Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

It’s National Day again. Flights are full as busy, overworked Singaporeans pack up to go on a much needed vacation. You may say they’re unpatriotic, but what the heck. When was the last time you hung out your flag on National Day? I came closest to doing that in a dream.

In that dream, the CEO of Golden Tap Charity (by the name of DD Durian) was found to have made use of charity funds to finance a lavish lifestyle. Everyone was furious. A noblewoman who spoke in his defence was quickly snubbed and forced to apologise. Eventually, they were all sentenced to lengthy jail terms. The money they siphoned from the people were returned to them.

It was in that dream and while it lasted that I proudly displayed our national flag at my balcony. Then, I woke up and realised that the DD Durian is none the worse for wear after the punishment he got. I also realised that had DD Durian not been such an overconfident megalomaniac that he started picking fights with giants like Superhold Press, he could well have remained in his position of power. Those of us who learn about his excesses from the grapevine can only gripe and pity the thousands of kind-hearted, ignorant donors. We would have been sued silly and forced to retract our accusations had it not been Superhold Press (not commoners like us) that had complained and escalated the conflict.

My friend CW was a very happy man. In the early to mid 1990s, He worked on a research vessel exploring for oil off the coast of Vietnam. He was the top man in charge of all the computers onboard. Glitches were rare and the technicians took care of routine maintenance. He was only called to troubleshoot when there was a major problem. So when he was free, he could sleep the whole day. Every time he set sail, he would stay on the ship for a whole month. The ship docked at Songkhla in Thailand and he would enjoy 2 months’ paid shore leave before boarding the ship again. Even though the company provided CW with free air tickets to return to Singapore, CW was in love with Thailand. He always started his shore leave with a flight to Chiangmai, his second home where he had a special arrangement with a guesthouse to keep a room for him.

As far as CW was concerned, he had the best job in the world.

Single and with everything paid for while at work, CW had plenty of money to spare. He spent all his time in Chiangmai attending Thai classes, meditation courses and socialising. Every weekend, he would hold a big party at the lobby of the guesthouse. Rich seafood crackled over charcoal fires, filling the dank air in that soi with a pleasant aroma. Beer and whisky flowed like the waters of the Mae Ping. Thirsty Thais just guzzled it all up.

A Thai friend once remarked that CW probably knew everyone in Chiangmai. It did seem so, judging from the crowd at his parties. Everyone was a friend, a very good friend indeed. Rain or shine, whenever there was a party, they would be there. Let’s apply the “loyalty test” on them.

“Are you proud of CW’s economic achievements?”

Yes. (100%)

“Does CW lend you money when you need it?”

Yes. (100%)

CW’s friends in Chiangmai were 100% behind him. He had their absolute loyalty according to our very own survey to test citizen loyalty. But how reliable is such a test? We don’t know the answer for Singapore yet, but for CW, that is already known.

It all happened in 1997 when the financial crisis hit the region. CW’s company was badly hit. They withdrew all research funds and CW was retrenched. No more weekend parties and guess what. No more friends and visitors. When borrowers got turned away, they wouldn’t even have a simple dinner of fried egg on rice with him.

We all love parties and parties are fine and fun as long as we don’t get too intoxicated and think it shows loyalty. So do we have to wait for a war before we can see Singaporeans displaying their loyalty? No need for that. Before one can show loyalty to one’s country, one has to first show loyalty to oneself. If a small threat can make one cower in submission, then this person is unlikely to be very loyal to his country.

In Singapore’s highly regulated environment, people who are in business and have a family to support would normally just apologise to the powers that be if they have unintentionally offended them. Apologise, whithdraw accusations, retract statements … that’s all it usually takes for the budding dissident to do to stay out of trouble and move on. It’s when these dissidents insist on standing their ground that they end up in jail.

What if these were merely telling the truth? What if they were merely expressing a strong opinion without any intention to offend? Would they stand their ground or even go to jail for their beliefs? In a similar vein, would they stand up to a enemy which not only threatens their livelihood, but their precious little lives? Would they loyally fight till their last breath? It’s all too obvious what kind of behaviour is being promoted in this land. Perhaps that’s why we are are so desperate for tests and surveys that can bring out other features that may indicate loyalty.

I would be crying now if my clinic had been on the basement of Lucky Plaza. The flood 2 weeks ago would have devasted my dental unit and $50,000 xray machine. Yes, there was a devastating flood at Orchard Road that day. I arrived in the afternoon, but several broken down vehicles were still stranded on the road, waiting to be towed away. At the basement of Lucky Plaza, was a familiar sight. Water was ankle deep (I was told it went up to knee deep earlier) and shopkeepers were frantically blocking off their shops with planks and shovelling water away from their goods with everything they had. Just next door at Tong Building (the Rolex building), the basement carpark was full of submerged cars. Boy was I glad to be on Level 5.

Later in the afternoon, after most of the flood waters on the main road have subsided, I was walking on muddy ground outside Takashimaya. The basement carpark at Tong Building continued to hold its submerged cars while roaring trucks I’ve never seen before siphoned desperately. The underpass between Takashimaya and Lucky Plaza remained closed and many people were forced to run across the road.

Yes, it was a devastating flood. My heart goes out to the shopkeepers and the owners of the submerged cars. Apparently, this flood (which is not the first in Orchard Road which I’ve seen) was caused by a large monsoon drain being choked by the carcass of an animal called a scapegoat.

Wait a minute. There’s no scapegoat here and I’m surprised. Not only was there no scapegoat, we were told that ensuring zero floods would mean building some very expensive huge monsoon drains which would be empty most of the time. Sounds a bit like parade squares in army camps.

OK, National Day is next month. I’d leave NDP to the youngsters. For me, I’ll probably take a short trip to Indonesia and climb a volcano. In line with promoting environmental friendliness, I heard that a couple of local designers have been engaged to design stylish totes with the NDP theme. The design below sums it all up.

Shows what kind of boring, unimaginative and restricted dreams we can have in Singapore. So much for a flood of creativity.

I don’t believe it! Don’t tell me how much they paid the songwriter and director for this piece of crap. I could have written better lyrics in 5 minutes when I was in P6.

Here’s the faster, cheaper, better version.

The recent “protests” against MOE’s proposal to “lower the weightage” of “Mother Tongue” in PSLE results was a knock on the head for adminstrators who think that every Chinese/Malay family sees the learning of Chinese/Malay as an unnecessary burden for their children. Many children actually do well for MT in their PSLE. There are some who don’t do too well overall because they are pulled down by low MT scores. Changing the rules may lead to a very different group of top students - perhaps those who speak Mandarin with a Sentosa accent.

During a parents’ briefing by my son’s school principal, the highly charismatic gentleman advised Malay parents not to let their children take Chinese as “Mother Tongue”. He argued that they could not provide the “environment” at home for their kids to learn the language properly.

But what about Chinese familes? Not even pure Chinese families can always provide the right environment for learning Chinese. Even if we argue that they have no excuse for that (since they are Chinese), what about the non-Chinese and not so Chinese Asian familes where the members have to communicate in English out of necessity?

It’s an obvious phenomenon that we are seeing more and more mixed and foreign families in Singapore. We have many mothers of Singaporean children who are Thais, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Burmese and we only have 4 official languages to choose from. What does Mr Principal want them to do if they can’t provide a conducive “environment” for Chinese, Malay or Tamil? Shouldn’t concessions be targeted at these children rather than those who have no excuse not to do well in MT because they live in Sentosa?

But some caution is in order. While supporting MT will ensure a healthy and representative number of heartlanders amongst the top students in Singapore, it will open doors for recent immigrants whose “Mother Tongues” are more motherly than ours. Other immigrant societies lay the ground rules in no uncertain terms.

John Howard:

‘We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!’

We are certainly not so strict about such things over here. In fact, we are often told the benefits of “speaking the language”, the necessity of welcoming immigrants. And we even changed our Nee Soon to Yishun.

Well, I do know how to pronounce Yishun and Hougang the “correct” way, but I insist on saying “yee shoon” and “hao gang”. I speak the language better than most Chinese Singaporeans, but in my line of work, this often means more arguments, more complaints, more sarcasm and even thuggish behaviour.

What’s wrong with shops and restaurants like these? Well, in case our decision makers fail to realise, there is a certain unwritten exclusitivity in these establishments. They do a great job of making you feel alien if you’re not mainland Chinese. And that’s in our own home country, Singapore. It’s an irony that you’ll receive a much warmer reception in China. Our decision makers may dream of Li Jiawei or Feng Tianwei playing host to a group of Singaporean Indian friends inside one of these restaurants, but not in my wildest dreams do I see them giving their Chinese Singaporean friends a treat here.

And out on the streets, we see more litter, more shouting, more crowding, pushing, haggling, excuses for not paying and other inconsiderate behaviour. How I wish I operate a service that automatically deducts fees from bank accounts and answers the phone with “We’re sorry, our Chinese-speaking customer service officers are all engaged. Please call back in 10 years.”

I have nothing against the language, the people and the culture. In fact, I use Mandarin and write in Chinese all the time. I just feel that too many of them are seeing our open doors as an invitation to colonise the place. Of course those running our public transport and other utilities (and automated answering machines) will gain tremendously from an influx of immigrants. What about dentists? What do we stand to gain, just staring at the impressive numbers in the news while we squeeze on the MRT with loud messages being passed down like announcements for the arrival of the Empress Dowager in the Forbidden City.

Yeah, they made this their home all right. Is there anything wrong? Well, it gets a bit irritating to some when they expect to find someone who speaks their Mother Tongue everywhere they go, they refuse to speak English and kick up a fuss when someone who looks Chinese can’t understand them.

我是会说华语。可是来自菲律宾,印度,和本地非华族公民的员工都听不懂。我还得帮你翻译。你会说英
语干吗要大家迁就你?

(This refers to China workers who insist on speaking Mandarin even when working in a multi-cultural workplace. Some even show annoyance when Indonesian Chinese customers they encounter don’t speak their language)

We have often been reminded of the need to embrace immigrants. It’s only very recently that we hear voices from the top asking us to “keep a balance between strengthening, maintaining the core and keeping Singapore recognisable, and bringing in new people and transforming Singapore to prepare for tomorrow”.

For a start, let’s change our Yishun back to Nee Soon. Let’s also make sure all the China-Chinese restuarants in Geylang and Chinatown have menus in the 4 official languages of Singapore.