iceattitude

in singapore, it has been argued that we need good politicians, and without attractive salaries, the best talent will be deterred from entering the political arena. this is because the very best talent can earn a much higher salary in the private sector, and because politicians have to make sacrifices in terms of the loss of personal and familial privacy and safety.

in singapore, the noble idea of serving one's nation, of sacrifice, no longer exists. even with the recent reduction in ministerial salaries, the damage has been done. the 2007 ministerial pay rise was very significant for us as a country because it embodied a lot of symbolic meaning. it more deeply entrenched the idea of pragmatism into the singaporean psyche, leaving us even further removed from values such as service before self, sacrifice and loyalty to country. in singapore, we always ask for something in return.

i am however writing this today not to lament about the erosion of these values, assuming they even existed in the first place. i am writing to highlight the hypocrisy present in the different policies implemented for politicians and NSFs. the main reason that NSFs are still very poorly compensated is that there is little political pressure to raise their allowances. NSFs are conscripted without the option of conscientious objection, with a very strict legal system in place to punish those who escape, thus eliminating the need to raise allowances to appease them. NSFs do not have political power because most of them have not reached the voting age yet, and because they do not have the money to back up their voices. moreoever, the lack of freedom of speech and assembly in singapore means that the government never has to worry about major uprisings with regard to this issue.

the low NS allowances have nothing to do with values, with the idea of sacrifice for one's nation without asking for anything in return. they have everything to do with the fact that the government doesn't need to raise allowances, even if doing so would provide a fair compensation to singaporean men, and is feasible given our nation's fiscal health. if a singapore politician argues moralistically that NSFs should continue to be renumerated at current rates on the basis that the NSF is making a sacrifice to the nation, it reeks of utter hypocrisy. the politician in question should then donate a good portion of his/her salary in order to walk the talk.

allowances should be raised to match what would hypothetically be the market rate. what rate would hypothetically compel the average singaporean man to want to serve NS for these two years? i would say in the range of S$1400 - 1600/month, considering (a) loss of freedom; (b) delay in career progression; (c) associated opportunity costs.

93-95% of NSFs receive between S$480 (recruit) and S$1150 (second lieutenant with combat and risk allowance). the other 5-7% include full lieutenants (who are only able to enjoy a higher allowance for two to three months, some even one), commandos, guards, naval divers, chemical biological and radiological defence engineers, etc, who enjoy higher risk allowance. about 80% of NSFs receive allowances of $950 (third sergeant with combat and risk allowance) and below, even at their highest point.

furthermore, those who are at the higher end of the scale obviously did not receive such an allowance throughout their NS career, given that they would have had to undergo training to do so. in fact, those who want to attain $1150 will first have to go through two months with $480 and nine months with $860. thus, for the combat officer who serves 22 months, he receives 480*2 (recruit) + 860*9 (cadet) + 1150*9 (second lieutenant) + 1330*2 (full lieutenant), for an average of $987/month. and this is a combat officer we are talking about, ie. 10-13% of NSFs.

for 70% of NSFs, ie. men (excluding corporal first class soldiers, who are rare), they receive between $480 (private, non-combat) and $700 (corporal, combat) per month. those receiving $700 would actually have spent about most of their NS careers receiving at most $650. and get this - more than 60% of NSFs will never receive allowances above $600-650 throughout their 22-24 months of service. moreover, i would like to point out that previous allowances were $60 lower than the figures i have stated. in fact, at this very moment, no one has begun to receive these higher allowances; the new allowances kick in only next month.

compare these allowances with the administrative job at the office, the typical alternative for a girl in the NSF age group who possesses similar qualifications and skills, which usually pays between $1100 and $1500. let's not forget the fact that if you are to sign a two-year-long contract like NSFs "do", there will most likely be an increment of between 10% and 30%. furthermore, in NS, those who wish to obtain a combat allowance, ie. $100 more per month compared to non-combatants, are subjected to activities way behind the office hours of the administrative worker.

i am already being very charitable, calculating opportunity costs simply by using current earning power. another perspective, which is equally or even more valid, is this: the actual opportunity cost is two years in the workplace. let's assume that a man plans to retire at 60 years old; he now has to delay his career by two years, ie. he has to end his career two years earlier than he would have without NS. logically, what he loses is actually the two final years of work, which is very likely the highest salary point in his career.

we have not even calculated the costs associated with 10-to-15-year-long reservist liabilities. there have been countless stories about how employers favour foreigners because of the absence of NS liabilities. reservist liabilities can be very disruptive to a company's work schedule.

life's not all about money, but money serves a very powerful meaning. in a free market economy high salaries are arguably a nobility because they represent the value of your worth. people pay you handsomely because they recognize the value that you bring to society.

the final note i want to leave you with is this: i hope that one day NSFs will actually feel that they are being justly compensated for their sacrifice, instead of shortchanged by their nation, and that one day their female counterparts will not be feeling lucky not to have to serve NS. we are far, far away from that point right now, but we have to begin somewhere.

i really love french. this is the end of my seventh week here, and i'm just feeling, damn, three and a half months is simply not enough for me to master the language. ever since i transferred to an advanced class, i've been working extra hard, putting in about four hours of work a day on top of four to five hours of lesson. sometimes i get so caught up with work that i compromise on visiting, telling myself to postpone visiting until i reach a certain standard with which i'm satisfied.. but that point never does seem to come. i love reading the french newspapers, whether in print or online.. it's like when i get my hands on a newspaper i feel like it's a gem, from which i can learn so much. i listen to the radio while walking from point to point, which i have to do every day, and back home when i have the time. there's just something very captivating about the language that i cannot explain.

i have an interest in the social sciences, like sociology, economics and psychology. i love to understand social phenomena, like traffic behaviour, decision making, gender issues, child development, criminal thought.. i have been inspired by authors like malcolm gladwell and the authors of freakonomics. i want to be able to one day cogently and fluidly express an original idea, an idea that can be influential. i've always loved to explore ideas, analyze them, critique them.. and i really enjoy and value philosophy because it imparts such amazing skills to the learner.. it's like after you start to pursue philosophy you start to view the world from such a different perspective.. to me everyone would benefit from a dose of philosophy; basic philosophy should be encouraged, or incorporated into the english syllabus, in upper secondary.

i want to pursue a career which allows me to bask in an exploration of ideas, to have the creativity to propose innovative solutions to complex issues, and to have the platform to express them in a capacity that can bring about change. i think i would enjoy consultancy work, foreign affairs, or maybe work with international organizations such as amnesty international, international monetary fund, or the world bank. with my pursuit of PPE, and my interest in and knowledge of french, i think i will be suited for such a job. i may want to work overseas after i graduate, notably london or paris.

with my interest in languages and social sciences/humanities, to be able to speak english, chinese and french fluently, and have a good grasp of philosophy, politics and economics would be a dream come true. i really hope that the day i graduate, not only will i have excelled in my studies, i will be able to tell myself that i have achieved and maintained fluency in all three languages, and really understood these three subjects satisfactorily.

the last time i actually wanted monday to come was in 2009. i've almost forgotten how it feels, really. i feel a tinge of sadness writing this because i really think that a good indicator of whether you're living the life you really want is whether you look forward to monday, or simply wait for friday night. i remember how in JC on many mornings i would wake up tired, lacking sleep, but upon arriving in school, start to feel very cheerful. i never dreaded mondays; in fact, sometimes i dreaded the weekends because it would get lonely studying by myself. of course, the stress of the A levels did get to me, and i wish if only i could have attained a state where i could have maintained my purpose and motivation for my studies while eliminating the stress associated with the pressure to do well. if i had done so, i would say that my life would have been perfect - i would have had a passion for what i was doing with my life, and awesome company to go along with it. during NS, i always looked back at the JC times with bittersweet nostalgia; i remember on one occasion being alone and walking across the hwa chong overhead bridge after having attended a friend's party nearby, and the kind of yearning that i felt. even now when i look back at my JC days there's just so much i miss. i really wish i could just go back to one of those days, any day, when i was sitting at the class bench with the A10 people just chilling. those are really the times that i will never forget. my attachment to hwa chong is stronger than i ever imagined it would be.

perhaps i have a tendency to be overly nostalgic, but i even miss some times that i had in army - the lull period when my bunkmates and i would just chill in the bunk and read or chat. i made three close friends in my unit, and we stuck together throughout, through a lot of shit, not just out in the field, but through politics and conflict within the unit, which were actually rampant, and of which i was a participant, but which i just couldn't give a damn writing about.

i hate to admit this, but i think that my quality of life has improved since my iphone got stolen. i feel more disconnected in a good way. sometimes, when you're always connected, you always feel the pressure to respond to people, to check your email, etc.. now once i turn off the computer, i am completely disconnected, and i focus fully on my work. with my insurance coverage, as well as my buying of a new phone only with a new plan, my loss is actually only in the range of S$80-150. of course, that doesn't mean i don't still harbour latent anger against the two men.

for some time, i've wanted to write a post on my feelings about singapore, something that has been floating around my head for the past weeks. i wanted to wait till i had something really coherent and fluid before i posted, but i realized that this issue is far more complex than i originally thought, so i might as well stop waiting.

i find singapore livable: there is sufficient choice in terms of social activity and recreation; the food variety is excellent; economic policies are sound; there is no danger of natural disasters; bilingualism is promoted; it is home to a university recently ranked 23rd in the world, and a gateway to top universities in the world; the streets are safe; traffic is relatively good.

the first gripe i have about singapore is, of course, NS. granted, given our independence and small citizen population, the government may have been left with little choice but to have a citizen army. the issue i have is this: your services to the nation are required full-time for two entire years, and you stay on-call for another twenty, simply because you are male? and if you are female, you owe nothing to the nation in the aspect of defence? this is something i have always grappled with. i haven't even brought in the issue of foreigners, who can study and work in singapore without NS liabilities. this is an issue that has been discussed for a long time, and probably been on the minds of many singaporean men, especially during their term of service.

while i was serving NS, this issue undoubtedly stirred more emotions within me, and i am able to discuss this more rationally now. however, the way i thought about NS wasn't simply a passing phase, like some adolescent rebelling against his parents; in my mind, the rational arguments were already firmly rooted, and little has changed. the very fact that given the choice, most women choose not to serve NS, shows that this is an unfair arrangement - the very fact that you would choose one type of life over another when given the choice. in an arbitrary fashion, half the citizen population has been given this very choice, to avoid something widely undesirable, whereas the other half has not. i believe it is necessary for the government to implement measures that are more than the piecemeal ones currently in place in order to not only recognize, but truly compensate singaporean men for the sacrifice that they have to make for their nation, in terms of what they give up in the form of their freedom, youth and career progression. let us drop noble ideas about how this sacrifice would be less honourable in the face of greater monetary compensation - given that our prime minister lee hsien loong is the highest-paid head of state in the world, i think it puts an end to this line of argument.

i have, sadly, met few girls who have shown appreciation for the sacrifice that men make for NS. i get this strong sense, and for the girls reading this, you may relate to this, that it's taken for granted. the reason is that every male serves NS; it's nothing special or prestigious. moreover, this policy has been around for decades. the one thing that could really rile me up while i was in NS, perhaps still so now although to a lesser degree, is when girls trivialized the sacrifice. "NS only, quite fun what, two years only". of course, there are those who love to take the moral high ground, posting pictures on our popular citizen journalism website, STOMP, when soldiers occupy seats on the MRT or are seen in the arcade.

the second gripe i have about singapore is its climate of fear.  first, singaporeans are kiasu. there's just this very thick atmosphere of fear and anxiety, where people are constantly afraid of losing out, overly competitive, and envious of each other's success. there lacks the kind of graciousness that i felt during the days of my oxford interview, where people genuinely wished each other luck and didn't see each other as simply rivals. parents are overprotective of children, unable to let go of control of them, and don't give them the space to develop. there is always a class struggle, evident on the forum page of the straits times each day. women are materialistic, as evidenced by a study on SMU psychology undergraduates, which i think is generalizable to many women in singapore. it's just a very stressful environment and there's a lack of community spirit. of course, i'm not saying that other countries fare a lot better; i just feel that all these observations are particularly relevant to singapore society. of course, another major point is the lack of freedom of speech. although some changes have been implemented in recent years, the situation still remains a far cry from countries in europe, and the USA.

the third gripe i have is how the government treats us like we're stupid. do you really think we will believe that the internal security department played a major role in the capture of mas selamat, given obviously conflicting reports from several other countries? why did i not ever learn in school about the drawbacks of singapore government policy while pursuing JC economics, and have to rely on online political websites? we should have a government that uses reason to win us over, not deception or omission of key information. we need politicians that will give singaporeans credit for the education and intelligence that we possess.

as evidenced by the mostly moderate tone (to me, at least) that i have employed in this commentary, my views are not extreme; i do recognize the positive aspects of the singapore government, and give it credit. it is frustration and annoyance that i feel. frustration and annoyance because i feel that my logic is sound, but that no changes will ever be made, unless i manage to one day serve at a capacity great enough to bring about change. a political career for me is not out of the question, but still a rather far-fetched idea at the moment.

no matter what, because i was born and raised in singapore, and because my family is rooted there (strange how i have to write "there", not "here"), i feel a strong sense of attachment to the country, even if this would be true of me if i had been born and raised elsewhere. of course, the question is whether i love singapore because of characteristics relating to singapore, or whether i love singapore simply because i was born and raised here. this is a complex issue.

the final issue is this: how can one have a perspective towards his/her country is the most objective manner possible? now that i have been in a foreign country for almost two months, i may feel more positive towards singapore since i miss some aspects of it, but these feelings can quickly disappear once i'm back. was the perspective that i had when i was serving NS, forbidden from travelling overseas for nine months, objective? or perhaps, for a more balanced perspective, when i was in JC? i enjoyed JC, but mostly because of hwa chong, not singapore. since hwa chong is a school in singapore, can i say that i loved singapore, or does singapore not deserve the credit, especially since hwa chong is an independent school whose learning, social environment and teaching pedagogies may differ from the typical government-funded JC? the best way may be to somehow find an "average" throughout one's life. given that i'm only twenty-one, perhaps such a judgment would be premature.

i feel compelled to write a piece on issues of race and nationality, territory into which i barely delve, because i've emerged fresh from a heated argument with the girl in my host family, laura, who's fifteen going onto sixteen. it all started when she accompanied me while i was having dinner. when i slurped my spaghetti, she grimaced and started recounting about how her brother had dined next to some chinese who made loud noises while eating, and finally couldn't stand it anymore after one hour and confronted them. she then commented on how she hated chinese people, especially given that they "kill female babies" - a reference to female infanticide in the past. she also said that her sister, who is on an exchange programme in guangzhou, feels that the chinese people are not open or friendly towards her.

i started becoming defensive, arguing firstly that it was unfair to generalize all chinese people based on one or two incidents, and that she had to accept that people have different habits and cultural practices. secondly, infanticide is rare nowadays, and the people guilty of infanticide in the past are not the same people of today. many of them are very old, or even dead today. i asked her if it would make sense for me to hate my japanese classmates for what their ancestors did to mine. thirdly the reason that her sister might feel this way is that she doesn't speak the language! how do you expect people to be friendly with you when you don't speak the same language? is it really the case that chinese people are unfriendly, or is it simply a case of a language barrier playing a role? granted, english is the most widely spoken language in the world, but if you go to a country where 1.3 billion people speak chinese, is it fair to expect people to speak english or french to you? she said it was okay that she was sharing this with me, because i was singaporean and not chinese. when i tried explaining to her that yes, while i'm singaporean, my race is chinese and i do feel offended, she didn't seem to understand.

when i first came to paris and met an old friend on an NUS exchange in the paris institute of political studies, or science-po, she related to me how she was among the very few singaporeans here. because her studies here are graded differently from in NUS, there was no difference whether she did extremely well, or simply did enough to pass - she just needed to pass. but what she said was that she felt the need to do well because she's representing singapore, and she didn't want people to look down on singapore. i remember also, before i came to paris, what the alumnus interviewer of the university of pennsylvania, a singaporean lawyer, said to me. he said that the issue with singaporeans in the workplace is that they rarely help fellow singaporeans succeed, because they feel threatened by them. he said that singaporeans needed to work together in order to raise the profile of singapore in the world.

it is not unusual for people here not to have good impressions of singapore. when i mention i'm from singapore, the most common image conjured is one of an authoritarian government which places law enforcers everywhere, ready to warrant massive fines in the case that one is caught littering. this may be funny for a moment, and an image that one can relate to, but after the laughter subsides, we must ask ourselves: is it a good thing that this is the impression that other people have of singapore? is it a good thing that it's not the consistent economic growth rates with low inflation, educated and skilled workforce, lack of political corruption, variety of food, and multiculturalism that people know? is this what we want other people to think of our country?

back to the heated argument that i had with laura. no matter what, we identify with a race, and a nationality. i am chinese, and i am singaporean. i feel distaste for those singaporeans who are actually proud of not being able to speak chinese, thinking that it's beneath them. they speak english with this fake accent, which is painfully obvious when they speak with caucasians. and they feel good about it. when i speak with caucasians, i keep my singaporean accent while remaining intelligible. and it's not at all difficult. i don't believe we need to put on an accent at all. we have a way of speaking, and we don't need to change it to suit other people.

at the end of the day, we have to be proud of being chinese, and of being singaporean. if we're not proud of it ourselves, other people are all the more going to look down on us. even if that means arguing with a 15-year-old girl.

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p.s. i need to add this to my commentary in order to be fair to laura. she is a really nice, helpful and caring girl, who provides me with excellent company, and always helps out with chores in the house. bear in mind that i wrote this while still being annoyed at her, and that this is the only heated argument that we have had for the six weeks i have been here.

p.p.s. coincidentally, i took the train back with a chinese guy, and we spoke in chinese. i felt compelled to brush up on my chinese, so when i got home i spent an hour and a half reading out loud articles on lianhe zaobao. i went for dinner right after that. this definitely affected my behaviour during dinner.