There seems to be a sudden increase in the number of environmental advocates among us, at least, ever since the Amazon fires came to light.
For the longest time, advocates have been campaigning for more environmental awareness among the masses, and all it took was news of the Amazon fires for people to suddenly develop a deep concern for our Earth.
Don’t get me wrong. We should be concerned about the Amazon fires and I am heartened to know that people still care, but it is amusing to see people turning into overnight environmental advocates because of the Amazon fires.
If you think about it, there’s always been many occurences of forest fires in the past, not only Amazon, but also in many other forests in the world. For example, we’ve felt the effects of air pollution (haze) when Indonesia battled forest fires from illegal logging, but you hear more people complaining about the haze than being concerned about Mother Earth back then.
Now we are worried, and for a forest that’s 18,435km away.
“The lungs of the Earth are in flames,” and “Amazon produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen,” are among the most common phrases prompting people to take action.
I’ve seen friends reposting on IG Stories, posts from accounts that claim that they will donate $1 for every “like” or “share”. And I applaud all of those who shared with a genuine intention of wanting to help in the little ways that they can.
At the same time, it’s exasperating to see that this is as far as many of us will go to to ‘save our environment’, despite claiming to be so passionate about a cause.
The worst of the lot are the people behind the IG profiles that claim to be raising funds to help the Amazon. One such account even doctored images to ‘prove’ that the funds they have received have been paid to the Amazon Conservation Team.
If you haven’t caught on yet, it was a scam, and when I checked last night, their gofundme campaign was receiving a substantial amount of money, donated by people all over the world.
As of 11.30am today, this IG profile had already been removed.
I’m not even going to talk about the immorality of riding on a calamity to scam people. Because on the other hand, I’d question if the donors even knew the purpose of the money they donated. If one had read up on the current predicament Brazil is facing with its president Jair Bolsonaro, you’d laugh at the relevance of money as a solution to the Amazon fires.
To be fair, even if we had really wanted to help, none of us would have known how. Besides, the magnitude of the problem isn’t one that can be solved by an average Singaporean.
However, there are plenty of other things we should be concerned about back at home.
Here we are moaning the loss of a forest, ‘our planet’s lungs’, when there are so many other things we can actually do to make an impact.
Singapore has long been driving the messages of climate change and the importance of leading a ‘greener’ lifestyle, and it’s not like a lot of us care about it.
Singapore designated 2018 as the Year of Climate Action, and this year, in line with Singapore’s aim of being a zero-waste nation, our leaders had designated it as the Year Towards Zero Waste. But how many of us are even aware of this, and even if we are, do we even know what this means or what it encompasses?
I, for one, didn’t have a clue, besides the message that our government is currently working on it.
Take for example the simple movement we have here, where for the past year of so, we’ve been encouraged to switch out single-use plastics for eco-friendly alternatives like metal straws and reusable shopping bags.
More companies are adopting this, and we’ve seen how many F&B outlets are removing straws or even offering discounts to people who bring their own containers for takeaways.
But judging from personal experience, there’s still a large number of Singaporeans that aren’t on board. And even if we do switch out to our metal straws and reusable bags, how much is that going to help?
If you think that these metal straws and reusable bags are going to save the environment, you will be disappointed. Because these supposed eco-friendly products aren’t going to do much except make you feel better about yourself.
In an article that dived into the environmental repercussions of such products, it’s even shown that you have to use the green bag (reusable shopping bag) “at least 104 times to make a difference to the environment.” None of us knew this when we bought into the movement.
A lot of us are so absorbed with the action of cutting plastics that we don’t realise what we are even trying to achieve.
Lastrina, a youth environmental advocate who co-founded Singapore Youth Climate Action, shared an example with me awhile back, about how an organisation was trying to launch a programme where they were encouraging people to bring 10 plastics bags in to exchange for 1 reusable tote bag.
She explained about sustainability and how this does nothing to help: “If you got 10 plastic bags, why aren’t you using them?”
But what use is cutting single-use plastics when we are still so wasteful?
For the past year, there’s been an increasing number of brands and individual sellers promoting eco-friendly products. It’s come to a point where these fancy metal straws and reusable tote bags with pretty prints seem more like a fashion statement. People are buying into it just because everyone’s doing so—it’s a trend, it’s cool.
Many of us whom have bought into it at some point end up with sets of metal or bamboo straws, and reusable tupperwares or bags that we hardly use. These eco-friendly alternatives will find its home in some obscure corner of our cabinets, after we realise that it is just so much more convenient to go back to using plastics. I’m guilty of this myself.
“Most of the initiatives come with good intentions, but I think we are missing the point of it. A lot of it doesn’t address the root problem, which is our habit of consumerism and personal consumption,” explained Lastrina.
One straw saved is but a speck of dust if we are still unconsciously generating waste in many other aspects of our life.
There’s many other factors, and one of which we contribute to climate change is our carbon footprints.
We’ve learnt this in primary school. From a young age, we know what greenhouse gases (GHG) does to Earth, but because of how intangible the effects of climate change is in our everyday life, we tend to dismiss them.
We know that it’s getting way too hot these days, but then we forget that these are all effects are by-products of what we do. Individually, we contribute to the emission of these harmful GHG through the simplest things like turning on our air-conditioner. We don’t see the harm in that since it’s something that we have been so accustomed to doing.
Which brings me back to the point that for all the noise we are making about caring for our environment, we’re not doing anything substantial to help at all.
We go around pledging our support for various movements. We publicise our worry about the Amazon fires killing our Earth. We show our support by getting metal straws and pretty eco-bags, but let’s be honest: All these aren’t going to do jack shit on the grand scheme of things if we don’t even know exactly how our actions will impact the environment.
Our metal straws aren’t going to help the environment when we’ll still buying takeaways and throwing out the plastic boxes that hold our food. Even if we switched to eco-friendly products, we’d still be sitting in our air-conditioned rooms and contributing to the gases that’ll kill our Earth.
In other words, the only way for us to truly help reduce climate change, or to help saving our earth is if we completely change the way we live. From leading a zero-waste life (through the practice of 3Rs) to taking the conscious steps to reduce our carbon footprints—created through the use of things like our air-con and automobiles.
For all the noise we are making, are we doing any of that?
(Header Image Credit: Time Magazine)
Let me first put this out there: Our parents do not owe us.
And it is quite a shocker to know that an adult son had brought his father to court to ‘demand’ for financial support for his overseas university education.
Recently, a Family Court judge “ordered a father to fund 60% of his adult son's degree studies in Canada, ruling that the latter was entitled to seek such maintenance.”
In this case, the court had ruled in the son’s favour as it was considered a ‘duty of child maintenance’ under the Women’s Charter.
It’s interesting to note that the son was (already) 22 when he applied for maintenance from his father. In this case, the ‘payouts’ were deemed necessary for his education.
It is the discretion of the court and the judge to determine what ‘duty’ the parents have in this case. But it also makes me question: How much is our parents responsible to us?
Filial piety is strongly entrenched in our Asian culture and it often makes us question what we owe to our parents. On the other hand, what do our parents owe to us? Do they even owe us?
Some argue that it is the parents’ decision to bring a child into this world after all, making it their responsibility to support the child. But, until which point do we stretch this responsibility to?
When the child turns 18? Or for as long as the child is emancipated at the ‘legal age’ of 21?
There are so many intricacies in deciding our parents responsibility to us.
Most will agree that at the very least, it is the parents’ responsibility to provide their children with the rudimentaries of life. In the most primal sense, it is in providing a child with safety and wellbeing, and the basic necessities for survival, like water, food, and clothing. But how about education?
How do we set the parameters of basic education for a child, when what is basic to one may not be the same to others?
When our parents had us 20 or 30 years ago, the basic level of education is (arguably) an ‘O’ level certificate. Back then, tertiary education is a good-to-have, and university degrees are a bonus. Today, we have an abundance of degree holders and most jobs require a minimum of a tertiary education.
Overseas education was a luxury and only for the wealthy in our parents’ time but these days, it’s not unusual to see our peers pursuing further education in Australia or even in far-flung places like Europe, the US, and China.
Which brings us back to the case in question where the 22-year-old son applied for maintenance from his father to pay for his university fees: Is it then fair for him to be demanding financial support from his parents, for his overseas university fees?
I trust that most would agree that our parents have the responsibility of bringing us up, however, there should also be a limit to their duty as parents.
Our parents’ duty to us is to arm us with whatever is the minimum required for us to support ourselves while considering the cultural or societal standards we have today. In other words, for as long as we are capable of securing (non-exploitative, legal) employment to support ourselves.
I know of people who have had to juggle two jobs while doing their part-time diploma studies, just so that they can achieve financial independence, and by choice. I’ve also met underprivileged Singaporeans who have had to take on odd jobs from the age of 16, to help with their family’s finances. With all these in mind, it does make me wonder what significance a university education has in the ‘maintenance of a child’.
It is incredibly hard to believe that at 22, someone would still act like they are owed the right of financial support by their parents. Especially for a luxury like an overseas university education—something that is not required to get a job today.
The other narrative surrounding this case is on whether the parents have the financial ability to pay for their child’s university education. A narrative that should not even matter because it is almost equivalent to saying that it is our parents’ responsibility to put us through university.
To which I’d like to quote Jazmine Denise in her article titled “Dear Adult Children, Your Parents Don’t Owe You Anything”:
“We are not entitled to their time. We are not entitled to their money. We are not entitled to their resources.”
It is a bonus if our parents are capable and willing to financially support us in pursuits that are beyond the societal minimum (for a livelihood), and if they don’t, we owe it to ourselves to work for what we want.
Like the epiphany Jazmine had after going through pregnancy, I only truly realised how much I have been taking my parents for granted after being thrown into ‘adulting’ myself.
I had taken advantage of my mum’s care for me. Every morning, she’d wake up earlier than me just to prepare breakfast for me before going back to bed again. I took it for granted because on some days, I’d return that favour by chiding her for forgetting that I didn’t like bread with fried eggs, for example. “Tell you how many times that I don’t like already,” I’d snap at her.
I took my parents support for granted, for I never had to pay a single cent for my university education and I thought that it was a given. That was until I learnt of how many of my friends had taken up student loans to fund their school fees. For someone whose parents never once made education fees a concern, it hit me how easy I’ve had it.
After shifting out to a HDB flat of my own with my partner and beginning to plan for our future, I know now, more than ever, how my parents have already provided for me beyond what is required. And it is all those little acts of service and gestures from my parents that I’ve started to realise the significance of now that I am accountable to my partner, his family, and our own home.
I’m fortunate.
I also know of people with really f***ed up parents. Parents who would not only neglect their children but who would shamelessly sell their family out to loan sharks. Parents like these could create heavy mental baggages for their children, and it is very easy to blame one’s failure on their ‘messed up family history’. However, it is up to one’s self to carve out the life they desire for themselves.
With that said, I know of people who have no qualms living off their parents even when they are well into their twenties. The level of self-entitlement is nauseating.
For everything that our parents would have had to sacrifice to bring us up to our adulthood, it should never be their duty to continue supporting us when we are capable of independence. And if we want that liberty of pursuing what we want, we should be ready to accept that with that freedom comes with the responsibility of being responsible for ourselves.
Our parents don’t owe us. If anything, we owe them our life, and we owe them for the 20 odd years of time, money, energy, and love that they have poured into us.
And if you think that you are still entitled to anything from them, shame on you.
Also read: We Live Under One Roof, But We Don’t Feel Like Family At All.
(Header Image Credit: chuttersnap on Unsplash)
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong outlined several plans at the recent National Day Rally, and one of them is to raise our “retirement age and re-employment age to 65 and 70 respectively by 2030”.
If you have trawled through the comments sections of local media publications enough, you would already be able to foresee the kind of ruckus people will make over this.
For example, the most common narrative will sound like this: “This is gahmen’s way of forcing you to work till you die!” And in this case, it’s easy to translate this to mean ‘working until 65 before one can retire’.
Accompanying this change is an increase to the CPF contributions for older workers as well, but there are no changes to the CPF withdrawal policy. Thus, as written by Investment Moats, the government (or PM Lee) is effectively saying: “I will raise the retirement age, I will give you more official protection on working longer, yet you can still withdraw your CPF as same as the current plan. It is your choice whether you want to delay to 70 years old or not. It is up to you.”
And for those who wish to retire, nothing is stopping them.
Ultimately, these changes are merely a way for the government to create a more inclusive landscape for the older folks who still want to continue working in their sixties.
However, therein lies the problem as well.
In a dipstick survey I did with 20 Singaporean millennials in their twenties and early thirties, the general consensus (more than half) is that while this is a positive change, it also worries them because in a way, it is a reminder of the very real worry of not being able to retire early (or at all).
It’s undeniable that this is a well-intentioned change to help citizens cope with the rising costs of living, but it also shows the sad reality of how it is the only way forward for some people: to continue working to survive.
For one 25-year-old white-collar worker, the government may frame it as people wanting to work longer, but “it's more like they are saying ‘please let me work’ because they don't have enough financial support and still need to earn money—it's a need, not a want.”
For Johnathan, 29, it makes sense to raise the retirement age because of the increased average life expectancy in Singapore today.
“In the past when people die at 65, the retirement age of 55 makes sense. You work for 35 years and retire for your last 10 years. That’s an approximate 3:1 ratio. Checks out.
Today, we have people hoping to work for 45 years (20 to 65) and retire for 20 years (65 to 85).”
That’s an approximate 2:1 work-retirement life ratio.
In other words, unless you're saving 50% of your salary right now, it doesn't make practical sense for you to be retiring at 65 or even earlier.
With that said, the financial capability to retire depends on one’s earning power in our prime working years, which is also determined by many other factors as well.
“I think the entitled mindset frames this as ‘I work hard for 40 years and yet don’t have money to retire,’ but the truth is, what you choose to do in these 40 years matter too.”
For instance, if one hadn’t studied or worked hard in earlier years, one would be less financially capable of retiring early than those who had worked for it.
Another, a 22-year-old university student, added that she supported the move also because it encourages the older generation to stay active.
“Everyone I know that retired early and did not have some sort of hobby or passion has experienced some sort of mind degeneration. I think it’s super sad.”
Oh the other hand, I managed to speak to one Singaporean in his fifties, who opined that this move, while positive, is also “the government admitting it cannot support the citizens sufficiently,” and that “the CPF scheme is a partial failure.”
He explained that there must be a reason why the government is legislating an extension of the retirement and re-employment age, and at the ‘expense’ of individuals and businesses: “it comes with an increase in CPF rates, which will reduce take-home pay as well as increase cost to businesses.”
Simply put, raising the retirement and re-employment age is a solution for citizens who aren’t financially capable to retire in their sixties, which is also an acknowledgement that it is very probable for one to not be able to afford retirement in Singapore.
Moving forward, whether this change will really benefit the older workers (and us, in time to come) also depends on how it is going to be administered on the ground.
Despite the government’s efforts, the same intentions may not necessarily be embraced by employers.
A 25-year-old working in the engineering industry revealed: “Personally, I've witnessed some colleagues who had to leave at their retirement job despite enjoying their work because they had to take on similar job loads but at a lower salary.”
Because of re-employment plans, these employees were shifted to a contract basis arrangement and in those cases, “the workload wasn’t halved, although the pay was halved.” In such a situation, what choice do the older employees have? Either they continue slogging it out under a clearly unfair arrangement, or be indirectly forced to retire from that job.
There are practical benefits for companies to retain older employees, like the sharing of expertise. On the other hand, for an experienced employee to stay longer in the company could also mean less opportunities for younger employees to rise in ranks, especially in PMET positions, which makes up most Singapore citizens. Longer term, this could give rise to dissatisfaction in career mobility.
It’s encouraging that our government are aware of these challenges, and are looking into helping businesses transition with the new changes, and offering better training opportunities for older workers.
However, beneath all of this, we are also fighting a war against ageism, which was very accurately discussed in a Business Insider article on the barriers older Americans face in finding high-paying jobs.
The article is based on the context of the US but we face a similar problem: We can always retrain older workers. We can arm them with new skills to take on jobs that are more suitable for their age and physical ability, but they will still face stiff competition against younger workers.
“Even for highly skilled senior workers, activists say ageism can be a barrier to entry for high-paying jobs.”
Ultimately, there’s really only so much our government can do. The rest is up to companies and employers to dedicate time and effort in cultivating an inclusive workplace for older workers. And it cannot only be lip service.
On an individual level, it is an inevitable fact that we are now living in a time where cost of living is high. Retirement and re-employment may seem like something too far off in the future for us to think about now, but it isn’t. Because this is a reminder for us to either work hard now and conscientiously save up for our preferred choice of an early retirement in the future, or continue working to survive in our sixties or even seventies.
At this point, it is no longer just the problem of our government. It is all of our problem.
Also read: ‘Money No Enough’ Is Real – Why We Can Never Seem To Save.
(Header Image Credit: Jay Wen on Unsplash)
Gone are the days when we would walk around the park with paper lanterns and sparklers in hand during Mid-Autumn Festival, only to set everything on fire at the end of the night.
We’d throw our candles and candle boxes into a mound and burn everything, and that mini ‘campfire’ we created became a kind of tradition that wrapped up an awesome Mid-Autumn celebration back then.
Good times.
We would look forward to Mid-Autumn Festival when we were kids because of all those simple activities we used to be so involved in. Not forgetting those fancy cellophane lanterns or the ultra-cool battery-operated ones that played that same polyphonic melody that we are all too familiar with.
It was fun to be part of all the hubbub, and there was always this feeling of warmth and unity when you see everyone else around the neighbourhood park celebrating the same way.
These nostalgic activities are a part of an exciting childhood without the Internet, smartphones, and tablets. And, for a lot of us, it really is a pity to know that such innocence might just be lost in the next generation of children as they grow up in an entirely different, digital world.
I still remember how we used to participate in Mid-Autumn celebrations every year. When we were in school, we would be given the opportunity to do so with performances and various activities that our school planned out for us.
We were also taught about the Legend of Chang E’, which is actually a pretty fascinating tale about a lady on the moon.
There are some variations to the tale and in one of them, it tells of the ‘Moon Goddess’, Chang E’, ascending to the moon after drinking an elixir to prevent that elixir from falling into the hands of her merciless husband, saving her people from his tyrannical rule.
To honour her sacrifice, the people would worship her by laying out ‘food offerings’ every full moon. The hallmark tradition of mooncakes came about partially due to the belief that it evolved from there.
Growing up, it has also been a Mid-Autumn tradition for families to have a reunion on Mid-Autumn night, eating mooncakes and appreciating the moon together. If not for it being ‘auspicious’, it was a good reason for us to spend quality time with our loved ones. As we grew older and started having our own commitments, however, it seems that this festival has become less of a priority.
It is ultimately inevitable that, as we start maturing, we begin to form our own sets of beliefs. This changes the way we look at such festivals and the traditional practices we once followed.
For us, Mid-Autumn Festival is now all about the mooncakes—We even call it the Mooncake Festival sometimes.
It may be a little sad that the traditions that made up such a fun and meaningful part of our childhood (and culture) are slowly disappearing from our lives. However, it's heartening to know that at least one of our Mid-Autumn traditions are still kept relevant to us—eating mooncakes!
In fact, more brands and bakers are coming up with modern twists to an otherwise dated tradition, keeping it alive for today's consumers
More fancy mooncakes are appearing in the market and some of these new flavours (like Truffle Carbonara) get us questioning if we are taking the whole fusion food trend a little too far. We also wonder if doing this destroys the tradition since, conventionally, it has always been the classic lotus paste and salted egg yolk mooncakes.
Yet, despite us straying away from the conventional flavours, these 'crazy' new creations do get our generation excited for the festival every year.
Yes, there will always be those who prefer the classic mooncakes, and we have plenty of those around. But to keep them relevant to the younger audiences (and us), more brands and mooncake makers are concocting fresh flavours that blend the old and new. This is what helps to keep the mid-autumn festival relevant to us today and one way to preserve the tradition in modern-day Singapore.
But what will it take to create a mooncake that is widely loved and unlike anything in the market?
This is what Grab is seeking to achieve this Mid-Autumn Festival with its GrabMooncakes, dishing out a challenge to three groups of homebakers: To create a distinctly Singaporean mooncake loved by all.
The top four flavours were eventually selected, and you can now order these four exclusive pieces—Mocha Salted Egg, Ondeh Ondeh, Baked Milk Tea with Pearl, and Sambal Shrimp - right on your Grab app.
Each box of GrabMooncakes features all four flavours. But here's the exciting part: These delightful pieces will then be competing for the title of Singapore's Next Top Mooncake - and all of us will get a chance to vote for the winner!
What's more, it even comes in a specially-designed box that transforms into a lantern—bringing you back to the good ol' days when you would walk around your block, lantern in hand.
Perhaps, it's time to re-live the Mid-Autumn traditions that we used to have so much fun with way back then. So get on your Grab app and grab those mooncakes, now going at a pre-sale price of $72.
Find out more here!
(This post is written in collaboration with Grab.)
On the 9th of June, more than a million people (according to organisers) took to the streets of Hong Kong to protest against an extradition bill.
Since then, things have been escalating and for the majority of us who have kept up with the episodes of violence and drama that have been plaguing Hong Kong, we’re concerned for the people there. But beyond the superficial worrying, we should also take a moment to consider:
What if this happens in Singapore?
What if, for whatever reason, one million unhappy Singaporeans were to take to Orchard Road to protest?
It’s hard to fathom something as extreme as this happening in Singapore, not just because of the safety, security, stability, and structure that we are so accustomed to but also because of the history of how strict our authorities have been on cases of unlawful assembly. Knowing this, it would have taken a major government f*** up for one fifth of our population to be riled up enough to execute a protest of this scale.
But that doesn't mean that it will never happen.
Take the recent ‘brownface’ advertisement saga and a hypothetical scenario of our government enforcing a strict ruling against the Nair siblings for example. This could very well have provoked the minority groups in Singapore enough to fuel the start of a protest for the siblings to be cleared of charges. Subsequently, this could also be fodder for protestors to demand for more racial equality.
Imagine then, like what happened in Hong Kong, peaceful demonstrations along Orchard Road turn into violent riots with each new protest. Imagine going to town for a night out only to see barricades along the streets, and riot police patrolling wherever you go.
Usually, the presence of law enforcement officers would make us feel a bit safer, but this time, we won’t know if it’s actually going to be safer.
This time, they would be ready to do whatever it takes to establish control on the ground should a protest break out—even if that means innocent bystanders or peaceful protestors become collateral damage.
Imagine going home one night, only for the train to be intercepted by a group of masked men at Bishan (for example) who storm the train station with bamboo sticks, threatening protestors who happened to be in the same cabin.
Brandishing their weapons at everyone as tensions rise with heated exchanges, they would start hitting whoever weren’t on their side with their weapons. Everyone would try to flee the cabin. You run with them, but the masked men follow, hitting anyone and everyone they can reach while chasing after all of you.
You’d get home in one piece that night, but with cuts and bruises.
You thank heavens that, at least, you’re alive, but you also fear for the days ahead, because this is neither an isolated incident nor the end of the chaos in the country.
The protests have already evolved into violent-prone riots all across Singapore. Private and public properties have been destroyed in the process.
Shops, trees, street signs and anything in the way of the protests would have been destroyed.
Lives would have been destroyed too, as people are injured or even killed in these riots.
Most significantly, trust in law enforcement personnel, the government, and your fellow countrymen has been eroded.
Do we wait for instructions? Who do we even take instructions from now that it the government we are protesting against?
Do we drop everything and seek shelter at home?
Perhaps schools will be suspended to keep the kids safe, but what about everyone else in the workforce?
Assuming that life still has to go on, how are our companies, business, or our shops going to deal with all the disruptions in the workforce and economy?
With the mounting unrest across our tiny island and the unpredictability of protestors, it would be impossible to know if it’s even safe to go anywhere. Can we put a standstill to our life at this point then?
Honestly, none of us will know what to do if it actually happens.
Sure, the SCDF has always been running free Community Emergency Preparedness Programmes. There are also the occasional emergency preparedness events to ‘prepare’ citizens for possible emergencies.
But having attended some of these events before, I can testify that all the attendees are a lot more fascinated at the action and special effects (smoke and fire) than the critical messages of what one should do in emergency situations.
I say this because these are also the only things I remembered from the events.
Call me a sceptic, but even if we were to witness this simulation again today, I doubt we would have learnt how to handle such situations as a civilian besides waiting for instructions.
Amidst all the mess and uncertainty, most of us would have probably just rode it out, hoping that somehow, somewhere, someone will step out to help us end the mess.
It is only our men (or women) in uniform who have been trained, in one way or another, to maintain law and order here. And for the most part, the rest of us would also put that same onus on them.
Imagine then, in the case where a fifth of the country is protesting to fight for something that our people must have felt extremely passionate and adamant about, there are also Singaporeanswho would be activated by the state to maintain law and order across the island.
In the case where the clashes become increasingly violent, these Singaporeans, who are also our loved ones, would be the ones who are required to follow the protocol to quell the riots: To fire tear gas and rubber bullets at fellow Singaporeans, and to possibly use violence against us if it really comes to that point.
I have trust in our army to protect us against external threats, but it is never the same when you’re talking about ‘fighting against’ your own people—your family and friends.
At the same time, the situation will begin to escalate with each day of inaction by the government. More innocent citizens will be wounded from the clashes.
Three months on, it would come to a point where even Changi Airport has to close all its terminals as protestors take an even more drastic approach.
A woman was also blinded after a bean bag round shot by the police flew into her eye. By now, the police has also admitted to infiltrating groups of protestors so that they could make arrests while undercover.
What’s even scarier is when these police officers are also suspected of planting ‘evidence’ on protestors—which was what happened in Hong Kong just two days ago. The police denied these allegations. But everyone else claims otherwise.
Whatever the case, you start to wonder how much you can actually trust the police and law enforcement as they resort to such underhanded tactics to keep the situation under control.
Sure, we have special forces, the riot police and tactical units trained to deal with such situations. But it’s one thing to be trained through lessons and drills, and another to face the real deal.
In such extreme situations, everything will change even after all the riots and protests subside.
Everything from our economy, to trust in our authorities, and every part of our livelihood will never be the same again.
Which brings me back to the point of the safety, security, and stability, that we have been so accustomed to in Singapore.
It is because of the peace that we have right now that makes it even scarier to think about that scale of chaos in Singapore. But it is exactly what is happening in Hong Kong, and it’s a reminder that nothing is ever permanent. So at least for now, we should be thankful for what we have: peace.
Also read: The War Against OT: Why Staying Back Late Doesn’t Make You A ‘Good’ Employee.
(Header Image Credit: Goh Rhy Yan, Hasan Almasi)
For 364 days a year, we complain.
Then, for one day in August, we somehow become the most patriotic brothers and sisters, banding together to celebrate our Mother(land)’s birthday.
It’s ludicrous if you look at it this way: All year round, we see countless remarks from Singaporeans about how Singapore is a terrible place to live in, and all it takes is for one day dedicated to celebrating the country for people to become patriotic.
Conversely, there is another group of Singaporeans that will roll their eyes at the patriots for such an absurd display of love and pride for the country—Call us hypocrites, for we sing praises about Singapore and flaunt our patriotism on our social media accounts for that one day, only to go back to complaining after.
And it is true that there’s a lot to hate about Singapore.
Right off the bat, there is the recent E-Pay and Preetipls saga, which once again put a spotlight on racism in Singapore—an issue that has been bubbling just beneath the surface for quite awhile now. It has caused quite the brouhaha, causing a divide as many took to polarising ends of the debate on what constitutes unacceptable behaviour.
It is a harsh reminder that despite a growing number of Singaporeans taking on a progressive mindset, Singapore is still a largely conservative society. Racism is but one one of many issues our ‘divided’ society struggle with. It is also the reason behind the longstanding fight for and against 377A.
Along with all of that is the perception of a ‘strict’ or ‘authoritarian’ government among Singaporeans, especially the very outspoken ones on forums, Reddit and Quora threads, and social media comment section. From their view on censorship (fake news law) to how they crack down on the most minute of things like having to regulate PMDs and drones—disgruntled Singaporeans have time and again seen these as signs that the government is running the country with an iron fist.
Corruption is also an issue that people are increasingly discussing, but this is a whole other debate for another day. I am also in no way qualified to make any judgment on this, as I lack the political knowledge. However, one doesn’t need to that knowledge to know, from the kind of nasty comments online, that what many people belief.
I penned a letter to our government last year and in it, I talked about the hopes and fears as a young Singaporean.
I spoke about the reality of hopeful Singaporeans fearing for our future here because of the high costs of living here. Singapore is an expensive city to live in, we know. However, it is when we start to realise that sooner or later, we have to juggle being a full-time worker striving for success in our career, a reliable provider to our own children, and also a caregiver to our aging parents all at once that it becomes overwhelming.
Heck, how can one not feel the pressure when the moment we ‘start our life’ with a new home is the moment we enter a 10 to 25 year debt?
I’ve met underprivileged families. Families with more than two children and that lives in small, basic rented one-room flats, because that is the best that they can afford. I am also aware of the truly impoverished and the homeless who live among us but who are hidden away from sight.
There is always a small part of me that fears falling through the cracks to that state one day, and I am sure it is the same for the rest of the Singaporeans.
It is also because of these worries that Singaporeans are aware of the need to work hard, spend smart, and stay prudent for rainy days. It is also for this very reason that a lot of people hate Singapore—We are extremely competitive.
It is not like our parents time, where degree holders are highly sought after. Today, everyone is a degree holder, and it is one’s expertise or experience in the industry that makes one valuable to a company. Which means that it is now about aiming for excellence in school and also when we start our first job.
Yes, nothing comes easy, but this also comes at a time where we are also being encouraged to chase our passions and turn them into our career. All of us want that, and it is definitely achievable if one works hard for it. But the truth is that most don’t get there because the need to be financially stable makes it a struggle to even find that balance between passion and profit.
It’s also a harsh truth that in whatever we attempt, it’s a constant fight to be better than all the 3.7 million employed individuals in Singapore who can easily displace us. Because Singapore is that competitive.
There’s many other little things that add up, and it will possibly turn this article into 50 page thesis if I were to touch on everything in detail.
On the other hand, there’s also a lot that we are thankful for. And often, it is when we come home from vacations overseas when we feel it.
We aren’t happy with our people and our leaders, but on the other hand, it speaks volumes about how much people actually care.
In the case of the recent ‘racism saga’, a lot of emotionally-driven responses were posted across social media pages. Maybe it turned out to be a whole lot of noise, but we can take comfort in knowing that people care enough to fight for justice and awareness.
It is idealistic, but I believe that at the end of this episode, Singaporeans hope for our society to progress towards being more racially harmonious and not just tolerating.
We often criticise the government for their inaction on various issues from racism to 377A, but if we stopped to think about what they had done, however, we will see how they try.
I am not pro-government and neither am I a leftist. However, I have to acknowledge that we have a government that is attentive of the issues of our nation. Not everything is ideal for everyone, but we cannot deny that we have a government that is constantly worried about the welfare of our society and always looking at ways to progress the nation.
What is sad, is if our leaders completely disregards the issues that we worry about.
It’s been said before, and it needs to be said again: We are privileged.
For all the imperfections that make us hate Singapore, we are blessed with so many luxuries.
Over the past year, I’ve spoken to many millennials who shared their stories of when they volunteered overseas: In certain parts of the world, it is normal to have no access to electricity, normal to have cockroaches crawling around in their home, and it is normal for students to skip school just so that they can walk two hours to a lake for water.
There’s also one who told me about ladies who were catfished and lured into prostitution from a young age, and whom have to face authorities who are indifferent to their plight.
Knowing these, we can be thankful that at least we have easy access to all the basic amenities we need, like water, food, transport, healthcare, and entertainment.
We can also be thankful that we are given largely equal opportunities, whether it is education, jobs, or the chance to build our own homes.
It’s also encouraging to know that for all the squabbles we have over unpopular opinions, we have a relatively healthy society with equal opportunities for everyone to speak and to suggest or even execute new ideas for the good of the country and the people.
Last but not the least; Our safety and security. Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world, and all it takes is for us to travel to any other country for us to know this better.
For what it’s worth, I think it doesn’t matter if we complain about Singapore all year round. And it doesn’t matter if we are hypocrites to be one-day patriots, because we, at least most of us, know that this is ultimately a place that has given us a lot for us to call it home.
The very fact that one can be wherever one is and reading this article through our phone, desktop, or tablet shows how much privilege one already has.
Most of us are proud to be Singaporean, as much as we are ashamed or shy to admit. I know this from the way we love to see Singapore-inspired stuff overseas, and how we are more than happy to #SupportLocal.
At the end of the day, most of us know that for all the flaws that we have as a nation, it’s a darn good country to be born in and to be living in.
So let’s celebrate that.
Also read: Home Away From Home – Is Living In Australia Really A Match ‘Mate’ In Heaven?.
(Header Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Three years ago, Yvonne lost her mum to cancer.
She was only a secondary school student when the doctor first diagnosed her mum with breast cancer. The cancer went into remission after chemotherapy treatments and a mastectomy, but eight years later, it came back. And it was after that relapse that the labour of caring for a loved one suffering from a debilitating illness began to take a toil on Yvonne.
The period of five years after that was one of “the most traumatic period, because I was still doing my work.” That was also a period that saw Yvonne’s sister gave birth, and the heavy responsibilities her sister had with nursing a newborn meant that Yvonne had to step up as the main caregiver to her mother, whose condition was deteriorating by the day.
“Towards the end, her treatment options sort of dwindled down. She tried quite a few treatments but developed a tolerance. It came to a point where there was one option left.”
The cancer cells had spread to her mother’s spine when they were told that the only option left was an intrathecal chemotherapy: “Which means it has to go through either the spine at the end, or they have to put this ‘tap’ at her head and I think for her, that was too much. She didn’t want that.”
Her mother was adamant about not going for that treatment. In a sense, that meant that Yvonne could only bring her mum home and watch her condition deteriorate—there was nothing much else that could be done medically.
It wasn’t hard for Yvonne to accept her mother’s death when she passed five years after the relapse, as it was something that they foresaw, “but I felt like I lost my opportunity to reconcile with her.”
“I don’t think we knew how to talk about reconciliation, especially when she was sick. It was never the right time to bring up past grievances.”
When one is dying, the emotions that accompanies being aware of one’s mortality can make it very difficult to discuss. The same goes for their loved ones, who will deal with a confusing mix of sorrow, despair, and helplessness as they watch their loved one get weaker by the day. For Yvonne, what stuck with her is not being able to have ‘that conversation’, or to properly plan her mother’s last moments together.
“I feel like it’s important to talk about all aspects of life, and you can do that even when there’s no sickness,” she added, as she shared about why she volunteered with Both Sides, Now, a community engagement project about what it means to live well, and leave well, after her mum’s passing.
What if your mum is suffering from cancer and has a 50% chance of surviving if she goes for treatments, but she chooses not to go for the treatments?
“It’s too expensive,” she tells you. “I’ll also have a 50% chance of dying, so, what for?”
However, not going for treatments also means that she has a zero percent chance of surviving.
Do you respect her choice, knowing that she is dying, or do you force her into going for the treatments?
This was a moral ambiguity that was very similar to what Yvonne faced, and it was a scenario that was presented at an interactive theatre show at the recent BSN event at Telok Blangah. Although hypothetical, it was a reflection of dilemmas that many people face in dealing with the last stages of their loved one’s life.
The stakes are so high because when a loved one passed away, it’s too late. Too late for last goodbyes or last acts of love.
Those were the points that ArtsWok Collaborative’s Ngiam Su-Lin, Creative Producer of BSN, brought up when she highlighted the importance of talking about death.
“Often, when illness strikes and it’s terminal, it’s too late to plan. It can result in a lot of suffering, and when people pass on and there’s no closure, it can cause a lot of grief, loss, and conflicts in the family.”
We all die one day, and we know that.
We are aware of how unpredictable and transient our life is, but we never talk about it. Perhaps we do occasionally, when we joke about the funeral we want for ourselves with friends. However, it is the details of what we want in our last moments that we miss out.
“We talk about giving birth and preparing for all these milestones like birthdays and first jobs, but how come when it comes to dying, we don’t talk about our fears, desires, and plans?”
Accompanying every death are intense degrees of pain, grief, and loss—which was what Drama Box’s Artistic Director Kok Heng Leun, who is also Artistic Director of BSN, stressed when he explained the motivations behind BSN.
“People associate [death and loss] with not moving on, not going forward. But loss is such an important aspect of life.”
However, the fear of an unknown and the suffocating emotional pain makes it hard to talk about it. And mortality is such an awkward topic to bring up. It definitely isn’t something you just casually bring up to your parents like so: ‘Ma, pa, how do you want to die?’
The less we talk about it however, the more difficult it will be when a death occurs, because when you look at it objectively, it is the lack of preparation that makes it difficult.
I particularly remember this lady (presumably in her thirties) at a previous BSN event, who amidst trying to hold back her tears, shared how she struggled with seeing her father in the last moments in his life after a sudden medical emergency. She struggled because the family never found out what he really wanted for his last moments. They never got to speak to him about it because it was just too sudden. In a way, it was a closure that she never really had, as she will never know if they did the right thing or if they did enough for him before he left.
Our society as a whole lacks the knowledge in conducting such discussions. We see death and dying as something too grim to seriously discuss about. Yet, it is such a critical conversation to have with the most important people in our life. Because if we never have such conversations, we will never truly know what our loved ones want for their last moments.
It goes down to the smallest details that you never knew you had to know until it is way too late: How they want to be remembered; what kind of flowers they want at their funeral; the kind of care they want when they are in deep pain; or even questions like whether to pull the plug or not when the time comes.
Likewise, if anything were to happen to us, our loved ones will never know what we wanted for ourselves.
Also read: Having Stage 4 Cancer At 32 – “The Greatest Lesson In Life Is To Learn How To Die”.
What is $200 to you?
To a wealthy person, it is probably loose change. On the other end of the spectrum, the same amount could very likely feed an entire family for a month.
Money has always been a concern in our lives. After all, it is the only tangible currency that dictates our lifestyle. That is, unless you lead an ascetic life.
For average citizens like you and me, the ever increasing costs of living in Singapore continues to be a worry and that little voice nagging at the back of our minds every time we spend.
A lot of us also grapple with the fear of not being able to ‘afford our life' when we grow old, frail, and sickly. But when I look at how our mothers (and fathers) have saved up very decent (five-figure) sums of money not just for themselves but also for us, their children, it makes me wonder: How the heck did they do it?
Considering the circumstances in which our parents grew up made me genuinely wonder why we struggle with finances now. With the generally lower income they would have drawn compared to our salaries today, it should not be too difficult for us to achieve the same kind of financial stability and still lead a fairly comfortable lifestyle, right?
Maybe not.
Awhile back, I penned my thoughts on my future in Singapore, where I shared the fears I have and the uncertainty of whether I’d be able to afford (a graceful) retirement in Singapore. To which I believe is the same concern felt by many Singaporeans.
Over the last couple of months however, life milestones like marriage and home ownership has made me realise how clueless I had been with money.
Yes, of course. There are many factors to consider. Our policies, the ten-fold increase in housing prices, and inflation are all changes that has made it more challenging for us. But these are all areas that we have no control over, and are complex topics to debate over as itself.
On a more personal level, I have come to realise how little we know about money and affordability in our day-to-day lives.
“What does it mean to live within our means?”
It's a question that is so important, yet so hard to answer.
A lot of us spend based on our whim and fancy, not caring too much about whether we can afford it or not. Or rather, we spend based on a very vague assessment of whether we will be able to afford our meals (and necessities) for the rest of the month without going ‘broke’.
The problem with this is that when you add personal desire into the equation, you can bid logic and pragmatism goodbye.
Take for instance how we will usually avoid spending more than $20 on a meal, but we wouldn’t hesitate to spend $200 on a ticket to watch our favourite artiste live in concert.
It's exactly what 29-year-old Zafirah would do. $200 can be used to finance two to three weeks worth of her expenses, but like many Singaporeans, her spending is also very sporadic. As another millennial I spoke to explained, the amount he spends “is totally proportionate to how much of a life I have that week.”
While Zafirah avoids spending too much on lunches, she is willing to splurge on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, as well as concerts of her favourite artistes and on holidays.
“Beyond the price I look more at whether it's value-for-money. Even if I splurge or 'go big', I try to find vouchers and promos to reduce my spending. Like right now, I'm eyeing the Dyson Airwrap but I just can't justify spending $600 on a hairdryer.”
All of us attach a different value to the same amount of money, and even on the same amount of money, we perceive value differently based on context.
Take for instance a literal comparison of apple to apple. $5 apples Vs. $55 premium apples. The $50 difference is a lot for fruits. However, $50 is not that big of a deal if you’re comparing long-haul flight tickets, and nothing when you’re looking at housing prices.
There are also those who end up being in debt for years after spending a bomb on achieving their dreams, like a dream wedding—a once in a lifetime affair. A 2016 TNP article shared the struggles faced by a couple who spent $110K on their big day, which left them with a four-year debt.
Is the $110k considered affordable or not then?
Because the value of money is so intangible, it is very hard not to have a biased perception of value, which makes it very hard to discern whether one can really afford something or not. Personal preference, the context of which we're spending, and our earning power all affects our perception of value.
With plenty of payment options and interest-free instalment plans easily available today, the line between affordable and not over-budget isn't clear anymore. We’d all like to think that we are sensible enough to know what we can and cannot afford. But we probably don’t.
We spend on our whim and fancy because there has never been immediate pressure for us to save. For the majority of us, it is a fact that we have lived a sheltered life and never faced a real fear of not having enough to get through another day.
Financial literacy isn’t natural to us either. The only thing we’ve been taught is to save for a rainy day, period. As we grow older, we just grasp for information in the dark, trying to find out about the best savings account and plans, and financial planning tips through Google, friends, financial advisors, and through trial and error.
In our daily lives, we often blurt out the occasional “I can’t afford this.” But I’d make the bold claim that one will only truly know what one can or cannot afford when faced with either having to pay off student loans independently, or when one is getting married and buying a house.
From young, my mother has always stressed this to me: Every dollar counts. When I started working however, I began to lax on that principle. The liberating freedom of seeing 4-figure amounts deposited into my bank account every month gave me the false impression that I can afford luxuries.
There’s always that tiny voice at the back of my head that continues to make me feel guilty for splurging, but on most occasions, the lure of gratification is way too enticing, especially when it comes to food. Not forgetting the FOMO on trends: the seasonal McDonald's burgers, the carnivals, the countless new bubble tea brands in Singapore, and basically anything that's on everyone's Instagram at any certain period of time.
The scariest part is when everything is digital, because it is way too easy to just swipe the card and worry about the money later.
Honestly, it is only after having to pay for a wedding banquet and a house that made me truly realise how careless I have been with my money. And this is probably the same for many of us and going to be the same for many more of us.
It is when you put things into perspective, like how the bill of a wedding banquet alone can be 20 to 30 months of your take-home pay, when you realise how f**ked you are in terms of your finances.
Until then, enjoy all the little luxuries while it lasts.
This is not a sponsored post.
Also read: Are Young Couples Jumping Onto The BTO Bandwagon Too Soon?.
(Header Image Credit: Fabian Blank on Unsplash)
If there’s one question I dread the most in a job interview, it’s “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
I don’t even know what I want for lunch, let alone the next five years of my life. Sure, I’ve been taught model answers to impress employers, but that doesn’t take away the fact that it’s honestly a freaking scary commitment to make.
Recently, a Redditor posed this question to Singaporeans:
“Corporate slaves, how do you stop dreading going to work every day?”
To which the top reply began with “Welcome to work life bro.”
Indeed. Welcome to work life.
As a (relatively) young Singaporean who has come to realise the importance of money in modern day life, this is highly relatable. When I first graduated into the working world, I was on hindsight, naively idealistic. “Money isn’t everything,” I used to proudly proclaim. “I’d rather earn little doing what I like than be paid well doing something I hate.”
However the truth is, the moment you start becoming financially independent is the moment you realise that money is important.
Yet, the scariest part of this ‘welcome to the work life’ notion is how everyone of us relate to it. It is scary because there’s this sense of aimlessness and purposeless that is so pervasive in our society.
This concept of us having to work till we die just to survive in Singapore isn’t new.
All my life, I’ve heard people sigh over not knowing what they truly want in life (myself included). A lot of us end up just cruising through, hoping that someday, somehow, we will find a deeper purpose. And until we do, we will continue to put up with jobs that we convince ourselves to stay in, and we will continue to despair over having to spend nine hours a day, five days a week for the rest of our lives, selling our soul to work just to earn money to live.
It’s a problem of the privileged. For our previous generations and the poor, the need for survival far outweighs the luxury of achieving ideals in one’s career.
However, having grown up in an entirely different world where survival isn’t a concern, the many opportunities we have been given have inadvertently spoilt us. Where there isn’t that pressure of survival, what we face is a deep longing to chase something that fulfils us. And for many of us, we either don’t know what fulfils us, or we are too afraid to chase it.
Perhaps it’s our upbringing. We're all moulded according to a default educational structure set out for the masses. Grades were everything and scoring well in school pretty much determines one’s journey ahead—score well and be rewarded a smooth-sailing journey ahead, else, be prepared to work extra hard in the future just to reach a level playing field.
And when there's no more academic excellence to pursue, it is very easy for one to feel lost. We have never been taught to pursue excellence in non-academic interests, or rather, it is always not a priority compared to scoring well in our English, Math, and Sciences.
Having worked with batches of interns across the various jobs I’ve done, I can confidently say that a lot of JC, polytechnic, and university graduates don’t really know what they want to do or where to go after they graduate.
“Maybe I’ll travel first lor, see how.”
“Not sure leh, see what opportunities there are out there first.”
Everyone is just lost. There’s no clear direction in life. When we have reached that point of our life, no one’s there to tell us what to study or what to do anymore. And that can be very scary for a fresh graduate, because we want to prove our worth. Even our first job has to be ideal, because we know how important a first job is and how it is going to affect our resume and portfolio.
Many youths I’ve spoken to who has taken a gap year shared how they’ve had to convince their parents, because taking one year to ‘find yourself’ is a waste of time in their parents’ eyes. However, it is often this one year of exposure and experience in the ‘real world’ that matures us. For some, it is what helps them find purpose, or at least, it is what shows them what they absolutely do not want to do. But I believe there is also a large number of people who teeter on, just getting a job for sustenance and wishing for change to happen.
However, purpose is also a choice. And a lot of us end up never finding our purpose because we are too afraid to pursue what we want.
Most of the time, it is not that we don’t know what we want in life, but we are too afraid to acknowledge those dreams we have. Pursuing dreams is hard work and as with anything, a risk.
It could be that we are worried about finances—what if we lose money? It could be the self-doubt and fear that we aren’t good enough to ‘make it’ in Singapore’s ultra competitive landscape. Along with that, there’s the fear that we will be wasting time if our efforts go to nothing. Even with advice like ‘don’t be afraid to fail’, the possibility of failure and ‘losing face’ from failing is terrifying, and it deters a lot of us from dipping our toes into new territories.
We end up creating excuses to convince others and ourselves to stay within our comfort zone. At the end of the day, we just follow through the motions, waiting for something to happen. This will cause anyone to get jaded very easily and very quickly.
The only way to find purpose and be happy with our life is to figure out what we truly want and more importantly, to work for it. And it’s encouraging to see more and more Singaporeans quitting their corporate lives in their late twenties to thirties to pursue what they’ve always wanted to do: in starting their own fashion label, running their own hawker stall, and many more.
There’s no way to achieve perfection in all aspects of life because life is just that short. It really goes down to knowing what we want to prioritise.
It doesn’t matter if we are driven by money or if it’s a desire to do social work, because as long as we know what to work for, half the battle is won. Because only then will we be able to figure out what we can do in our everyday lives to fulfil ourselves. And nothing ever comes easy, so either we get busy living, or get busy complaining.
Also read: A Letter To The Singapore Government, From A Young Singaporean.
(Header Image Credit: <a href="
Editor’s Note: Andrew passed away peacefully at 11:25pm on 31 August 2019. We'd like to extend our heartfelt condolences to Andrew's family and friends.
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“It’s the absence of hope that makes cancer patients lose all sense of life.”
At 32, Andrew has only about four to six months to live, should his current treatments fail. He has Aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and it isn’t the first time medical treatments have failed on him. He had already gone through 10 rounds of what is supposed to be the most effective, available chemotherapy for his case, only for the cancer cells to return with a vengeance.
Within the span of less than a year, he has gone from optimistic and hopeful to terminally ill.
When I first met Andrew about 9 years ago, he was an assistant producer at the place I interned at. In short, just an ordinary, healthy person who is few years my senior. Yet, when I met him at a cafe near his home earlier last week, he had to walk with the help of a cane. What used to be the physique of a sportsman is now this frail person with a slight hunchback, pallid face, and a bare head, save for a soft fuzz of hair that has started to regrow.
He was first diagnosed with stage 1 Aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects certain types of immune system cells, last June. The tumour has since grown to a point where he is unable to ‘survive’ without the use of morphine. The tumour growth near his lungs presses on his rib cage every time he takes a breath, causing him immense pain.
Back then, it was only by pure coincidence that the doctor stumbled upon the tumor.
It was only when Andrew checked himself into A&E for a high fever one night when they found out.
He had gone to the hospital as a precautionary measure, as he had a history with Pneumothorax (collapsed lung). Fearing complications that could have arose from the major surgery he did for Pneumothorax prior, the doctors ran some x-ray tests on him. The tests returned with signs of a tumour growth at the upper part of his chest.
Further biopsy tests identified it as stage 1 Lymphoma.
“Back then, the doctors were super confident—it wasn’t a complicated case. 90 percent of people who had this [cancer] at this stage have been cured.”
With that assurance and his strong belief in the medical system, he proceeded with the recommended treatments—chemotherapy—confident that it was nothing to worry about.
“I had great trust in our medical treatments. Like eh, stage one [only], what is this man! You know, I thought this will just be something like a few months ‘holiday’ where I go for treatments, then I’ll be out soon enough.”
Nobody would have expected that he was that 10 percent.
Instead of shrinking, the tumour grew from 8cm to 13.5cm. By this time, the cancer cells had began to spread to his other organs—the worst sign of any cancer. The 10 rounds of chemotherapy, which comprised of R-EPOCH therapy, and another stronger, RICE therapy, had failed.
As he went on to explain how chemotherapy works on cancer patients, Andrew added that it is something he would never wish upon anybody.
“It lives up to its reputation as a very uncomfortable process.”
The side effects of chemotherapy varies for each person. For Andrew, the sessions completely sucked the life out of him and made it impossible to palate anything. “I would eat and then ‘Merlion’ everything out.”
Besides the nausea, lethargy, and hair loss, there was also a general uneasiness in his body which he could only describe as “an oily feeling,” and “it’s like your body is rejecting [what’s being done to it]”
When he saw the PET scan and heard the doctor’s remarks, his first thoughts were: “So how long more do I have left?”
“I don’t want to be in a situation where I haven’t said my goodbyes and I haven’t done my final things before I pass away.”
Any cancer patient would have mentally prepared themselves for the worst, but knowing that the worst that they could expect came true is another thing altogether. The news gutted Andrew and his family.
A Christian, he had on many occasions questioned why God allowed this to happen to him. He questioned why it had to be him. Why it had to be cancer.
Acceptance only came later, and it came from the pain that he had to go through.
“There was one night I really thought I was really going to die.”
He recounted to me about the night a bad coughing fit left him curled up into a ball on his bed. Besides the physical pain he felt at his ribs and the stars he was seeing from it, it also broke his heart to see his mother crying by his bedside.
“My mum said that she wished she could take the pain from me. She said that she wished she could be the one who had cancer instead of me. For me, for a child to see your mother crying for you so helplessly, it was so painful.”
In our generation, a lot of us spend long hours at work or with our friends. It was no different for Andrew. Looking back at the times he had placed work and friends above time with his family, his biggest regret is not having spent enough time with his mother.
“Ultimately, during the most difficult time of my life it was my mum who sat at the side of my bed. She cannot do anything but sit there and cry, but it’s this kind of relationship that [reminds me that this is something] we should never compromise.”
Andrew's everyday life now revolves around rest. His therapies leave him with little energy for anything else. Besides the 16 or 17 hours of sleep he needs a day, he spends his time on simple pleasures like reading, catching up with friends, or fulfilling his wanderlust through travel shows on Netflix.
Since the traditional treatment of chemotherapy has failed, he has gone on to alternative therapies, which works slower and have a lower success rate. And because his is an aggressive cancer, it is now a race against time—for the alternative therapy to save him before the cancer takes his life.
However, the prognosis, or ‘time till death’ is not something that the doctors can determine as he is on a relatively new treatment. If it does not work, he will only have up to six months to live.
“The truth for cancer patients is that we cling on to every bit of hope if possible because otherwise, there’s really nothing else to cling on to anymore.”
Hope. It is the one thing that keeps Andrew alive despite being in the face of death. Besides, cancer is unlike the common cough and flu, where you know recovery is only a matter of time with the help of medications.
Reflecting on his journey, he tells me about how the worst part is when the doctor looks at him with a look of defeat—when they look like they have no idea what else to do.
“It’s the absence of hope that makes cancer patients lose all sense of life.
The fear of death is what makes people struggle with coming to terms with being terminally ill, he explained, and stressed the importance of seeing death as a happy closure. The change in mindset and the understanding that death is one end to the pain and suffering is what helped him accept death.
As someone who used to be extremely health conscious, Andrew joked about how he regrets not living life previously. "I used to actively clamp down on a lot of things believing that I have my health under my control. I should have just eaten whatever I want!”
Lymphoma, however, is one of those mysterious diseases that do not discriminate. He just happened to one who has it.
“I think we should live our life as happy as possible. Make a commitment to live as happy as possible. Happiness is now. Happiness is eating dinner with friends and family instead of doing paperwork at 9pm thinking that your boss and company will appreciate.”
For those who are also terminally ill, “Never stop fighting. Fighting on is a big part of fighting cancer.”
Many patients get very depressed and scared as they fear the ultimate result of cancer: death. However, one needs to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel and believe that the pain will end.
“You need to believe that it will not be darkness when you close your eyes for the last time. [For me,] that is the hope I need to cling on to because otherwise I will fall into depression.”
Even loved ones will not be able to help in this journey, for it is a very personal battle when it comes to accepting death.
“We need to cling on to something larger and stronger than ourselves,” Andrew emphasised.
“The moment we give up hope, the battle is lost.”
Also read: Meet The ‘Spiritual Guru’ Whose Job Is To Make You Rethink Your Life.
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