Daily Lessons from Life - 10-17 May 2014 Various

Being away for the last 8 days. Yes. I was in the country with the great China Fire Wall and could not access this blogger.com site.

A lot happened in the world and in our Little Red Dot:

1. Flooding in Southern China

It was total chaos and massive flooding floored quite a few airports and disrupted many planned trips by one of the biggest domestic travel market in the world!

Access to some of the airports were cut off. This is not the most disastrous outcome. For some, they lost their homes and properties to the raging floods.

Main causes as presented by the Chinese press and their vibrant netizen-journalists: every local government is interested in taking care of the 'facades' of the city and development zones but careless about the more fundamental infrastructure work that goes underground! What cannot be seen cannot help to PROMOTE the city and the development zones so that thinking goes! Short term for sure. Water damages can be most devastating!

2. Vietnamese rioters in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) I and II against the PRC Chinese due to the PRC government/firm proceeded to drill for oil and gas in an island claimed by both countries

Allegedly more than 10 dead and more than 200 injured with 'workers/rioters' numbering more than 20,000! Many of the factories looted and torched were actually owned by Taiwanese. Singapore national flags were burned.

Some of my Singaporean friends were outraged and came out strongly about this incident. For me, it is a very unfortunate situation. While the conventional wisdom said that this could not have taken place without the tacit blessing of the Vietnamese government or authorities, my take is that: it was never meant to spin out of control into this looting, burning and even killing! Surely not.

That said, it means that 'arrangers', if the conspiracy theory has some truth in it, will need to find out what went wrong and address them.

Last report received was that orders had been restored and more than 1200 people had been detained.

As far as I am concerned, the PRC has a chance to be magnanimous about the situation. Being the 2nd biggest economy in the world now and the desire to be respected as a 'big nation', it should pursue conciliatory approach to territorial approach instead of a confrontational one. Squaring off against Asean simply does not make sense. It just give the impression of a 'big bully' as PRC has called, once upon a time, some 'super-power' of being that.

Of course, the PRC needs no one to 'tell' them what to do. They can do whatever they want after seeing how Putin works the Ukraine situation. However, if 'face and dignity and respect' they are looking for, they don't find many outside Russia heaping that on Mr Putin.

Which way to go? We can hope it goes the peaceful way.

3. Re-opening of Parliament

President Tony Tan laid out six broad goals for the Singapore government: strengthening safety nets, enhancing retirement adequacy, supporting families and communities, creating a better quality life for Singaporeans and opportunities for adults to have a fulfilling career, and enabling young Singaporeans to fulfil their potential.

Laudable goals ALL.

For me, the MOST important key to getting there is: change of mind-set.

a. safety nets - 'people rather want to be independent than be dependent if they can help it';

b. retirement adequacy - 'seeking meaningful existence in retirement rather than just keeping the 'pre-retirement' lifestyle'. Of course for those with little to retire on, we will go back to item a. above!;

c. families and communities - 'wean our kids of domestic help-dependent when they are more than 12-year old!' and 'make starting a 3-kid family affordable with public housing as a home';

d. better quality of life - include item a, b and c. No? Plus adequate infrastructure and gracefulness;

e. fulfilling careers for adults - 'local talents development and deployment must be front-and-centre', 'local talents must be so good that they are the leaders of Singapore global companies.';

f. fulfilling potential for young Singaporeans - include item c. especially the families part, item d and freeing them from being burdened with item a and b for their parents and grandparents!

Something worth championing for!