Economics Business Music Politics Altruism : 2008

Grandpa Hospitalised

Just got news that my maternal grandpa has just been hospitalised today for possible infection as well as low potassium salt in his blood that is dangerous for his heart. My grandpa has meant a lot to me as he has palyed an influential role in my life when I was young in the following way:

1.He was the person that introduced me to HiFi when I was a little under 10 years old and it is a hobby that I have carried all this while up to now. He would spend much time with me over the weekends to borrow records from the record library and make analogue recordings onto open reel tapes of our favourite songs then and recycle the open reels over and over again. He is also the one that taught me the finer art of appreciating the differential in HiFi sound. I will always be grateful to him for this and I would remember the times that we have together into the little hours of the morning listening to music and HiFi.

2.My organ playing was also because of him. He was the one who bought the organ and got me interested in it. It was also through organ playing that I learn to appreciate music to a larger extent.

3.He has shown me what it is like to live a life of plently materially and fall from grace materially and yet be able to hold his head up high inspite of his economic challenges. He went from being a boss who rides in sports car,living in good districts and hob nobbing with the who's who in town to living in HDB and working for others and riding a humble Honda cab motorbike. He has managed to live with the economic downturn without being bitter at the turn of events in his life and enjoy what he has gracefully. It takes a lot of mental and emotional strength to weather such situations and he did well in my mind.

Although not everyone in the family might agree with my opinion of him, I believe that everyone of us have our strong points and our challenges in life. I would want to learn from his strength and build on it and as far as challenges, we can learn not to repeat them in our own life.

Cheers to you Grandpa (Michael Chan)...Pete

Concerto Pour Une Voix(Two Angels) by Saint-Preux

I used to play this french composition on the organ when I was a teenager and feel in love with it. It has a bit of baroque question and answer as well as neo-classical complexity in some parts but what I love most is how the main and counter melody blend into each other.

This is one of the pieces that until today, I can play almost 90% of the song from memory and considering that it was some 15 years ago that I started playing this piece.

I have been looking around for a decent orchestra recording of this piece but could not find any in Singapore as most of the recordings are vocals and done in pop style without the counter melody and therefore does not do justice to the composer Saint Preux.

Perhaps it is because it is french and might have a limited following in the anglo-saxon influenced part of the world. If you find something interesting on this, drop me a note.

Thanks.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye

Tchaikovsky Symphony No 5 Op 64 -Providence

Tchaikovsky penned this symphony in happier time of his life. It can be interpreted as his gratitude for the providence in his life by a super being. Many music critics opinionated that this symphony is most probably the weakest of his 6 symphonies although it won critical acclaim with the general public.

In literature speak this symphony can be termed as a comedy instead of a tragedy as the 4th movement or the finale ends with a celebratory or triumphant in the nature of a major scale. This symphony has also suffered a middle child syndrome as it as squashed between the beautifully crafted 4th and the mysterious and dark symphony No 6. The symphony does rise to the occasion on its own merit and popularity.

In addition, the symphony makes very good use of transposing the the movements alternating between E minor for the 1st movement, D major for the second movement and A major for the 3rd movement. The fourth movement or the finale has an interesting structure as it starts on E major, transforming itself itself into E minor and ends the symphony on E major. The transposition has been done beautifully especially for the finale as one can hardly hear the transposition unless one pays very lose attention to it. To me this is the brilliance of Tchaikovsky ingenuity as composers normally use transposition to attract attention but Tchaikovsky did it the other way round. In addition, this symphony has its signature melody began in the 1st movement to resonant progressively all the way to the finale.

Leningrad Orchestra has very strong connection to this piece as Tchaikivsky conducted the premiere of this work by conducting the Leningrad Symphony, Perhaps, this could be the reason why this orchestra has always been rated very well for this piece. Another interesting aspect of this piece happened in 1941 and midway through the concert for this piece in Leningrad, the Siege of Leningrad. In the midst of bombs being dropped on the city, the orchestra and conductor stayed on faithfully till the end of this 46 minutes symphony. Perhaps we should add bravery, martyrdom and call to battle,

I have the following recording of this piece as follows in order of my preference:

1.Bernard Haitink Concertgebouw Orchestra. This recording is very listenable but not unique.

2.Mravinsky conducts Leningrad Symphony. Mravinsky is greater interpreter of Tchaikovsky symphonies and what could you ask for anything more as Leningrad Orchestra premiered this piece with the composer as conductor. Sonically not as good as on initial hearing as it was done in MONO but after a few listening, my opinion of MONO recording begin to change.

3.Karajan with Berlin Philmoniker because Karajan is also known to be a Tchaikovsky authority. You cannot fault his technically prudence approach to this piece tempered with a good dose of emotions.

I have acquired another version of this symphony in April 2009 as part of the Chandos 30th anniversary set. It is the well acclaimed performance by Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mariss Jansons. The piece has a good balance between good sonic quality being recorded in 1984 and the brilliance that Mariss Jansons breathe into this Tchaikovsky piece. It is now my facourite.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 Op 74 “Pathetique”-Final Hours

Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 Op 74 “Pathetique”-Final Hours

I have always wondered how would I spend my final hours on mother earth. In any case, it depends whether my departure comes suddenly like in an accident or a heart attack or through a pro-longed terminal illness where there is much fore notice for me to plan it. In the case of Tchaikovsky, he died of Cholera which could be classified as an illness that does not give him much time to plan his final hours. However, scholars stand divided over whether the circumstances surrounding his death could be a masked suicide. This is because at the time of his death, there was a Cholera epidemic and a man of his economic standing and intellectual knew better to take pre-cautions not to drink un-bioled water. The possible motivation for his suicide was noted to be threats to expose his homosexual affairs with some of his students. This provides a fairly strong motivation as Tchaikovsky has tried to mask by homosexuality by a proper marriage which ended disastrously and also resulted in him attempting suicide earlier then.

My reasoning tend to favour the former opinion that he did not take his own life initially as there are much more better ways to commit suicide than to drink un-boiled water but my opinion changed after listening for many times the last symphony he composed before his death nick named “Pathetique” which he himself premiered just nine days before his death. The symphony comes in four movements here is why.

The first movement starts with a dark minor theme and round the middle of this movement, the music tones down to almost a dead silence followed by a rude awakening by a sudden outburst of the timpani. To be, this could be a sign that the composer is trying to explain that he was confronted with something of great impact to his life suddenly.

The second movement is a very very unique in that it is timed in 5/4 which is almost unheard of in classical music but the brillance of Tchaikovsky makes this oddly timed movement very liquid and unless one listen observantly, you will not notice the 5/4 signature like the louder contemporary song Take Five which also share the same 5/4 time signature. This could be the Tchaikovsky trying to mirror his last 'dance' or celebration before his planned departure and being Tchaikovsky, it has to be unique.

The third movement is a march of sort that surprisingly does not contain much evidence of celebratory or triumphant theme like in most marches. To be this could be his own funeral march.

The last movement re-develops the theme started in the first movement and gives it a good finality but in a fairly dark manner like how most tragedy would end. To me it could be remorse on the part of Tchaikovsky that he has to take his own life.

I am neither a music scholar and what I wrote above is a figment of my own imagination and there are no solid ground to base it own but it is a very emotive outlook after listening to the symphony.

I have 4 recordings of Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 and what I wrote is based on these 3 recordings.

1.An awe powering interpretation by Karajan conducting Berlin Philharmoniker.

2.A later recording by Charles Dutoit conducting his lovely Montreal Symphonic Orchestra

3.A sonically good recording because it was done recently by Paavo Jari conducting the Cincinnati Symphonic Orchestra.

4.The ever famous old recording by Evengy Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic recorded in the 1950s. Nothing like having Russians interpret a Russian work.

My vote still goes to Mravinsky version for its very involving interpretation of the work. However, sound wise, do not expect much from a recording done in the 1950s. I would like to listen to Karajan recording of this piece with the Berlin Philharmonic as it has also been rated as a good interpretation and anyone out there that has heard it let me know.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

The US Presidential Elections-A Simple Singaporean Viewpoint

Over the weekend, I had an interesting back and forth email exchange with my close friend who was born in Singapore but had since given up her red identity card for a green card after marrying an American and has been living in Atlanta which is the capital for the southern state of Georgia. Atlanta is also dear to me as it is home to my favourite drink Coke. I must first profess that any racial or religious mentioned in this article is not to accentuate and amplify the racial and religious issues but merely to pen down the state of the union on where such issues stands. I am pro affirmative action in achieving equality along all lines including racial and religious lines.

This state is interesting in that it is both predominantly non-white and part of the bible belt. From reason standpoint, the bible belt tend to belong to the Republican due to their conservative stand especially on being anti-abortion which tend to win them popular votes. Being predominantly non-white, I would reason that racial lines would draw them towards Obama on the Democrats ticket. At the end of the day, the results partially spoke for itself as the state of Georgia went to the Republican candidate. I could read the results in many ways and one of which is that America has grown up in terms of racial equality in that a predominantly non-white state did not vote along racial lines The other way is that religion issues has won the day. A third alternative being that there are other factors that could have affected the results.

Firstly, I was shocked to hear that polling day is NOT a national holiday in the world's champion of democracy. Although I have been to America numerous time, I have always assumed that polling day is a national holiday to allow citizenry enough time and opportunity to vote. I was wrong. Democracy does have a voice and voters have to take time off work on their own private account to vote as not all companies are lucid enough to grant time off for voting. This could be part of the reason why the voter turn out has been fairly poor compared to other democracies around the world. It is either American could not be bothered or there is just too much barrier to the poll station. I was told that some queue up for as long as 3 hours to vote and I salute these brave souls especially in these tough economic season where time away from work might not be too popular. To me it is a resounding mandate for Obama to win by both a large majority and having record voter turn out.

Secondly, it is one rare occasion for a single party of have a clean majority sweep of the presidency, senate and house of congress. Americans, I believe still stand by the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely and this could be one of the reason why it is rare to a single party to have control over the presidency and both houses thereby leaving less check and balance. Another indicator is the freedom to bear arms as citizenry as no government is infallible. Perhaps it is the unprecedented economic backdrop of a looming crisis on a scale and complexity not seen before and therefore, it is better to have a coherent government rather than a balanced and divisive government that could make unpopular but needful policies difficult to carry out. Perhaps it is the stomach that won the day as what the use of being a free but hungry man.

My selection of the State of Georgia is a personal one as I have been there and have a close friend there. My next choice of state is more deliberate; the State of Massachusetts. The capital of this state Boston is very unique town as it has produced the most number of nobel laureates as well as home to many of the country's ivy league schools. I would say that on this count without checking the census, the per capital wealth and income is likely to exceed that of Atlanta. Again this state has defied one norm of the richer generally tend to vote for Republican and one of the reason is that they tend to favour tax cuts which tend to favour the richer more economic wise. This has been shrink wrapped into a popular postulation of Reganomics or supply side economics that has largely gone out of fashion and thought leadership. I salute the voters of Massachusetts for not voting according to their pockets but for a higher calling of the good of America. Perhaps the strong academia population could have an effect on the level of altruism in the voters.

All said and done, my approach is too simplistic to be a viable gauge of the actual current that carried Obama to the White House but the simpleton mind could only process that much of complexity. Lastly, those who are in my inner circle of friends who grew up with me as a student will know who I am talking about in Atlanta. No prizes for the right guess.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter.blogspot.com

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor Op 64-Nov 2008

Mendelssohn wrote two violin concertos at two ends of his career both of which are based on the Minor scale. The first one written at the start of his career is aptly named Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in D Minor which shows traces of his teenage youthful exuberance whilst his final violin concerto is marked by emotional depth and quest for perfection. This is reflected by the fact that Mendelssohn took about 7 years to refine this major work of his that comes in three movements of about 25 minutes in total. The piece starts with a substantial Allegro con fuoco with strong melody lines followed by a leisurely Andante ending with a shorter but definitive finale. The thematic development and evolvement of the signature tune of the first movement progresses well through the three movements into the finale.

This concerto exits in two main forms; the original 1844 version which was autographed by Mendelssohn and dedicated to violinist Ferdinand David and the more modern and familiar version that is more widely played. The two versions is differentiated from each other in terms of tempo, orchestration, solo parts and orchestration mainly. I have a slight preference for the modern form instead of 1844 version as the modern version seems to be more coherent melodically but I must admit that perhaps familiarity bias could be the reason as the 1844 version is not widely recorded.

I have heard the following recordings of this piece:

1.Isabelle van Keulen with Lev Markiz conducting Amsterdam Sinfonietta (BIS)-1844 version

2.Janine Jansen with Riccardo Chailly conducting Gewandhaus Orchestra (Decca). Incidentally, the premiere performance of this piece in 1845 was Ferdinand David accompanied by Gewandhaus Orchestra.

3.Kyung-Wha Chung with Charles Dutoit conducting Montreal Symphony Orchestra. (Decca)

4.Shlomo Mintz with Claudio Abbado conducting Chicago Symphony Orchestra (DG)

5.Yehudi Menuhin with Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos conducting London Symphony Orchestra (EMI)

6.Akiko Suwanai with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Decca)

7.Ruggiero Ricci with Pierino Gamba conducting London Symphonic Orchestra (Decca)

8.Pinchas Zukerman with Pinchase Zukerman conducting St Paul Chamber Orchestra(DECCA)

Of the seven recordings listed above, my vote goes to the version by Janine Jansen as it has a good balance between good playing and great sound as it is a relatively newer recording that benefited from newer recording technology. The version by Yehudi Menuhin is an old EMI recording so sonically, it is not so great but this recording has one of the best solo playing by Yehudi Menuhin but there seems to be a tension between the soloist and the orchestra vying for the limelight. The version by Kyung-Wha Chung with Charles Dutoit conducting Montreal Symphony Orchestra is a coherent recording with very good chemistry between soloist and orchestra and this could be due to the fact that Kyung-Wha Chung has been bedfellows with Charles Dutoit and Montreal in a number of recordings and performance and so is more familiar with each other.

You be your own judge and let me know what you think.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter.blogspot.com

Lehman Brothers Afterthought - Peter Lye 11 Oct 2008

Lehman Brothers Afterthought - Peter Lye 11 Oct 2008 - lkypeter.blogspot.com

On September 28, I wrote an article on whether the financial meltdown and concluded that it was mainly a regulatory failure. I would like to further this cause by examining some the of events in the past that could have contributed to the melt down and whether there was possibility in averting this crisis by having the right party make the break glass warning soon enough. I am a free market proponent and have Milton Freeman and Alan Greenspan as gentlemen for which I admire much for their thoughts and actions in their professional space. However, the unfolding of the recent events has lead me to re-think on the sufficiency and adequacy of the free market system in all things sundry and how then do we decide what should or should not come under heavier scrutiny and control. I can still remember vividly that Milton Freeman said that the best thing that the government can help the economy is by staying out of it in his book Free to Choose.I am not proposing a communistic state of affairs but that our free market system near perfect but not perfect and might need some fundamental adjustment for it to be relevant in the coming centuries.

One thing that occupies my mind these couple of weeks is Lehman Brothers and whether the ensuing action and in action might have contributed to the crisis. The American government stand on not being held hostage because a bank is to big to fail is a good policy to hold onto as it can set the wrong precedent and cause a larger breakdown of our financial systems. The various financial melt downs in the past has indeed shown that some of these institutions are too big to fail with wide ranging ramifications on the public at large but we must never never yield to this as the equity of the entire rescue no matter how hard we try will be very very inequitable to the population at large.

The Lehman collapse have a few special ramifications that could have contributed to the credit crunch as follows:

1.AIG is on of the major originators of credit default swaps that is estimated to run into the trillions based on its par value but AIG actual exposure could be a fraction of it. In this case, it is anxiety of how big this fraction is that can kill the market system of trust.

2.These credit default swaps does not have an orderly clearing house to ensure that trades are properly settled and this brings to bear that most of these are bilateral contracts that are kept out of the purview of the public especially on exposure to such instruments. Therefore, we can get current situation of trust no one leading to a credit squeeze. Although the central banks have done a great job in bring down their respective discount rates and windows and through open market operations to re-purchased their own sovereign bonds to increase the money supply. However, both of these are not working as we witness the normal con-tango relationship between discount rates and inter bank rates going in almost opposite directions. The LIOBR overnight, and shorter term 1 -3 months rates has sky rocketed in-spite of lowering of the discount rates. My explanation for this gap is not a case of simple demand and supply but that the counter-party risks has increased tremendously and the differential to a large extend represent this risk premium. No banks are saying they are not exposed neither are they saying they are. So the free market makes a guess and this is reflected in the risk premium it tags on them.

3.It is bad enough that the credit default swaps does not have a clearing house, to add injury to the whole episode, neither does it have a formal exchange either so that the prices are open and there is a fairer valuation of the instruments. Price disclosure is also not as transparent in exchange traded instruments. Price opacity does not help in these times as well.

Given the situation above having the benefit of a rear view mirror that the policy makers largely did not have, would I have recommended a rescue of Lehman instead of letting nature takes its course into bankruptcy? The answer is a resounding no to the rescue as it would create too much of a precedent. We are now eating the bitter pill of its consequence but the market will heal in time as these instruments are de-leveraged in due course and we can then separate the wolves in sheep clothing from the sheep and get rid of them again with some more pain before the market reaches some equilibrium.

In 1993, the much respected Alan Greenspan went before the US Congress to testify that in his capacity as chairman of the Fed that the government should leave the credit derivative market to its own devices as serves to transfer risk from those who cannot afford to carry it to those are willing to take the risk for a price. I do not think that Greenspan was wrong in the second instance but I am not so sure about the first instance of leaving the credit derivates market to its own device. We should not throw away the baby away together with the bath water. Credit derivates does have a role to play in risk transference however as it grows to such proportions, we should perhaps consider having an exchange to improve transparency and also a clearing house whereby trades can be cleared in an orderly fashion and prevent a bubble effect.

Last but not least, we have to decide how the credit rating agencies which have tremendous market and pricing power in ensuring their fair and proper participation in the market. It cannot be like the stock analyst in the stock market as their pens are much much more powerful than that of the stock analyst.

I do not have all the answers or even part of it but write this with a view that encourages communal participation in shaping our children's future as ours might already be too late as these reform takes time to materialize.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter.blogspot.com

The US Financial Meltdown: A sign of systemic failure of the capitalistic system? Peter Lye-28 September 2008

As the financial crisis unfolds itself over the last 14 months starting with the sub-prime mortgage crisis and cumulating to the recent almost complete annihilation of the once mighty investment banking community with Merrill Lynch selling itself out to Bank of America that once vowed never to step into this arena of banking, Lehman Brothers folding into chapter 11 bankruptcy and the last two remaining pillars

of the industry, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs giving up the freedom under investment banking into the regulatory arms of the Feds by metamorphosing itself into a bank holding company to tap a larger source of funds not available to them as investment banks. The need to separate investment bank into separate entity was created by the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 partly to prevent a conflict of interest from arising between the differing activities as well as to protect the smaller depositors from the relatively higher risk propensity of investment banks. Has this act served its purpose in the light of today’s crisis or has it helped to provide the fertile environment for brewing this crisis by exchanging greater business latitude with narrower source of funding? Are there lessons that we should have learnt from the hedge fund crisis in its handling of derivative instruments that resulted in the frightful demise of LTCM and a near panic in the financial markets then? Are all these a sign of systemic failure of our capitalistic system and deludes a trumpet call for shift in course away from capitalism or a major re-engineering of what defines capitalism for it to function healthily as no system is perfect?

The Glass-Steagall act of 1993 was enacted to prevent private banks whose main activities is investment business from owning deposit taking banks and thereby protect the depositors from being exposed to the more risky stance of investment banks. It also sets out to limit the type of related transactions that can be done between bank holding companies and investment bank to plug potential loop holes from being exploited. This was how most of the investment banks ended up as private entities until the recent decade or so which witness many of them going public to tap a larger source of capital. The last major investment bank to go public was Goldman Sachs amidst much fun fare on its stock market debut. This has the effect regulatory wise in placing these publicly traded investment banks initially from the Feds to full autonomy following the Glass-Steagall act and onto the arms of the SEC on their debut on the stock market. What dimension does regulation have on the behavior of these entities?

First of all, in my mind, regulation is like all things in life besides death and taxes for there is no absolute surety. The business arena is like the battle field that soldiers fight on. We can and must expect casualties. However, there must be enough safeguards in place to prevent catastrophic events like the 2 nuclear events that resulted in systemic wide failures or its financial parallel of the massive run on banks leading to a near collapse of the banking system in 1930s. Regulation is there to provide a framework to facilitate the business of risk taking and equitable risk reward for market participants.

Secondly, regulation is there to ensure an acceptable level of market transparency to facilitate business transaction. Chief amongst these is perfect price information as the Holy Grail underlying the capitalistic system. Even in today’s advancement in telecommunication that enables almost instantaneous dissemination of information worldwide, total transparency is still very much like a mirage in the desert; it seems to be there but it is not there. Some of the impediments to total transparency are product and supplier/customer differentiation, sufficient market liquidity in terms of having sufficient market participants in the product, human behavior and regulation itself which sometimes impedes transparency in the interest of achieving it by narrowing the conduits by which information can be released. Human behaviors like insider trading and market cornering is very anti-thematic to fair play and there are legislation in place to discourage such behavior by punitive measures when caught including jail time and leveling discovery and prosecution process through things like burden of proof, and rule of evidence as such crimes are not only difficult to discover but also difficult to proof beyond reasonable doubt as the gold standard required by our legislative framework. There is an ongoing joke that an acquittal does not equal innocence but that there is insufficiency evidence to proof guiltiness beyond reasonable doubt.

Thirdly, regulation is there to provide orderly clearance of trades executed in the market. This is done differently to suit the differing markets. On one end of the spectrum we have exchange traded products like stock and shares to provide almost perfect certainty in trade completion and payment without any concern about counterparty risks as the exchange and clearing house sort of provides the buffers. At mid-point where most physical trades take place, we have non-exchange traded products that uses currency as a value proxy of the product exchanged for. Stability of currency exchange rates and a good legal framework for dispute resolution is important to create market certainty. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the age old barter trade that does not involving any currency. A poignant observation about this financial meltdown is a partial breakdown of the trade execution resulting in a very fast downward price spiral of unprecedented velocity as most of these instruments are not even cleared through an exchange and ability to complete the trades is dependant on perception of counterparty risks one of the major factor in selectivity over counterparty and thereby narrowing the market and price in the process. We should re-examine whether an exchange should be setup for some of the instruments that are traded on a bilateral basis to avoid a repeat of such incidence.

Fourthly, although much has been argued about governmental rescue plans like the US$700 billion dollar life line proposed by US Treasury Secretary Paul Hanson and seconded by Fed chief Ben Bernake could create a wrong precedent in the future for companies that view themselves as being too big to fail like banks and insurance companies from behaving responsibly, I believe that the rescue is not likely to perpetuate such behavior if done with enough punitive measures on current owners and managers. However, I do have a concern over the equity of such a life line as it tend to favor the richer who has reaped the benefits and now want someone to help pay for their loses. This could be an inevitable situation as a collapse of the economy will inadvertently affect the poorer sector of the population. As to who would ultimately shoulder the cost of the lifeline, in the case of the USA, I believe that it is more likely to be under written by almost everyone world wide as the direct or in-direct holding in the dollar is so widespread that US will be tempted to monetized the debt in more ways than one. You could argue that you do not hold any US$ but whichever currency you are holding, your central bank is likely hold part of their reserves in US$ to back the currency. We are lucky that in the past decade of so, we have an additional reserve currency in the form of the Euro which is less open to manipulation being controlled by many financial secretaries within EEC.

I tend to conclude therefore that the recent ongoing financial meltdown is more of a regulatory failure than a failure of the capitalistic system and therefore it is not time to resurrect the Berlin wall as such.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter

Societal Equity, Mobility, Meritocracy and The Population Question: A Singaporean Perspective

I must begin this note with what it means to be a Singaporean. I am born and bred in Singapore but I do get questions about my nationality now and then and I wonder why. Perhaps it is my mannerism, intonation of my speech or some strange gene in me. This has set me thinking about what defines being Singaporean means to me and the populace at large.

I grew up in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) housing for most part of my life like about 80% of the population. HDB is government subsidized housing which is made affordable by the government through a series of selective grants ( based on a range of factors like income, marital status, family size etc and a clever structuring to funnel part of personal retirement fund called Central Provident Fund (CPF) to pay for part of it. Actually, it can be generally safe to say that the 80% that live in HDB in Singapore is mostly in the bottom portion of the 80% of the population. The 20% that does not live in HDB are generally and mostly the richer lot who can afford private housing or the destitute that live everywhere on the other end of the spectrum.

I am also a Chinese race wise but has been labeled openly by my Chinese teacher as a yellow banana that is yellow ( Chinese generally have a yellowish tone to their skin colour) on the outside and white on the inside meaning Anglo Saxon in orientation. I actually do not blame them at all for doing so as I have had occasions during my late teens of not only scoring terribly in my Chinese language tests like in the range of 10 to 20 marks out of a perfect score of 100. To add injury to it, there was once where I scored 11 /100 and wrote my Chinese name wrongly on the test script. When the teacher scolded me in front of the entire class, there wasn't even a shred of remorse in me as the whole class broke out in laughter and I found it hilarious as well. He told me that I ought to be absolutely ashamed of not being able to write my own Chinese name correctly at 15 years old but I could not stop laughing with the rest of the class. I tried to explain to my Chinese teacher that I am far from being a yellow banana but am very Chinese in my outlook and love and appreciate Chinese culture, history and music having acquired these by reading about them from books about Chinese culture written in English. Language of music is very universal anyway. I also challenged him that a good handle or weak handle of the language does not necessarily equal to ignorance or dis-taste of the culture.

I just have a mental block when it came to working with block wordings of the Chinese language and was more in tune with the Romanic letter of the English language. I am not ignoring the fact that language, culture and politics are deeply inter-twined but the relationship is more complex than a simple contingo parallel. Anyway, I only need to convince myself and did not feel the need to justify to those around me about my orientation or the seeming lack of it where the Chinese language is concerned.

The deal breaker came when the academic results were out for the year and my Chinese language teacher was my form ( mentor ) teacher. I was fourth in class overall but I scored 35/100 for Chinese. I was accorded the honor of being personally invited to his office for a preview of my results before it was made public to all. He asked me a trying question on how he should fill out the form teacher comments. I told him that I would rather have his opinion of me in the raw be it positive or negative and he thought that was a dis-respectful and cheeky response but I looked him straight in the eyes that I meant it. He asked me if I had purposely failed his subject out of spite as I had shown promising results in almost all other subjects. I told him respectfully and factually that it was an improvement as my earlier score for Chinese language was 11/100 and he did not take that very well. A form teacher comment of something very factual that I have done well generally but have to work harder on my Chinese sounds reasonable. I left his office feeling happy that I have done well as I could not be bothered about my Chinese language performance at all. I have given up long ago and was prepared to face the prospect that a University education in Singapore was near impossible as passing Chinese language or your mother tongue was a pre-requisite for entrance into University then but the ruling has since been changed. I did feel bitter about it initially on a personal front and thought that the government could afford a wider spectrum of measurement on University entrance but was prepared to pay the price since I have made a conscious decision to not to pass the Chinese language and there was enough forewarning on this for me not to feel victimized although such feelings do run through me at times. Anyway, I secured a polytechnic education and thereafter went through some trouble to get to University without any remorse and all smiles.

I think I qualify to brand myself a Singaporean Chinese and proud to be a son of Singapore.

Of late, there has been very livid debate in our otherwise morsel reporting on Singapore matters in our media on the topic of equity, mobility, meritocracy and our population or the forthcoming lack of it in our society. This got me very interested as I was on the verge of ending my subscription to the our english language daily newspaper called the Straits Times as a means of dealing with inflation to fuel my Coke habit. Some say I have a blood type of neither A,B,AB or O but C for Coke.

Firstly on societal equity. Here, I do not think in terms of the simplistic far left communist or the far right capitalist or the undecided socialist. I believe that the concept is far more mutli-dimensional to be measured along a single continuum.

It is my belief that first of all, it is both a macro viewpoint and collectively measures effort/reward outcomes. On a personal level, it is the level of justice, compassion and humanity that exists in the deep recesses of our being that propels us to equalize it. So what does all these means?

Chief amongst them are justice, compassion and firm belief that all men should be born equal although experientially, it seems otherwise. The key operative is should and therefore a need for going beyond birth rights to have in place mechanisms to make the playing field more just and level for all. The less endowed generally have a stronger motivation to overcome their inherited disadvantages. The privileged might in some instance have an equally strong motivation to maintain their lead save for the altruistic ones who would lobby for better societal justice or equity mostly out of their generosity and philanthropic bias.

Last but not least, the politicians are also very mindful that one level of wealth for all as in the communist system nor the large rich/poor gap that the capitalistic system tend to produce will do. There has to be some equalization that has to be done to narrow the rich/poor gap as it tend to create cracks in the society that could make way for widespread revolutions that could cripple a society. This is my starting point for societal equity in my limited intellectual brilliance. It is not meant to be comprehensive but serve as a macro shot into important and defining parts of the picture.

Social mobility is a great dream maker for the under dog in a society to propel forward and can be a nightmare for the elite not to regress from their high point. I have learnt very early that the concept of wealth and poverty are at times a relative concept rather than a absolute one. For example, a person that has started the race with little living in a poor neighborhood would start to feel very elated as his material dimension improves while still staying in the poor neighborhood but with relatively better house fittings, clothes, food compared to his neighbors. However, should he elect to move to a richer neighborhood for which he has marginally afforded to purchase with a slew of loan instruments that could leave him cash strapped, the feeling could be different. In this new surrounding, he is not likely to ace the neighborhood in terms of material well being as he is now a new entrant to this class and most probably at the bottom of the pecking order of this neighborhood. There could be a sense of regressive feeling wealth/poverty wise which is largely relative rather than absolute in nature.

Meritocracy is a very noble and just concept in that it pre-supposes no bias whatsoever but pure and blind pursuit of it could result in the opposite. Entrance census of students in ivy league schools that largely operate on a meritocratic basis have proven that a disproportionally large part of the students are from family with better background as indicated by things like income, housing district, paternal/maternal education level etc compared to the general mix of such factors in the general population. Why is this so? Some frame the debate along the lines or nature ( meaning better genes ) or nurture ( better upbringing ). No matter what the reason be it nature or nurture, a dichotomy has happen in terms of ill matching profile. Some recommend affirmative action to keep things in check. I have no easy answers and give it some thought and you be your own judge.

The last topic pertains to breeding or population or the the lack of it as our birth rate goes into deep dive from a population replacement ratio of 2.1. A whole slew of economic incentives have been dished out by the government to encourage pro-creation. However, if we examine the package as a whole, there seems to be some form of selective breeding in terms of better incentives directed at certain quarters of society. In the name of equity and diversity, I feel strongly that we should remove all such bias for possible selective breeding. The magic of human kind lies partially in its diversity and this could be why incest is an almost universally pungent and criminal act.

Peter Lye aka lkypeter