Here’s an extract from a very long letter a BBC correspondent based in New York City wrote to his newly born baby:
What I can tell you is that your pigmentation confers privilege. It grants you the presumption of innocence. It offers a large measure of protection if the car we’re driving in is pulled over by police. The strong likelihood is that you will live longer than a black baby born on the same night; earn more money for the same work; stand a better chance of completing your education and graduating from university.
What do you think? Do his sentiments apply here too vis-a-vis minorities especially the Malays.
Or that is it not true about the Indians (Remember an Indian now in self-exile in Oz claims copyright over the term “Chinese Privilege”).
Remember that the Indians here are so overrepresented among PAP MPs and ministers, that there are no Mama Indian PAP candidate MPs this time round: Xia suay! Why want so many Indians?
Rumour has it that a Mama Indian supremacist asked Minister Kee Chiu why there were no Indian PAP candidates.
News of the army’s new martial arts trainers was reported by official Chinese news outlets on 20 June, according to Hong Kong media.
State broadcaster CCTV said 20 fighters from the Enbo Fight Club would be based in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, although Chinese media had not confirmed they would be training troops on the border with India.
It is not old age, it is obesity that kills, the BBC African Service reports.
The evidence from several South African hospitals suggests that alarmingly high levels of obesity – along with hypertension and diabetes – in younger Covid-19 patients are linked to many fatalities.
It is believed that as many (about seven million) South Africans suffer from hypertension and diabetes as from HIV. That is one in eight of the population. Some of them are undiagnosed.
Two-thirds of coronavirus deaths in South Africa so far are among people aged under 65, according to a Prof Madhi, “Obesity is a big issue, along with hypertension and diabetes.”
India’s pride, the Tata group is looking to the UK govt for help. Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel are trying to get the UK govt to lend them £1bn. Each is looking at a loan of about £500m.
The Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank (all of which are state-owned) and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank gave a £560m credit line to JLR after the UK govt told JLR to bugger off because its bonds are rated as junk. Like other car makers, JLR is short of cash because of Covid-19 has disrupted the supply and demand for cars.
The reason why Indian banks couldn’t lend the money to Jaguar Land Rover is because of a very slow-burning crisis in the Indian financial system. A long history of bad lending decisions and poor governance has led to serious problems in India’s banks, shadow banks and mutual funds.
“You Mama tua kee isit? You want S’pore to be like Fiji or Belize Suriname where Indian politicians rule the roost despite not being the majority ethnic race? Don’t know they wreck the countries isit?. Remember China beat the crap out of India recently. Kill so many Indians but Modi sat down and shut up. LOL.”
This happily was not the response of Kee Chiu when asked about the lack of prospective Indian candidates.
He responded by saying that the PAP had nine Indian candidates who served in the previous term of government, six of whom were officeholders.
“So the quality of our Indian candidates is very high,” he said. “We are confident that as a slate, our representation of the Indian community is above national average.”
CNA
Very diplomatic our Kee Chiu who once called HK’s CEO “Xia suay”.
He could have said undiplomatically, “Enough Indians. They already exceed their quota.”
Using ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) criteria to invest is hot in fund mgt and a survey by Nuveen (an American fund mgr) found that most investors believe ESG helps them make more money.
The problem is that under ESG criteria energy stocks are haram. And in the last 10 yrs energy has underperformed, from 11% of S&P now 4%.
So will this good performance of ESG continue now that energy’s weightings have gone down. I doubt it.
Well according to a BBC report (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53150898), senior Indian businessmen say that boycotting Chinese goods is like choking oneself to death. India can’t breath without importing Chinese goods.
China is India’s second-largest trading partner after the US. It accounts for nearly 12% of India’s imports in sectors such as chemicals, automotive components, consumer electronics and pharmaceuticals.
“At least 70% of India’s drug intermediary needs are fulfilled by China,” Sudarshan Jain, president of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, told the BBC.
India’s booming smartphone sector is heavily dependent on cheap Chinese phones made by Oppo, Xaomi and others who dominate the local market. These phones are “made in India” but the parts are imported from China.
Most consumer electronics and many industrial equipment makers say they need crucial intermediate goods from China.
Not me but the Economist on Not In My Back Yard S,poreans:
Migrant workers are vital to Singapore’s economy, as they make up two-fifths of the labour force. But they are not a popular cause.
…
So it is brave of the government to pick a fight with voters on the subject, with an election expected within months.
On June 1st Lawrence Wong, co-chair of Singapore’s covid-19 task-force, announced plans to build lower-density dormitories for some 100,000 migrant workers. The new housing, he warned, would inevitably encroach on other residential areas. When the government built workers’ dormitories in one central district in 2009, the pap was subsequently thumped at the ballot box there.
And alt media and anti-PAP social activists keep blaming the PAP for the FT dorm problem.
Notice the deafening licence from the Wankers, Lim Tean and Goh Meng Seng and other oppos on the FT dorms’ problems?
The worst electoral showing for the ruling People’s Action Party (pap) was in 2011, when the opposition put a call for fewer migrants at the heart of their campaign.
Economist
Only the SDP has spoken out on the FT dorms’ problems.
Australia’s mines have delivered iron ore, coal and gas to fuel China’s growth – preferred to rivals in Brazil for their quality and geographic proximity. It’s a deal that benefits both nations.
Other sectors – education, tourism, agriculture, wine – have also flourished in the Chinese market.
BBC
But now Oz is over reliant on China. And China is now squeezing Oz’s balls and pussies: think the barley tariffs, the warning to Chinese students wanting to study there that Oz are racists (But then Ozzies are equal opportunity racists. They also don’t like Indians: think the Melbourne incidents.), and the threats to buy less Oz agricultural products. All because China thinks Australia should sit down and shut up and not criticise China. They should just take China’s money and be grateful.
So Oz is trying to diversify away from China. Korea, Japan and Vietnam are major target markets.
India should be a major target market but Australia only has set a goal to send A$45bn (US$31bn) in annual exports (A$25bn in 2019) to India by 2035: yes 2035. Last year, it sold more than A$200bn to China alone.
Maybe Ozzies think Indians are unlikely to become as rich as the Chinese? And that India will remain poor and an economic pygmy, unlike China? And Vietnam has a better chance of becoming the next golden goose?
But it’s a lot worse for India. It’s the second Chinese humiliation in June. I reported this in early June
OK, OK, I exaggerate, China only rescues Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a British car maker, part of Tata Motors since 2008.
The Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank (all of which are state-owned) and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank gave a £560m credit line to JLR after the UK govt told JLR to bugger off because its bonds are rated as junk. Like other car makers, JLR is short of cash because of Covid-19 has disrupted the supply and demand for cars.
The reason why Indian banks couldn’t lend the money to Jaguar Land Rover is because of a very slow-burning crisis in the Indian financial system. A long history of bad lending decisions and poor governance has led to serious problems in India’s banks, shadow banks and mutual funds.
The result? Indian banks had no money to help out Tata Motors. Chinese banks were more than willing to lend, doing their patriotic duty of showing up India’s pretensions of being China’s equal.
Time for Modi to do something rather than bully defenceless Muslims and jobless workers.
Stand up for India, Modi.
Proud ethnic Indians overseas are getting tired of being sneered at by racist ethnic Chinese: “We’re far superior to Indians and what happened on Monday proved it.”
But cows are likely to fly before Modi does anything to make overseas ethnic Indians proud again.
Chinese casualties are unknown. But, the editor of Global Times, a state-run tabloid, acknowledged the Chinese casualties in a tweet.
“The Chinese seem to have brought iron rods, sticks studded with metal tips and stones,” says Nitin Gokhale, an Indian defence analyst quoted by the Ecomomist.
Most probably he’ll Choke the Talk? Remember that he let Pakistan walk all over India in the last round of hostilities.
And that was only Pakistan. This is China, home of the Wuhan virus.
But maybe, he’ll call on Uncle Trump to beat up China? And Modi thinks India’s an emerging superpower like China?
On her FB page, a friend (real life) who migrated to Australia (her genius of a son could not pass Chinese to save his life and ended up in neighbourhood “good” school: not good enough for mummy) in a conversation about purchasing power parity (The PPP is a macroeconomic tool that allows the comparison of what it costs to buy the same/similar basket of goods across different countries.) wrote:
In my observation Singapore has a big range, so happily the options are many – in housing, transport, dining & food. If one is happy/limited to shelter in public housing, MRT/uber & airconed hawker centres/bistros you can have a pretty decent life. In Australia the range is much narrower, for instance, there isin’t that many ultra-expensive restaurants nor cheap and good food outlets
She also analysed the relative rankings of S’pore and Oz:
Surprisingly Singapore just scraped through at #50 of the world’s most expensive countries with a price level of minus 4% below average. Australia has the dubious honour of being #6 with a price level of +68% above average.
Whatever, we may be living in a de facto one-party state, but we sure can mix and match our life style choices.
*PM’s defamation suit against Uncle Leong coming to court soon. Talk cock, sing song Lim Tean is defending him but charging a lot of money. Not pro bono work.
Further to Covid-19: What about the risks at work?, as we are opening up, an where a second wave of infections will start is probably in eating places, especially air-conditioned places.
In https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52804795, the BBC reports on a study in the Chinese city of Guangzhou which tracked how a cluster of infections occurred in a restaurant that has implications for air travel too. Click on the link for the illustrations that accompany the text.
Here’s a longish extract
Sitting at tables that were one metre apart, people were having a meal last January.
One of the diners was infected with coronavirus but hadn’t realised because they had no symptoms.
But in the following days, another nine people who’d been in the restaurant at the time came down with Covid-19 – including five who’d been sitting at other tables several metres away. Scientists investigating the infections reached a conclusion about the most likely route of transmission: that droplets containing the virus – released by the infected person – were circulated by air conditioning.
“The key factor for infection was the direction of the airflow,” their study says, blaming two air conditioning units mounted high on a wall.
This is not proof that the virus can be spread this way but the research certainly suggests that it is a plausible route.
And, if confirmed, it would mean that in any room with a similar system of ventilation, even moving tables more than one metre apart would still not guarantee to keep people safe.
What do we know about the effect of ventilation? To try to understand the risks, a team from the University of Oregon, specialising in the study of microbes in buildings, simulated different types of ventilation in a restaurant.
In one scenario, someone at a corner table coughs without covering their mouth and releases droplets and particles that are projected through the air.
The largest droplets land on their own table – that’s what you’d expect with the WHO’s ‘one metre rule’.
Computer modelling by the University of Oregon showing the potential spread of coronavirus in a restaurant with an air conditioning unit But smaller ones reach beyond the immediate area and are caught in a current of air coming from an air conditioning unit at the other end of the room.
The result is similar to what’s thought to have happened in the restaurant in Guangzhou: tiny droplets and particles are spread to people at other tables.
As with that study, this simulation doesn’t prove that the coronavirus can be transmitted this way or, if it did, that it would make anyone ill.
That depends on whether the virus is still active after being blown across the room and on whether the person receiving it gets a large enough “dose” – but the possibility of infection can’t be ruled out.
According Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, professor of architecture at the University of Oregon, who led the study, the virus “can be spread further than people might realise”.
What can be done to make restaurants safer?
The Oregon team simulated another scenario in the same restaurant in which there’s an open window beside the person who coughs and an extractor vent on the opposite wall.
This time the cloud of droplets and particles is not pushed around the room but instead travels in a fairly direct line from window to vent with the result that fewer people are caught in it.
A flow of fresh air to dilute the virus is one of several techniques highlighted by the team as options for managing Covid-19.
The simulations showed how fresh air from an open window could carry the virus to a vent
“It’s really impossible to completely eliminate risk,” says Prof Van Den Wymelenberg, “but what we showed was a concept for how you could reduce transmission.”
“The good news is that there are things you can do to make safer spaces.”
In addition to bringing in fresh air through windows or mechanical ventilation, other options include improving the standard of filtration and also humidifying the air – moist conditions might encourage droplets to sink to the floor.
What does this mean on planes?
Social distancing isn’t likely to be possible – unless the aircraft is half empty – and by definition you’ll be in close contact with others for more than 15 minutes.
So on the basis of those two key factors, the risks may well be higher. The question of ventilation is more debatable.
On the one hand, the air in the cabin is constantly circulated so if someone coughs, even a few rows away, there is a chance the infection will be spread.
On the other hand, modern aircraft filter the cabin air every few minutes and to a high standard.
Ahmedabad, home to more than seven million, is the largest city in the western state of Gujarat.
It’s also the worst-affected by the pandemic, accounting for more than 75% of the state’s caseload, and nearly all of its deaths.
With more than 21,500 confirmed cases, Gujarat has India’s fourth highest caseload. But the state’s fatality rate – the proportion of Covid-19 patients who have died – is the highest at 6.2%. This is more than double the national average of 2.8%.
In a recent article in Covid Economics, an online economics journal, economists double confirmed the impression that countries with female leaders have on average had fewer Covid-19 deaths.
They (Because they are economically illiterate?) systematically locked down their economies more quickly on average than their male counterparts.
A study in the Lancet last week suggested the risk of catching Covid-19 from an infected person was 13% below 1m, but 3% at 1m or more, halving for each extra metre. suggested the risk of catching Covid-19 from an infected person was 13 per cent below 1m, but 3 per cent at 1m or more, halving for each extra metre.
WHO recommends one metre, as do France, Denmark, Singapore and China. Germany, Italy and Australia use 1.5m. UK, Switzerland, Spain and Canada 2m.
Whatever, wearing mask and keeping social distance of one-metre or more is very effective in reducing spread of Covid-19.
But
Social distancing in worker dormitories and many HDB flats (Remember two-room – one bed room – HDB flats can have max of 6 people and three room – 2 bed rooms – nine) is like “telling people to get under their tables when there’s an imminent nuclear war”. The quote is actually from an aid worker working in an overcrowded Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh describing the situation there.
Harvard Medical School researchers have evidence suggesting that Covid-19 was already in Wunan in August 2019. Remember, China reported a cluster of cases on 31 December 2019, but later told the WHO that the earliest symptoms from these patients dated back to 8 December.
An apparent surge in traffic outside Wuhan hospitals from August 2019 may suggest the coronavirus hit the area earlier than reported, a study says.
Harvard researchers say satellite images show an increase in traffic outside five hospitals in the Chinese city from late August to December.
The traffic spike coincided with a rise in online searches for information on symptoms like “cough” and “diarrhoea”.
The Chinese government has rejected this study by Harvard Medical School researchers suggesting the coronavirus was spreading in China as early as August, well before 8 December 2019.
The methodology is circumstantial, based on satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in the city of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicentre, and queries for terms like “diarrhoea” and “cough” on local search engine Baidu. It found uptrends in both kinds of traffic beginning in the late summer of 2019.
It’s far from conclusive, but the report keeps media spotlight on the bungled first phase of China’s response, a subject Beijing would rather the world forget.
The risk: they are relaxing lockdowns even as new cases continue to increase.
The lockdowns may have made these countries’ curves of new infections less steep so far. But lockdowns did not flattened them. Millions are emerging from lockdown into an environment where Covid-19 infection is more widespread than when they went in.
At the current pace, the numbers are doubling every two weeks, suggesting that by the end of July, when some models predict the outbreak will peak, the official number infected may reach 5m and the death toll could approach 150,000.
But these countries had no choice. Because even at the best of times many people live hand-to-mouth. With lockdown, many were starving. and hence reopening the economy became more important than flattening the curve. Sad.
With lockdown being relaxed here and in other countries, This extract from the BBC is worth a read
In factories and offices, social distancing may be harder to follow.
Dr Julian Tang of the University of Leicester has come up an easy “breath test” to check if you’re too close to colleagues.
A consultant virologist at Leicester Royal Infirmary, he’s studied how the air is moved when people speak and concludes that something as simple as a conversation could pass the virus.
“If you can smell your friend’s breath – the garlic or curry or alcohol – you’re inhaling what they’re breathing out.
“And if you’re inhaling enough of that air to smell it, then you’re close enough to inhale any virus that’s also carried in the air with it.”
So how can transmission take place?
So far the public advice has focused on what’s called the “droplet” route, someone coughing or sneezing into the eyes, nose or mouth of a person nearby, which has led to the social distancing rules.
It’s also highlighted a second route – surfaces – in which a person who’s infected passes on the virus through contact either directly by shaking hands or by exhaling over surfaces like kitchen worktops.
Modelling by Hexagon/MSC Software showing how an infected person could pass the virus to a fellow passenger on a train. Others then get the contamination on their hands, directly or by using the same space at work or at home – which is why handwashing is so important.
But there’s a third possibility as well – tiny droplets or particles being carried in the air by speech, for example and that route might be the most important, according to Dr Tang.
“When you’re talking to a colleague you don’t touch them, you don’t spit on them, most of the interaction is by voice and breathing.”
All of which reinforces the idea that there isn’t one way to stay safe: it involves social distancing and keeping any close contacts brief and checking for healthy ventilation.
In the past six weeks, Poland has recorded roughly 300-400 new infections a day. 50% of these have come from Silesia, which accounts for just 12% of the population.
Silesia is the heartland of Poland’s coal industry and the narrow shafts are the incubators of Covid-19. They are like our dorms: “crowded and cramped” and hot and humid, great conditions for Covid-19 to incubate and spread.
Btw, remember this description about the places that incubate and spread Covid-19? Ho Ching should have added mines as Poland and South Africa can testify. And let’s face it, she’s talking cock, using her examples one can reasonably say that
“crowded and cramped” conditions of dorms is the cause of dorm outbreaks.
Ho Ching
She had wriiten
We shouldn’t jump to conclusion that “crowded and cramped” conditions of dorms is the cause of dorm outbreaks.
On a cruise ship, passengers have their own individual rooms, with ensuite bathrooms. They have different levels of luxury, some with balconies, others without. Yet, they too have big outbreaks.
Ditto aircraft carriers, where sailors may be famously pampered with on board ice cream machines and other social amenities.
Nursing homes are not cramped too, and prisons are generally designed to keep prisoners sleeping in separate quarters.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. The Public Investment Fund a US$325bn sovereign wealth fund has used the recent market collapse to buy and buy.
Think PAP govt really spending our reserves? Think again
The government has so far drawn down S$52 billion from our reserves to fund the packages.
Impressive?
“Peanuts”: our reserves estimated to be worth over US$710 billion or S$1 trillion by ang mohs. Only 5% of our reserves drawn down and do remember that S$13 million is for “contingencies”. Exclude that S$13 million and only 4% of reserves will be spent.
OK, OK, I exaggerate, China only rescues Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a British car maker, part of Tata Motors since 2008.
The Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank (all of which are state-owned) and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank gave a £560m credit line to JLR after the UK govt told JLR to bugger off because its bonds are rated as junk. Like other car makers, JLR is short of cash because of Covid-19 has disrupted the supply and demand for cars.
Where were the Indian banks when Tata needed them? Chinese banks lend to a trophy asset of Tata, India’s pride and joy, when India and China are rowing: While India was fighting Covid-19, China invaded.
What’s in it for China? Telling Indians that its banks are better than that of India’s, most of which are according to the analysts are in dire need of capital because of bad debts to Indian tycoons.
JLR is Britain’s largest automotive manufacturer and designs, manufactures and sells some of the world’s best-known premium cars (the iconic Land Rovers), but sells most junk Jaguars.
Tata Motors got sold a dog. Sad. But then the Tata group very anglophile: British junk is the best.
Pakistanis must be really proud that last Thursday, Pakistan joined India in surpassing China after a record 4,688 new Covid-19 ncases were registered in Pakistan during the previous 24 hours to take the tally to 85,246.
Giving more reason for Pakistanis to be proud: ahead of China with 84,160 patients has been placed at 18th position, one rank lower than Pakistan, according to the data from Johns Hopkins University.
But it’ll dent Pakistan’s pride that India has the sixth-highest number of confirmed cases in the world. On Saturday, the BBC reported, India recorded close to 10,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours, taking its total above that of Italy.
But Pakistanis should be very proud that on a per capita basis, more Pakistanis caught the virus than India. India is a demographic superpower, something Pakistan can never aspire to: 212.2 million v 1.353 billion (2018 data). India has over 236,657 cases. There have been 6,649 deaths.
On Friday, the S&P index was up 2.9%, trimming its 2020 decline to less than one-tenth of 1 percentage point It now is juz 5.4% below its peak close on February 19.
We probably had the shortest bear market in history, after the longest bull market in history. Maybe we’ll have the shortest bull market in history?
The UK’s Telegraph reports on research that suggests bald men may be at a higher risk of suffering severe symptoms of Covid-19.
Two studies of patients in Spain found that almost 80% of men with Covid-19 across three hospitals in Madrid were bald, leading some scientists to suggest it should be considered as a risk factor.
The lead author of the research thinks male sex hormones may play a part not only in hair loss, but also in boosting the ability of the virus to attack cells.
As reported in While India was fighting Covid-19, China invaded, last week, hundreds, maybe thousands of Chinese soldiers crossed China’s disputed border with India in the Western Himalayas. Minor scuffles are the norm, but the latest incursion came as the Global Times, a rabid state-owned Chinese paper asserted new claims to land that India says is Indian.
But this is not a lone incident. China has been pretty aggressive in bullying its neigbours.
Many had expected the Chinese Communist Party to send troops to crush last year’s protests in Hong Kong. Now, with the world distracted by the pandemic and mass protests difficult because of social distancing, it has acted by planning to impose on Hong Kong, a national security law, something the HK legislature has not been able to do.
In its building of island fortresses in the South China Sea, it ignores both international law and the claims of smaller neighbours. During the pandemic, there has been bullying of Vietnam, M’sia and Indonesia in the area
The most onimous threat
On May 22nd, at the opening of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the prime minister, Li Keqiang, ominously cut the word “peaceful” from his ritual reference to reunification. China has stepped up war games around Taiwan and its nationalists have been braying online for an invasion.
Economist
Maybe Trump is right about the Wuhan virus being released by China.
US imports of pharmaceuticals from India dropped almost 40% in the first half of May compared with a year earlier.
In March, India restricted exports of various medical products including paracetamol as it sought to protect its own supplies. It removed some of these restrictions in April and recently also ended restrictions on the export of active pharmaceutical ingredients of paracetamol. All this showed the restrictions were unnecessary in the first place.
But it was too late because it showed the US that India was an unreliable supplier of drugs, unlike China. Sad.
Btw, the funny thing is that India sources the main ingredient of paramactol from China. While price the shot up amid limited supplies (China had locked-down), China never ever banned its export to India. Who is the Communist country?
BS that HK is an ang moh dominated biz centre (Think S’pore). It’s really a Chinese city.
In 2018 the number of mainland businesses with offices of any kind in the city eclipsed the number of American firms for the first time (see chart). Mainland companies accounted for 73% of the Hong Kong stockmarket at the end of last year, compared with 60% five years before. They also use HK to sell US$ and other foreign currency bonds
HK has reinvented itself yet again.
When it was founded by the British, it became the gateway to China. Then it stagnated as a backwater when from the late -19th century Shanghai became the gateway to China. Jardines, Swires and Hongkong & Shaghai Bank had bigger operations in HK than in HK. But it was the leading port in the Pearl Delta.
After WWII and the Communist takeover of China, it became a manufacturer of cheap plastic good and was the centre of smuggling into and out of China, helping China defeat US trade and financial embargoes. With the reopening up of China, it again became the gateway to China.
Rajeev Suri, who runs Nokia of Finland, is a Singaporean citizen.
Why doesn’t our constructive, nation-building media or its new media running dogs publicise this fact?
Could it be because the constructive, nation-building media doesn’t dare or cannot draw attention to the fact that he seems to be a citizen of S’pore for the sake of convenience?
In an attempt to defend the failure of her hubby’s govt to realise that the FT dorms could become a Civid-19 breeding grounds like Jurong or Fairprice, Ho Ching wrote on FB,
We shouldn’t jump to conclusion that “crowded and cramped” conditions of dorms is the cause of dorm outbreaks.
On a cruise ship, passengers have their own individual rooms, with ensuite bathrooms. They have different levels of luxury, some with balconies, others without. Yet, they too have big outbreaks.
Ditto aircraft carriers, where sailors may be famously pampered with on board ice cream machines and other social amenities.
Nursing homes are not cramped too, and prisons are generally designed to keep prisoners sleeping in separate quarters.
Ho Ching
Pre Covid eraNowadays
This reminded me that in an e-mail conversation with TWC2 (the champion of the FT workers), a month ago, resulting from a small donation (“Peanuts”), as an aside I told them of eight people living in a 2G HDB flat in Bishan, near J8, I warned them against overplaying the “cramped and crowded conditions” message because many S’poreans live in cramped and crowded conditions too. Not as bad, but still cramped and crowded.
The family are pretty well off materially, but there are 5 adults, 2 teenagers and one adult helper living in 4 HDB bed rooms + kitchen and living room. One of the adults had to return in March from the US when her college closed because of the pandemic.
Two kids and a maid sleep in one room in the HDB flat. Only one adult has a bed room to himself.
I had joked with the returning adult and her teenage sister that they should call their grand aunts and ask them if they could move in. One grand aunt lives alone in an old Tiong Bahru STI flat (the family home) and another in Eunos with a helper (Son is working overseas) in an HDB maisonette.
The family are coping so far but school has reopened and two of the adults are elderly, one of show is sickly. So …
Social distancing in worker dormitories and many HDB flats (Remember two-room – one bed room – HDB flats can have max of 6 people and three room – 2 bed rooms – nine) is like “telling people to get under their tables when there’s an imminent nuclear war”. The quote is actually from an aid worker working in an overcrowded Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh describing the situation there.
But it rings true in S’pore for those living in FT dormitories and many S’poreans living in HDB flats.
The very disgruntled Quitter living in Finland (Kids get free education there, can only get into neighbourhood “good” schools here because quitter can’t afford int’l schools here); ang moh tua kees like Kirsten Han; anti-PAP activists and cybernuts; and frustrated wannabe Sith Lords (now trying to reinvent themselves as Jedi) like ex-ST tua kee Bertha Henson forget that living in HDB flats during lockdown (or at any other time) can be very trying.
Hence many S’poreans lack empathy towards the cramped conditions the FTs live in, because they too live in small spaces. Prof Tommy Koh’s comment, “The way Singapore treats its foreign workers is not First World but Third World,” doesn’t resonate with them when it comes to cramped and crowded spaces.
But the quality of the food the FTs got did get S’poreans upset. Well the food has improved since then though TOC, The Idiots (but then they are “a bunch of Indians” according to Terry of Terry’s Online Channel), Kirsten Han and the Quitter from Finland seem to be demanding one-star Michelin food for the FTs, based on their FB comments.
(Update on 1 June at 9.30am: Parkway Parade was on Sunday (May 31) added to a list of public places visited by COVID-19 cases during their infectious period. All I said about GCT and East is out-of-date. CNA reported this news late last night.)
Look at the list of public places (as of Sunday morning) visited by COVID-19 cases during their infectious period, and you will notice that Jurong is a notorious area for irresponsible people, local and FT: 52% of these spots are in Jurong. I’m not sure if all the Jurong spots are in Tharman’s GRC.
Want to get covid-19? Go to yr friendly NTUC Fairprice store: 47% of the spots are Fairprice stores. Cheapskates beware. Go shop at Cold Storage or Giant, both owned by ang moh Diary Farm, not by Pay And Pay affiliate NTUC. Ang moh owned co attracts more responsible customers?
Junction 8 in Jos Teo’s GRC has the dubious distinction of being the only building with two such spots. Looks like Bishan residents are irresponsible.
Btw, PM’s area has only one such spot. But Emeritus Minister’s GRC got no spot.
Finally housing in the East should soon command a premium. Responsible S’poreans and FTs live there: no spots.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 