Who is Tan Yong Soon?
January 13th, 2009<!-- by alvinology --> · 20 Comments
<DL><DT>
<DD>Chef Tan Yong Soon <DD> <DD>
Update: Tan Yong Soon has been reprimanded by his boss, minister in charge of the civil service, Teo Chee Hean for his insensitivity. You can read more about it HERE. </DD></DL>Via
Wayang Party.
Mr Tan Yong Soon is the current Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. He is a SAF Overseas Scholar from the batch of 1974 and had previously served as the CEO of the URA Board; Deputy Secretary (Policy) in Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Defence; as well as Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. An extremely impressive resume.
Recently, Mr Tan has drawn
public controversy for a seemingly innocuous travelogue he wrote about his family holiday to Paris to learn cooking French cuisine from the prestigious
Le Cordon Bleu. The travelogue was published in
The Straits Times, Life section on 6 December 2008.
The main issue of contention with his article: The 3 week lesson costs
S$15,500 per head and in total,
S$46,500 for Mr Tan, his wife and son, not including air tickets and living expenses in France. In addition, Mr Tan had taken 5 weeks work leave for the trip.
To some Singaporean netizens who were quick to criticise Mr Tan on blogs and online forums; Mr Tan’s actions were seen as over-indulgent and insensitive for a senior civil servant to “show-off” his pay and extravagant lifestyle in light of the current economic recession and the government asking the people to brace for tough times ahead.
On the other hand, there are also netizens who stood by Mr Tan, rationalising that he was just spending his own money, earned through honest means.
Either way, Mr Tan may have expected some level of public exposure for having his story run in the national newspaper, but I am not so sure if he had anticipated such strong reactions.
In all fairness, I do not see anything intrinsically wrong with Mr Tan’s action (showiness aside). The whole incident just reflects how polarised online discourse has become in Singapore; with anyone deemed somewhat as an “elite”, immediately vilified and condemned for eternity.
Here’s the full article via
Straits Times.com:
