TR EMERITUS

I remember in one of my many discussions over beer with the Old Rogue, he would often state that America started having issues when it implemented a “welfare system.” He argued that the problem with the welfare system was the fact it was not designed to help the poor but to create jobs for “useless” people who would be incentivized to keep the poor that way so that they would always have a job. OK, I get that his comments aren’t politically correct. However, I believe that he has a point. The next time you need to swim through paper work in an office, ask yourself if that paper work actually leads to anything productive or if it’s designed to create work for the sake of creating work. You need to ask yourself who benefits from this. Inevitably, you’ll find that “work process” aren’t actually processes to get a job completed but a means of keeping parasites busy. This became very apparent when I attended a talk at a law firm on “Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States” (“CFIUS”). The talk was moderated by a friend and former customer at the Bistrot. One of the main speakers was an American lawyer who dialled in from one of the American offices and the other was from a consultancy. The later had actually worked at the Department of Justice and Homeland Affairs and had played an active role in making CFIUS what it is. What struck me about the entire situation was the fact that the moderator had made the point that America was the world leader in opening up the world. However, America had recently reserved its position and become a leader in closing up the world and the only real beneficiaries were lawyers and consultants (the moderator being a high-powered lawyer himself). Now, I get that the world cannot be totally open. Just as a lot of good things came about when countries opened up, a lot of bad things also crossed borders. In an ideal situation most, places should be open enough for goods and services to cross borders but closed enough so that nasty things like terrorist and crooks stay out. I get that in the case of America, there are genuine concerns about national security, where you don’t want potential adversaries getting hold of sensitive military information. So, in world where Russia is openly aggressive and China is increasingly more assertive, it is understandable that the USA would want a certain amount of control over what goes on in its borders. So, I get that there is a rationale behind CFIUS and I can understand why other countries are following the American example and implementing CFIUS. However, while I do get the need for controls on certain things, we have to ask ourselves if we are creating a situation where the people you are creating complications for the sake of creating complications so that lawyers and consultants can stay in a job rather than achieving an objective. The speaker made the point that certain definitions were kept vague so that CFIUS could come down on businesses and it made negotiations all the more interesting. The speaker gave an example of a French company that he once worked for that bought an American subsidiary in a “sensitive” industry. In order to get the deal approved by CFIUS, the French parent company had to agree that only natural born US citizens could work in the American subsidiary (everyone from the CEO to the janitor). As the speaker stated, this violated a bunch of American laws but the issue of “national security” overrode enabled these laws to be overridden. This is despite the fact that there is “NO PROOF” that naturalised citizens are less loyal than native born citizens (let’s remember that the 2005 London Bombers were native born). This is, unfortunately not the only example of governments trying to keep lawyers and consultants in a job. I recently had to fill out the American ESTA form. Now, the last time I filled out the ESTA was a decade ago when I went to the USA to see my stepdad for his 80th birthday. That experience was painless. This time, it wasn’t. They went as far as to ask me for my various social media accounts. Erm, what was that supposed to achieve other than to give someone who had never done a day of honest work a sense of superiority? To be fair to the Americans, they aren’t the only nation where governments feel obliged to create problems for productive people, I think of Singapore where we insist on looking for useless information about people – just think of the way the government needs to know which primary school you went to and what your Primary School Leavers Exam (PSLE) results were, whenever you apply for a government job. Who exactly does this benefit except some worm sitting in an office? Yes, I do get that you can throw things wide open. However, we need to stop creating useless work for useless people and encourage them to be productive rather than parasitic. Society can only progress if its citizens are used for work that benefits people rather than paper pushers and worms in cubicles.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

Who is right? Philip Rowell or Tan Yi Shu? They wrote to ST on their views about having or not having kids. Philip wrote that he spend a good number of years as a childless adult, “which he certainly enjoyed.” But he broke that streak and had his first kid at 41. He said, “Simply put, in life, kids are what we’re here for.” There is another saying Philip might like, “A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.” FYI, his letter was titled: “Should you have children? The answer is yes, yes and yes.” Well, least we get too excited about it, here comes Yi Shu to offer her views. She wrote that it’s “far too simplistic and make light of the many who do not have children but who lead extremely meaningful lives.” Here is her point, unapologetically served. “Not every adult is suited to be a parent, and one ought to make a careful assessment first before trying. the issue is never just about finances - although it is a big one - but whether the person has the necessary time, and temperament.” There are those “who have chosen not to have children so that they can fulfill other purposes or responsibilities more important to them, such as taking care of sickly parents?” You have to give some credit to Philip for gushing with these witty analogies in his letter. “Not having kids is like going to the finest Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, and eating only the bread and drinking the tap water.” Or this, “not having kids is like going to Disneyland and not going on Space Mountain.” Last one, with a local favour. “It’s like buying a Porsche 911, and using it only to drive to the local Sheng Siong to pick up groceries, never getting above the 50kmh speed limit.” You can slice that excitement in the air that surrounds Philip with a hot butter knife, and I too feel it, as I am a father of three almost grown up kids, 21, 18 and 13. Yi Shu, on the other hand, makes good sense too. She opined, “At the end of the day, it boils down to what and how someone finds ultimate meaning in life. Having a child is surely not the be-all and end-all, and is also not a game of cards.” (Anyway, we are by nature meaning-makers, and we get creative about it all the time, with or without kids). Take it from me, I suspect having kids may just be a default position for couples tying the knot. The expectations can be overbearing. The pressure mounting as the days and years go by. I know of couples finding ways and means to escape from Alcatraz during CNY by booking a holiday or pretending to be sick. You can never do without that biological-clock-ticking Yam Seng at the wedding dinner party - zao sheng gui zi. Some don’t give much thought to it. To them, it may be obligatory, even therapeutic. In some ways, couples may have kids while on autopilot mindset, the heat of the moment, much like the analogy drawn, “a game of cards.” Having said that, I believe what overlaps between the two letters, or writers, Philip and Yi Shu, however is that having kids is a beautiful thing. It does lead to a beautiful end too. A story of love overcoming, and joy overflowing. I am sure they would agree. Now, a baby may be God's opinion that life should go on, yet life goes on anyway, with or without a kid being born. The world doesn’t stop spinning should a couple decide not to have a kid. We have about 8 billion people in the world, and 6 million in our little garden city-state, trust me, life is happening, whether we like it or not, and it’s going on and on and on. Ultimately, both are right within their own intimate sphere of experiences and circumstances (I am not making any assumptions about Yi Shu, because I don’t know her. She may be a parent like me, and holds views that take both sides into account). They are right because having kid is a very personal decision, and as Yi Shu put it, “it is literally a lifelong commitment, the genesis of which is first best thought through carefully.” All said, here’s my two cents as I end. I feel that having kids is not purely a cost-and-benefit analysis. We are human being, emotional creatures. Sometimes, we are social animals. Sometimes we are coffee-shop actuaries. But having kids is a decision made when we are both, in varying mix. It is thus not a strictly rational pathway, due to the way society, tradition and expectations are wound up. The bias is thick in one direction. It takes a couple to be in an island by themselves to screen out these influences, whether in-your-face or subtle. However, a child changes you. And you won’t know how much and in what ways, until they are delivered. Having a child is largely redemptive, for the child and/or the parent. Most parents step up to the plate, even if they are not seen as cut out to be parents. Some drop it completely, abandon ship, mid-stream. Along that hardscrabble life journey, it can be a mutually enriching experience, or a traumatic one. On some days, it can be rewarding beyond worldly metric or painful beyond words. Or both - yes, to varying mix. Having a child is like an investment, but not like buying shares, cars or houses. They don’t talk back, antagonize or inspire. They don’t cry or laugh with you. And they don’t wait by your deathbed, or offer eulogy at your wake. Pardon me for stating the obvious. Those things are not measurable, not strictly one arising from cost and benefit analysis. But that doesn’t mean you don’t count the cost, when you carry that cross full term, and thereafter. There are immeasurable joy and grief that come from making that decision, and parents will just have to sit each other down, and go through it. It’s an irrevocable and irreversible choice, and let’s be responsible about it. Whatever turns up, it is a personal decision we should all extend the space and grace of understanding, and support and respect it. That, to me, is the be-all and end-all of it.   Michael Han * The author was a Director at Han & Lu  Law Chambers and blogs on Facebook.      Read More →

The 19th Asian Games in hangzhou ended on 18th October. This is the full video with Chinese narratve.   Final Medal Tally Team/NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total People's Republic of China (CHN) 201 111 71 383 Japan (JPN) 52 67 69 188 Republic of Korea (KOR) 42 59 89 190 India (IND) 28 38 41 107 Uzbekistan (UZB) 22 18 31 71 Chinese Taipei (TPE) 19 20 28 67 Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) 13 21 20 54 Thailand (THA) 12 14 32 58 Bahrain (BRN) 12 3 5 20 D.P.R. Korea (PRK) 11 18 10 39 Kazakhstan (KAZ) 10 22 48 80 Hong Kong, China (HKG) 8 16 29 53 Indonesia (INA) 7 11 18 36 Malaysia (MAS) 6 8 18 32 Qatar (QAT) 5 6 3 14 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 5 5 10 20 Philippines (PHI) 4 2 12 18 Kyrgyzstan (KGZ) 4 2 9 15 Saudi Arabia (KSA) 4 2 4 10 Singapore (SGP) 3 6 7 16 Vietnam (VIE) 3 5 19 27 Mongolia (MGL) 3 5 13 21 Kuwait (KUW) 3 4 4 11 Tajikistan (TJK) 2 1 4 7 Macau, China (MAC) 1 3 2 6 Sri Lanka (SRI) 1 2 2 5 Myanmar (MYA) 1 0 2 3 Jordan (JOR) 0 5 4 9 Turkmenistan (TKM) 0 1 6 7 Afghanistan (AFG) 0 1 4 5 Pakistan (PAK) 0 1 2 3 Brunei (BRU) 0 1 1 2 Nepal (NEP) 0 1 1 2 Oman (OMA) 0 1 1 2 Iraq (IRQ) 0 0 3 3 Lao P.D.R. (LAO) 0 0 3 3 Bangladesh (BAN) 0 0 2 2 Cambodia (CAM) 0 0 1 1 Lebanon (LBN) 0 0 1 1 Palestine (PLE) 0 0 1 1 Syrian Arab Republic (SYR) 0 0 1 1      Read More →