In a recent <a href=" interview, President Obama was asked about his views on political correctness, and whether President-elect Trump was right to say that political correctness has gone too far. In typical fashion, Obama offered an insightful yet measured response about the different definitions of “political correctness”, and the dangers of subscribing too fervently to an extreme interpretation of what it means to be PC. On one hand, you have the definition of PC as simply being polite and respectful towards other people. On the other hand, there’s the definition of PC as “hypersensitivity that ends up resulting in people not being able to express their opinions at all without someone suggesting they're a victim”. We often associate the discussion about PC culture with the USA, but, as highlighted by the ongoing Amos Yee debacle, the PC problem might be a lot closer to home than we think. To many, the actions of Mr. Yee, who is currently making <a href=" news for seeking asylum in the US, are unforgivable and absolutely worthy of punishment. To others, however, the continued persecution of Mr. Yee remains an embarrassing stain on Singapore’s hypersensitive culture, hopelessly mired in the trappings of being overly PC. I have to admit, I’m torn on this. Mr. Yee, while offering some much-needed challenges to our fragile sensitivities, also took a giant dump on every aspect of being PC, including the one about being a respectful, polite human being. Herein, I believe, lies the problem with Mr. Yee’s narrative; he simply took it too far. Unfortunately, however, so did we. We, as a society too concerned about being PC, put a teenager in prison for “hurting our feelings”. A bratty, disrespectful, annoying little shit of a teenager, yes, but a criminal? It’s embarrassing, no matter how you spin it. Why are we so beholden to the tenets of the overly PC tribe? I believe the answer lies in a socioeconomic ideology called neoliberalism. We’ve talked about neoliberalism before, but the big N word (not that one!) is back to haunt us once again. In a nutshell, neoliberalism is the laissez faire approach of allowing the free market to sort everything out. In the neoliberal economy, everything is angled towards making money, everything, including political correctness. This particularly clever line from South Park perfectly sums up PC culture: “What is PC but a verbal form of gentrification? Spruce everything up, get rid of all the ugliness, in order to create a false sense of paradise.” Like urban developers sprucing everything up in run-down areas with overpriced cafés and organic farmers’ markets without addressing the underlying poverty of said areas, PC culture provides a paint job of pleasantness over the undercurrents of society’s problems. The spectacle of inclusion and tolerance is good for business. Economically, it’s beneficial for a society to offer the appearance of harmony, even if such surface-level PC does nothing to address underlying problems of intolerance. Do investors and tourists care about the deep-seated segregation between cultures in Singapore? No. They only see the tourist brochure version of a cultural melting pot with an apparently stable and harmonious populace. Are we really helping to further understanding between Christianity and Islam in Singapore by persecuting someone mocking religion, crass and disrespectful as he may be, or are we simply deepening rifts between groups and stifling meaningful communication by putting band-aids over fractures and making everyone afraid to discuss religion outside of their own? In an <a href=" with BigThink about PC, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek describes PC culture as an implicit form of totalitarianism. He of course doesn’t believe that we should be going around verbally abusing people, but he argues that we shouldn’t employ “coercion and scare tactics to instil a state of forced behaviour.” Žižek believes that the kinds of obscenities and irreverence that PC tries to censor – the same kinds that we persecuted Amos Yee for – are actually important to “breeding a sense of shared solidarity”. By taking our sensibilities less seriously, Žižek says, we allow ourselves to more easily find common ground with those whose beliefs diverge wildly from our own. Perhaps, in order to grow together as a community, we should reject the tendency to get offended by anything we disagree with, and have the maturity to engage in contentious but fruitful conversation with people we’d much rather silence. To end this conversation on PC culture, I’ll leave you with this quote from comedian Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so f*cking what."

https://www.facebook.com/Urbanites.co/posts/1784695275113104

<a href=" Image Credit

Try as we might, it will always haunt the children. Just as it's been over the past few years, so this year's release of PSLE results has come with the same dramatic tropes. There were calls, platitudes and ST letters urging parents to remember that "it's just an exam", and "it doesn't determine your child's future". There was the standard scandal of parent punishing their child for not scoring high enough--this time, it involved <a href=" confiscated Nintendo DS. There was the outraged reactions, with one of the top rated comments reading <a href=" is the kind of thing that make our young children jump down from buildings". Topping it all off was the viral movement where Singaporeans shared their PSLE results, along with where they are in life now, which amounted to a whole lot of humble-bragging. Perhaps next year, the Government will announce yet another departure from the PSLE system towards the new favourite phrase--a more <a href=" development", as was announced this year, along with the announcement that a new PSLE grading system will be implemented from 2021 onwards. Sports, character and volunteer work will become new potential criteria for admission into top schools, and all this on top of grades. Honestly, I am cynical that all this will amount to any significant change.

Kiasu Mentality Reigns Supreme

Instead, we will probably see parents pushing their kids to excel in all kinds of sports, trying to get them into the national teams so they can become the next Joseph Schooling. Children will be signed up for all kinds of leadership programmes in a bid to develop their character. Perhaps there will be an explosion of volunteer work at various homes and hospices, as kids rush to prove their hearts for the disadvantaged members of the community. All that while having to do well in their studies. My point is that while we can try to turn the focus away from grades and onto the child's non-academic merits, at the end of the day, the Kiasu mentality reigns supreme. We've become so obsessed with grades that our only alternative to grades are even more grades. If our children are not multi-talented, Renaissance-type boys and girls, they will not thrive as productive members of society. Instead of decreasing stress levels, we give children more areas they must perform well in, hammering in the notion that at the end of the day, a child's worth and sense of identity are tied to what he can or cannot accomplish. Woe to the child who learns more slowly than the rest and is unable to excel yet in sports or their studies in time for Primary 6 or Secondary 4; a lacklustre school certificate from his first ten years of education now potentially determines where he can go from here. At this point, most roads already lead down.

It All Boils Down To Socio-Economic Status

Crucially, a mere change in the PSLE marking scheme or the way children are streamed fails to account for the biggest problem that plagues Singapore's meritocracy: the uneven playing field produced by socio-economic inequality, as well as a system of meritocracy that more deeply entrenches this inequality. Both Donald Low, a senior lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Andrew Yeo, a research assistant at the Institute of Policy Studies, have written extensively on this particularly pernicious problem. Low has talked about how it is important to ensure equal access to opportunities, given that people start out with different talents and resources. He warns against a "Wall Street Meritocracy", where a "self-justifying, entitlement narrative" emerges and "inequality is [seen] as a natural consequence of an efficient and normatively desirable system". Yeo states that "students who score well in the Primary School Leaving Examination, are disproportionately populated by students staying in private housing." He goes on to say, "<a href=" than half the students in the top secondary schools have fathers who are university graduates, while this is only the case for about 10% of those in neighbourhood schools". Essentially, parents with greater income because of greater educational status give rise to children with greater access to high quality tuition services and who then have greater opportunity to enter the top schools, and this cycle continues. This problem is not exclusive to academic achievement. Sports in Singapore doesn't exactly have a reputation for being the most well-funded; Schooling's parents had to make heavy financial sacrifices in order to send him to the USA to train, <a href=" selling their house. As such, children who come from more well-to-do families will undoubtedly have an unfair advantage in ensuring their success, whether in their studies or extra-curricular activities. On the flip side, those lower down the socio-economic ladder not only do not have access to fancy tuition classes, they are saddled with other responsibilities, like having to work to support their parents. How then, do these children explore their talents in sports or art? The school you go to also has a part to play in the programmes you're exposed to. You can't expect the same breadth or quality of programmes from a sprawling elite school like Hwa Chong Institution as say, Damai Secondary School, a neighbourhood school that is set to disappear once it merges with Bedok Green in 2018; the funding and budget of Damai simply pales in comparison. Now that the emphasis no longer rests on grades alone, the disadvantages of going to a neighbourhood school is accordingly amplified. It doesn't matter whether we emphasise the child's grades, his sporting abilities or his artistic talents; as Low argues, without "redistributive measures, meritocracy rests on increasingly shaky and tenuous foundations".

Recognizing The Flip Side Of Meritocracy

In a country like ours, where everything is judged by Key Performance Indicators, a measure of inequality is to be expected because people are not equal in their abilities. But the issue here is that this inequality can carry on to the next generation, granting the children of parents higher up on the socio-economic ladder an advantage over others, rendering meritocracy just as guilty as race/religion/gender/caste systems of entrenching inequality. The key assumption that meritocracy is the best means of social mobility must therefore be re-examined. Otherwise, we risk deluding ourselves into thinking we have a perfect system when what we have in place instead, is one that creates a permanent underclass. <a href=" Image Credit

The year is 2016, yet the value of an Arts degree in Singapore remains iffy. A quick Google search of the term” Arts degree” garnered the following prompts. Oh dear. In a society that insists on practicality, the Arts and pursuing further education in a humanities subject has become more commonplace. However, the “whimsical” Arts education is not quite yet viewed as favourably as a professional degree or one in the hard sciences. The case in defense of the Arts degree or diploma has been pledged countless times before, but this writer thinks it comes down to two main things:  Doing what you love and making what you do well count. There has always been a significant dip in people studying humanities subjects, as students move from secondary to post-secondary and tertiary levels of education. A few years back, a report on the dramatic drop in students reading Literature at the “O” levels reignited questions about the place and value of the humanities in Singapore. However, perhaps these findings merely call attention to an attitude towards the Arts that hasn't changed much over the decades. The study of the Arts for the most part continues to be seen as subsidiary and for “enrichment”—implying it is not essential.  Studying Geography, History and Literature in schools thus become yet another compulsory rung to overcome in the education system. As a result, students who choose to pursue the humanities at the tertiary level, in polytechnics or universities remain a rare bunch. I fell in love with Literature as a wide-eyed teenager in Secondary school and have never looked back since. The joy of reading and exploring an entirely different world without ever having to leave the comfort of my bedroom was a mind-blowing prospect—and remains so today. Yet the choice to pursue a “passion project” of a Literature degree continues to attract furrowed eyebrows and doubtful gazes from friends and family who don’t understand what a Literature degree could offer. The rejoinder of “You read a lot of books ah?”  is so commonplace, us Arts students don’t even feel bad anymore. So why do we do what we love? It’s because what we love is critical. Robin Williams’ character in the classic film Dead Poets Society famously said: "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." Not every humanities student likes poetry, but the sentiment behind these lines teaches us something important about the “fluffy” humanities subjects. In essence, it tells us that if the sciences are the body, the humanities are the soul—one without the other makes for an incomplete person.  If we can move away from the view that the humanities are a supplementary facet of our lives, and understand the symbiotic nature of the “more concrete” sciences and the Arts,  perhaps one could begin to understand the tremendous value of studying the Arts. If we understand the essential lessons that Geography can teach us about our relationship with the world in the context of climate change, or how learning History can help us avoid the political errors of the past, then perhaps we will see how there is nothing peripheral about studying the Arts at all, so don’t conflate passion with irrelevance.  Such a change in mindset needs to go beyond official reports from the state that decree how the sciences and the Arts are equally valuable. I believe a real shift can come only from the ground up—how we as a society can achieve this is something we’re still trying to figure out. The second thing I’ve learnt as a fervent believer in the study of the Arts is to make what you love to do count. Perhaps, the quickest and best way to convince someone of the value of your passions is to demonstrate its practical application in the real world. My Arts degree has trained my ability to analyse problems and create solutions, think quickly on my feet, improvise in a time of crisis and craft arguments swiftly. In a world where we are preparing for problems we cannot conceive of in the present, such skills are not generic but are in fact useful and transferable. They are also the exact skills that a humanities student hones every day in the classroom. In a literature seminar on factors that motivate characters in a Jane Austen novel, the Jane Austen part is probably not going to matter in your life beyond school, but practicing the skill of figuring out what makes people tick—that’s always valuable in or out of the workplace. In that sense, the humanities classroom affords its students the platform to emulate the problem-solving skills asked of them in the workplace. Additionally, perhaps the product of tediously penning essays for the duration of your humanities course means that you inevitably become pretty competent at writing. “Oh, you’re an Arts student? So you like writing? But you cannot make money from writing in Singapore.” is something I stopped rolling my eyes at a long time ago. Yes, I am an Arts student and yes; I like writing (although I know several Arts students who are good at writing but don’t necessarily like it.) Either way, writing is far from irrelevant in Singapore. The truth is, everyone needs a good writer. Every company needs a solid writer to think up engaging social media content, someone who can write coherent reports and proposals. Writing is an essential skill and although sometimes glossed over, a highly valuable one in the workforce. In the end, Arts students do what we do because we love what we do. And we love what we do because it can guide us on how to solve so many of the problems that we see in the world today. What we love to do and what we do well is essential, and you maybe everyone could see the value in the Arts too, if only we could turn off the blinders and look ahead.

It’s the day you receive your diploma or your ‘A’ level certificate. University brochures are pouring in through the mail with their impossibly happy graduates, smiling about their university lives or their lives after that. “Come here. We’ll equip you with what you need to enter the real world”, they seem to say. If only this were true. How it is one can smile so glamorously in a study group, I’m not sure. Most of the time, we students are just slogging away when we’re in university. What’s worse, however, is that after years and years of mugging, late nights and examinations, grads are welcomed into adulthood with the best welcome gift: unemployment.

The New Unemployed

Got your degree? Congratulations! You’re officially unemployed. Upon graduation, graduates of 2016 will add to the “unemployed” statistics of the Singapore economy. Having a degree no longer gives you any kind of special edge and companies’ general attitudes towards graduates are more or less the same: “Everyone has a degree. Why should I hire you?” With an excess of graduates and a falling number of job vacancies, that piece of paper no longer represents any kind of job security. Welcome to the 21st century.

Hustle, Hustle, And Then Hustle Some More

When was the last time you heard of someone going on a gap year? You haven’t? Me neither. No one has time for that anymore, not in this economy. Some people even skip their grad trips—and not to save money. Graduates of 2016 will start their job hunt at the beginning of their final semester in school. If you haven’t secured yourself a job somewhere, brace yourself for the sympathetic looks from your peers who have. After 15-ish years of education, many graduates immediate dive into the working world. No one has time to rest or to take a breather - having a degree certainly won’t make your life any easier.

Eat Your Humble Pie

Despite the thousands of dollars we spend getting a university education, in 2016, the value of a degree is, sadly, equivalent to that of an ‘O’ level certificate 10 years ago. Everyone has a degree, so having a degree doesn’t make you very special. In fact, it’s the “bare minimum” if you want to land yourself a decent job. Having a degree is simply not enough; you need to supplement that with work experience. And those of us who didn’t plan as far ahead and who didn’t get around to beefing up our resumes will have to kick ourselves as we struggle to convince employers it's us they should hire. In this day and age, you can’t be too picky with your job. More often than not, it’s your job that picks you.

Coming Up With A New Strategy

While things may seem bleak, not all hope is lost. Instead of fighting their way into conventional paths, many graduates are creating their own paths through innovative startups. With graduates becoming increasingly disillusioned about their futures, many are looking into starting their own businesses, even if it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what they studied in university. With social media and a digital space that is open and available to all, these days, you don’t need a brick and mortar store to run a business. A little Googling and reading up online will tell you virtually everything you need to know about how to make the Internet work for you. And if e-commerce isn’t for you, you can be your own brand by putting your perspectives and personality out there. Millennials are a tech-savvy bunch and in the absence of opportunity, I think we’re adept to create some of our own. What this also means though, is that many degree holders will end up doing things that have little or nothing to do with the courses they studied—not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Having a degree today really isn’t the same as having a degree in the past. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the possibilities that a degree can promise, and keep your mind open to other options.

The other day, I was passing by King Albert Park—KAP, for those of you Bukit Timah kids—and I saw that in its place now stood a shiny new condo. A place that bore so many memories for so many of us who lived, studied, and grew up near and along this road was demolished, and here in its place stood a soulless residential estate. I tried to remember what it looked like before. I remember the cashier counter, the first floor, the staircase up, the seating layout once you got up there. There were the good seats—the cushy sofa seats that looked into Cold Storage—and there were the normal, not so good seats. We always tried to get the good seats. I remember always going there after school to study with my friends, and doing more talking and distracting each other than actual studying; going downstairs to Cold Storage to buy sushi and snacks to eat while we tried to be productive. I remember learning more about my now-fiance over a Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby. I remember decorating a Sara Lee pound cake with M&Ms, gummy candy, Nutella spread, and all sorts of sweet treats with my friends before we went to another one of our friends’ house to surprise her. So many memories were made in that building. I tried to remember what it looked like on the outside, the building’s façade, the drive-thru, the familiar golden arches, and I realized that I was already beginning to forget it.

Gone are the landmarks of our youth

I can’t remember what the old Heeren or Cineleisure looked like, even though I used to go to these places so frequently. I can’t remember what came before Ion, what the stretch of road looked like before 313. In Singapore, change in the norm. The old must make way for the new, the better, the shiny, and we Singaporeans understand this—that the thriving of our nation depends upon this. We need better malls, more homes, better physical infrastructure, and I appreciate that many of the changes we’ve seen in the Singapore landscape have been for our good; the MRT lines make getting around incredibly convenient, the malls make for a great shopping experience. For the most part, change has been for the best. But when we get rid of the old, we forget what was once there. With each structure we demolish, we rid with it the ghosts of our youth. We forget how we lived, what we used to do. We lose the reminders of our past, and for some of us, our youth. Maybe I’m the only one who’s bothered by this. Maybe I’m the only one who wishes some things could remain the same, and maybe I’m the only one who wants to hold on to the landmarks of my childhood. But maybe I am not, and with each major change to our landscape, maybe we Singaporeans feel a bit of loss and displacement we can’t quite articulate, even as we adapt to the new.

What is home?

Singapore is our home and home should feel warm and familiar—not just be productive and useful. I love Singapore. I think it’s a great place to live and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel fortunate for all the things we get to enjoy, living here. But I do wish that in the midst of change, as we continue to forge onward and upward, we still get to hold on to some of our favourite things—even if just for sentimental value. Surely, we don’t have to give up everything in order to be a world-class nation? <a href=" Image Credit

“Are you angry?” <a href=" 12 year old boy approaches his mother with trepidation and hesitance – almost fearful. After all, he did get 229 when he told her he could get a 250. Maybe he should have kept expectations low. 220? 210? 200? But he did get all As. Surely she would be okay with that. Hoping to get some recognition of his effort- “You can forget about your Nintendo DS.” He gets none. This exchange tugs at the heart strings of ex-PSLE students across the island. Having faced the traumas of 10-year series (even 20-year series for the fanatic), panicking when we forgot to bring a 2B pencil for OAS shading, and getting back our excellent / horrendous / ok-lah results on Results Day, we have clearly “been-there-done-that”. We experienced the pressures of every Singaporean child during PSLE season, and wave it off as a coming of age ritual. However, secretly, deep down, we all hoped for change for the next batch of students. For tiny pinholes to penetrate the air-tight Singapore education system, to allow students some relief from suffocation. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education finally recognized the need to shake the system and its cookie-cutter outputs. Announcing a PSLE revamp in 2021, this gave fresh hope to current students. For us past students, it gave us some hope that our future offspring might have greater freedom in exploring their interests instead of their “interests” in Mathematics- or even worse, Advanced Mathematics. Yet, policy changes must be accompanied by psychological shifts. Unfortunately, much of our societal mindset is still trapped in the past. You are only successful when you are a doctor, lawyer or engineer. What about Singaporean fashion designers with their labels on NYFW? You are only successful when you get straight As. What about breaking regional and world records in sports? You are only successful when you get a scholarship? What about an apprenticeship at the world’s best culinary school? Much of our Singapore identity is tied to grades, which is manifested early in the young Singaporeans’ life--The PSLE T-Score. Our fascination with grades stems from our fundamental roots as a meritocratic society, where people are rewarded based on merit and hard work. Yet, we have restricted the definition of merit to academic success, and failed to acknowledge the presence of other achievements. Consequently, examinations and any means of testing become the only means for us to prove our worth as a “successful Singaporean”, and failure to excel becomes equivalent to failure in society. We need to shake Singaporeans out of this distorted mindset. We need to assure our young ones that there are other routes to success- if you fall through the cracks, take another path and carve your own niche. We need to cultivate a spirit of excellence and not perfectionism amongst Singaporeans. Do the best you can, instead of comparing yourself to a perceived standard of success. We need to stop forcing square pegs into round holes. Embrace our children’s unique talents and nurture them. Yet, there is only so much that the government can do to provide opportunities for diversified education channels and reduce the emphasis on academic scores. It starts with the everyday Singaporean. A conscious effort to quell a “ITE? It’s The End” quip or “if you don’t study hard, next time you wash toilet” warning. A re-think of mercilessly cramming tuition, enrichment, extra-curricular classes into our children’s schedules. A united celebration when success is achieved in sports, arts and many other facets of society. Identity is not based on academic grades, and it is up to us to make this a reality for future generations. <a href=" Image Credit

I am a perfectionist. I am sad, I am frustrated, I am stressed out, and these days, I find it hard to find any kind of work rewarding. These days, I fight tiring, losing battles with myself in my head. In true perfectionist form, I try to appear like things are under control when inside, I believe I am not good enough in nearly every way. I am not clever enough, not creative enough, not capable enough. I don’t write well enough. I’m not growing fast enough. I suck at my job. You could grab someone off the street to take my place and he’d easily do a better job than me. Literally anyone else is better than me. What the f*ck am I good for. It’s depressing, being in my head. I look at other people and I wonder how it is they can take things so easily. Why can’t I be as happy, as free, as light as everyone else is? Oh my god, why can’t I just chill? Now, I’m well aware that this isn’t good for me. I tell myself I need healthier thoughts. I tell myself I need to get comfortable with the idea of making mistakes, that there is so much to be gained from making mistakes. I tell myself perfection is a lofty, lofty ideal that will only drive me crazy. And still, it is only a matter of time before I fall back into old ways, back into the cold arms of my punishing need for perfect.

The pursuit of perfection

Perfect sounds wonderful. We talk about the perfect life, the perfect home, the perfect family. Perfect sounds perfect. Perfect sounds like the ultimate goal to aspire towards, the gold standard—but it isn’t. What I’ve realized is perfection is a curse in blessing’s clothing. It’s not a reasonable goal. It should not be the gold standard. What it is, instead, is a path towards self-destruction. See, perfectionists are their worst critics. Before you tell them their work could be better, they’ve already told it to themselves, in much harsher ways. Perfectionists are well-acquainted with the words “stupid”, “useless”, “dumb”—they regularly use them on themselves; they feel these things every day. The thing about perfectionism is we set ourselves up to fail at every turn with our excessive standards, and by these standards, we diminish ourselves every day. In my experience, the longer I’ve worked, the harder I’ve strived for perfection, the more incapable it’s left me feeling. Things that started out fun, things that I started with love become ruined once touched by my toxic perfection. At its root, perfectionism is about fear. Perfectionism is what happens when you’re deathly afraid to fail, when you’re terrified of criticism. Perfectionism is when you strive for excellence not because we want to, but because you simply can’t not. We can’t fail because it’ll reflect on who we are, on what we are capable of. We can’t fail because in our minds, we are only as valued or as worthy as we are successful. Beyond the practical things that are at stake, like our job or our reputation with our higher ups, our sense of self-worth hangs in the balance.

F*ck perfect

I’m a perfectionist, and maybe this is who I will be for a very, very long time. But I’m trying to teach myself a couple of things: First, that perfect is good but not necessary. Not everything has to be perfect. The occasional typo in an email is allowed. One slight misstep will not be the end of my career. I am allowed to produce sh*t work, if my best truly is sh*t. Sometimes, trying is enough—it's surely better than not trying at all. Second, trust yourself anyway. When perfectionism makes a home in your head, self-esteem is quickly kicked to the curb. And with an injured self-esteem, you can lose trust in yourself, even if you have good ideas, are a great problem solver, or actually have many valuable qualities to boast of. Many perfectionists are doing just fine in reality, and it only feels like things are going to sh*t in our clouded heads. Third, I’m teaching myself to not be defined by my work. Surely there is more to us than the work we do and how good we are at it? In life, we play so many roles: the child, the partner, the friend, the colleague. There are 101 ways to play those roles well, to be a truly valuable human being. So, I’m going to define a person’s worth my way, and I’m going to find a way to love myself, apart from the work I do and how successful I am at it. I am much more than how good a worker I am.

Now, in case you let this piece of news slip under your Trump-filled radar over the past couple of weeks, let me get you up to speed. On November the 8^th (the day of the US Presidential Election, no less), PM Lee announced amendments to the Constitution that would reserve the next Presidential Election in 2017 for Malay candidates. “Wait, what???” Yeah, while you were busy Trumping about, our government slipped underneath the hairpiece of America’s racist President-Elect, and dropped a racist election on us. Can I hear a yay for democracy?

Equality of Opportunity, and Equality of Outcome

What does it mean to be fair? In a meritocratic society like Singapore is supposed to be, equality and fairness mean providing equal opportunity, regardless of the outcome. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, Malay or Indian, everyone gets an equal chance, as long as those characteristics don’t impact one’s suitability for the position in question. That’s equality. Gaming the system to favour one race over others in an attempt to achieve some superficial semblance of equality through an underlying framework of inequality? That’s racism. That’s equality of outcome. Imagine if the Olympic Committee announced that the 100m Sprint finals at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games would be reserved for Asian sprinters, because we haven’t had an Asian Gold medallist in that event in the longest time. Imagine the controversy, the PR nightmare. “But that’s different!” Oh yes, of course, that’s the Olympics! We’re only talking about a country’s president here. No need for the same standards of fairness. That was sarcasm.

Social Progress and Race Neutrality

Malays do not need tokenistic hand-outs and special assistance from the government to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their countrymen. Malays are every bit as capable of being president as any other race, because race shouldn’t factor into political discourse at all. A Chinese president should represent ALL races, not just the Chinese, and so should a Malay president. While the move to ensure a Malay president will help to present an image of racial harmony to the country and to the world, it will also sow the seeds of racial discord among the non-ignorant in Singapore. You can be president, if your skin colour is correct. Message received, loud and clear. If we don’t pursue our country’s race-neutral ideals of equality and meritocracy, how will we ever achieve true social progress? You don’t move forward by moving backwards in the name of “pragmatism”. Sure, expecting absolute racial equality might be idealistic for now, but fair and race-neutral elections shouldn’t be that much to ask for, even in our current political climate. <a href=" Image Credit

Many of us consider Singapore to be a relatively safe place. We don’t hear many stories about people getting sexually harassed, and rarely do we hear them told from the victims themselves. Yesterday, a question posted to Reddit Singapore asking “Women of /r/singapore, have you ever experienced sexual harassment?” sparked a flurry of responses from women detailing their experiences with sexual harassment, revealing that this may be more common in Singapore than we realize. 1. Many times. The one incident that happened on public transport when I was 16. Gotten on the MRT and noticed this guy who kept staring at me. I walked to the other side of the train and he followed. When the seat beside me cleared up, he sat down. He wasn't local, probably around late 20s - early 30s. After a few stops, he turns to me and asked in mandarin, "You want to come to my house and watch porn?". I noticed he was holding his phone and it was a naked girl on his display. Replied him loud enough for everyone to hear that if he asks me to watch porn with him again, I will report him for sexual harassment. He noped out of the MRT pretty quick. - saltides 2. Yes, plenty of times, but one particular incident stands out to me. A few years ago I was riding on a bus and some old hamsup ticko sat next to me. He struck up a conversation by asking me for the time and we continued making small talk about general things. The longer we talked, the more personal his questions got. He eventually started asking me where I lived, what school I went to, why I was going home this late at night (it was only 10pm, wtf). I deflected most of his questions by giving fake or really vague answers. I was getting super SKETCHED OUT and was planning to switch seats until he dropped this bomb on me: [Appraises me up and down] "For a small girl like you, you have really big boobs" I noped the fuck out of there at the next stop. - wandxrlust 3. (1) Not me, but my friends. Sec 1, they were just walking around those neighborhood shops when they notice a man following them around. They run into a toilet and hide in cubicle hoping to evade him. Several minutes pass and they don't hear anything so they go out. As they stood in front of the mirror and do as all 13 year old girls do (i.e selfies with Motorola razr), a cubicle door opens. Lo and behold, it's the creep. He approaches them while they stare into the reflection in the mirror. They were too scared to scream or run. He holds out his hand asking for some soap. One of myblonde friends (not making fun of blonde angmoh girls but my friend was like the stereotypical blonde air headed bimbo type) told him "You can press the soap machine and take yourself." He smiles at her and asks her to pass him some. Her, being dumb af, pumped some soap into her palm and pours it into his hands. That's when she notices that he has his dick in his other hand and was wanking off. They all notices it at the same time, scream and takes off running into a nearby LAN shop where a few ah bengs decide to help them out and hunt for the guy. Never found him. (2) I worked in a kitchen as part of my internship and had some ungodly hours to clock. One night, I took the last 857 bus home. If you know 857, you'd know the passengers. They're mostly Bangladeshi construction workers. It was a Sunday night and the entire bus was packed with construction workers. Not to be mean or anything, I am pretty tight with some construction workers around my housing area and regularly talk to them. Most of them are hardworking and nice, but then there's the 5% that just ruins everything. Pretty sure all 5% of the bad apples were in that bus that night. I had no seat and was squashed up in a corner. I felt a hand grazing my butt every time the bus jerked. Decided to give the guy the benefit of the doubt; maybe it was an accident. But when the bus hit a stop light and I found a hand on my ass... Oh boy. That ain't no accident. I turned around and glared into his eyes. Pretty sure I shot lasers that night. He got the message and left me alone. But I had another thing to survive - getting out of the bus. My stop was coming up next after a hellish hour on that bus. I was really far from the exit and had to squeeze through everyone. I was like… the only girl on that bus. And I could not count how many hands were on my body as I tried to exit. It was the scariest and most disgusting thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I went home to scrub myself after that. None of them were accidents. I looked into their faces as I exited and as I said "excuse me" and they were LAUGHING and smiling at me as they groped me. #FYOU - lunaelly 4. When I was in Sec 4, this senior of mine asked me to come down to his house so that I could collect some guidebooks from him. Slightly sketchy but his dog was super cute and I trusted him to not be a dick. Never was I so wrong. He threatened to rape me. I put on a false bravado and basically told him that I would fuck him over if he tried. Scarred for life afterwards, and still have a slight fear of all men to this day. - kat-xuan 5. (1) Man on the train kept brushing against my butt in a rocking motion while we were standing, it was morning rush but it wasn't that bad. Other people could stand behind each other with a good amount of space. I walked off whenever I could, but this has happened more than once. Men also like to use the crowded train as an excuse to brush against my boobs. (2) I was resting my arms on the armrests in a hair salon and the guy hairdresser who was meant to be a family friend kept pressing/moving his crotch against my arm and would stand necessarily close to cut my hair. I was about 16 or 17 at the time. I moved my arms, didn't say anything and waited for the nightmare to be over. Never let him cut my hair ever again. (3) I worked as a beer promoter when I was about 15-16? Can't name the brand, but it's a fairly popular brand here. Old men would constantly ask 'Little girl, come serve us ah' when I was only meant to promote it at a store. Constant wolf whistling. I was scared and soft spoken back then, so I didn't say anything. (4) Surrounded by guys who think it's okay to make rape jokes. One dude said to me, when we were alone, "I wish the purge would happen in Singapore. Then rape can be legal." I was horrified and I told him off but I'm pretty sure he still wants it to happen. (5) I was walking and this old man was walking in my direction. As he got nearer, he (looked to be about 60-70+ years old by the way) and and said "WOW!" really loud while ogling my tits while I speed walked. I was already about five steps before my brain processed what he had done. I was wearing a normal, fitted star wars shirt and this happened yesterday outside a MRT station. - moleskines 6. Friend says he needs to pee after drinking at Clarke quay. On his way home on the cab. Calls and asks if I can let him go up and pee cuz it's urgent and the cab ride is far away. I say ok. Comes up. Pees. Leaves bathroom. Starts getting touchy. Drag me to my bedroom. Mouth covered. Dunno why parents don't wake up. Starts forcibly kissing. I say no. But he was so drunk like, I think he wasn't responding. Drunk people are actually really strong. Vagina bleeds for the next few days. Dropped all the friends from that circle immediately. - hieveemonster 7. Working in F&B for a while now. My male colleagues kinda see me as a bro and they joke about sexual stuff. But sometimes they get a little too… Eh… Idk the exact words for what I am describing but these are what my male coworkers have said to me: "How big are your boobs?" "Do you like big dicks?" "You must be damn tight." "Wanna go out to drink? Let's get drunk and have a one night stand. I promise to make you scream." I usually shut them up with some sarcastic reply but it only works for a while. - lunaelly 8. Dude stalked me on the way home. When I got into the lift, he stopped the doors from closing and started to jerk off. I vividly remember that he has a very small member... I was 19 then, and a late bloomer, I panicked and screamed. He booked it. Then I threw my bag at him but missed. Some people came around because of the commotion and told me to go to the police. They weren't really kind, they made some sarcastic remarks too. Then I went to the police station nearby and waited for my mum and sis to come pick me up. - PrimAndProper69 9. My best friend once had a guy sit next to her on the bus, and just started to jerk off right next to her. Fuck, just last week some guy pretended to be a buyer on Carousell and kept sending her dick pics. - samleecx 10. Yes a couple of times. The scariest would have to be when I was 12. I was on the way home from school in my PE uniform (tee and shorts) and had fallen asleep on the bus. I was sitting on the inner seat closest to the window. I woke up to an old uncle stroking my thighs. I was too scared to make a big fuss, so after I tried getting him to stop once, I just got off a stop earlier. - strangerrocks 11. Fell asleep once on the bus, woke up to find the guy behind me had slid his hand between the seat and the bus wall and was stroking my waist. Another time on the MRT, this guy started easing his hand under the schoolbag on my lap and started stroking my thigh. - halfbakery 12. (1) A guy once stuck a piece of paper with his phone number in my bra when I bent over to pick something up. (2) When making a police report, the IO asked about the color of my bra/asked if I want to see ‘his gun’/told me to feel free to send him ‘photos’. - elmachosierra 13. When I was working, I had a particularly cheeko co-worker framing his lewd requests as jokes and asking me to let him "touch (my) boobs, just once" (should I mention, while pointing a knife at me, we work in a kitchen) or openly checking me out and intentionally making it known to me. - saydoubleokay <a href=" Image Credit

Yesterday, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. As he took to the podium to deliver his victory speech, we grimaced, waiting for him to once again blunder and say something stupid. We wanted him to prove to us and to those who voted, once again, at this important moment, that this man before us wasn't the right guy for the job. Alas, he didn't--not that it would've changed anything. When the applause died down, the parody became real. This political freak show came to an end, and with it, the worst of endings. This racist, sexist, homophobic, narcissistic, volatile orange human being, this man who was against everything that is modern America, this man with no political experience whatsoever and who's also been dubbed--not inaccurately--the Hitler incarnate, was now the most powerful person in America. We had gone from Obama to Trump (and Michelle to Melania). ...what the f--k is happening? America was doomed. In that moment, the world suddenly became a very different place--a much, much scarier one.

How Singapore Reacted

Everyone lost their shit on Facebook. Every news and lifestyle outlet showed how clearly devastated they were by the outcome. Celebrities tweeted and Instagrammed their disappointment. Memes spread like wildfire--even the tone had shifted in some of them. Singaporeans too reacted to this horrifying outcome, and anti-Trump posts and thoughts were being born a post a second. One of the first things we started shooting at was American intelligence; a Trump vote was a dumb vote. "Americans are damn stupid", "this world is full of stupid people" we told each other or broadcast to our social media. We thought we had the <a href=" voter pegged. We assumed, and with great confidence, that he was some uneducated bum (probably white) who responded well to, well, crazy. People too dumb to even realize how dumb they were. That's exactly what I thought. Because this was not the decision of thinking, rational-minded people. This was clearly the act of stupid. I thought democracy was broken and that if stupid people were given the power to make important decisions for everybody, we're all doomed; the world is crawling with stupid. In my state of total confusion, I took to the Internet, trying to find an explanation for this lunacy and after reading <a href=" Moore pin it on a disenchanted working class, threatened white men, and on Hillary and how she didn't inspire enough enthusiasm for Americans to inconvenience themselves and vote (or bring a friend to do it with), I came upon <a href=" article. In it, the author writes about an urban versus rural conflict, how the city people treat the rural "freaks", ignoring them and their welfare. Basically, about how the Trump vote was a Molotov thrown at the elite. At first, I wasn't sure how legit this article was because what was described in it was so far removed from the America I imagined. And then it occurred to me: What the hell do I really know about America? Until this year, I've never followed the American elections. As I was watching the live election broadcast, I asked "Who is Johnson?!". I have no idea what the difference is between a Democrat and a Republican and what, there's also a group called 'Libertarian'? The thing I'm most well-versed in about this election is Donald Trump. I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only one, and yet so many of us chimed in.

What the U.S. is and is not

I've never lived in America. I've never worked in America. I've never felt the impact of its policies. I'm informed by TV and movies, and all I know is all I read. As a non-American, everything I know is incomplete. I can't say I know what the U.S. is and is not. I, a Singaporean, am least qualified to comment on who or what the U.S. chooses. The U.S. election isn't an entertainment story, even though at many times and in many ways, it does feel like it. This is real life. This is a decision made by people who have real stakes in the matter. Whatever happens to us is just a side effect of it. From where I'm standing, this election wasn't about Trump or Clinton. It was about America --an America many of us have no idea about. An America that's broken in a way that we from the outside cannot see. An America that's broken in a way that even Americans cannot see. Even now, nearly all the stories in circulation condemn Trump. The people who chose Trump remain invisible, and their issues, silent. All we see is Trump. All we hear are Trump's offenses on repeat. All we know is America is angry. No... Half of America is angry. Another half of America wanted this. And who are we, Singaporeans, to question it?

America chose, so let's respect it

At the third presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would accept the election results once the votes were in. To that, he infamously refused to answer, saying “I will look at it at the time" and "I will keep you in suspense." And yet, as we browse the news today, from protests to #Calexit, it's the reverse that's happening. Trump has accepted it, and its everyone else that hasn't. We Singaporeans have our fears--What will happen to us? What will change? What will remain the same? That's it already, die already. But at the end of the day, it is not about us. This was about America. If America is broken, America needs a government who will fix it. America voted who they saw best fit for the job, and they chose Donald Trump. And we would do well not to undermine that choice, unsavoury as it may be.

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