Category: Uncategorized

It was finally the day of the investiture for this year’s National Day Awards.

I was told that I would be getting the award on 30 July, the award was announced on 9 August and last night, it was given out.

This award was for my work at the North West Community Development Council. It has been about 22 years since I first stepped through the doors at the North West Community Development Council. Then I didn’t know what it was, what work it did or anyone there.

Many a times, I wanted to stop attended their meeting. They were held on weekday nights at Woodlands and it would take me an hour at least to get there after work. Plus I felt lost and lonely since I didn’t anyone there. And I didn’t understand all these grassroot terms they used.. CCC or CCMC.. it was all so alien to me.

But I am so glad I stayed on. My work there has been one of the most enriching things I have done in my life. When I look back on my life, the time I spent there working with people, many of whom have now become friends, and doing community work would rank as some of the more memorable moments in my life.

Last night’s event was at ITE. I always enjoy such events because I meet so many people I know. And as I was there with my mother, they facilitated my arrival well to accommodate my mother! So very kind of them.

The last time I had durians, it was also with Michael Lau. But then it was in KL and we were in a group.

This time I suggested to Michael to try this place at Bukit Merah, suggested to me by Harish.

We went there at 130pm yesterday. Their durians arrive in the morning, which is different from all the other durian shops I know I Singapore. The rest tell me that their durians arrive in the late afternoon. Strange.

We had 2 durians. Both were decent, not fantastic, but reasonably priced. 2 fruits for $80 both big and we couldn’t finish them. They just have one table if you want to be seated and eat and we managed to grab that one table.

Michael is my fellow councillor from the CDC and we do share similar views on a number of issues. Good catching up.

I have seen this 1961 movie many years before, on the recommendation of a friend when I was a student in the University.

I was too young, uninformed and immature to appreciate what it was all about.

I saw this again yesterday, in one sitting. Strange that it popped up suddenly on my list. Was it because I am waiting to watch the new movie, Nuremberg, I wonder?

I suspect this new movie will raise similar issues as the earlier movie. How did a corporal from a political party once considered a looney party, end up becoming Chancellor of such a powerful European country? The German people knew what he stood for and yet why did they go along with him? Why did all the intellectuals and judges in Germany administer such draconian laws and often render severe punishments when there was no evidence? Didn’t the German people see how the Jews and other minorities were persecuted? Why did they laugh and applaud at such happenings? Did they know of the existence of the concentration camps and the mass murders taking place there? And where should ultimate responsibility for such acts lie?

Even after reading the excellent book, Einstein in Berlin, I am still at a loss. The author of that book suggests various reasons why it happened. The movie doesn’t provide reasons. It only shows Germans saying either they didn’t know or even if they did, they couldn’t do anything. The underlying sentiment they express is that the German people are not killers.

I hope I will be more enlightened after watching the new movie but it is frightening to know that things like this have happened in the past. Within just 6 years of taking control, he led Germany into a war which killed millions of people. Even though so many people knew he was a fanatic, they let it happen.

After I had wished Min a happy birthday last week, he messaged and suggested lunch together with another good friend U Zyn.

I have known Min since 2008 or thereabouts when I first invested in Razer. But I only got to know him better much later on when he started making presentations to the investors. I was so happy when the IPO for Razer finally happened in HK in 2017 after a few false starts. I supported them by buying their laptops and their handphones. Sadly they stopped making handphones after just 2 models. Really love their products. Their laptops last forever! One of his biggest fans although I am not a gamer.

I picked the lunch location, Candlenut, which turned out to be a great location cos they gave us a nice quiet location. The conversation was great and free flowing although the 3 of us have never met as a group before.

It was a nice catch up, sharing about old times and the people we know, the latest trends in technology, AI, eSports, avatars, scammers and unexplained wealth coming to Singapore, crypto and Lucence.

The food was good and the company even better. U Zyn brought a birthday ondeh cake, which Min really liked and took back to finish.

Just as we were finishing, we saw Li Meng and his family who were also lunching nearby. Although LM is with Razer, we spent all our time talking again about Lucence.

Good food, great company and an engaging, entertaining conversation.. how any good catch up with friends should be like.

I met up with Michael Lo yesterday for lunch. For a variety of reasons. One to pay for and pick up my jade ring which I bought in July at the jewellery fair. And to find out how he and his family are doing and how HK is now faring.

We met at La D’Oro which is next to his shop at Mandarin Gallery. It is a Michelin starred restaurant and it had such a reasonably priced set lunch at $38, which included coffee or tea. Food is decent and I think they are an Italian restaurant and so specialise in pastas, which I am avoiding so as to lose weight!

He says HK is doing better but that is primarily because the Chinese government is encouraging people to spend more by providing incentives and rebates. Good restaurants in HK have shut down and he himself takes a taxi to Shenzhen to eat sometimes because the food there is a lot cheaper and with more options.

I think this is a bit like Singapore and Malaysia currently. Except the problem will get a lot worse when the MRT linking both countries is completed next year.

HK is also attracting tourism by promoting concert tourism. These tickets come bundled with hotels and so they are clearly aimed at Mainland China visitors. Still their stock market is picking up with lots of new IPOs and financial activities starting to grow.

Let’s see if HK regains its buzz again.

Time flies. It was time once again to catch up to celebrate more birthdays. This time mine and Allen Ang’s. So last night we met up at Jypsy at East Coast for dinner.

I have never been here. And it is a lovely location. By the waters with lots of greenery. You can see many ships “sailing” by with indoor and outdoor dining options and convenient car parking.

This restaurant is an offshoot of PS Cafe and here they do Japanese fusion food. The food was decent and reasonably priced. And for a Monday, it was packed.

All of us were there by 7pm and the food came fast. So we were done eating, at least I was, by 745pm. We ended up chatting till 945pm.

It is always nice to catch up with people you have worked with, especially when the work done was volunteer work. But I felt that we didn’t or we now don’t have anything much in common, except to talk about people we know or knew or current events. The conversation was rather disjointed with different topics amongst different groupings of people.

Well I guess that’s inevitable when you no longer have anything in common except for what we did together in the past.

Still I enjoy the idea of meeting them and always look forward to the next one.

My one complaint is that the desserts that doubled as birthday cakes were just too sweet. Is it because Singaporeans have a sweet tooth? Despite so much calls to cut down sugar and salt, our food outlets seem to continue increasing these levels. I really couldn’t touch the desserts.

Another SSO night yesterday. This time a piano concerto composed and performed by Stephen Hough and the famous organ concerto by Saint Saens, who was himself an organist. On paper should have been an enjoyable night.

Sir Stephen Hough is clearly a very accomplished pianist. He has a long list of achievements, been knighted and I read that Economist magazine had rated him as one of the 10 living polymaths.

But despite all this, I simply couldn’t appreciate his performance of his self composed piano concerto. Composed during Covid, it is a single movement piece about 20 minutes long but I found it without a clear theme or melody.

And he played his pieces on a Yamaha CFX piano. To me, it sounded very different from the usual Steinways used in concert halls. The sound was thin and lacked warmth. Another minus.

He followed this performance with 2 encores. A composition of his for the movie Mulan and his variations on a song from Mary Poppins. Both of these elicited an enthusiastic response from the audience.

I was looking forward to the post interval organ concerto but I was disappointed. The performance didn’t connect with me. Was it the way they played, the acoustics of the hall or the tempo adopted by the conductor? I felt the orchestra was not in sync and the playing disjointed.

Pity. I have always liked this piece ever since I heard the the dramatic final movement in the movie Babe. No such luck last night. The performance, and the final movement in particular, made no impression on me.

The highlight of the evening ended up being my bumping into my favorite Mexican Ambassador and his wife. It was so good seeing him and I ended up chatting with him both before and during the interval. This was the one bright spark in an otherwise ordinary evening.

For myself, I do need to start choosing what SSO performances I book tickets for carefully. Have been making a few mistakes.

I have noticed that it is getting increasingly harder to find a common time for 4 people to meet for lunch, especially when two of them seem to enjoy travelling so much. I have tried to get us together since late September without any success to celebrate a birthday.

So I was very surprised that at short notice, it was possible for Francis and I to meet for lunch. Wasn’t sure it was going to happen till it actually happened. Last night, the venue was fixed for Serangoon Road. Then late morning the venue was changed to Ivins at Binjai Park. Finally we landed up here.

Food was Italian and was alright. Nothing to shout about but prices were decent, with their 2 course set lunch at $28.

But it was good catching up, even if it’s for a short while. We have so many things and we know so many people in common that there is no shortage of topics to talk about. At this age, health issues dominate any conversation and since Francis is very into health and various health related treatments and supplements, that took center stage.

I have casually known Francis since Eusoff College days. I remember he approached me to ask about a moot competition I had taken part in the year before. That must have been in 1985. But we only became friends after he joined the firm sometime in 1998. We have been in the same department since and we must have spent countless hours talking and travelling over the years, including 2 football World Cups.

As I was walking to my lunch appointment yesterday afternoon, I bumped into Prof Tan Lee Meng just outside Scotts Square. He was on his way for his lunch at the Marriott.

Prof Tan was one of my favorite teachers and Dean at the law faculty.

He was already a professor when I was a student at the law faculty. He taught shipping and carriage of goods by sea. He was also Master of Raffles Hall.

For some internal political reasons, he was hardly seen at the faculty when I was a student. He spent most of his time at the hall.

He was a legendary master at Raffles Hall. He was so well loved by generation of students who stayed there, many of whom still speak fondly of their time there and of him.

He was my favorite lecturer for shipping because he was so clear, entertaining and captivating. He was the only teacher throughout my 4 years there, whose lecture I could sit through the entire hour without once looking at my watch. I remember he lectured without any notes. He was one of the very few first class honours students at the faculty and he was well known for his photographic memory.

He became Dean just when I had joined the faculty in 1987. And what a wonderful Dean he was. He had very close interactions with the staff and students regularly. He recruited many local teachers for the faculty and the students loved him. He always had an open door policy and you could see him and speak to him anytime about anything. Camaraderie amongst the staff, especially the younger ones, was strong during his time as Dean.

I remember he persuaded the university to provide funding for the purchase of a piano which was placed in the moot court and thereafter used regularly for student concerts.

A few years after that he left the faculty to become the deputy vice chancellor of the university. Thereafter became a high court judge. It was always a pleasure appearing before him because he was pleasant, would listen to you and would have read all the papers. Many a time after a hearing, he would call in the lawyers into his chambers and chat with them. Such wonderful days.

I am so glad to have seen him again. Of course he is now rather frail but good to see him still so sharp and bright and looking forward to his lunch.

This photo must have been taken in 1992 or 1993 just outside the law faculty. So many wonderful memories. And so many in this picture have since passed on….

I left India yesterday . I checked out from the hotel at 1130am, arrived at Thiruchy airport by 140pm. Waited for my mother and we both checked in.

In many respects, Thiruchy airport is so much better than Madurai airport. The staff are nicer. There is hardly any queue at either immigration or security. And they have a lounge which you can pay to use. That was nice. And it cost us only 1500Rp for the 2 of us. Very comfortable, new, good food and very clean toilets.

I will use this airport again. The problem is the distance to my mother’s home town from Thiruchy. It takes her 3 hours to go either way. Pity.

Flight departed early and we arrived in Singapore on time.

Another good India trip.