We live in a complex world and a turbulent era. Mere analyses do not seem to offer us much certainty. We need wisdom that is grounded in real-world experience.
If I had known at the beginning the amount of time and work involved in putting together these musings and the accompanying pictures, I would surely not have embarked on this journey. But that, I suppose, is life. Life’s journey is never smooth. One needs faith. Innocence and ignorance also help.
To engage in a discourse with the minister was to enter into the vastness of an intellectual mind, a mind that was, an is, relentlessly curious, and one that is interested in all aspects of the human condition, from the most mundane to the highly spiritual.
It is important to know who we are, feel comfortable in our own skin. If we do not know our own identity, we cannot respect the identities of others. If we are not secure about our own identity, we become uncomfortable with the strength of another person’s identity.
In embracing diversity, it is not enough to “tolerate” diversity. There has to be genuine respect for the other and an appreciation of their strength and goodness.
When she finally did, she knelt before her parents to seek forgiveness for her prolonged absence. She had left as a young bride and returned a grandmother.
LKY expressed 2 concerns about George Yeo, that he was Teochew and Catholic. While it was an episode that profoundly troubled George Yeo, I am also reminded of what he said: “Identity centers our entire being.”
As a young Chinese boy, I felt an affinity to China and was proud of its achievements, including the first atomic bomb in 1964 and the first hydrogen bomb in 1967. As I grew older, I came to realize that this was partly the result of my mother’s influence. She kept up constant correspondence with her relatives, the content of which kept clear of politics.
The Yeo family had been classified as rich farmers in 1949 and their properties expropriated. After 1978, the Yeo ancestral home was legally returned to the family but not the farmland.
For 30 years, the part of China facing Taiwan was in a potential war zone and deliberately under-developed. That included all of Fujian and eastern Guangdong province, where the majority of Chinese Singaporeans came from originally.
During the CR, those caught with documents of the past were accused of harboring hopes to reclaim old properties, which was seen as evidence of reactionary intent.
Mao was too much of a romantic and made serious mistakes in his later years. In his youth, he was adamant that cadres conduct thorough social investigations before formulating policies. In his later years, he was too cut off from ground reality and became subjective.
For all the cruelty and harm done by the CR, this tragic period of Chinese history marked the final clearing of the land before a new China under Deng Xiaoping could make a fresh start. Unjust distribution of land had led to the Communist Revolution. One of its most important achievements was bringing land under collective control. The collectivization of land after 1949 made China’s remarkable progress after 1978 possible. Today, one can invest in Chinese properties as a foreigner and choose where to live, but only on a leasehold basis. This collective control of land enabled China to urbanize rapidly and build infrastructure on a scale that astonished the world.
When I joined the Air Force, I was acutely aware of my lack of knowledge of Indonesia and resolved to put this to rights.
The point I am making is this. If you are Chinese, Indonesian, American or European, you are likely to have a big mental map because, like my grandfather, you are required to know your own country and region. In Singapore, we are too focused on ourselves and neglect the region around us. In fact, we have a tendency to look down on our region, thinking that we are an advanced country. This lack of knowledge about the larger environment in which we live in can be serious weakness.
The university was founded and endowed by Li Ka-shing. He was born in Chaozhou City and, like many Chinese businessmen who made good overseas, he never forgot his roots.
Mr. Li told me once how when he launched a condominium project in Shantou, he decided at the spur of the moment to donate the entire project, without debt, as an endowment to the university.
My regular bak kut teh coffeeshop in Tiong Bahru is run by people from Chao’an, which makes me feel strangely at home there. The Chaoshan region gives the most attention to ancestral temples in all of China. This is intriguing and perhaps a reason why the Teochews are sometimes thought of as being clannish.
In Chaozhou, he got rid of crocodiles which infested a swampy estuary. Apparently, to propitiate them, the local people sometimes sacrificed young girls.
However, my mother was wise in matters of human relations and took a lively interest in international politics. She always felt that the English-educated lacked subtlety of understanding. One of her most biting criticisms of her children was to say that we behaved like babas (male Peranakans), with a straight alimentary canal from the mouth to the other end.
Everyone knew that the rice coolies often poked more holes in the gunny sacks than necessary, so that more rice grains would fall out and be swept up by destitute old ladies.
I remember the houses being tiny but spotless. Malays are house-proud.
My father went on a holiday to the US in the 1950s and was dazzled by how advanced the country was. His ambition was for his children to emigrate to America.
My mother went along but she never enjoyed America. In their winter years, both my parents had a change of heart. My mother, in particular, regretted that so many of her children ended up emigrating there.
As children, our sympathies were with our mother. We did not think father treated her well, but mother would never allow us to criticize him. Her unhappiness with him was between them as husband and wife, she said. We had to respect him as a father.
A cross my parents had to bear was my eldest brother’s schizophrenia.
Identity centers our entire being. A person’s identity is multi-faceted and often subconscious. We are not defined by the present but by our collective past. We are products of cultural, historical and familial influences flowing down generations. They make up the countless lines of code in our operating system when we become adults. Without this software, we are no better than apes.
“Despite our differences, we are one.” The Pope said, no, crossed out the word “despite,” and replaced it with the word “because.” That story was imprinted on my mind. A unity that is not based on diversity was a brittle one. Unity begins with respect for the individual as a unique creation.
What makes us human is the human brain. The human brain is the most complex assembly of atoms in the known universe. What distinguishes us from chimpanzees, with whom we share about 98.5% of our genome is our ability to collectively organize and reorganize. The collective brain of human beings — past and present — has the potential to understand everything, or so we want to think. The more we are able to network past and present brains, the more amazing the collective brain becomes. Each human brain is like a computer. The operating system which connects human brains is culture and civilization.
The use of multiple languages expresses respect for diversity. The Malays have a common saying which means that language is the soul of a race or nation.
I must first know who I am and be comfortable with my own identity. Only then am I able to appreciate others who are different from me. Curiosity begets curiosity. When we deny a person’s identity, they become uptight and angry. When we acknowledge it, they become relaxed and even able to joke about it.
This issue was a hot potato. The more the subject was discussed, the more dissatisfied various groups became. I did not raise the matter with Cabinet because a decision taken there would give me no room for maneuver.
The national motto of the US is E Plubirus Unum (from many, one). The ideal is the US as one great melting pot. The huddled masses who arrive are progressively absorbed. The learn English. The revere the Constitution. They sing the Star-Spangled Banner and wave the flag. It worked for European immigrants who had common roots in Greece, Rome and Judeo-Christianity. African Americans are still not enfranchised despite the Civil War and the civil rights movement. New migrants from Latin America and Asia cling tenaciously to their old cultures.
Historically, the US has been able to re-invent itself again and again. The American experiment is of interest to the entire world. It began as a new creation of Europe. Whether it will be a new creation for the world, no one can be sure. European immigrants who came to America in serried waves took time to fit in. It was only after WW1 that a common white American identity emerged.
Europe, however, is a union more in name than in fact. It is more a confederation than a federation like the US. European states are still not prepared to cede the most critical powers to Brussels. Some Europeans want to establish a separate European army, without which there cannot be a common European foreign policy. This is not likely to happen soon, for it would conflict with the Transatlantic Alliance, which has its strongest expression in the NATO.
India in some ways is more like a civilization than a nation.
There is a “Chinese problem” in Indonesia, as there is in all of Southeast Asia. Though a small minority, ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia play a disproportionate role in the economy and are over-represented among the wealthy. The Thai King Rama VI called them the “Jews of the East.” Like the Jews in Europe, their sense of insecurity made them stronger.
It is not easy to empathize, but we should always try. When we do, they feel they are in us, and we are then in them too. The intensity varies with the relationship. The closer the relationship, the greater the need for empathy.
Singapore should be like a crystal with many facets reflecting the diversity of the world. That is when it sparkles. When we seek homogeneity, when we turn inwards, we stop shining and become a dull stone.
Singapore should strive to be a capital city for all of ASEAN. A Singapore at ease with the diversity of ASEAN will find it at ease with the diversity of the world.
Jesus said that we are judged by how we treat the least among us.
Till today, educated Indians accept matchmaking. Marriage is not just a union of individuals, it is also a union of families. As such, both sides conduct their due diligence. The elaborate rituals also express the seriousness of the undertaking, which is never to be entered into lightly.
Jillianwala Bagh, the site of the Amritsar Massacre, was a stark reminder that the British Empire everywhere was ultimately maintained by violence.
I was surprised one day to read a request from the Indian government asking us to run courses for their joint secretaries. For Mother India to make such a request of little Singapore was significant. Interestingly, China made a similar request in 1979.
India’s caste system is hard for foreigners to understand, but caste consciousness is an inseparable part of India and woven into its politics. Few marriages take place without caste being a consideration.
Following India’s defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the government was determined to build up its military technology and chose a location far from the China border, with the IISc as nucleus. The history of high tech in Bengaluru was thus similar to Silicon Valley, which also began with military research.