LIFT: Limpeh Is Foreign Talent

Q&A: Is Chinese the language of the future?

2012-02-23T10:40:00.000Z

I have been forwarded yet another link on the latest BBC news series on languages and was asked to comment on it by a reader. It was particularly interesting for me to read the story especially as it talked about Malaysians in Johor Bahru and Singaporeans.

"Is English or Mandarin the language of the future?
English has been the dominant global language for a century, but is it the language of the future? If Mandarin Chinese is to challenge English globally, then it first has to conquer its own backyard, South East Asia." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17105569

When I read the article, I rolled my eyes and thought that the article was written by either a white person who hasn't attempted to learn Chinese or a Chinese person reveling in some kind of fantasy that one day all white kids in America would have compulsory Chinese lesson. Turns out it was neither - for most of the article talked about South East Asians trying to learn English rather than Chinese.

Firstly, it talked about Malaysians sending their children to Singaporean schools to improve their English. They managed to find a Mr Lee Han Shih who believes that Mandarin will overtake English as China's economic power grows, but that's one person in Singapore's opinion whilst the bulk of Singaporean students are so much more proficient in English than in Chinese. Then the article goes on to talk about managers in China who are English speaking so they can deal with international clients. Then the story shifts to Vietnam, a country which resolutely refuses to embrace Chinese because of generations of antagonism between the two countries and has instead embraced English as a second language.

At Lao Cai, the Vietnam-China border.

I have actually verified this for myself - I went to Lao Cai in the far north of Vietnam last year, right up to the Chinese border. Frustratingly, I have a British passport and couldn't cross over into China. Had I been holding my Singapore passport, I could've passed between both countries with no restrictions but with my British passport, I had a single entry visa into Vietnam and I also needed a visa to enter China. I was literally staring into China at the border crossing, looking at the people in the town of Hekou on the other side. We had five hours to kill in Lao Cai before my train back to Hanoi, so we explored the city properly. The stalls in the main market were filled with made in China goods.

After having struggled on in Vietnamese throughout my travels in Vietnam, I thought, surely, surely here in Lao Cai where we are so close to China I can actually throw a stone and it would land in China - people in Lao Cai would speak a little Mandarin? Guess what? Not a word. We found this amazing place where they barbecued ducks over a big fire and served it with rice noodles, salad, pickles and a spicy sauce. The menu was in Vietnamese only so I tried Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, then English - not a word. I tried to say something in Vietnamese but she didn't understand me and I didn't understand her. Then in desperation, I tried French then there was a flicker of recognition in the old lady's face. "Canard, roti", she said. And I was like, "YES we have a language in common! I can speak to this woman!" This woman can see China from where she is barbecuing ducks, but she speaks French, the old colonial language of France instead of Chinese. So there you go, even Vietnamese people in Lao Cai who wake up every morning looking at China from their windows can't even be asked to learn basic Mandarin.

Lao Cai: where Vietnam ends, that's Hekou, China behind me.

Let's shift focus now from Vietnam to Singapore. Singapore is 74.1% Chinese, of whom the vast majority do speak Mandarin. However, for the other 25.9%, very few actually do speak any Mandarin and any Malay or Indian person who does manage anything more than the most basic conversational Mandarin is treated like a novelty act. Indeed, in my parents' generation, it was actually far more common for Malays and Indians to be able to speak some Hokkien and some did so incredibly well - this was before English replaced Hokkien and Malay as the lingua franca of Singapore. The Malays and Indians in Singapore could learn Chinese easily in a place like Singapore - but they're simply not interested. If you can't even get the Malays and Indians in Singapore to learn Chinese, what on earth makes you think that you're going to get Mexicans, Belgians, Pakistanis, Chileans, Namibians and Australians to learn Chinese? Indeed, this is something I have heard many Chinese-Singaporeans claim despite the fact that none of their Malay or Indian friends speak any Chinese at all.

The four official languages of Singapore

The bottom line is this: the only people who are claiming that Chinese is the language of the future are the Chinese - and this is mostly based on wishful thinking on their part, rather than facts. In fact it is usually those Chinese people who either do not speak English or struggle with English who make this claim - and how convenient it would be for people like my dad if the world were to stop speaking English and start speaking Mandarin instead. Given that my dad is one of those who do indulge in this kind of wishful thinking, I am going to take great pleasure now in showing you how Chinese will never ever take off as a global lingua franca.

I agree with Robert Greene's summary on why Mandarin will never ever be a global language. Firstly, the writing system is way too complex and difficult for non-native speakers to master, very few do and those who do tend to be very gifted in languages anyway. I have some white friends who did Chinese at SOAS and Leeds University (two of the best Chinese departments in the UK) and these white friends speak on average 6 or 7 languages each. One couple I know - Caroline and Richard (both English, white) are super linguists who met whilst at Leeds University, are hyperglots. Richard speaks 10 languages, Caroline about 18 and of course, they are both completely fluent in Mandarin. We're not just talking about the odd angmor who manages conversational Mandarin - they're both so fluent they would put 99% of Chinese people in China to shame in their own native tongue.

Now, how many people in the west are as linguistically gifted as Richard and Caroline? They are so rare, because they are able to tackle foreign languages outside their native linguistic group. Now there are many such linguistic groups in the world, but let's look at just four common groups to get an idea how they work:

Latin: French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese etc.

Slavic: Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech etc.

Germanic: German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian etc.

Celtic: Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Breton, Cornish etc.

I could go on - but you get the idea, the Latin languages share similarities because they are all modern descendants of the Latin language. So for example, a French person would naturally find Spanish and Italian very easy to learn as a foreign language - but would be perplexed by Russian or Greek. It is far easier to speak six languages from the same groups rather than six languages from six different groups. Incidentally, Limpeh is a hyperglot who speaks languages from six different linguistic groups: Latin, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Malayo-Polynesian and Sinitic.

Limpeh speaks Welsh. Dw i'n gallu siarad Cymraeg.

Sinitic languages include all variants and dialects/topolects of Chinese, but if you were to go one step up the definition into Sino-Tibetan languages, than that includes languages like Burmese, Tibetan, Karen, Bhutanese and various minority languages - all of which are unintelligible to Mandarin speakers. In short, Chinese is on its own - there may have been some loanwords that may have crept into other Asian languages like Vietnamese, Malay, Korean and Japanese, but linguistically it is a monolith (which encompasses all the various dialects/topolects). Quite simply, white people are far more likely to choose a foreign language like French or German as a second language because it will be far easier for them than Chinese.

Ironically, the language which is probably closest to Chinese is Japanese given the widespread use of Chinese characters in their language (Kanji) and the numerous loanwords, but how many Japanese people actually bother learning Mandarin? Hardly any at all! The preferred and no. 1 second language in Japan is still English and will remain so given the antagonistic relationship between China and Japan.

Tokyo - and no they don't speak Chinese here.

In short, it is simply inconceivable for people in places like Bolivia, Slovakia, Algeria, Finland and Iraq learning Chinese en masse to any decent standard - the language is simply way too difficult and English has already been a global lingua franca for ages. So when an Iranian person meets someone from Brazil, what do they speak to understand each other? English. If there was a simpler language to replace English (such as Esperanto, what a brave project) - then yeah it could replace English. But not Chinese, no way, it is simply too bloody difficult.

Furthermore, Chinese is a tonal language - Chinese people like myself grew up with Chinese and have no problem with the tones, but it is very difficult if not impossible for many white people to hear the different tones because it is a completely alien concept for them. That's not to say that white people can't learn Chinese - but the tonal challenge does mean that those who are not gifted with the power of mimicry and a very sharp ear for sounds (which could be, for example, applied also for music) would find Mandarin incredibly frustrating. Note that people who sing out of tune are often accused of being "tone deaf". Just look at the video below - like okay, the white guy is making a valiant effort and I hate to make fun of people trying so freaking hard, but he is clearly an example of a white guy who simply cannot get his head around the tonal aspect of the Chinese language.

Just try this most simple Chinese word which we Chinese people take for granted. The word for "good morning" is 早安 Zǎo ān - there are two tones involved here: the third tone for Zǎo and the first tone for ān. I have tried so many times to teach my white friends this most simple greeting and despite me repeating it over and over again, they simply cannot distinguish the two different falling and rising tones because they don't even hear how subtle it is in the first place. And of course, changing the tone of a character will totally change the meaning of the word altogether, now this is something that does not occur in English.

I remember this evening in Prague when I was working there, I was getting a Chinese take-away (oh you must try the fried duck in the Czech-Chinese restaurants) after work one evening and there was this most bizarre chat up going on. I need my fix of Chinese food when I am working away, it is comfort food. There was an Italian tourist trying to chat up the pretty young Chinese waitress in the restaurant: the Italian guy didn't speak Czech, the Chinese waitress didn't speak Italian (she was pretty good in Czech) but they both spoke some English. So the Italian guy was coming up with the most cheesy lines in his bad English and the waitress who spoke a little English was being very polite and friendly to the paying customer but was probably not interested in this fat Italian who was old enough to be her granddad (think Sylvio Berlusconi Italian style creepy). Please read the following reconstruction with outrageous Italian and Chinese accents, it's okay, you're not being racist if you don't read it out aloud.

My fix of Chinese food in Prague

Fat Italian: (obviously slightly drunk already) You so pretty. Very bella.

Chinese waitress: Thank you, you so kind. You want desert? Fruits?

Fat Italian: You want to go for drink? Walk tonight in Prague? Go to bar for vino?

Chinese waitress: Oh I working sorry. Work tonight, cannot go out to play with you. You liked the fried duck?

Fat Italian: Yes good. What time you finito here?

Chinese waitress: (Makes a playful frowning face) Very late. When closing. Then I clean up (makes a sweeping action), poor me.

Fat Italian: At what hour?

Chinese waitress: Oh... depending. You want coffee? Tea? Desert tonight very nice. You like Prague? You in Prague how long time?

Fat Italian: I return Milano in two days.

Chinese waitress: Oh. So you come back here dinner tomorrow, yes? Come and see me.

Fat Italian: You free tomorrow?

Chinese waitress: Tomorrow, working. I every working so hard. Poor me. (Makes playful faces again)

Wanna go for a walk in Prague?

It was the kind of incident that demonstrates the dynamic of the different parties in the world involved: Italians are never ever going to get off their asses to learn something like Chinese. It is hard enough to get them to speak English, what makes you think they will bother with Chinese? Likewise, the Chinese can't wait to learn English and most manage to learn some, even if they are not fluent - and guess what? That is usually enough for both parties to get what they want and it works. Those two were chatting before I got my fried duck with rice and they would be chatting long after I'd left with my take-away.

But here's the thing about Chinese people and business - we're good at making money, we love making money. The Italian guy already had a half eaten dinner in front of him which he clearly couldn't finish - he had ordered enough food for two. In that short time I had observed them, she managed to persuade him to order a desert and a coffee just so he had an excuse to stay in the restaurant and talk to her. Never mind speaking English, this young lady was clearly happy enough to flirt with him just to get him to spend more money in this restaurant (she must be on commission I swear). If I ran a Chinese restaurant, I'd gladly give her a job - she is good! She didn't waste a moment on me, she took one look at me and knew at once exactly how many Czech Korunas I was going to spend and not a Koruna more. She knew a big spender when she saw one and that was definitely not me.

The notion that one has to speak Mandarin to do business with the Chinese is bullshit - Chinese businessmen are not going to say, "oh you don't speak Mandarin, go away, we're not going to deal with you." Hell no, even if they don't speak your language but they know that they can make money from you, they will gladly hire someone like this pretty Chinese waitress to deal with you, someone who can clearly speak some English and knows exactly how to extract the maximum profit from the client. What is more important for the Chinese? Making money or getting white people to learn Chinese?

What the Chinese value the most in life.

I always prefer to agree to disagree when someone is clearly wrong, but this doesn't stop me from analyzing what they say (and ripping it apart in the process). One of my readers Aura left a comment that read:

"Well, there are solid statistics showing that there is a steady increase in the number of foreigners learning Chinese. We have built more than 200 Confucian schools worldwide to expand the influence of Chinese culture"
-http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/10/bosideng-uk-yeah-right.html

As much as I welcome her opinion, Aura is a young student whose view of the world is very limited to her experiences as a student. Likewise, my dad may be in his 70s, but he has worked his whole life as a primary school teacher so his experiences are very much set in the context of the primary school. In contrast, I have worked all over the world and have dealt with clients everywhere from Brazil to Ukraine to Thailand to America. In all my years as working around the world, have I ever been able to use Chinese with a non-Chinese person? Never. Not once. The international language o business is English - other languages which have proven to be very useful include French, Spanish, German and Russian. I have only really had to use Chinese when dealing with clients in China and Taiwan.

Zagreb, Croatia and no they don't speak Chinese here either.

Aura may be filled with some kind of ethnic pride about being Chinese but she can dream on about "foreigners learning Chinese" - it is still a tiny drop in the ocean compared to people learning English. I have recently been to Croatia for a holiday and the locals mostly speak English as a second language, but I have also used a little German, Italian and Russian whilst I was there. I'd like to see how far Aura would get in the place like Croatia with Mandarin. I don't know what planet she is dreaming of - but once she starts traveling around this planet I am on (Earth), then she would wake up and realize that Chinese is definitely not being used by anyone apart from the Chinese people. I hate to criticize Aura, but Chinese people like her need to wake up and smell the coffee - white people are simply NOT learning Chinese. Even if there is a small increase in recent years, the number of non-native speakers is still statistically insignificant compared to the people who speak a language like French, Spanish or Russian as a second language. Aura - what planet are you on? Earth?

Furthermore, Robert Greene made another very valid point - despite the incredible success of the Japanese economy in the 1980s and 1990s, relatively few foreigners bothered to learn any Japanese at all. What did happen of course, was a much bigger spread of Japanese culture where people from New York to Singapore to Sydney started eating sushi, buying Japanese fashion labels like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, buying Japanese electronic products and embracing Japanese popular culture without actually learning the language. Japan obviously did very well out of this, making a lot of money in the process but they were not that bothered about the rest of the world learning Japanese - instead, by the same token, they became increasingly westernized in that period: from fashion to food to pop music styles and the epitome of it all, Japan's love of American baseball. Japan had reached out to the west far more than the other way around. China will almost certainly go the same way of Japan for they are already reaching out to the west in a big way since the time they embraced capitalism under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s.

So there you go, despite the somewhat misleading title of the BBC article, it clearly states that Chinese will never ever become the language of the future and I agree. Do you agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, let me know what you think.

Oh yeah and rather than make a whole new post for this, I thought I'd just bung this at the end of this post: I've hit 300,000 hits today! Whoopee!

Q&A: Parents & Foreign Languages

2012-02-22T00:47:00.001Z

Here's a fun question for today (well fun for me at least!) from Chua in Singapore.

"Hi Limpeh, jiak pah buey? I stumbled upon something that you may find interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435 It is a news article + video about a 20 year old student who is fluent in 11 languages. I have two young children and would very much like them to become multi-lingual to give them an edge, given how competitive Singapore will be when they grow up. What can I do as a parent to make sure that my children become multi-lingual? Any advice please? Kum siah!"

"Twenty-year-old Alex Rawlings has won a national competition to find the UK's most multi-lingual student.
The Oxford University undergraduate can currently speak 11 languages - English, Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian.Entrants in the competition had to be aged between 16 and 22 and conversant in multiple languages.Alex drew on all his skills to tell BBC News about his passion for learning languages and how he came to speak so many."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435
Also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370 "The Cult of The Hyperglot"

Dear Chua,

Thanks for your message. Indeed I found the video very interesting indeed and I must say Alex Rawlings does out perform me in the language department for he is clearly fluent in 11 languages. I do speak 10 but am only properly fluent in 4 (English, French, Spanish and Mandarin) - whilst I am good but not fluent in the other 6. Here are some ideas for you as a parent:

1. Start at home with the languages you already speak

My family is very much a Mandarin speaking household as my dad has got a serious mental block when it comes to English. He just hates having to speak English so by default, everyone in the house has to speak Mandarin in his presence to show respect. It's like I can be quite happily speaking in English with my sister than when my dad steps into the room, we throw the switch and slip into Mandarin mid-sentence. My dad's stubbornness with English did force me to use Mandarin at home as a child, otherwise I don't think I would be as fluent in Mandarin today if I didn't use it daily like this.

The story gets interesting as my Mum sucks at Mandarin - big time. She is a Hokkien speaker and she never did Chinese at school, she did Malay. So she is totally fluent in Hokkien (her first langauge) and Malay but struggles in Mandarin . My dad is fluent in Malay as well as he is Malaysian and he is fluent in Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka and Teochew. My mother speaks in this mish-mash of Mandarin, Hokkien and Malay with my dad which she uses with me as well in his presence to avoid English - and that is why I can speak Hokkien and Malay pretty well today.

Therefore from a young age, I was already quadralingual at home - English, Mandarin, Hokkien anad Malay. My dad effectively banning English (my first and preferred language) from the home was the best thing to force me to think and communicate in a second, third and fourth language. Chua, make sure you use your mother tongue with your children at home - do not simply use English. Create a multi-lingual domestic environment.

2. Let the child choose the foreign language

The key factor that determines how far your child gets in a foreign language is the level of interest. I have tried to learn Thai and have failed miserably. I hang my head in deep shame. I can only explain that there was really nothing in Thai culture that interests me and I was only doing it because it would be useful for work. On the other hand, I've never made an active effort to learn Korean - but somehow picked up quite a lot simply through K-pop and memorizing the lyrics of my favourite 2NE1 and T-ara songs so I could sing along. I've effectively given up on Thai and I will learn Korean instead.

It could relate to anything in your child's life - maybe s/he has some friends who speak that language, it may be happy memories of a holiday or maybe s/he has enjoyed a good foreign film. It could be anything - but let the child decide so you can be sure you won't be wasting your money and his/her time.

3. Support your child and create opportunities to use the language

My sister tried French as a third language for three years and gave up in secondary 4 before having to take it as an O level subject - she got no where it in and struggled to pass. In her defense, we're talking about the time period from 1985 to 1988. It wasn't like her could log onto youtube to watch French movie/TV clips online - we didn't even have the internet then. There were no French videos or books in her school library and she basically had no one to practice her French with, apart from her classmates and it was the case of the blind leading the blind as they practiced their Singrench/Singrais on each other.

And no thanks to her, my parents were so skeptical when I wanted to learn French - "if your sister couldn't do it (and she is so smart), what makes you think you can succeed where she failed?" The big difference was I started French very late - in July 1995, just when the internet was beginning to take off in Singapore and I had technology to help me. I don't think I am any more clever or gifted than my sister - I just had far more high tech tools to help me learn French.

It is vital to go beyond watching clips on youtube - give your child the opportunity to speak foreign language. For example, if your child is learning Japanese, then go to a Japanese restaurant where the staff are Japanese and get the child to order in Japanese for the family. Bring your child to see foreign films in the language they are learning - you can read the subtitles. Give your child a reward for good performance: get an A in your Korean exam and we'll go skiing in Korea and watch a T-ara concert whilst we're there.

Limpeh skiing in Sljeme, Croatia.

It is vital to make your child realize how useful the foreign language is - a lot of my sister's failure at French can be attributed to her feeling, "how on earth is this ever going to be useful? I can't even find anyone apart from my teacher who actually speaks French." She lacked motivation. And guess what? That was in the 80s. There have been so many times when she needed French in her work and she was wrecking her brains, trying to remember what she had learnt years ago, wishing she had kept it up.

4. Role Reversal: student/teacher

Show an interest in your child's foreign language, turn an ordinary trip to the supermarket into a learning opportunity, "how do you say carrots in Spanish? How do you say orange juice in Spanish?" Don't turn it into some kind of test where the child will face dire consequences should s/he get the answer wrong - instead, make it sound as if you genuinely want to learn how to say carrots in Spanish. If your child knows the answer, then it is your child being the teacher, you're the student. Children love that sense of empowerment when they can teach their parents something new.

So if your child doesn't know the word for carrots in Spanish, then simply tell them, "Can you find out please so you can teach me tomorrow?" Rather than, "how can you not know? It's such a common vegetable, find out and I will test you tomorrow!" Remember, the child is the teacher, you have to be the student and not the teacher.

Las Zanahorias

As a parent, you must create a sense of aspiration in your children. A common question you might encounter is this: "Mummy, Daddy, you don't speak Korean, so why should I learn Korean?" Your answer has got to let them know that you expect your children to perform better at school, pick up more useful skills and do much better in life because they can become better than their parents at many things. "Just because Daddy cannot speak Korean, doesn't mean that you cannot. In fact, when you become good at Korean, you can teach Daddy Korean, be Daddy's Korean teacher." They should never be limited by this concept of comparing themselves to you - they should in fact be inspired to outperform their parents in a variety of ways.

I once overheard this in Singapore - a child corrected his father's bad English and the father reacted defiantly by saying, "我的英语不好，但我仍然可以赚这么多钱!" (My English is not good, but I can still earn so much money!") I had to resist the urge to tell that father off there and then - what kind of message are you sending to your child? Please, parents - put your ego aside and if your child has a point, then just play the part of the student for a change and empower them by letting them play the part of the teacher, even if it is for two minutes. Your children will not respect you any less and reacting so defensively only comes across as terribly insecure.

Remember, just because you can't speak a foreign language doesn't mean your child can't. Put your ego aside and believe that your child will do better than you.

Do you expect your child to outperform you in life?

5. Don't ignore the domestic help

My sister has an Indonesian maid who speaks very good English and even a little Mandarin - so my sister and my brother-in-law are quite content speaking to her in English and of course, my nephew speaks to her in English too. They are clearly missing the valuable opportunity that is staring at them in the face - this maid speaks Bahasa Indonesia (which is mutually intelligible with Malay, one of the official languages of Singapore). Malay and Indonesian are spoken in total by over 180 million people to the north, south, east and west of Singapore. Singapore is surrounded by Malay/Indonesian speakers and it is more widely spoken than Japanese, Italian, Korean and German.

I once suggested to them that they should learn Indonesian from her and they made this face as if to say, "are you mad?" And then they composed their reply very diplomatically, "She is very smart and speaks perfectly good English so we don't have to speak her language."

Sigh. If that is the kind of attitude you have to a foreigner who speaks English well, then you are approaching this totally the wrong way. We learn a foreign language to improve our minds, not simply to communicate with people who do not speak English. I suspect that there is also an element of snobbery on my sister's part, like "she is the domestic help, not a tuition teacher."

So if you do have domestic help, why not get them to teach your children their native language?

6. Allow your children to change their minds

We will get further in some languages than others - our minds are all different and whilst one child may take to Japanese like a duck to water, another may struggle in Japanese but excel in Russian instead. It is hard to say which language(s) your children will be good at until you let them have a go at them. So if your child has tried one language and found that they sucked at it, don't be disheartened - try another language. My sister sucked big time at French and did extremely well in Chinese, I found Chinese very challenging and French much easier than Chinese. And hey, we're made from the same gene pool - yet there are distinct differences.

You cannot realistically expect your children to excel at every single thing they attempt - so if they want to give up learning Japanese and try learning Russian instead, there's no shame involved in that U-turn. And if they are no longer having fun with the language, then it is time to pull the plug on it and try something else instead once the interest and enthusiasm is gone.

7. Don't compare other languages to Chinese

My parents held me back from learning any foreign languages for a long time (until I was 19, when I was too old to listen to them) because they deemed that I was crap at languages. Erm, hello? I speak 10 languages, I'm a polyglot (even a hyperglot) - how many do they speak? But here's my family's situation. My dad was a Chinese teacher and demanded very high standards from my sisters and I when it came to every Chinese exam - we didn't just have to get As, we had to top the class and meet his ridiculously high standards.

My sisters were super hardworking and would spend hours memorizing chunks and chunks of new words. Each time they had this massive regurgitation of Chinese vocab in front of my dad and dazzled him all the new stuff they have memorized, my dad would scold me and accuse me of being lazy and stupid - I had two sisters who were so incredibly brilliant, what was wrong with me? Why couldn't I study hard like them?

So in his mind, I sucked at languages (despite the fact that I had straight As for Chinese all my life) - simply because I couldn't live up to his standards and paled in comparison to my two sisters who were so incredibly brilliant in Chinese. (Hands up those of you who grew up with super smart older siblings and can empathize!) I am good in Chinese by all conventional measures - just not super brilliant as I never had the tenacity to memorize chunks and chunks of Chinese characters the way my sisters did. I was like, fuck this shit, I am bored. I am so freaking bored.

Imagine their surprise when I excelled in one foreign language after another and just to piss my dad off and make a point, I would tell him that I still totally suck in Chinese today and am a lot more confident in French, Spanish, Welsh, German, Italian and Russian - that I feel far more comfortable in the white man's languages than Chinese. Of course, it's a complete lie - Chinese is my second language after English (it is as good as my French), but I have always resented the way my parents just assumed I couldn't possibly do French. "If your sister who is so brilliant at Chinese can fail in French, what makes you think that you can do French when your Chinese is not as good as your sister's? I don't want to waste more money paying for your French books and French lessons." And now I'd tell him, "yeah my Chinese still sucks big time and my French is totally fluent. I have a white brain, not a Chinese brain." Okay, none of the above is true, okay? My Chinese is totally fluent and way better than most Singaporeans (I had to write press releases in Chinese and deal with local press in Shanghai in Chinese in a previous job- how many Singaporeans can actually do a job like that which requires first language standard Chinese?) - call me antagonistic, I still love winding my dad up sometimes.

Luckily, I have nothing but sheer admiration from my sisters who recognize how difficult mastering a language like French is. My sisters visited me when I was studying in Paris and when she tried to speak French in a shop, she managed to get basic sentences out but couldn't understand a word of what the shopkeeper said in reply and I had to go rescue her. She has gone out of her way to tell my parents that what I have achieved linguistically is phenomenal and how good I am in French but my parents would be like, "yeah but his Chinese is not as good as yours..." Talk about being frustrated by stubborn parents!

What still pisses me off big time is the fact that despite getting straight As for everything else, my sister often failed French in secondary school. She was persuaded by her school to drop French as a third language for it would tarnish what would've otherwise been a royal flush of A1s at the O level exams, so she promptly dropped it at the start of secondary 4. Did my parents scold her for being "stupid and lazy" for flunking French? No! Why? Because they were seeing it from their point of view - ie. "I don't speak French, I can't speak French, therefore French is difficult and impossible to learn, so it is okay if my daughter fails French because I would fail too if I tried it. But I can speak Chinese well, therefore my children must be able to do that too." They did waste a lot of time and money with my sister in her failed attempt to learn French, but they didn't once complain that she had wasted their hard earned money on her only to for her to give up. Can you see why young people in Singapore desperately want to find something to define themselves as being different from their parents to demonstrate to them: I am not like you, I do not want to be like you, please don't assume I am anything like you. I refer you to point 1 in this post: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/01/korea.html

Spanish is so much easier than Chinese.

Like I have said before, Chinese is the most difficult language in the world. It is freaking difficult. Any other language with an alphabet system is so much easier than Chinese. It is probably the toughest second languages you can pick for a child whose first language is English. If you child sucks in Chinese, then don't write him/her off as someone who is crap at langauges - let them try a language with an alphabet system: French, Vietnamese, German, Malay, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog, Italian, Turkish etc and you will be amazed how much further your child is going to get in that language.

Don't forget, Chinese is really badly taught in Singapore. I hope things have improved since my time but I only really had one good Chinese teacher throughout my entire time in Singapore (in my JC). The rest well and truly sucked, including my dad. It boiled down to "memorize these new words, write them 50 times until you remember them and if you can't remember them, write them 100 times over and over again until you remember them." We did as we were told but we hated every moment of it, we dreaded it and did the teachers care how we felt? No, they didn't give a shit.

Is it any wonder why so many Singaporeans hate the Chinese language and are still haunted by nightmares of endless writing exercises? Yeah, my sisters were the kind of students who would diligently sit down and copy out chunks of Chinese texts until their pens ran dry - and I'm like, fuck this shit, this sucks big time. Look, let's call a spade a spade here - Chinese teachers in Singapore suck big time and they need to find a new way to get students interested in the language. They've already fucked up badly with my generation, are they going to fuck up with the next generation? As someone who's actually really good at Chinese, I am able to look back at the situation in Singapore and say, look - don't blame the students, blame the teachers! I am good in Chinese today because of my natural ability with languages, despite being fucked over big time by years of really fucking awful Chinese teachers in Singapore.

Look, there are various reasons why you may want your children to learn Chinese - you may feel that it is an important part of your cultural heritage, you may think that it is an important skill to have, you may want your children to be able to communicate with their grandparents - but regardless of your reasons, do not neglect the fact that Chinese is a very complex and difficult language to learn. Having Chinese blood and Chinese ancestry doesn't make the language any easier for your children, it doesn't make them genetically predisposed to excel in Chinese. Those who struggle with it are not stupid or "jiat-kentang" - but merely not good at Chinese, possibly through no fault of their own. You can't expect your children to be good at everything and rather than focus on the things they clearly have no talent for, why not focus on the things that they are good at?

Limpeh do lion & dragon dance one leh, don't accuse Limpeh of jiat-kentang hor.

8. Be realistic in your expectations

Not every child can turn out to be the next Alex Rawlings even with the best support and help you can give your child. Some children will go on to speak several languages fluently, others may struggle even with a second language. Heck, I have an English friend here in London who was born and bred in England - he is dyslexic and struggles even with his mother tongue English. Whether your child goes on to become totally fluent in the foreign language they are learning or if they can get no further than the basics, as long as they have tried their best, you must reward the effort they have put into it.

There you go, that's eight points for you as a parent to help your children becoming multilingual. Let me know if you have any other questions!

For more on foreign languages, have a read here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/foreign-languages-chapter-3-syndrome.html

Q&A: Sex, porn & masturbation

2012-02-20T12:47:00.000Z

I am so glad my readers feel they can come to me with questions like that, here we have a concerned older sister on the issue of masturbation.

"Hi Limpeh, I hope you can help me. Please don't print this comment as I wish to remain anonymous for reasons that will soon become clear.

I am 19 and have a younger brother who is 14. I am concerned about his masturbation. My parents are totally oblivious to it as my mother probably has no idea what it is and my dad works such long hours that he barely sees us. I don't mean to be a prude, but it's just the frequency that he does it. I first realized he was masturbating when I wanted to go into his room to get something and the door was locked. He claimed he was changing his clothes but he was in there for like 5 minutes and when he came out he was still wearing the same clothes. The room just smells of it and I am not stupid, I know what he is doing.

I'm kinda busy right now...

Look, I don't want to be a busybody but one thing that did concern me was the frequency he is doing it. He seems to be at it all the time! The door to his room is always locked and I don't even wanna touch his things anymore because I think he's always masturbating. OK, I know he is a teenager undergoing puberty but surely there are limits?

I know he is looking at porn on the internet as well - once I heard him open this file and there were people moaning and grunting and then he muted the volume. It was only for like 2 seconds but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he was looking at porn. Since my parents would never talk to him about this, I feel that as the only elder sibling, I have to find out some facts. I am wondering if you mind answering a few questions for me please?

1. What are the side effects of (excessive) masturbating?

2. Will this affect his health or make him too tired?

3. Will this lead to him taking it to the next level and having sex with another person?

4. What is normal frequency for men when it comes to masturbation?

5. Should he cut down? (He seems to be at it non-stop I swear).

6. Should I look at the history on his laptop to see what kind of adult material he has been accessing? What if he is looking at really sick stuff?

Thank you. I really don't know who else to ask. I don't expect my male friends at poly to give me any kind of sensible answer, they'll probably treat it as one big joke. As much as I want to be the cool elder sister, I am so grossed out by what he has been doing that I don't know how to react sometimes!!! Please help Limpeh."

Who can we talk to about sex?

OK, I am glad I am providing an outlet for someone like this who doesn't quite know where to turn for advice, but I am always glad to answer your questions.

1. There are no side effects of masturbating.

It is a perfectly natural release for men (and women in fact). It is how nature designed our bodies, if animals didn't feel the need to procreate and have sex, then we would all go extinct, each and every species on earth. The urge to masturbate is merely nature's call to your brother that he is ready for procreation.

As for excessive, well there's a self-regulation mechanism that is built into the human body. Let me explain it to you using a far more simple analogy: food. It is pleasurable to eat nice food, however, we only eat when we are hungry and the pleasure stops when we are full. Have you ever finished a big meal and think, "oh boy, I am so very full now, I can't eat anything else." Yeah that's our body telling us, enough is enough, no more, please stop. So at that stage, even if there is more food on the table, we will stop eating - why? Because there will be no more pleasure to be gained by eating, no matter how delicious the food may be.

You know when to say stop - quite simply, when you are full.

Likewise, one masturbates when one is horny. Upon the moment of ejaculation, there is pleasure and most men will need some time to recover at that point - it could be anything from ten minutes to a few hours before they're able to perform the act of masturbation again. The pleasure stops - the same way we become full after a big dinner. We have to wait till we become hungry again before we can enjoy eating again - likewise, the man has to wait till he becomes horny again before he can enjoy masturbating again. Again, how quickly the libido returns after ejaculation depends on the individual - some men simply have higher sex drive than others.

By the same token, the law of diminishing returns applies when it comes to masturbation. The first one of the day is usually the best, then the amount of pleasure diminishes with each subsequent one you do. I am going to give you an example, have a look at the video below:

This is one of the best rides in Universal Studios, Sentosa: "The Revenge Of The Mummy". When I was last in Universal Studios, it was a fairly quiet day and so we went on it several times. It was one of the air-con rides as well so it was nice to get out of the very hot sun. The first time was amazing, especially the part when the roller coaster suddenly falls backwards and you are sent flying backwards through the darkness - awesome stuff. When we went on it again, I was already bracing myself for the bit when it went backwards and by the third time, I was getting a bit bored of it. By the fourth time, I was just in there for the air-con - I didn't even scream. But wasn't this the exact same ride that brought me so much pleasure the first time I was on it? The law of diminishing returns does kick in with any kind of physical experience that brings pleasure and it applies equally to masturbation - this is a built-in self-regulation function when it comes to sex.

Whilst thinking about sex all the time can be a distraction to one's work (eg. when you're trying to revise for an exam!) - then the one way to most efficiently get rid of that urge to think about sex is to masturbate because that is the most effective way to eliminate the sexual desire in the short run, just get it out of your system. The same way it may be hard to focus on your studies if you're very hungry and all you can think about is food - one would quite simply eat something quickly to get rid of the hunger pangs so that one can get back to work.

Oh yeah, Universal Studios, Singapore

2. Will it make him excessively tired?

This is another common question. The answer is, this depends on his stamina. Like any other physical act, it does take some energy to complete the exercise. This is no different than playing a game of tennis or running for the bus - if he is already in good shape, then it would not exhaust him the same way doing a PE class at school is not going to leave him so exhausted he is unable to study for the rest of the day. And if it does exhaust him to that extent, then I think you need to worry about his physical fitness! But clearly, he is going at it like a Duracell Bunny, so his stamina is clearly not a problem here.

The bottom line is, there are no side-effects, you know all the old wives' tales about growing hairs on your palms or losing your eyesight etc - it's all bullshit designed to scare young boys. These old wives are unable to talk about the topic in an informed way, so they come up with these crazy stories to scare the youngsters. Likewise, a lot of these crazy stories are perpetuated by religious zealots who are just freaked out by any sex at all, so they cook up crazy stories to put people off sex. There's so much misinformation and lies about sex out there, I am glad we're having this information to try to get some facts out and stick to the science!

3. Will this lead to him becoming sexually active?

That is a question I cannot answer since I don't know your brother personally. It is evident that he is interested in sex right now, but becoming sexually active means having to find someone who's willing to do it with him - and without actually meeting him and evaluating his chances... Well, you probably can make a calculated guess at this one. Many awkward teenage boys may be very horny but lack the social skills to find someone who's willing to do it with them.

4. What is the normal frequency?

Now how often one has the desire to masturbate depends on one's libido - ie. sex drive. Some men never do it because they have very low sex drive whilst others do it all the time (up to 10 times a day) because they have very high sex drive. It is something you are born with - just like how some men are naturally good runners whilst others struggle to climb a flight of stairs. Our bodies are all made differently and sex drive does vary from man to man by that token.

Not all young men are built the same - not their minds, nor their bodies.

It is a fallacy to say that all teenage boys are horny and want to masturbate all the time - even amongst teenage boys, some have higher sex drive than others and so by that token, some masturbate more than others. Therefore, if your brother has a very high sex drive and feels the desire to masturbate all the time, then that's perfectly natural - he was made to be more virile than other men.

If you're concerned about his time management, let's say he masturbate 8 times a day, each time spending 5 minutes, that's 40 minutes a day. Do you know how many hours teenagers waste on Facebook or computer games a day? 40 minutes is nothing.

5. Should he cut down?

I don't think it is for you (or his parents or anyone else) to tell him how often he should be masturbating, it is a rather private thing for men. It would only lead to resentment and awkwardness between the two of you if you start taking an active interest in his masturbation patterns. I really doubt you would be able to influence him in any way on the issue even if you tried.

There are far worse things in life than masturbation...

After all, think about it - he is just 14, he needs his parents' permission to go out, is reliant on his parents for pocket money and is saddled with a lot of pressure at school to study hard. Masturbation is probably one form of release that makes him feel empowered, like a fully grown man who is ready to procreate and breed, rather than a kid at school who is dependent on his parents for everything.

And hey, come on - he's not drinking, smoking, doing drugs or getting involved in gangs. He's just masturbating - that's harmless, there are far worse things for teenagers than a bit of self-pleasure. If you think he ought to get out more, then encourage him to participate in activities like sports or other CCA activities at school where he can enjoy healthy social interaction with his peers. Surfing the internet for porn is a very lonely activity.

6. Porn & the internet

Oooh boy. No you shouldn't go on his laptop. He doesn't even need to download it anymore - there are many websites that work like youtube where you simply stream the movies for free. Invading his privacy would probably sour the relationship between the two of you. Is there a lot of sick stuff on the internet? Of course there is, but such is the nature of the internet today, we can't turn back the clock to the days without internet. What we can do is to train our children to be more discerning and exercise better judgment when accessing the wealth of information on the internet.

For example, in a lot of porn, women are being portrayed as sex objects to be used and abused by men for their pleasure. If your brother sees a lot of porn like that, then it may be a good idea to ensure that you educate him about the need to respect women in a relationship so he understands that porn is merely a representation of a man's fantasy: ie. man meets beautiful woman and they have sex within 3 minutes. Certainly at his age, he could be a bit naive and think, "oh so that's what adults do" - and if no one else tells him otherwise, then how is he going to know the difference and understand the emotional aspects of a relationship?

And even if you get rid of his laptop and deny him internet access at home - there are still mobile phones and don't forget, all his friends have laptops too and he is not a child anymore. There's only so much you can do - so rather than treat him like a child that simply cannot be trusted, your best bet is to engage him as an adult and see what you can do in terms of educating him about sex and sexuality.

One point that I do want to make though, is that he could end up spending a lot of time looking at porn on the internet. It's online and it's completely free and for a boy his age, it must be thoroughly fascinating! The best thing you can do is to make sure that he is finishing his homework and monitor his progress. Also, make sure he does not stay up late at night surfing the net and ensure that he gets enough sleep so he can focus whilst at school.

Were you up late last night surfing the internet again?!

Lastly, if I may just assure you: masturbation usually takes five minutes (or less). It's not like he is busy whacking it every time his door is shut. Maybe he simply wants some privacy and boys at that age can be awkward. Give him the privacy he needs but also make an effort to spend some quality time with him Take him bowling one evening or something like that, try to bond as siblings, okay?

All the best. Let me know if you have any other questions.

For more on sex education in Singapore, have a read here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/01/moes-revision-on-sex-education.html

Fashion Q&A: Bow Ties

2012-02-19T22:57:00.000Z

A simple question for a Sunday evening:
"Limpeh, what do you think about bow ties? They seem to be increasingly popular but I don't know if I dare to wear one to work yet. I don't want to look goofy or silly - but is that me just being old fashioned?"

I think that bow ties only look good for black tie and white tie events and despite the latest Dr Who Matt Smith sporting a bow tie, no, I don't think it is ever going to take off. I struggle to take a man who wears a bow tie seriously, I'd be thinking, "are you trying to look alternative or do you seriously believe that actually looks good?"

Have a look at these two photos, now these are suitable occasions for bow ties, when it does look elegant.

Black tie tuxedo

White tie with tails

However, there are certain looks which I am just not convinced about. Now if you were to talk about wearing bow ties to work (rather than say for a red carpet film premier), then the first person I think of is The Nutty Professor. Like, it's not enough that we're going to put Eddie Murphy in a fat suit to make him morbidly obese, how can we make him even more gross? I know, we'll put that ridiculous bow tie on him to show how socially inept he is.

Okay maybe that's a rather extreme example, but let's look at Matt Smith instead and see how he carries off the bow tie look. Somehow, I am not convinced again. If he wasn't Dr Who, he'll just be another dork who looks as if he has inherited the clothes of his late grandfather. I don't care if he's Dr Who - I still don't buy his bow tie look.

Okay at this stage, you may be saying, oh come on Limpeh, be fair - Nutty Professor? Dr Who? Pick a better example. Okay, how about Stromae, this bow tie wearing Belgian had one of the biggest hits in 2009 in not just his native Belgium but all over Europe. "Alors On Danse" reached no. 1 in 18 countries and Stromae is a big name in the European electonic and hip hop music scene. Surely someone like Stromae can make bow ties look trendy? I am sorry, but I am not convinced. I absolutely loved "Alors On Danse" (it's on my iPod!) but no, I am not buying his bow tie look.

When you think about men who wear bow ties, naturally the first images that come to mind are people like Winston Churchill, Karl Marx and Charlie Chaplin but it simply doesn't evoke the image of someone who's either trendy or serious. Sorry, but it is used only for comedic purposes (as in the Nutty Professor) or in some kind of ironic fashion statement (as in Stromae's case). There is also the more recent example of Raj Bhakta from America - the former Apprentice contestant who tried to run for Congress and lost. Goodness me, just how goofy did he look in a bowtie? No Raj, no. I am not just saying this because you're an evil Republican with no morals, I'm offering you kind advice. If you wanna be in politics, then you want people to listen to what you have to say and get them interested in your policies, you don't want them to walk away with just one impression, "what the hell was he wearing?!" Your clothes are so awful that people only remember you as the walking fashion disaster and nothing else. This man is a pathetic joke.

So there you go, my verdict is clear - it is a flat no to bow ties unless it is for a black tie tuxedo ensemble or the full white tie and tails treatment. Oh and if you do wear a bow tie for such an occasion, please get a proper one which you have to tie yourself - it's so much more classy.

Q&A: Jobs in Banking part 2

2012-02-19T16:01:00.004Z

Another question for me on this Sunday, this time on the issue finding a job in banking. A rather long post but here we go, here's the original post:

SnowlyfFeb 19, 2012 03:02 PM

Hi Limpeh, just to tell you that I have been quietly following your blog and your blog has been my how-to for navigating the big, bad, cruel working world:) Relating to this post, I have always tried applying to banks, been to many bank interviews but has never succeeded. The first time I tried was back a few years ago, when I just graduated with a Degree in Banking & Finance from NTU. Like many fresh grads, I thought a finance degree will give me a passport into banks. How naïve.

Why do people want to work in banking?

And so after many unsuccessful attempts, I settled for a role within civil service. Many colleagues within this department move on to embark on a compliance role within banks. So now after gaining a few years of experience, I thought there were tried-and-tested cases, surely I can do it. I have tried for about a year now, going for countless interviews with banks, brokerage firm, fund management, insurance firms etc. At last, I received an offer for a compliance role but again, it’s not with a financial institution.

The role requires one to start a compliance program from scratch. The scale is much smaller than that of a bank, and the client base is mainly mass-consumer. The future within this firm is uncertain, as this is a new service launch. There might be limited marketable skills, since banks usually like to hire one with compliance experience within a bank ie. It might be difficult for me to move around in the future. However there seem to be opportunities for growth since the role will be the financial compliance person-to-go-to in the firm.

Are you playing catch up with your career?

The money is good, comparable to a bank and can be even more than what some of my ex-colleagues get from a bank. It’s not my ideal job but there seem to be opportunities albeit the uncertainty. I wonder if I should take it up, and give up on my banking dream. I have asked myself why is it that it is so hard for me to gain an entry, when my friends from the same course have done it. Is it my personality, my lack of interviewing skills? I am not even aiming at IB or front office.

One friend say it’s a blessing I am not in a bank, given the current downsizing and the instability, and I am too nice to be able to survive in the banking world. I will simply be trampled on. So I wonder if it is a culture fit? Ironically, friends who are currently in banks are working their shit out (mostly in operations) and are trying to run out of banking. I know, a job in a bank could be just another office job, but I just feel indignant. So in summary, my questions are

1. Do you think I should take up this role and once again, hold off my banking dream?
2. In your opinion, what did I simply lack to gain an entry into banks or the finance industry?

What makes you stand out from other candidates?

I am beginning to feel lost with what I want to do, and losing sight of my career goals. Hope you can help. Thanks a lot.

Woah, that's a long post. Let me slowly try to offer you some useful answers.

1. Yes a degree in banking or anything related is no guarantee that you will be snapped up by a bank! There are only so many entry level positions in banking every year and quite frankly, it's simply a case of supply vs demand. There are far more applicants than positions every year - so you really need to stand out to even be invited for an interview. I have talked about this in my previous post here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/finding-that-ideal-job.html

2. Compliance is an important part of financial services and you won't believe how much time I spend dealing with the compliance officers of our local distributors in Singapore. It is a vital role - however, I don't envy them. They are the ones who come to me for more information because they are doing the due diligence on my fund(s) before they are able to distribute it for my company in Singapore. You won't believe just how much information I give them and I'm thinking to myself, what are you going to do with all that data? You're really going to go through all of it with a fine comb? Woah. Good luck with that. But yeah, they actually do do that, so there you go, that's compliance officers for you. I hope they are well paid for that because it does come across as a tedious task. Is that really what you want to do with your career?

Honestly, compliance is not a barrel of laughs.

3. The role you talked about does sound like a good opportunity and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't consider it. Don't worry too much about what it might mean for you to move around in the future. Look at me, I left finance to go work in media, traveled the world and came back to it - the bottom line is as long as you are made of good stuff, any company who hires you will be willing to train you up from scratch and teach you everything you need to know. Sure, relevant experience is always good but there is a difference between transferable skills and expecting the previous employer to have taught the new guy everything he needs to know.

4. I think you should be more flexible with your 'banking dreams' - after all, can you even define that? There are so many different roles in banking for different kinds of talents, can you tell me what you have in mind? And does it have to be so rigid? After all, as long as you're successful and happy in this new position, heck, what else matters?

5. It's not just the banks which are downsizing but there are a number of different industries all affected by the current economic crisis. We are in the middle of a recession - no one is spared unfortunately. As for being too nice, I don't think it is a question of being 'nice', it is a question of being tough. It is a very brutal industry indeed and the issue was discussed here about those who are simply not tough enough to fit in: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-unpaid-interns-on-internship.html Sorry but there's nothing against people who are 'nice' and them telling you that you're too nice is them being kind and cushioning the blow, it's not nice for them to say, "you won't make it because you're not tough enough." Ouch. One can be nice and tough at the same time I believe, the two are not mutually exclusive.

6. As for why you've failed to gain entry into a banking position - sorry my friend, I don't know you and it is hard for me to pass judgment and give you a diagnosis without actually meeting you in person and having an in depth conversation. I suspect though, that is may (I am just guessing) have something to do with the high IQ low EQ problem common amongst Singaporeans, more on it here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-iq-vs-eq-in-sg-limpeh.html

7. Remember, interviews are a lot more than a chance to impress them with how good your qualifications are or what projects you've done in the past - you're also selling yourself as a person, you need to show them that "I am a really nice person whom you will enjoy working with." More on interviews here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-lesson-2-job-interviews.html

8. My final suggestion is to turn your attention away from the big players like Citgroup, HSBC and UOB and focus on smaller players in the industry. There are plenty of smaller firms arond, such as my company - we're a small fund manager with a handful of funds. We run a tight ship, small company, small team, low-cost and hence very low TER (total expense ratio). Quite frankly, I've worked in both big and small companies before and I much prefer smaller ones. I remember years ago when I worked in a big company and I went to the director of a different department for help on an issue (cos I knew she was in a much better position to help me deal with the problem at hand) and then my boss gave me such grief for turning to her rather than him and I'm like, WTF? Shouldn't you be glad that I took the initiative to solve my own problems rather than running to you for everything? Duh. We don't have such ego issues in a small company.

Lastly, I hope you will understand why I cannot enter into any kind of personal correspondence via email - the full explanation is here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/maaf-tut-mir-leid.html

I hope this has been of some help. Any other questions, please leave a comments below.

Q&A: IQ vs EQ in SG Limpeh?

2012-02-19T12:14:00.002Z

Hope you're all having a nice weekend folks, I shall deal with a question today from a reader in Singapore. The original message is a lot longer but I have just quoted the main question for clarity:

"Hello from Bedok, how are you Limpeh? I have read many of your posts which have featured the famous IQ bell curve which you seem to be very fond of as a means to justify your theories. Not that I am disputing that IQ bell curve, but I cannot help but feel that you are writing off half the human population - the half which are on the wrong side of this IQ bell curve..
I have a younger brother who isn't particularly bright at school - I am not going to make any excuses for him. He's not naughty, not caught up in bad company, not even in ill health. He's a v good boy who comes home everyday after school, studies hard, goes for tuition etc - but he's still struggling with the studies. I guess he would be one of those you deem to be on the wrong side of the IQ bell curve. However, he's a pleasant, kind, friendly boy who is well liked by his peers. Now that's EQ, not IQ. Surely EQ plays an important role in one's chances in life?"

Thanks for your question and it is a good one.

Have you got the EQ to get along with your peers?

Let me begin by saying that I didn't create the Singapore social system, I didn't invent theories about IQ distribution - I merely observe how things work and talk about them. This is what I do, social commentary. And of course EQ is a major factor in one's life - I have talked a lot about social skills and have used those words rather than EQ.

Indeed, for most of my job right now in dealing with our major institutional investors - it's not IQ I am using, it's almost totally EQ. I listen to them, I understand how they feel, I have to empathize with their situation and I have to figure out what they need, what they want to hear me say and deliver the right response to keep them happy. You can read more about it here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-getting-job-in-finance.html

However, had it not been for my IQ, I wouldn't have gotten as far in the Singapore education system, it wouldn't have led to the university I studied at and it wouldn't have led to my first job after university, where I worked hard to prove myself, building up my CV before getting to know my current boss who then offered me a job when I eventually left that company. IQ got me where I needed to be, in order to use my EQ in my current job.

So the Singapore education system is very much titled towards the IQ end of testing and it is worrying just how much rote learning is involved. I have bad memories of how we had to memorize just chunks and chunks of Chinese vocabulary every week, with a weekly regurgitation ritual of 听写 from a young age. Why do you think kids in Singapore dislike Chinese and struggle to do well in the subject? It is simply very badly taught. Oh and Singapore society brands these kids as 'jiat-kentang' (potato-eaters) who favour Western culture to their own, hardly the most helpful attitude. Instead, of berating these kids who struggle with Chinese in such a childish manner, why not look at different, more innovative ways to engage these kids with the language?

Jiat-kentang!?

I'm not saying that kids with lower IQ cannot learn Chinese - it just takes them longer to figure out the very complex writing system; so rather than berating them when they don't do well in Chinese, they need encouragement instead. That is where Singaporean schools and parents tend to fare very badly.

If you look at the way Chinese is taught and the way the character system works - it is one big IQ test. Look at the following words and establish the relationship between then: 火,烤,燃,烧,灰,烟,爆 and 炸 (fire, roast, to light, burn, ash, smoke, explode and fry) - these are all words associated with the root word 火 - fire as these are all nouns/verbs that one would associate with the presence of fire. Now compare that word list above to this:

What comes next in the series?

And now look again at the Chinese words: 火,烤,烧,燃,灰,烟,爆,炸

This can explain why some kids learn Chinese a lot quicker than others - it is quite simply the IQ factor that allows their brains somehow to process the difference between 烤 and 烧 (see how similar the two are - they mean to roast and to burn, but put the two together and you get 烧烤: 'barbecue') much quicker than others. This is why Chinese is considered to be the most difficult language in the world because of the demands it makes on the human brain when it comes to learning the characters.

烧烤!

So the two are linked - if you want to be a social creature in Singapore, then part of that process means being able to operate in the local language of Singapore which means Mandarin on top of English. To learn Mandarin well, however, involves one surviving the local education system which demands that children memorize thousands of Chinese characters through rote-learning and figuring out the writing system that way, so IQ is necessary to get you to the point where you can use your Mandarin language skills to express your EQ with your peers. Such is the Singapore system.

I have talked a lot about Singaporean students who are academically brilliant but socially inept, ie. high IQ, low EQ. You can read more about it here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-ah-beng-vs-atas-kenapa-awak-tiada.html

EQ comes naturally to some people - it is evident that it has come naturally to your brother as he is popular amongst his peers. Those who struggle in the EQ department can be taught such skills to get along with their peers better. I have an autistic nephew with Asperger's syndrome and he has been receiving therapy all his life to try to boost his terribly low EQ because of his condition. So this is an area of social development I am acutely aware of because of my family's situation, you can read more about it here:
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/singapore-education-system-vs.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/12/autism-in-singapore-part-2.html

What really disappoints me about Singaporean parents is the way they only react when a doctor slaps a label on a condition and tells them to get professional help for their kid's condition. Okay, so my family is spending an obscene amount of money for my nephew's therapy because a doctor has diagnosed him as autistic, but what about less severe cases where kids are not autistic but simply have low EQ? Oh Singaporean parents know what to do with a low IQ kid - tuition. Copious amounts of tuition.What about a low EQ kid? They are quite happy to ignore it and do nothing. In fact, they often make the situation worse by reducing the amount of social interaction they have by making them study long hours in solitude.

Kids with low EQ face social isolation.

I am not talking about the kind of therapy that my nephew gets for his autism, but EQ can be boosted simply through simple social interaction - playing with other children. Geez, I have no idea why Singaporean parents can't get that into their heads: playing is good for children and is as important as studying. For example, if you have only one child, you should arrange play dates for your child to hang out with other kids of his/her age. Otherwise, you can enroll your children in team sports like basketball or volleyball, so that your child can socialize and learn how to work with others as a team. Or even simply letting your child go to the local playground for an hour to mess around with their neighbours' kids - even that is going to be immensely useful!

So there you go - I believe that both IQ and EQ are equally important, but the fact is you and your brother live in Singapore and the system there seems to be skewed towards the IQ end of the curve. There is that normalization of low EQ which I have talked about, through Asian parenting. Unfortunately, this is a terribly vicious cycle that reinforces itself.

Asian parents believe that children should study hard and not play - choosing hard work over fun is a sign of discipline, self-control and good character.
A generation of Asian kids grow up spending most of their time in solitude, studying hard alone in their rooms instead of having social interaction with their peers
The local education system is focused on their performances in a few important exams, rather than team projects and group work along the way.
Most of these kids become academically brilliant students who are socially inept and have low EQ as a result of this upbringing
When they become parents themselves, they repeat the cycle with their own children because no one has told them about social skills or EQ and they're such bad parents they never bothered to pick up a book or three to read about parenting skills.

It is a harsh assessment of the situation in Singapore, nonetheless, it is sad but true. It doesn't change the fact that we are all humans at the end of the day and those with higher EQ are blessed with something incredibly useful in life. Your brother will find something he is good at and make a good life for himself, thanks to his EQ. I can't say the same who are of the high IQ low EQ variety - I refer you to the story of my former neighbour in Singapore Mei: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-tuition-limpeh-part-3.html

Q&A: Limpeh and friendship

2012-02-19T02:14:00.000Z

I have a question all the way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Let's call this person 'Kawan' (the Malay word for 'friend') as she has come to me for some friendly advice on the issue of friends.

"Hi Limpeh. I am so angry right now - you seem to be the kind of person who would know how to deal with a situation like this (I've read your other posts on friendships/love), so here's my story.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I live and work in the heart of KL, I was originally from Penang and I grew up there before moving to KL for work. I have two group of friends - the ones from up north from my childhood and my new friends in KL. I try my best to keep in touch via Facebook with my old friends up north but I hardly see them apart from when I do go back to Penang for the holidays.
Today, I saw a status update on Facebook from two of my old friends from Penang (let's call them gadis A and gadis B), they checked in their location in a shopping centre in KL Sentral - less than like 1 km from where I live. Come on, it is so near, 15 minutes walk. It is gadis A's birthday today and I knew it was her birthday, I did leave her some lame message on Facebook like Happy Birthday, Selamat Hari Jadi or something like that and she actually 'liked' it but I'm like, I didn't even know you two were in KL?! Why didn't you call me when you both knew where I live in KL Sentral? I SMSed them both immediately but it took B about 3 hours to reply and she said, "Oh we're sibuk right now, we're going to see a show this evening, not sure what we're doing later."

What do you mean you're in KL Sentral?!

I can't help but feel, WTF? You two are in town, like it's not like you're in KL that often and you're so close to me and you don't even want to see me? I last saw gadis B on new year's day and I last saw the birthday girl A two years ago for her birthday when she came down to KL as well. I feel snubbed - I also feel hurt, insulted - like I thought you two were my friends? We go back a long way you know? Like all the time we spent growing up together in Bayan Lepas, the three of us were classmates back in the late 90s and I can't believe they didn't want to see me today. I mean, if they'd told me they were coming to KL, I would've said, "yeah sure let's catch up, let's have coffee or something, y'know"?
Anyway, I got a text much later from Gadis B who said, "look I am sorry we didn't get to see you, I didn't realize you were that close to Gadis A otherwise I could've planned something." But I was like, bitch, that's too late. Like why didn't Gadis A say to you, "oh we're going to KL, we can catch up with my other old friend there who is also dari Penang." Like did Gadis A even forget I existed? Stupid bitch. OK I thought that, but I didn't reply to the SMS.

Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

I am thinking, is it my fault? I talk with gadis A on Facebook a lot but usually I am telling her how great my life is in KL and there's a part of me that thinks, you're still stuck in Penang? I tell her KL or Singapore today, tomorrow: New York, London, Tokyo, Paris - the world is out there for you to explore and she's like, yeah whatever I am happy in Penang, sangat gembira lah. And I'm like, saya tak faham - how can you be that content when you work such long hours for so little money? I have always thought that she would be jealous of me, her more glamorous friends having the better life in KL; I am wondering if I pushed it too far? It's not like I put her down, but there is a part of me that loves telling her about my life in KL. Like I know all about her sad life in Penang, her crappy job, there's nothing to tell, really tiada lah ...
Anyway, I'm pretty angry right now. I am also worried and saddened that my old friends no longer wanna make plans with me. Like, what is wrong with me? I am not a bad person?
Thanks Limpeh. When are you next in KL?"

OK Kawan, here's a music video for you before we begin:

Some Malay glossary for my non-Malay readers:
gadis = girl
sangat gembira = very happy
sibuk = busy
dari = from
saya tak faham = I don't understand
Selamat Hari Jadi = Happy birthday
Sentral = Central
tiada lah = 'there is nothing'
Bayan Lepas = A town in the province of Penang, south of the capital Georgetown
KL = Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia

And my dear Kawan, oh well, a big hug to you - it's not a nice feeling. I feel for you and you've obviously had some things to get off your chest my friend, so I am glad I have provided an outlet for you. For what it is worth, let me analyse your situation and see if I can help cast some light on your situation okay?

You know what? I find myself in your situation all the time - I am from Singapore and I live in London, visiting Singapore often for work. Sometimes my old friends from Singapore show up in London without telling me and I have to find out via Facebook - or I show up in Singapore for work and some friends get upset because I didn't take time to see them when I am in Singapore and they feel snubbed. Good grief, you know what? If it was not for Facebook and all these status updates that we feel compelled to make with every thing we do:
"Limpeh is now writing a new post on friendship for a reader in KL"
Like. Comment. 2 minutes ago

What has Facebook done to our relationships?

You get the idea, I remember when it was possible to say to a friend, "long time no see, how are you? What have you been up to?" Nowadays if I asked that question, the answer will be something like, "I've been busy - didn't you see the photos I uploaded last week? Don't you read my status updates?" Groan, it's like if you don't read your friend's wall regularly enough, you're not a good friend. What have we become?

Firstly Kawan, I am guessing that Gadis A and B have other friends in KL, right? Maybe they have made plans with other friends and given that you messaged me on a weekend, I am guessing that it was a weekend for them in KL. That is actually not a lot of time if they came down on Saturday morning and have to return by Sunday night. If they have already had some plans, that probably leaves them with very few hours left to catch up with friends. And hey, the birthday girl gets to decide how she wants to spend her weekend and maybe she decided she wanted some 'me' time - you know, self-indulgent activities like visiting a spa to be pampered rather than being social, trying to catch up with every single one of her friends in KL. I am guessing that she took Gadis B with her because they probably had a good deal with a travel agent for a double-sharing room.

Secondly, I am going to make a calculated guess based on my experience in Singapore (rather than what you have told me). Whenever I return to Singapore, I want to do touristy things like visit the Singapore Flyer and Marina Bay Sands - my local friends just roll their eyes as if to say, "please don't make me do this, only tourists go there." Imagine if I turned up at KL and said to you, "let's go see the Petronas Towers!" I would find that thrilling but you would be oh so bored. Perhaps for Gadis A and B, they were indeed going to do the equivalent of the Petronas Towers and they knew exactly how you would react so they decided to do it without you. Mind you, I feel the same way about my friends who visit London and want to go to Harrods or see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. In all likelihood, I'll tell you to go on your own and I'll see you later.

Furthermore, I need to point something out to you - okay, so Gadis A and B made plans without you, it's not as if you asked them out and they said "no go away, we don't want to hang out with you." I know it is probably your ego that is bruised right now, but hey, they had only so many hours in KL and maybe they just didn't have enough time. So rather than say, "we're going to be in town but we're not going to see you", they just didn't say anything.

Perhaps the lessons we can learn from this is to make sure we shouldn't sit back and wait for our friends to invite us out, but rather we should be more pro-active and be the ones who make plans and ask them out. I understand of course, it is rather tricky when you live in KL and they live in Penang and there's 330 km separating you and your friends in Penang.

One thing you probably need to realize is that whilst you may have sentimental memories about your friends from Penang, especially if you forged those relationships in your childhood, the sad reality is that you have to pay a price for having moved away. You may think, "oh Gadis A and B were such good friends back in our schooldays so we will always remain friends forever", sadly, that is probably not the case. You live in KL now and Gadis A and B probably have other friends they see regularly in Penang whom they are far closer to. Friends drift apart over time Kawan and I experienced this the hard way when I returned to Singapore for work last year. I thought, great, now I have to work in Singapore, I will look up all my old classmates. Guess what? It was harder than I'd imagine to try to get them together and naively thought, hey let's have an old school reunion so I can meet everyone!

My former classmates don't wanna go to MBS, but I wanna go!

So I bullied an old friend into helping me organize it and when it was finally organized, okay quite a few people turned up but only about half the people we had invited actually turned up. The other half simply couldn't be bothered or felt they had better things to do than to see their old classmates after all these years. Why? Because it has been ages since we were at school together and people have moved on. I allowed my sentimentality get in the way of my rational thinking, I had to find new friends in Singapore rather than just approach my friends from 1994. I've since created a whole new social network of new friends in Singapore and I realize that only a handful of very old friends from my school days actually do wanna see me when I am in Singapore and I am most grateful for them. The others, well - they have moved on and that's their choice. Perhaps you should realize that Gadis A and B may have decided to move on with their social lives and it doesn't mean that they don't like you anymore. It's just that you're no longer in Penang Kawan, so they would rather focus their energies on the friends whom they can see and hang out with locally in Penang.

I am glad that you are reflecting that it could be your fault that Gadis A didn't inform you that she was coming to KL. I don't think you should be too hard on yourself but it is good that you have realized that there is a thin line between bragging and sharing information. I am sure life is good to you in KL - I do enjoy KL a lot, it is a vibrant city and I was last there in October. I hope to return in April but that is up to my boss. I can see why you have many exciting opportunities in a place like KL, but do bear in mind the fact that Gadis A may be happy with life in Penang and has no desire to go to KL, Singapore or anywhere else. Perhaps this is your cue to show a greater interest in Gadis A's and B's life in Penang when you next speak to them, rather than just go on and on and on about the latest exciting thing you're doing in KL.

How are you coming across to your old friends in Penang?

Now I am guessing this and forgive me if I am wrong - but Asian students can be quite competitive and sometimes this competitiveness can creep into your adult life when you start comparing how much you earn, how far up the career ladder you have climbed etc. Please resist the urge to compare yourself with your peers, it is not a very attractive thing to do - imagine if you have a friend who was so keen on telling you just how much better she is doing in her life and career. Not nice.

Then again, I do have friends who are so much more successful than me in their careers and earn a lot more money and I do enjoy catching up with them and finding out what they get up to. I have this old friend (from KL actually!) who is now working for the United Nations in Africa and she was in London for a conference last year and I couldn't get enough of her stories. She had the most amazing stories to tell about her work and I was envious and jealous - but I am not the kind of person who would then say, "she is doing better than me, so I cannot bear to talk to her." Hell no. I am so pleased for her and am glad we kept in touch as friends. So let's not blow things out of proportion here: there's really nothing that wrong with sharing exciting news with friends. Heck, if you can't share that with your friends, who can you share that with? That's what friends are for, right?

There is a reason why we keep in touch with childhood friends - they are a nostalgic link to our past, they remind us of who we were and how far we have come and I do feel it is often worth the effort to maintain those links, rather than let them go cold. I think of the number of former classmates whom I am just friends with on Facebook but I didn't even bother to look up when I was spending so much time in Singapore last year, sigh.For people like you and I who have moved away from our hometown, we can get sentimental about our hometown and the people associated with that place. Sadly, the reverse doesn't apply - the people we have left behind are not sentimental about us: we've left, we're gone and soon, we're forgotten. Sad but true. They may miss us for a while but after a few years, well, we're but faded memories.

What is the point of having that many friends on Facebook, really?

But guess what? It takes two hands to clap and if Gadis A and B show little effort to be anything more than friends who leave the odd comment on your Facebook wall, then guess what? There's little you can do apart from accepting the sad fact that you've drifted apart over time and that's not your fault - it's merely because you've long since moved to KL and have a brand new life in KL now. Ask yourself this: when was the last time you started a conversation on Facebook with them and when was the last time they initiated the contact? If you had been the one making all or most of the effort to maintain that friendship, then the writing is on the wall Kawan - you're clearly more interested in maintaining this old friendship than they are.

You see, from what you said, you feel guilty about bragging about your great life in KL to them, but what is there to stop them from telling you stories about how old friends in Penang are doing or anything else that is happening in their life? It can be more two-way if they are willing to be more forthcoming, but it doesn't sound like that is the case.

That's as much as I can do for you for now Kawan. Look I am sorry that this happened to you this weekend, it must feel awful - but take it as a lesson. You misjudged the quality of this friendship. You thought they were such good friends who would look you up the moment they were in KL, you were wrong. It's just a misjudgment, that's all - it's not like someone did something bad to you. We make such mistakes all the time - I was buying oranges today and paid £1 for 4 in one shop. Then I went to another shop and the price there was £1 for 5 and the oranges looked identical. I felt pretty silly having misjudged the price of oranges, but it's not like someone stole the oranges from me on the way home or anything like that. We make mistakes and you have to learn not to be so hard on yourself when you realize you've made an error of judgment. You simply resolve learn your lesson and you move on with your life, hopefully equipped with better judgment for the future?

It is okay to make errors of judgment, just learn from your mistakes.

Okay Kawan? I'm sending you a big cyber hug from London.

Q&A: Getting a job in finance

2012-02-18T11:31:00.001Z

Hello all, I shall deal with a question arising from my last silly post:

"Dear Limpeh,
I saw your post on yourself and am wondering, how does one get a job in finance? I am going to be graduating this year and am thinking about finding a job upon graduation. My degree has nothing to do with economics, finance, banking or anything like that, I am studying a social science degree. What do I need to do to get from where I am to where you are? Do I need another degree or more qualifications for banks to consider me? Or should I forget finance altogether since I have already embarked on the wrong course and it is too late for me to turn around/switch course? Thanks."

So you wanna work in banking?

Well my friend, thanks for your question. Well guess what? Limpeh also did a degree in the social sciences and I did French as well at university. My boss Scott has a phD in history from Cambridge and my other boss David did geology at university. Between the three of us, we don't have any basic degrees in economics/finance/banking etc.

Firstly, most big banks will have some kind of graduate recruitment programme, whereby they pick out the best graduates from the top universities. Check out the HSBC graduate recruitment programme: they recruit mostly from the top universities regardless of your degree course. Your degree quite frankly, is irrelevant. The bank will take you in on the basis of the fact that you have proven yourself to be intelligent and made of good stuff - they will teach you everything you need to know to do the job they want you to do.

Many banks are after the top graduates from the best universities.

You didn't tell me which university you're at (or even what country you're in) - so I shall keep this reply fairly general rather than Singapore specific (>70% of my readers are from Singapore you see). The people who run these graduate recruitment programmes tend to favour graduates from top universities and unless you're from a university that is ranked amongst the best in your country and has a good international reputation, then tough - it then becomes rather unlikely for you to get in via this route.

You do not need to go through this route of course and there's more than one way to enter the world of finance. My role in my company is that of international business development and sales support - I don't make the product, I just drum up interest in it and I keep our investors happy. It is essentially a marketing job and no degree in the world in banking or marketing can prepare you for what I do. In case you haven't noticed by now, I am very anti-degrees (and hence by that same token, very anti-tuition.) Hell no. Especially those of you who are mad (or stupid) enough to do a degree in marketing or business studies, you've totally wasted your time.

Google "graduate recruitment scheme"

Here's what I have to do: I have to know what each big investor has invested in, I have to know the value of his/her holding with us (which share class s/he has invested in, at what price, what it it worth now relative to what they paid for it) and deal with them as if they are the only client I have. For each one of these clients (there are hundreds of them), I have detailed notes like, "Carl is going to see his daughter next week in South Africa, will consider next placement when he returns on the 23rd". So when I call him up on the 23rd, I say, "Carl, how was South Africa? Is your daughter well?", rather than "Are you now ready for the next placement please?"

If you are familiar with the concept of private banking, then that's what I do - except that I don't deal with rich end-users, I deal with institutional investors and fund distributors. My boss hasn't got the time nor patience to deal with them, let me give you an example. We have a difficult client in Singapore, Ivan - and Ivan has invested a lot of money in our funds. Last month my boss forwarded one of Ian's email to me with the instructions, "Tell Ivan to go fuck himself if he wants to be an asshole about this." And I then go to Ivan and I am so nice to him, let him shout at me, get it all off his chest and listen to what he has to say. Then Ivan calls my boss up later after I have pacified him and my boss was like, "He was really nice, what did you do to him? He sounds like he's just had a good handjob - yeah, not exaggerating!"

I can't post a picture of a handjob - you'll have to google that. Here's some flowers instead.

I also had another big institutional investor in Singapore, let's call him Mr Lim. He recently sent in a big order for a placement with our fund and when it didn't clear in a week, he said to me, "Forget it, I've changed my mind about it and we will reconsider this later in the year." Then my boss said, "Tell him to go fuck himself, an order is an order, it is a legally binding contract. He can't just change his mind, this is not some clothing shop in a mall where you can take your T-shirt back the next week and say I have changed my mind, can I have a refund for this?"

And I'm like, Mr Lim is such an important client, we don't wanna piss him off, why don't we just allow him to change his mind? But there's no arguing with my boss, I'm paid to follow his instructions. So I looked at the paperwork and decided to cook up a story. I told Mr Lim that my boss tried everything he could in his power but it was the middleman - in this case, our custodian bank's platform for automated fund transaction processing and servicing system which caused the delay in the first place and now that it's put through the system, they are the ones who are being difficult not us. I made my boss look like the good guy here and Mr Lim bought the story, totally. He was like, "Okay lah I understand, yes I have dealt with them before, I know they can be very difficult. Please thank your boss for me and the next time you two come to Singapore, I'll take the two of you out for dinner."

Are you ready to face the challenges at work?

See? People skills are valuable. People skills are important. People like my boss are super smart with numbers, investment and thus he handles the mechanics of fund management whilst he employs someone like me to handle the clients. It takes more than good manners and a smile to deal with difficult clients - they don't want to speak to some secretary who doesn't understand the system. They are happy to deal with me because I have spent a lot of time learning the A-Z of my company's business and guess what? No module in any banking, finance, marketing or business studies degree has that topic on their syllabus - and my boss knows that. He knows that I will not only study his company's system diligently but I will always follow instructions. Given that his response to any situation is: "Tell him to go fuck himself", you can see why I have a job to do here.

Now there are plenty of sales & marketing functions in financial services that you can do with a social science degree - really, as long as your degree isn't from some crap university languishing at the bottom of the league table or from some private university, then I am sure you could find your way into that side of the business provided you have proven yourself. I have an entire post on that and have talked about this issue in depth there, so I shall refer you here: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/finding-that-ideal-job.html

Play to your strengths to find a job.

But let's be realistic here, if you have a social science degree, it is going to be much easier for you to go into a sales & marketing, PR, customer service, admin role than something technical like a quant analyst. Don't get me wrong, my boss did something like that - he has a phD in history but he naturally has a good head for numbers so he didn't need to do any kind of mathematics degree at university. Here is what he does: he looks at data from the best performing funds in the market and he is able to deconstruct them to see what works, what doesn't work and then he then takes all the best components from the best funds and then uses them for his own fund.

That exercise is a bit like looking at then 20 best cars in the market, dismantling every component in their engines to see what works best and then using those parts laid out on the car park floor, putting together your own engine. Yeah there are people who can do that - I even have a friend who does that with mobile phones, radios and televisions (crazy but true, that's his hobby, I have some strange friends). But there you go, it's a talent some people are born with and my boss is born with that talent, but he just so happens to be interested in history as well.

So there you go - it takes a certain kind of brain to want to do that kind of work and if you haven't got that natural inclination or talent, then stick to what you're best at. Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses. Focus on your exams for now but make sure you get plenty of job applications out in the meantime and remember, whilst you may not be able to get an entry level position into say a marketing role at a bank, you can work a few years doing marketing for another company, prove yourself there than go work for a bank. Proving yourself to the world is the key thing and so much of that cannot be done via paper qualifications.

Finally, I'd like to think that you opted for your course at university because you had some genuine interest in the subject and I hope you had fun doing it. I really don't see the point of you doing another degree course right now, not without knowing where your career is going to be headed anyway. Start working once you graduate and then you will have a clearer idea where you want to go, what you wanna do and then take it from there and if you need to study some more and get a masters degree at that stage, then take it from there, okay?

I hope this helps. Without any further information about your situation, I don't think I can make any more specific suggestions. If you have any further questions, leave a comment, I'm always happy to answer questions like that.

Limpeh: what do you actually do?

2012-02-18T01:51:00.000Z

Now given the number of people on Facebook who have come up with various versions of this, I just have to do one like that on my blog. Rather than cram it all into one tight screen, I have stretched it out.

Who is Limpeh? You can read the long version here, or see below:

What my readers think I do

What some Singaporeans think I do

What my mother thinks I do

What my boss thinks I do (when I should be working)

What the payroll department thinks I am doing

What some of my friends still think I do

What I wish I was doing instead

What I think I do

What I actually do

2012 Lesson 12: Skiing for beginners

2012-02-17T17:51:00.003Z

I had a request to do a piece on skiing after I had posted pictures of myself skiing in Croatia - skiing is fantastic fun and it was something I started doing in university. There is no better way than to enjoy the best of nature in the mountains and if you love the adrenaline rush, well then there's nothing better than rushing down the side of a mountain at over 100 km/hr. And yes I am once again going to look bloody fat in all my skiing photos as I would be in many layers of winter clothing.

Perfect conditions in Zillertal, Austria!

I am writing this primarily for a Singaporean audience since about 70% of my readers are from Singapore. I have always had this fascination with snow and skiing since I was a kid because Singapore is such a hot tropical country and snow was something we never had in Singapore. Some people are afraid of the unfamiliar, others like me are fascinated by it. I grew up in a country where it was +30 everyday and I craved nothing more than -30 winter weather.

In Chamonix, France with Julio who has made a snowman

1. Where can you ski?

There is a checklist of three things:

there must be snow and snow occurs below zero degrees, so there's no point for example, visiting a ski resort in summer when it will be closed because it is too warm for snow to happen
there must be mountains - so for example, Estonia a country in the Baltics, gets a lot of snow and temperatures can fall to -40 in the winter, but it is pretty flat with the highest point at just 318 m. In a place like that you would be limited to cross-country skiing rather than downhill skiing. The former is hard work without the thrill of the latter.
there must be a functioning resort: so for example, there are plenty of very high mountains with loads of snow in places like Tibet, but there are no resorts (there are a few in China, but not in Tibet). You need ski lifts to get you up the mountain, so you can ski all the way down, get the lift up again. You'd have to be pretty rich to hire a helicopter in Tibet to drop you off on the top of the mountain and then pick you up at the bottom.

With all that in mind, if you are in Singapore, the nearest places are South Korea, Japan, Iran, India, Australia and New Zealand. India is probably closest in terms of physical distance, Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh in NE India is the closest functioning ski resort to Singapore - but getting there would be a pain. You would probably have to fly to Kolkata, then get an internal flight or two to the nearest airport then use a mixture of local buses and trains to get to Tawang. I'm sure that will be an adventure of a lifetime, but not one I think many of us would want to try. Whereas if you went to somewhere like South Korea, you can arrange a transfer direct from the Incheon airport to the Jisan Forest ski resort without even going through Seoul.

Of course, there are plenty of good resorts in Europe and North America as well - there are fewer in South America but enough in Chile and Argentina if you're determined to ski there. There are even resorts in Africa (Morocco, South Africa, Algeria and Lesotho). I would say that if you are already visiting a country like Switzerland or Austria in the winter, then why not consider adding skiing as part of your holiday?

In Cairngorm, Scotland - in the middle of a snowstorm!

Now there is a big difference between a resort in a modern country. In French, American and Japanese resorts, the lifts would be super fast and efficient - but in somewhere like Russia, Morocco, China or India, the lifts may be slower and have much lower capacity (ie. how many people they can transport up the mountain per hour), that means long, long queues. So in Japan, you would spend maybe 2-5 minutes waiting to get on the ski lift, 5 minutes getting up the mountain whilst in India or Serbia, it could easily be double or triple that. Of course, it doesn't mean that resorts in third world countries are all terrible, they do offer a charm of their own. Canadian resorts may be super efficient but are terribly bland culturally whilst there's nothing quite like tucking into a hot lamb Tagine for lunch in Morocco after a morning's skiing.

Tagine! Or would you rather have a hamburger, fries and a diet coke?

Mind you, somewhere like Japan or South Korea would offer you the best of both worlds: great mountains, super modern facilities and excellent food. The food I had in Croatia whilst skiing was terribly bland and boring and the food in Canada and America can be incredibly unimaginative. France and Italy are somewhat better but Austria and Switzerland suck in the food department.

2. How long should I plan for?

It depends - if it is your first time, you must plan for at least a few days given that you will probably need some time to learn how to do it. For more on lessons and the learning process, please see point 4 below.

The most popular packages are for a week, though I find that often too long. The first day is usually the most fun but after 3 or 4 days, fatigue starts to kick in and your body aches, you crave for more sleep and even the strongest coffee doesn't help. You think, "damn I work in an office, I don't do sport every single day and this is hard work!" Also, if you are in a small or medium size resort, you would have done all the runs by then and it would be like, "oh shall we go down this piste again? Or that one again? Shall we have lunch there again?" Of course, this wouldn't happen if you were in a much bigger resort.

Furthermore, don't forget that you probably cannot ski on the first and last days of your skiing holiday. The first day would be arriving at the airport, getting the bus or train from the airport to the ski resort and then checking into the hotel. The last day would be the same in reverse - most ski resorts are usually between an hour or two by bus from the airport, sometimes more. I hate long bus journeys, so I can recommend Krvavec in Slovenia, a medium sized resort just 6.8 km from Ljubljana airport. I think that is as close as you can get to an airport, but if you know of one that is even close than that, please let me know!

Snow blading in Krvavec, Slovenia

3. How much does it cost? How do I plan for a skiing holiday?

This varies once again and it depends on several things: how far you need to fly to your resort, whether you have managed to secure a good deal and how long your holiday is. I would say that it is not as expensive as you think and the most important part is to secure a cheap flight. You can do it two ways, firstly you can try an all inclusive package put together by a travel agent which would include everything from flights, transfers, hotels, sometimes even ski pass and ski rental. Otherwise, you can try to DIY and put together your own package. Let me run you through the latter since that is often what I do.

First you need to book your flight - consider what time you are landing in your destination airport. If you are landing anytime after 6 or 7 pm, it is somewhat unlikely that you will be able to get a transfer to your ski resort at that time (unless you can do it by train) but you need to check what the time table is for the buses. You may need to spend the night in the airport or city and then get the bus to the ski resort on the next day. You do not need to book the transfer to the ski resort in advance, but it is important to note the timetables (often available on the web) so you do not spend three hours waiting around for the next bus.

In Alpe d'Huez, France with my bear Kim

Next you need to find accommodation - most resorts will have a website and you can always approach the local tourist info office via the web. In my experience, I have found local tourist offices most helpful and they will always correspond with you promptly in very good English. Try to find a package where they throw in extras like ski rental discounts or a free ski pass - these hotels usually throw in some free stuff just to make you choose them over the next hotel down the road.

One important factor is to note the distance between the hotel (or lodge, chalet, hostel or whatever you wanna call it, I shall just use the word hotel for now) and the ski lifts. Ideally, you wanna be within walking distance to the ski lifts, but otherwise check with the hotel: is there a local bus service? What is the frequency of this bus service? Do you have your own minibus ferry to get your guests to the ski lifts? Good hotels would take care of you - the crap ones would just assume you have your own transport or would hire a taxi every time. I once had a hotel which wrote to me and told me, "most of our guests have their own cars, so I suggest you rent a car if you want to stay at our hotel as there is no local bus and you may have to wait a while to get a taxi, we don't provide any kind of transport service." That was my cue to delete that email and choose another hotel.

In Breuil-Cervinia Italy, in 2004 - clear blue skies, pure bliss.

Now the next step is ski/snowboard/snow blades hire - now you may or may not have a choice, in a big resort you probably have loads of shops competing with each other but in a small resort, you may well have only one place to get your ski rental. I try to check the prices online first to make sure I don't get ripped off - it could be a bit confusing especially if you are in a place like Japan where the receipt/invoice is likely to be entirely in Japanese rather than English. Perhaps that's just me being careful, but once they did make a mistake in Switzerland and I was able to point that out to them only because I knew from their website what I was supposed to pay and the lady behind the counter said, "I am so sorry, I must've scanned the wrong bar code, I will give you a refund now." Check with your hotel, they may be able to say, "Oh please go to Jean-Michel's shop across the road, he is my brother-in-law, mention that you're staying with us and he will give you a 25% discount."

After you've secured your ski rental, it's time to get your ski pass. That is the pass that allows you to go on all the ski lifts, gondolas and cable cars. For big resorts Western Europe, Japan, USA, Korea, Canada, Oz and NZ, this can be expensive but there's really not that much you can do about it. Check out the price structure, they usually have different prices for multiple days or a week. Obviously, it works out cheaper the more days you ski and half-day passes are usually a total rip-off. Check with the ticket counter: is there a discount if you stay are certain local hotels? Is there a student discount? All these price information should be available online, so do check before you go.

In Sljeme, Croatia

Once you have your ski pass, congratulations, you're ready to hit the slopes and have a great time. Oh wait, can you ski?

4. Do I need lessons? If so, how many?

Most people probably can do with some lessons if they are skiing for the first time. Some people can learn the basics in 30 mins or less, whilst others still keep falling after 3 or 4 days. If you are naturally good at sports, are in good physical shape and can already demonstrate good coordination skills on roller blades and ice-skates, then you shouldn't take long. The slowest learners are those who get tired easily and lack stamina. I can remember an instructor saying to a fat guy sitting in the snow, "Come on, get up, let's try again, you can do it, please come on." And the fat guy was just shaking his head in exhaustion.

The difference comes with practice, you see - beginners tend to go slowly, making careful turns and pausing every now and then to check the terrain whilst experts just blast down the slopes at full speed and are capable of dealing with anything that come their way. Within a day, you should be able to negotiate your way down a slope carefully or as my ski instructor would say, "lentement et doucement". You should be able to get English speaking instructors in most countries, though I remember how my instructors in Italy and France struggled in English and I had to speak to them in Italian and French.

Sono caduto! Falling, all part of the learnnig process, yes you will fall a lot.

I would compare it to cycling. Now most of you would be able to jump on a bike and cycle away quite happily, but you may not be able to do tricks like big jumps over ramps or cycling without holding the handlebars. The same principle applies to skiing. Now the slopes are usually graded this way:

Green = super easy, very gentle, very wide, suitable for very young children
Blue = easy, suitable for beginners
Red = intermediate, suitable for all except beginners
Black = difficult, only for advanced skiiers
Double black diamond (USA, Canada, Scandinavia) = Very difficult, only for experts!
Orange (Austria, Switzerland) = Very difficult! Do attempt unless you're an expert.

Attempting the famous Harakiri piste in Zillertal, the steepest piste in Austria

Now as a beginner, you should be able to tackle green and blue slopes with ease after a few hours and after a day or two, red slopes can be attempted too. It is only those classified as difficult which you should not attempt until you become a lot more experienced. Different people have different kinds of skiing holidays - if you are with a bunch of young people seeking adventure, then you're likely to be looking for the most difficult, most challenging black slopes. If you are with older people or young children, then you will have to stick to only green and blue slopes. It's your holiday so you can push yourself or take it easy - it is up to you.

In order to go down a green or blue slope, you don't need much technique, you just need to know the basics and you'll be okay. However, to tackle steeper slopes, you will need to know how to balance your weight when going down steep slopes, how to make sharp, tight turns very efficiently, how to stop safely when going at high speed and you cannot get away with rubbish technique. Further lessons will give you the technique necessary to get you down difficult slopes with confidence.

With Julio in Chamonix, France

Furthermore, given that most people ski once or twice a year, it is possible to forget a lot that you have learnt from the previous year. A ski instructor would be able to tell you exactly what you're doing wrong in an instant and help you with your technique - so some people gladly pay for half a day or a day's lesson even if they have already skied before.

5. Can I learn in Snow City, Jurong?

I know it may be tempting to try to take some lessons in Singapore so you can arrive in New Zealand or Japan already able to ski, but the answer is no, not realy despite the fact that they do offer lessons and this is why. I have checked out the slopes there and it is solid ice. That is why it is good for "snowtubing" - ie. you sit on a tire and you slide all the way down the icy slope. That is fun enough, I tried it last year but I wouldn't want to learn how to ski or snowboard on that icy slope because ice is hard. If you were to fall on that ice, you would be bruised all over and learners fall a lot. No you want to fall onto soft, freshly fallen snow, now that would not hurt at all. You need to be able to dig your skis/blades/snowboard into the snow and if it is too icy, it becomes really hard work. Snow City is disappointing because you can't actually ski there, unlike Ski Dubai which does offer proper skiing. Ski Dubai is much bigger and has much more sophisticated snow making facilities.

6. Is it dangerous? Will I get hurt?

Once again, I compare it to cycling. You can get seriously hurt if you're not careful on your bicycle. But why are the A&E departments of Singapore not full of people falling off their bikes? Simple: people avoid accidents when they are careful and by that token, you probably won't fall off your bike and seriously hurt yourself if you spend an afternoon cycling in East Coast Park.

When you are a beginner, you should not venture beyond your comfort zone and attempt difficult slopes. Listen to your instructor and never wander off piste. Yes you may fall but snow is soft and usually it's merely your pride that is hurt. Now some of you may remember the story of Natasha Richardson who died after sustaining a head injury whilst skiing. It is a tragic story of course but note that she fell during a beginner's ski lesson - she was not doing anything difficult. I say, if you're willing to ride a bicycle on a road, then you're taking a lot more risk than a skier in a ski resort. After all, in most cases, snow is soft and as long as you don't venture off-piste, you're unlikely to collide with rocks or trees. The only thing you could collide with are other skiers and snowboarders - but then again, compare that to a road when you could get hit by a car or truck. You're far more likely to break a bone or three when you fall off a bicycle than if you fall on skis simply because snow is soft and forms a nice cushion when you do crash.

Mind you, I did have a really bad fall when I was skiing in Croatia last week - we had decided to stop for a mid-morning coffee. After the coffee break, we needed to walk about 20 meters back to the ski lift. There were some people coming up the path so I decided to walk into the deep snow rather than wait for them to pass. When I stepped into the deep snow, it wasn't compacted at all - my foot just sunk so quickly in the fluffy soft snow and I lost my balance. It didn't help that I was carrying my skis at that time and the next thing I fell flat on my face. I had landed right on my skis as well and boy that hurt, especially my left knee. So you see, accidents happen when we do things like try to take a short cut rather than during the skiing itself when we are usually quite careful. I wasn't even wearing my skis then, I was walking in the snow. Ironically, had I tried to ski that 20 meters rather than walk it, my skis would've coped fine going over the deep snow and wouldn't have fallen.

Skiing in Sestriere, Northern Italy

The bottom line is no, it is not dangerous, it is certainly less dangerous than cycling. Over the years, I have seen plenty of accidents of course but in most cases, they were caused by young men (and boys) being playful and silly rather than Natasha Richardson's case of course. Mind you, Richardson's death was caused because of a head injury sustained when she fell - something like that could have equally happened during tennis, badminton, cycling, jogging or even walking down the stairs.

7. What do I need to buy? What can I rent?

You should always dress appropriately for winter sports and I can refer you to the article here on dressing for winter: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-lesson-7-winter-wear.html It is actually possible to rent ski clothing at ski resorts, but I don't feel good about it because it probably has the sweat of many other people in it. You don't know how clean it is and it is cheap enough for you to just get your own anyway.

As for renting vs buying skis/snowboard/blades, well I prefer to rent to be honest. Of course it is going to work out to be cheaper to bring your own, but it's more the convenience of being able to travel light. Skis, snowboard and snowblades are heavy. They are big, cumbersome and heavy and it is such a pain to have to carry them around.

Of course, something you will need is a very good pair of sunglasses. You need sunglasses when skiing because of the Albedo effect - snow reflects sunlight very well and it can be incredibly bright when you are surrounded by snow.

Bright sunshine in Kravavec, Slovenia

8. Do I need to be really physically fit?

Yes is the simple answer. It is a demanding sport - you need very strong legs and good stamina. When you're on your own, you can stop for a hot chocolate anytime and take it easy if you like. But when you're in a class of ten students and you're the only one who's tired, then tough - you're going to feel really bad when you keep the other nine waiting because you're tired.

It is a good idea to do some sports (jogging, swimming etc) to boost your stamina and become more fit prior to your skiing holiday - that way you will get the most out of your time skiing. A typical day skiing would start at around 8:30 or 9 in the morning. You will then probably have one coffee break around 10:30 or 11, then lunch at around 12:30 or 1. Then in the afternoon, you may have one more break at some point but the lifts will close around 4 or 4:30 - so essentially you could be exercising for 5 to 6 hours a day, that's bloody hard work.

Needless to say, you should be sensible - avoid the bars at night and go to bed early so you can make the most of your skiing holiday. I have seen some stupid people get drunk at night and then fall over the next day and hurt themselves because they are so hungover. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can get drunk at home you idiots, why do you want to pay so much to come to a ski resort then get drunk here, only to break your leg because you're too hungover to see where you're going? Stupid. You deserve to break both legs.

9. Skiing, snowblades or Snowboarding?

Why not try all? I have tried all and I clearly prefer snowblades. It is the fastest to learn and the only draw back is that you don't go as fast as you do on skis, but that's fine by me. Snowboarding probably takes a bit more time to learn, given that the motion is not similar to anything you're familiar with (not unless you have surfed before). I say, give them all a go at some point and you will clearly find out which on you prefer. It's like trying to decide which you prefer: tea, coffee or hot chocolate - it is a personal choice. Let me share with you my favourite moment in snowboarding, probably one of the great moments in the winter Olympics (that is unless you are American). Talk about schadenfreude!

10. Too old? Too young?

Now I have seen children as young as 3 starting out - they have special skis made for children with little feet and they are basically kept in this fenced off area for little kids with very gentle slopes and the famous "magic carpet" - which is like a conveyor belt to get the kids to the top of the slope. Now my readers are familiar with the bell curve of IQ distribution which I have talked about and the same principle applies to sports - not all children are made equal. Some kids will never ever be able to stand up on skis even after weeks of lessons, they are just born with no natural ability for sports whatsoever - whilst others will be going down black slopes with ease within days of their first lesson. Tough shit, life is not fair. If you have a child who clearly displays natural ability in sports, then you can start him/her as soon as s/he can walk and s/he will learn skiing just like that.

If you are a parent and you go to a ski resort with your children, then simply sign them up for ski classes and then leave them there for half a day or the whole day. The instructors will take good care of your kids and you will be then free to enjoy yourself.

As for the older end of the spectrum, I have seen little old ladies who look about 80 making their way down the green and blue slopes slowly. People age differently, you can have a 70 year old who exercises regularly and is in great physical shape, then you can have a 45 year old who is severely overweight, never exercises and is in no condition to get on a snowboard. As long as you're in good physical shape and are still able to participate in sports actively and regularly, then you should be able to enjoying skiing regardless of your age. You may not be able to blast down a double black diamond slope at that age, but there's nothing to stop you from enjoying yourself whilst taking it easy on the gentler slopes.

Okay there you go - if you have any questions, leave a comment and I will try my best.

Q&A: Overseas Chinese 华侨

2012-02-16T15:09:00.000Z

Another question today, a fairly simple one which I shall deal with this lunchtime.

"You have talked about Chinese immigrants in the west in a number of your posts. I have a question which may seem unusual but I'd like to know what you think. I've heard from my mother about Chinese kids who grow up in the west not knowing a word of Chinese, being totally westernized - whilst a lot of your posts seems to mention Chinese immigrants who hide in the "Chinatown", refusing to learn English or integrate. Which is the case in the UK or is it simply a case of both happening?"

Well you seem to have answered your own question - yes there's everything from Chinese migrants who don't speak a word of the local language right through to Chinese migrants who don't speak a word of Chinese anymore. Let me tell you what the determining factor is: class. Yup, even amongst us Chinese folks, the rules of social class does apply as well.

Now I arrived in Europe (France first then the UK) from Singapore in 1997 - but already, I spoke English fluently and very good French. Why? Because I was from a relatively privileged family in Singapore where by parents could afford to buy me a good education and pay for French classes at l'Alliance Française in Newton Circus. My parents in Singapore are by no means rich, but we were not poor enough to deny me the education I wanted in Singapore and that makes all the difference - ie. how rich or poor your parents are.

Now there's a Malaysian cafe in Camden and I go there often. Whenever I am there, I would chat with one of their cooks, let's call her Penang Auntie. Her English is very, very limited despite the fact that she has been in the UK since 1986. Her conversational English mostly revolves around the menu at her cafe and food items; but I have translated simple letters from her bank and local government into Mandarin and Hokkien for her. Now her parents couldn't afford to send her to a school in Penang when she was a child, to give her the kind of education she needed to speak English fluently today - that is why her English is very limited today.

For people like Penang Auntie, it's not like she is eloquent in Mandarin but struggles in English. Her Mandarin is very working class and she definitely does not come across in an intellectual manner in Chinese. She speaks like an uneducated Chinese person in Chinese. She is simply not that educated and hasn't mastered any language - Chinese, Malay, English - to a high enough standard to sound eloquent and articulate. Just as well she is a great cook, so she is able to make a decent living working as a cook there.

Yes you can get good Malaysian food in London!

Now this rule pretty much applies to all overseas Chinese people coming from places like Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc - but not to the people from China. People from China struggle with English much more, despite many of them making a very valiant effort. So even if they had rich parents in China, well, the migrants from China still pretty much cannot speak English properly. It sounds harsh but it is true in most cases. Even graduates from top Chinese universities struggle with English.

And on the other end of the scale, you have those who are second or third generation British-born Chinese (BBCs) who don't speak any Chinese. Again, this is fairly common - I have two friends at my gym David and Lynn who are both such BBCs. David doesn't understand a word whilst Lynn has a very basic grasp of Mandarin and can just about understand me when I speak in Mandarin, but there's no way she can string together a cogent reply in Chinese.

Now neither David nor Lynn would've had the opportunity to learn Chinese at school - it is simply not offered as a second language in British schools. The languages offered tend to be French, German and Spanish and occasionally you may get Italian, Russian or Greek. Wales you get Welsh, in Scotland you are offered Scottish Gaelic and in Northern Ireland you are offered Irish Gaelic - but in order to do Chinese, you need to go to a Chinese school either in the evenings or on weekends. Furthermore, it is not compulsory to do a second language in British schools, so many students simply don't bother.

Now despite the growing popularity of Mandarin, there are still very few Chinese schools around and it means that your nearest Chinese school may be over an hour or more away. Don't forget, the UK is a big country and if you're living in a big city like London, Birmingham or Manchester, yeah you can easily find a Chinese school somewhere in the city - but what if you were living in a small town or in the countryside in the Scottish Highlands, Cornwall or the Peak District? There would be just no way you could possibly send your child to a Chinese school if it meant a 400 km round trip journey for a 90 minute Chinese lesson.

It is a very big country, imagine if you don't live in a big city - how far do you have to go for Chinese lessons?

Now throw the pressures of school into the equation - Chinese parents naturally want their children to do well enough in school to get into a top university, so the emphasis is placed on their examination subjects like maths, physics, chemistry, geography, English etc and the extra time spent studying Chinese (not to mention the possibly long trip to and from the Chinese school!) could be sacrificed in the process. Some Chinese parents have the attitude, "you have the rest of your life to learn Chinese if you want to, but you must take this important exam at the end of this term so the exam comes first, Chinese can wait."

Don't forget that these extra Chinese lessons also costs money - so for lower-income households, they may not have the luxury of sending their children to Chinese lessons on a weekend if they are already struggling to make ends meet. The government does give lower-income families help with school fees to make sure that their children do get a decent education, but as Chinese is not part of the British syllabus for most schools, that's extra and not covered by the government. It is seen as a luxury for rich families, where their parents can drive their kids to piano, ballet, violin and Chinese lessons in the evenings and weekends.

Some parents do make an effort to teach their children the language, others don't. Heck, my dad is Hakka and I don't speak a word of Hakka because he never made the effort to teach me. He felt that Mandarin was far more important as that was what I had to learn at school in Singapore. His other reason was that Hakka is not at all widely spoken and even if I did learn Hakka, there were going to be very few opportunities for me to use it in Singapore (where Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese would be far more useful). Likewise in the UK, by that same token, even most Chinese people here speak English so they reckon, why bother with Mandarin unless you want to do business with people in China who don't speak a word of English?

Mind you, it is worth considering that if you are relying on your parents to teach you Chinese, then some people have parents who are naturally good teachers, whilst others have parents who suck at teaching or are not very good at Chinese themselves. It is not easy to teach a language!

Yes you can wax lyrical all about China being a rising global economic superpower, but think about it - how many people actually need to speak Mandarin for work? Heck, my sister who works in Ang Mo Kio doesn't use a word of Chinese at work as she is in an office with some Malay and Indian colleagues so the language of the office is always English and never Chinese and they only deal with local Singaporeans in English. So if my sister in Ang Mo Kio doesn't need Chinese at all for her work (and she has a very good job, earning great money), then why would someone in the UK consider it essential or important to learn Chinese? Sure it's something nice to have on your CV but how essential is it?

My sister works in AMK and she doesn't ever use Chinese for her work - only English.

So if the parents do speak Chinese at home and make the effort with their children, then yes their children will pick it up. But even in Singapore, there are plenty of English-speaking households where Mandarin is rarely if ever spoken at home and the children have very little exposure to Mandarin. If this is happening in Singapore, well imagine what it is like in the UK.

Likewise, you must recognize that Chinese is considered the world's most difficult language to learn. Well, it is either Chinese or Arabic but let's call it a draw. They are both notoriously difficult languages to learn - it is hard to measure which is the most difficult of course and different people have different opinions. For example, for a Japanese person, Chinese may not be that hard if they already have a good knowledge of Kanji from Japanese - but for a European person, memorizing Chinese characters will be an extremely demanding task rendering Chinese quite inaccessible. Likewise, the same Japanese person may find a language like Polish very confusing, but for a person like myself who already speaks a few other Slavic languages, then Polish isn't that bad compared to Chinese.

If you grow up in the west with English as your first language (heck, that is the case for virtually all Singaporeans under the age of 50), then approaching another language with the Latin alphabet system (French, Malay, German, Spanish, Tagalog, Czech, Vietnamese, Swedish etc) is a lot easier than Chinese which relies on a very complex system of characters. Even languages like Russian, Hindi, Greek and Thai use an alphabet system - it's just not a Latin system but once you memorize the alphabet, again the writing system is a lot more accessible than Chinese.

So many choices!

The bottom line is that Chinese is bloody difficult - that is why you end up with people like my friend Lynn who have done some Chinese lessons for some years when she was younger and has parents who have made an effort to teach her some Mandarin and Cantonese but still, her grasp of the language is very, very basic. She can write her name in Chinese but that's more or less it - she can recognize probably just a handful of Chinese characters at best and have a very, very simple conversation with me in Mandarin. And it's not for not trying, she tells me she still has nightmares of this super strict Chinese teacher at her Chinese school who would shout at her for not knowing how to write the Chinese characters and it made her dread going for Chinese lessons. But more to the point, it is simply that she has no use for Chinese at all as an accountant today. She deals with numbers - huge spreadsheets with loads of data, not people and certainly not Chinese people who don't speak any English. Yeah she has Chinese friends like myself, but we simply converse in English, not Mandarin (otherwise the conversation wouldn't go very far at all). David's parents on the other hand just never bothered - he grew up in a town without a Chinese school so it boiled down to the distance factor: the Chinese school was simply too far away for David to go to.

So compared to Lynn, my Mandarin is actually in a pretty good state because I did grow up in Singapore and used Mandarin daily up till the age of 21 when I left Singapore upon my ORD. So despite the fact that I can go weeks without speaking a word of Chinese in the UK, it's not like I can forget my Chinese - it has already reached that level where I can always rely on it and use it whenever necessary and it will never let me down. I guess it's like riding a bicycle, I've not been on one in a while but if you give me one right now, I will hop on it and ride away without any problems. Whereas someone like Lynn never got to that level, so what little she ever had is mostly gone. Heck, I studied Croatian prior to my trip there and now I'm like, great, whom am I going to speak Croatian to in London? I am going to forget it all. The same thing happened with my Vietnamese - I spent time in Vietnam last year and actually learnt quite a bit but never found anyone to use it with since leaving Hanoi and damn, I've forgotten all but the very basics now.

I'm not saying that all BBCs are like Lynn - there are some who do manage to speak Chinese fluently mostly because their parents have either made a valiant effort in teaching them the language, or they had parents who struggled with English so they simply had to speak Chinese to communicate with their parents at home (this is pretty much my case, with my family in Singapore) as their parents don't speak English. However, the vast majority of BBCs are like Lynn and David and those who do speak Chinese fluently are in the minority.

So there you go, I hope this answers your question.

Q&A: Tuition & Limpeh (part 3)

2012-02-15T17:08:00.001Z

I have just received a question since we've been talking about the issue of tuition in Singapore:

"Hi, you seem to have quite strong views on tuition and the last few posts on the topic have been very interesting. I was wondering why you have such strong views on the issue? Did you have tuition yourself when you were a student in Singapore? Thanks."

That's a fair question and I am happy to answer of course. My parents were teachers (now retired) so throughout my primary school, I have always had extra lessons at home akin to private tuition. This started from a very early age and it meant I had tuition right from the start.

When I went to secondary school, I thought since my parents were primary school teachers, I would be spared of tuition - wrong. My dad still kept pumping me with Chinese tuition practically every day (including weekends) and my mother got me tuition for maths, physics and chemistry in preparation for the O levels as she didn't think there was any other way to get me to sit down and study.

Limpeh had maths tuition.

What did influence their decision was a neighbour who was my age - groan. Don't you just hate it when you have a neighbour who's exactly your age and your parents start comparing? Anyway this neighbour Mei was your perfect Singaporean daughter: she had zero social life, no friends, seemed to be only interested in studying and her mother never ever had to worry about her having boyfriends or staying out late because she would never ever do that. Oh no, she would be at home studying hard. It had probably much to do with the fact that she was quite fat too and lacked self-esteem and social skills - but she seem to have made up for it by getting nothing less than straight As at school and her mother couldn't be more pleased.

This is just how psycho Mei's relationship with her mother was: you know Singaporean parents like to make ginseng tea (by boiling ginseng roots) for their children during exam time? For those of you not acquainted with ginseng, it is notoriously bitter, but the Chinese (and the Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese etc) believe that it good for you - it would boost your immune system so you won't fall sick during exam time and make you more alert so you can study better. Most of us would hold our breath and gulp down the nasty bitter tea and then eat something strong tasting like an orange immediately afterwards to take away the bitter taste. Mei's mother made her a lot of ginseng tea and she would not only drink it, but she would chew the ginseng roots and then swallowing them. I once got curious when I heard what she did and tried chewing it - it was unbearably bitter, I felt like throwing up. Mei's mother proudly told my mother about Mei's strange taste for ginseng as if it was some proud achievement and instead of questioning it, my mother was impressed. Very impressed. Groan. Chinese parents.

Mei somehow convinced herself that the more bitter it was, the better it was for her. She took the Chinese saying 会吃苦("able to eat bitter", ie. able to work hard and endure hardship) quite literally. And of course, Mei's mother being painfully traditional believed that Mei was showing good character - in choosing to stay in and study instead of going out on dates or having a social life with her mates, she was choosing hardwork over fun. In choosing deliberately to chew on ginseng root (yucks!) instead of eating chocolates or candy, again, she was choosing to 吃苦 and you wouldn't believe how much the Chinese believe in this 吃苦 = breeding good character ethos.

The dreaded ginseng tea - yucks!

I was forced to do tuition with Mei for so many years - it was painful. She would get all the answers right because she had stayed up the night before memorizing the textbooks and revision notes and the tuition teacher would look and me like, "what is wrong with you? Why are you so stupid and lazy? Why can't you be as good as Mei? You're going to end up unemployed or in jail if you continue like that." And I was like, you're the fucking tuition teacher, come on and do your job - teach me then, I'm not here to impress you that I know all the answers like Mei. Why the hell is Mei having tuition anyway since she already knows everything and never makes any mistakes and we know she is going to score 10 A1s at the O level exams - that is a foregone conclusion.

And yes Mei did get her 10 A1s but at what cost? I noticed she would wear a sweater and always claim that the air-con was cold. One day, she forgot to wear her sweater and I realized that she had these cuts and scratches on her forearm. It was quite alarming to see them. When I noticed them, she was like, "oh yeah, paper cuts, you won't believe how sharp some of the photocopy paper can be, I had to photocopy some stuff today at the library, you know." Like right, those were not paper cuts. Once I realized she was doing it, I couldn't help looking at her arms every time we went to tuition together. It was painfully obvious that she needed an outlet and she didn't know how else to let out her pain inside.

Mei would often have these dried blood stains on the sleeves of her sweater, I knew where they were from and I was wondering, does your mother not notice blood stains on your clothes? (They had a maid who did the laundry.) Mei was into self-harm, big time. Come on, read the signs - the girl had no social life, so social skills, was incredibly overweight, had no friends, had a mother who smothered her and needed to get an A for everything. Even during tuition when the teacher would point out to her, "Mei, you got this wrong, let me show you where you went wrong." Woah, it was like the end of the world - she would look as if she was ready to burst into tears and she would be so, so mad at herself for getting some tuition homework wrong. And if I knew the answer when she didn't - woah. She would be like a volcano about to erupt - she was such a perfectionist when it came to her studies. Even her handwriting was so neat - no, make that immaculate. No wonder she was into self-harm in a big way.

Mei did go on to get 4 As at A levels plus 2 S paper distinctions but I didn't keep in touch with her after I went into the army. I did talk about her time at university in this post: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/12/eight-tips-for-working-abroad.html scroll down to point 8 "Is this really for you?" My parents are still neighbours with her parents - apparently she has lost a lot of weight after university. But being Mei, she had to develop a major eating disorder, get herself hospitalized when she became bulimic. Yeah my parents knew all the neighbours and they were telling them stories of seeing Mei vomit every night after dinner by the roadside. She didn't want her parents to hear her throw up - so she would "go for a walk after dinner", go to the big drain down the road and throw up into the drain. Whilst her parents may not have witnessed what happened, the neighbours did, practically every night. Even my father once saw her vomit into the drain on the road and he tried to help her but she insisted no, no 我没事,我吃错东西。("I am fine, it must've been something I ate.") My parents said she became so scarily thin they almost didn't recognize her as she went from super tua-pui fat to just skin and bones before she collapsed and had to be hospitalized. She nearly died, it was a cry for help, torturing herself like that, she was almost screaming to the people around her, "help me, I am in so much pain" but her parents didn't know how to respond and she had no friends. Last I have heard, Mei is actually married now and I hope she is happy.

Anyway, after O levels, I insisted no more tuition, I am fine, I have good teachers at the JC and they are teaching me well. Ironically, I did give some tuition during my army days as well. You can see why I feel so strongly about Singaporean parenting- on the surface Mei appeared to be your perfect Singaporean daughter but deep down inside, she was so desperately unhappy that she was into self-harm, developed Bulimia nervosa and almost died from it.

Another reason why I feel so strongly about the issue is the way my nephew is subjected to endless tuition. He is going to be 9 this year and oooh boy, okay, I've said enough about it in previous posts:
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/singapore-education-system-vs.html and http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/12/autism-in-singapore-part-2.html

So there you go, I wasn't damaged by the tuition thing - but I saw what happened to Mei (well it was an accumulation of various factors) and I worry the effect it would have on my nephew. Look, I am just an uncle who doesn't even live in Singapore and I get no say about the way my nephew is being raised in Singapore so it is intensely frustrating for me to witness what is going on from a distance but have no say in it whatsoever.

What confounds me about this issue is this: no parent in the world sets out to torment or punish their children with tuition. Indeed, they simply want the very best for their children to improve their chances in life - but look at what happened to Mei, yes you want your children to do well but at what cost?

SG Tuition Part 2: A teacher's POV

2012-02-14T17:27:00.000Z

I am reproducing this part of the comments section from my previous post on Singaporean parenting & Tuition http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/omfg-singaporean-parenting-again.html. My friend is a teacher at a top JC and this is originally taken from our discussion on Facebook. I have tidied it up and elaborated on some points, added some graphics and videos to make the presentation better. As a teacher, he has far more insight into the issue than me, so I thought it would be worth my while to do this post given the popularity of the last post.

Why should students need tuition teachers when they already have teachers at school?

Limpeh: As a teacher, what are your views on the tuition phenomena in Singapore? MrBrown has twitted "Parents are hiring tuition teachers to help their kids with _tuition_ homework from "elite" tuition centres. That's messed up." How do you explain it from a teacher's POV?

Teacher: It is cascading expectations and inflation of aspirations and grades I suppose. We need to find new ways to game the system: such as private diplomas/private degrees etc. Tell the kid by all means take the hardship posting for the dough. To be fair, the tuition landscape has changed since our time. There are lots of swanky premium centres like Learning Lab, School of Thought and Physics Cafe, all run by ex-teachers from top schools. Its gotten so lucrative that many of the top teachers go into tuition because they don't wanna put up with public sector annoyances e.g. too much admin. Some of them like School of Thought are actually doing a good job. But of course there are also the jokers who set up the agency and just outsource, outsource. I heard SOT's head was getting >$2 million a year, or so he said to an LT of students once. I am in the wrong job, LOL.

Limpeh: OK granted the tuition centres are indeed run by good ex teachers who have been trained and certified by the MOE (rather than unemployed people who turn to tuition as a very last resort to earn some money between job interviews), there is still the question: what can they do for a child who is simply on the wrong side of the IQ bell curve? If you're born on the wrong side of the IQ bell curve, tough, you're stuck with that brain for the rest of your life. Heck, even really ugly people have the option of drastic plastic surgery to get the ideal pretty face they want - but what about those with low IQ? There isn't even the option of brain surgery to implant new apps and programmes into the brain to boost the IQ or rewire the brain, hence that is why I am so cynical about how much these tuition teachers can achieve (even if they are stunningly good teachers like you).

You see my friend, you already teach at a very good JC so you don't get low-IQ kids in your classes because of the admission criteria of your school - but imagine if you did go to a school where they do have kids clearly on the wrong side of that IQ bell curve - then what can the teacher do? Surely the sensible thing would be concede that they're never going to be straight A brilliant scholars and help them nurture other aspects of their life skills in preparation for the working world rather than to painfully bludgeon them through the same Singaporean system designed for academically gifted students who can deliver straight As like a machine every single exam. What pains me about the system is this one-size-fits-all approach which is just plain wrong and painful when you see parents trying to squeeze and square peg into a round hole and it's the poor kids who suffer as a result. I really feel sorry for these kids. It almost feels like the parents are punishing them for not being naturally smart (ie. high-IQ).

Teacher: You have a point there, the kids in top-end JCs have already been double-filtered. Once by their top/branded school, another by the JC-secondary system. As someone once said "go JC is must be tak chek liao" Those very much weaker would hardly have gotten so far. Though I do worry about artificially pigeonholing kids. for some it may be a case of family background/lack of funds etc. Give kids a level playing field and you'd see that many branded as failures do succeed. But i recognise that its also an unsolvable issue - people aren't equal and many parents do their darndest to ensure their kids succeed even if it means breaking the bank for some of them

Hence the middle class parents "spoiling the market" by overloading kids with tuition and etc... they're grasping at straws for maximum advantage. Tho, like u've pointed out in your posts, it could be done in better ways. Unfortunately the local system is still pretty linear and straitlaced. They look at just the results and mainstream internships etc. The foreign languages bonus card will just go over the heads of interviewers because many of these jobs here in Sinkieland never involve the kids leaving our shores OR they involve dealing only with the English-speaking elites of LDCs.

Limpeh: Hahaha - what you've said about the kids in the top-end JCs reminds me of the Stella Artois ad: "triple filtered for a smooth outcome".

Don't get me wrong mate, I think teachers are vital in nurturing a child's potential, but one has got to recognize that not all children are made to be academic successes; some could be good at other things as well in life which may not involve getting straight As @ exams - unfortunately, that's what most Singaporean parents are interested in; hence the square peg/round hole quagmire.

You talk about breaking the bank - what about breaking the child? Surely the amount of misery inflicted on the poor child is not something to be ignored or even condoned? If it is something that is indeed vital, then fair enough, subject the child to it - but if you're trying to get a low IQ child to score straight As, then that's just like trying to squeeze juice from a rock. You will achieve nothing, waste a lot of time & money and just hurt the child in the process.

Gosh - it seems so politically incorrect to use the term low-IQ or the "wrong side of the IQ bell curve" but such is the nature of parents' love. They will rarely ever admit, "yup I have a pretty stupid child, s/he is just bueh tak chek". No, they will always find all kinds of excuses, "s/he is naughty, ill-disciplined, playful, distracted, fell into bad company etc" but they will rarely if ever admit to the child's low IQ. I suppose admitting that may be conceding some fault on their fault (ie. they gave the kid stupid genes). And even if they do concede that the child is doing badly at school, they still think that somehow, there can be some kind of cure for that situation, such as a brilliant tuition teacher. Well I beg to differ, is there a cure for low IQ?

And as for foreign languages, I have two things to say about it.

1. If you do speak a foreign language or 3, then you will naturally be drawn to professions where you will get to use your foreign languages. And if you suck at languages, then you will probably steer clear of any kind of role which will involve dealing with people who don't speak your language. The same way if you suffer from motion sickness when in a vehicle (like I do), you will never choose to be a taxi/bus driver - we play to our strengths, not our weaknesses.

2. The world is changing - male students who are 14 today still have a good 10 years or so before they join the work force (when you take into account NS + further education), so you're preparing for the 2022 job market, not the job market today and in the future, given the way Singapore is already so saturated today, students today will have to increasingly look abroad and think about venturing overseas for work. Hence it has never been a better time to learn another regional language like Thai or Vietnamese.

Teacher: Good point about the job market. It will be very interesting to see what happens when our regional neighbours catch up

About the system, well, from what I have seen there seem to be more cases of attitude problems than actual IQ issues. Its just that the system itself is a bit too much of a standardised grind and exessively focused on some things which are basically just nitty gritty or impractical in the long run. I think you said something in one of your blog posts - something about how doing such high level math seems a bit pointless given that we don't use or apply more than half of it in our lives or even work.

Why do people try to break the child? I guess its because the middle/lower is presented with a flawed system for social mobility - they're competing viciously for a limited number of decent jobs. Losers get to sweep the floor, literally. Ironically as the middle class gets better educated, the pressure increases. People want to earn the same if not more than their parents and as everyone improves their lot across the board it becomes harder and harder to outdo your parents. (interestingly this is similar to Sinkie women's high expectations - increased SOL/QOL and education plus trend towards hypergamy = more single women cos there are only so many elite men to go around, but thats a story for another day)

Most of the true elites can get their kids into good foreign unis through their connections and they can afford to pay their way thru them as well, so they don't have to take part in the gladiatorial arena of Tuitionception and its discontents. It is no surprise that the students who end up in the top schools and top universities are usually those from such families, with parents in very good jobs. So yes, the system will perpetuate itself like that, over and over again.

Students checking out their options at SP.

Limpeh: On the issue of the regional job market, let's put it this way. It was a big deal for my dad to move from his hometown in Malaysia to Singapore back in the day. Think about our friends from JC who have ended up everywhere today from China to Africa to Australia to Europe to North America? It's really no big deal for our generation to venture overseas and this is a trend that is only going to continue in the same direction. Sure there will be those who will always prefer to work in Singapore - but in the future, it'll be far less of a stretch of imagination for a Singaporean to consider a job in Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam if that is where better opportunities lie in the future especially as Singapore gets more and more crowded with FTs - by that token, one must look much further afield for better jobs in the future.

What the MOE needs is a far more holistic approach to education - learning from other countries like Sweden for example, where there is far less focus on exams and far more focus on a child's development and social skills. My boss has recently transferred his son from a British school to a Swedish school and is amazed at the improvement he has shown. Like so many things Singapore inherited from the British - the education system in Singapore is not just British, but that from several years ago. They have done away with O levels in the UK in 1988 and my peers here are amazed they still do it in Singapore. This just shows a stubbornness to change that is simply not helpful for the students.

The polytechnics of Singapore are doing a great job BTW, quite simply because they're not bound by this O levels + A levels route that has been walked by so many generations before - so they are more free to learn from other similar institutions abroad and keep their programme far more up to date and relevant to the working world. I know some efforts have been made to modernize the programme (such as the integrated programmes) but far more needs to be done to shift focus away from the exams and allow students to learn in more innovative ways. As an employer, I need to see the whole picture of what the candidate is capable of, rather than just exam results. This is something the MOE, the schools and most importantly, the parents need to understand!

You make an interesting point about children wishing to earn as much as their parents - you see, I am writing a draft for another post on my blog whereby I am dealing with a certain aspect of the reverse psychology of parenting whereby the Singaporean parents do their children a disservice by being defensive about their achievements. Let me give you a personal example. My mother speaks English with a very, very strong Singaporean accent - it is Singlish, it's rarely standard English, if ever. Now given her age, the fact that she speaks English this well is already an achievement for not many people of her age (nearly 70) in Singapore speaks English. Nonetheless, she should expect her children to speak English even better than her, given that we've had a far better education than she had in 1950s Singapore. And naturally, yeah we do and I have even gone on to become fluent in French as well.

Instead of being encouraging, she is defensive. She often says things like, "there's nothing wrong with the way I speak" and "you should listen to what the person is saying rather than be distracted by how they talk." It doesn't take a genius to see that she is terribly insecure about the way she talks and she gets especially nervous when I introduce my Angmor friends to her. It almost feels like on one hand, she wants her children to do well in life - on the other hand, she is insecure about the fact that we are more educated and successful than her. Some parents find this hard to deal with when this happens - they enjoy being in the position of authority, the parent-figure who is able to explain life to the child (who in turns, looks to his/her parents for wisdom); and they are unhappy when the tables are turned.

You know Europe has had this massive cold snap recently when temperatures plunged to -30 yeah? My mother claimed that it proved that global warming is a myth and I had to explain to her that she was wrong and the difference between weather and climate. Groan. A cold snap is a weather event, whereas to monitor global warming you need to look at global trends over a long time, rather than a localized weather event over a short time. She then went silent on me and was clearly unhappy that I had corrected her. Duh.

Limpeh enjoying the winter in Croatia.

It was not like I was impolite or condescending - she just couldn't stand me telling her that she was wrong. Yeah she's that difficult. She was like, "well that is my opinion" and I had to say that we're talking about science here, we're not talking about expressing an opinion like, "oh that white dress looks good on her" or "that dress doesn't really suit her figure." Double duh.

Oh yes that white dress looks so good on Munah - subscribe to Munah & Hirzi on youtube! Like them on FB!

I have said this before in a previous post: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-ah-beng-vs-atas-kenapa-awak-tiada.html I do think that it is a good thing in Singapore that people still believe in social mobility like that - you can't put a price on hope. Sometimes when you have little or nothing, hope is all you have and you can't take that away from people. I compared that to the UK, where there is far less social mobility than in Singapore and this is something Singaporeans should be proud of.

As for the children of the privileged getting into top universities, yes it's the better schools they go to and the better quality of education, but it goes far beyond the grades. These elite universities are looking for elite students who fit the image of their universities - ie. well presented, well groomed, confident, elegant, classy young people who will go on to be great ambassadors for their university. This is the kind of grooming only some (not all) rich kids get if they are lucky enough to have parents who realize the importance of that aspect of social skills. Like I said before, I have seen too many Singaporean students who are on so brilliant on paper but terribly socially inept and would probably flunk every single interview because of their very poor social skills. Why? Because they have spent hours mugging in solitude over the years, rather than interacting with other human beings.

It takes more than good grades to get into Yale.

This probably describes your typical child from a lower-income Singaporean family. The parents don't earn much and want the child do to well in life - so they impose a super strict regime of studying + tuition to ensure that the child gets excellent grades, making all the sacrifices to ensure that the child gets nothing less than straight As. In the meantime, the child has little social interaction, too much mugging in solitude (or interaction only with tuition teachers rather than peers) and you wonder why the child does so badly in interviews for universities, scholarships and jobs. Duh. It ain't rocket science.

There are only so many places at top universities - there are only so many scholarships - there are only so many good jobs around. And guess what? There are plenty of straight A students around and where Singaporean parents totally FAIL is to realize that it is going to take a lot more than good grades at school and university to get ahead in life in this day and age. I am hoping that in a small way, my blog will help address the issue and help Singaporean parents with the best of intentions realize this and change their approach to parenting.

Follow the debate here for part 3: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-tuition-limpeh-part-3.html

Q&A: Banker's Bonus

2012-02-14T13:52:00.001Z

Here's another cheeky question I got today:

"Hi Limpeh, did you get a banker's bonus? How do you feel about bankers' bonuses?"

Do bankers deserve their bonuses?

Oooh that's a personal question, but I shall answer it without revealing the amount. Yes I did get a bonus last year, the boss gave everyone in the company a fixed bonus, ie. I received the same amount as the head of sales, the head of admin, the head of back office ops - in fact everyone in the company got the same bonus. Whilst I am technically speaking an external consultant rather than a full time employee, I have put in so many hours in 2011 for the company that I am treated pretty much as one of them and the boss wants to make sure I will stay with the company in 2012 rather than shop around for a better deal with his competitors as I become more and more experienced and better at what I do. On top of that, I also got a second bonus because I made a mistake with my December invoice.

You see, I break down the work I do for the company and send them an invoice at the end of the month for services rendered as a consultant. When I have a busy month, it gets pretty complicated and they have introduced this complex template that we all have to use, not to mention all the expenses I can claim. Anyway, I entered a figure for a big project twice into two separate categories and I was like whoops, my bad, double entry. I owned up to it and told the head of admin, "I made a mistake on the last invoice."

The head of admin said, "Ah okay, I have already approved the payment for it, let me check it with the boss what I should do."

So I said sure, I can either pay it back or you can dock it from my January invoice, just let me know what you want me to do. The head of admin came back to me and said, "Oh the boss said never mind, treat it like a Christmas gift since you didn't want the pen."

The second bonus was less than the first bonus, so there you go, I did get a bonus. Two, in fact. There's a part of me that wished that I had made an even bigger mistake on that invoice given what happened! I'm not going to tell you how much but I have squirreled the money away rather than spend it on sex, drugs and rock & roll. I did take a holiday recent in Croatia and yeah stayed in a nice hotel, dined in nice restaurants, went skiing and flew Croatia Airlines (rather than some cheapo budget airlines) - but that's what working adults do, we take nice holidays because we can afford it.

Limpeh in Zagreb last week.

As for how I feel about bankers' bonuses, I think the financial services industry is terribly misunderstood. There are plenty of people like myself who do perform a job, I am not that high up the food chain and I work hard. I do my job well and if I screw up badly, my boss will get rid of me and replace me with someone who is more competent. For every one big shot who gets a multi-million dollar bonus, there are plenty more like myself who are making an honest living in the industry. I do not steal, I do not deceive, I do not cheat in my line of work - like many working adults, I have a job, I perform a function and I am expected to deliver results.

What does puzzle me is that way a lot of people want to see bankers as the bad guys who get away with murder - perhaps it is a very Singaporean approach to the issue, but I don't pass judgment on the situation. I knew that there was good money to be made in the industry, so my approach was, "if you can't beat them, join them". I have worked in finance as well as media and so I know what it is like for those who pursue their interests and passions rather than follow the money. Guess what? We were hiring in Singapore last year and there are opportunities in the financial services industry for the right candidate.

I hope this answers your question. Feel free to keep the questions coming.

Singaporean Parenting & Tuition

2012-02-13T23:43:00.001Z

A friend on Facebook has just shared this link from the ST with me: Parents hiring help to do tuition homework (Thank you Mark):

"Parents who engage tuition teachers as a second line of help, to help their children with tuition homework. They enrol their child at an elite centre which insists that pupils maintain high standards. When the child cannot cope with the work assigned by the centre, the parents hire a tutor, or enrol their child in another centre, to help the pupil with the exacting demands of the elite tuition centre."

This is freaking unreal. Please somebody stop the insanity of tuition inflicted by these misguided Singaporean parents. Look, I go back to the IQ bell curve that I have shared with you on my previous posts. It is a bell curve, half the people are above the average and half are below the average. So there is a 50-50 chance which side of the curve each child ends up on. We're talking IQ here, pure and simple. Take a moment a look at the curve.

I stand by this bell curve and I don't believe that a tuition teacher can transform a child of relatively low IQ into a scholar who is going to produce straight As. It simply isn't going to happen and parents will simply have to accept that they have kid who just isn't academically inclined - that's another word for stupid. Thick. Bodo. Goondu. Dumb. 笨. Bueh tak chek. Call it what you want, it is the same thing. Subjecting the child to endless tuition isn't going to change anything - just wake up and smell the coffee and look at the IQ bell curve. Some children are going to end up on the wrong side of that bell curve and if that happens to be your child, tough shit - that's the cards that you are dealt. Don't go into denial mode and punish the child with tuition - it is not the child's fault.

Look, most Singaporean parents who are in their 30s and 40s were probably subjected to pretty harsh parenting themselves in the 1980s and 1990s and did they all turn out to be scholars who went to Oxford and Cambridge? Hell no. There are plenty of Singaporeans working in dead end menial jobs who probably put in hours of hard work, plenty of tuition and struggled with exams for years before ending up on the scrap heap of society. Is there any reward for their efforts? No, they could've had some fun - hung out with their friends, watched a few more movies, played more sports etc and had a far happier childhood.

You can't learn everything from books - you need to get out there and experience life.

And even if you bludgeon the poor child through the tuition system for years, consider these two things. Firstly, at what cost were these enhanced results achieved? No child in Singapore - nay, make that the world - enjoys tuition and even the most obedient filial children who goes to tuition classes without complaint are hiding their feelings. Hours of endless tuition are making Singaporean children miserable. Secondly, all these years of tuition will cost a lot of money: couldn't the money be better spent nurturing other aspects of the child's development? After all, no child is going to be a student forever, s/he is going to have to join the workforce at some point and there are so many vital skills that one needs to prove that one can function effectively in a work environment. Okay Singaporean parents, I get it - you love your children and want to improve their prospects in this very competitive and crowded country: but surely hours of endless tuition is the wrong solution for your children when there are so many other vital skills they can pick up in their spare time! I refer you to my previous posts on finding employment:
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/finding-that-ideal-job.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/for-peixian-business-world.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-ah-beng-vs-atas-kenapa-awak-tiada.html

I am going to make a plea to you parents who have since forgotten what it is like to be in the working world: let your child learn something useful. I work in finance today and have forgotten 90+% of anything I've learnt in A level economics and guess what? Limpeh even had a distinction in S paper economics as well and I have also forgotten everything I've done for that too. Everything I need to know for my job, I have learnt on the job and the most important skill I need is dealing with people: from my boss to my colleagues to difficult clients - I am good with people and no textbook or tuition centre is going to teach you that. Hell no. You learn that from interacting with your peers so parents please, for crying out aloud: let your children go out and play with their friends because having a game of basketball or football will teach them far more useful skills for the workplace than hours of maths tuition.

And what's with the emphasis on maths anyway? Look, I work in finance and I can tell you that everything is done with computers these days. Surely all this emphasis on pure academic mathematics is completely out of date and useless - what children need is a basic grasp of mathematics and then some kind of applied mathematics from the age of 13: statistical analysis and IT skills. I don't know why there is this freaking Asian or Chinese obsession with pure mathematics - sure for those who want to pursue it, let them but for fuck's sake please recognize that we live in the age of computers and we're no longer working stuff out with a calculator like in a maths exam. The syllabus is painfully out of date and instead of questioning its validity and usefulness, Singaporean parents lack the ability to question the system and simply bludgeon their poor children through it. Tsk tsk. Bad parenting.

If you're going to pay good money for extra lessons, then let the child let something useful like a foreign language. Korean, French, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian: take your pick but that is something that will make your child's CV stand out when s/he walks into an interview and the future employer would sit up and notice, "hey, you speak Russian? That's interesting, tell me more."
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/11/foreign-languages-chapter-3-syndrome.html

After all, that's going to stand up far more than a child getting an A for maths instead of a B. I refer you to my previous point, language skills are far more vital than maths. I think about the last time I actually used any maths in real life, it was at the cheese counter at the Konzum supermarket in Zagreb. If the cheese costs 25 HRK (Croatian Kuna) for 100g, then how much would a 235g block of cheese cost in pound sterling? I am just going to get my phone out and use the calculator function. Or I am not even going to bother, I shall just ask the Croatian lady behind the counter how much it costs because Limpeh actually does speak Croatian (I am not fluent but yeah I do speak Croatian).

The cheese in Croatia was very good indeed :)

And until they do invent an iPhone app that can perform the job of an interpreter, the you are still going to need to speak the local language when you go abroad. May I refer you to my recent trip to Croatia:
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/moj-odmor-u-hrvatska-croatia.html

In the Medvednica Mountains, Croatia

You know what the biggest con is? The fucking tuition centres and tuition teachers. I look at my peers from my JC and let me list you some of their career choices:

finance & banking (v popular)
lawyers (v popular too)
working for the UN in Africa
journalist (one in Singapore and one in Doha working for Al-Jazeera)
producer at MediaCorp
academics
management consultants
electronic engineers
IT consultants
doctors

Of course, this is simply off the top of my head but you get the idea, my peers are ambitious and want to make a career for themselves. None of them ever said, "oh I want become a tuition teacher at a tuition centre." Heck, if you want to be a teacher at least go through the proper channels with the MOE and go teach at a proper school - not some dodgy tuition centre. Being a tuition teacher was always seen as a last resort when one was unemployed in Singapore. Look these people can't even find themselves a better job and somehow - and please someone in Singapore, please tell me why/how - somehow, you would trust someone like that to deliver an academic miracle with your low IQ child's results?

Fucking hell. Are Singaporean parents that blind? Or stupid?

Look Limpeh has a better suggestion for all you Singaporean parents. Save your money - all this tuition bullshit is very expensive and if your kid is stupid, then some unemployed bum who has turned to tuition as a last resort isn't going to deliver any kind of miracle. Visit http://www.singaporepools.com.sg/en/index.html You're better off spending the tuition fees on the following:

Toto (lottery)
4-D (lottery)
Singapore sweep (lottery)
going to the Singapore Turf Club and betting it on the horses
going to one of Singapore's Casinos and betting it on the roulette wheel

Who knows? You may just "tiok buay pio" and hit the jackpot and after you win millions of dollars, your low IQ child may never ever have to work ever again if you put the money in well manged trust fund. Yes the chances of "tiok buay pio" are low - but the odds are still better than whatever a tuition teacher can deliver. Between the roulette wheel and a dodgy Singaporean tuition teacher, I'd gladly choose the roulette wheel any time.

Place your bets! Place your bets!

If you have enjoyed this piece, you could check out my previous posts on Singaporean parenting:
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2011/12/parenting-in-singapore.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/01/singaporean-parenting-again.html

Let me know what you think, leave a comment, thanks!

Follow the debate in part 2: http://limpehft.blogspot.com/2012/02/sg-tuition-part-2-teachers-pov.html