A Nation of Noise

There are many countries qualified to this title. Singapore, unthinkable 20 years ago, is now one of them. Compared to two decades ago, the noise now is not only louder but also more prevalent.

Who contribute to the noise? The people. The people everywhere. Who are these people? They are locals and foreigners, old and young, male and female, highly educated and illiterate, happy and sad, intentional and oblivious. We, the citizens of the Noisy Country, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion… People nowadays seem to be constantly broadcasting themselves, in fear of not being heard by the whole world.

There is hardly any place in Singapore where you would not find unbearable noise surrounding you. On the bus, in a shopping mall, along a street, in a park, by the beach, in a food court, even in a library — there would always be people talking and laughing so loudly that you might just want to shut them up forcefully.

Whenever I hear a sudden laughter or some simultaneous human talking voices in an inappropriate situation, I cannot help thinking of Japan, England and Switzerland, where the people know when to be loud and when not to. Talking is a human right. Being free from noise is a human right too. There should be places where you can talk and laugh to your heart’s content, while you do not need to do so elsewhere so that other people, people who do not like loud conversations or merriment, can live their life peacefully.

This entry was started in a noisy food court and finished on a noisy bus.

Kindness

More than often, people shared chicken-soup-for-souls stories with me. One of the themes is it pays to be kind. In some extreme cases, the horrendously obviously made up stories tell how a kind person did small deeds of kindness and eventually the receiving ends of those deeds saved his or her life.

Of course it’s good and noble to be kind. But these stories focus on the benefit of being kind, and try to educate — or rather, entice — readers to be kind. That’s totally wrong: charitable people are kind not because kindness is profitable but because it is the right thing to do.

Another question is, should we save one’s life only because the poor soul had been kind to us? If it were a total stranger who had not done anything nice to us, and we had all the power and ability to save this stranger, shouldn’t we save him or her all the same?

Why should the authors of these stories treat good deeds as some kind of deals and trading? Why should we not be kind for a higher purpose than being helped in return? Are we so shallow-minded that we need such dear incentives to be kind? Why would people be touched and inspired by such nonsense, and pass it onto others still?

My problem is not with kind acts. A kind act, no matter what the actor’s motive is, is a kind act. My problem is with the ways those stories promote kind acts. It’s pure atrocity committed to humanity that kindness becomes a means and not the purpose itself.

My Ideal Singapore

I followed some of the rally speeches, a few of which were very arousing, whereas the rest were boring. Some candidates resorted to emotions, which I disliked a lot. Some attacked the opponents without solid foundations, which I disliked even more.

The Cooling-off Day will start in 15 minutes, marking the end of the campaign period. It is time for me to calm down (thus ‘cooling-off’) and think: what do I want for my nation?

Freedom of speech

Also known as freedom of expression, this freedom ‘includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’, as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In everyday life, it translates into rights of opinions (or no opinions) without censorship or self censorship. Websites, press and films can be rated, but should not be censored. Public figures, including but not limited to political figures, should be confident enough to embrace critics. Lawsuits against political opponents should only aim to clear names, not to elicit large sum of damage.

Fair play

All constituencies, regardless of which party win the seats, should be granted unbiased consideration and priority in development. Town councils should be independent of partisan politics and run by professional civil servants.

Zero corruption

Singapore is almost there. Almost. She will be perfect if not for the ridiculous and largely unnecessary lapses. Transparency in the handling of our CPF is the least the government should achieve. I am not even asking about operations of Temasek Holdings and GIC.

LGBT rights

Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code is a remnant of the British law during colonial days. There is no state religion in Singapore, while there is in the UK, but the latter’s official attitude (cultural and legal) towards LGBT is far more progressive. In Catholic dominant countries like Spain and Portugal, same-sex marriages have also been legalised. Same-sex marriages have been legalised even in socially conservative USA — therefore having a conservative population (whether this is true is another story) should not be an excuse for the NLB to pulp books portraying alternative families.

Better social-economic coherence

I am not an economist, so I have no suggestion on how to narrow the income gap, how to make the infrastructure cope with the ever expanding and less impatient population, and how to make life affordable for the middle and low income groups. But I know it is very expensive to live in Singapore and I do not believe it to be inevitable.

Better transports

The MRT broke down even during this sensitive period. I have no word for this. But faulty railways are not the major problem here. The major problem is, why the buses and trains are so crowded, despite successive increases of fares?

Conclusion

As a public servant, I was reminded to stay neutral and not be involved in any politics during this general election period. No, this post does not imply any side-taking. In fact, I genuinely think that all parties are equally good — in another word, equally mediocre — regardless of their positions on the political spectrum. I am not a fan of PAP, neither am I a fan of any opposition party. I criticise the government much, not because I support the oppositions (I don’t), but only because it is not (yet) optimal.

On NLB’s Recent Book Destroying Madness

When I was young, the well maintained and easily accessible libraries became at the same time a paradise for my mind and a sanctuary for my heart. At first I read and borrowed only Chinese books, then more and more English ones; my reading scope widened from pure literature to all sorts of non-fictions. Libraries had become places somehow rather sacred to me, and I continued to visit them after I started working even though I had purchased more books than I could finish reading.

All the rosy images suddenly shattered two days ago when I read the news of the National Library Board’s decision to remove two children’s books from shelves. The decision was made because these books portrayed ‘unconventional’ families, a.k.a. same-sex couples and single parents. I have known that the Singapore society is largely conservative and the majority of the citizens are against LGBT; but I have not imagined that my beloved and supposedly neutral NLB has taken such a stance. My first reaction was a silent ‘WTF’, followed by a tweet, ‘maybe I should start boycotting NLB.’

As a teacher, I have been teaching my pupils such values as respect, inclusiveness, and embracing diversity, as promoted by MOE. Yet I could not sense these values in NLB’s decision.

The books really do not need to be removed. NLB can have put the books in the adult area. NLB can have even set up a ‘controversial books corner’ where children under certain age can only access with parental guidance. In fact, even without such a corner, if parents really care about their young kids’ reading, parental guidance should be provided whenever a child reads; if the parent thinks that a book is ‘inappropriate’ in values, the parent can just leave it alone.

I thought removing books for such reasons was the worst action taken by NLB. I was wrong. After a heated debate involving a spectacular tide of opposition and engaging a large number of netizens who voiced their protests through open letters and petitions (1, 2), NLB did not reinstate the books; instead, it has decided to pulp the books — not two, but three. This time it was backed by Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Communications and Information, citing ‘representing social norms’ as a mission of NLB.

Yes, the society is conservative, and yes, many parents do not want their young children to be exposed to such topics; removing the books upsets me but is still within range of tolerance. But destroying books? Even if removing those three books were justifiable, NLB could have just given them away; why pulp the books? This is what I call ‘madness’, and is apparently a symbolic gesture. And it is a terribly wrong gesture, a gesture that appeases the conservative majority but enrages the open-minded minority, a gesture that sums up all debates and discussions in a simple, forceful, physical action.

As a public institution, NLB is maintained with taxpayers’ money and therefore obliged to involve the public in major or possibly controversial decision making; but it has failed to do so. There was no public hearing, no room for disputation, not even the slightest attempt to be impartial and inclusive. How can we trust such an institution to provide unbiased, unselected and unfiltered information when we do research in its libraries?

If NLB can destroy books because those books depict real, homosexual penguins, happy LGBT families with adopted kids, alternate families with a permutation of family structures, then it will not be any surprise if one day NLB decides to destroy books on evolution, paganism, and non-mainstream versions of major religions; one day it will censor each and every book, destroy all books that do not conform to ‘social norms’ and discard all facts that are against the beliefs of the ‘overwhelming majority’. Call me a pessimist, but this chain of events appeared just too many times in history.

Destroying books is at least a terrible PR move and more importantly a step backward in human history. Dictators and religions pillaged libraries in history because libraries did not succumb to fanaticism or biases. Shockingly ironically, the modern NLB is now doing what tyrants used to do to libraries.

On Space Projects

I used to be very simple-minded and against the Chinese government launching space projects with astronomical (a suitable adjective, at least literally) amount of money when there are many children in rural areas unable to receive proper education. In my over simplistic mindset, the expenses of the government can be invested in many other ‘more urgent, essential’ areas, like improving education, fighting poverty, raising productivity, and so on, instead of those ‘useless, showing off’ areas, like space projects and gigantic constructions.

But I have also been a NASA fan since the first day I came to know its existence. I cheer for every NASA success and love all those NASA legends. Why I supported NASA but opposed Chinese space programmes could only be explained by my deep distrust in the Chinese government and the Communist Party.

Yet I was wrong. Gradually I have come to understand the importance of space projects, even if it is done by communists.

Space projects are not just showing off abilities and strength — in fact, it is the most expensive way to show off strength, so expensive that the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union had to come to a halt without conclusive winner. Space projects are more science oriented, rather than politics oriented; they are to benefit the whole human race, instead of a limited group of politicians.

The technologies developed for space programmes are mostly deployed in civil productions. Military industry of course would be benefited as well, but those benefits can be justified by the benefits bestowed onto the public. Even at the height of space race, NASA carried out scientific experiments and developed many technologies that we have taken for granted today.

The first artificial satellite of China was indeed an ideology propaganda tool, but that does not nullify the importance of Chinese space programmes in recent years. Time has changed.

However, no matter how much I support the space programmes, be it of NASA or Europe or China, I could not make myself agree to the propaganda elements in the Chinese media reports. ‘The hundred years of waiting ends! We Chinese have realized our dreams of flying to the space!’ Frankly that is nothing to be proud of if a country, who thinks highly of herself, can only manage to accomplish what the other countries have accomplished decades before. And talking about ‘dreams’, have the Chinese really dreamed of anything close to this? Those vague, bluffing, bragging, pretentious slogans only make supporters like me disgusted.

Loss of Memory

After 10 years I came to Parkway Parade in 2012. It was so different to what I remembered a decade ago — but what was in my memory? I could not remember so clearly. In fact, Parkway Parade in my memory had been so blurry that I doubted whether it was me who had been here at least twice a week during the period 1998 – 2002.

The sense of loss came to me as well as I visited the district in Swatou in 2010, the district where I lived from 1987 to 1998. I knew it had changed dramatically but I could not figure out how it was like in my blurry memory. It was like everything had been redefined, and my memory had been erased completely.

This happens not only to places but to people too. Sometimes I wonder where the person in front of me has come from and why I get to know him or her because that person has changed through the years and yet I cannot remember how he or she was like when we first met. Is it a punk played by life, or a cognitive phenomenon that is natural to common people?

No doubt I am very nostalgic but my memory keeps failing me.

I cannot remember clearly how Singapore looked like when I first came here fifteen years ago. I can only remember that the MRT system was still a new thing then, and people were generally happier. What has made Singapore so different now, I cannot tell, but she is different.

I cannot remember clearly the life in Chung Cheng High School (Main), but when I went back as an East Zone teacher I could sense the fall of my alma mater. Not that she was at a very high status when I was a student there, but she did fall, as far as my sense told me.

I do not know what has ruined Singaporeans’ happiness, nor can I come to understand why my alma mater has slipped through the years. My memory is not capable of recalling the past and obviously of comprehending the cause of changes. What it is capable of is just a deep feeling of loss.

The world changes fast, no matter how my inner self refuses to accept that. The world changes so fast that my memory cannot absorb the recent events before it needs to face new changes. People say that change is the only constant. I fully appreciate it, and do make myself adapt to new changes. But it is still something lost that I cannot retrieve any more, that saddens me much, that makes my past a worthless mess.

Why I am here is due to my many selves in the flow of river of passing currents, and those selves are all gone.

The Meaning of Photographs

One of my pupils, who graduated from our school 3 years ago and is going to Secondary 4 in the coming year, is now very sad because her iPhone cannot get recovered from iTunes backup and therefore has lost her 4355 photos — she does not have the habit of synchronizing her photos to either iCloud or other cloud storage but solely depends on her backups on a PC.

Of course no one wants to lose anything, or the storage service providers, either online or offline, would not exist. But we do not need to grieve so much that our precious sleep has to be sacrificed in mourning. As I told that pupil, nothing is eternal, and starting anew is actually easier than imagined.

‘Those photos are my memories! They capture those precious fun moments!’ She said.

No, they are photos, not memories. True memories exist not in photos but in hearts and minds. Photos capture those moments, yes, and help to remind you those moments. But if you need photos to remind you those moments, are those moments really precious? Are precious moments not preserved in your fond memory?

Fun moments normally will become sour and bitter in future. They are bad evidence of the past because, in future, either your life is no longer fun or your friends are no longer there to share your joy. Either way it is, is seeing those photos of the fun past not a torment?

I take photography as a form of visual arts. I take photos not because I want to preserve the moments, as I cannot do so by clicking the shutter button. I take photos because the sight is beautiful and it somehow expresses myself through colours and shadows. Beauty is temporary; everything decays. If the world remembers it, then it gains some kind of immortality in the collective memory of mankind, and I do not need a copy for myself. If the world does not, why should my own pride bring the photos to my grave?

Some of my colleagues see me as ‘full of negativities’ because I seem to see only weaknesses, stupidity, inhumanity and irrationality in the bureaucracy. That might be true, but only at work. In life, I can see beauty in every corner and find humour in every speech and action. My cameras, including my smart phones, are deployed to capture the beauty and humour in life, not because they are precious moments and ought to be preserved but the lifespan of photos are much longer than that brevity of bliss. The extra length of this lifespan enables the sight to be exposed to a larger audience with a hint of my personality. That is all.

Never attach too many ‘meanings’ to the photos. Photos are just a media, a platform, and will be gone, sooner or later, together with those ‘meanings’.

In fact, you have lost your childhood friends, your cuteness in kindergarten, your primary school works, the clean air, cheap food, youthful vigour, purity of innocence, ignorant optimism, and many other things when you grow up (and old). Losing some photos is no big deal.

Fragmentation

It’s been almost three months since the last post. I have been updating on Twitter and Weibo, on all kinds of topics and yet seriously fragmented. Fragmentation seems to be the major trend and concern in today’s world; from content generation to content consumption, from software development to offline education, from organization management to daily grocery, we all face the overwhelming urge and often inevitable necessity of fragmentation: breaking a grand, higher order mission into much smaller, easier tasks, which can be accomplished by utilizing our already fragmented time slots, and yet most of time stop us from seeing the actual mission, making us focus on short term benefits and instant gratification.

Fragmentation has its value in this fast-paced, information-overloaded era, but it is an enemy of pleasant reading experience. I started reading Dan Brown’s new novel, Inferno, on 14th May, and finished it on 25th May. If I were to read it during a holiday without any work to do, I would have finished it in at most 3 days, and because of the continuous, uninterrupted reading, I would have immersed myself in the book more deeply and enjoyed the flow of the events with more anticipation and fulfilment. However, in reality, I finished the book in 12 days, with some days in between without reading at all. As a result, the flow of the events did not seem intact, and I needed every time to re-read the previous page to get myself reconnected with the story. I could not absorb myself completely in the story, like I did when reading Angels and Demons. I still enjoyed the book, but it would have been so much better without the fragmented reading process.

Not just reading; fragmentation affects my work as well. A very obvious example is the setting of examination papers. I can set a complete set of examination paper of high quality, with all formatting perfectly done, in just three or four hours without any interruption. However, ‘three or four hours without any interruption’ is more and more a luxury, partly because of my never-ending official duty and flooding of emails, partly because of my inability to resist distractions from my phone and my web browser. The time taken to set a paper is not simply ‘three or four hours’ plus ‘the time spent on the web and other distractions’; it is a typical ‘1+1>2’ situation. Besides a longer process, the quality also drops, even if given longer time to finish. In another words, fragmentation reduces efficiency and effectiveness.

To counter the negative effects of fragmentation, schools organize intensive classes, some companies (like Facebook) hold coding and design days, cinemas hold movie marathons, and some text processors (like iA Writer and Microsoft Word for Mac) provide full screen, distraction free environment. Even WordPress editor comes with a ‘distraction free writing mode’, in which I am writing this post.

魏文说

《世说新语》载魏文帝命子建七步为诗，不成则杀，子建诗成，文帝深有惭色。世人乃以魏文残害骨肉，深为不齿。予不以为然，若文帝欲杀子建，何患无辞，出此下策？此事必虚。即若为真，则文帝实欲免子建之罪，乃以子建之长才，借故豁之也。

魏武数子，昂死于战阵，冲幼年早夭，彰、熊则勇将也。植恃才傲物，常不以法度为念，为魏武不喜；其结交者文士也，其倚重者名士也，乱世之中，何能为哉？故虽才高八斗，无缘大位。丕文武兼长，且颇知术、势，又与谋臣相善，魏武立嗣，非丕其谁？即若丕未“矫情自饰”，太子之位亦其囊中物也；故所谓“矫情自饰”者，史家褒贬而已。

或谓：彰平代郡，大胜而返，太子丕诫之“卿新有功，今西见上，宜勿自伐，应对常若不足者”，岂非丕惧彰勋劳炽盛，不利于己乎？而予观之，则兄弟之情拳拳，同胞之谊殷殷。后彰如太子言，乃有魏武持彰须曰：“黄须儿竟大奇也！”岂非太子之功耶？而论者谓：此丕弄巧成拙也。此等诛心之论，唾之可也。

人云：魏之亡也，在司马氏；司马之跋扈，始于魏文帝；故魏亡于魏文也。岂有此理。魏文时司马懿何跋扈之有？即明帝时仲达亦谨言慎行。论者所据何典，实实匪夷所思。懿有大才，自当用之。而魏文与臣下相善，多所戏谑，亦善纳谏；其擅御下者若此，何惧一司马懿？且其时政军之权皆在曹及夏侯宗族，曹休、曹真尚称名将，仲达何所为耶？若以曹芳之事推及曹丕，何不推及曹操、乃至曹参乎？

又云：魏晋之乱，在九品中正制；九品中正者，丕之创举也；故魏晋之乱始于魏文。岂有此理。隋文帝首创科举，而明清科举误人，岂谓隋文误尽苍生？于其时也，笼络望族，羁縻名士，乃致中原太平，非九品中正之功乎？后世时势变迁，而后人不知改制，此后人之过也，魏文奈何得咎？

黄初三年，子建为鄄城王；次年作《感鄄赋》。鄄者，甄也，故论者以为此赋乃因甄后之死有感而就。此事未有定论，然后人多以为确，甚或编排子建甄后之恋，乃谓子桓夺弟之爱。呜呼，子桓何辜，招此恶名？《三国志·魏书》载：“文昭甄皇后，中山无极人，明帝母，汉太保甄邯后也，世吏二千石。父逸，上蔡令。……建安中，袁绍为中子熙纳之。熙出为幽州，后留养姑。及冀州平，文帝纳后于鄴，有宠，生明帝及东乡公主。”又引《魏略》云：“熙出在幽州，后留侍姑。及鄴城破，绍妻及后共坐皇堂上。文帝入绍舍，见绍妻及后，后怖，以头伏姑膝上，绍妻两手自搏。文帝谓曰：刘夫人云何如此？令新妇举头！姑乃捧后令仰，文帝就视，见其颜色非凡，称叹之。太祖闻其意，遂为迎取。”可知甄后乃子桓破袁时所虏，何来“夺弟之爱”？

《昭明文选》李善谓：“魏东阿王，汉末求甄逸女，既不遂。太祖回与五官中郎将。植殊不平，昼思夜想，废寝与食。黄初中入朝，帝示植甄后玉镂金带枕，植见之，不觉泣。时已为郭后谗死。帝意亦寻悟，因令太子留宴饮，仍以枕赉植。植还，度轘辕，少许时，将息洛水上，思甄后。忽见女来，自云：我本托心君王，其心不遂。此枕是我在家时从嫁前与五官中郎将，今与君王。遂用荐枕席，欢情交集，岂常辞能具。为郭后以糠塞口，今被发，羞将此形貌重睹君王尔！言讫，遂不复见所在。遣人献珠于王，王答以玉佩，悲喜不能自胜，遂作感甄赋。后明帝见之，改为洛神赋。”言语凿凿，有如亲见。然以常理论，兄以嫂枕遗弟，岂有此理？

刘勰《文心雕龙》云：“魏文之才，洋洋清绮。旧谈抑之，谓去植千里，然子建思捷而才俊，诗丽而表逸；子桓虑详而力缓，故不竞于先鸣。而乐府清越，《典论》辩要，迭用短长，亦无懵焉。但俗情抑扬，雷同一响，遂令文帝以位尊减才，思王以势窘益价，未为笃论也。”诚哉斯言。子桓之文才，在其平，在其淡，在其实，在其随性。予爱其书函，质朴明了，甚动人心。然登基之后，少有妙文，一憾也。子建之才虽高，然多绮丽浮华之辞，又常示人以弱，怨天尤人，我所不喜。王夫之《姜斋诗话》曰：“曹子建之于子桓，有仙凡之隔，而人称子建，不知有子桓，俗论大抵如此。”此论非不溢美，然偏颇之余，读之甚觉解气。一笑。

魏文帝《终制》曰：“自古及今，未有不亡之国，亦无不掘之墓也。”潦倒文士有此论不为奇，皇帝发此语，真旷古烁今。子桓之不类君王，予常深异之。

又及，《世说新语》载：“王仲宣好驴鸣，既葬，文帝临其丧，顾语同游曰：‘王好驴鸣，可各作一声以送之。’赴客皆一作驴鸣。”又《与吴监书》谓：“中国珍果甚多，且复为说蒲萄：当其朱夏涉秋，尚有馀暑，醉酒宿醒，掩露而食，甘而不䬼，脆而不酸，冷而不寒，味长汁多，除烦解倦。又酿以为酒，甘于曲蘖，善醉而易醒。道之固以流羡咽嗌，况亲食之耶？南方有橘酢，正裂人牙，时有甜耳。即远方之果，宁有匹者乎？”《与朝臣论粳稻书》谓：“江表惟长沙名有好米，何得比新城粳稻邪？上风吹之，五里闻香。”魏文雅好如此，我辈所崇。