Daily Lessons from Life 02 Decmber 2009

"Jailed for not paying wages - Wed, Dec 02, 2009 The Straits Times

A MAN was jailed a total of nine months on Wednesday for failing to pay his workers' salaries.

Julian Yip Si Wei, 27, was owner of Zippon Marine & Engineering and M Power Engineering when he committed the offences earlier this year."

Singapore is known to be a fair and just country where its citizens are very law abiding to the point of being scorned at whenever they got 'cheated' in foreign lands. There was ever a joke that circulate in China on why Chinese Chinese like to deal with Singaporeans that goes: Dealing with Hongkongers very hard to cheat them. Dealing with Taiwanese are still a challenge to try to cheat them. But dealing with Singaporeans are a pleasure as it is so easy to cheat them!

Well I guessed someone in China did not bargained for this from a Singapore employer in Singapore! Foreign workers not paid their due wages!!

Lessons for me are:

1. greed knows no boundaries and are not unique to any one race or country. It gets to any human being who has desires that s(he) cannot control!;

2. in any race or country, there are always honest and kind and generous people who will not take advantage of a disadvantaged foreigner. There will be some who are ever ready to make a killing off foreigners who are not familiar with the new place too. So, it is an obligation of the visitors to have this mentality: 害人之心不可有，防人之心不可无. i.e. we must not have bad intention to take advantage of others but we must be mindful that there are people who may take advantage of us. So be alert!;

3. where dishonest people are caught and brought to justice, justice must be served in a firm and unemotional manner. No mercy must be shown so that other people who harboured thoughts of 'taking advantages' of others KNOW what they will face if caught. Hopefully that will deter them from trying. Of course, the most effective way is for ALL OF US to live a morally upright life and believed that we shall NEVER take advantage of others.

May fairness and justice prevail always.