Have you received your Xmas gift from the government? How much did you get? That’s how much I got. This reminds me of the idiom 杯水车薪. 薪here refers to firewood. When you have a chariot full of firewood bursting into flames, would you think of putting the fire out with a cup of water? The amount of money that most of us have received is barely enough to offset the increase in GST for more than a couple of months. It doesn’t mean you don’t pay GST when you eat at a hawker centre. The hawker pays GST directly or indirectly to run his business and he needs to recover the difference. For the majority of kiasu Singaporeans, this difference needs to be recovered with a wide margin of safety to ensure that his business remains profitable. Remember my analogy of the army camp? The OC wants the company to fall in at 0800. The kiasu PCs wants a wide margin of safety for themselves and tell the sergeants to fall in the platoons at 0700. The kiasu sergeants also want a wide margin of safety. They order the section commanders to fall in at 0600. The poor private soldier falls in at 0500. It’s a chain reaction, magnifying a little at every level. My supplier squeezes me for 10 cents, I squeeze my customers for 20 cents. I call it the Singapore squeeze and that’s how GST impacts the folks at the bottom of the food chain. The solution on the young and virile capitalist minds is to get out of the bottom of the food chain and get into the position to squeeze others for their own benefit. Should we be surprised why Singaporeans are cold, calculative and so lacking in compassion?
But then, forward Singapore says that we want a society that is Vibrant and Inclusive, with opportunities for all to learn, explore and pursue diverse pathways, and where everyone will be respected and valued. Perhaps this is a good time for Roy Ngerng to come home.
We also want Singapore to be Fair and Thriving, with the assurance that everyone will be well taken care of, no one will be left behind, and where all can pursue a fulfilling and dignified life. No wonder they’re introducing robot toilet cleaners so that our toilet cleaning aunties don’t have to work so hard. I’m sure it has nothing to do with our cleaning companies trying to cut manpower cost.
Meanwhile, the famous East Coast Plan has finally been unveiled. This massive reclamation project will tackle rising sea levels and creating more space for recreation and waterfront living. This shows how serious our policy makers are in protecting us from the once in 50 year floods. Provided we’re still alive by completion, we can look forward to premium water and recreational activities (nothing to do with me) and also plenty of new commercial and residential developments for our billionaires to buy their 3rd, 4th, 5th properties while the rest of us pursue diverse pathways.
Finally, Resilient and United, with all Singaporeans coming together to care for one another and build our shared future together. Wonderful. Our youngsters’ Chinese language may be CMI, but we import thousands of new citizens from China. Local ballads, also known as 新谣, dominated the charts during my university days in the 1980s. Certainly, we can look forward to our new citizens from China giving our 新谣 a new lease of life – if they really see Singapore as home. Then, there’s 李连杰 and 巩俐 who will probably work with Jack Neo on the next sequel to I Not Stupid, Money No Enough or Once Upon a Time in Singapore. What’s really happening is that we are importing more and more billionaires and as our population almost doubled over the last 30 years, we have to merge schools because somehow, immigration did not bring in schooling children and mitigate the effects of an aging population.
Allow me to share a Chinese proverb with you 风起云动星不动。水涨船高岸不移. Enjoy your Xmas gift before reality hits.
Cold and calculative people may be very rich, but they often feel sad, lonely and forlorn. When deputy bank manager Ms Teo Shaw Leng from UOB was alerted in August that an elderly customer went to the bank to withdraw around $500,000 for her critically ill “husband” in Europe, Ms Teo sensed that something was wrong.
She approached the customer, who was in her 70s, for more information, and saw a message from a foreign number pop up on the woman’s phone which read: “Honey, are you ok?” That reminds me of the time a taxi driver asked me to help him find the mobile number of someone he had been communicating with on the Line app. Too bad, unlike WhatsApp which I don’t use, the Line app hides your mobile number. I did see a message saying “why I think you no care me?” from a Thai woman.
Back to our story, Ms Teo interviewed the woman and realized that she had already sent $300,000 from another bank to pay the medical bills of her “husband”. This “husband” of hers is someone she had only communicated with online. The bank froze her account for her own good. It took another few hours before the police could convince the woman that her online “husband” is really a scammer. I didn’t have that much time with our taxi uncle. I hope e didn’t get scammed.
I’ve mentioned in another video that Singapore is the country where scammers had the most success. This does not seem to match our cold and calculative nature. Singaporeans are very cautious with their money under normal circumstances. The article mentioned that the majority of love scam victims are women in their 60s. Don’t be surprised that these folks are can be extremely grouchy and unapproachable to the people around them. It’s just that the sad, lonely and forlorn crave for attention or what they perceive as love from an impossibly perfect character they encounter online. When smitten, all the defences come down. That’s why we have things like “bewitching tea” and “black magic” when victims need to save face. I’ve written quite a bit about claims of “black magic” by men who were scammed in Thailand. It would be interesting to explore things from the aunties’ point of view next.