“The irony of Singapore is that the authentic bits

that are left — eg Clarke Quay and parts of Chinatown — feel like

they were actually created by Disney.”

- Andrew Wood, 2007.

Straits Times columnist Andy Ho’s article “Seoul cool to copy?” caught my eye just as I was leaving to school yesterday. And I couldn’t help but give it a quick read before I zipped out of the house. Ho seems to argue that culture of a country can be created and is not entirely reliant on the donkey-years of tradition or history that a country has. It’s an intriguing read – one that I’m quite sure some of our interviewees won’t agree. Tradition still seems to be that element that roots them back to Singapore, or at least Asia.

I wonder what will be the test of Ho’s argument?

For now, it seems that it is tradition that roots overseas Singaporeans back home. Not culture. Quite frankly, I don’t even know what culture is there is for Singapore to talk about. Five-foot ways, childhood memories, Cathay building, Char Kuay Teow: those are words that Returning Singaporeans bring up. I think that’s tradition, not some newly constructed culture.

Even if culture were to be constructed, surely it needs a starting point. Where does Singapore start? From Tomorrow or from tradition? Even Korea’s drama serials consist of its tradition – think Yi San – King Jeong Jo, The King and I, Da Jang Geum. What it seems to me is that Korea has created a very marketable culture, but surely it has not lost its tradition. I can’t really recall when was it we had a drama about our tradition. Price of Peace? But it’s a serial I remember the very clearly though. I loved it.

I do think we need a culture badly. But what sort needs to be more closely examined. Do we want a culture of coolness like Seoul, as Ho asserts? Or do we want something that roots us home? It is an important factor to consider, I think, to draw Singaporeans back. It builds a sense of, maybe not so much patriotism, but at least one of belonging. I wonder if Korea has lost its soul in trying to propagate this new funky culture it has? With its hundreds of years of history, I think people still embrace tradition. Singapore but only has 40 over years of nation building history, we’ve not even hit mid-life crisis yet, or have we?

Ho’s article can be found here.

CREATING A SINGAPORE WAVE

Seoul cool to copy?

Andy Ho

Even so, that is just food, a female colleague protested. Look how naturally romantic South Koreans are in their TV serials, which is far different from our humdrum selves.

But according to Dongguk University culturalist Kwon Boduerae, it was only around 1905 that the term for romantic love between a man and a woman – yeonae, the Korean pronunciation for lien ai in Chinese script – would even have appeared. It then needed more time to become socially valorised.

Of course, there were always romantic relationships, but these were seen as being harmful to social order: Whereas in (the Korean pronunciation of ren or benevolence in Chinese script) at the centre of Confucian order was something that could be generalised to others, passionate love was too narrow, too selfish. Thus, back then, even romance novels would moralise about its negative results. It would take a drama in three acts for yeonae to become cast in a positive light.

Act I was the introduction of a religion advocating love – Protestant Christianity. Its converts were seen to treat one another as brothers and sisters without class distinction, and Western nations were perceived to be strong and wealthy because, it was thought, they strove for the public good through their practice of Christian love and equality.

Thus, by the first decade of the 20th century, the idea of love had found public acceptance – but only as love for country, not romantic love.

Act II came in 1910 when Japan colonised the Korean peninsula, which would shatter the monarchy. Deprived of economic and political rights, the collective identity as gungmin, or citizen, became considerably attenuated. In its place, an alternative understanding of what it meant to be human began to emerge among the young.

People began to see themselves as psychological beings – individuals who made their own choices according to their own preferences rather than being faceless, replaceable units making up an unchangeable social structure that served some universal (Confucian) ideal.

Fortuitously, at this time, the works of a radically liberal Swedish feminist writer and suffragist, Ellen Key (1849 – 1926), were becoming well known. Act III came by way of her advanced ideas about love, marriage and the child-centred family which she propounded in her books: The Century Of The Child (1909); Love And Marriage (1911); The Woman Movement (1912); and The Younger Generation (1914).

Her ideas found fertile ground in the post-World War I turmoil for reception among Korean youth who latched on to and worshipped her. Arguing that love was the highest social principle, that people could only be happy through love, and only happy people made for a great nation, personal happiness was made coextensive with the public good.

It was through this logic that yeonae finally became socially acceptable. Thus the Koreans were not always the floridly romantic folk we now suppose them to be.

So if it is not about how long our history might be, we must ask how the marketing of Korean popular culture became such a success story. Yonsei University anthropologist Cho Hae Joang argued that it was fundamentally global capitalism – with its unprecedented mobility of capital, technology, ideas and images across borders – that prepared viewers in Asia to identify with South Korean stars so ardently.

Just as the United States has been promoting (the appurtenances of) capitalism through Hollywood movies since the mid-1950s, she said, the Korean culture industry is accomplishing the same thing in Asia today.

Presented as the icons of a modern and up-market lifestyle, the hunks of Korean drama are perceived to be uber-cool while their celluloid heroines redefine Asian femininity. And global capitalism has given rise to affluent, urban, middle-class youths in Asia, many of whom – no longer enamoured of Western trends – choose these Korean icons as culturally closer products that are somewhat more familiar.

In particular, a rapidly modernising post-Tiananmen China provided a huge and ready market. (For many in China, say, the Japanese alternative may be a non-starter given the country’s record of wartime atrocities in Asia, Prof Cho opined.)

While TV serials and movies are the medium by which Korean popular culture now circulates widely in Asia, many a culture commentator continues to trivialise their impact on people’s lives. Yet much research confirms that they lead many middle-class Asians (especially women) to engage in serious historical reflection, Prof Cho told me.

That is, watching television serials and movies is not the trivial pursuit of powerless folk. Rather, it represents the common consumption of popular culture that shapes the contours of public opinion in a pan-Asian community.

If so, Mr Schwartz’s proposal may have considerable merit. However, Prof Cho cautioned, young, energised entrepreneurs – like singer Stephanie Sun – empowered to market local pop culture across borders must take the lead, not governments.

But, of course, in the broader scope of things, this might only be a mere detail.

It’s a date that no one in this generation will forget. Sept. 11. It’s a date that changed the lives of many, including many of those we have been interviewing for this project. It’s hard to believe some Singaporeans were actually so close to the tragedy. It’s been facinating talking to them. Others have been affected by the ripples the attack caused.

If there’s one thing good that came out from that day is that it made many rethink about life, and perhaps just as important, rethink about home. It did drive two of our interviewees back to Singapore. Among them is Amy Hwang, who had been doing summer school in Boston that year. Recalling the incident over coffee today, she told us that she should have been on the flight – United Airlines Flight 175 – from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International. She had been planning to visit a good friend in LA after finishing summer school.

For some reason, her seat on that flight scheduled for the 11th of September was cancelled. “My seat just magically got cancelled,” she exclaimed. “I just couldnt find that same flight again. Instead of leaving on the 11th I had to leave on the 10th.”

Scared “chicken shit” for the next couple of weeks, Amy found herself unable to sleep with the lights off.

“It changed my perspective. Everything could have just ended there and then,” she said. “Thats when I came back. After that happened I didn’t think I want to go back. i just wanted to go home.”

She recalls being frightened by the sligtest bit of turbulence on her flight back from LA to Singapore. “I had a really bad reaction when I was flying back… after that you just didn’t want to get on the plane,” she said. “My mum said come back, come back.”

Just to put things into perspective, Amy’s one of those who has tried to relocate back to Singapore three times now. Each time finding herself unable to truly adapt back to the Singapore way of life. She’s tells us that she’s back to pay her dues, to her parents.

Sept. 11, she said, triggered that.

Today – she did return to Australia in 2002 to 2005 to help out in the family business – she’s back in Singapore to complete the family. It’s been a long time since her mum had her four kids together in the same country.

“My dad is in his 60s and I want to be around them. You don’t know what will happen,” she said. Despite being unable to quite settle down, “it doesnt kill me,” she said.

“So I try to get out of Singapore every quarter. Everytime I get out and come back, I find I can stay abit longer.”

What about Singapore do you miss most when you’re overseas?

It’s a question we have asked many of our interviewees while working on this project. I decided to turn the question to fellow project mate Gracia Chiang, who spent 5 months in San Diego, USA for an exchange program under NTU. “I missed my family and friends. So I didn’t really miss the life in Singapore much,” she told me. “But it was mainly the place I used to go, and the company of my friends and family.” Here is a 5-minute podcast of the conversation we had.

Reflecting on it later, I think I share the same sentiments. I truly missed my family and friends when I was on exchange too. It didn’t help that I was the only Singaporean exchange student in Missouri. I’m not sure if I can put a finger to why I didn’t really miss Singapore. I know I’m Singaporean, but I’m not sure what I can hold on to that makes me Singaporean.

It’s a problem 56-year-old Josephine Chia feels very strongly too. She suggested that it’s because we younger Singaporeans have lost our sense of belonging and identity. “I see young people as in between worlds,” she tells me at an interview. “You’re in between the Asian and Western world, you’re not true Asian, but you’re not true Western. That is the problem.”

Her words are not surprising, and I think they correctly reflect the current situation today. What are we?

What’s different between us – the younger generation – and Josephine is that she can say that she’s Singaporean with real conviction. The irony of it all, she is a British citizen. Having left Singapore some 20 years ago to follow her husband back to England, she had to renounce her Singapore citizenship. But all the while in England, she’s never lost her “Singaporea-ness”, the peranakan says. She keeps them locked not only in her mind, but also in the award-winning books that she writes.

“I find that when I write, my life in Singapore comes out,” she says. “And I think your childhood days or even up to the teenage years are the important ones you will remember, no matter where you are in the world.”

I’m not sure if my childhood reminds me that I’m Singapore. I guess for people like her, in that generation, feel more so because they were truly the part of Singapore’s nation-building generation. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that I am part of nation building. No one told me so, and I wasn’t brought up to think so.

Josephine also gives talks about colonial Singapore to Britons in schools and public libraries.
“They love listening to the old traditions which I said I would more than like to talk about because I think they form part of your culture. So if I say to you now, what does it mean to be a Singaporean? Food courts?” she said. “I think that should come from the learning of your own culture whether you are Chinese or Malay, that there are certain cultural things that you should know from young, so it’s part of you, so that even if you live in the United States for the next 100 years, you will still feel that you are Singaporean.”

Is that our fault that we don’t feel Singaporean through and through, I asked.

Josephine caught me on my defense mode and quickly said: “No no, (but) if I return I will have to tell the government we must start something to make Singaporeans feel more Singaporean, then you have an identity, a very strong identity.”

Yes, I think what we lack is an identity. That oneness that we can pin point and say that we’re proud of and we therefore want to contribute to this one thing. For now, it seems, this “thing” seems absent.

If we could have a song track for our FYP, think these few would make the cut.

Again, these numbers are “Guesstimates” as given to us by the Overseas Singaporean Unit.

There aren’t any official numbers apparently, but I’m sure someon, somewhere knows.
Just thought I’d try some simple infographics, not that I’ve a lot of data – complicated ones for the matter – to present. But am trying to add more kick into the posts. Will be trying to put up some more infographics kind of diagrams to show timeline and maps in the next couple of posts. Will try to also upload some audio from the interviews.

It’s not an embassy, instead, it’s a place to head to when you feel home sick or need help to prepare to return home. Called Overseas Singaporean Club, the setup is OSU’s latest initiative to help keep Singaporeans connected while overseas.

The club will first open its doors in Sydney and Melbourne on 29 September 2007 before making its way to other key cities.

Tucked inside Singapore-owned hotels and properties in major cities across the world, the various OS clubs will be true watering holes for all homesick Overseas Singaporeans.

Check out the website which describes the club as such: Here, you can catch up with fellow Singaporeans as you chill out over drinks and grub during Happy Hour Singapore-style. If you’re missing the news from home, just get your hands on copies of The Straits Times and other Singapore newspapers and magazines at the Club.

Come home, uphold the reputation of the motherland or be fined, China tells its postgrad students on state-funded scholarships.

What’s execrably interesting is that these scholars are also banned from engaging in activities that will “damage China’s interest and security”. Has someone done something wrong recently?

Sep 29, 2007
Postgrads on scholarships ‘must return’

BEIJING – STUDENTS who obtain postgraduate degrees abroad on state-funded scholarships must return to China and are required to work domestically for two years, China’s Education Ministry said.

Scholarship recipients must sign a contract with strict regulations, including banning activities that ‘will damage China’s interests and security’ and requiring them to ‘uphold the reputation of the motherland’, according to documents posted on the ministry’s website.

The rules cover students working towards their master’s degrees or PhDs, as well as PhD students who conduct research overseas.

State-funded scholarships are generally awarded to researchers at government institutes, civil servants and teachers.

‘After finishing his studies, the student must work in China for at least two years,’ the ministry said.

Those who violate the rules are subject to fines.

The regulations were issued yesterday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The policy announcement was dated July 16 but it is common for government notices to be posted days or weeks after they were written.

Between 1996 and September last year, more than 26,000 government-funded students went abroad and about 97 per cent returned on time, the State Scholarship Council said.

But figures show that China suffers from severe brain drain. Of the 1.06 million Chinese students who have studied overseas since 1978, only about 280,000 have returned.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Straits Times today reported that that the number of foreigners here in Singapore has reached its 1 million mark. (Sounded a bit like Apple selling 1 million iPods.) I wonder if it’s something to be proud of? I wonder if it’s something the government is proud of? Are we coming full circle again? We asked the foreigners to leave in colonial days because we didn’t want to rely on them. Today almost a quarter of our population is made up of them. Sure, we’re are not relying on them to govern the country, but we are relying on them to drive the economy. Is it not as bad? Would getting Singaporeans to return home be a better idea?

Sep 28, 2007
Foreign population in S’pore crosses 1m mark

Highest jump in at least seven years helps lift total population here to 4.68 million
By Goh Chin Lian & Keith Lin

FOREIGNERS are coming here in unprecedented numbers, contributing to the largest swell in Singapore’s population in more than two decades.

The foreign population, which includes professionals, workers, students and their family members, was an estimated 1,005,500 in June this year – crossing the one million mark for the first time.
This is a 14.9 per cent rise over a year ago and represents the highest jump in at least seven years, according to the Department of Statistics.
The previous year’s increase was 9.7 per cent.
The number of Singaporeans and permanent residents here also grew 1.8 per cent, the same as the previous year.
These increases lifted Singapore’s total population to 4,680,600 as of June this year – a 4.4 per cent rise over the previous year.
This is also the largest increase since 1982’s 4.5 per cent.
The figures, from the Department’s annual report on population trends released yesterday, also covered statistics for marriages, divorces, births and deaths.
Economist Song Seng Wun said the surge in the number of foreigners reflects the nation’s broad- based economic recovery.
‘Foreigners are lapping up job opportunities for sectors across the board, from financial services to teaching to construction,’ he said.
External factors figure too.
‘Many neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have been on a strong growth path, so their companies have been setting up shop here as a base for regional expansion,’ he added.
Liberal immigration policies also play a part, said consultant demographer G. Shantakumar.
‘We are attracting not just workers, but also students, in the hope of getting more foreigners to settle down here,’ he noted.
One newly-arrived professional is 36-year-old China national Hu Yen. The accountant said career prospects are better here and he is hoping his wife and son can join him.
‘My wife’s an accountant too, so she can find a job here. And my son will benefit from the education system,’ said Mr Hu, who arrived two weeks ago.
Singaporean Thomas Gan, 56, an operations officer, said there is no harm having more foreigners if jobs are aplenty, especially those that locals do not want to take up. ‘But the aged and uneducated who compete with foreigners for jobs will feel the pinch.’
Asked about the effects that an influx of foreigners might have on social cohesiveness, sociologist Paulin Straughan said she did not see an adverse impact.
But she cautioned against negative stereotyping, such as saying foreigners usurp high-paying jobs, as this could lead to a less cohesive society.
‘We need to be careful, and not grow a culture of resentment among locals,’ she said.
The annual report also showed that the total fertility rate rose a notch to 1.26 last year. While this is up from 1.25 a year earlier, it is still far below the 2.1 figure needed to replace the population.

Thought this was quite an interesting post by this guy called ian. See his post here.

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

You live in Singapore for 18 years of your life, you go overseas for 4 years and after that, all the good work is gone. You come back and start speaking with a foreign accent. I understand that you have been living in a foreign country for the last 4 years surrounded by people who speak like that so maybe it is normal for you to be slightly affected. But if the environment plays such a part, then why, tell me why after returning to Singapore and spending the next six years of your life, you don’t lose the foreign accent and gain back the Singaporean one. How come those ang mohs or foreign talents from whatever other country doesn’t gain a Singaporean accent after living here for a long time. Sure, they pick up a bit of Singlish and our slangs but do they lose their accent from home. I haven’t met one yet. In fact, they need to make an effort to talk like us. It isn’t natural.

I’m not against speaking good proper English. But you can do that without an accent.