Here’s an interesting video of Chua Lam sharing his philosophy with audiences in China.
A woeful thought crossed my mind as I watched. 国宝级人物因为好色被香港抢去成为他们的才子了。Sad. Chua Lam is arguably Singapore’s ultimate rebel and for that reason, he knew that he had no future here. We have no right to feel proud of him for he had been vilified by strait-laced Singaporeans every time he tried to introduce something out of the ordinary here. His carefree, wanton nature runs against every grain of kiasu and kiasi Singapore society. Perhaps we deserve to lose him. Many do not feel the loss. One NUS professor even judged him to be “a dime a dozen” dirty old man.
Chua Lam’s philosophy is nominally Buddhist. What is there to grasp? How wide a margin of safety must we have before we feel safe? How safe do we want to be? How safe can we ever be when everything good or bad must come to an end? Watching videos of Ni Kuang, Chua Lam and James Wong reminds me to free my mind from Singapore’s strait-laced judgemental society and be the respectable writer that I ought to be.