Facilitation

I think that Lee Kuan Yew is the perfect Virgo – super anal retentive.

I think that the Singaporean education system is very much like Virgo – it will be perfect, and you will be good at the details, but you will also very much miss out on the bigger picture.

Why do we have the biggest port in the world? Why do we have the best airport in the world? A great port and a great airport. But they are just means. We have the best facilities in the world. But they are just facilities. They enable great things to be done, but what?

We are a hub, and we hope to be in the centre of everything. We have a great finance sector, but banks are only there for something. What is that something? That’s why we often talk about the Singaporean soul. But what is it?

We seem to exist for other people. People are a cog in the Singaporean machine. And Singapore itself is a cog in an even greater machine. We host events. IOC conferences. WTO talks. APEC forums.

We have the Esplanade. But so many of the shows at the Esplanade are foreign acts, and actually, justifiably so. They deserve it. But what have we got to show for ourselves?

Singapore has a “special relationship” with China. I don’t really know, we’re supposed to be a gateway to China. Do people remember that Singapore gave a lot of money to China when they were fighting the Japs, and when the Japs got to us, they gave us hell? I hope they remember that.

We’re a gateway to the West. And India too, but not really because everybody knows how “well” Singapore treats its Indians.

The one art form which we’re justifiably proud of is food. But food is the pleasure of the flesh, and not the soul. And food is also a facility – it facilitates our being alive.

I’m quite proud of our HDB flats. I always thought that HDBs were unique in Singapore. Actually, they are not. You have public housing in the US, and the UK. They are horrible places. Squalour, crime, drug abuse, prostitution. In a way, they are somewhere in between the shanty / squatter towns in a bad part of town, and a real house of your own. They are high class squatter holes. 99 year lease? It’s just the government telling you that you can squat here for a while, maybe your whole life. But the land will never be yours.

Remember when you were young, you went to the museum and saw how miserable those poor coolies were in their shophouses? You just have to remember that these days, shophouses are considered to be high class real estate.

You just have to remind yourself that being in the middle of everywhere is the same thing as being in the middle of nowhere.