Random Discourse – Bus Fares and Driver Wages

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This was the headline on Friday’s Straits Times. Sometimes, it really makes me wonder who our elected government really stands for. Seriously, Tuck Yew should be giving the transport operators a dressing down, and his first concern should be demanding them to get their act together. Has the minister forgot that in less than a year, SMRT has gotten itself onto the headlines for all the wrong reasons – 2 major breakdowns of the North-South Line (15th & 17th December 2011), 1 moderate breakdown of the Circle Line (25th October 2012), and also the honor of getting embroiled in Singapore’s first strike in 25 years? All of these have caused commuters great pains but instead of addressing it, Mr Lui spent no time in giving the transport operators the green light to file for fare increments! Indeed, while the transport operators may have any reservations about possible backlash from the public if they filed for a fare increment, it is clear they are now free to do so.

The first thing that came to my mind was, why is the public transport operators’ profitability Mr Lui’s primarily concern when he made no apologies to commuters for the impact on them caused by this so-called “illegal strike”? Why is it that commuters are warned that they should be expected to foot the bill for what clearly is a failure of SMRT – a private company – in containing a internal human resource issue? Would it be too much for me to ask all of ours ministers to officially declare whether they own any shares in any of the transport operators, and those who do should never be appointed to the transport minsitry since there is an obvious conflict of interest here?

Did Mr Lui forget that the government recently gave the two operators a massive subsidy of $1.1 billion through the Bus Services Enhancement Fund [BSEF] to procure of 550 buses? I recalled that the it was explained that the S$1.1 billion will also cover the operating costs of those vehicles over 10 years which I understood to include salaries for drivers. Did the government fail to budget for it properly just like the Youth Olympics and is now scrambling to plug the hole?

“But if we cannot raise bus fares, how will that impact your fellow workers? I am sure you will understand that it is not fair if they cannot get wage increases.”

– Lim Boon heng, July 2011

As far as I am concerned, the matter of wages is covered by the BSEF and that matter shouldn’t even be brought up for a really long time. And that’s not all, when the fares were revised not long after the May elections last year, the ex-PAP Chairman also said that the fare increments were meant to increase the wages of transport workers. But what about the rest of us? Who speaks out for our pay increment? I remembered this because when I did a search on Google, I was reminded that I wrote about it here. In other words, Singaporeans have already paid twice ostensibly to make the lives of bus drivers better. How many more times are we expected to pay for this? Mr Lui may have a short memory, and perhaps all of us would too if we made as much as him. To say that we are being fleeced is only being polite, because another f-word would have been more suitable.

Mr Cedric Foo, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, said the pay hike ‘makes sense’ as the two companies are competing for the same talent pool.

When asked if the pay rise would mean increased fares, he said: “I don’t think there’s a direct correlation between drivers’ wages and bus fares.”

Even more interesting is that Cedric Foo has said that there is no direct link between drivers’ wages and bus fares. So at least for me, the well being of the transport workers is nothing more than a mere excuse. The truth is that fare increments are always justifiable because it keeps the transport operators profitable. And that’s not enough, their profits must increase every year. For e.g. SMRT’s profits increased from $89.5 million in FY2004 to $161 million in FY2011. This is an increase of 80% over 7 years, or an increase of 8.7% per annum. A friend said that investors will be footing the bill if commuters won’t. In my opinion investors can also invest elsewhere if they think the transport operators are not paying attractive enough dividends. After all, SMRT allegedly told some of its mainland Chinese [PRC] drivers they can go to SBS if they are unhappy with their pay. Anyway, SMRT and SBS Transit turned a profit of $119.9 million and $36.7 million respectively in the last financial year, I would find it hard to accept that the majority (the commuters) is expected to foot the bill so a minority (the shareholders / investors) can continue to make money. All the more so because nothing seems to be improving in spite of these obscene profits!

As the Workers’ Party has said, “Commuters should not be expected to pay higher fares, especially when service standards remain unsatisfactory, as they have been since the last fare hike.”. WP is being kind, because all of our MRT lines have suffered breakdowns within the past 18 months and that’s not only unsatisfactory but completely unacceptable! For the record, SBS Transits’ North-East Line (NEL) also suffered a major breakdown in March this year – exactly 4 months after SMRT’s first major breakdown. That must have been to SMRT’s relief had it not gone “one-up” against SBS Transit with a second breakdown of the Circle Line [CCL] about 2 months ago. (The first occurred back in 20th September 2011 – more than a year ago – due to “a faulty cable and tunnel leakage”.) For an almost brand new line, the CCL’s breakdown is simply unacceptable! That’s not forgetting the huge costs involved in replacing those cables and I ain’t surprised that commuters will be footing that bill as well!

The government said that is has “zero tolerance” for strikes. Yet, it is interesting that the government demonstrates great forbearance to all these failures, and even bend backwards to ensure the operators’ profitability. How about showing some “zero tolerance” for the breakdowns, and the deplorable service standards for a change? Surely, some problems in the SMRT did not just happen overnight. Shouldn’t we look into why a brand new line like the CCL is plagued by cable and leakage problems, when large parts of the old East-West and North-South lines are above ground and exposed to the elements? Wouldn’t investigations into the SMRT for possible criminal negligence and bringing those responsible to task be necessarily?

Frankly, the government should work on giving more concessions instead of raising fares. For e.g. The height limit for children getting free rides should be raised to 1.2m since children get better nutrition and grow tall faster these days. Polytechnic students should be given concession similar to their A level peers. The concessions senior citizens should also be increased even though they already enjoyed a concessionary rate for the full day. This is what the government should be doing for the people instead of worrying itself sick in ensuring the transport operators’ profitability.

Unfortunately, there’s a greater chance of the present government doing the right thing when I sleep earlier. But unfortunately, I would have to stay asleep.

Afterthoughts – The SMRT Bus Driver Strike

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The SMRT bus driver strike that went on from Monday to Tuesday was hardly a surprise to me even though the last strike by transport workers at the Hock Lee Bus Depot was in 1955. Furthermore, it’s really not the first time foreign workers stood up to fight for their rights in the past few years. If I am not wrong, some Gurkhas were reported to have been injured over a in 2008, about 100 mainland Chinese [PRC] construction workers also crowded the main entrance of the Ministry of Manpower [MOM] building in Havelock Road in Jan 2009, and a group of Bangladeshi workers staged a sit in earlier this year – all over wage disputes. The only thing that surprised me was that I first read about this strike on Facebook instead of my usual news feeds, and that it involved a Temasek-Linked Company (or TLC) – SMRT.

Regardless how some of us felt about PRC workers in general, they clearly have more courage than any Singaporean. In spite of my protectionists views as far as employment is concerned, I actually welcomed these workers because they do share some similarities with some of our ancestors who left their homeland to seek a living in Singapore. Thus, I would give a Bangladeshi construction worker more respect than that so-called “foreign talent” taking up a managerial position, or even taking up a job which I believe even a properly trained local ITE graduate can do better, and with more dedication.

I have always been in the opinion that Singapore’s continual exploitation of low wage foreign workers cannot continue, and it is inevitable that this matter would come to a head. Companies running essential services must come to realise and accept lower profits in the future, and in fact, its shareholders should stop expecting annual dividends through a two-way exploitation of commuters, and low wage foreign transport workers. I am not asking that we pay more to entice locals to take up these jobs because that would be unrealistic. I am simply saying the nonsense that commuters either accept paying more or accept lower wage drivers (who at times can’t even do the job equally well) must stop when transport operators are already making obscene profits. If we are to continue down this path, then this strike by the PRC drivers will not be the last, but instead be a harbinger of future industrial action to come regardless of what harsh actions the law will take against the ringleaders of this particular incident.

It took two days before the matter “boils over”. It gives me the impression that SMRT didn’t seem to expect it, or at the very least, the government seem to believe that SMRT could keep it contained. Above which, I was certainly floored by the statement from the National Transport Workers’ Union [NTWU], and the wayang of the local main stream media [MSM]. So, let me talk about them one at a time.

First of all, SMRT certainly did a bad job in containing the situation. I doubt the PRC drivers woke up one morning on the wrong side of the bed and suddenly decided collectively to go on strike without having first approach the management in the past to address their grievances, both real or imagined. My opinion is that they must have endured it for some time before they took action. They must have felt their feedback was not taken seriously before deciding on this drastic course of action. In short, the time to contain it was already over when the PRC drivers refused to report for work. If that wasn’t the case, why would the National Trade Union Congress [NTUC] say, “Management must maintain an open line of communication with their workers especially those who are not union members, and workers must recognise that there is a right and proper way to air their grievances”?

The way SMRT handled public relations [PR] in this incident remained atrocious in spite of the experience they gained from the train breakdowns last year. There was no statement coming from the company to inform the public why their drivers are on strike or what actions they were taking to resolve the situation. There was also nothing to inform commuters whether things are under control, which lines are most affected, or what measures are being taken to cushion any possible impact. SMRT seems to be day-dreaming throughout the duration of the strike. It wasn’t until Tan Chuan Jin, the Minister of Manpower, start calling it an illegal strike in a conference that SMRT released a statement about ‘a police report being file over “possible breaches of the law”, and internal investigations conducted to determine whether or not employment terms had been breached.’. By then, speculation is rife on social media and I no longer have any illusion that the new CEO would have been any better than his predecessor, the accursed Saw “Phiak Phiak”.

In any case, shareholders should give the new CEO his baptism of fire and a good grilling at the next Annual General Meeting [AGM]. They should find out what was the estimated loss of revenue and the cost of down time. A friend was saying that it shouldn’t be too difficult to do that because any guy who has barely passed his accounting will be able to extrapolate and work out some numbers on an excel spreadsheet using last year’s annual report. Let us not forget also the cost in terms of man hours needed to contain this PR fiasco, plus the loss of good will as well.

Next, the NTWU is an utter joke. This sham of a union said that it does not have the legal mandate to represent the PRC drivers as they are not union members. How nice! I didn’t know that a union works like an exclusive club these days. But the most funny part has got to be – “we urge these workers to return to work immediately as public transport is an essential service for the members of the public. They should approach the Ministry of Manpower or Migrant Workers Centre for assistance.” I am not surprised if the PRC drivers respond with a loud “Doh!” to that! Even though those drivers are not their members, my opinion is that the least the NTWU could do was to express concern and if not, just shut the f@#k up. It might even have been the NTWU’s finest hour had they stepped in and help negotiate a mutually beneficial outcome. That would have shown the PRC drivers why a NTWU membership is valuable and it would have enticed them to join. I find it even more amusing when Gerald Tan, a former Industrial Relations Officer with the NTUC, wrote an article to The Online Citizen saying that PRC drivers won’t bother joining because the $9 per month membership would be “too costly” for them and they would prefer to save that money to remit home. But well, while it was merely an opinion that all the trade unions in Singapore are utterly useless and an utter sham in the past, the actions of the NTWU merely affirmed it as a fact. After all, workers that won’t fall in line and dance to the tune of the government controlled unions can always be dealt with the Internal Security Act [ISA]. There is however one thing that Gerald Tan is right about. A union membership these days is only good for getting discounts or points at the NTUC supermarkets, and booking chalets at Downtown East.

The media response is another laughing stock. When it was first reported, the word ‘strike’ was used to describe the incident. Over the next few hours, it morphed into many different things – such as ‘refused to work’, ‘sit in’ etc. In Chinese, it went from 罢工 (strike) on the evening tabloid Shin Ming Daily (新明日报) to 旷工 (absent from work without reason, or failing to inform the employer of absence) on Mediacorp’s Channel 8 evening news at 10pm. After going through all the pains pussyfooting around the matter, it was finally called a ‘strike’ again in less than a day. And that only happened after the official press conference held jointly by the Minister of State for Manpower and the Minister of State for Transport. Clearly, the MSM was more interested in being political correct than keeping the people up to date and informed. As if that isn’t bad enough, I actually saw a picture circulating on Facebook which showed the MSM staking out at the dormitory. I would have expected it to get out at least to Yishun or perhaps even Choa Chu Kang Interchange – where the bulk of SMRT buses operates out of – to find out what the impact was like to the commuters. There was also scant information on about the drivers’ actual grievances, which only went on to fuel the flames of anti-PRC sentiments which certain sites are happy to fan. While an article about what other bus drivers have to say about their PRC colleagues maybe useful, what was really annoying was some clown threatening us with more fare increments so that we can “pay the drivers more fairly”. Oh, really? Was it to pay them more fairly, or just to maintain the profits? Seriously, it would be a joke to even consider this as journalism!

Lastly, the government response. I wouldn’t fault them on the response time, since I grudgingly accept the fact that they need to ascertain the facts before making a decision on what to do about it. However, I still can’t help but feel that had the drivers been Singaporeans, they would probably be enjoying some coffee in the Internal Security Department [ISD] faster than you can spell the name in full. The government can’t however do the same to a bunch of foreigners because it might turn into a diplomatic and foreign affairs fiasco if handled badly. Anyway, that joint press conference gave us very little details other than labeling the strike an illegal one, which thus allow the government to bring the full force of the law on the PRC drivers. That’s of little comfort to me because I still have no idea what was the impact of the strike on commuters. Mrs Josephine Teo told the press that SMRT was able to maintain services at 90% on the first day and then 95% on the next. Since bus ridership is 28,784,000 in the month of October according to SMRT, that means approximately 928500 riders a day. A simplistic view would be that 46,400 ~ 92,850 commuter trips were affected, even though different routes have different traffic profiles and thus the figures cannot be so easily determined. There was no word on the increase in waiting and traveling time as well, and I felt sorry for the chap who ends up being late for work and losing his monthly punctuality bonus as a result. The worst part of it all is that the poor chap has nothing to back him up if he wants to appeal against that.

Thus, even though this look like a really small strike, the media has failed to look deeper and give us a clearer picture on the impact of this. With only about two-thirds of our population being Singaporeans, the impact of a even larger scale strike would be staggering. A friend jokingly said over dinner that because certain trades are now dominated by certain foreign nationals, any of those groups could now easily paralyze entire departments of a company. If their fellow countrymen in one sector goes on strike and those in another sector decided to do the same in support, it might even paralyze our country. And what can we do about that? We simply don’t have the manpower in our police force to deal with this. Even if we mobilise the entire force of our Operationally Ready National Service force, we would be hard pressed to return things to normality. That’s not forgetting that mobilising a large part of the male population away from work would further hurt our economy. It is laughable that political leaders of the ruling party and our pathetic lapdog media would have us believe that Singapore can’t do without foreign workers when they have now become the Sword of Damocles poised over our heads! Of course it would sound a little paranoid or xenophobic for me to say this:

While threats from the enemy without maybe really low, it is now the threat of the “enemy within” that we should be really worried about.

Unboxing the Xiaomi MI-2

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I am bad at writing reviews. So I will spare everyone the technical details and go into how I felt about the Xiaomi MI-2 instead.

First of all, there is really much room for improvement in its packaging. When I showed it to a friend, he mentioned that it gives him the impression that this was something that fell from the back of the van. While I personally don’t place much emphasis on the aesthetic aspect of the device and its packaging, other consumers often felt otherwise.

Either way, I didn’t let the packaging bother me much. I went straight to getting the device and the accessories out of the box. It wasn’t any bigger than the Omnia 7 and one of my colleagues commented that it looked very much like an iPhone. It is of no wonder a friend working in China calls it an iPhone imitator when I asked him about this phone. Unlike the iPhone, it does not comes with a non-removable battery. So I had to open the back cover to insert the battery and simcard, which took me a long time even though it sounded pretty simple on the instructions in Chinese. In the end I used a small screwdriver to pry it open, placing extra care not to scratch or damage the surface. It then took me several days to master the technique to force it open with my bare hands but I didn’t really mind that since there are very little reasons for me open to back cover again after I have inserted the simcard and battery.

Once I got the set powered up, I noticed that it comes preloaded with the MIUI and Android 4.1.1 ‘Jelly Bean’. The interface is smooth and fast but that is expected since it’s a Quad-core device anyway. However, unlike most Android phones it did not come with the Google Apps (such as Google Maps, Google Play) pre-installed. There’s also a whole bunch of other apps that came bundled with the set. For e.g. Weibo, which I believe is China’s equivalent of Twitter and Mobile QQ, probbaly China’s main instant messaging software. I uninstalled a few and there didn’t seem to be any ill effects on the phone so I guess it is safe to uninstall them all if you don’t want them to be around. The only app I think shouldn’t be uninstall as yet would be the default ‘MI Market’ app. After all, I used it to find and install the Google Apps. In fact, I was able to find the other common apps like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Foursquare etc without much of a fuss even before I installed Google Play. I had only decided to install Google Play as well, because it’s “the devil I am familiar with”.

By the way, just don’t install any apps right away just like I did above because the GPS (or the location services) “doesn’t work”. Very often it either does not pick up my location, and when it does it tells me that I am in a city called Hefei somewhere in the Anhui Province of China. According to what I read on the MIUI forum, the reason is that the default ‘location provider’ in MIUI is set to Baidu. For those who intend to download the customises MIUI ROMs for their own devices, please take note of the solution posted here on the MIUI forum. Unfortunately, it isn’t that straight forward for the MI-2 because I had to wipe the pre-loaded JLB30 ROM in the handset and reload it with something called the “Development ROM” (v 2.11.9) before I can apply the above solution. The reason being that the 2.11.9 ROM basically allows you to gain root permission simply by enabling it, while that feature is disabled on the JLB30 ROM. For the less tech savvy and those who just want something that can be used out of the box, this can be extremely frustrating. I am not sure if the guide to flash (or update) the set with a new ROM is available in other languages but I found my way around using the Chinese instructions. Even when I believed myself to be moderately tech savvy, it took me some time to figure out the technical terms in Chinese before I get down to updating the ROM. (It is sad I am turning into a “banana-man” myself.)

Nevertheless, I managed to get that resolved. The location services now reports my current position correctly. In the process of getting this resolved, I noticed that with location services turned on, the 2000mAh battery loses half its charge roughly in 3 hours even though I had it fully charged. With the location services turned off, the battery survives pretty well in an environment whereby 2G/3G signals are stable. Even with WIFI turned on, it lost only 45% of its charge after 23 hours primarily on standby with some short calls, and light surfing in between.

As for surfing, I cannot really tell whether the set is faster or better as the 3G services in Singapore is really cranky, if not deplorable. In fact, I still get the same bad 3G performance at what I would call a ‘3G dead zone’ in Jurong Point. On the MRT during the morning and evening rush hours, it can also be bad depending on which stretch of the tracks you are on. Basically, I experienced the same agony on the MI-2 just as I did on my Galaxy Tab 10.1 and also my old Omnia 7 at the usual places. I have come to the conclusion that the web surfing experience on any handset is primarily determined by the service provider and my take is that all three of Singapore’s service providers fell short because I had 2 handsets (a Blackberry from the company) and a Galaxy Tab tablet which allowed me to swap the simcards between them just to verify it isn’t a device specific issue. Even though subscribers may not get the same shitty experience at the same location from all three providers, the fact is that it shouldn’t even be happening constantly and without fail at specific locations for specific providers! That is the reason why I didn’t go for a contract renewal and pay less for a ‘better’ 4G handset (as some would believe) from one the providers!

But more on the providers later… let me get on with the last thing I tested on the MI-2 – photo taking. Since I am not much of a cam whore I have not tested the front facing 2-megapixel camera. But I have taken a few with the 8-megapixel rear facing camera and by my standards the photos are actually quite good. In fact, I think the day photos and the macro features are way better but some of my friends said the photos at low light seems more grainy than the Omnia 7 I had used previously. I won’t debate that, since we all have very different appreciation of what is nice. I’ll just upload them here and let everyone judge for themselves.

[portfolio_slideshow]

So, that’s all about the MI-2 for now, and now return to my long rant about the local mobile providers. Let me explain also why I decided against a contract renewal. First of all, my 3G experience on my primary mobile provider (I will refrain from naming it) has gone from bad to worse. These days I spent more time clicking on refresh or staring at the blank screen instead of getting the data I need. It is my considered opinion that all of Singapore’s mobile providers simply didn’t have the capacity to serve all their subscribers because I often noticed that the signal strength from the base station is ok and yet no data is received on the device! I suspect a data cap is thus implemented in hope it would serve as a “brake” on a subscriber’s data consumption because providers did not find it not profitable to upgrade and maintain the equipment to match a demand which only spiked at specific locations during certain hours. Even though the cap presently doesn’t matter to me because my current usage didn’t exceed 2GB, I am in the opinion that I (and a lot of users) may actually consume more data had the provider’s service been up to par. It doesn’t take much brain cells to conclude that if I can download 3 web pages of the same size in the same time I have been waiting for that one page to download, I would have consumed more data collectively over the month. The current situation reminds me of those days when SingNet was the only Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing dial-up access to the Internet before Pacific Internet, and subsequently Cyberway (now StarHub) came around. The pricing was ridiculous and it was a long time before things become better – either due to a desertion of subscribers to competitors or perhaps SingNet finally made enough money from early adopters to finance their equipment upgrades.

In any case, I am sick of Singapore’s way of running things – be it public transport, tele-communications, and even public housing – in which making huge profits is the management’s only overriding priority. I refused to upgrade to a 4G handset and even downgraded my plan to a cheaper one because I am sick of being an early adopter and sucker who pays a premium to a local provider so it can finance its future upgrades to meet demand which it already knew exists based on its current subscriber base. The management of certain companies in Singapore, along with our political leadership, ought to understand that we are willing to accept some pains and pay for the future in the old days, that was because our country were less well off back then. Now with the astronomical profits made by all these companies every year, it’s hard to make us accept it anymore. Just because some of these services are basic necessity that we need to use everyday, doesn’t mean we should be subjected to exploitation by some companies, especially when they are clearly linked to the government some what.

I hate being fleeced like sheep. Enough is enough already!

Random Discourse – $7000 Cabby

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That was my first impression when I read on the news a cabby’s claims that he makes $7000 a month.

A town’s gate can be shut, a fool’s mouth never.

I had thought it was rather foolish for him to declare this because of the following reasons:

  • the rage commuters felt during the previous hefty fare hike will be rekindled;

  • it would earn the enmity of other cabbies, as all of them fear it would lead to another increase in rentals;

  • the IRAS will be watching him closely (After all someone boasted about selling 1 million curry puffs and ended up in jail for tax evasion…);

  • many wives will now suspect their cabby husbands of hiding their money or keeping a mistress;

  • robbers will now consider all cabbies ripe pickings; and

  • poor relatives may show up to borrow money.

However, I also suspected that the cabby may have been misquoted. Some of my friends have shared with me their experiences after being interviewed by reporters from one of Singapore Press Holdings [SPH] newspapers. In one case, a friend’s name was misspelled when the article as published. In two other cases, what was said was being taken out of the context and sensationalised. Those affected did not press the matter because they didn’t want to sour their relationship with the press. But one of them mentioned that it is best to keep a transcript (or even a recording) of the interview in case what was printed differs greatly from the true meaning of what was said in the first place.

Anyway, I was just too lazy to find out whether the cabbie meant $7000 nett earnings per month, or $7000 take home earnings. There’s a great difference between nett earnings and take home earnings. In my opinion it is similar to the difference between revenue and profit. Thus, I decided to keep my mouth shut on the matter and waited for the story to develop further.

For the next few days, the poor cabby became Public Enemy Number 1. The “cybersleuths” went so far to even expose that he had a debt of $4000 which he hasn’t paid off. Under intense pressure, the cabbie subsequently came forward to explain that he did not earn $7000 every month and that he had mentioned that was his “best performance”. He further explained it was a rather unpleasant experience. He worked for 18 hours everyday and even had to sleep in his taxi. It was yet another SPH cock-up just as I suspected. Strangely, the other chap who claimed to have made $6000 a month wasn’t attacked at all. Or perhaps he simply wasn’t attacked as viciously.

Anyway, most cabbies claimed that they only manage to make $2000 to $2500 a month. Based on their assertion, I think a single cabby making $6000 nett a month (driving 18 hours a day) is actually normal. Here’s a breakdown.

The daily rental for a taxi is about $100 a day. That means it’s roughly $3000 a month. I estimate that fuel probably cost them about $80 a day which is about $2400 a month. That adds up to $5400 in operating cost. If the cabby can take home about $2000 to $2500 a month, that means his nett income would have been around $7400 to $7900. It is of no wonder that I read on another friend’s Facebook status where he mentioned that a cabby told him that taking home $7000 is possible – as long as the driver doesn’t pay his rentals.

However, regardless whether the papers were sensationalising the matter for whatever agenda (which backfired), or whether the cabby was being too boastful, it cannot change the fact that more than 50% of a cabby’s hard earned money went to paying his rentals based on my estimates. It goes to say that whatever fare increases we are paying has not really gone into improving the income of taxi drivers at large (as we are often led to believe), but has gone into covering their overheads and primarily into the pockets of operators like Comfort Delgro and SMRT in particular. The so-called “$7000 cabby” is not our enemy or someone we should be grilling. Even though I am often critical of Singapore’s recalcitrant cabbies, it remains part of my opinion that their well being has constantly being hijacked by transport operators and the powers-that-be to justify the fare hikes and rental increases. The SPH not only should get the rap for their bad reporting, but also for their failure to point out just how much taxi companies are earning out of the cabbies.

It is laughable that the government wants us to believe that the media is not biased. How are we to believe that when it is sub-standard in the first place?

Current Affairs – The “Amy Cheong Saga”

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What the hell was Amy Cheong thinking when she posted this? This is not some young teenager who didn’t know better, she’s an assistant director and in any case, a person holding a position of some importance. Is it so hard to understand, free speech does not include the freedom to offend? And when one has the intention to offend, then one must expect and bear the consequences.

As a matter of fact, I have moved into my area for 15 years and there have been countless Malay weddings at the void deck. They are often noisy affairs complete with drums, loud music and often illegal parking as well. Then again, even Chinese weddings are noisy with all the cheers of “Yum Seng!” except that they were often done in restaurants. In my opinion, all wedding celebrations should be noisy. Rightly so because they are happy occasion which bear witness to the unification of 2 lives into a family unit, and also by extension, the bonding of two different families. How else do we expect such an occasion to be held?

Even so, the Malay weddings held at the void decks were not any noisier than those events organised by the Residents’ Committee. To be exact, nothing is noisier than the air force jets on landing approach to Tengah Airbase that flew over the top of my block every few hours. The quickest solution to deal with the noise coming from the void deck is simply to shut the windows tight. But that’s a bad idea as it makes the entire flat stuffy, and so the easier method would simply be to add to the noise by turning on the volume of my radio or TV, and wait for the events to end at their appointed time. After a while, it just becomes background noise and it is barely even noticeable. The only time that I ever shouted a stream of invectives without thinking (mostly directly at the privates of someone’s mother) and also wished the wedding couple the most unimaginable and unspeakable bad luck was when a wedding possession procession of Harley Davidson motorcycles honked continuously when they drove by at 6:50am on a Saturday morning. It went on for as long as the possession procession was stopped because of the traffic light. It doesn’t matter what wedding that was, because it was irrelevant. I had only begin to fall asleep because I was out partying the night before, and thanks to these chaps I had a headache after that. They were simply being a bunch of inconsiderate douchebags and if I had a brick by the side of my bed I would have ‘lobbest’ it out of the window onto the possession procession below like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

Anyway, most Malay weddings usually last a day, even though there was one particular one which actually went on over the entire weekend. It didn’t really matter because for 2 nights I could smell the fragrance of bryani rice being cooked, even though I was “reasonably angry” (and hungry) as I ended up craving for some mutton bryani the next few days. But if Amy Cheong think that’s bad, consider Chinese funeral wakes that goes on for 3 ~ 5 days, complete with chanting / prayers, screaming kids, mahjong games into the dead of the night, and as usual the illegal parking. It takes a while to get used to the sudden disruption to the tranquility of the neighbourhood. But after the first night, I usually just knock out at the appointed time, because after failing to sleep well the night before, the body simply just give out under me. That’s not forgetting I managed to steal some sleep at the training shed even though an entire platoon of tanks were firing away during my NS days so mahjong was really a small matter. Regardless, the brain seems to adjust to the new condition because when the mahjong games stop, that’s also when it’s about time to wake up.

Back to the matter of funeral wakes… the noise pollution is not all to it. It often comes with incense burning as well, which can bring the smoke into the house. When the air is still, the smell can stay in the room for hours even though the smoke has cleared. My clothes will smell like the barbecue if I forgot to quickly put them into the cabinet. And on the matter of incense burning, this can happen every 14 or 15 days in the Lunar Calendar for particularly religious Chinese families. It is most conspicuous during the 9th Day of the Lunar New Year (when the Hokkien people worships Tian-gong [天公] or Heaven), and the Lunar Seventh Month during the Yulan [盂蘭] Festival (more traditionally known as the “Ghost Month”). Have I ever thought about complaining about it? Yes. But the reason why I didn’t do so was simply because it usually last no more than a few hours, which is definitely less annoying than my neighbour’s cowardly dog which barks at the slightest sound and probably even the shifting shadows.

The point I am trying to make here is that other races can have a lot more reasons to be upset with us Chinese. Let’s not throw the fruits of our nation building away with our thoughtless actions. We have come a long way to learn how to live with one another. We must learn not only to be tolerant (because there’s only so much we can tolerate) but learn to accommodate. This goes both ways, and it goes not just to our fellow Indians and Malays, but also to new migrants.

Nevertheless, I am glad this matter has come to a quick conclusion with NTUC terminating the employment of Amy Cheong. Even if it isn’t a politically-correct decision, it is a sound business one. After all, there were people threatening to terminate their memberships, and almost 4000 likes within a few hours on the “Fire Amy Cheong” page before the news break that NTUC had decided to fire her. If just 2000 of those made good their threat to terminate their membership, that would be an annualised loss of $216,000 (2000 x $9/mth x 12) simply because of a staff’s stupid comment. On top of which, as my friend Roger Tan mentioned: “They fired her because her little episode of immaturity and ill-discipline cost them a lot of bad publicity, and in turn showed them that she was unsuited for that position.” It was a no brainer, even though I personally felt that an organisation should never be held responsible for a remark made by a staff in her personal capacity. Unfortunately, no organisation would risk its neck over such dumb comments anyway.

However, I do not think her termination will do anything to change Amy Cheong’s opinion of Malays. Her remark, and her subsequent responses before she eventually decide to apologise profusely clearly showed that it wasn’t a generic one done out of impulse. It was probably just the tip of the iceberg – an outward expression of years of resentment bottled up inside. For someone to take her remarks to the police and have her investigated under the Sedition Act would not have made it any better for her (or for Singapore). Amy Cheong should now realise that this will probably haunt her for the rest of her life, and that her apologies don’t mean sh*t at all. Even if she’s gonna dig her heart out to prove it, no one’s gonna to believe her anyway. A better way for her to do it prove it would be to volunteer to a Malay welfare organisation to serve the Malay community for a period of time. It would have been a better way to demonstrate her remorse, and also for the Malay community to demonstrate forgiveness. In fact, it may even serve as a great lesson in national education.

In my opinion, she is now about as good as a toxic asset. Good luck to her in seeking future employment, though I couldn’t see who will dare to employ her without fear of repercussions. That should serve as a warning to the next idiot who make racist remarks or you be the sequel to the Singapore’s first:

A moment of stupidity, a lifetime of regret. Brought to you by Facebook.

Recommended Reads:
Growing your tree of prosperity: Some very disturbing aspects of how NTUC treated the Amy Cheong case
Darryl Kang: Amy Cheong: An interesting precedent by NTUC

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