The Anti Neo-Democracy Theorist

Recently, I have become interested in the relationship between popular Chinese/Asian music and the notion of a Chinese/Asian “public space.” One of the things that people laugh at, including many journalists and academicians, is that Asian popular music and its political, societal and leisure implications is a topic actually worth studying. Considering that millions of East Asians, from Indonesians to Vietnamese to China to Japan to Korea sing karaoke and take part in singing competitions everyday, and that politicians have become apt at singing many of these popular songs to win votes, I don’t know how long journalists and academicians can laugh at this “trivial, similar and  subaltern culture”. Also many young Asians grow up with a favorite idol and many of them would actually sacrifice their daily lives to chase these idols across space and time when they are growing up. What did it mean to grow up with popular idols? How does the transnational nature of Chinese music unite or divide the Chinese and its diaspora? What did it mean to belong to a “fan club”?  How is popular musicians and music used by politicians (recall Zhang Hui Mei’s ban from Mainland China after she sang the Taiwan’s national anthem) to promote their own agenda? Why have popular musicians, with their huge following, remain largely apolitical or have chosen to support the ruling regime? How have musicians be co-opted into the political system? These issues deserve some serious thinking and research.

 Clearly these young people in their millions are not necessarily engaging in a public discourse within a Habermas’s public sphere in terms of their interests in popular Asian music, but something is going on that is beyond the control of the state.  For e.g., A ban of certain artists in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Vietnam, Indonesia has never fail to draw the people’s criticism or support towards the ruling authority.

To digress, it is interesting to see Sun Yan Zi’s song “我不難過” (I am not upset) being sang by so many different artists, predominately Taiwanese singers. The transnational nature of Chinese popular music can indeed be reproduced in many ways. For a lighter amd normative question, who do you think sang better?

Keep reading →

My college featured in the Straits Times

The Straits Times (Singapore)
April 30, 2008 Wednesday
Cheers to a liberal arts education
BYLINE: Sandra Davie, Senior Writer
LENGTH: 1009 words

WITH her A-level results, Raffles Junior College student Nazish Zafar could have easily attended any big-name American university.

But she surprised friends and family by choosing Carleton College in Minnesota.

The liberal arts college is consistently ranked among the top five in the United States, but is not a familiar name here.

‘Why is it called a college, not a university?’ some asked her.

But Ms Zafar, 24, who graduated last year with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and anthropology, is glad she stuck with her choice.

A generous four-year scholarship from Carleton was a reason she went there, but she was also sold on the broad-based curriculum and intimate learning environment promised by the college.

And Carleton did not disappoint.

Her courses ranged from Russian language, culture and society to Middle Eastern social theory, and women and the Islamic construction of gender. She did courses in computer science, qualitative thinking, statistics, and video production and editing.

It all added up to a grounding in varied disciplines and taught her to see issues from various perspectives.

Her invigorating undergraduate experience is what liberal arts colleges are known for, and Singapore will be offering the same brand of education through a liberal arts college of its own.

She says she liked the fact that her courses traversed two or three discipline areas, showing students the connections across different areas of knowledge.

For example, National Identity In Israeli And Palestinian Literature - a course she did in her first year - meant reading novels and poetry, watching documentaries, and analysing articles expressing views from both sides of the conflict.

‘It gave me a refreshingly nuanced, multi-dimensional understanding to the region,’ she recalls.

In Year 2, she visited Moscow for three months, living with a Russian family. Her Russian language skills improved by leaps and bounds.

She added two months to that trip to be a volunteer at a community of foster families caring for orphans.

In her final year last year, she and a college mate won a $10US,000 ($13S,600) grant to launch a health education project in Fortaleza, Brazil.

Their Napkin Project aimed to educate women on the benefits of breastfeeding through messages printed on napkins handed out by street vendors.

Ms Zafar, who hopes to work in the social-humanitarian field, says the six-month stint gave her valuable on-the-ground experience.

Keep reading →

Her victory speech after winning Penn with a 9 points victory over Senator Obama: 

What surprises me not the most are the calls (and counter-calls) for Minister Wong to resign over the MKS incident but more that PM Lee actually actively pursue that line in parliament. By even rhetorically mentioning it, does it only show that PM is trying to actively quell the online cries?  Or could it also be a rhetorical form of (hidden transcripts of) power struggle within high politics in Singapore? How can we read between the lines unless a PAP insider spills the beans? Also, LTK’s silence, while interpreted by PM Lee as an assent to the point that WKS should not resign, was quite indicative as usual. The silence speaks volumes of the contradictions within the very viable opposition Workers’ Party (will my calling for resignation set a precedent for the WP to resign if we do badly in the future)?

Clinton’s convincing victory at the polls in PA have not be celebrated much by the American press. The NYT downright criticized her negative tones and columnists have been hinting that she should go. Quite a wonderful representation of what the press would be when she becomes President or when Obama becomes the nominee. “Hail McCain and Obama, the two honest maverick independent candidates that would restore America’s greatness!” Says the CNN, foxnews and MSNBC. Now, that’s scary.

The SDP’s revamp of its website in terms of design and accessibility is really quite good for a political party. Almost comparable to my favorite political website of the British Conservative Party (But their standards seem to also have decline quite a bit) Maybe the PAP and the NSP needs to up their web design skills a bit?

Random Thoughts on Home School Education & Reach of the State

I read with fascination on the phenomena of home schooling as reported in the Straits Times today. Home schooling, as with many things in Singapore, have their own share of critics and myths. Home schooling often does not entail merely studying at home - in America, home schoolers often form their own community, with group activities stressed even as individuals study at home. Many home schoolers attend enrichment classes such as piano and not surprisingly many of them are involved in community and political outreaches to broaden their social circles. The church often becomes a focal point for home school kids - and considering that many students today do not consider their friends in school as the people they necessarily hang out with (think stereotypical church kids, temple kids, street kids, arcade kids, sports kids, gyms kids, game kids, hang out at the mall and waste time kids) ,I wonder how problematic will it be for a Singapore kid about not going to a formal school in light of the former situation.

And the advantage of being a home schooler in Singapore is that unlike suburban America, Singapore is a place where it is very compact, forcing individuals to interact with each other on a daily basis. Of course, this doesn’t mean that home schoolers will interact with their neighbors and street kids, but this is based on the assumption that all home schoolers are introverts because of their educational socialization, which I am not sure whether it is true. With rising concerns of social problems in our education system, I wonder if more Singaporeans will home school their kids.

Yet, the most interesting piece of information for me in the ST article was this section:

“They are also required to clear the National Education quiz, a test of their knowledge of Singapore’s history and the challenges facing it.”

It really opened my eyes to the idea of burden of citizenship. While many people will argue that the burden of citizenship includes paying taxes or serving the nation service, in actuality, the burden of citizenship begins with formal education, where students are supposed to imbue the qualities of a model Singaporean citizen.  It is akin to working on a blank slate. And even home schoolers cannot escape the everyday levels of “orthodoxing” in formal schools. Despite not investing in the same common space in schools, they are subjected to the state’s discipline. They have to internalize the party-state discourse of the past and “the challenges facing it.” They have to become model economizing citizens in their studies and while the state allows the citizen to perform private acts of education upon their sons and daughters, they realize that these home schoolers might forget they are Singaporeans. For education, just as freedom can be stretched and appropriated in Singapore, but please, please, for the sake of Singapore, remember to take your NE pills before heading to the age of 13.

Keep reading →

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s interview with Chinese CCTV before he was elected as PM. His Chinese is quite fantastic - will put many Singaporeans to shame. The interviewer behaves quite strangely though -what do you think?

See the full 2007 report just out here:

Two interesting quotes:

“The government demonstrated a strong commitment to children’s rights and welfare through well-funded systems of public education and medical care, and access was equal for all children. Six years of public (or government-recognized private) education is compulsory for all children. Virtually 100 percent of children were enrolled through grade six, and the dropout rate for secondary school was low. The Children and Young Persons Act created a juvenile court system and established protective services for orphaned, abused, and “troubled” children, and those with disabilities. The Ministry of Community Development, Youth, and Sports (MCYS) worked closely with the National Council for Social Services to oversee children’s welfare cases. Voluntary organizations operated most of the homes for children, while the government funded from 50 to 100 percent of living expenses and overhead, as well as expenses for special schooling, health care, and supervisory needs.”

“The PAP completely controlled key positions in and out of government, influenced the press and courts, and limited opposition political activities. Often the means were fully consistent with the law and the normal prerogatives of a parliamentary government, but the overall effect (and many argued the ultimate purpose) was to disadvantage and weaken political opposition. Since 1988 the PAP changed all but nine single-seat constituencies into group representational constituencies (GRCs) of five to six parliamentary seats, in which the party with a plurality wins all of the seats. According to the constitution, such changes are permitted to ensure ethnic minority representation in Parliament; each GRC candidate list must contain at least one Malay, Indian, or other ethnic minority candidate. These changes made it more difficult for opposition parties, all of which had very limited memberships, to fill multimember candidate lists.

Keep reading →