Ready For Change

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I believe most of you out there know that Taiwan is going to hold the Taiwanese presidential elections in 2008. It will happen in less than 24 hours later.

Just when Obama is shouting "Yes we can" I have watched a very very good commercial on TVBS-News on Channel 49. I think some of you may know I'm a long time pan-blue supporter, but all the KMT commercials or talks have not moved me.

However, this commercial is very different. Like what Paul Pott's voice has done to me, this commercial is so well done that I'm nearly moved to tears again.



Commercial from the KMT President and Vice President Candidates


None of other presidential elections have not been viewed as important as this 2008 election. It will completely seal the fate of KMT, and it will also decide if DPP will thoroughly reform. Although through all kinds of polls and studies, things look good for the KMT. However DPP has really been proven to be a party which knows how to handle elections well.

VS

322.

I don't have the right to vote yet. But I am really impressed by how far and how well-developed Taiwan's democracy is. Every Taiwanese has the power to decide their future. They all have an equal share of Taiwan's future.

You have a greater sense of belonging towards the country if you have that power to decide the country's future.

These Music Exams

Monday, March 17, 2008

Finally my grade 6 theory exams is over. It has been a very long time since I had my last exam (in 2000).

I feel really old when everyone was taking out their identity proof. Everyone was taking their student pass and I'm taking out my temporary IC. So many people younger than me are taking grade 6 - 8 theory.

The paper was very easy so I hope to do well....

Labels: Music

How I View Singapore

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Challenge to all fellow bloggers - blog about this! I'm very curious how fellow Singaporeans out there are thinking.

Today is indeed an important milestone for my life. I'm finally a Singapore citizen now, and I think it is more "politically correct" or maybe it's a bit more justified for a citizen to blog about Singapore. I may not stay in Singapore for a period of time longer than you all out there, and I may not know Singapore as well as you all. But just treat my blog entry as a forum article.


Trivia.
So how well do you know about Singapore. Singapore is an island country, with around 650 square kilometers, 4+ million people (with citizens and foreigners). Singapore highly depends on trade (I think more than 300% of our GDP is involved in trading), Singapore's port remains to be the busiest (followed by Shanghai) but Singapore's Changi Airport became 3rd this year (after South Korea and Malaysia....)

Singapore government basically goes by the parliament system. Citizens vote for the MP, then the winning party vote for the prime minister, the prime minister then appoints his cabinet.


Ratings
Political Environment - 7 / 10

I came across this Taiwan commentary show (Sisy's News on Ch 52) and one day they were discussing about Singapore's growth dividend. Many Taiwanese commenter said that Singapore is a very attractive place. But they have expressed a very valid point.

Singapore is a democratic country. However a lot of the things they do - the ultimate purpose is to increase the productivity of the country. CPF is not intended to be only a pension scheme, but also as a form of monthly taxation. People are happy about paying less tax in Singapore. But that is on the surface. You must realise you are contributing to the government actually all along using CPF. Then the government gathers all the funds, and through Temasek holdings and GIC, further reinvest the money and get more returns for Singaporeans. Growth dividend is actually extra income given to people to boost internal domestic market and help to promote spending. It is also a measure to help to relief some decrease of exports due to sub-prime, increasing internal spending so it will be less straining for our local economy.

Otherwise...where does the interest from CPF come from? So basically, growth dividend is just a bonus for all Singaporean shareholders. Singapore, to me, is run more like a company, not really like a country, or maybe less like a big family.

And just try and recall...what happened to Hong Lim Park and speaker's corner? We have to register in the police post then we can speak. I think this just shows the government's lack of confidence in the people. If the society has come to consensus that racial harmony is vital to the society's cohesiveness, I do not think there is a need to worry about people making rude comments towards other races. The government should be more confident about the society.

Just look at places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. No matter how they scold, there will always be media or individual groups of righteous people who correct those people who are slightly misguided.

Look at our media also. I think sometimes the newspaper and the news have shifted much importance towards some unimportant local events instead of other world events. I remembered when I was watching Phoenix TV on Ch 50, when all the other newspaper headlines is about another world news, Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao's headline is about Singapore HDB upgrading. And from the news reports and newspapers, I think it's rather easy to tell that the government has quite a bit of say over what should be in and what should be out of the news.

And the meritocracy system we have - I know it's the best measure we have, but I can't help it but to equate it to REALISTIC. I know many governments stick to this policy, but for Singapore government I think it is very easily equated to realistic.

However, I think Singapore government has done a rather great job so far. For a small country like this, there are many policies that are necessary.

Environment & City Planning - 8.5 / 10

Singapore is well known as a "garden city" and the National Parks Board is going a step further to change Singapore into a "city in a garden". And of course Singapore has a very great environment, very clean air, very good sanitation. Singapore also has a lot of great parks and I like the idea of park connectors - it's a very good cycling route. But I think currently things are more tended towards the East. The East has a better developed parks and park connectors.

City or new town planning also has been great so far. I think Singaporeans can easily gain access to schools, sports facilities, and markets all within their own new town. Each individual new town is rather well planned.

Health - 7/10

It's quite a good healthcare system. Singapore healthcare is really affordable, professional and reliable. School dental and immunization programme also benefited Singaporeans greatly. However I think the polyclinic system is still not up to mark, and nowadays you see a lot of foreign healthcare specialists. It's a bit of problem again, especially when the caregivers cannot communicate with the patient.

Creativity and the Arts - 4.5/10

In Singapore you have MICA (ministry of information, communication and fine arts). But to me it seems like MICa with the letter A becoming the small letter A. The focus of the ministry seems to be shifted to the I and C, information and communication.

"Think out of the box" has become a slogan rather than a practice. The education already is not really encouraging you to be creative, Singaporeans produced out of the education system is not really creative, and yet they are not really doing much to make grown-ups more creative.

I feel that we are all actually ill-informed about upcoming Arts events and we are not encouraged to participate in any arts event. I am quite sure that there are musical talents or performing arts talent among Singaporeans, but they are not encouraged enough to come out to perform. People always stereotype artists as poor people. The whole system is not encouraging Singaporeans to participate in the arts.

And most of the Singaporean artistes really are bounded to this invisible cage. How can we compare local artistes to other foreign artistes? Can we find a Lydia Sum or Jacky Wu in Singapore? The difference in level is really vast. I think Singaporean artistes cannot really do their best, and they only perform within this safety zone.

Using that to reflect on the society's creativity, I think our society really lacks creativity because nobody wants to cross over the red line.

Singapore has many arts infrastructure and really can make better use of them.

My PW was on the arts. And my conclusion is - there is still a lot to catch up.


Education - 3.5 /10

Being in the education system for 12 years, I think I am suited to comment about it. It is rather stressful to study in Singapore, and just look how parents can burn money and time trying to make their children's studying environment better.

We are all trying so hard just for that degree.

Are we really free to choose what we want to study? I think for most people, subconsciously they chose Science stream in JC. I think most of us are just "directed" to study Science.

And what about all those hypes about life sciences? The education system didn't really link all the courses up together. They didn't really explain to the students what kinds of degree does A level Physics tie up with. The students are not really making an informed choice of the courses offered.

Many people just take the subjects because they are EASIER TO SCORE.

As for PW, I think it is partially necessary, not say totally unnecessary, but they really have to look into it again. It really does become a burden, and does not really add to the variety of courses that students have to take.

National Education. I think most students are really familiar with the 5 defenses on civil defense, and Singapore's history with Malaysia. I think the National Education system is over-stressed on all these. It's mentioned again and again throughout the 12 years and it's really time to review on this.

Why not teach something else more interesting that really helps the students to bond and learn useful skills. I think teaching of simple CPR and AED skills help. Now major shopping centres like Ngee Ann City and Wisma Atria have AEDs on every level but how many people know how to use them? These skills are really useful to students and help to save lives. Maybe they can also teach students about how to deal with emergency calls, and students can share these lessons with their family. Isn't this better than just plainly mugging books and notes? Isn't it much more useful to teach them in schools instead of distributing SCDF booklets in ICA?

Then the education system did not teach us much about global events. I feel that there is quite a number of Singaporean students lack of global perspective. Students are mostly concerned with results. Do they really know what the real threats are? What is the real implication of not getting good results? Does the GP cirriculum give us enough information to give us a correct perspective? And look at our media. Is it helping our education system to give students a good global perspective? There are not enough quality commentaries in the Singapore media.

When a foreigner ask you, "What does Pasir Ris mean? Why does this area have this name?"I think students do not really know Singapore that well enough. The education system needs to work harder in helping Singaporeans have a better sense of belonging to their country.

Branding - 6.0 / 10

Singapore is not a place with a very long history, so she does not have places of historical interest. Singapore is trying really hard to boost tourism, but I always find myself out of ideas when I try to bring my foreign relatives around.

It's always Sentosa that I can only think of. Actually if you need casinos, you will go to Macau. If you need to do shopping, Hong Kong is not a bad idea because Hong Kong Dollar is pegged to USD and USD is cheap nowadays.

There are many reports in the past few years saying that Singapore aims to be a "Communication hub", or "Biology Research Hub" or "XYZ hub". But to me it seems more like a trend spotting. Singapore can only earn a sum by spotting trends early, but is quickly caught up by other bigger and more capable countries.

It is understandable that it is not easy for Singapore to maintain her competitiveness in many fields, but honestly speaking, I now lose track of what kind of hub is Singapore trying to be.

Singapore does not have a very strong branding of her own other than being a clean, garden city.

However I think Singapore is doing rather well in medical-touring industry. People from the region are coming to Singapore for medical help. However Thailand is catching up really soon.

Transport - 2.0 / 10

I am a very unhappy commuter. I think the transport system is getting atrocious.

And any future transport development has nothing to do with the West. As a resident of the West, I think the transport planning is terrible.

Look at how stressed is the transport in the west. They are going to add the MRT west line extention. Look at how packed the Eastbound trains from the West would be.

The train intervals are absoloutely atrocious and I really need to run to catch my 1 min trains otherwise I will be very very late for my appointments. Next train comes 9 min later. Then the whole train is packed.

Who cares about tunnel TV from Newton to Orchard. I have enough entertainment of my own. Nowadays you look at commuters. They all have their books, MP3 players, handphones and handheld game consoles. I just want more trains to be in service.

Who says you just need to add more trains into service when it's during peak hours. Is 7, 8, 9 or even 10 min acceptable waiting time? I still need to transfer so many times. The accumulative waiting time becomes 15 minutes. Is it really that acceptable to be 15 min late for an appointment?

Then I need to get out of the station. Boon Lay interchange now is so extremely crowded until I need 3 to 4 minutes to get out of the station. Some MRT station needs to be expanded to deal with the volume of the crowd. I remember Orchard station and Boon Lay station look exactly the same as they were 15 years ago. But the volume of commuters change, and nowadays look at the train traffic volume.

By not developing the transport system in the West, the group that suffers the most is the students. NUS, NTU students need such a long time to get to school.

And now you want to build an MRT line that goes to Bukit Panjang. Why can't you connect it to Choa Chu Kang and let the commuters in the North West have a choice to use the Bt Panjang line to go directly to town? So actually why you need Bt Panjang LRT line when you are going to build an MRT line? People need time to get suited to the new transport system changes, and now you say you want to use build MRT in Bt Panjang.

You want to encourage people to take public transport. But I'm very sorry to say I'm very turned off by the current state of public transport. It's encouraging me to get a car soon.

Buses also come at such long intervals. 15, 18 min? Must we spend such a big proportion of our lifetime in travelling time and waiting time and transfer time?

We need express services. We need faster services. Why can't they subsidise public transport even further and improving in the public transport intervals.

I'm turned off by the fact that I need so much time in travelling. I'm even more, far more turned off by the fact that I spend so much time waiting. WAITING. Waiting at the bus stop or waiting at the train station for a good 10 minutes. We need really fast EXPRESS services.

Maybe hoping for a Maglev that travels from the west to the east with 3 stops a bit too much, and maybe just an express mass railway service will do.

I waste 10 minutes waiting for one day, I spend 3650 minutes waiting a year. Sorry. I don't have that much time to spare in my life.

Conclusion

Despite some of the unhappiness I have, I still think Singapore is a good place to live in, much better than some of the countries we know. Of course, there is many areas to improve on.

I blogged for 2 hours writing this ultra long issue. Maybe I should submit this entry for the government essay writing competition.

If you finished reading this entry, it's around 2500 words, and it's as many words as my PW report.

Labels: Singapore

March 2008

Monday, March 03, 2008

I have to blog about this month because very few important things are coming this month.

1) Finally I've put the lower braces with the orthodontics. So it's really painful now because the lower row of my teeth is at a very messy state. Today is my first day with my lower braces so it still hurts and makes my mood quite bad.


2) I am eligible for the government's ang pow (I think) because I'm going to be a Singapore citizen as of 6th March.


3) Theory exam after 7 years! So I'm finally going to take grade 6 exams. I am quite confident to pass, but a distinction is really difficult for higher grades.


4) My birthday falls on a certain day of this month.


5) I think I'm going to get a very very big present for myself. And a lot of people will benefit from it (those out there who knows what it is will be grinning and waiting for me to get my present) and IT fair falls on this month as well.


6) Finally I'm getting the highest pay I have ever received in a month. It's looking good =)


7) My Japanese basic lesson ends this month also. Should be attending the Japanese Basic lesson 2 should also start this month.


March 2008. All 7 events will fall in it.

Labels: Schedule