Asians, generally? There is nothing general about Asians. Indians don't count. If you are not Chinese, Korean or Japanese, you don't count either.

Is Mr Goh Keng Swee and Lee Kwan Yew unique???

They bloody well are UNIQUE. I don't know any other leader like them that exist in the third world context!

lol it can be generalised when asians are related, especially the stigma of stereotypes anyway youre just being denial. dudee im asian too :P

Just because you live in Asia doesn't mean you are Asian. Muốn ăn đòn à?

When it comes to Lau Lee, there are none like him in the first-world context either.

Hey tangy, I would like to meet the guy and share with him my political ideas for preservation and advancement of Singapore.
Is there anyway to get to him?

if u hv a first rate mind, u can try to convince his PS to give u an audience... but otherwise, just try to attend an NUS talk and be brave enough to fire your questions at him in public lar?

how do u think he is gonna answer ur questions about SG's survival in the future anyways?

don't u think as an island nation, we are at the mercy of the big trading nations' fortunes? so we just have to watch which way the trade winds are blowing and tag along?

His PS is probably an idiot. Those NUS talks won't work either. I watched one on TV. Firing questions at LKY? You kidding me?

Come on, tangy. I have a plan for Singapore to sell to the guy. I know he is worried about Singapore's future. Singapore is like Apple. Do you think Apple can continue growing without Steve Jobs? No way.

I have a first rate mind, tangy. I would rather convince you to give me an audience. What do you say?

dude, that actually sounded lame.. :P write a book or some shte make yourself heard, in a way im sure lky will listen to your story but only if you were karl marx hehe *bummer*

Make myself heard? And who would be my audience? You? I am not hawking nasi lemak, dude.

ok, i am all ears....wht's yr gameplan for SG?

Ok, tangy. Lau Lee had expressed his concern about Singapore's future and he said that it is the young Singaporeans that is his biggest concern, not external threats. I acquired my PR status as an investor and naturally my hang out is the financial district where I socialize with $hit hot young bankers and other sharp Singaporeans in their mid twenties to early thirties. Most are not interested in politics, or, should I say, they are focussed - as they should be - in making money. Of those who would discuss Singapore's politics with me, they feel disenfranchised and somewhat cynical. Mainly, they feel excluded from the business of governing Singapore. This is the biggest problem that confronts Lau Lee. I know the old man desperately wants to reach the young ones.

We are the young ones, tangy. Lau Lee knows that Lee Hsien Loong is not enough. We have got to let that old man know that his Singapore is safe with all the young ones before he dies.

So u aren't a singaporean by birth?

where are u from? msia izzit??

i think that the SG gahmen has an agenda to replace true blue singaporeans with young talents from abroad.

most SG chinese/peranakans/etc.. already feel like the bumiputras of msia, with the onslaught of PRC newcomers, we will feel like a people in danger of our survival...

but then didn't the malays and peranakans feel the same in the last century when boatloads of coolies and amahs came in the junks from China and India? and look how we've all congealed together to become kiasu Sngaporeans?

i don't share the same panic that u claim LKY has over the future generation... when he's gone and turned to dust, the city state will just continue to evolve

i see my city state as a cosmopolitan city now.. i don't see myself as a heartlander does, i see myself as a globalised citizen... like maybe how Marco Polo saw himself even though he was a citizen in Venice.

there are many SG youths like me who see ourselves as cosmopolitan citizenry.. we are just not that interested in the heartlander politics and identity crisis.

we don't feel that threatened by the PRC influx like the heartlanders do.

i think we have to continue to cultivate a class of cosmopolitan Singaporeans from the heartlanders.

u say u hang out only in the financial district like Raffles Sq, well, u must know then what i am saying right? if u are like an auntie working in the kopitiam serving milo, then u would be grumbling abt your cheena competitor for her job! hahaha... ')

Born and bred in the USA, tangy. But I spent two years in Singapore when I was around 10 and studied at SJI (St. Joseph's Institution).



gahmen? You mean government? Replace Singaporeans? Bringing in foreign talents is good for Singapore, a place for the brightest and the best in the world. And young Singaporeans have no trouble competing with talents from anywhere on the planet. Won’t it be cool to have a Xigon, a Tianya and a Ralf in the Singapore cabinet?



True, the planet will go on turning after LKY is gone. Singapore will evolve into something else.



Yours is the right attitude because global citizens in a world without borders make sense. To get there, Singapore has to lead the way by adopting a fundamentally new societal model, one that renders nationalism obsolete. In this way, Singapore can discard her island nation identity and turn herself into the center of global transformation. And this new societal model for Singapore is my game plan, as you call it. I feel silly discussing this here. AF is not the proper forum for expounding earth-shattering political theories.

Tangy, you have got to help me get to LKY so that I can make your cosmopolitan dream come true.

Singapore is like Dubai and Orlando, Florida....combination of tropical shopping Mall and amusement park.
Very exciting for 2 night and 3 days. Anything after then, I will be bored and get crazy.

That is the trouble... it can get boring and unexciting from the outside if u don't know what's the inside of Singapore and make it tick for you!

The heavy censorship and lack of political freedoms make the heartlanders quite content to pursue their way of life --- eat, sleep, work and eat, sleep, work.

But for the cosmopolitan citizenry, we need to like get out and decompress and come back to appreciate the order and efficiency of this serf city sometimes.

Perhaps the foreign talents will come in and inject some political verve to loosen the grip the gahmen (govt) holds over the lifes of each Singaporean.

Yiming, u wanna start some political campaign to get noticed by LKY or what??

You may not realize that you are being snobblish. Is it sour grapes and you are flag waving for the Philippines? You can get bored and go crazy in Orlando. Try that in Singapore and you will end up in Changi prison, get flogged and sent home. That's not good news for the crazies but it works for people who appreciates public safety and order. Singapore is a whole lot more than window-shopping and fun-seeking, the pastime of the typical foreign worker.

Malacanang’s experience of Singapore is undeniable but it comes from a casual visitor’s perspective. I live - two or three months at a time - in South-East Asia during the winter and summer months, and return to the US in the spring and the fall. I couldn’t do this if it wasn’t for Singapore that functions like my base camp in the tropical jungle. Although not as quick on her feet as New York or London, Singapore’s first-world connectivity and social graces, to me, are like umbilical links and oxygen to a deep sea diver.



The lack of freedom that breeds apathy is sad, tangy. I appreciate your willingness to go this far to talk to me. I have come across much older Singaporeans who confided in me their fear of the government. This is the problem that brings about estrangement between a state and its citizens. LKY is brilliant and he has more than done his bit for Singapore. His strategies were appropriate and his tactics were necessary for the greater good of his island state. He knows well to step back after his job was done and loosen the reins somewhat. But this is not enough. Singapore needs a new tack to mobilize and invigorate the young ones. This is to avoid devolving into a “kiasi” autocracy that is constantly on the lookout for “dangerous thinking”. Do you reckon the LKY School of Public Policy at NUS is even looking at this?



This doesn’t sound right, tangy. Do you really think that Singapore is as good as it gets? Granted, the rest of the world isn’t any better. Hey, America is a mess. So is Europe. Even Japan, which I love, is creaking under the weight of crushing debt. The whole world needs to change. Singapore is such a young exciting place. And because of her small size and forward- thinking LKY dna, I just feel that she would be more ready to try my ideas and take that Great Leap Forward.



What about our verve? Why can’t we do the injecting? You don’t believe in Singaporean exceptionalism? I hate to think that insurrection is the only way to change society. Why do we always have to be so bloody brutal and violent? Singapore has become a state that assumes the responsibility to take care of her citizens like a parent looking after her kids. This has no appeal to Americans who don’t like being told what to do by anyone including the government. The reason is because of American brashness and fear of despots. The Singapore way is fine as long as the child and parent relationship is a bond of affection. I have no doubt that LKY loves his “children”. What if dad is no longer around? The American way is not the answer either. Although the ideology of self-determination is good, democracy cannot give you that, and its form of practice in America is a money-wasting farce that would wreck Singapore. What to do? This is the question LKY asked in his eulogy to his wife as he faces a life without her. And I am asking you this same question as we confront a future without LKY. What to do?



Political campaign? No, tangy. I don’t want us to be crushed like ladybugs by the gahmen. I have a Singapore operating system to show to LKY and I feel like a young Bill Gates trying to sell Windows to IBM. Do you want to be a billionaire or not?

yep, most pinoys get bored with Sg after a while hanging out in Orchard Rd and malls.. i think they miss the chaos of Manila or the rustic countryside ..

the greatest thing about Sg is its status as an efficient hub.. my bro goes diving every weekend when he can, either in indonesian, thailand or philippines, and the budget flights are cheap.. and the salaries u command are so much more than neighboring msia or indo

On the lack of freedom, apathy and authoritarianism, i think when LKY leaves finally, we would be lost for a while, especially the heartlanders. Encouraged by the state apparatus, they will be acting like North Koreans for a long while, eulogizing their leadership and pining for former glories...

But i think below the surface of conformity and homogeneity, there is a movement towards a democratic discipline, not so much towards multiparty politics, but towards a national dialogue between the one party state and the citizenry.. the dialogue can be stilted of course, but the gahmen apparatus is listening. Problems are aired, empathic listening is being done by the powers that be, and citizens are being asked to see the point of view not just from themselves but also the nation state. There is some evolution towards conflict resolution. It's not like we have abuses of power that we see on a frequent scale in neighboring Msia or Thailand..

but i feel that the Confucius model of educating our youth is giving way to a democratic discipline that is totally asiatic in flavour.... like Ah Gong is willing to listen to the grandchildren and give em a chance to express their problems and solutions, but there are certain boundaries which must be drawn, such as the media independence and such. The island state doesn't believe it can sustain the type of media freedoms enjoyed by the West, it may make us tear each other apart on basic levels like race. I think this is the biggest failure of our country. Media independence. It's almost like the gahmen is scared we cannot think and evaluate and judge for ourselves what is wrong or right. So bit by bit, they are allow democratic discipline to develop in order to foster responsibility and self-discipline

I think the gahmen has child psychologists on their panel to kinda advise them how to deal with their citizens.

Many things have evolved from the draconian days to a democratic discipline..

like the prison system.. when i was home i studied a little abt the prisons and found they have followed progressive countries in allowing prisoners to maintain the bond with their families..

the forums in the national dailies are the vox populi .. so have the blogosphere. Of course there is a conscious effort not to allow independent media on the scale of the Americas, but the international coverage is all quite comprehensive, and folks at home know basically what the real issues are affecting them with these international news..

Anyways, i think u are already part of this national dialogue. At least, u are not writing diatribes and scathing remarks, you are making measured evaluations of the gahmen and seeing an optimistic future without Mr LKY.

So, that's the democratic discipline at work a-la-PAP. It's not the "free-for-all" democracy we see in certain western nations, but who ever said that their democracies were evolved in a "free-for-all" manner right from the start? They also evolved with heavy guidance from their powers-that-be.

You are worried about LKY's demise?

What's this billion dollar deal? Not another casino, ya?

With all due respects, tangy, and I say this with affection: You are one smart b-i-t-c-h.

I need to give serious thought to my response. Don't touch that dial. Be back soon.

the only thing I hate about Singapore is the stupid pictures they print on cigarette box and they don't sell gum in singapore. and NO DURIAN =))

I don't read this newspaper but I know it represents a lotta Singaporean's mindsets :