Satire – Admiral Ching Ho

October 9, 2006
By Nuntawun Polkuamdee
Bangkok Post

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has suffered a paper loss of 41% since it acquired telecom giant Shin Corp earlier this year.

Shares of Shin Corp on the SET fell 0.85% in thin trade on Friday to close at 29 baht, well off the 49.25 baht per share paid by Temasek in its acquisition in January.


Fri Feb 6, 2009 3:18am EST
Kevin Lim and Saeed Azhar, Editing by Ian Geoghegan
Thomson Reuters

Temasek, which had S$185 billion ($123.2 billion) in assets as at March 2008, has been hit hard due to its 40%exposure to banks that have slumped in value due to the global financial crisis.

Its US$5 billion plus investment in Merrill alone has resulted in a loss of more than US$2 billion. The sovereign wealth fund’s key investments include 28% of DBS Group, just under a fifth of Standard Chartered Bank and about 3.8% of Bank of America (BoA) following BoA’s takeover of Merrill Lynch.


Feb 6, 2009
Ignatius Low, Money Editor
Straits Stooge Times

Temasek chairman S Dhanabalan said that the board had debated whether or not to proceed with such a major change, given the turbulence in the global economy.

*An ugly lycan appears on TV*
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Nelson Lycan of Lycan TV, a subsidiary of the Lycan Times… reporting to you outside the head office of Temasek Holdings.

*ugly lycan fades out, narration*
Do not confuse this Admiral with Grand Admiral Cheng Ho, a Ming Dynasty mariner who lived in the 14th and 15th Century.
*artist impressions of multi-mast ships and of Admiral Cheng Ho shown on TV*

Great Admiral Ching Ho, one of the many members of an extraordinary family, lives in the same era as mere mortals such as you and I.
*pictures of the Elected-Emperor Loong-Le, the hitherto unmatched father, and other happy faces of the current Imperial Family and the Great Admiral rolls past the TV*

*pictures of great ships starts appearing*
The voyages of the Great Admiral Ching Ho has brought from distant shores the ships from all over the world, beginning with the magnificent Shin from the Kingdom of Siam. This was followed by even more magnificent naval marvels of our times, the glittering treasure ships from faraway Avalon, the lands of the Swiss Cheese and the even the Holy Roman Empire of Angmonika. The titanic StandChart, Bars of Clay, SillyBen and Bow-Ah were once crowning glories of the illustrious Great Admiral, and a constant source of envy for lesser mortals.

Yet, in a recent coup in the Kingdom of Siam, attendant vessels of the Shin has been dismantled, and even possession of the great vessel itself is in doubt while its former owner now lives in exile in the happy shores of Cathay.
*soldiers in yellow armbands on tanks in streets rolls across the screen, short video of former owner waving to supporters in Shanghai*

*ugly lycan returns to screen*
Unfortunately, this is not the last of the Great Admiral’s worries, as a recent unnatural tsunami caused by the accursed Angmonikans sprung leaks in the StandChart, Bars of Clay, SillyBen and Bow-Ah. Unbeknownst to the Great Admiral and her fearless crew, these seemingly mighty ships have been rotting away internally. Minors leaks soon turned into gaping holes in the hull, and a disastrous amount of island’s treasures unimaginable to lesser mortals spilled from their hold and disappeared under the rolling waves of the Great Salt Water Sea [咸水海].

Just as the island’s inhabitants have great faith that the Great Admiral will turn things around, even while the unrelenting tsunami caused by the verdammt Angmonikans comes crashing down all over the world, the Great Admiral Ching Ho has abandoned the island of Temasek leaving the Angmonikan successor with the decaying fleet.

The island’s baffled inhabitants are left to contemplate a future without one from the island’s most super-talented family to run it’s great fleet, at the same time the once untouchable Imperial coffers are now opened to rush into existence barriers to protect the island from this cataclysmic tsunami. Will Admiral ‘Chip’ Goodyear be able to lead the remnants of the once glorious fleet back to its former glory, or *gasp* will the remnants of the fleet disappear into the mists of the uncertain and uncharted waters ahead?
*a picture of a smiling ‘Chip’ Goodyear appears on TV*

It is almost certain, that the Great Admiral has left behind shoes too big for the successor to fill. *coughs… fades out*