Sometimes when i get bored at school during lectures or seminars, i log on to the Temasek Review to read some of their articles. Not so much for the actual content of the articles, but more for the comments section at the end.
Read through them and you might think the PAP is doomed at the next GE. But scratch the surface and a different picture emerges.
As Cherian George once observed, any candidate who runs against the PAP is guranteed at least a quarter of the votes. This was more or less conclusively proven by such mentally certifiable candidates as Harbans Singh. (Harbans Singh was an opposition leader in the 80s who said such crazy things at rallies that he became the subject of a rumor that he was actually a professional actor paid by the PAP. Inspite of this, he managed to retain his election deposit on several occasions.)
This 25% figure more or less corresponds with the social economic divide in Singapore. The ST recently published data that showed 82% of Singaporeans lived in HDB flats, 11% in private condos and another 6% in landed housing.
With all due respect to the champagne socialists and limousine liberals, we should just accept the fact that no Singaporean in the upper middle class or above will ever vote anything but PAP. Everything they have, from the elite schools their children attend to the cushy job protection they enjoy under the Medical Registration or Legal Profession Acts, are all handouts from the PAP. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
Even when you do see a member of the elite turn against the PAP, say Tan Kin Lian or Ngiam Tong Dow, it's usually out of bitterness at not being given a golden handshake appointment on the board of a GLC or an ambassadorship. After all, if they felt so strongly about things, why didn't they quit when they were enjoying the good life?
So that leaves the bottom 25% and the huge amorphous middle class. The bottom 25% are more or less lost to the PAP, they've been looked down on and patronised so many times they'd vote for a ham sandwich if it were the alternative. Any hope for regime change lies with the middle class. The aspirational class.
As long as middle class Singaporeans still believe that if they play by the rules and work hard, they will one day be able to live the sweet life, then there is no chance the opposition will ever win. Opposition parties in Singapore play to the tune of the lowest common denominator, they offer little to someone who aspires to drive a big car or own a large house, as so many Singaporeans do. But bitterness and resentment is slowly building up, as more and more people realise that the top 20% of society is already occupied, and the people at the top want to keep it lonely up there.
A simple thought experiment will tell you if the winds of change are blowing.
Imagine a Lexus Ls460 passes by a crowded bus stop during morning rush hour. On the windscreen are decals for SICC and the Tanglin Club. The driver is an accomplised looking executive type, the wife is a walking advertisement for Woffles and the children look like poster kids for the GEP. What goes through the mind of the people waiting for their buses?
Is it
1) When the revolution comes those fat cats will be taxed into oblivion and their children will have to attend regular schools just like mine because we'll close down all the independent schools. They won't be able to have their private tennis lessons at the Tanglin Club either because we'll close that down too and make everyone go to the CC. Might as well slap an import tax on luxury vehicles while we're at it so we all have to drive Chery QQs.
or
2) If i keep working hard and invest my money sensibly maybe one day i can live like that.
Disclaimer: I don't know how to drive so maybe the Chery QQ is actually a very good car.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
all the right friends in all the right places
This is terrible, school isn't even two weeks in and i'm already staying in school till the library closes.
Although I must confess I could have gotten things done much faster if i hadn't
1) Gone for lunch at Far East (note to self: never eat at that shitty korean place again)
2) Gone to the gym in the afternoon
3) Spent half an hour reading the 2006 edition of who's who in singapore
I don't regret 3) though.
Although I must confess I could have gotten things done much faster if i hadn't
1) Gone for lunch at Far East (note to self: never eat at that shitty korean place again)
2) Gone to the gym in the afternoon
3) Spent half an hour reading the 2006 edition of who's who in singapore
I don't regret 3) though.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
251
Well i must say i'm very grateful to all the people who took the time to ask me about my previous post, but i promise that most of the subsequent entries will be much less emotional, otherwise this blog will just turn into a suicide note.
School is starting soon again, and i'm hoping that i'll be able to bring my grades up this semester. If i do badly again i think i'll just sit back, relax, have a snack and enjoy my slow but inexorable slide into obscurity and poverty.
Honestly though, a few conversations i've had with some of my classmates has gotten me thinking about the point of it all. (The studying i mean, not the snacking)
For most of us in law school, the be all and end all is to get a 2.1. Half of us will achieve this loftly goal while the other half will be consigned to the ignominy of a 2.2. Given my present trajectory, i think the latter fate is what awaits me.
So what does that mean? I won't be able to join the legal service, or any of those fancy law firms where the partners gather every night at the balcony of their office to smoke cigars and drink scotch and lament that "it's lonely at the top".
The question is, is that really what i want? I've always been rather ambivalent about the whole material wealth thing, so the only thing that would drive me on to such a future would be the whole mental masturbation aspect that seems all pervasive in our society today.
I'm sure everyone knows what i'm talking about. Ignatius Low got it spot on when he called it Singapore's No 1 Dinner Party Parlour Game. Different variations of it exist, from "which secondary school did you go to" to "oh what do you do for a living" to the perennial favourite, "what car do you drive". It's not a coincidence that Singapore must be the only country in the world with a facebook quiz that purports to tell you what elite school you attended. I know some of my classmates really buy into the whole mythos and i'm not saying i blame them. In a nation as fractured with class divisions as ours, it feels good to subconsciously know exactly where one lies in the social strata, especially if it's somewhere near the top.
But is this really healthy? In the end, the people below you will eventually turn bitter and jealous, and the ones above you will just view you as a cocky little upstart or a pretender. You'll end up endlessly trying to reaffirm your sense of self worth by making pointless comparisons. Something like, "well i might not be living in bukit timah like the dean's listers but hey siglap is still better than ghim moh".
I've been guilty of such pathetic and short sighted thoughts myself in the past, which is why i'm trying to take a broader view with regard to what i'd like to do after i graduate. I guess i've found something else i should try in 2010.
Interesting fact: Ignatius Low and Annabel Chong were both schoolmates and cell group mates at HCJC! Now THAT is a great dinner party conversation starter!
School is starting soon again, and i'm hoping that i'll be able to bring my grades up this semester. If i do badly again i think i'll just sit back, relax, have a snack and enjoy my slow but inexorable slide into obscurity and poverty.
Honestly though, a few conversations i've had with some of my classmates has gotten me thinking about the point of it all. (The studying i mean, not the snacking)
For most of us in law school, the be all and end all is to get a 2.1. Half of us will achieve this loftly goal while the other half will be consigned to the ignominy of a 2.2. Given my present trajectory, i think the latter fate is what awaits me.
So what does that mean? I won't be able to join the legal service, or any of those fancy law firms where the partners gather every night at the balcony of their office to smoke cigars and drink scotch and lament that "it's lonely at the top".
The question is, is that really what i want? I've always been rather ambivalent about the whole material wealth thing, so the only thing that would drive me on to such a future would be the whole mental masturbation aspect that seems all pervasive in our society today.
I'm sure everyone knows what i'm talking about. Ignatius Low got it spot on when he called it Singapore's No 1 Dinner Party Parlour Game. Different variations of it exist, from "which secondary school did you go to" to "oh what do you do for a living" to the perennial favourite, "what car do you drive". It's not a coincidence that Singapore must be the only country in the world with a facebook quiz that purports to tell you what elite school you attended. I know some of my classmates really buy into the whole mythos and i'm not saying i blame them. In a nation as fractured with class divisions as ours, it feels good to subconsciously know exactly where one lies in the social strata, especially if it's somewhere near the top.
But is this really healthy? In the end, the people below you will eventually turn bitter and jealous, and the ones above you will just view you as a cocky little upstart or a pretender. You'll end up endlessly trying to reaffirm your sense of self worth by making pointless comparisons. Something like, "well i might not be living in bukit timah like the dean's listers but hey siglap is still better than ghim moh".
I've been guilty of such pathetic and short sighted thoughts myself in the past, which is why i'm trying to take a broader view with regard to what i'd like to do after i graduate. I guess i've found something else i should try in 2010.
Interesting fact: Ignatius Low and Annabel Chong were both schoolmates and cell group mates at HCJC! Now THAT is a great dinner party conversation starter!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
the total perspective vortex
The first real post.
I can still remember the way i felt just before i started law school. I was enchanted and illusioned by the promise of a whole new start in life. I was going to sign up for anything, learn everything, get to know everyone and become a lawyer in the process.
A very dear friend of mine, already thoroughly jaded from 2 years of uni life, did try and warn me to lower my expectations. After all, i'd had the same feelings before jc, and look what happened there. But i suppose, after looking forward to it for more than 2.5 years, i had just invested too much emotionally in the picture perfect image i had created for me to dismiss it.
Well, suffice to say, my friend was right. I don't want to revisit all the things that have happened over the past few months, but i guess i have no choice if i want to move on. I'll leave the sordid details out and just list down the lessons i've learnt for future-me to refer back to.
As usual, my pet peeve has come back to haunt me. It's happened so many times it seems like a bad joke. I really am at a loss to explain why i always seem to put my trust in the wrong people and things. Christ, even my driving instructor is something of a fake, i think he's actually a bookie (or senile). Seriously though, i need something other than wikihow guides to tell me how to pick my friends. (Although i must say the guides have been very useful thus far)
I guess the trouble is i'm always too excited or anxious to get to know and accept people, without taking a step back first and asking myself, are these really the kind of people i like to spend time with? If only i'd taken the trouble to do this in the past, i think most of the hurt feelings and awkwardness could have been avoided.
Which is why i'm putting it down in words here. To remind myself. (Duh) But after this time i really do feel i've changed. I've become much more wary and taciturn, more of an observer than a participant. Before i sign up to help out in activities like law camp or for pro bono, i find myself checking the lists of people who've already joined to make sure i can get along with them.
Is this the way to go? Or am i just dooming myself to social isolation and being the guy who never gets invited to any of the cool parties? (Fortunately in this day and age we have facebook to tell us if we're being left out)
To be honest, i don't know. But i tried the earnest 'let's all sing kumbaya around the campfire' approach and it didn't work. I went to such lengths to ingratiate myself with people that i risked looking like a sidekick. So i guess i don't really have much of a choice. Che Guevara once said, we have to learn to grow hard without ever losing tenderness. Living as a Marxist revolutionary in the jungles of South America, i guess he knew a thing or two about finding the right people to trust.
I know this post sounds awfully childish and asinine but i hope that i'll be able to look back at it one day in the not so distant future and laugh at what a sob story i was back then. And so, i hope 2010 brings better people into my life.
I can still remember the way i felt just before i started law school. I was enchanted and illusioned by the promise of a whole new start in life. I was going to sign up for anything, learn everything, get to know everyone and become a lawyer in the process.
A very dear friend of mine, already thoroughly jaded from 2 years of uni life, did try and warn me to lower my expectations. After all, i'd had the same feelings before jc, and look what happened there. But i suppose, after looking forward to it for more than 2.5 years, i had just invested too much emotionally in the picture perfect image i had created for me to dismiss it.
Well, suffice to say, my friend was right. I don't want to revisit all the things that have happened over the past few months, but i guess i have no choice if i want to move on. I'll leave the sordid details out and just list down the lessons i've learnt for future-me to refer back to.
As usual, my pet peeve has come back to haunt me. It's happened so many times it seems like a bad joke. I really am at a loss to explain why i always seem to put my trust in the wrong people and things. Christ, even my driving instructor is something of a fake, i think he's actually a bookie (or senile). Seriously though, i need something other than wikihow guides to tell me how to pick my friends. (Although i must say the guides have been very useful thus far)
I guess the trouble is i'm always too excited or anxious to get to know and accept people, without taking a step back first and asking myself, are these really the kind of people i like to spend time with? If only i'd taken the trouble to do this in the past, i think most of the hurt feelings and awkwardness could have been avoided.
Which is why i'm putting it down in words here. To remind myself. (Duh) But after this time i really do feel i've changed. I've become much more wary and taciturn, more of an observer than a participant. Before i sign up to help out in activities like law camp or for pro bono, i find myself checking the lists of people who've already joined to make sure i can get along with them.
Is this the way to go? Or am i just dooming myself to social isolation and being the guy who never gets invited to any of the cool parties? (Fortunately in this day and age we have facebook to tell us if we're being left out)
To be honest, i don't know. But i tried the earnest 'let's all sing kumbaya around the campfire' approach and it didn't work. I went to such lengths to ingratiate myself with people that i risked looking like a sidekick. So i guess i don't really have much of a choice. Che Guevara once said, we have to learn to grow hard without ever losing tenderness. Living as a Marxist revolutionary in the jungles of South America, i guess he knew a thing or two about finding the right people to trust.
I know this post sounds awfully childish and asinine but i hope that i'll be able to look back at it one day in the not so distant future and laugh at what a sob story i was back then. And so, i hope 2010 brings better people into my life.
one has to learn to grow hard without ever losing tenderness
Well! One of my New Year Resolutions was to go back to blogging as a sort of catharsis for all the stuff that's been happening in my life of late, and so, here I am again!
The last time i blogged regularly, back in JC, it was in response to hitting a sort of emotional low. This time round, i don't think i'm nearly as depressed as i was back then but i still feel the need to talk to my computer screen.
So there you have it, this is sort of like an emotional piggy bank for me to record all the episodes and feelings that i might experience in school and at home. I do this in preparation for the inevitable shitty days ahead when i'll need to look back at the entries and remind myself not to get too depressed.
The last time i blogged regularly, back in JC, it was in response to hitting a sort of emotional low. This time round, i don't think i'm nearly as depressed as i was back then but i still feel the need to talk to my computer screen.
So there you have it, this is sort of like an emotional piggy bank for me to record all the episodes and feelings that i might experience in school and at home. I do this in preparation for the inevitable shitty days ahead when i'll need to look back at the entries and remind myself not to get too depressed.
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