Rojak and Cocktail: More ranking woes

Malaysia now ranked at 148

Thre was a time when Malaysia dropped out from the "World top 500 universities ranking", now our football ranking is within the top 500,what a consolation! we are at world no 148.but wait,FIFA have a total of 205 member countries, that means we are better than a pitiful 57 countries, and dropped two rung from previous 146. Singapore at 106th. Our women team ranked at 78th spot.

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Kuan Yew Not Giving Up Politics Yet

SINGAPORE, Aug 19 (Bernama) -- Age may be catching up on modern Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew, but he is not about to give up politics yet.

Lee told a gathering here last night that if he was fit and capable, he will contest in his Tanjong Pagar GRC stronghold.

"If I am still fit and capable of making another speech like this, I'll be there, I will stand with you," Lee was quoted by The Straits Times as telling a National Day Dinner here.

One of Asia's iconic and influential figure, Lee, 83, won unopposed the Tanjong Pagar GRC in the general elecion on May 6 this year. The next general election is due by 2011.

He cautioned Singaporeans not to take for granted that the People's Action Party (PAP) will always form the government.

"The trouble now is that Singaporeans believe we'll always have a PAP government... one day they'll wake up and they'll find the opposition is the government, a miscalculation," he said in the report.

Lee, Singapore prime minister from 1959 to 1990, remained an influential figure in Singapore politics after stepping down from the post.

In the cabinet of successor Goh Chok Tong, he was appointed as the Senior Minister. He is now the Minister Mentor under the cabinet of Lee Hsien Loong, his eldest son.

Lee told Singaporeans that the island state needed to move ahead and compete.

"We must have a different kind of Singapore," he said, adding that Singapore's "orderly, very wholesome, very clean" image was no longer enough.

Singapore must become a city with a "buzz" to attract tourists, he said.

"If you want to compete beaches on beaches, forests, lakes, seaside, you lose. You can't beat Thailand, you can't beat Malaysia, you can't beat Indonesia and you can't beat Philippines, but we can become the Paris in Southeast Asia."

-- BERNAMA

S'pore's clean, wholesome image not enough anymore: Lee Kuan Yew

Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said that Singaporeans will be given equal opportunities in housing and education although their rewards cannot be the same.

He pledged that Singaporeans would be given the basics, but they have to be flexible and nimble enough to change.

For that same reason, Mr Lee said, Singapore's clean and wholesome image is just not enough anymore.

Mr Lee was speaking at the Tanjong Pagar National Day Dinner on Friday.

Giving an upbeat assessment, Mr Lee said that economic conditions are favourable for good growth in Singapore over the next five years.

Singapore's brand name is sought after, even in the Gulf states, Russia and China.

The Russians have invited Changi Airport International to help upgrade their airport, and the Gulf states look to Singaporeans as quality partners.

Mr Lee said: "If you say you are Singapore, anywhere you go, you carry a Singapore passport, they know you stand for integrity, capability and reliability. In the Gulf oil countries - Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain - when they employ a financial officer, you know, the Arabs employ Singaporeans. I was surprised when I went there - how many Singaporeans are employed by wealthy Gulf Arabs because they are trustworthy, they know the system and they are absolutely reliable."

Mr Lee added that Singapore has to educate the young to higher standards so that they can move up the value chain and do higher end and more difficult jobs.

At the same time, the government will continue to invest in new schools to develop talent.

These are the basics that are needed for Singapore to continually adjust and grow, MM Lee said.

But Mr Lee warned that the government cannot stop the worldwide trend of lower wage increases for the lower income group, thus the urgency to learn new skills.

To move ahead and compete, Mr Lee felt that the services sector is the sure sector, which cannot be "migrated so easily" or outsourced.

He said: "To create this kind of economy, we must have a different kind of Singapore. The Singapore that we had - very orderly, very wholesome, very clean - is not good enough. They want a fun city, buzz - because you now got a new generation of tourists who go to places with excitement. If you want to compete beaches on beaches, forests, lakes, seaside - you lose. You can't beat Thailand, you can't beat Malaysia, you can't beat Indonesia and you can't beat Philippines, but we can become the Paris in Southeast Asia."

Mr Lee related his recent visit to Clarke Quay, where he saw the place come alive till the early hours of the morning.

He expressed his hope to see more of such places in Singapore.

Mr Lee said: "Tourists were there till about 4 to 5 o'clock in the morning, drinking, eating, chatting. The river is there and we've got Crazy Horse, Ministry of Sound, so cars are lining up. But Crazy Horse charges so much, it is half empty and losing money, but we told them, never mind, once the casinos come up, they will get the business."

This is because tourists, if they are high rollers who gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars in one night, they will go and watch Crazy Horse for entertainment, said Mr Lee.

"So we must have more of this!" added Mr Lee.

Looking ahead to the next general election, due by 2011, Mr Lee said voters must use their votes wisely and not to take for granted that the People's Action Party will form the government of the day. - CNA/ir
(Source: CNA)

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Who are you? Where do you live?
By Ong Soh Chin (The Straits Times-Singapore)

sk a random bunch of Singaporeans what our national language is and chances are you will get a mixed bag of answers. English, some will say. Malay, say some others, while a few will posit that Singapore has four national languages - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. It is this uniquely Singaporean confusion that made National Language Class, a play I watched last week, so poignant.

Staged as part of the Singapore Theatre Festival which ends tomorrow, it was directed by Paul Rae who also wrote it with the play's actors, Noor Effendy Ibrahim and Yeo Yann Yann.

In the interactive evening, the audience in the intimate black box arena became students in a national language class. Noor Effendy was the teacher or cikgu and he proceeded to write phrases like "siapa nama kamu?" (what is your name?) and "di-mana awak tinggal?" (where do you live?) on a blackboard, while instructing us, the students, to repeat after him.

Subsequently, the cikgu would go on, in Malay, to describe the physical aspects of the classroom, like its round and square tables, the painting on the wall, as well as each individual student - all depicted in a 1959 painting by Chua Mia Tee, also called National Language Class.

The work is currently on display at the Singapore Art Museum as part of its ongoing permanent collection until 2008.

It was that iconic painting, of a Malay cikgu in front of nine Chinese pupils, which inspired the playwrights. In 1959, the work was interpreted as a patriotic post-colonial assertion of national identity. These were young Singaporeans joyfully freeing themselves from the language of their previous masters, the British, by learning the language of their nation - Malay.

In my hazy memories of secondary school in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there is some recollection of national language classes. By then, of course, we were no longer colonial Malaya, but independent Singapore. Classrooms had expanded and the mood was altogether less rustic than that depicted in Mr Chua's enigmatic work.

I do not recall feeling particularly patriotic, only that I was merely learning yet another subject, albeit one that I would not be tested on in the final examinations. I also remember that these classes inexplicably disappeared from the school curriculum. But today, thanks to those classes and my Malay friends, I know a smattering of Malay. At the play, however, it was interesting to note that many of the younger non-Malay Singaporeans - okay, the Chinese - in the audience did not know any basic Malay. It was only thanks to actress Yeo Yann Yann, who played a Chinese student learning Malay, that they could follow the plot.

The play's dialectical discourse had Yeo repeating the cikgu’s words in Mandarin crisp enough to starch a shirt collar.

As the play progressed, the line between cikgu and student, Malay and Mandarin, began to blur somewhat uncomfortably. Tension crept in, and there was a slight tussle for dominance. At the end, an uneasy truce seemed to have been reached, with the cikgu learning Mandarin, and the Chinese student introducing the class in Malay.

The play, like the painting, was a tableau on which one imposes personal notions of language, race and identity. In the programme notes, writer Alfian Sa'at said he had always interpreted Mr Chua's painting as students resentful at having a "national language" imposed on them. He added that he was surprised when he read art historian Kevin Chua's interpretation of the painting as a work depicting students awakened by language.

To me, both play and painting show that we have come so far in our journey as a nation that we have forgotten where we came from.

Siapa nama kamu? Di-mana awak tinggal? In 2006, these simple Malay terms are still as unfamiliar to a darkened room of Singaporeans as they were to the nine students in Mr Chua's 1959 painting.

Before the play began, as we filed into the small auditorium, Yeo's Chinese student welcomed us, in Mandarin. At one point, she asked me: "Ni hui jiang guo yu ma?" Do you know how to speak the national language?

The question was more fraught than it seemed. To the Mandarin speaker, "guo yu'"ostensibly means the language of China - China's national language.

As an ethnic Chinese, you could say that linguistically my "guo" is China. But in every other aspect of my being, it is not. I am Singaporean.

But my national language is one which I do not speak well.

Many Singaporeans do not know what Majulah Singapura means. They do not know why the Prime Minister will, following tradition, start his National Day Rally speech in Malay. MoThe play asked: "'What is your name? Where do you live?"

It could very well have been asking, "Who are you? And where do you come from?"

(Source:Asia Newsnet)