Singapore National Education Part 88
Weeks of 11 July 2003 to 18 August 2003
I have also learned lately:
1. That if the Armed Forces also follows the new Hire Gays policy, we may soon see new ranks like Rear-Admirer.
2. That Singaporeans kow peh kow bu cannot get Government to un-ban chewing gum. US Government kow peh kow bu can.
Thank goodness Wrigleys sells gum, not gun.
3. That you ask for political space and you get bungy jumping, sugar-free chewing gum, and bar-top dancing.
4. That the biggest winner in the Singapore-KL Water Debate may well be the newspapers and the printing industry.
5. That when you have no job, no money, no food on the table, $300 for a commissioning sword is as good a deal as any. Honour cannot eat one.
6. That according to a BBC Report, scientists have discovered that regular masturbation cuts the risk of prostate cancer!
But I feel that it may be a poor trade-off if you go blind.
7. That it is ok to cut the SBS 502 bus route between Sengkang and the city, because it duplicates the NEL, but leave the 502 stretch from Boon Lay to Marina intact, even though it duplicates the SMRT.
8. That the ridership for the North East Line (NEL) is turning out to be much lower than anticipated. SBS was expecting 250,000 riders a day, but they are now seeing 150,000 a day.
You North East Corridor buggers better start taking the NEL, ok? If numbers do not pick up, wait I close the Punggol Station, the Kovan Station and selected parts of Serangoon Station then you know.
But to help you guys along, I will cut out bus routes that used to give you direct rides so that you can enjoy the increased standard of living by taking bus, then MRT, then bus again.
9. That ridership on NEL might be low because people disagree with the definition of the word "interchange" to describe Outram and Dhoby Ghaut station.
Some riders view the "interchanges" as two stations of the same name located so far apart they may as well be in different constituencies, linked by a very long underground tunnel (if it is underground, maybe people will not notice that they just walked 15 minutes).
But "interchange" probably sounded better.
"I took the NEL to the Outram Interchange and switched to a Eastbound train to Tampines."
...sounds better than:
"I took the NEL to the Cantonment Road Station, walked more than a mile underground to the old Outram Station, then after getting lost underground, I switched to a Eastbound train to Tampines."
10. That during the height if the SARS crisis, some school children were sent home because they failed the temperature taking test. Parents cried foul because their kids missed school and did not get an "A" in Temperature.
11. That if you were an air stewardess who got retrenched a few months before your second contract was up (thereby depriving you of a gratuity which was more than the retrenchment package that you got), you had better not go to the press and talk about it.
Or else the airline will write into the forum to defend their retrenchment exercise, and as an aside, mention that you had taken 75 days of casual medical leave between April 2000 and March this year. And your work record included failing a safety and emergency procedure test which led to your grounding; being uncontactable while on standby duty; being counselled after passenger complaints about you on-board attitude and failing to report for duty for a flight.
Ouch. Talk about kicking The Retrenched in the balls twice over.
12. That NTU professor say 4 in 5 new jobs went to foreigners. MOM say 1 in 10 only.
While the statisticians argue over methodology, 100,000 Singaporeans are still jobless.
Better go and buy 4510 for 4D lottery now.
13. That when people starting bitching about toothless local unions (or the single Big One), it is time to run articles about militant unions elsewhere and how terrible they are.
14. That when the 4-in-5 announcement was made, there were originally three economists.
When the Government gently rebutted the announcement of NTU economists with a nuclear strike, only two NTU economists apologised for an "honest error" (what is an "honest error" anyway? Is there a "dishonest error"? If it is dishonest, could it still be an error or should it be a lie?)
So what happened to the NTU panel's chairman, Dr. Lim Chong Yah, who presented the team's findings? This is very X-Files.
15. That, based on my calculations, gleaned from many reliable Government sources, like the Singles Development Unit website, I proudly announce that there are actually NO jobs lost to foreigners at all.
So you can all be assured that all your jobs are safe. Those of you who have jobs still, I mean.
16. That Singaporeans really believe that only 1 in 10 jobs went to foreigners. Riiiiiight.
17. That at the National Day Parade, they featured for the first time, Breakdancers! And young citizens engaged in organised and legal graffiti.
18. That there was no Gay and Retrenched contingent at NDP 2003
19. That many watching NDP 2003 were looking for other aspects of Singapore's loosening up, after seeing the spontaneous display of planned breakdancing and organised graffiti, but were disappointed when the giant bar-tops with gyrating dancers did not show up on the field.
20. That everyone was looking forward to the exciting two and a half minutes long of fireworks at the NDP, except for the poor sod who was taking a dump in the loo when it happened and missed the whole thing.
Wow, a whole two and a half minutes. That's one long fireworks session, man.
21. That at one segment of the NDP, balls made to look like heads (yes, smiling human heads), which represented various jobs, were made to roll down the stadium...
Thanks for reminding us of the falling headcounts and heads rolling in companies everywhere.
22. That DPM Lee Hsien Loong reassured workers that restructuring the wage system will not mean an across-the-board wage cut.
But BG Yeo says, "The pressure is across the board because of the large number of skilled workers, technicians, engineers, programmers and others from these countries who are prepared to do the same work for much less money."
So you will not get wage cuts but you will do the same work for much less money. Got it.
23. That if you get on the through train plan offered by NJC and enter Junior College at Secondary 3, skip the O Levels, and go direct to do the A Levels, and you fail, you will be one of the elite group of 18-year-olds with only PSLE as your highest qualification.
On the Express Train of Education, it will be like your friends took the NEL to HarbourFront and you got off at Buangkok.
24. That there is a new word in town, with a wealth of meanings: "Buangkok".
Buangkok: verb; To reach a dead end, or to make an annoucement of bad news at the last minute.
"I was on the through train to academic success but along the way, I failed too many exams, my academic career got derailed, and I buangkoked".
"The constituents were looking forward to the improvements to their public transport, but at the last moment, the bus company buangkoked that they will be cutting the services."
Buangkok: noun; a white elephant, or a lame excuse
"The Second Link is, to this day, a buangkok."
"Don't give me any buangkoks for not handing in your homework, you sly crafty fox!"
25. That unions are supposed to work quietly behind the scenes so that the companies retrenching workers can save face and not lose business from the adverse publicity of retrenching workers. Thus saving jobs of those who were not axed.
"Singapore Unions: Fighting Quietly to Save the Jobs of Your Friends".
Copyright 2004 by Lee Kin Mun
