A stable mouth

I went to the dentist this morning and after running through my mouth he commented: "looks good, you have a stable mouth". While he was doing his thing, I was thinking if he could see traces of oral activities that I sometimes perform, any dentist reading this please let me know. I have had the same dentist since 1988 - he is my age and we basically are getting older together and most times when he asks "how are you" I reply: "well, six months younger than last time".
The comment about the stable mouth came back to me when I read a link that CO posted on Facebook about a new acronym: the Tired's . The article is about young professionals who have their mid-life crisis in their early 30's, "The mid-life crisis is coming earlier and to a broader range of professional people. Once it was the overworked bankers aged 45-50 but now it is happening to lawyers, journalists, teachers and doctors in their 30s"
The two things ("stable mouth" and "mid-life crisis") put together made me reflect on my life: I have (so far) never been down enough to have a mid-life crisis but on the other hand my life is rather stable now - not many really new experiences or adventures. Some friends of mine are adopting babies, making radical career changes, are experimenting with all kinds of drugs, are turning monogamous overnight or are doing other strange things, perhaps I should make an effort to also do something radically new?
Stamp collecting, anyone?

Nick and Simon

When i was cycling home last week I suddenly heard a lot of girls screaming so I asked someone what was happening. He said "Nick and Simon are performing here tonight" and I thought to myself "who the heck are Nick and Simon". Turns out they are two young musicians who are very popular with the teenage girls, and ofcourse I had never heard about them...... I went to the concert that night and I must say they did a good job and one of them is quite cute. See for yourself.

OMG: my former boss in the PAP propaganda team

In the Straits Times today: a letter by my former boss who I always thought as a reasonable man......well, apparently he has decided he needs to be elbow-deep with the Sing government......

SINGAPORE may introduce legislation requiring employers to allow part-time work, and carry the cost. As a Dutch citizen whose country has such laws, may I sound a word of caution?

Singapore has built a successful economy partly by holding people responsible for their choices while supporting the needy. In many Western economies, people push the consequences of their decisions on work-life balance, family size and the like to other citizens via welfare, unemployment benefits, childcare subsidies, long paid holidays, long maternity leave and part-time employment. Labour becomes expensive and inflexible. The associated high tax rates remove the incentive to work hard and take risk.

Singapore cannot afford to fall into this welfare trap. It would lose its competitive position both as supplier of goods and services as well as employer of world-class talent.

Putting the burden on employers is unfair. Having children is a personal decision. As part of the national birth rate, it is perhaps a topic of public policy. But never is an employer more than an innocent bystander.

Therefore, if the workplace becomes an instrument of public policy, the cost should be borne by the Government. That cost is considerable: Capital (machinery, office space) is used less efficiently if tasks are shared between staff.

Another cost is lower flexibility of part-timers. People work part-time because they have other commitments they either must or want to honour.

To have sufficient capacity, an employer will need more full-time employees when using part-timers, as opposed to asking full-timers to work longer sometimes and take time off later as compensation.

Finally, why seek higher birth rates as the reason? The world population is already too large. Global warming, food shortages and pollution are problems partly caused by population pressure. Ageing populations are not an evil to be battled. They are an unavoidable adjustment process to reduce the world population.

Take Singapore. A population of almost five million is already an ambitious target. What is the purpose of making a large part of the population semi-redundant so they can grow the population, mainly to grow an economy which we have first shrunk by allowing people to work part-time?

A smaller number of fully employed people must be the better option.

Wilfred Frederik Nagel

Filial piety

I was procrastinating at work today, and surfing randomly when I remembered expatsingapore.com where I sometimes hung out before and during the early days of my time in Singapore. I stumbled upon this post and started thinking about the difference between Western and Asian relationships between parents and children.

Quote:
I am Chinese but have never really embraced my culture. Having lived abroad and now in a relationship with a Western man and having friends from all over the world, I am no longer fully in touch with the Chinese values.

I am getting married soon and recently I had a quarrel with my mother because she was upset that I hadn't thought about booking accomodation for the entire family for the wedding (my family live in Malaysia). I would have paid anyway but because I didn't want to create an expectation, I wasn't going to say anything until the bill was presented.

She then brought up the fact that I had never given my parents a cent despite the fact that I "earn so much". (Conveniently forgetting the expensive presents when I visit (admittedly not often) and me giving her every single cent in my savings account after taking out only enough money to cover living expenses for a few weeks when I decided to move abroad for work. And she reminded me that so and so booked the entire resort for their family when they got married....

I am upset of course with her implying that I was an ungrateful daughter but I'd like to find out whether I have broken a tradition or failed an obligation - and whether this would apply in a Western as well as an Eastern culture.

Frankly, my fiance's parents would never have expected us to pay for them to come and they are flying in from Europe and they even offered to contribute towards the wedding expenses, but we said that there was no need although we were grateful for the offer. They are a lot less well-off than my parents. But then again, maybe they are an exception rather than the norm...
Unquote

My first reaction was that the poster's mother is a terrible bitch, however reading the other posts in the thread I remembered the differences between Western and Asian parents, and the concept of filial piety that is so important in Asian (especially Chinese) culture. In somewhat general terms, filial piety means to be good to one's parents; to take care of one's parents; to engage in good conduct not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one's parents and ancestors; to perform the duties of one's job well so as to obtain the material means to support parents as well as carry out sacrifices to the ancestors; not be rebellious; show love, respect and support;display courtesy; ensure male heirs, uphold fraternity among brothers; wisely advise one's parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness; display sorrow for their sickness and death; and carry out sacrifices after their death.

I also remembered that my friend ED is thinking about getting a girlfriend; and AR has recently proposed to his girlfriend - even though they are as gay as Elton John. I suspect (no, I know) the influence of the parents is definitely there.

I am not going to judge them, or others when they act according to what apparently is such a strong culture influence.

My mom and stepdad were here this weekend and I spent two full days of "quality time" with them. They accept me for what I am, and for that I love them and will always treasure my time with them, as long as they live. Money doesn't come into the equation - my parents had my brothers and me because they wanted to have children, not as some kind of pension fund for their future.

Again, I do not judge other systems, but in my cultural context I am glad I was born in the Western system.

Cycling weekend and 50th birthday party

The annual cycling weekend took RE and myself along the banks of the River Rhine to Düsseldorf. The weather was perfect for cycling and as usual we had a good time. Düsseldorf turned out to be a very nice city with lots of good modern architecture, and nice people as it is the fashion and media capital of Germany. Here is a picture of the morning sun on the Rhine near Xanten.
Yesterday HE celebrated his 50th birthday (the first to turn 50 of the core members of the gang). It was a good party and even though is was Tuesday we all drank too much. I vaguely remember chatting up a very cute, drunk, young Italian tourist who was agressively taken from the scene by his angry and jealous girlfriend.

A missed opportunity

I was having a good time at JI's party last Saturday when CA suddenly called me over and said "there is someone here who wants to meet you". A cute young Asian guy smiled and said "don't you remember me?" and to be honest I had to think long and hard...his face looked familiar but I couldn't immediately "place" him. Turns out it is GA - someone I worked with when I was at XYZ Bank in Singapore - he did a small project for me at the time and we met just a few times at work. I never knew that he was gay and suddenly 4 years later we meet at a party in Amsterdam. He now works for XYZ Bank in Amsterdam, and I was also introduced to his bf. As MA said: another missed opportunity.

The curious life of Ferdi E.

The news this country talked about today was the death (in a traffic accident) of Ferdi E. The man became famous in 1988 when he admitted the kidnapping and murder of business man Gerrit-Jan Heijn, brother of supermarket magnate Albert Heijn whose family owns the shops where most of the country do their daily grocery shopping. In late 1988, Ferdi E was sentenced to 20 years in prison and psychiatric treatment. He was declared "no danger to society" and released on parole in 2001.
At the time he committed his crime in 1987, he was enjoying a disability social security payment. This payment was stopped when he was sentenced guilty. However, according to the laws valid in 1987/8, the social security payment should not have been stopped. Some clever lawyers offered Ferdi E assistance to get his rights, and the courts awarded him € 350,000 in arrears payments. Even here, this raised a storm and the law was changed so that prisoners could not keep their social security payments and leave prison as a rich man. But Ferdi E got to keep his money and bought a nice villa in a village in the East.
Today Gerrit Jan Heijn's widow, Hank Heijn, offered her condolences to her husband's murderer's family, saying "it is always sad when a widow has to miss her partner, and children their father. This is true for Ferdi E's family as well." She is the hero of this story.