They have always believed in having an open and accountable government. In an ideal world, there would be civil societies and activists to give pressure on the government when they do something wrong. Unfortunately, during the 1980s and 1990s, civil societies and activists in Singapore are non-existent, and SDP at that time had seen actions by the government then that they felt was wrong. With the absence of civil societies, and despite knowing that it is to the peril of their own political career, some members took it upon themselves to be the activists of the day.
They protested about a few issues, got branded as troublemakers, their character assassinated by the mainstream media and even got thrown into jail. But they have never given up on a better Singapore, and until today, are still members of SDP. They still are trying hard to get into parliament, so that they can more help shape Singapore into a better place.
Singapore now has a vibrant civil society environment and those members no longer need to be activists. They can now concentrate on being the politician they are and try to win votes, so that they can get into parliament and better help the poorer people of Singapore. As such, that is why there is this perceived change in SDP. They didn't change their ideals. They just get to channel their efforts to the preferred method.
3/17/2015 03:45:00 PM
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9/18/2014 10:50:00 AM
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6/17/2014 09:39:00 AM
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6/04/2014 09:54:00 AM
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3/20/2014 10:03:00 AM
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1/20/2014 04:28:00 PM
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1/17/2014 10:43:00 AM
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Thursday, September 18, 2014
其中有一句是这样的
闭上一只眼
当他唱到这里时,我觉得有点儿怪。为什么只闭一只眼?
点上一根烟
能不能不管
然后唱倒覆歌了。
你的脸庞 闭上眼睛就在我面前转呀转
那时我懂了。原来闭一只眼表现了好多的逃避心情。醒着时,觉得生命没有了意义,好像睡一觉就能把过去忘掉。可是一闭上眼,脑海就浮现她的样子。睁开眼难受,闭上眼又难过,真是进退两难。
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/chao-keng-god-how-i-forced-saf-release-me-serving-ns
I shall post some quotes from there
Before I start, here is to the people who say people who chao keng are pussies, hum ji, ball-less, etc. Not everyone is suited for the military. Not everyone is made for getting shouted at by sadistic superiors. For my case, I decided that NS pay of $480 was not going to cover my housing rent, my car installment, my food and my other expenses. I was not going to give up my freedom for a national duty.
I enlisted directly into HRI as PES E9L9 due to 'depression' (as diagnosed by IMH). I first started going to IMH a year before enlistment to build up a case to get a down pes. True enough, I got downgraded to E9L9 from A. As I only have a private diploma and O levels, being PES A will definitely make me a chiong sua man. To me, my business and career is more important than NS. We can leave the NS to those who aim just to be a mediocre person in life
So to all PES F hopefuls, I want to encourage you to take this path. It is a path more exclusive than OCS, as only a select few can actually attain this highest honour. Don't be fooled by what some people say about PES F people being unable to be hired. The world is your oyster. Even if no one wants to hire you (very unlikely as people in the private sector don't give a fuck about NS and would be happier if you had no NS obligations), start a business or carve your own career. Don't let the negativity of people who verbally abuse 'chao kengsters' affect you. Majority of this people have the 'just suck it up attitude' and are happy with a mediocre life. I'm not and I am sure you are not. I want to excel and succeed and challenge the impossible.
In the first quote, he gave all kinds of justification for him to wiggle out of NS. Frankly, our NS age is about 18-20. Having to pay housing rent, car installments at that age? He must be a very astute entrepreneur, which might really be the case, given that they way he get his PES F status is quite astute.
In the second quote, he describe how he feign depression to get a PES E0L9 status, and at the same time insult all those who don't do it. If everyone were to do this, I very much doubt that he will succeed.
The third quote is actually quite inspiring. He say that we should not accept our lot in life and strife to challenge the impossible and follow our dream. I would say that there are different kinds of dreams. You can dream to be a rich man by building a business empire, or you can dream to be a rich man by fooling people to buy your bogus product at a high price.
If I am his prospective employer, I won't hire him. If I am his prospective customer/business partner, I won't do any business with this person. He has shown a willingness to cheat and even go as far as to feign mental illness in order to obtain his objective. In mandarin, we call this 装疯卖傻。 With such a major lack of integrity, there's no telling when he will give you a stab in the back if it furthers his agenda. We sometimes cut corners to achieve our objective, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Not all corners should be cut. I am able to work with someone who jaywalks. I am probably able to work with someone who beat the red light at traffic junctions. But I can't work with somebody who beat the red light at traffic junctions, hit somebody, and runs away.
There are things to learn while doing our National Service, like working in a team, managing subordinates, getting fit, etc. I've also made valuable friends while in NS as well. It can be argued that we don't need National Service to learn those things. But since it's here to stay, we should make the most of it and not run away. And if you really prefer to run away, at least do it with some integrity.
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
I am not very good with words, but I shall try and counter his points.
1) We should respect the PM yes. But if anyone should suspect him or any other minister, they should voice out, so that checks to be made to either clear their name or make them pay for their actions. We should never hit out at people who speak out, even if they are wrong. We should just prove them wrong and move on. We bully 1 person who speak up, even if he's wrong, next time nobody will speak up, even when they are right.
2) If a person is unhappy with the PM or the government, the MP should not be their only outlet. Why restrict the path to one? What's the point? We are not a nation of stupid people who can't tell right from wrong. When somebody make a harebrained accusation against the government, they will be rebutted and made to look like a fool by the majority of us Singaporeans and it has happened before.
3) Blogging 300-400 unsubstantiated accusations? Did you even read them? His articles are backed by numbers gotten reliable sources and the sources named. He made some judgement on it no doubt, and you can argue if it carry any weight. But it's not unsubstantiated surely? And the lawsuit that our PM threw at him is only at the article that suggest that our PM is corrupt, and not on the other 299-399 articles.
4) Maybe our PM is really patient. And I agree that he has to clear his name. But is the courts the only way? Especially Singapore courts where the culture of pro bono is weak. How many people can afford legal fees of 50k or more? If I have real proof of any misbehaving of any government officers, I won't be talking about them because I won't have the 50k to risk.
Look at this wikipedia article on political libel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_libel
5) "If anyone can say anything he pleases, lies will be propagated and this will hurt the country’s image and hurt investors confidence."
This is a strawman arguement. Treating us all as idiots. On that level, lies can't be propagated enough to hurt the country's image. Every accusations are under the scrutiny of 2million eyes. Using Thailand as example is bad as their problems is much deeper than the lies that's being thrown about.
My conclusion:
People who say bad things about the government in Singapore, most of the times, they are not out to create trouble. They see something wrong and care enough to make a stand for it. It's that they care that they do what they did. Silence them, and the one to suffer will be us. Cos, 1 day, when there's really something wrong, nobody might be willing to stand out for us.
You can agree or disagree with what Roy said. You don't have to make him your hero. But don't silence people like him. And in order to agree or disagree, please read carefully what he write. Don't just take things at face value and say that he's bullshitting.
I like Roy to be proven wrong, but in a public debate, and not in a courthouse. If Roy is wrong, it means my money is safe, and it's only good for me. But if he should be right, I hope there will be actions to remedy the problems he has pointed out.Is
Thursday, March 20, 2014
I have 2 things to say to that.
1) Don't bullshit me. Other than this asking people to use toilet paper frugally, thus saving some money, what other things have you (Dhoby Ghaut MRT) done to go green? Of course you couldn't put a notice in the toilet that say, "Please do not waste toilet paper as it cost me money", but I am sure there are other nicer ways to say.
2) I hate this centralized toilet paper idea. Other than saving some little money on the toilet paper holder, it really inconvenience people.
A long time ago, there is no such big roll of toilet paper, so when this big roll of paper came out, some toilets put this 1 big roll in a centralized location in the toilet instead of 1 small roll in each cubicle.
I don't know, is it that some people think that having centralized toilet paper saves money? It actually waste more. Nobody want to take too little toilet paper to the cubicle, so what do they do? They unroll a whole big stack to bring into the cubicle and use only 10% of it. the other 90% is thrown onto the floor. Talk about a waste of money. And since now 1 big toilet paper roll is servicing several cubicles, they got used up faster. A lot of times the cleaner did not realize the roll is finished and there's no toilet paper when you need it. They should just put the big roll of toilet paper each cubicle.
Monday, January 20, 2014
1) Annie sometimes brought me to travel on the mrt. The crowd in Guangzhou mrt is most probably worse than that In Singapore. On 1 mrt ride, where it's pretty crowded, I saw people trying to squeeze onto the train. They will be calling out to people inside to squeeze in more so that there's space for them to come in, and people in the grain generally comply. And they they can't squeeze any more, they'll say it out loud, and the person trying to come in will stop trying.
I can imagine a similar situation in Sg. where we won't call out to people in the train to squeeze, we'll just try to push our way in. And when it's too tight to squeeze, we probably won't tay it out loud. We'll be cursing under our breadth at the person, or shout at the person rudely.
China seems more civil than us for this. Of course, this could be my experience alone.
2) Annie brought me to KTV with her friends. One of them selected a few national songs. I can't imagine any of my friends choosing such songs. And if someone really did so, that person will be looked at with dread. But Annie and her friends just join in to sing the song happily.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Day 0 Setting off
Day 1 Guangzhou
For day 1, Annie brought me to this restaurant opposite the hotel for lunch. No pics taken. Then we went to this park, where I forgot the name.
After this, we went for dinner, and had a ktv with her friends till 2am. And supper at the shop beside my hotel. Had some cooked oysters, yummy! Forgot to take pics. :P
Day 2 Guangzhou, off to Lijiang
As we by the time we sleep is quite late, I didn't see Annie on day 2, and I go to the airport on my own.
However, this airline has a funny policy of phones are not allowed to be switched on, not even in flight mode. However, I see some people using tablets around me. I was quite pissed that they allow tablets and not flight mode phones. When they asked to me to switch off my phone, which I complied, and I became restless. I looked in the seat pocket and found that someone has left behind their tablet there. I thought that was lucky and planned to put it in my bag when we leave the plane. Then I got more restless and took out my phone again to continue my movie. I was told to switch off again. This time I tried to reason with them which they refused. I said that if people can use tablets why can't I? They said that that is not mobile phone! The air stewardess add that those specially allowed by the airline. Then I see the lady beside me took out a tablet and use too! This set me thinking. I took out the tablet that I found and look behind. I found a label stating that the tablet belongs to the airline. Haha! So I didn't found any leftover tablet after all. The tablet is actually the in flight entertainment system. No wonder they don't allow phones to be switched off. They want us to use their tablets.
By the way, the red lights in the picture is only switched on when there are guests who are not back yet. Makes it easier to find the inn. When all guests are back, the lights are switched off, and it's all pitch dark.
After dinner, we went to a local pub, 一米阳光, for a drink only 6 small bottles of light local beer. Apparently this pub is pretty well known.
Day 3 Lijiang(2nd day in Lijiang)
After coming down from 万古楼, I was feeling quite sick, and we went back to the inn to have a rest before coming out for dinner. I bought some medicine, the pharmacist said it's food poisoning, had a nice merlion experience and feel better.
Day 4 Lijiang (3rd)
We booked a 茶马古道 package via the innkeeper. It cost us rmb280 when it advertises at about rmb80 in all tour agencies we saw in the town. According to the innkeeper, the extra we pays goes to:
I am not sure how significant are the differences, but since the innkeeper is a nice person, I just listened to his recommendations.
Some of the parks in Lijiang needs to show the receipt of the 古城维护费 on top of the entrance ticket before you can go in. You can pay for the 古城维护费 in the hotel. 黑龙潭 is free entry, but you will need to show the 古城维护费 receipt. We read in a book that if you want to go in without paying the 古城维护费, you can go after 8pm. We have already bought it, but that information to us, it means that 黑龙潭 is opened even after 8pm.
It was slightly before 7pm at that time and we decided to go to 黑龙潭. From 黑龙潭 to our inn, we will need to pass by 大水车, so it all makes sense.
You can see from the picture that 黑龙潭 is opened when we reach there.
Day 5 Lijiang(4th)
This day is going to be a short entry. Slept late, only went out at 11am.
Day 6 Lijiang(5th)
Day 7 Lijiang back to Guangzhou
It's the last day of our stay in Lijiang. Woke up pretty early this morning to walk my friend to the main road to take the taxi to the airport.
When I got to Guangzhou, I checked in to the same hotel. I took the room in the new wing this time. The old rooms has risen by 20rmb as well, so now the new room is cheaper by 40rmb and is bigger.
Annie came bring me for out for dinner, and we go meet her friends for more KTV and beer and supper.
Day 8 Guangzhou
At first, we planned to go 长隆 theme park. But Xuanxuan, Annie's friend, said that she wanted to do bungee jump, which is at 白云山.
Password: aWenHaoShuai
After we left 白云山, Xuanxuan has to go catch a train to Shenzhen. Annie and me go back to the hotel to check out, and she drop me off at this Sauna place.
Day 9 Guangzhou. Going back Singapore
They had quite a number of mahjong rooms, and a snooker room, and a gym. Obviously I can't play mahjong and snooker as I was alone, and I am not up to chatting up strangers. I am not a gym person either.
There's a movie theatre and a resting room. Both these rooms have airplane first class kind of seat, where it's so comfy that you can sleep in it. They also have charging cable beside each seat so that you can charge your phone. In the movie theatre, they screen movies at a screen that fills the wall. In the resting room, each seat has it's own tv where u can watch the various channels in China. The charge was rmb230+ per 24hour with $30+ as service charge.
Annie come join me for dinner and we chit chat till about 12, when we parted and I hail a cab to the airport.
Finally it's time to go home. My flight was at 2:05am, but it was delayed, and I only managed to board the plane at abt 2:40am. I reached Singapore slightly before 7am. I went home to put down my stuff and head to office to work.