A Good Man: Tribute to Prof Tan Tai Yong

Prof Tan Tai Yong, Vice Provost (Student Life) used to be the dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Science, National University of Singapore.  I spoke to him even before I got admitted to NUS. That time, I was slightly critical, wondering if local universities are for me. So I asked him what his thoughts are on local universities. He smiled and told me very politely that for undergrad, NUS is very good. If I really want to venture out, do that after my Bachelors. He made good sense. More importantly, his very cheery and polite manners made me think twice about NUS. Ah, if the Dean is not an airy-fairy man, then NUS is probably quite grounded.

And it is. The leadership sitting in the Provost's Office are fortunately people with a heart for students, who could empathise what financial difficulty means, what academic stress means, what undergrad emotional turmoil means.NUS has, alas, provided a very safe environment for students to grow. The Provost, like Prof Tan Tai Yong, is also a good man.

Prof Tan also happens to be teaching history. Life took a strange turn in university. I who studied Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Geography (only) in Junior College ended up reading History, something which I thought I hated. (Of course, to my amazement, it was the best thing that happened to me!) The second time I saw Prof Tan was in a BBC documentary on Singapore. And I read his books as readings for my classes.

Prof Tan goes out of his way to help students cope with NUS life. I wrote a sensational article in a student newspaper, and got slammed for it. Prof Tan, alongside Prof JR and Prof KHC agreed to meet me to talk about the issue. JR and KHC said they cannot accept a student as residential assistant to help with financial difficulty, but Prof Tan told me to go see him at his office. He hired me as an intern so that I could move into the hostel, that I could better concentrate on my studies.

Prof Tan also made sure I settled in well, and he actually met and called the admin people from Office of Accommodation, the Cinnamon College, and possibly a number of other people, just so that I could get my room soon, and settle in. And then he got people to follow up with me to make sure I could move on from that incident. Strangely, no other staff really cared, or remembered. Many promised to follow up with me, but did not. Of course I moved on, but I thought it's quite spectacular to know that the Vice-Provost of NUS actually cares about a small fry like me who's just trying to survive. Quite glad that NUS has such high calibre management who are not only competent but cares.

Then Prof Tan happened to ask what I'm interested to work on for my thesis. My research interest, business history, Singapore, and India, happens to be quite obscure - very few work on India in the history department, and very few work on business history in the world. He helped me link up Ngee Ann Kongsi, and Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce, to explore if I could help them write their history. That took a lot of Prof's time, I imagined. Those options didn't work out very well for me, so they were dropped.

One more chance. How about, write a company history, on a port-logistics company? Honestly, it sounded a bit daunting, partly because of the people I was expected to meet, and partly because I have no clue what CFS (container freight stations) and ICD (inland container depot) mean. Maybe I might disappoint Prof Tan, or embarrass him, or if I mess up, he may have to explain on my behalf. Just try. I met the chairman of the company, and it was an interesting project, and with all the faith people had, I felt that I should at least give it a shot.

At this juncture, I would like to say that Prof Tan would probably do the same for just any other student. There was really nothing I could offer him - no prestige, no salary boost, whatsoever. I still remember once I asked him why he troubled himself for an unimportant person like me and all he did was smile and said he likes working with students.

I really went to India to do research for my undergrad thesis! It was a steep learning curve (more so talking to high net-worth people, interviewing people with a different culture). Thesis is probably one of the best things that happened to me in NUS because it's (still!) fascinating, though not easy. I still hope things would turn out fine, but whatever - I'd put in my best effort, and that's the most I can give.

Thank you prof.

The Kettle and Vicks Vaporub

Mr Gurcharan Das was the trigger that made me write again. He mentioned in "Local Memoirs of a Global Manager" that an Indian lady in the local bazaar had actually taught him how to use Vaporub in this manner - put a spoon of it into the kettle, and inhale the vapour. Incredible!

Mr Gurcharan Das is former CEO of Proctor and Gamble. He has had many years of industrial experience worldwide, and eventually quit his job to become a writer. Initially I was skeptical when my professor recommended that book. Can a businessman write something moderate, something value-adding to academia? You'll be surprised. I was, at least.

"India Unbound" records a very fascinating perspective of India's progress since its independence from the viewpoint of not only of a businessman, but in many ways, an Indian local, a traveller, a semi-political figure (he's not a politician but he has lots of clout in India, at least, post-Independence). His habit of keeping a diary (I inferred) might have contributed to his colourful writing of how in the past, Indian judges ruled 10 out of 10 times in workers favour and not in businesses' favour and how things has changed. He also doesn't do it overboard and claim that India is the most amazing place to work in after liberalization in 1991, and went through the nitty-gritties that academics from outside might have otherwise missed, e.g. why Narasimha Rao lost the election despite being the person who brought so much good to India.

Another day I was chatting with an Indian friend, who warned me about the "perils of Delhi" after December 2013 protests over a lady who was gangraped on a public bus. I'm not sure whether things became worse, but I think the imaginations of India seem to be more "backward and looming-dark" rather than its possibilities.

I also spoke to lots of business directors during my recent trip to India, and they all agreed that India is full of possibilities, but also agreed that India is associated with everything backward (like Slumdog Millionaire) and dangerous (like the Delhi 2012 incident). I think it's more than that - it's just that international media prefer reporting on the sensational things vis-a-vis the glam and glorious contra-stereotypical India.

The kettle and vicks vaporub. 

A global identity: paradoxical?

A year back, I led a city tour and asked an international student - "where are you from? *smiles*" She frowns back, "I hate it when people ask this question. I don't know; it's a long story." "Tell me?" SHe then went on about how both her parents are Indians (one from North, one from South) and worked in Bahrain. They met in Bahrain. Her mother became pregnant with her, and rushed back to India to ensure her daughter would get an Indian passport. When the child was a week old, they flew to Sri Lanka and stayed there till she was 9. They then migrated to Bahrain and stayed there till she was 17. She then flew to London for her further education, before coming on an exchange to Singapore.
I probed further, "But surely there was a place you felt closest to?"
She replied, "Yes, Bahrain. But I went to an international school in Bahrain, so I wasn't acquainted with Bahrain per se. But I identify with that place the most. It was where I grew up in."

There's nothing wrong with that. Or is there? Why was the term "third culture kid" invented?
I write today with the aim to tell third culture kids that there is really nothing wrong, and perhaps they were made to believe that there is something wrong with them because the world doesn't see a horizon as broad as theirs, and could never half comprehend their world.

Wiki "Blind men and the elephant." That is a story originating from India about how different people only see part of a picture. Perhaps like kids born in the same land as their parents, they cannot comprehend an elephant, and bring with them a small skewed picture of their perception of what a third-culture kid may feel like. And hence "Snobbish? Slack? Spoilt?" are words that "local kids" use to perceive TCK.

Singapore is a young nation and many of its citizens still hold skewed stereotypes of its fellow counterparts, in terms of races, religion, gender, age, dialect group, ... This may have been a Confucian tradition of hierarchy, core-periphery, and stereotypes. I sometimes struggle with trying not to stereotype and giving the benefit of doubt too. My parents' perception of other races and religions are unfortunately not as cordial and all-embracing, and I lived with them for the past two decades. It would have rubbed off somehow. This is not uncommon in Singapore too.

Sorry... We didn't know International Baccalaurate was difficult, even more difficult than A Levels in many respect. We only knew that we are constantly compared to "Raffles" and "Hwa Chong" and striving towards the Ox-bridge or Ivy League schools - and then be ashamed if we cannot speak Standard English, or study much harder, or speak up in class only to find that we speak nonsense. For those who are luckier, they may migrate there, get a passport there, marry a Caucasian/non-Singaporean Asian and settle down overseas. That was what many parents of JC kids aspired towards. All JC kids know is that "ethanol + ethanoic acid = ethyl ethanoate" and "glocalization (quote localization of McDonalds) is a phenomenon to suggest that globalization is not all culture-antagonizing". Many of us didn't really truly understand what we were memorizing. A science student like myself and many of my peers wouldn't know what's the link between USSR and Russia, nor Cold War in general. We used the term Cold War when our good friends don't talk to us after some dispute. God knows how it was related to USA, let alone democracy and communism. (I didn't have the luxury of taking History in Secondary School and read only Geography, so I probably knew land forms and tectonics better than my History counterparts).

Third culture kids, we have lots to learn from you, but we do have a lot on our mind as well. We don't know if you would leave us jobless like what our parents often complain about ("expats!"). We don't know if you understand day-to-day struggles like squeezing up an SBS bus or MRT. We don't know if you actually have tasted chicken rice, actually, or if you live on spaghetti and ratatouille on a daily basis (I learnt the latter dish only from the rat movie; how "educated" I am!). We sometimes don't understand what's with democracy (ok I identify with this quite a lot) and why should we fight for freedom and individual rights. We don't really know what our political system is about - but we know enough not to question it if we don't know anything. We know stuff. We know how molecules interact, how we can calculate the conservation of mass and energy, and recite the proton number of elements in periodic tables. We know how to "differentiate" and "integrate" functions, how to draw a logarithm graph and what are the causes, advantages and disadvantages of globalization and technology (we learnt that in General Paper). We don't really know where Bahrain or Sicily is (at least for myself and my peers when we were in JC).

We know "ang mohs" and kids of expats go to international school. They are expats and must therefore be rich. They are rich and therefore must be snobbish (because our parents told us how snobbish their bosses are!). They are "ang mohs" and therefore have school politics that are similar to Gossip Girls, Friends, and other American dramas and we think they eat McDonalds and potato everyday. Not that we don't. But we don't really know. Really.

There's nothing wrong with a global identity, I think. My friends feel more Korean than Singaporean after watching tons of Korean dramas. And most of us Uni students prefer Starbucks (if we can afford it). Some of my friends took French. I went to India. I think NUS has a mix of just everything, and you are a global citizen par excellence, something Singapore is striving towards.

The GEP Programme in Singapore

I chanced upon this documentary and decided to watch it. It's quite an eye-opener. Refreshing, yes, to know about the GEP programme.

I never knew what the GEP programme was about until I finished watching this video. I'm surprised that GEP-pers are given some sort of special treatment, and view themselves in a different light, whether good or bad.

It made me ponder about the people that I meet in NUS. I've met some incredibly brilliant and different people. Different in that they seem to know where they're going. Different in that they dare to act in whatever way they want, and do not conform as much regarding ideas that they have.

I've led a YEP project with an ex-R.I. GEP student. He's not loud, but it requires him little effort to do well in NUS. He's slightly socially awkward, but a brilliant planner. He leads as a mastermind, and I lead as his mouthpiece. He has a heart for the NGO (what a waste, I thought, but it's amusing that he doesn't want the riches of the world).

I've another friend, an ex-GEP student. He dropped out of GEP because he was frustrated with the system. He didn't study hard enough for the GEP exam. He went on to Polytechnic, did extremely well, came to NUS to do the only thing he was passionate about in his life - Computing. The lecturer, according to him, was not smart enough to impart him more than what textbooks could offer, and even faulted him when he kindly reminded his lecturer that there was an honest mistake made. He changed course to Economics, made sure he did well enough ONLY to pass the exam (told his lecturer that he won't be submitting 2 out of 3 of his assignments), and graduated with merit.

There is another person whom I know who is a bird-watcher. He's interested in everything - History, Literature, Nature... He found life too boring and took a Year 4 course in Year 1. Obviously he didn't do well because NUS marks papers against standard answers. It was interesting to note that he could distinguish the species of birds just by its call, and he's too absorbed to everything and anything, he didn't have time for his studies (and neither did he care, really).


There are people whom I know who are extremely brilliant who didn't appear so brilliant at age 9, and hence didn't make it to GEP. Perhaps these are people who secretly admire non-conformity, people who constantly have ideas but were told to hush... *ponders*

Some thoughts on Singapore

Having read some newspaper dated Feb 2012 when the General Election hype was roaring, I wondered why Singapore continues to feel hopeless.

As a student, I worry about the ever-increasing tuition fees. I've two brothers - age 12, and 20. Will my brothers be deprived of university education because the family hasn't enough money to support them? They are deserving high B low A students - certainly insufficient to get a scholarship, yet they are still full of potential, and are constantly improving daily. The family already struggles to pay bills from day to day, and we have barely enough, not to mention, savings. I'm in University now, and my father paid for it with his CPF.  The government only allows a certain percentage of the CPF be used. When my brother finally gets into University, there wouldn't be enough.

As a daughter, I worry for my parents' retirement and rising healthcare costs. My mother has cataract, and visited the National University Hospital in early March 2012, when she was already almost blind in one eye. She dared not see the doctor at first for fear of the expensive healthcare costs. When she went to the polyclinic, the doctor told her she had just astigmatism, and so she waited, and sought no further treatment. She lost more and more of her sight, and banged into walls while working as a cleaner, at a PAP kindergarten. The staff showed no sympathy, and questioned her reduced speed of working, sometimes even threatening her. She went back to the polyclinic, and the clinic finally referred her to the hospital. The hospital scheduled her appointment in end of May, and made her wait for almost three months. She suffered more frequent injuries while working, and because she is a part-timer, she has no leave she could take. My question was:
1. Why did the hospital make her wait so long? If they have their constraints, their lack of doctors, why wasn't the intake of Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine increased 10 years ago, when the problem of ageing population first surfaced?
2. Because my family is bigger than others, my father has only a PSLE certificate and my mother doesn't even have that, can my mother afford not to work, since she's ailing and having aches in her knee and back?
3. If she does stop working, will my grades at NUS and my brother's grades at Ngee Ann Poly suffer if we have to take on more employment just to support the family? Why make meritocracy such a vicious cycle packaged in a glitzy wrapper?


Moving on from my family matters, I worry about the education of the future generation. As a future educator, my heart sank when I read the newspaper that "students are tested on much more than what the school teaches." Private tuition is essential. However, my question is - can the poor afford tuition? The school has forgotten that Financial Aid is insufficient to cover just the books, uniform and school fees. Can more be done to bridge the widening gap by ensuring that deserving students from less privileged backgrounds can receive quality education? It saddens me that schools only remember and invest in their cream of the crop (yes, I was part of the cream all my life) and forget that most of the students in the top classes can afford tuition outside, while most students in the bottom classes cannot.

==> Can teachers be better trained to help such students, or schools implement schemes where students can look up teachers at a specific time slot at a specific place on any day to ask questions on any subjects?

The government has invited people of all nationalities (many Indians and Chinese) to partake of our great nation-building project, but hasn't provided the infrastructure to support the huge influx in population. Take the public transport for instance. The buses/MRT are consumed by the blue collar, and a large percentage of the white collars. Buses are so packed when they leave the interchange they do not stop at any bus stops until they reach the industrial parks where everyone get off the buses. More buses please! The transport companies reply that they are doing what they can. Could the government intervene, either through forums with the transport companies, or by engaging top economists to see if the transport companies could in fact do more, or enforce sanctions to protect the basic needs of citizens? Note: I haven't a big issue with foreigners, and foreigners or Singaporeans, we need to get to work on time in order not to get fired. We could leave the house 15mins early, but the situation isn't any better. We could leave the house 1 hour early, but what do we do when we get to work so early?
==> Could we encourage the staggering of working hours? While the Budget 2012 focuses on building the Downtown Line, can we pause for a moment and improve what we have instead of building more?


As a citizen of Singapore, I understand the twin problems we have - an aging population, and a shrinking workforce. The former requires fiscal investment which the latter is unable to provide. To bridge the gap we have the foreigners joining us in both blue-collar and white-collar sectors. I also understand, and sympathize with the blue-collar workers - while we think that they have a good life in Singapore and would be a rich man when they go back, most of them got conned/lured to this place and realise only when they reach that whatever they thought was far from reality. While we think the Banglas are disgusting and dangerous, most that I've met were very polite and respectful of ladies. Not far from my home is a Bangla/Indian quarter, where hundreds to thousands of them are housed. They rather stand on the bus than sit next to me. And while I do get stares of curiosity, I don't remember being leered at. Many of them are also very, very educated, and speak fluent English.
==> Could we make them love Singapore, instead of fear Singapore, and increase their productivity by making them love the job they have and giving them a decent standard of living? Do we really need to make them remember that Singaporean employers hurl nothing but threats of repatriating them, of docking their salary?

Supposedly, the aging population problem can be alleviated by an increased birth rate. I don't fancy the Baby Bonus idea, and instead prefer the grant of privileges for bigger families. The rising standard of living has made life more expensive to maintain, but above all, it's evident that the largest expenditures come when one's children enter the tertiary education. Most of the developed world also believe that having one -elite- child is better than having 3 not-so-elite ones. Yet, having one is better than having none,which is what many Singaporeans are steering towards. I think the government could get the public, the policy makers and the academics to air their views on how this problem can be best solved.

is there hope for... me, humanity, the world?

many think that these two animals are bought by my boyfriend for me. contrariwise, they aren't. My little brother, being a reserved child, is deeply acquainted with the little Pooh bear in the picture. Big sister me spotted Big Pooh, and together with my boyfriend, we brought the Big Pooh back home to my little brother. He was flabbergasted. "Ahhhh!!!!" He couldn't stop grinning. It has since become his new best friend. The Big Pooh's his girlfriend, and the little Pooh his little boy. He's only 12.

Lab report. Screwed because my extremely brilliant partner spilled the DNA over to the other lane. He airbrushed it away on photoshop. We scored an A for the report. All I did was to check the grammar. *grins* [An 'A' grade in NUS is extremely hard to get by the way.] I got to keep this photograph, the DNA fingerprint in which I argued on and on, "I'm dead sure there's ethidium bromide in it!" There isn't. There's only agar, and it isn't edible.

A slice of rainbow cake, compliments of my hostel neighbour. Being the extremely shy/asocial new addition to the block, I was not invited to any celebrations of birthdays. Not that I really care, actually. I was studying hard for my exams. Then came a knock at the door, and a slice of cake. It did cheer me up from my lulls of work, and for a split second, the world didn't look as dystopic as education has made it out to be.

I love this photograph. It's badly taken, i know. I took it during a visit to a nursing home with my boyfriend. I saw that possibly 80 year old man feeding his wife food. They didn't speak much, but the love in his eyes surpassed any words that the universe could describe. There she was, in the nursing home. Rain or shine, he would be there to visit. Almost brought tears to my eyes.

Gender stereotypes, seen in these little ten-year-olds. "Boys eat more what!' They were buzzing away. Truth is, I thought so, when I was 10, but now that I'm so much older, I realised boys only eat much more after puberty, not at such a tender age. Their fascination with almost everything strikes me. Little Einstein, a boy in the crowd of 39, answered every single question like reading a Britannica with a twinkling in his eyes. Plump girl got scolded by teacher, and started crying and withdrawing from the crowd. "The girl in yellow", the teacher said, "watch out for her." I thought she was a monster. She wasn't. She was a little autistic, and could not relate well to her peers. It's most unfortunate that children are "marked for destiny" at such a tender age. And equally unfortunate is that they would grow to be who the society expects of them. At least, according to Psych, a lousy capability paired with high hopes makes a child a "high ability kid" as opposed to a normal capability paired with low hopes.

This is the most epic photo of my life's collection. Snapped in Singapore, this photograph is a lift that's shut down. The paper writes, "The management didn't treat us like humans... [the rest I couldn't read cus it's too cursive]... B**tard!" It might not be a big deal, but because it's Singapore and I literally walked up the stairs with other residents of the block, I was quite startled that such a protest was launched. In Singapore, workers always do as told. In Singapore, there hasn't been a strike for more than half a century. In Singapore, the government believes in efficiency and protection of labour welfare. Is there a slice of population that we have forgotten, or the workers are being overly demanding? But anyway, I smiled to myself that something extraordinary has happened right before my eyes.

Is there hope? Of course! Agency vs structure. The world's a bizarre, yet dazzling place.

evolution: good and bad, at the same time

Through my life in NUS, it is admittedly the first time I see two vehement camps in Evolutionary Biology.

Evolutionary Psychologists seek to answer this question to every phenomenon:
-How is this maladaptation a consequence of the long evolutionary history of mankind?

Human Behavioral Ecologists seek to answer another kind of question:
- How is this trait beneficial in its own way to have survived in the gene pool?

I was talking to a Psychology student, trying to explain to her why the wearing of high heels increases fitness. To that, she frowned and responded: "Just because depression is on the rise, do you say that depression has massive advantages and is therefore not eradicated from the population?"

I frowned. I was stumped.

"Well," she continued, "The reason why depression is on the rise is because of change in environmental circumstances. Stress, which had not been present in the past, has overwhelmed and activated the once-silent genes of depression present in a certain percentage of the population."

Sounds convincing. So I went to my evolution class after that having this idea in mind - not everything should be argued as "fit". My classmates were presenting on Non-suicidal self-injury, or in layman terms, self-mutilation. I frowned. Such a morbid topic.

"These people who engage in NSSI are fit."

My jaw dropped. If depression isn't "fit", this is definitely a maladaptive trait!! It must have arisen because in the past there were less stress, more social activities (think tribal), less boredom, greater need to roam and hunt. I raised my hand but my professor missed it. He responded to one of the similar questions in the class, "This trait is fit relative to other depressed sufferers."

My god. He succeeded. He was still consistent with his argument on fitness, in that every single trait has its own fitness!!

How can this be? Two sides to a coin, and both sides never meet. Evolutionary psychologists treat everything as an "exception", hence they are studying such phenomena. Human behavioral ecologists treat everything as the "norm", and seek to explain why such phenomena exists, by normalizing them.

From a commenter:
Evolutionary psychology does seek to explain the phenomena in terms of its evolutionary adaptiveness. Hence, they also claim that maladaptive traits/disorders are actually adaptive in some sense. Thus, are really talking about the same thing, rather than 2 sides of the same coin.
And as for your Psychology friend, it just sounds like she doesn't buy the Evolutionary perspective, and she is right that it is unlikely to explain maladaptive traits. Still, the evolutionary prespective is very useful in explaining many phenomena, but it cannot explain everything too (although it tries..and seemingly fails). In that sense, that is when other frameworks/perspectives should be used, like the environmental demands, etc..