A Singapore nerd's humble tribute to our Founding Father Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015)

A colour photo that reflects the mood of a nation in mourning of a great leader that can never be described in black and white.

Feel sad?
We should feel lucky to live from third world to first within a short 50 years in this sunny island set in the sea.

Mood black? 
You shouldn't, when you have the freedom to taste all the colours of the rainbow in this little red dot, regardless of race, language or religion.

Why mourn? 
When we should celebrate his remarkable brilliance for future generations to emulate so that his spirit will live forever.

My little note above is published in Singapore TODAY newspaper on 25 Mar 2015, albeit with some edits.

*****

An Ode to LKY

Heart sank but hope will float again
Tears flowed but spirits will rise again
Blackness enveloped but this red dot will shine again
The Maestro has left the stage but the band will play on again
If time can be reversed, we will do it all over again

*****

With the renewed exposure of LKY in western media, I hope that their readers will once and for all respect our Asian naming convention of putting our family name first and not bastardise his name as Kuan Yew Lee which doesn't work the same as Harry Lee. Likewise, Park Ji Sung should be remembered as a Korean soccer player and not be mistaken for a garden called Ji Sung Park.

*****

State Funeral Organising Committe

During this challenging period, please be thankful to the State Funeral Organising Committee (yes it exists) which is working round the clock to ensure that everything goes smoothly during this national mourning period, together with thousands of grassroots leaders manning the dozens of condolence sites around the country. And of course, the tireless local media bringing you the latest news updates. Even in time of sadness, everyone works as one people, one nation, one Singapore.

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The queue
The Singapore population can now be classified in these few categories: Those who queued; those who attempted to queue but left after 10mins; those who left work early on the pretext of queueing; and those who brought the elderly or babies just to be in the priority queue.

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Ashes
The most romantic thing you can say to your spouse is that when you die, you would like your ashes to be mixed with theirs. It is also the most insensitive thing to say since your spouse would have to die earlier than you for that to happen.

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Two observations:
1.Those VIPs who needn't queue at Parliament House will have the added privilege of seeing LKY's face. And these people will never speak openly describing how he looked.

2. Shouldn't Sunday's State Funeral Day be designated as a public holiday? If so, if a holiday rests on a Sunday, the following day Monday should be a holiday in lieu? Singaporeans have spent the entire week following the news and queueing. The additional rest day will be much welcomed, never mind the economic impact.

*****

Final thought
Am I the only one who is looking at our dear Loong, Yang and Ling as orphans now? And I guess the only thing up for adoption is their late father's vision. Any takers?



In Jan 2014 I wrote ' I hate Lee Kuan Yew'  (click to read)

Read newspaper for your daily serendipity

The best formula for digital natives and immigrants to lead a life most enchanted

If you are reading this on newsprint with ink-smudged fingers, give yourself a pat on the back. For those staring at the words on a screen, stop taking the blue pill for today and leave the ‘blissful ignorance of illusion’.In the seminal 1999 science-fiction movie The Matrix where humans are living in a simulated reality, hero Neo swallowed the red pill instead of the blue one, and faced the ‘painful truth of reality’.

I would argue that unlike the deceived people in the film, we willingly put on our rose-tinted glasses and live our lives in a cocoon of our fabricated reality aided by our highly personalised media consumption.

With cable TV offering 24-hour niche programming to online curated sites, social media and forums, it is a very tantalising thought of only consuming the content that appeal to you like entertainment or sports for example. Who wouldn’t want to be submerged in the seductive world of K-pop or the adrenaline rush of English premier league soccer day in day out if it makes them happy?

When like-minded folks congregate, tribes are formed both in the real world and online. They in turn create echo chambers which reinforce their mentality and behaviour, much to the detrimental to their personal growth and the advancement of society. While one may be deemed an expert with deep knowledge in his/her field, without broad understanding of other disciplines, actions and decisions made would often be flawed.

Whether we like it or not, that is how our media have evolved in order to attract our eyeballs and stickiness by overwhelming us with as much as what we desire and none of those we dislike. That includes all media except newspaper.

The inability for the oldest medium to offer much personalisation like how its younger brethren: radio, TV and Internet have done so marvellously well, is perhaps the only reason why it excels in preserving the one quality none of the latter offers – serendipity.

Read all about it in newspapers

Major English newspapers in Singapore

 

 Clichés in headlines 

An appeal to our local scribes to stop using cliché rhyming headlines since time immemorial like 'Maybe Baby', 'Yummy Mummy', Flower Power’ and ‘Oodles of noodles’. It might not be a piece of cake to think out of the box, but I know good things come to those who wait. I hate to imagine what some ingenious scribe will pen for a Valentine's Day story of a romantic hubby covering the bed with flower petals -"Flower power for maybe baby"?

Reading on the train

When I've finished reading the two free newspapers TODAY and My Paper during my morning commute, it is tough for me to recycle. Leave it in the MRT train like what is practiced in London and be accused of littering? Or hand it back to a fellow commuter or the newspaper dispatcher and get a weird look? For others in the same predicament, I'll suggest recycling it by rolling the paper into a tube in a crowded train and poke your way out from immobile statues blocking at the door.

:(

Is it just me or is the world getting more depressing when you read the papers and find the colourful ads with shiny happy people bring you more joy and perk up your morning instead of the drab black words in a sombre news story. Maybe I should read the H&M catalogue instead every morning.

Special photo

 Photo Straits Times 5 Mar 2013

Kudos to Straits Times for .'preserving photo integrity' in not blurring out the offensive word on the t-shirt of the man in blue in front of the cortege in the story. Click photo to expand.
 

Astronaut wannabe

7 Feb 2014 TODAY newspaper

Disappointed that TODAY newspaper sent a wrong message by running a front page picture story on a 15-yr-old astronaut wannabe (sweet-looking though), whose inspiration came from 'watching science fiction movies' and 'attending air shows'. Doesn't she know that movies are more fiction than science and air shows are just, well, for show? If she caught any science and space documentaries on Discovery or Nat Geo, she would realise that a space walk is no child's play.