DREAMING

All Rights Reserved 2010 Darren Chong Day 1: 14 October 2008 Arrival at Kunming City Clyde was up early around 6am. Everyone’s excited. In bed, there’s only Mui still snoring away. Luckily, managed to ‘breeze’ through the usual Clementi Jam to pick up parents at 8.15am Inconspicuously we reached Changi Airport’s Terminal 2 without hassle. We even have time to take Skytrain for joy trips. The SilkAir flight was packed with rowdy holidaymakers. I wasn’t surprise they are mainly in their twilight years. There are many retirees on this group tour to China. For SA UIC there are 20 of us, split up into 2 groups of 8 and 12. Then there’s a Gizmo’s travel group of 30, some of whom are Dad’s friends from the Chinese temple. What a coincidence! Eager and excited, we touched down at Kunming Airport on schedule. It was around 3pm and we surprised by the punctuality of Silkair. The Kunming Airport is quite small but efficient. Fast catching up in the technological game, they even have an electron...

There are tenebrous socio-economic changes all over the world in the past 20 years. On a brighter note, pre-primary and primary educational system has undergone a tremendous change in Singapore. Policy makers have come and go. New and on-going changes are being made at every school, teacher, principal and child. Continually, there are repercussive bearings on the young mind, both psychological and physiological. As parents, we want our children to do well in studies. We want them to excel in their work and be successful individuals in society. Even as a parent, we agonised over which primary schools to send the child once they reached the school going age. Do we send him to a popular one or neighbourhood school? Some parents choose a school based on academic achievements, teaching staff and facilities. I personally believed family background and parental upbringing are the more important factors than choosing a school of academic excellence for a growing child. With a stable family, he...

OUR OVERBURDEN SYSTEM One of the ways Singapore addresses its declining birth rates is to allow mass immigrants to settle here, hopefully, grow roots, become its citizens and contribute to its economic growth. Its main rationale is to augment our already aging population in order to reduce social and financial burden on future generations. The aim to increase population without enhancing the basic support system and infrastructure is tantamount to gorging oneself with food on a full stomach. We are now facing a crisis of scarcity. For a start we have limited land and food resources. It is a fact that we don’t have a big piece of land to grow food for our own sustainability. We need to buy food and water form others. Neither do we have the natural energy resources such as natural gas and oil to fuel our ever-increasing population needs. Our transport and healthcare system are crumbling under heavy burden due to overpopulation. Every day our trains and buses are jammed-pack during peak a...

The recent furore in the local newspapers about the Primary One registration has stirred my heart once again. The issue is even more hotly debated in the Internet. I have previously written in about this matter but had not received any official reply from the Ministry of Education. Perhaps as I am writing this article, they are already in the midst of a strategy review to tackle this perennial issue. The increasing number of Primary One registrations’ numbers and stressed-up parents are more than sufficient reasons for MOE to address this issue expeditiously. The CPF board has tweaked their system time and again. They have refined the CPF minimum sum and withdrawal rates for aged 65 and above constantly over the years. No policies are cast in stone. MOE should follow suit. Continually, MOE should do an assessment of the situation on hand and improve their policies to best suit the changing times and needs. No doubt the phases have been in place for many years now and used to serve u...

Friendship more important than kinship In the olden days families cluster together and stay in one single household. For economic, security and traditional reasons, three or more generations used to stay under one roof. Towards the end of 19th century in the developed cities, nuclear families are formed. Small familial clusters are formed everywhere, mostly in cities. In 21st century, children move out from family and prefer to stay on their own or with friends. With greater earning power, those twenty something and thirty something can afford to buy or rent their properties. They need privacy and need space of their own. Friends can be anyone in the social circle namely, colleagues, neighbours or anyone who can offer them new leeway or have been connections to specific jobs or business deals are deemed more important priorities over the latter. If you are working miles away from your family in another country, of course neighbours and close colleagues are of paramount importance to yo...

Oversimplification of Case’s Price Survey Study Dollars and Sense of Breastfeeding I find that the recent price survey (5 August 2008) done by the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) oversimplified. The price study revealed mothers who exclusively breastfeed their baby during the first six months can save an average of $710. CASE calculated the average prices of buying infant milk powder would be ‘around $735, while breastfeeding equipment costs as little as $25.50’. However, I beg to differ. I feel that the price survey is not truly reflective of the total costs of breastfeeding. Nor does it consider other inherent components of breastfeeding costs, comprehensively. It is a misnomer that infant formula milk powder costs money but breastfeeding is free. Contrary to the notion that breastfeeding saves money; I feel that the savings are minimal or even non-existent. During pregnancy many women eat much more than usual. After childbirth, what the mothers eat is even more important f...

Too many CCTVs in the streets We are deploying more CCTV (closed circuit televisions) on our streets. Such CCTVs are actually high-tech cameras in disguise. They are well poised to catch all the ‘live actions’ that goes on daily by keeping watch on places such as Orchard Road, Boat Quay, Little India, Geylang and the surrounding area of Raffles City and Suntec City. In fact, the Singapore police force is looking into new "SMART" cameras that can recognize suspects by their facial features. We could rationalize if thousands of surveillance cameras are in used for occasions such as the Beijing Olympics Games. The live video-stream from surveillance cameras could be fed into the system software to monitor acts of terrorism or other serious crimes. But what I cannot understand is the usage of CCTV cameras in, say, Orchard Road, a shopping haven? Are we keeping watch on shoplifters? Or are we trying to spy on the people or tourists who shop there? What about the thousands who thro...

I totally agreed with the writer on the issue to raise minimum height on buses and trains published in Today dated 14 September 2007. It is impertinent that Public Transport Council (PTC) raise the minimum height requirement for children to pay fares. Singapore used to be handicapped “un-friendly”. Now it is ‘child-unfriendly’ as well. Our public transport system caters to the midgets but not to children who are growing up faster due to better nourishment. The 0.9m rule for fare-paying children has not been changed for the past 10 years. In other countries such as china, they have recently adjusted the minimum height for paying children to 1.1m. Imagine the shock one day when my 4-year-old child was asked to pay adult fare once he reaches 1.2m. Currently he is about 1.1m now. No wonder the transport system is getting more expensive than ever. It is a heavy burden on tax-payers’ pockets. After all the construction of all the MET lines were paid by tax-payers before SMRT or SBS-trans...

All Rights Reserved 2010 Darren Chong WHY PHARMACISTS RESIGN ... -------------------------- Better work conditions, pay may help stem high turnover rate of these professionals Letter from Darren Chong I refer to the report, "MOH to recruit more pharmacists from overseas"(Sept 17). It was reported that of the 1,482 pharmacists on the registerhere, less than half are involved in direct patient care, such as practising in hospitals, polyclinics and retail pharmacies. This is a worrying figure. While I applaud the ministry's efforts torecruit more pharmacists from overseas, it should also delve further into why pharmacists are not practising and find ways to stem the drain. I know a pharmacist who has worked in a retail pharmacy and in one of the restructured hospitals. During her stint with the retail pharmacy, she worked from 10am to 10pm, with only half an hour's break for lunch and dinner. This included Saturdays and Sundays, when business is most brisk....

That day at that very interesting seminar, met someone even more interesting. He came and sat down beside me in the seminar and he said I looked familiar. I also said he looked familiar but cannot recall who he is. Found out later he went to Henry Park Primary, then Fairfield Methodist, and we are of same age! Coincidentally he also used to stay at Clementi, a few blocks away from my old house, and now he is staying at Jurong West St 41 Block 404 with parents, married He talked about the old basketball court at Clementi and I told him the space is taken over by Hospice What a super coincidence! There are many colourful coincidences we have yet to experience in life! By the way, he is an ML guy! An investment analyst! Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech before Congress, in which he affirmed the Fed’s belief that economic growth will slow in 2008 and into 2009, and that Congress should help the efforts by adopting a temporary fiscal stimulus plan stirred those sidelined into...

First Encounter of the Bad Kind ****** FEAR It was late and dark. I quickened my pace. I was on the way home after returning books to the Jurong East Regional library. I hurried towards the usual back lane alley behind the library. This small lane leads to a nearby bus stop. Suddenly a teary-eyed Malay woman appeared suddenly in front of me. She seemed frantic. In a shaky voice, she asked me how to get to the Changi General Hospital. She sprouted a bob of short hair and looked very anxious, almost panicky. Her body language and her facial expression showed that she was in a state of shock in the dim light. I was taken aback. It caught me off-guard. I told her straightaway that there are no buses to take her to Changi Hospital from Jurong East. She’ll have to take a cab. Seems funny, but I suddenly realized the urgency of the matter. ***** NONCHALANCE It was really much later than I realized the first question is a trick question. To see if I am a local and if I understand what she is ...

All Rights Reserved 2010 Darren Chong I read with interest about a new secondary school coming up in 2010. The School of Science and Technology “will offer another route for bright students with an interest in applied learning”. It is aimed “at individuals with a special edge and passion for what they do". However I am personally worried that such notion might promote elitism or at least evoke unwarranted elitism tendencies. It is without doubt, MOE's directions are clear. Its strategy is to provide alternative to mainstream schools to cater to the different calibre of students. However, with an initial intake of only 200 students, no doubt there will be a ‘demand more than supply’ scenario as can be seen from the sharp discrepancies between application and actual enrolment figures for the specialised schools of Singapore Sports School, NUS High School Of Mathematics and Science, and the School of The Arts. A predilection will be to start with least a handful of such schools s...

All Rights Reserved 2010 Darren Chong Preserve Jurong Lake area and not commercialise it Recently there are plans by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to turn around the Chinese and Japanese gardens and the Jurong Lake area into a commercial, retail and entertainment centre or theme park of sorts. Understandably, this site development will take in the 12-ha area occupied by the now-defunct Tang Dynasty City theme park as well. I am a nature lover and they are many other residents around this area who took regular strolls along Jurong Lake to enjoy the greenery as well. I, too, stayed in the Jurong Lake vicinity. Hence, my frequent visits to the Jurong Lake and Chinese Garden area for the past few years for recreation and for exercises. I bring my 6-year-old son there frequently and we had great fun there mingling with nature and its animal friends. Many a time, we saw monitor lizards basking in the sun. We chanced upon chameleons darting in and out of the bushes. Once, we even sp...

All Rights Reserved 2010 Darren Chong I like to highlight my plight as a passenger traveling in our very own public transport It was Monday morning, 21 Jan 2008. I was travelling on SBS bus number 198 from Jurong Town Hall Road towards Clementi. It was during morning peak hour. It was around 8.30am when I boarded the bus at Jurong East library. The bus was very crowded. The passengers cannot move in. I was standing near the entrance door when it was traveling. As the bus moves along into the AYE, the bus suddenly opened to picked up passengers. I was standing too near the door and was caught unaware when it opened suddenly. I assume I was standing from a safe distance from the door as I was holding to the vertical handle bar dearly. The door hit one of my big toe and there was a sharp pain. I cried in pain but the bus was too noisy. I reached my stop a few minutes later and got down. I alighted at Clementi opposite West Coast Recreation Centre. There was no time and no way to notify th...

Burning of Joss and Incence paper cause Serious Air Pollution It was 1am on the 7th of February 2008. I was feeding my 9-month-old baby in the kitchen. Suddenly there was a huge gust of wind. I saw smoke coming in through the kitchen windows! The air in the kitchen turned smoky and sour. I could not bear the thick smoke. Neither could my baby bear the bellowing smoke and started crying. I tried to close the windows quickly. But it was too late! Layers of thick black smoke and ashes were already trapped in the house! I realized the smoke and ashes were caused by burning of incense papers. Many of my neighbours have gathered around the common walkway along the blocks of flats and started to burn incense paper. It dawned upon me that it was already the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year! People are praying to ancestors and to the deities for good luck! I tell myself that on 14th February 2008 before midnight, I will close all my windows before I go to bed. This is because on that partic...