Certainty in uncertainty.
Makansutra came to Baltimore on Thursday and Friday.Joseph, Grace and me went to meet Kf Seetoh. We went to Obryski’s – he was amazed by the crab cake (but he didn’t like the soup). The next day Joseph brought him to Faidleys – he loved that one even more.
After dinner on Thursday Joseph sent Seetoh back to his hotel, and before he left, he told us: ‘Lead a good life.’
After he left, Joseph commented: ‘I am pretty sure we all will.’
Then I said, ‘Yeah I hope I will – in Singapore…’
After that the conversation took a nosedive into crap.
Anyway, crap is not the point of my comment.
By going down the path I am intending to go now, I am literally pledging my life to Singapore in addition to my bonds.
I am not unhappy – but I still feel uncertain. It is not that I do not know what I am going to do in the next 5 years. This uncertainty is general. I feel like, by setting my heart on this, I am getting onto a boat with certainty yet sailing into unpredictable territory.
It is like Columbus – when he first sailed from Spain, he knew for sure he wanted to sail that way. However, as the boat left port, he would not have known whether he would return rich, broke or dead.
Other than the relatively obscure future of my industry in Singapore, Singapore is also at the crossroads where it has to somehow change.
How can a country so dependent on its people and talents continue to run with a culture of self-censorship, a media that is losing credibility, high-level officials without a sense of public accountability, an achievement-obsessed environment, and the hypocrisy in ‘national identity’ when people are taught the essence of kiasuism (or more harshly, opportunism) by society and the establishment day after day?
Do we even have a set of core values? Although we do criticise the American dream as hypocrisy, but Americans still do have some groundwork in their country’s core values.
Is there anything we can be proud of regarding our system of government? Our education, our media? Our culture? Probably food, yes.
We doubt our election system, we don’t fully trust our courts of law, we think that our media is government-controlled, we don’t get serious answers for issues we care about, people who advocate the learning of dialects are being called ‘foolish’, and in order to retain talents, the government needs to ‘bond’ them…
Do you think this can continue for another 50 years? Does a country like that sound stable to you in the long run?
I read in today’s newspapers that Taiwan is also looking into developing medical tourism, with their target being the mainland Chinese. They have a significant advantage – a cultural advantage that we do not have because our government has successfully diminished it (ask the hospital doctors to explain things to you in proper Chinese).
We are always facing tough competition, but we are always told that we have advantages over others. It is time to think – what are these advantages actually? If we do not even trust that we have these advantages anymore, we have to do something about it before it is too late.
Honestly, I do not have a lot of faith in Singapore. But I trust God...
Labels: Life, Policy and Politics
