the older citizens, Singapore is no longer the city they had been raised in, and there are too many things that they don’t understand.
The republic, which retains a strong economic edge over the region, is anything but boring.
The fundamental change is this: Today the government does not control what happens in Singapore the way that it did 25 years ago.
Many of the news I have mentioned all happened outside the scope of government schedules. In other words, few were planned.
That is what globalisation in an Internet era – and having 1.6 million foreigners living in our midst – has done. As well as our vastly changing citizenry!
Nothing compares the differences of a quarter of a century in Singapore better than what transpires in an editorial planning session in a newspaper office.
Twenty-six years ago, when I was editor of the now defunct Singapore Monitor, we did what every newspaper in the world did – holding two editors’ meetings each day.
The morning meeting – a planning session – would discuss the day’s assignments and the scheduled events, and a final meeting in the evening decided the next day’s paper.
In the 80s, when the government had a stronger hold, we were able to, by the morning meeting, get a broad picture of what the next day’s paper would actually be.
There were few unscheduled or spontaneous stories, whether a strike, a demonstration or a crime.
The pages were full of diary events – a minister’s statement, a market report or bus reorganisation.
These days, there is a better balance between the two.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Changes today comes unbidden
Insight Down South
By SEAH CHIANG NEE
Twenty-five years ago,when the government had a stronger hold, the day unfolded according to plan. Today’s news headlines reflect its vastly changing citizenry.
ONCE tearfully boring, Singapore is fast becoming a vibrant world city, but I am not sure whether the excitement is the sort that the people truly want.
By nature, Singaporeans are largely predictable, compliant and un-enterprising, preferring to follow set rules rather than initiate new things.
They like things safe and tested. They are not called kiasu (afraid to lose) for nothing.
The new Singapore is exciting and progressive, of course.
But some are finding the vibrancy – which has helped to make it the richest state in South-East Asia – a bit too fast for their social good.
Like the hawker who saw her teenage daughter’s semi-nude photos on the Internet, but chose to ignore it rather than confront her. “I didn’t want her to run away from home again,” she explained to a reporter.
Or the employer, whose foreign maid gave birth to a baby after a medical test had failed to detect pregnancy. She had to pay S$67,000 (RM163,000) for the Caesarean birth, a sum that could buy a sizeable house in many countries.
And the 24-year-old woman, who was beaten up in a dark area by five men; they just wanted her hand-phone.
All these were newspaper stories in the last few days, small potatoes for some cities elsewhere, maybe.
But not so for staid and regulated Singapore, where in the past, headlines often happened on official decisions.
Other unscheduled news in recent days included:
Bank demonstration
A woman cancer patient, hobbling on crutches and wearing a large cardboard sign around her neck, staged a lone demonstration in the central banking district.
The non-English speaking woman was persuaded to invest, and then lost, S$50,000 (RM122,000) in allegedly safe DBS structured notes and other investment products, and wanted compensation.
It was shocking news. Such demonstrations are rare and always resulted in the hapless protestors being charged. The fact that she was not arrested is unprecedented.
Victimised foreigners
A total of 179 workers, mostly Bangladeshis, were found abandoned by their employer – moneyless, hungry and facing the prospect of being homeless when they lost their jobs.
A tearful victim said: “I don’t know what will happen. I have not eaten for a day.” Caring Singaporeans contributed food and essentials before the government intervened with the employer to make sure they get their back pay. Such victimisation is bound to worsen as the recession gets worse.
Tourism icon breakdown
Some 170 people were stuck in mid-air while riding in The Singapore Flyer, the world’s largest observation wheel, when it failed for six hours because of a major fault, requiring a commando-type rescue operation.
They were trapped in their capsules high above the island.
Three hours later, the first passengers – five Malaysian tourists – were lowered to the ground using rope harnesses from their suspended capsules.
Banking woes
Singapore’s DBS, South-East Asia’s biggest bank, announced one of the largest rights issues in the city to raise S$4bil (RM10bil) – within only 10 days.
It is symptomatic of how badly Singapore, including the banks, has been affected by the US financial meltdown. DBS had earlier retrenched 900 staff.
It is a part of a worsening financial and economic picture for Singapore, a mega decline of an ambition gone sour.
Political controversy
A controversial comment by Transport Minister Raymond Lim raised a storm of criticisms. He had been trying to explain why bus fares had not dropped along with oil price (from US$147 (RM358) to US$35 (RM85) a barrel),
He had said: “This is because the public transport fare is not directly linked to oil prices. We link it to national factors, like the inflation and wage levels in the whole of Singapore.”
It contradicted past government – and bus operators’ – explanations that raising fares were justified because of higher fuel costs.
It has again raised questions about whether, collectively, the younger political leadership is capable of rallying the people to face an uncertain world.
For the older citizens, Singapore is no longer the city they had been raised in, and there are too many things that they don’t understand.
The republic, which retains a strong economic edge over the region, is anything but boring.
The fundamental change is this: Today the government does not control what happens in Singapore the way that it did 25 years ago.
Many of the news I have mentioned all happened outside the scope of government schedules. In other words, few were planned.
That is what globalisation in an Internet era – and having 1.6 million foreigners living in our midst – has done. As well as our vastly changing citizenry!
Nothing compares the differences of a quarter of a century in Singapore better than what transpires in an editorial planning session in a newspaper office.
Twenty-six years ago, when I was editor of the now defunct Singapore Monitor, we did what every newspaper in the world did – holding two editors’ meetings each day.
The morning meeting – a planning session – would discuss the day’s assignments and the scheduled events, and a final meeting in the evening decided the next day’s paper.
In the 80s, when the government had a stronger hold, we were able to, by the morning meeting, get a broad picture of what the next day’s paper would actually be.
There were few unscheduled or spontaneous stories, whether a strike, a demonstration or a crime.
The pages were full of diary events – a minister’s statement, a market report or bus reorganisation.
These days, there is a better balance between the two.
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