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