2017 ; Well the going is going to be tough in our part of the world ; see Paris photos for a distraction !

Joan de Arc statue at the Notre Dame

        My wife and I had a very pleasant holiday in Europe last December. The first stop was Barcelona, Spain for 5 days followed by Paris for 3, London for 4 and Paris for another 2 before flying off back to Singapore. This was our first trip in 7 years to Western Europe's major capitals since 2009 and I had prepared my basic French for the stay. It was well worth the investment, as the French are very proud of their language and even if your pronunciation is half baked, there is the acknowledgement from the locals that you are trying your best in their country.

  The Eiffel Tower all lit up at night with sparkling lights

     Since the terror attacks in France in 2015 (Charlie Hebdo, bakery, Nice, Paris nightclub to name a few) in 2014 and 2015, the police and military presence in France, Paris in particular is very high. The city of lights is full of immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, the old Communist block countries like Romania, Albania, Croatia and Bulgaria. It is a melting pot of ethnicities, and the city looks gritty. We stayed in a 4  star hotel off Rue Rivoli, on the right bank just next to the Louvre. The main road, which is like the main thoroughfare for shops (Rue Champs Elysee of course, Georges V, Rue St Honore, arrondissements 16 - 17 are all very classy) , honestly looks filthy after a long day. There are hobos, drunks, beggars on the street, pickpockets from Romania (I almost got ripped off twice in the Metro , but we were warned by a very thoughtful local and then were on our guard all the time). The place is teeming with tourists, from all over the world so the Metro is full of noisy babble of several languages, all not French.  

Notre Dame on a Winter's Day

    Paris has always been a place of grand architecture, and the city's mayors and officials have wisely kept the avenues, and Places free from the glass and steel buildings which are an eyesore of many newly emerging countries. Singapore is no exception, and while the new buildings reflect the sense of development, they are in effect, soulless. The old architecture of the gothic and late Renaissance era has been kept wisely for all the future generations to see. 

    During the second world war, the German General in charge of the city, General Dietrich von Cholitz,the military governor of Paris in 1944 refused direct orders (a court martial outcome from the Nazis) from Hitler himself to burn the city, and hence its beautiful structures and buildings to the ground when the Nazis were in full retreat in 1944. This major decision and the subsequent saving of the beautiful buildings and Eiffel Tower were the focus of the movie "Is Paris Burning ?" released in 1966 and 1968 (USA). 

    2017 is going to be a difficult year for many people, including me. So I am grateful for my wife, family and good friends near and far for their support. The trip to Europe was just a way to ease the pain of the struggles of 2016 and give myself impetus and motivation for the challenging 2017 year.

    2017 - Bring it On !  

Here's Wishing Everyone of you a Healthy, and Satisfying 2017

Happy 2017 to all 

   Its been a trying year for me, and for many in my family, close friends and associates. 2016 was nothing short of calamitous and with a deluge of many unforseen events on the global scale which affected us. On the personal front, I lost 4 Primary School mates, Leonard Tan Peng Yeow, Elijah Goh Ngian Meng, Martin Brett and 1 other. Ex - colleagues, Gan Swee Tuan passed on just yesterday as did a number of acquaintences and friends parents.

    My dear mother's ex-boss Dr Kwa Soon Bee also passed away about a month and a half ago. Time and tide waits for no man, and no man should ever be so careless with his time, as it is as precious a commodity as life itself.

    The Trump tsumani was only the latest in shocks around the world which will not only spell the start of populism in Governments. Brexit in June 2016 was a sign that all is not well in the EU with immigration of foreign people to the shores of European countries weighing on the minds of most if not all Europeans. Closer to home, we are seeing the flexing time and again of China's military, political and economic might with their response to the South China Sea decision by Den Hague Tribunal of the Sea where the response was an outright 

rejection of the Tribunal's decision. China also initiated the detention of the 9 Terrex vehicles belonging to the Singapore Armed Forces showing its unhappiness with the Republic's long standing military training exercises in Taiwan. 

       2016 was a tough year for many businesses, my included, and 2017 is not expected to be any better. The models, the types of businesses will all be reviewed and loss making ones shut, reinvented and moved to more rapidly growing economies. Singapore is facing a paradigm and it will need to restructure many aspects of its economy and recalibrate the expectations of many within. To wait and see would be a 'kamikaze' (self destruct) decision. 

       I pray and hope that 2017 will be a healthy and satisfactory one for everyone. New Trade deals will have to be remade and the next 2 - 3 years will be very challenging ones for all.

       2017 ; bring it on. 

              

The First Years 9 ; Catching and Fighting Spiders

This is what I was referring to in the earlier post about fighting spiders ; it is an elegant 'dance' which the spiders end up 'fighting' 

The First Years 8 ; Neighbourhood Games

Slide in our Garden 

     The picture above shows the slide in our garden. Behind is the terrace house where the neighbourhood boys and girls lived. We, the kids of the 60s were most fortunate to live the era of the 60s. They were such carefree, joyous times, I recall during my Primary School days in St Andrew's I only had tuition in 1 subject, Chinese. In the Millenium age, it is practically every other household who has tuition for their children in maths, science, 2nd language over. The children of school going age from the 90s to current day (2016) have a myriad of stresses,ranging from their school homework, enrichment classes, co-curricular activities, tuition, ballet,swimming, music lessons etc. etc. from Primary 1 onwards. 

    We hardly took homework home. It was garden play, catching spiders, flying kites and then home. Nothing else mattered.  When it rained heavily, the drains were overflowing with dirty water and the Malay boys from the nearby kampung came and dumped themselves into the storm drains. We were more civilised, opting to stay indoors. 

       There was no "I am richer than you' crap or where we stayed was the district 9, 10, 11 nonsense. We kids were equally poor as I recall. I did not even understand the concept of wealth (or lack of). As long as we had our play, some food to eat, some place to sleep, our parents and friends, we were in kids heaven. No laptop PCs, smart phones, phone apps (and the scams that are now so prevalent), no IPads, no bullying by Facebook, no Facetime, no internet. 

        Those were simple times, which we can never go back to.   

Me, Liang Puck, John and Poh San 

One of the wonderful games which we played endlessly was to find fighting spiders from the garden. There were these hibiscus plants, which whenever we saw 2 leaves stuck together, would likely be the nest of a spider. So we would clasp our hands and pull the leaves and catch the spider. It would be black in colour with 2 'arms'. So we would then keep them in an empty matchbox feeding them some leaves and preparing them for 'battle'. 

Battle or Fighting day would be when my friend and i would coax our spiders to confront each other, once. that was done, the spiders would by instinct or naturally 'fight' ; their arms would be out and 'fighting'.

One spider would inevitably run away and the other spider which stood its ground would be the 'winner'.

Simple game but oh so enjoyable !!! 

The First Years 7 ; Birthday Parties

1st photo with family members, 1st cousins, uncle Phoon and Aunty Dona

As a kid, I had it really good. In all honesty, I was very fortunate, this little brown kid living with his parents in a nice big house, all 30,000 square feet of land, with a nice white car and cousins, friends, maids, dog, all play and parties. This was the dream, or so I thought. What did I know ? I was only 3 years old then. 

In the photo above, my Uncle Phoon (now in his 80s) and Aunty Mona (close to 80) was carrying my first cousin, Lorraine. At extreme right staring into the camera is her brother, Rick, who is 10 months older than me. At the left of the photo were my Mum's nieces and my cousins Wynne, May and some other girls. The tall lanky good looking boy to my left was Kee Seng, who took care of me from time to time. He must have been at least 7 - 10 years older than me. Kee Seng lived in the neighbourhood along Sophia Road.

To my right was my eldest cousin Clifford Lau looking at Kee Seng and some other relative.

Clifford is stationed in Australia and Kee Seng and our family lost contact decades ago. 

This 2nd photo with me again looking bemused with my Mum and more family members 

     In the second photo above, my cousin May who is about 5 years older than me is standing at the left with the curly hair. I recognise Poh San, the girl behind to rhe right of my mother. She became an air stewardess with Singapore Airlines but our families lost touch. The stout boy to my Mum's left is Liang Puck and to my right are my elder cousins Clifford (with straw) and Winston. Clifford and May are siblings, Rick and Lorraine are siblings, Winston and Wynne are siblings.

      My Mum being the eldest in the family, or big sister wielded the most 'power', all the sisters and 2 brothers listened to her firm and sagely advice on family, career and investment matters, even though she was only in her mid 30s then.They had a tumultuous time first in China, as my grandfather worked for the Chiang Kai Shek administration, before the 2nd World War broke out.  So all in all there were 4 sisters, Anna, Dona, Mina and Mona. 1 younger brother David Mun (whose kids were not born yet) and 1 half brother Gordon (my grandfather married another woman). 

      The family though close have not had contact with Uncle Gordon for decades.

  Sitting on the garden swing ; the Big Head brown boy with his pretty Mum

    1965 was the year Singapore separated from the Federation of Malaya and had to 'go it alone'. The little island was beset by many Communists aligned to the CCP of China, the island was poor, there was a mix of races with Chinese being the majority, Malay and Indians.

              GDP per capita was like US$ 300. We had no natural resources, no foreign reserves, nothing. But we had in 1 brilliant man, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, a driven and gifted politician who had the steely determination to wipe out the Communists, a fledgling People's Action Party which had a very strong core team of 1st Generation Leaders, Goh Keng Swee, Toh Chin Chye, S. Rajaratnam, Yusoff Ishyak and J.Y. Pillay to name a few. From this core team, a lot of hard work was done to elevate everyone's standard of living to what it is today, a first world metropolis, safe and a high standard of living. 

               

   Clearly I was not a 'happy camper' in this picture circa 1963.

So, I had the whole single child thingy for 3 years. Then came John.... that is for the next posts. 

One More Try - George Michael

Goodbye George Michael ; another star of our youth snuffed out

The pretty boys of Wham ; Andrew Ridgely and George Michael

    On Christmas Day 2016, the pop world was shocked by another celebrity death, George Michael, who was one half of the group Wham !, he was 53. He died in his home in Oxfordshire UK due to heart failure. Once again, the music world is showing its fraility. Many of our icons and influencers in the world of music, big screen, football of the 70s, 80s and even 90s are no more. David Bowie,Natalie Cole, Alan Rickman,Prince, Johann Cryuff and now George Michael just to name a few.   

     When I was in my late teens and early 20s, the pop duo Wham ! came onto the scene with a big bang. Music and pop, the likes of Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Elton John, Wang Chung, the Communards, and of course Wham ! dominated the party music scene. 

     Every lounge in Singapore, including the Chinese ones, had the opening raunchy saxophone strain of  " Careless Whisper" tune. Every Ah Beng could sing this song, it was that pervasive. George "the Greek" Michael the lead singer of Wham duo and it melted every schoolgirl's heart. Unfortunately he batted for the other side, and declared he was gay in the 90s.  

    I listened to Wham's music, and followed and bought his album's after Wham broke up. They played catchy tunes full of lovey dovey stuff, but the tunes were the big draw. George was a natural talent, and while he had his share of brushes with the law, the fans loved the music.

    The Whamsongs which I listened to, during my young 'salad days', during the National Service and the early 20s as an undergraduate we :

a) Wake me Up before you Go Go

b) Wham 

c) Careless Whisper

d) Last Christmas

As a solo artiste, George also hit paydirt with songs like Freedom,Faith, Jesus to a Child, and the side B song which I absolutely loved, One More Try. I sang it for weeks in my car. It just had a side to it which connected with me. I don't know why or what it was but the lyrics were so gripping

Everything She Wants Video 

Goodbye George Michael. This was your Last Christmas.