China, one of the world’s biggest users of plastic in the world, has unveiled a major plan to reduce single-use plastics across the country. Non-degradable bags will be banned in major cities by the end of 2020 and in all cities and towns by 2022. Makes you feel guilty? Sounds like good news for the […]

By now, you must have been sleeping if you have not heard about the case of Parti Liyani. I’m not sure how much of it has been covered by our newsPAPers, but social media has been overflowing with vitriol. There is heavy and widespread criticism for Liew Mun Leong, forcing him to retire early, much […]

The unsuspecting former Indonesian FDW Ms Parti Liyani, 44, was arrested at Changi Airport on Dec 2 2016 when she returned to Singapore. Her former employer had accused her of stealing items worth more than S$50,000. The “victim” was the illustrious Professor Liew Mun Leong and three of his family members; his son and daughter-in-law, […]

Last night, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was on a luxury cruise with a 美女。As we were boarding, we were stopped by a hard-nosed ticket inspector. “All aboard the Love Boat. Tickets please. Did you give our company 5 stars on social media?” “No.” “Why not?” “One of the seat cushions was […]

Back in 2009, Mr Tan Yong Soon, then a senior official at Singapore’s Environment Ministry (professor at LKYSPP now) wrote to our favourite newsPAPer, the Straits Times, an article about his 5-week French cooking course at the Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris. His wife and his son also joined him. It’s a long […]

As the dust settles on GE2020, Singapore celebrates its 55th National Day. It’s a different sort of celebration for me, being unable to take on the role of National Day Pendaki. This year’s actual National Day Parade (NDP) however, will still go on but it was split into morning and evening shows, with participant numbers […]

Like many of the indulgent teens these day, I was politically apathetic during my younger days. Impressionable like wet clay, my world view was very much moulded by Hollywood. During my NS days, I thought the US military really trained people like John Rambo – the invincible warrior. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in […]

A local singer/songwriter Mr Wong, wrote a piece for Zaobao in which he lamented Sengkang’s loss of a 谦卑有礼 (humble and courteous) minister. I found it strange that Mr Wong should describe the former minister that way, being a non-conformist who eschews Singapore’s passionless materialism. To be fair, the former minister could be 谦卑有礼. Some […]

The date was 2 July 2020. Our leaders reported in the PAP’s first political broadcast for GE2020 that they had injected almost S$100 billion into this effort through four Budgets. “We are supporting our healthcare professionals and frontline agencies to contain the virus,” said DPM Heng. “We are also providing wage subsidies to help businesses […]

A few days ago, I had a brief encounter with a bunch of foreign workers. They were simply ecstatic after collecting their free masks. I found one of them approachable and asked him why he was behaving as if he had won the lottery. He told me that he and his friends would like to […]