6-8 pm July 22, 2008
Singapore, a country that I admire and a country that I somewhat don't understand as much as I would like. I have been here many times and yet I don't feel I know her well enough.
I decided to take a stroll and the 20 minutes walk from the hotel to Mohamad Sultan was so pleasant without a single drop of sweat. I enjoyed the walk because I find space and the greenery here which I don't when I am in Hong Kong. I enjoyed watching the colonial era architecture which are so much better conserved than in Hong Kong.
These are among the reasons for my fondness of Singapore. Still, I frequently ask myself which place is more livable and which place has a brighter future. To this, I still haven't had an answer.
I found myself alone sitting on a bar in one of the pub along Mohamad Sultan. It was my curiosity of the architecture and the facade that led me walking into the pub along this once famous party street. Inside the pub, beside the steel rails for bar top dancing, there is a steel beam structure to reinforce this 90 years old building. Hang on the wall are old photos of Strait Chinese family and potrait. That remind me of my own maternal great grandmothers who were of baba nyonya descent.
I was surprized that there was no one for the happy hour and in between that one hour or so before two regulars walking in to order a jug of beer, I had a conversation with the lady boss. She is savvy and well travelled.
I drank my pint of draft beer and I listened to the story of her business and from there, the Singapore governance.
She recounted the prime days of her business when patrons lined up to get in for partying. The business was so good that they had to turn away customer lest they irk the enforcement officers.
The closing time was strictly enforced and so was the crowd control. Enforcement officers would be present 5 minutes before closing time to make sure all lights were switched off. Inexplicably, the enforcement officers would often be present to issue summon for bar top dancing when the party went wild (following government standard) or the patron numbers had exceeded what was permitted. The fine would sweep away the profit of the night and they ended up doing a night of national service.
Bar top dancing was barred for years and the moment the government legalised it, the government began to collect bar top dancing licencing fee. Was it the extra money for the openness?
Then came 911. Her business dropped the next day after the government removed the parking lots along the street. This has to do with the fear of car bombing as Mohamad Sultan was frequented by expatriate.
From then onwards, it is downward spiral. Without street parking lots, happy hours crowd turn elsewhere to down their beer. The subsequent extension of closing hours remain short in regaining Mohamad Sultan's good old day. (I must disclose I had my small share of good time at Mohamad Sultan before 911).
Despite the poorer crowd, the bussines carried on thank to the loyal and sometimes nostagic patrons like me but in larger part the thanks goes to the lower rent (3$ psf compared to 20$ psf in boat quay).
One nice thing I heard was that her business had never paid any protection fee to triad society even though there were attempts asking it. This is a strong sign of the rule of law, isn't it?
In between, I asked her if she was aware of LKY's slip under oath in a suit against an opposition figure. She said no. This is the second no I receive. The first one came from the taxi driver who fetched me from the airport. I am not too sure if the news was censored or prudently not reported in the local press.
So much the impression I have for Singapore press freedom. Yet, I left the pub for dinner still without having the frequent questions answered.
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3 comments:
Bro KY, I always enjoy stories of interviews during your travels. I still remember when you did a survey on prostitutes in Dubai.
There are trade-offs in the social contract between the government and the governed in every country. In Singapore, the price seems to be the relatively strong-arm tactic to neutralize certain political opposition; and the standing of the judiciary where those cases are concerned. As with share prices, those factors - as well as others like the tough rule of law, prosperity, stability, efficiency, far-sightedness, concern for long term - are factors that are 'priced-in' into people's perceptions of the PAP government. If it plays to script so nobody pays too much notice. In this sense, the escape of the terror suspect Mas Selamat is much more damaging to the PAP's image.
I grew up with the Singapore press. In the 27 years I lived in Brunei, from the time I could read, I was reading either or both the Singapore Strait Times or the Lianhe Zaobao everyday. It was an obsession. In the days before the internet, I would get my "daily fix" around 2pm every day when the plane arrives with the Singapore papers; if they get delayed I would get jumpy and irritable. Public holidays when the papers did not publich were the worst!
And the one thing I can tell you is that when it comes to Singapore PAP government's arguments and lawsuits with the opposition, the approach is always saturation coverage. Of course, 75% of the space is devoted to PAP rebuttals but you also hear the oppositions's contentions. From comparison with foreign journalist reports, I concluded that the facts and assertions from the opposition are often reported in full without opinion; but you get overwhelmed by PAP's side of argument often accompanied by supportive journalistic writing.
Here is a big difference from say, the CCP's approach. In Singapore, dissent is often supressed not in silence but by overwhelming it. In many ways, it is a cleverer understanding of human nature. If something is a secret it grows in mythical power; give it (skewed) but overwhelming attention you kill public interest in it.
That is the true art of control of the media.
The other phenomenon is that not all opposition "enjoys" the same treatment. If you read the second volumn of LKY's memoirs he explained the difference. He seems to differentiate between what he called 'responsible' opposition (even though some of them like Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong and Ling Hongdong were responsible for the best opposition showing ever by winning 4 seats in 1992; the election which saw old timers JB Jeyeratnam and Lee Yew Choh also entering parliament as one of the 2 'best losers' Non-Constituency MPs). Those [except JBJ] he just battle them in parliament. Then there is another group which he called "political showmen and opportunists" - people like JBJ, Chee Soonjuan, Tang Lianghong, Tan Wah Piow, Francis Seow - which he hammers ceaselessly no matter how electorally ineffectual they are; seemingly out of personal contempt nothing to do with their political threat. Frankly, in some cases, their tactics turns me off too - much like Falungong tactics turns me off even though I am not the biggest fan of the CCP.
As a by note, JBJ's son Philip happens to the President of the Singapore Law Society, so naturally LKY may not find him so supportive in this latest saga. Despite what LKY did to JBJ, Philip J was a high flyer; during national service he was awarded the sword of honour as the top staff officer of the year. He went up to Cambridge and graduated with double-firsts in law, clerked for a high court judge, became the first Singapore-equivalent of a QC and is now a top law partner and he is still in his 40s. One has to admire that meritocracy is not one of the victims of LKY's pursuit of his opponents.
by the way, i got a third no this evening when i was out on clark quey.
my knowledge of spore is very limited unlike your intimate and very much a personal one with spore.
i like the story of philip J and spore meritocracy. this is critical to the spore success.
On LKY's slip, the local media is silent and I am sure that singaporean begin to envy the internet freedom that their once compatriot enjoy up north across the causeway.
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