This is one of my favorite song.....
Original Version
SINdie Version
(My favorite version, not merely because Chen Enlai is in there but because it is really funny!)
Words Edited Version
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Happy National Day (8 Aug)
In less than a month time, Singapore will be having our national birthday. So let me wish everyone a Happy International Day....National Day, I mean :p
This is one of my favorite song.....
This is one of my favorite song.....
Ex-radio deejay Daniel Ong: I’ve been in the media for 20 years, why now?
The next time SPH wants to interview you, please ask if you need to pay for anything first. I doubt you would want to receive an invoice for sharing news about yourself. You want also want them to explain the copyrights law to you prior to accepting the interview and make them sign an agreement to allow you to use the article about yourself.
---------------------
Source: Ex-radio deejay Daniel Ong: I’ve been in the media for 20 years, why now?
Former radio deejay-cum-successful entrepreneur Daniel Ong says he was "shocked" when he was asked to pay copyright fees to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).
Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore on Sunday, the 36-year-old said, "Jaime and I have been in the media for over 20 years, we've always shared stories they wrote about us."
Ong, a Perfect 10 deejay and television host earlier in his career, quit radio in 2010. He and his wife, 2001 Miss Universe Jaime Teo, whom he married in 2007, now run a successful cupcake business called Twelve Cupcakes. Launched last year, it now has four outlets.
After he was approached and granted several interviews to The Straits Times and The New Paper, he was shocked when asked to pay copyright fees amounting to about $3,000 for reproducing the published articles on his cupcake business on his company website and social media accounts.
Even after volunteering to take down the said articles, Ong was still told to pay S$214 as "investigation fee" for legal costs incurred by SPH.
The incident has left a bitter taste in his mouth and he is now campaigning for greater transparency about the issue of copyright claims on behalf of other celebrities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Ong said many friends, even strangers, had approached them to share similar experiences since he recounted his experience on Facebook on Thursday. They also told him that SPH "never went after them for the S$214" after they took down the infringing articles, even though they were also billed an "investigation fee".
He also clarified that he and his wife are still on good terms with several SPH journalists after they explained to him it is another department in charge of copyright claims.
But is he worried about being blacklisted by the publisher then?
"It's alright," Ong shared. "We were celebrities, but that's not our livelihood anymore."
"Not everyone reads the papers nowadays, they're not the only way news can get out. I dare say Mr Brown and Xiaxue combined will be equivalent to their readership."
Added Ong, "It's a changing world, and I hope that they see that as well."
---------------------
Source: Ex-radio deejay Daniel Ong: I’ve been in the media for 20 years, why now?
Former radio deejay-cum-successful entrepreneur Daniel Ong says he was "shocked" when he was asked to pay copyright fees to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).
Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore on Sunday, the 36-year-old said, "Jaime and I have been in the media for over 20 years, we've always shared stories they wrote about us."
Ong, a Perfect 10 deejay and television host earlier in his career, quit radio in 2010. He and his wife, 2001 Miss Universe Jaime Teo, whom he married in 2007, now run a successful cupcake business called Twelve Cupcakes. Launched last year, it now has four outlets.
After he was approached and granted several interviews to The Straits Times and The New Paper, he was shocked when asked to pay copyright fees amounting to about $3,000 for reproducing the published articles on his cupcake business on his company website and social media accounts.
Even after volunteering to take down the said articles, Ong was still told to pay S$214 as "investigation fee" for legal costs incurred by SPH.
The incident has left a bitter taste in his mouth and he is now campaigning for greater transparency about the issue of copyright claims on behalf of other celebrities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Ong said many friends, even strangers, had approached them to share similar experiences since he recounted his experience on Facebook on Thursday. They also told him that SPH "never went after them for the S$214" after they took down the infringing articles, even though they were also billed an "investigation fee".
He also clarified that he and his wife are still on good terms with several SPH journalists after they explained to him it is another department in charge of copyright claims.
But is he worried about being blacklisted by the publisher then?
"It's alright," Ong shared. "We were celebrities, but that's not our livelihood anymore."
"Not everyone reads the papers nowadays, they're not the only way news can get out. I dare say Mr Brown and Xiaxue combined will be equivalent to their readership."
Added Ong, "It's a changing world, and I hope that they see that as well."
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Singapore Tightens Rules for Foreign Workers’ Families
An aptly article. Please don't get me wrong, I welcome foreign talents, I mean this is what my business is all about. I place talents into my client's company. When I say talents, I basically mean people with good and transferable skillets that can benefit Singapore. I'm not talking about those who are here to learn because my country have alot of them and we should first give opportunity to our very own. For years, Singapore has been a greener pasture for many from other pastures. Many have treated this as a training ground or transit station while aiming to move on to other countries. Sadly, our govt don't see this.
------------------------------------------
Source: Singapore Tightens Rules for Foreign Workers’ Families
Singapore is imposing stricter rules for families of foreigners working in the city-state and tightening its immigration policies after public disquiet over the influx of workers from overseas.
From Sept. 1, foreign workers must earn at least S$4,000 ($3,150) a month compared with the current S$2,800 to sponsor their spouses and children for their stay in Singapore, according to a notice on the manpower ministry’s website. Some workers will also no longer be able to bring their parents and in-laws on long-term visit passes.
The planned changes are “part of the overall direction to moderate growth of Singapore’s non-resident population,” the ministry said in a statement on its website. “This will help ease the pressure on our social infrastructure. Nonetheless, Singapore remains a global talent capital.”
Foreign workers whose families are already in Singapore won’t be affected, according to the statement. Those who switch companies after Sept. 1 will be subject to the new rules because any change in employer is considered a new application.
“The key criterion in assessing the level of dependent privileges for a work pass holder is based on his economic contribution and whether he can finance his dependents’ stay in Singapore,” the manpower ministry said in the statement.
The city yesterday also tabled changes in Parliament to its immigration act. Under the proposed amendments, permanent residents who flout the city’s laws or are involved in any activity which “threatens a breach of peace or is prejudicial to public order” will lose their permanent residency status or have their re-entry permit canceled.
Singapore also plans to criminalize marriages of convenience to obtain immigration privileges and the forgery of immigration documents, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement posted on its website yesterday. The last major amendment to the immigration act was in 2004.
The proposed penalty for sham marriages includes a fine of as much as S$10,000 and a jail term of as long as 10 years. Forgery of documents may be punishable with a fine of as much as S$8,000 and a jail term of as long as five years, according to the statement.
The proposed amendments will allow the immigration authority to “stay ahead of the changing modus operandi of immigration offenders” and facilitate the legal entry of bona fide foreigners, the ministry said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Tan in Singapore at atan17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Douglas Wong at dwong19@bloomberg.net
------------------------------------------
Source: Singapore Tightens Rules for Foreign Workers’ Families
Singapore is imposing stricter rules for families of foreigners working in the city-state and tightening its immigration policies after public disquiet over the influx of workers from overseas.
From Sept. 1, foreign workers must earn at least S$4,000 ($3,150) a month compared with the current S$2,800 to sponsor their spouses and children for their stay in Singapore, according to a notice on the manpower ministry’s website. Some workers will also no longer be able to bring their parents and in-laws on long-term visit passes.
The planned changes are “part of the overall direction to moderate growth of Singapore’s non-resident population,” the ministry said in a statement on its website. “This will help ease the pressure on our social infrastructure. Nonetheless, Singapore remains a global talent capital.”
Foreign workers whose families are already in Singapore won’t be affected, according to the statement. Those who switch companies after Sept. 1 will be subject to the new rules because any change in employer is considered a new application.
Under Pressure
The government is under pressure to placate voters without disrupting the arrival of talent and labor that helped build the only advanced economy in Southeast Asia. Public discontent surged when the strain on the rail system caused its worst breakdown in December and high property prices boosted inflation.“The key criterion in assessing the level of dependent privileges for a work pass holder is based on his economic contribution and whether he can finance his dependents’ stay in Singapore,” the manpower ministry said in the statement.
The city yesterday also tabled changes in Parliament to its immigration act. Under the proposed amendments, permanent residents who flout the city’s laws or are involved in any activity which “threatens a breach of peace or is prejudicial to public order” will lose their permanent residency status or have their re-entry permit canceled.
Singapore also plans to criminalize marriages of convenience to obtain immigration privileges and the forgery of immigration documents, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement posted on its website yesterday. The last major amendment to the immigration act was in 2004.
The proposed penalty for sham marriages includes a fine of as much as S$10,000 and a jail term of as long as 10 years. Forgery of documents may be punishable with a fine of as much as S$8,000 and a jail term of as long as five years, according to the statement.
The proposed amendments will allow the immigration authority to “stay ahead of the changing modus operandi of immigration offenders” and facilitate the legal entry of bona fide foreigners, the ministry said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Tan in Singapore at atan17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Douglas Wong at dwong19@bloomberg.net
Some Facebook posters
Some Facebook posters I found. Too lazy to post them separately so I'm dumping all three here.
Quite true to a certain extend. I would like to add that there is a window period. After that, I think whatever feelings there is should be gone.
Yah...that is indeed the greatest challenge. Just when I thought I found someone who takes me as I am, they start to change me into who I am not -_-". Funny thing is.....wasn't my original self what they like?
Hahahaha....'nuff said!
Someone once said this "If you are get married, do not choose someone you can live with but choose someone you cannot live without."
Indeed....indeed
Someone once said this "If you are get married, do not choose someone you can live with but choose someone you cannot live without."
Indeed....indeed
8 things you didn't know are making you dumber
Interesting article!
Source: 8 things you didn't know are making you dumber
It'd be nice to think that IQ is not a big determining factor for how successful and happy we are in life.
But not so, several studies will say.
One study by the University of Delaware found that contrary to popular belief, the higher your IQ, the more likely you are socially smart.
Another study, this time Swedish, has drawn a link between
lower IQ scores and suicidal feelings, hypothesising that lower IQs mean
poorer problem solving abilities, and thus a diminished ability in
dealing with stress in difficult situations.
And while genetics make up an estimated 40 to 80 per cent of a person's IQ, there are a number of factors that determine how smart you are, or how dumb you get.
Most people would readily agree that getting a knock to the head would knock some points off their IQ as well, but what if you were told that your daily junk food habit is not only making you fat, it's making you stupid?
And that those people who spend hours and hours holding long, pointless meetings are not only lacking in EQ, they are probably lacking in IQ as well?
Compiled by cracked.com, here are some of the reasons why some people are dumber than they should be:
Long meetings not only waste your time, they are a brain drain
Here's a reason to give your boss on why long meetings should be abolished - they make everybody involved dumber.
"You
may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our
findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said
Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the
Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research
Institute.
His study found that people perform less well on IQ tests directly after spending time in small social groups than they did when they were alone.
And if their performance was publicly revealed and ranked among their peers, they performed even worse.
It is theorised that this is as being in the presence of someone whom you think is smarter than you triggers debilitative cognitive responses by making us act stupid because we feel stupid.
Brain scans revealed that just being reminded of how the rest of group were scoring lit up parts of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety and emotional response.
Being around the fairer sex
How about this? Just being around a beautiful woman, or even mentioning her name, can make men more stupid.
In 2009, a study demonstrated that after a short interaction
with an attractive woman, men displayed poorer performance in mental
tasks. The more beautiful the woman, the stronger the effect.
That's not all. A more recent study showed that even the mere anticipation of interacting with a woman is enough to impair the cognitive abilities of men.
Researcher Sanne Nauts and her team from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands had participants take part in a cognitively demanding test.
During the test, they were told that a person with either a male or female name would be watching them through a webcam.
The participants knew nothing of the invisible "watcher", other than his or her sex. But just knowing an invisible woman was watching them was enough to severely impact their performance.
In another experiment, the researchers decided to tell the participants that they would be watched by a woman before they took the test.
In reality, the participants never took the test, but took another cognitive test to measure their current level of mental function. Researchers found that just the anticipation of being watched by a woman was enough to make the men score terribly.
Interesting enough, both studies found that this effect only applies to men. Women apparently are not made dumber by interacting with men.
Jetlag gives you permanent brain damage
Jet setting around the world may sound glamorous, but what if the cost is your brain cells?
A study conducted to investigate the effect of flying on Indian
male and female flight attendants (FAs) found that a whopping 67.47 per
cent of FAs who fly more than 10 years suffer from memory loss.
The paper, published in 2007, found that stress, loss of memory and headaches appeared to share the same etiology such as hypoxia (the deprivation of adequate oxygen supply to body parts), jetlag and irregular sleep.
Another study, this time conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, found that hamsters subjected to extreme, chronic jetlag had about half the normal rate of new neuron birth in a part of the brain, by as much as 50 per cent.
These animals, when later tested in learning and memory, performed poorer than the control group hamsters.
It wasn't that the hamsters were sleep deprived. The two groups of hamsters slept the same total number of hours, but one group had their hours screwed up by sleeping at times completely unrelated to their external environment.
The most frightening point is.. it is permanent.
Or at least a long term problem. The learning and memory problems remained even after the hamsters were put back on a 28 days back-to-normal schedule.
Getting spanked by your mom
Mothers beware: Sparing the rod may spoil the child, but spank your children and you risk giving them long-term developmental damage.
According to research done by the University of New Hampshire, children who are spanked have lower IQs worldwide.
The IQs of children aged two to four who were not spanked were as much as five points higher four years later than the IQs of those who were spanked.
"How often parents spanked made a difference. The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability. But even small amounts of spanking made a difference," said Straus Paschall, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
One reason as to why hitting a child may knock off IQ points is that corporal punishment is extremely stressful, and can cause post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as the child being fearful that terrible things are about to happen and being easily startled.
This makes children more aggressive and antisocial, and can cause cognitive impairment and developmental difficulties.
Being fat makes you mentally slow
It may be a controversial point to make, but science says that being obese not only makes you physically unattractive, it also makes you dull in the attic.
A study has found that children three years old and younger who
stuff themselves with foods high in fats, sugars and processed foods
grow up to have a lower IQ, while those who eat a healthy diet end up as
smarter adults.
This is as the brain is believed to be growing at its fastest rate during the first three years of life, and depriving the brain of proper nutrients at this crucial period may have serious ramifications later on in life.
Eating junk food is not only linked to duller minds in childhood. Other studies have found that diet in adulthood also affects mental performance in later years.
A study, published in a 2003 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, found that obesity works independently, as well as hand in hand with other risk factors, to cause a decline in thinking ability, especially for memory and learning.
Those with a "body mass index" of 30 or more performed significantly worse in tests of mental ability, the Boston study found.
It was suggested that obesity may damage brain function by making it harder for blood to reach the brain.
Other studies have speculated that the reduced cognitive abilities of obese people might be due to their resistance to sugar (caused by prolonged exposure to excessive sugar), which affects the health of brain cells.
Living in a bustling city
If you are living in Singapore, you are by definition living in a city - and it's likely to be screwing up your brain.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that just being in an urban environment can impair our basic mental processes.
After spending just a few minutes in a crowded city street, your memory capabilities are affected and the mind suffers from a drop in self-control.
In a series of psychological tests, subjects who walked through a city ended up in a worse mood and scored poorly in attention and working memory tests.
The reason is simple: A city, with a concentration of activity in a small area, is a brain drain. The mind has to pay attention to so much stimuli and irrelevant things that what results is an overload on the brain's processing power.
This is in contrast to looking at nature and wide areas of greenery, which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain. One study has demonstrated, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when greenery is visible from their hospital windows.
Living in a bustling city
If you are living in Singapore, you are by definition living in a city - and it's likely to be screwing up your brain.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that just being in an urban environment can impair our basic mental processes.
After spending just a few minutes in a crowded city street, your memory capabilities are affected and the mind suffers from a drop in self-control.
In a series of psychological tests, subjects who walked through a city ended up in a worse mood and scored poorly in attention and working memory tests.
The reason is simple: A city, with a concentration of activity in a small area, is a brain drain. The mind has to pay attention to so much stimuli and irrelevant things that what results is an overload on the brain's processing power.
This is in contrast to looking at nature and wide areas of greenery, which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain. One study has demonstrated, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when greenery is visible from their hospital windows.
Breastfeeding can increase a child's IQ by 3 to 8 points
Yes, breastfeeding is tied to kids' brain power.
In
a 2011 study from the UK, kids who were breastfed as babies had higher
scores on tests of vocabulary and reasoning at age five than those who
weren't breastfed.
"There are essential fatty acids in breast milk which are good for cell development and brain development in particular," said Amanda Sacker, one of the authors of the new study from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.
She added that there also could be differences in hormones and growth factors which are lacking in formula. A third possibility is that the act of cuddling during breastfeeding sessions may be translating to better smarts in the future.
This adds on the the host of benefits science has found in favour of breastfeeding, including lower infection risks, stronger lungs and less asthma.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that mothers exclusively breast feed their babies for the first six months of their lives, and continue to do so until at least two years of age.
Worried about your intellectual superiority now? No fear, click through the gallery below to find out how you can gain back some smarts.
Source: 8 things you didn't know are making you dumber
It'd be nice to think that IQ is not a big determining factor for how successful and happy we are in life.
But not so, several studies will say.
One study by the University of Delaware found that contrary to popular belief, the higher your IQ, the more likely you are socially smart.
And while genetics make up an estimated 40 to 80 per cent of a person's IQ, there are a number of factors that determine how smart you are, or how dumb you get.
Most people would readily agree that getting a knock to the head would knock some points off their IQ as well, but what if you were told that your daily junk food habit is not only making you fat, it's making you stupid?
And that those people who spend hours and hours holding long, pointless meetings are not only lacking in EQ, they are probably lacking in IQ as well?
Compiled by cracked.com, here are some of the reasons why some people are dumber than they should be:
Long meetings not only waste your time, they are a brain drain
Here's a reason to give your boss on why long meetings should be abolished - they make everybody involved dumber.
His study found that people perform less well on IQ tests directly after spending time in small social groups than they did when they were alone.
And if their performance was publicly revealed and ranked among their peers, they performed even worse.
It is theorised that this is as being in the presence of someone whom you think is smarter than you triggers debilitative cognitive responses by making us act stupid because we feel stupid.
Brain scans revealed that just being reminded of how the rest of group were scoring lit up parts of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety and emotional response.
Being around the fairer sex
How about this? Just being around a beautiful woman, or even mentioning her name, can make men more stupid.
That's not all. A more recent study showed that even the mere anticipation of interacting with a woman is enough to impair the cognitive abilities of men.
Researcher Sanne Nauts and her team from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands had participants take part in a cognitively demanding test.
During the test, they were told that a person with either a male or female name would be watching them through a webcam.
The participants knew nothing of the invisible "watcher", other than his or her sex. But just knowing an invisible woman was watching them was enough to severely impact their performance.
In another experiment, the researchers decided to tell the participants that they would be watched by a woman before they took the test.
In reality, the participants never took the test, but took another cognitive test to measure their current level of mental function. Researchers found that just the anticipation of being watched by a woman was enough to make the men score terribly.
Interesting enough, both studies found that this effect only applies to men. Women apparently are not made dumber by interacting with men.
Jetlag gives you permanent brain damage
Jet setting around the world may sound glamorous, but what if the cost is your brain cells?
The paper, published in 2007, found that stress, loss of memory and headaches appeared to share the same etiology such as hypoxia (the deprivation of adequate oxygen supply to body parts), jetlag and irregular sleep.
Another study, this time conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, found that hamsters subjected to extreme, chronic jetlag had about half the normal rate of new neuron birth in a part of the brain, by as much as 50 per cent.
These animals, when later tested in learning and memory, performed poorer than the control group hamsters.
It wasn't that the hamsters were sleep deprived. The two groups of hamsters slept the same total number of hours, but one group had their hours screwed up by sleeping at times completely unrelated to their external environment.
The most frightening point is.. it is permanent.
Or at least a long term problem. The learning and memory problems remained even after the hamsters were put back on a 28 days back-to-normal schedule.
Getting spanked by your mom
Mothers beware: Sparing the rod may spoil the child, but spank your children and you risk giving them long-term developmental damage.
The IQs of children aged two to four who were not spanked were as much as five points higher four years later than the IQs of those who were spanked.
"How often parents spanked made a difference. The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability. But even small amounts of spanking made a difference," said Straus Paschall, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
One reason as to why hitting a child may knock off IQ points is that corporal punishment is extremely stressful, and can cause post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as the child being fearful that terrible things are about to happen and being easily startled.
This makes children more aggressive and antisocial, and can cause cognitive impairment and developmental difficulties.
Being fat makes you mentally slow
It may be a controversial point to make, but science says that being obese not only makes you physically unattractive, it also makes you dull in the attic.
This is as the brain is believed to be growing at its fastest rate during the first three years of life, and depriving the brain of proper nutrients at this crucial period may have serious ramifications later on in life.
Eating junk food is not only linked to duller minds in childhood. Other studies have found that diet in adulthood also affects mental performance in later years.
A study, published in a 2003 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, found that obesity works independently, as well as hand in hand with other risk factors, to cause a decline in thinking ability, especially for memory and learning.
Those with a "body mass index" of 30 or more performed significantly worse in tests of mental ability, the Boston study found.
It was suggested that obesity may damage brain function by making it harder for blood to reach the brain.
Other studies have speculated that the reduced cognitive abilities of obese people might be due to their resistance to sugar (caused by prolonged exposure to excessive sugar), which affects the health of brain cells.
Living in a bustling city
If you are living in Singapore, you are by definition living in a city - and it's likely to be screwing up your brain.
After spending just a few minutes in a crowded city street, your memory capabilities are affected and the mind suffers from a drop in self-control.
In a series of psychological tests, subjects who walked through a city ended up in a worse mood and scored poorly in attention and working memory tests.
The reason is simple: A city, with a concentration of activity in a small area, is a brain drain. The mind has to pay attention to so much stimuli and irrelevant things that what results is an overload on the brain's processing power.
This is in contrast to looking at nature and wide areas of greenery, which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain. One study has demonstrated, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when greenery is visible from their hospital windows.
Living in a bustling city
If you are living in Singapore, you are by definition living in a city - and it's likely to be screwing up your brain.
After spending just a few minutes in a crowded city street, your memory capabilities are affected and the mind suffers from a drop in self-control.
In a series of psychological tests, subjects who walked through a city ended up in a worse mood and scored poorly in attention and working memory tests.
The reason is simple: A city, with a concentration of activity in a small area, is a brain drain. The mind has to pay attention to so much stimuli and irrelevant things that what results is an overload on the brain's processing power.
This is in contrast to looking at nature and wide areas of greenery, which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain. One study has demonstrated, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when greenery is visible from their hospital windows.
Breastfeeding can increase a child's IQ by 3 to 8 points
Yes, breastfeeding is tied to kids' brain power.
"There are essential fatty acids in breast milk which are good for cell development and brain development in particular," said Amanda Sacker, one of the authors of the new study from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.
She added that there also could be differences in hormones and growth factors which are lacking in formula. A third possibility is that the act of cuddling during breastfeeding sessions may be translating to better smarts in the future.
This adds on the the host of benefits science has found in favour of breastfeeding, including lower infection risks, stronger lungs and less asthma.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that mothers exclusively breast feed their babies for the first six months of their lives, and continue to do so until at least two years of age.
Worried about your intellectual superiority now? No fear, click through the gallery below to find out how you can gain back some smarts.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
TOC Exclusive interview with CHC members
TOC met up with 4 members of CHC and asked them some very general questions that normal experienced journalist can't be bothered to ask. By saying general, I am saying that they are asking really safe questions that would not in any ways offend the members, not what a typical journalist would be asking.
Disclaimer: I do not belong to CHC (I left in 2003) and is not taking any sides. I am, like many others, curious on the outcome of the case.
---------------------------------------
Source: TOC Exclusive interview with CHC members
TOC sat down with 4 members of City Harvest Church after Sunday service to hear their side of the story about what they think about the recent arrests, the media coverage of the case, and the Church’s Crossover Project.
Christopher Pang and Ben Cheng are Executive Members of the Church, Lennard is a Ministry Member, and Clarence is an Ordinary Member. Christopher wrote an open letter to MCYS which TOC broke here.
Disclaimer: I do not belong to CHC (I left in 2003) and is not taking any sides. I am, like many others, curious on the outcome of the case.
---------------------------------------
Source: TOC Exclusive interview with CHC members
TOC sat down with 4 members of City Harvest Church after Sunday service to hear their side of the story about what they think about the recent arrests, the media coverage of the case, and the Church’s Crossover Project.
Christopher Pang and Ben Cheng are Executive Members of the Church, Lennard is a Ministry Member, and Clarence is an Ordinary Member. Christopher wrote an open letter to MCYS which TOC broke here.
The Church members were speaking on their personal capacities and not representing the views of the Church.
TOC: What's the feeling on the ground of CHC at the moment?
Ben: It's a pretty mixed feeling. We have known the Crossover
Project for a long time, and supported the Project. There is a lot of
love for the Project.
This Project started with love. We love God, we love the Church, we
love our Pastors, and we love Singapore. It's for the love of lost
souls of people that we started this project.
We are praying, hoping for the best outcome. We trust the judiciary.
TOC: Do you think anything illegal has taken place?
Ben: We know what is happening, and we have given the leadership
the permission and the mandate to carry out the Crossover project.
Chris: There's always two sides of the coin. The case is for the courts to decide.
TOC: Both Chris and Ben say that it is up to the courts and the judiciary. Do you trust them?
Chris: Obviously we believe in the jurisdiction and the
infrastructure that our government has in place in Singapore. So yes, we
trust the courts. But I must share my concern about some of the
prejudgment that seems to have taken place. I hope that Singapore, which
is my home and my country, would take things into context.
Ben: The lawyers and judges are doing their best. We pray for the best result.
TOC: How central to the Church is the Crossover Project?
Ben: The Crossover Project is one of our main projects. Sun Ho's
achievements in the entertainment industry is not an end unto itself,
but a means. Because of what she has done in the entertainment industry,
she has managed to get access to places that would otherwise be
inaccessible to the Church.
People do jump into conclusions prematurely. There are two sides to
a story. It's like people judging a family. If you are in the family,
you know the full story.
TOC: Do you think that the CoC and the CAD have no right to intervene?
Chris: No, I think we respect the organisations that have been set
up to look after the charities in Singapore. I think the intention is
good.
Ben: We are doing something unconventional with the Crossover
Project. This is like when the first person to say that the earth was
round was persecuted. Likewise, TCM took many years before it became
mainstream.
Because the project is unconventional, this has caused
misunderstanding. The CoC is doing its job. The CAD is doing its job. We
also believe that we are doing the right thing. That is why I say that
it is a misunderstanding.
Clarence: We are not saying that the government has no say. But we
as a Church family, are stakeholders, and in that sense because we share
a common vision, we support the project. We know that CoC is doing
their job to the best of their ability and we respect that. But as a
member I want to say that I was aware of where and what my giving was
used for. Even when our leaders and mission teams go for mission trips,
the church is updated regularly on these trips upon their return.
Chris: We respect the law. We respect the national organisations
that have been placed to watch over not just the charities, but
everything else in Singapore.
Ben: We support the laws of the land. The bible teaches us to respect that.
TOC: What do you think about the coverage of the case so far in the media?
Chris: I personally felt that a segment of the press media should
exercise some discretion before publishing their reports. I would say
that some of the reports are "undue".
TOC: Has this case impacted on unity within the Christian community in Singapore?
Ben: The Christian community is now more united as a result of the
case. We have had pastors from other churches writing to give us their
support and prayers.
Chris: Some other faith groups have also express their support for us.
Clarence: The unity Ben spoke of is a kind of brotherly unity. It's
not a "me against the world" type of unity that is sectarian. It is the
coming together of a body that shares a common faith, because one of
our own is going through a challenging time.
Ben: Our main concern is for the families of those involved. We
love Singapore. One of the things CHC has done and what the leadership
have done, is to build the brand of Singapore. We also add value to that
brand.
Our forefathers have built Singapore into such a marvellous place,
and we are able to leverage that in the world. We have religious
freedom, unlike in some other countries. This religious freedom is the
basis for our work.
TOC: What is the best outcome?
Ben: The best outcome is for the misunderstandings to be cleared,
and at the end of it all, we have our leaders exonerated and the
crossover project will continue.
Clarence: The best outcome is that the Crossover Project will not stop here and that it continues to touch lives.
Ben: That Pastor Kong remains our leader and continue the Crossover Project in Asia and throughout the rest of the world.
TOC: Any concluding comments?
Leonard: What the media has failed to do is to hear directly from
those who have personally been touched and impacted by the project.
Ben: If you read testimonials, you see all the good that the
project has achieved. We want Singapore to be a better society and
country. We help those who have been rejected by society to become
better citizens. Our hearts are with these people, and we gain a huge
sense of satisfaction when we help people.
Clarence: The Crossover Project has definitely accomplished what
Ben mentioned in terms of not just giving hand-outs, but a hand up for
the needy, the hurting and the less fortunate members of society through
various social enterprises inspired by the vision of The Crossover
Project. Our nation can only be as strong as the weakest citizen, hence
Singapore is definitely a better place today because of The Crossover
Project.
Ben: We are non-political and have no political affiliation. We are more interested in the welfare of our fellow human beings.
In Singapore, Taking Butter With Your Coffee
Source: In Singapore, Taking Butter With Your Coffee
WADING through the plume of smoke from a thicket of men puffing away outside, my father and I made our way to the only available table in sight.
At just after 9 a.m., the morning crowd at Heap Seng Leong kopitiam —
coffee shop, in Singaporean vernacular — was steadily thickening. The
thin veneer on our wood table was chipped; my plastic chair stuck to the
back of my legs. And the scrawny man who materialized as soon as we sat
grunted with impatience when we paused to think before ordering.
And yet, when our coffees, saucers of watery soft-boiled eggs and crisp
slices of toast slathered with thick yellow butter and kaya, an eggy
coconut jam, showed up soon after, I recognized the moment for what it
was: a perfect kopitiam experience in Singapore.
There are many ways to explore Singapore — through its casinos, its busy
night clubs, its botanical gardens. As a youth there, I became well
acquainted with its Burger Kings and malls. But I realized during visits
from the United States that the most authentic view of the city is
always at a kopitiam: one of the old-school coffee shops that dot almost
every neighborhood in the country, serving up cheap breakfasts,
uniquely Singaporean coffee and, later in the day, cold beer and simple
meals.
“In Western countries, they have pubs; in Singapore, we have kopitiams,”
said Leslie Tay, a doctor and writer who created one of Singapore’s
most popular food blogs, I Eat I Shoot I Post.
“The kopitiam is the center of life for many Singapore neighborhoods.
You can sit at the kopitiam and watch the old men sitting around for
hours, drinking beer and talking, playing a game of checkers.”
The word kopitiam itself reflects the polyglot culture of Singapore —
“kopi” is the Malay word for coffee, while “tiam” is the Hokkien (or
Fukienese) word for shop. Kopitiams are usually open-air affairs, some
resembling mini food courts, packed with a handful of food stalls, on
the first floor of the ubiquitous government-built apartment complexes
that span whole blocks. While Singapore coffee culture today also
thrives in hawker centers — essentially, sprawling outdoor food courts —
and in a growing number of spiffy, sometimes air-conditioned, modern
kopitiams, the setting at such places tends to be colder, the eating and
drinking perfunctory.
They hardly resemble the kopitiams that first proliferated in this
former British colony in the 1900s, created when Chinese men who had
been hired to cook in expat homes began leaving and opening coffee shops
to offer cheap meals to a growing working class. These Chinese cooks
introduced the British habit of drinking coffee to Singaporeans, along
with staples like toast and eggs for breakfast.
The coffee they served up was unlike any found in Western coffee shops,
though; because the cooks could often afford only cheap beans, they
enhanced their aroma by wok-frying them with butter (or lard) and sugar.
The resulting basic kopi is a cup of thick coffee, strained through a
cloth sock several inches long and packed with teaspoons of sugar and
sweet condensed milk. Of course, there are many variations on the
standard — evaporated milk, less sugar, etc. — that have spawned a
mind-boggling vernacular.
At Heap Seng Leong (Block 10, North Bridge Road, No.
01-5109), though ordering coffee can be a complicated affair, the food
choices are simple. Between mouthfuls of runny egg spiked with white
pepper and squirts of sweet, dark soy sauce, I scanned the gallery of
older men lining one wall — one was fast asleep, his head so far down on
his chest his large belly almost cradled it. The kopitiam “ah cheks”
(Hokkien for “uncles”) outside were embroiled in a heated conversation I
could barely make out — except for the word “kar chng” (“backside”) at
one point.
At a small counter next to the abacus, which served as the cash
register, a man wearing striped pajama bottoms and a thin white
sleeveless T-shirt made an endless stream of kopis. Whenever anyone
ordered kaya toast, rhythmic scraping noises would soon fill the air — a
server removing the burned bits with the lid of a metal can.
The contrasting flavors and textures in these breakfasts is always
heavenly: the zing of white pepper counters the salty sweetness of soy
sauce, the warm goo of soft eggs and thick kopi vie with the crispness
of toast.
At Chin Mee Chin Confectionery (204 East Coast Road),
on the slender artery that slices through Singapore’s sleepy Eastern
shore, the setting is a little more inviting. Housed in a prewar
shophouse, it has the trappings of kopitiams of yore: slender wooden
chairs and tables outfitted with pristine white marble tops. Its cups
are traditional kopitiam cups, squat, small and very thick all around,
specially designed to preserve the heat of the contents.
Unlike many kopitiams, which rely on kaya from a can, Chin Mee Chin
makes its own kaya, which has a slightly more eggy aroma and is denser
than most. And it serves up kaya on hot rolls baked at the shop. (Its
house-made custard puffs and British-style sausage rolls are also
popular with a slightly different crowd — neighborhood church ladies and
the iPhone-wielding set alike.)
The success of some of these kopitiams has led to a “McDonaldization” of two of Singapore’s oldest: Ya Kun and Killiney Kopitiam,
both of which date back to the early 20th century and have morphed into
chains with dozens of locations across the country. I’d been to many of
Killiney’s gleaming new outlets, but had never been to the first, which
opened in 1919 in an old shophouse (67 Killiney Road) near the shopping
district. So my father and I made a pilgrimage there one morning.
The breakfast menu was more extensive than the ones at most kopitiams.
In addition to house-made kaya on toast or paired with French toast,
Killiney has an impressive lineup that includes chicken curry with a
baguette for dipping as well as noodle dishes like laksa and mee siam.
My father’s French toast was a perfectly decent rendition; its kaya
pairing turned out to be essential, upping its flavor by several
notches. And my roti prata (Indian bread) with chicken curry was
delicious.
Our Killiney food experience brought to mind an old kopitiam in this
city’s Chinatown that I had heard was as beloved for its dinners as it
was for its kopi and kaya toast. So as soon as we could eat again, my
father and I trekked to Tong Ah Eating House (36 Keong
Saik Road), an open-air kopitiam in a triangular building. “We are four
generations,” Tang Chew Fue, the owner of Tong Ah, said, explaining that
his great-grandfather founded the kopitiam in 1939 with a secret recipe
that involved roasting three kinds of coffee beans with sugar and
butter.
We ordered a sampling of dishes for dinner: braised tofu topped with a
scrumptious mound of minced pork sautéed with salty pickled radishes;
claypot-cooked chicken coated in a gingery garlicky glaze; a large
omelet packed with juicy oysters; and a platter of noodles featuring
tender beef. Each dish was more delicious than the last — and the meal
(which fed my sister as well) cost the equivalent of just $29.
As rich as our kopitiam experiences had been so far, there was a holy
grail I had yet to reach. For years, I had heard of a mythical kopi but
had never seen it. “Butter kopi,” Willin Low, chef of Singapore’s Wild
Rocket fusion restaurant, had said with great reverence when I asked him
about it. “It’s basically coffee with butter in it. Years ago, butter
was expensive, so butter coffee became a symbol of wealth.”
In my kopitiam adventures, I had asked for butter kopi at a few places, only to be met with quizzical looks. On a trip to Hua Bee Restaurant (Block
78 Moh Guan Terrace, No. 01-19), a dusty little kopitiam that’s been
around since the 1940s, however, the kopi uncle was unfazed. All he said
was “Twenty cents extra,” before disappearing and returning with a
thick square of butter on a toothpick, which he then popped into my
coffee.
I watched, transfixed, as the edges of the yellow square got fuzzy then
dissolved. Within a minute, just a glistening film on my kopi remained.
Giving it a stir, I took a sip; it was a little greasy and had a very
faint salty element to it.
When I asked the kopi uncle about butter coffee, he shrugged it off,
saying, “Not anything special, lah.” And perhaps he was right —
flavorwise, there wasn’t anything distinctive that might make the extra
20 cents worthwhile.
But when you took into account the steamed slices of kaya-topped bread, a
phalanx of ah-cheks sitting nearby, slowly sipping their kopi, the
sounds of a sleepy morning slowly rousing around me in the kopitiam, I
realized the kopi uncle was wrong. There was, indeed, something special
here.
ORDER LIKE A LOCAL
Unlike Singapore’s other attractions, kopitiams don’t always cater to
tourists. Below is a glossary that will help you order like an insider.
KOPI Coffee with sugar and condensed milk.
KOPI C Coffee with sugar and lighter evaporated milk
instead of condensed milk. (The “C” stands for “Carnation,” the longtime
go-to brand for most kopitiams.)
KOPI KOSONG Coffee with no sugar (“kosong” is zero in Malay).
KOPI O Black coffee.
KOPI O POH Diluted black coffee with sugar.
KOPI PENG Coffee with sugar and condensed milk, over ice.
YUAN YANG Half-coffee, half-tea combination, with sugar and condensed milk.
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