Chiangmai Life

I just came back from Chiangmai and I really love the pace of life there.

Even the elephants are more relaxed - they can eat, perform and sh** at the same time!

Everything's great except the long neck tribe and handicapped strays upset me a little.


I believe McDull and myself can stay there for the long term, and make good friends with the multi-talented elephants which can swirl the hula hoop, play the harmonica and soccer, and paint! I think they're certainly more talented than the 'foreign talents' (pandas) we import.

Foreign Talents, or Workers?

My fellow true-blue Sporean brought my attention to this article:


Melding the old with the new
A more inclusive approach is needed to help old and new citizens find common ground
05:55 AM Sep 26, 2009
by EUGENE KB TAN

Immigration will impact our society indefinitely given the economic and demographic imperatives. Securing the cognitive buy-in is the easy part. Most Singaporeans understand the need for immigration.

But, affectively, the immigration policy has not resonated so well and has a long way to go in terms of popular acceptance.

The grudging acceptance - at best - of new citizens and PRs is a cause for concern. Quite a few Singaporeans see the newcomers as taking away their jobs and depriving locals of university places, among other things.

The National Integration Council (NIC) has just unveiled its Community Integration Fund for activities and initiatives that promote integration. But the lack of integration has nothing to do with a lack of money. Crucially, changing mindsets and correcting misperceptions will be key determinants in integrating old and new citizens.

How can we facilitate and promote a positive mindset among both newcomers and long-standing citizens towards each other? Clearly, there is a need for a sustained engagement since integration is an extended process.

The crux of the matter is the perception that "old" citizens are doing the heavy lifting, while the newcomers have it easy. In particular, long-standing citizens shoulder the defining duties and responsibilities of citizenship like National Service, which makes wealth-making possible.
The solution is not to make NS compulsory for first-generation newcomers, notwithstanding that first-generation new citizens in their 20s and 30s are also completely exempted from National Service. Yet, isn't it ironic that some employers here prefer employees with no NS commitments?

The Government has indicated it will make the differentiation between citizens, PRs and non-citizens sharper. Should we go further and differentiate "old" and "new" citizens as well, to take into account their NS contributions to nation-building?

Even as we seek to recognise the contributions and sacrifices of citizens, recognition urgently needs to be more nuanced, and not always denominated in pecuniary terms. The citizens' constitutional right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections is also regularly cited as well. But such a right of membership is only exercised once every few years and, even then, not every eligible Singaporean has the opportunity to vote.

The Government's constant reminders of the perks of citizenship, such as HDB upgrading subsidies and the baby bonus scheme, indulges citizens and prospective citizens alike in a materialistic "balance sheet" approach in tallying the pluses and minuses of bearing a pink identity card. For a young nation-state, we should avoid commoditising citizenship.
How can we promote integration? For starters, stop using the phrase "foreign talent". This superlative buzzword, used in official discourse to signal that newcomers add value to our society, is marginalising and patronising. Indeed, many of the newcomers are very much like you and me. More significantly, it harks of a neo-colonial mindset that the locals are "not good enough". But, mind you, we built this fine city, and made it an attractive place to live, work, study and play in.

Secondly, we should engage the newcomers even before we grant them citizenship or PR status to help them appreciate the sort of society they are seeking to be a part of. It is probably too late to meaningfully integrate them at a later stage since they would have formed their particularistic networks of support and information.

Much as we need to right-size our population, it is crucial that those who seek the Singapore franchise understand our society, our foundational ethos, our shared values and heritage, and our limitations. They need to know what they are pledging allegiance to.
Thirdly, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of new citizens and PRs come from China and India, joining the fairly large numbers here already. As such, they have little need to break out of their enclaves in the transition process. Instead of a cookie-cutter approach, a targeted approach is needed in integrating such groups.

Let's make our approach to citizenship more inclusive of both old and new citizens. If Singaporeans feel appreciated and their identities secure, they will be more welcoming of our new citizens. For citizenship, ultimately, is about how and where we belong and feel rooted to regardless of our talents.

Born and bred in this little red dot, the writer is assistant professor of law at the School of Law, Singapore Management University.
URL http://www.todayonline.com/Weekendvoices

/POV/EDC090926-0000028/Melding-the-old-with-the-new

All things "Mc"

Glad that McCurry won the case against McDonalds. How can the fast food chain stop any non-burger related people (or beings, rather) or brand usethe prefix"Mc"?!

The article from The Guardian:

McDonald's loses McCurry legal battle

Eight years on from the first legal challenge, the Malaysian Federal Court has ruled that the McCurry restaurant can keep using its name
McCurry owners A M S P Suppiah and his wife Kanageswary in front of their restaurant following another legal victory against US hamburger giant McDonald's in Kuala Lumpur.

So it seems that McDonald's, the Great Satan of the food world, has lost another legal battle to protect its brand. After a protracted court case, restaurateurs Mr and Mrs Suppiah will be allowed to keep using the name of their Kuala Lumpur restaurant McCurry.
The global meat 'n' bun wranglers first sued in 2001 and the Malaysian high court eventually ruled in their favour in 2006. On a subsequent appeal, Mr Suppiah obtained a reversal of the decision and it's only now that McDonald's challenge to that ruling has been tossed out. Finally McCurry can let the paint dry on the sign … at least for now.It's no surprise to see a multinational 'protecting' their brand in this way and the tactics of stalling and attrition are pretty much what you'd expect from an organisation of that size attempting to defend a case of such obvious daftness. How can anyone claim ownership over a Gaelic ancestral prefix, millenia old?

McDonald's may well have had some kind of case if the Suppiahs were slinging burgers. There could have been a certain 'passing off'. Some potential customers, albeit the terminally stupid ones, might have felt that this poor imitation was really the genuine article. But in this case they were serving Malaysian curry, a fact indicated with some clarity in the name they selected.

Oddly enough, I don't find myself righteously incensed with McDonald's stupidity, corporate hubris or even general disrespect for Gaelic. It's apparent from the news reports that, now Mr Suppiah's won his case, he proposes to roll out his operation all over the country. Though he obviously didn't, in any way, have the multinational in mind when he named his fast food outlet (apparently McCurry is short for "Malaysian Chicken Curry) he now wants to emulate their fungal spread. What irritates me is that probably one of the top half dozen most powerful and recognisable global brands doesn't have the self confidence to take a joke.

McDonald's of course, do have one point in their favour. If they let operations like Mr Suppiah's proliferate with no quality control, there would be a danger that the 'Mc' suffix would become associated in people's heads with poor quality fast food, made with dreadful ingredients and served by underpaid drones. And we can't have that, can we?

Challenges

My department (corp comms) has just been given the task of doing the weekly “intelligence journal “ (since our HOD never knows how to say know as well manage the team). Those who aren't in comms or HAVE been in it long enough might have not heard of it. Basically, it’s to second guess a tiny group of readers (the bosses) and sniff out business opportunities for the company, compile the news (and rumours, including those you hear in the toilets) and blast them to the readers every week. It’s a challenge professionally but my manager said I could put this down on my CV to impress people, since no one in comms has heard of it. Hey, this may be the new trend! Or I may carve out a career with the CIA! Will measure my intelligence level again soon and see if it has gone UP.

We’re all pretty busy in the office these days. The colleague behind me was busying tracking the growth of her China-chinese, now Singaporean-chinese son on her sina.com blog, as well as her plant with daily photo-taking.

Speaking of her (now fellow) Singaporean son, we all believe he’ll grow up to be a talented boy, at least in the area of linguistics. His mom claimed that she got her PR in less than a year cuz she’s bilingual, and continues to greet callers on the phone “morling speaking”, “afterloon speaking”, "have a lice day" and has used a sticker to “earmark” her name on her plant. All moms are great. She took half a day off to go to the china embassy to renounce her son’s citizenship, so that he can defend Singapore (provided he doesn’t emigrate further to US cuz his English might have become so good with all the good genes).

I once joked with my friend that the day the china foreign talents “invade” little india is the day we should plan our career and retirement more carefully. I read in the news today about the little india’s identity crisis – “Thosai or tou sha”?