Kampong Days - Remember Singapore Weblog - Worth Reading

[scroobal]

This is a website that was recommended by forummer Dreamer1. It is an excellent site and the author has been receiving accolades all around including from ex British Servicemen and women and their families. Painstaking work.

http://remembersingapore.wordpress.com/

 

[KopiO]

Great website! Speaks a lot of where SG came from.

Not for imbeciles nor idiots though.

 

[Leongsam]

Great website! Speaks a lot of where SG came from.

It shows what a great job LKY has done in the span of a single generation.

While those Kampong houses may look quaint and send some people into a misty eyed nostalgic state, they forget that people actually had to live in them and a large part of daily life was spent walking to and from the standpipes for water which could be half a mile or more away.

There were no flushing toilets and no electricity. Dusk meant bringing out the Kerosine lanterns and pumping them up. 5 or more children had to share one lantern in order to do their homework.

A tummy ache at night meant leaving home to head for a shack which contained a bucket shared by 50 families. The stench was unbearable. Many a youth started smoking at an early age just to counter the smell and keep away the flies.

Give me today's Singapore anytime despite the Tiongs, the Pinoys and the Ah Nehs.

 

[KopiO]

For the F*cking armchair whiners here in this forum ........if you are Chinese, where the F*CK do u think you come from ?

 

[scroobal]

In those days, kids had real childhood, made so many friends, of different races, people were alot more community spirted, lot more colour in life, nurtured a sense of independence and the list goes on and on. Fishing, kite flying, marbles, tops, rounders, jukeboxes, tea dances, and the list again goes on and on.

There was a sense of identity, common aspiration, dreams to follow and people that readily step forward to help. See the smile on the child on the far left. Have you seem such a smile recently.

You moved to a civil society that has inbuilt welfare for the less abled. One does not need to lose one's dignity before help is given.

The day that I read that an Indian family could not cook curry in their very home freely is the day that this country died. I felt very sorry that us Chinese Singaporeans stood by an watch a Tiong family get their way. Sad.

It shows what a great job LKY has done in the span of a single generation.

While those Kampong houses may look quaint and send some people into a misty eyed nostalgic state, they forget that people actually had to live in them and a large part of daily life was spent walking to and from the standpipes for water which could be half a mile or more away.

There were no flushing toilets and no electricity. Dusk meant bringing out the Kerosine lanterns and pumping them up. 5 or more children had to share one lantern in order to do their homework.

A tummy ache at night meant leaving home to head for a shack which contained a bucket shared by 50 families. The stench was unbearable. Many a youth started smoking at an early age just to counter the smell and keep away the flies.

Give me today's Singapore anytime despite the Tiongs, the Pinoys and the Ah Nehs.

 

[KopiO]

Not able to cook curry, I believe, was a mistake of the present generation of "In-powers".

The MP involved should have just f*cked the PRCs involved instead of pandering. I don't believe the old man would've pandered.

The problem with pandering have lead to a generation of balless Singaporeans.

 

[Leongsam]

There was a sense of identity, common aspiration, dreams to follow and people that readily step forward to help. See the smile on the child on the far left. Have you seem such a smile recently.

You forget the sadness, misery and despair when children died at birth because they were delivered by midwives instead of by gynecologists. Mothers often died too.

You forget the financial consequences of having the sole breadwinner die slowly from Tuberculosis.

 

[scroobal]

You are right, so did NZ and look at it now. it took a path very different from Singapore.

Another event that is etched in my mind is the help given to the Singaporean's taxi driver's family that was mowed down by an inconsiderate Tiong driving a Ferrari. We surrendered our roads but not our hearts. I remember forummers from this form contributing. We were closing ranks.

You forget the sadness, misery and despair when children died at birth because they were delivered by midwives instead of by gynecologists. Mothers often died too.

You forget the financial consequences of having the sole breadwinner die slowly from Tuberculosis.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

It shows what a great job LKY has done in the span of a single generation.


Give me today's Singapore anytime despite the Tiongs, the Pinoys and the Ah Nehs.

cock tok la ah sam. sg in the 90s was pretty good and was not overcrowded. fancy comapring that time to today,.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

You forget the sadness, misery and dispair when children died at birth because they were delivered by midwives instead of by gynecologists. Mothers often died too.

You forget the financial consequences of having the sole breadwinner die slowly from Tuberculosis.

thank god it is you that wrote this. imagine if kopiuncle wrote it. that's it flaming time for him.

 

[Leongsam]

cock tok la ah sam. sg in the 90s was pretty good and was not overcrowded. fancy comapring that time to today,.

Singapore in the 90s was less crowded and more pleasant but it was also a dying economy. Manufacturing, the mainstay of the economy for the best part of two decades, could no longer be relied upon to maintain the prosperity that Singaporeans had got so used to. Something had to be done.

Today's Singapore is more stressful but that's part and parcel of city life.

 

[Leongsam]

I'll keep this short and simple because long posts lose most people.

1. I had a share in a local company in the late 80s.

2. By the early 90s, it was no longer competitive to operate in Singapore. Labor overheads were too high. The company set up a factory in China in order to survive.

3. There was a lot of hand wringing over what to do with the Singapore plant. 200 sinkies jobs were at stake. A few were offered jobs in China but ALL declined citing family reasons for not being able to relocate.

4. To save Singapore jobs, management decided that instead of closing Singapore, the company would go high tech.. maximum automation... maximum value added high end products in order to still stay competitive.

5. To cut a long story short, The Singapore factory did not survive. It was closed in 2003 and millions of dollars had to be written off. 200 sinkies lost their jobs.

6. Moral of the story. Talk is easy. We tried various ways of making the Singapore plant competitive. Upgrading, retraining, new equipment, robot handling and assembly. We failed. We could not make it profitable. Meanwhile, the China plant was making tons of money.

7. Reasons why we failed:

• Staffing very difficult in night shift. Manufacturing needs to run continuously 7 days a week. We couldn't get enough locals who were willing to work nights and weekends.
• Could not compete with Japan, Korea in the high end segment. They simply did it better. We, as sinkies, were inferior. I admit it.

 

[tonychat]

old fucks here , pls remember that these are the past and things changes. We look at the future for a future, not look at the past and remember how good it is while in the present you are fucked.

Getting your ego pampered a little is a nice things, but too much of it makes you a lunatic.

 

[tonychat]

I'll keep this short and simple because long posts lose most people.

1. I had a share in a local company in the late 80s.

2. By the early 90s, it was no longer competitive to operate in Singapore. Labor overheads were too high. The company set up a factory in China in order to survive.

3. There was a lot of hand wringing over what to do with the Singapore plant. 200 sinkies jobs were at stake. A few were offered jobs in China but ALL declined citing family reasons for not being able to relocate.

4. To save Singapore jobs, management decided that instead of closing Singapore, the company would go high tech.. maximum automation... maximum value added high end products in order to still stay competitive.

5. To cut a long story short, The Singapore factory did not survive. It was closed in 2003 and millions of dollars had to be written off. 200 sinkies lost their jobs.

6. Moral of the story. Talk is easy. We tried various ways of making the Singapore plant competitive. Upgrading, retraining, new equipment, robot handling and assembly. We failed. We could not make it profitable. Meanwhile, the China plant was making tons of money.

7. Reasons why we failed:

• Staffing very difficult in night shift. Manufacturing needs to run continuously 7 days a week. We couldn't get enough locals who were willing to work nights and weekends.
• Could not compete with Japan, Korea in the high end segment. They simply did it better. We, as sinkies, were inferior. I admit it.

The way sinkieland is managed is totally devoid of creativity and innovation. IF you dun have these 2, sinkieland can forget about being competitive. The PAP way of govt is an infectious disease ready to bring down the economy in the future, it is only buying time by getting in Foreign workers and using technologies by other nations. This will make sinkieland forever a slave to other economies. PAP makes everyone a slave.

 

[Leongsam]

The way sinkieland is managed is totally devoid of creativity and innovation. IF you dun have these 2, sinkieland can forget about being competitive.

You've missed my point. I agree that Singapore is devoid of creativity and innovation but it has nothing to do with the PAP. It's me and you.

I was party to the plan to try and keep the Singapore plant going and all my ideas failed. The PAP, via EDB and TDB, was very supportive. They gave us grants, subsidies, tax breaks.. the works. We could not save our manufacturing plant because we simply ran out of ideas.

At cabinet level, I can imagine the team going through the same process as we did.. trying to figure out ways of keeping the economy ticking along with limited resources and limited brain power. The answers won't be forthcoming either. As a tiny Island of only 695 sq kilometers, there are very few options where the country to take on the big players.

 

[Force 136]

ONE OPTION is to admit defeat and re-join Malaysia...., at least we will get cheap govt healthcare and education......, but we will be placed below the Orang Asli for political rights. Ai mai?

 

[Narong Wongwan]

thank god it is you that wrote this. imagine if kopiuncle wrote it. that's it flaming time for him.

Besides being the resident Chinese chauvinist.....now you are also kopi chauvinist ah?

90s was the beginning of the rot....wonder if old fart was so visionary that wooden was put as seat warmer during this era.

 

[halsey02]

You forget the sadness, misery and despair when children died at birth because they were delivered by midwives instead of by gynecologists. Mothers often died too.

You forget the financial consequences of having the sole breadwinner die slowly from Tuberculosis.

Yah! yah! you might as well add those succumb to the addiction to opium & patronizing the opium dens in Chinatown, that forced thousands of women to work as amahs for the British etc., washer woman, seamstress, nigh club hostess ( the prettier ones) etc and are burden with children that come every year & add up to & greater than a soccer team...

come off it!...we have to progress, it is the people that pull themselves out of that, with the help given by a government they chose, they made a right choice..but "one swallow, does not make a summer"..without the will of the people to improve..we will still be having slums along side the modern high rise we see today..

It is the people..

 

[Leongsam]

without the will of the people to improve..we will still be having slums along side the modern high rise we see today..

It is the people..

There was very little "will". Jobs were handed to them on a platter thanks to the government and thanks to the pioneer MNCs who had to be wooed with gifts such as tax breaks, guarantee of a stable labour supply coupled with infrastructure development that was ahead of its time.

The ordinary Singaporean put in very little effort. Everything came easily. I should know. I was one who benefitted immensely. I was pretty laid back in those days. A well paying job came my way without my even trying courtesy of the PAP's pragmatic policies.

 

[tonychat]

You've missed my point. I agree that Singapore is devoid of creativity and innovation but it has nothing to do with the PAP. It's me and you.

I was party to the plan to try and keep the Singapore plant going and all my ideas failed. The PAP, via EDB and TDB, was very supportive. They gave us grants, subsidies, tax breaks.. the works. We could not save our manufacturing plant because we simply ran out of ideas.

At cabinet level, I can imagine the team going through the same process as we did.. trying to figure out ways of keeping the economy ticking along with limited resources and limited brain power. The answers won't be forthcoming either. As a tiny Island of only 695 sq kilometers, there are very few options where the country to take on the big players.

Limited resources and brain power.....due to lack of internet..(new technology)

Internet has tons of information to feed us with ideas and nurture us with new ideas to take advantages of limited resources.