civilisationReview

It's interesting to know that xingapore's cable and broadband companies are sort of partnering with China's telecom firms like 'hwa wei' as well. Wonder when these people are going to grow up, get egalitarian, and stop sticking to their own - and stop caring about falling chinese birth rates as if that is an issue in what is supposed to be a multicultural state. And, by the way, the U.S. has issued alerts against Hwa Wei and ZTE as security threats and possibly linked to China's government and military. related article on BBC - China's love-hate relationship with what is foreign Singapore, after all, is going to fast-track china's citizens into taking over the rest of the region But i suppose in the chinese supremacist state of xingapore, that is not a problem. (calling it a ‘chinese supremacist’ state is not an ‘opinion’ but a matter of definition, i.e. stating that singapore must always have a chinese majority; that our 'mother tongue will be mand...

A linear tabulation of age only counts when wear-and-tear, biological age, amongst related others, are taken into account.  The Perspective For instance, Chinese culture has been tabulated to be thousands of years old, going back to the Shang, or Hsia.  Egyptian culture has been dated to be even more than that.  Western contemporary culture has been dated back to Greece.  But that isn’t true, logically speaking, albeit it be true chronologically. When it comes to culture, its age can only be determined by the continuity of a culture of antiquity to the present in terms of perspective.  When there is a major shift in culture, and the people began to go along a path that people of a previous era would not have if they had continued along their path, then we can say that their cultural age starts from zero at the point of the major transition, or shift away from an earlier and dominant mode of thought. This perspective for instance, and ed, is not borne of ‘Singapo...

Ever wonder how 'singlish' sounds so much like the way a chinese child speaks - like that child on the left?  Not like a malay child, not like an indian child.  The next time you speak 'singlish', just ask yourself how different it is from that little boy on the left. That indicates that 'singlish' is not actually 'singlish', but 'chinglish'.  And this further indicates that the formation of this so-called colloquial and unofficial ‘national’ language indicates that non-chinese differences were not considered in its formation, which, incidentally, parallels the chinese-determined criteria of what alright and not alright in all other arenas.   No wonder that the msn.com site for singapore is called ‘xin.msn.com’.  If it is representative of anything, it is only of post-80s chinese self-absorption.  Same goes for the ‘wit‘ which is typical of the wit in Chinese media and conversations.  Childish, and has no resemblance with the higher level...

"American parents looking to send their children to the world’s best schools might want to start looking East. And by that, we don’t mean the East Coast. East Asia is now home to the world’s best primary and secondary schools, producing students who are able to outperform their counterparts in the Western world, according to a recent report from the Grattan Institute, a think tank based in Australia. - Wall Street Journal " ed’s comment at WSJ: I come from singapore, and i can say that they are ‘superior’ in the sense of being able to learn formulae, memorise, and regurgitate. But as innovative, inventive, and out-of-the-box thinkers, from my experience, a mediocre student in the UK beats the ‘superior’ students of the east. It is the socio-cultural experience that enables one to make more of education as opposed to education serving as a ceiling. In that, the UK for example, beats the straight ‘As’ of the east. At the end of the day, it is the social curriculum that adds val...

'Singlish' It is an amalgam of words from various languages.  Yes.  But what is ignored is that most of the non-Chinese words in the language was included in the past - 70s, 80s, and not the present.  The Singlish of today has a greater Chinese-English mix than Malay-indian-Chinese mix. The Singlish that is supposed to be evidence of a fusion between cultures is actually an accommodation of Chinese styles of thought and speech even though it contains words from different languages. This can be seen clearly in the transliteration of mandarin-to-singlish terms.  Here’s an example - ‘where got?’, meaning, ‘who said so’, or serves as a denial.  It is actually a direct  transliteration of the mandarin, ‘na li you’, or ‘where have’.  Or, ‘how come like this/that’ is a direct translation of ‘wei she me zhe yang’.  Whilst it is said in English, or ‘Singlish’, and used by all ‘Singlish’ proponents and practioners, it is actually a transliteration of Manda...

When I first came across this sign about a year ago - and to which I've alluded to in this site intermittently - I was thoroughly taken aback. I kept silent and directed a couple of local Chinese mates whom were with me to take a look at it. After they had read through it, I asked them what they thought about it and if they saw anything amiss. They looked at me as if wondering why I would ask such a question. I smiled, and asked, "What place is this?" "Little India", they responded. "And the information here is about whom?" After a few seconds, as the British would say, 'the pin dropped', and they got it. I've often said a decade ago, that the other ethnic groups became persona non grata the moment the government stated that singapore must always have a Chinese majority. With the SAP school system, the 'speak mandarin it's cool' and 'appreciate chinese culture' campaigns, the Chingay festival amongst others that...

Meritocracy. To the common mind, it simply means going by how one scores in exams. That’s it. But that’s not it. Meritocracy goes deeper than simple educational achievement. It has much to do with an overarching ‘system of preference’ that is promoted via a host of means. Of course one can say that we ‘prefer’ those with higher scores. But this sort of ‘preference’ is embedded within an overarching ‘system of preference’ that impacts on how we perceive ourselves, each other, and what we are taught to view as the right way of thinking and doing things. It is this that truly reveals what any particular ‘meritocratic’ system entails. For instance, back in the 70s and 80s, there was a common perception that manufacturing was a ‘chinese thing’; that Indians make good lawyers; or that Malays are great at song and dance. We saw lots of Malays being taken into Civil Defence, whilst I saw quite a few of my Indian friends going into Infantry or Guardsmen. This sort of perception or practi...