The single story about the happiness of being in a relationship

Inspired by the danger of a single story by Chimamanda Adichie.

Why is it that whenever someone says that they are in a relationship, friends flock to congratulate the person. Even though, some may not feel that it will not last or that that new person is may turn out to be a bastard or a serial killer?

Why is it that whenever someone says that they are now single again, friends again flock with condolences. Even though, that relationship was bad from the start, with bickering, fighting and distrust and it was better off breaking up?

Why is that even when these 2 events happened within a span of 1 or 2 week, friends will still offer congratulations and condolences within the same breathe, as if its an automatic response that they must do in order to show that they care about their friends. Or is this really how we should show genuine care for a friend?

Why do some people keep on to a bad relationship, fighting, bickering and distrusting; as if, one cannot survived outside that relationship  and be happy and one is not whole without being in a relationship and all that victimizing of oneself something worth pursuing?

Is SwissCash for real?

This was a old post, but I reposted this now that more ponzi schemes are in Singapore. Also see Kinlian blog.

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I first heard of this new investment scheme call SwissCash from Tim. At that time, its 300% profit over 27 months claim sound just too incredible to believe and I left it to one side. Later on, I have old friends calling me who also told me about SwissCash. Not only were they investors, some were also referrers (those who earns a commission by getting others to invest). It peaked my interest because my friends were reaping quite healthy profits from it either being an investor and/or a referrer. Of course, the catch here is that SwissCash is an offshore investment scheme, you basically have to trust your money with the referrer.

Stop having babies if you really want to save Earth

Fact: Earth is not dying… at least not in the next few million years

Earth will probably “die” together with our sun when it goes super nova in like a long time to come. So if anyone comes and tell you that Earth is dying, they are lying. Okay, they are technically not lying, Earth is dying day by day, just like all of us are dying day by day. Earth years is just so much longer than humans can imagine. But if they are trying to incite fear of a doomed earth in the next few years, then they are lying and they know it.

Fact: Life on Earth is not in danger of dying… at least some self-appointed-important animal species AKA humans are in danger of dying out.

Earth has gone through a few cycles of extinction with as much as 90% going extinct and each time new and more diverse species repopulate the Earth. Sure, this time round, if human continue their path to self-extinction, probably 99% (I am stretching this) could go extinct. But then given that Earth have a few more millions to go, surely newly species will repopulate the Earth in time to come.

Up in the air

Up in the air is a movie about a company that helps ex-employees of other companies that fired them get motivated so that can move on after they get fired. We heard the familiar cries when employees are fired ranging from how much the sacrificed for the company and how many years they have been in the company, etc.

Being an employee, how often do we ask ourselves how much the company have ask for our sacrifices, be it overtime, underpaid, long hours, bad managers and even bad environment?

Look back at the previous company that you were in, did you spend sleepless hours trying to get a report completed, a project completed or trying to fix a problem? Where are they now? Where are those countless hours of anxiety, stress, anger and frustration, where are they now? That’s right, you left them behind, those important projects or sales target or objectives are no longer important now. All those stressful days feels a bit silly now don’t you think? Sure some of those achievements went into your resume for the next job, but all those many other sacrifices we made that is not in your resume, are they worth it?

Companies act just like companies should, regardless of how much “sacrifice” you have given to a company or how many long hours and time you put it to make things work, when they need to terminate you due to mass layoffs, it usually don’t count too much. Yes, they may put into your testimony that you are good employee, but you still don’t get to keep your job. The strange thing about layoffs is that it is usually a top management error and they seem to get a big chunk of benefits and even continue to stay in the company where the staffs who made no mistakes and helped to keep the things running are the ones to be let go, instead of the people on top who made the mistakes.

For me after working for so long and having put in so much to keep things running, I always keep the philosophy of not of over-sacrificing myself for the sake of the company, because it will never care. Sure I will continue to do what I do best and well, that is not a doubt.

Any manager who asks you to “sacrifice” your time, money and life for that important target or objective, must not value you as an employee.  So I will just roll my eyes and try to do whatever is required, no more no less, with as much motivation as it should appear to be to the manager, so it doesn’t look like I am rolling my eyes when I am doing the work.

The only time your ought to sacrifice yourself for a job is when its your company. You have a stake in its survival and its survival is important to you. As a employee, its nothing more than a dumb request.

So the next time you get stressed over a deadline, an objective, a target or just getting something fixed, remember all this “sacrifice” will be meaningless to you when you leave your job for the next one.

The case of the flying pigs or piggie cupid

A few people in the blogs including Mr. Wang criticize why some chinese folks are up in arms with McDonald changing their lucky charm for a pig to the cute cupid. After all, it’s a McDonald toy and you can just don’t buy it. Also Mac representative did point out that they are not meant to be Chinese zodiac signs represent the 12 signs..

The issue, however, is not about buying the pig as a complete set, but an issue of the failure of our religious and racial policies, thus leading to irrational fear and narrow mindedness.

No matter how Mac denies it, those lucky charms does come in 12 as a set and all but 1 are coincidentally the same animals in the Chinese zodiac signs, how can they lied with a straight face that those are not meant to represent them as such? At the same time that they tried to hoodwink us, they also admit that they were trying to be sensitive to the Malay Muslim community. Of course, there is also the issue of economics, if you looking at the patronage at fast food joints like MacDonald and KFC, its quite common to see it filled with Malay customers.

The problem lies in that it’s okay to be insensitive to the majority Chinese but not the minority religion or race. It’s unfortunate in our context we cannot talk about the Malay race without also talking about Islam. But who makes the Malay race malay is a question of the government’s policy whitewashing ethnic groups from the Malay archipelago, something which YawningBreading have talked about before.

The Malay folks should not be too happy too that Mac are  being so sensitive if not overly sensitive to their religious obligation. What this means is that there is an irrational fear of offending the Malay Muslim community and the perception that they, of all communities in Singapore, are most easily offended and petty and cannot understand the needs of others. That is the message Mac sends to everyone.

MUIS, in the meantime, have not made any clarification and prefers to keep silent, perhaps they are all too happy that the majority Chinese race’s tradition is being promised for their rights?

What MacDonald could have done better is to offer the pig toy with an alternative cupid toy. So customers can choose between a pig or cupid to complete their set or buy both and have 13 instead, which is a lucky number. Surely there will be cost involved, but I believe that that is a better move. At the end of the day, it does costs to keep everyone happy.

When racial and religious tolerance really means intolerance

Its unfortunate that the two incidents to enforce religious and racist tolerance in Singapore and Malaysia are related to Muslims and the malay community. Okay, I am not surprise about this coming from Malaysia because the whole world evolves around giving in to the malay/muslim demands in Malaysia, very seldom the other way around.

The first, and first time in Singapore too, is how a few thousand years of Chinese tradition has been changed by McDonald because of “religious tolerance”. Our dear year of the PIG is now officially, the year of the CUPID. Honestly I really don’t know what the MUIS Halal certification for restaurant entails, but a quick browse seems to indicate that it only deals with food production and handling, nothing about toys. Here is probably a case of self-censorship out of fear by McDonald and it does not help that MUIS or the Malay muslim community is silent about this. Perhaps they are happy about the decision?

When will the Muslim community and MUIS come up to clarify this? Singapore is waiting.

Basically how the government in Singapore promote and instill religious and racial tolerance is really through religious and racial fear. The problem is, of course, the problem is never resolved, because true understanding is never achieved. What this episode, if indeed McDonald is being fearful, is that there is an under current of fear of the Malay muslim community and also a misperception that they are intolerant and that giving way is only a one way traffic.

I remember from young, as part of my religious/racial tolerance, I was brought up to constantly be fearful of offending the Malay muslim community. It was never about offending vegetarians, christians, hindus (okay partially), indians or taoist. To the little mind as I was growing up, I get the impression that the Malay muslims must be a very petty and intolerant people and religion because we are all so fearful of offending them all the time. This does not help when the Western media’s view of Muslims in other continents, usually with violence. But as I grew up, I realized that such fears are really unfounded.

If we read articles involving around issues of racial or religious intolerance in these two countries, inevitable the majority of such cases are related to Malay muslim community. The ability to use the law to punish the offenders (i.e. non malay muslim) does not show tolerance. In fact it re-enforce intolerance and fear in the society.

Mind you, I have a number of good malay muslim friends, some are more religious than others, some are more relaxed than others and we never have such issues as I grew to understand the limits of their religion prohibition. Sure, I am critical about their religious text around it, just as I am critical of some buddhist text or christian text, but that does not make me non-tolerant, just argumentative.

The second which is evern more violent is how the malay muslim community and government in Malaysia insists that allah is a patented muslim god word. Interesting, the Indonesian bible society have to explain itself for use of Allah which some christian insists in incorrect!

Worst of all, religious intolerance raises it ugly head by the burning of some churches in the Klang Valley. This does not help to re-enforce the idea the Islam is peaceful, because whenever there is a disagreement its almost always the Muslims turning to violence first in Malaysia. To cut to the chase, the muslim government and the impressionable malay muslim community are just intolerant of anything that does not go their way. PERIOD.

The Malaysian government themselves are at fault of creating an opportunity for the violent elements of the malay muslim community to raise to the challenge, with its insistence to not allow Allah to be used by other religions of the book. They claim that this is not different from Muslim stepping on the cow head previous. This is bullocks! Stepping on a cows head is a direct insult to the Hindu religion and god. The government and muslim community in Malaysia have yet to proof that the use of Allah in the bible is insulting to Islam.

If we really look at it, this has nothing to do with being muslim, because this word has been used in bibles in the middle east without much a challenge and the use of Allah even predate Islam. This is just specific to the brand of chauvinistic religion practiced by the Malaysian government. The Malaysian government insists that this is about being tolerant, yeah right to the violent muslims in Malaysia you mean? But really its just an intolerant religious mind trying to enforce itself to the rest of the society. Religious and racial tolerance don’t exist in Malaysia, it all about putting up with the demands of the malay muslims in Malaysia.

At a quick glance, one would think that the way Malaysia and Singapore “practice” of religious and racial tolerance are different. But in fact, they are not different, because both government use fear to cull any discussions that would help society be more tolerant, through constructive and healthy debate and to allow some some criticism without getting people too worked up. Both governments actually prefer the races and religions to remain intolerant of each other (via their current policies of fear mongering), because this is the only way to maintain power and control over the people and so that people cannot question bad racial quota and policies in the government or the racist bumi putra policy of the Malaysian government.

The death sentence, wars and religious violence

Every so often when another poor drug runner kid goes to the gallows, the Internet will be abuzz with calls to drop the death sentence. What are we looking at when we call for an abortion of the death sentence? State sanctioned killing, depriving the life of another human being (against his/her will), cruel and unusual punishment in such civil times, punishment is ineffective in deterring the crime and there are more effect ways of deterring the said crime.

Personally, I totally agree with the last 2 points as I believe there are enough evidences to support the ineffectiveness of the death penalty. The death penalty is just a lazy way of sweeping issues under the carpet with a need to think creatively a better solution, which is out there. Sometimes, there are effective solutions, to some extend like legalising drugs, but the policies makers are just too scared to make to them. 

Another reason why I think the death penalty can be wrongly used is that the definition of crime is arbituary. Different countries will define crimes different. In one country, its okay to wear bikini, but in other you may be going to the gallows for it. So we should understant that a criminal here, is not a necessary the same criminal elsewhere. As such, the death penalty becomes an arbituary killing mechanism to keep people within a social order.

However, as for some of the other reasons, I am dubious as to whether the supporters really know what they are asking for. Don’t get me wrong, I totally support the ending of the death penalty, I am saying that there is some fundamentals that we need to examine when we say we support sometime like that.

In Singapore, at least, I noticed that many of the examples why the death penalty ought to be abolish is given in a showcase of drug runners who are either ignorant or forced by their own circumstance to do so and got caught. Bambi is the showcase here. 

What about the others who were executed? Mass murderers, child rapist and killers, serial killers, gang members. How many of them are also showcased together as a reason not to have the death penalty? Surely this will make the appeal much weaker to the public, Bambi have to be the mascot and not the big bad wolf.

Why is that so?

Simply speaker, the public tend not to forgive people who have kill others knowingly and out of malice. I suspect that some of the supporters too may not be able to forgive them. 

Another function of the death sentence is really to serve as an age-old revenge mechanism for agrieved members of the victim(s). In our currently time, direct revenge killing is not possible as such the state is sought after to take over the function. At the end of the day, its still revenge, regardless who revenges and many people still believe in an eye for an eye, a life for a life.

So my question to the supporters is this, you have just witness a mass murderer who have just raped your mother and sisters and also kill and dismembered your entire family (parents, siblings et al). He (I am not being sexists, just easier to use one gender) is now injured and cannot move and you have gun in your hands, what would you do? Do give out your answers too readily for political correctness, you really really need to think about “not killing” hard. If its hard, think back when you are watching a movie and the bad guy gets maimed and killed by the hero, were you happy or aghast? Did you support what the hero did?

Do you then really think you really support the ending of the death penalty?

As a supporter, do you support war efforts? If invaders, example the Japanese, came in and starter killing your friends and family and raping women and bombing your house, would you support any war effort to rid of the invaders?

So people may say that this is different and irrelevant to the death penalty. I beg to differ.

The death penalty is a structured means of killing someone for a crime that have committed against the state’s defined laws. War killing is also a structured means (planned bombing and shooting) of killing someone for what in your view is a crime committed against your country and family. In both cass, someone will be killed. In war, however you can kill as many people as possible without too much paperwork and sometimes with very little remorse. This is also taking away lives of others without their consent, althought they expect to be kills sometimes. Violence is violence, killing is killing, I don’t see this as different.

I don’t believe that one can support ending of death penalty, but yet support war effort. This is just picking and choosing the types of killing that suits you

Finally, we cannot talk about violence and killing without looking into the fundamental of our believe system, i.e. religious believes.

The death penalty is probably a better punishment than what is described in many religious books if you don’t believe in their gods or their believe system.

I don’t understand how can one support the idea that its wrong to take one’s life away but yet is supportive of all the violent acts meted upon the non-believers after they have died or sometimes when they are alive in their religious books.

Many religious books talks about sanctioned killings and acts of violence against non-believers and those who went against their god’s laws. So isn’t the death penalty also a form of sanctioned killing against the non-believers of the law of the country? Do you then as a support condemn those acts of killings and violence described in your scriptures, albeit them happening long ago and may or may not be facts. How can you reconcil your belief that the death penalty is wrong and should be stopped, if you accept the acts violence and killings in your religious text?

After all most religous text is about your god’s law and those who break its laws are condemned to torture, death and violences.  If your god cannot spare non-believers of the “death sentence”, how can you expect a government to spare the non-believers of its laws the death sentence?

Silly followers and silly monk mistakes

You know, throughout the whole Ming Yi saga, Buddhists and non-Buddhists have continuously pointed fingers at the man and accusing him of everything including bringing horrendous damage to Buddhism.

Although, I don’t know him at all (only met him once), I believe that he is not a bad person at heart, just silly and someone who despite being a monk have not looked beyond material and personal desires. Sometimes when you become popular and no one questions your decisions, it can make you feel a bit godly. Anyone in those position can make such mistakes. Personally, I continue to believe that he has genuine care for the things that he do, maybe some people don’t like him (this is common in the Buddhist circle, I like you, I don’t like you, etc), just maybe he should not be a monk but a business man.

Chia Te Pineapple Tarts and Sun Biscuits – Taipei

Frankly speaking, I have never been a great fan of pineapple tarts (凰梨酥)  and sun biscuits (太阳饼). But a few years ago when I was on a work trip to Taipei, my colleague bought some tarts whose shop is only based in Taichung and I loved it. The tart practically melts in your mouth. However, since I have left my old company, I have been looking for something similar whenever I travel to Taipei for holidays. But so far none have met my taste meter.

So this current trip to Taipei, we decided to ask a taxi driver to recommend the best pineapple tart in Taipei and he recommended Chia Te (家德）. He mentioned that his wife queue for more than 1 hour during festive seasons to buy that tarts and they only produce enough for the day. Also noteworthy was that it won some best pineapple tart awards in Taipei for a few years running. Hearing this, of course, we were determined not to let the opportunity pass us by and decided to pop down the shop early next morning (around 11 am lah).

Hong Kong phone scam using fake TV lucky draw

Anyway, it never really occurred to me that scammers can be that persistent, normally, I would think that they would call you once and try to extract as much money as they can from you within the first encounter. However, this phone scammer uses what we call social engineering to create doubt in your believe that its a scam and trust in the person.

When I initially received the call, it was some lady with very standard China Chinese accent talking to me, I normally did not pay attention to such call and was just listening but doing something else. She introduced her company in Chinese which I could not make up and when I asked for the English name, I couldn’t make it up neither due to her pronounciation. She was talking about introducing her company products to me, which I have no idea what and was waiting for her to tell me… but anyway, I was really listening. Didn’t know how the conversation ended, but it was cordial and she thanked me for taking the time.

The 2nd time, a lady called again and reminded me that we spoke before and talked excitingly about a program in some Asian TV channel which did not make sense to me which channel it was. She keep reminding me that I should watch their inaugural program on TV or something like that. Again, I was not listening, I never really listen to sale people on the phone. The 2nd time ended cordially again and she thanked me and reminded me to watch their program. Oh, I think she gave me some lucky draw number or something like that.

After a long time, I got a call again, today. This time she told me if I had watch the program and I said no and that I had no time. She said that I won a big sum of money (she did say how much, but I never listened) in HKD and its about SGD 110,000. Anyone, would have jumped for joy, but was totally emotionless. For one thing, I know my own damn luck with money and luck draws. Anyway, I asked about her company and how I got into the draw and she asked if I had purchase electronics or gadget in the last five years (who don’t?) and the collected these from the warranty forms.

Then she ask why I was not happy to get this price and asks me how I want to spend the money. She asks if I don’t believe her. I said I will decide when I have it.  By now, my scam radar started up, but had some doubts because until now they had not asked for money from me and had called me a few times. Anyway, she was saying whether I want to collect it myself or should they bank to me, so I said I will collect it. She started to give me the address “Hong Kong….” and I said in that case send it over to me. I was still very emotionless at the point and she asks if its because I don’t believe her and that there are a lot of scam stories going around and she added that I will believe her when I see the money in my bank and I will thank here and bring her out to dinner next time I visit Hong Kong.

So I asked her what I need to give her, so said she need to prove of my identity and my bank account to transfer the money and they will transfer the money in by tomorrow. So I gave her my real name, but I told her that did not have my POSB bank account with me.  She said the numbers on the card would usually do, I like “Uh?” on my account is on my POSB card, the numbers don’t look like it. Anyway, I told her that I will need to call her back when I get the account number and she gave me her name as Xiu Man Xing and number +852 307 83335.

So I came home and did a search about Hong Kong phone scams and came to this page:

http://shimworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/hong-kong-scam-alert/

And interesting enough a comment on this page describes EXACTLY what happened to me almost word for word, except that I had not given her my bank account number yet.

Hi Jan, Thanks for your post. I almost got scam the same way and it just happen. Means they have not stop it, even worst if this is another copy cat company.

Here’s my story. I got a call also by a lady who sound like from mainland china, her name is 许慢心 she said i have bought some electronic product either from sony or panasonic and was entitled a lucky dip 2000 was selected from singapore, 2000 selected from malaysia and 2000 from Hong Kong. I got 3rd prize together with 3 other people. Total cash price of HKD$650,000.00. The other 2 from HK already got their prize money on the spot when the TV programm was air on CCTV on the 13 of sept 2009, and even the Malaysia winner also got his money, now they are wondering how come after so long i did not claim my prize, so They call me up to check. So I ask her how do you varitfy that the winner is me when u never ask me for my identity number or passport number. She could not give me a very good reply, reply to keep saying that is it I don’t believe her. She say my name is correct and my phone number is correct right so it must be me. She also say that i have a lucky number 37527 which they pick out form the draw. It’s their company 18 year anniversary draw. While talking to me on the phone trying to convince me that she understand that there are lots of scam company out there and it’s only normal that i don’t believe her, she also put me on hold and answered another phone call which a customer call in to order some products from them. Company name is 日晨有限公司, address is 九龙湾道，158-160号，吉心大厦, 5 floor and 6 floor. Phone number: +85230783335. Finally to a point i ask her what she need from me? Is it first i must give her some money first. She ask for my bank account number, full name and birthday. Which i also gave her thinking that it’s no harm. She end to call by telling me that once i receive i will believe and must call her to thank her, even if next time i go HK must go buy her dinner, even ask me have i thought of how to spend this money. She also tell me i have to pay a 15% of my price money for HK goverment tax. So when the prize money is converted to Singapore dollars i should get S$118,900.00, the Tax i need to pay to HK is S$17,835.00. But i only need to pay this tax one week after i have received the money. Sounds ok so far right.

Day 2: The so call manager a male called me to double check my bank account number, name and birth date, Than told me he will go to the bank to remit the money to me right away and ask me to go to the bank one hour later to check and print out an account balance and fax it to them so that they can proceed with the tax form…. As you can guess i wait checking my the ATM every 2 hours but nothing happen.

Day 3: I have already given up hope that this is for real, but still decided to call 许慢心 to tell her i no longer believe her and that she is fake, but when i call, she act shock to hear that i have not gottan my money, she say she thought i already got it and happily spending it. After hearing form me she say she will double check with her manager. By 4pm she call back and told me that the bank has close but they will check and her manager will get back to me the next day.

Day 4: She call me again, this time to tell me that the bank rejected the transfer because I am not a HK citizen so in order to pay the HK tax i got to authorise their company to pay this tax for me. And to do that, i have to make a 4% payment of my prize money S$4756.00 to this accounting firm appointed by HK Goverment. Company name 世华国际联合律师事务所 address: 香港九龙旺角大厦12 floor. Account number : 7860-0362-4888 name of account : Wan Yu Ng Lung. Bank name: Hang Seng Bank limited. When i ask how come the account name is not the company name, and is there any document they can fax me to show me that this amount i remit over is for what purpose, for more information about both the company and what are their english name… she don’t dare to review anymore.

At the end she still call me and say wanna give you money but since u don’t believe can don’t remit this S$4756.00 and give up my price money. I said fine. I don’t want the money.

For readers who read this post by me, please don’t get scam by these people be extra careful, if you wanna check does their company exist you can go to this website by HK goverment to check. http://www.cr.gov.hk/en/home/index.htm than click on the bottom first icon that says ” company informantion check” than follow the instruction and type in the company name and you will know if which ever company really register themself in HK or not. I have also for Jan’s advise and email to Hang Seng Bank about this matter, if i do get a respond from them be sure i will post it here for everyone to read.

Thanks
Almost victim
Dolly Soh