Blog

Lunch yesterday was hosted by my friend U-Zyn. I have never been to this Italian restaurant at Keong Saik Road so I was looking forward to the food and company.

He was meeting his friend, who was passing by Singapore, and he kindly invited me to join them.

The food was good and U Zyn recommended their fried pizza, which was really very nice.

Conversation was interesting and it ranged over so many topics, like crypto, stable coins, block chain, Singapore and Malaysia. We didn’t all agree on everything but that’s ok.

And I realized I had quite a bit in common with his friend. We were both in university at the same time and we both knew the same many people.

And he described himself as a futurist. I thought that was a interesting word. How does one become a futurist? And can a futurist be proved wrong? Interesting.

Off to KL. Started off driving at 615 and am now at KLCC. Arrived 1045 with a 20 minutes coffee/charging break at Ayer Keroh.

No reason to fly to KL unless its the school holidays and there is traffic jams!

I just started reading this book on my Kindle although the book has been out for a couple of years now. This book is his version of his life.

He is my all time favorite musical theatre composer and he has written some incredible music and songs. I have seen all his earlier works and I love them. Like all composers I think the inspiration fades after a while and in his case after Sunset Boulevard. He has not had any hit musicals since then and that is not for want of trying. He has written quite a few musicals after that, none of which did well.

He gave up a place at Oxford to study history to instead focus on writing music and fortunately for him, it turned out to be the right decision.

He started writing songs in school for plays and musicals when he was about 14 and he met his most important collaborator Tim Rice when he was just 16.

I am just at the part when he and Tim have finished writing and putting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat into small school productions and are now writing Jesus Christ Superstar. But what an enterprising young man he was. Making connections with the right people, taking risks and making good business calls. And of course, he was supremely talented.

Since I now go regularly to KL, when I saw this 2 full day class listed on the PA course calendar, I immediately signed up.

Apparently this is a very popular course and always fills up very fast. So I signed up for this some months back and today was the class.

Although the course required me to spend 2 full days on a weekend, I came here this morning all motivated to learn to speak Malay.

To my utter disappointment, this entire morning was spent talking about Malay culture, customs, festivals and food. And it looked like that would continue into the afternoon.

So I told the coordinator this is not what I signed up for and left before lunch. Better to have wasted half a day than to end up wasting another one and a half days.

Lunch was at this restaurant with a friend. Dempsey is always a good place for a meal because parking is relatively easy and free.

Important lesson learnt today is that this restaurant should not be chosen by anyone with a prawn allergy. Otherwise you might end up with only the beef dish as your one option for food.

The food was good but the conversation was really fun. The car-smashed air pod 2 made it memorable.

Also I may have discovered a place to host my next ACS dinner as this restaurant has a private dining room. We shall see.

Last night’s dinner was organised by Michael Lau at the Four Seasons Chinese restaurant, Jiang Nan Chun.

We have not caught up as a group for a long time. The last time, 4 of us went up on a road trip to KL, but without San.

Michael had organised an exquisite dinner and I think it must have been pricey as the dishes he ordered were not only good but were also quality items.

I used to come to this restaurant regularly a long time ago, perhaps about 20 years ago at least. I remember them having a wonderful weekend, order from the menu, buffet. Even then, the food was good, but their standard dropped after a while because they lost their chef, thanks to some CPIB probe of a number of Chinese chefs, and then I stopped coming. Now of course it’s a Michelin starred restaurant and also has become pricey.

Conversation last night was varied from AI to travelling, but as always it was good catching up with friends!

Last night was my dinner to thank all the members of my Club 100 committee and my Lifelong Learning Committee at the NWCDC, together with some councillors who could not make the earlier dinner date.

Again I hosted it at Conrad at Millennia, and they arranged a beautiful private room for me with 2 tables, as we had 15 people for dinner.

The food was very good and the conversations were not just interesting but also informative. Dinner was well paced and we finished by about 930pm.

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my friend, U-Zyn, at Sonder.

Always good to catch up with him. We have so many topics to talk about since he is knowledgeable in so many areas, and we ended up being there till after 1030am. Plus I am fascinated to hear his perspectives as someone who moved over from Malaysia to Singapore to understand how they view Singapore. Also it is good that he has a hearty appetite! And throughout that time we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.

At the dinner last Thursday, the banker next to me started talking about LKY.

He had met LKY in 2004 and he was seated next to him at a dinner. He was then a senior banker at Citibank. They used to organise an annual global thought leaders program and they have previously invited George Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. That year they had invited LKY.

LKY had at that dinner said that the government in 1965 had to focus on 4 key things to make Singapore work. One of them was to ensure that there was a common language spoken and understood by all Singaporeans which would be English.

I was reflecting on this yesterday. When I was in school, primary school education was compulsory and we were all taught in English.

But I was sitting across a Chinese woman yesterday at Toast Box, who was clearly Singaporean who could not speak a word of English to me, even though she wanted to communicate. And this is not an isolated incident. There are many Singaporeans and especially the older ones of all races who cannot speak English. How did that happen?

Dif they not go to school? What did they learn in school or did they simply forget the language? Strange.

If this was meant to be a key principle underlying Singapore’s growth, then surely it has been a flop. There are many Singaporeans who cannot communicate in English. So how would Singaporeans communicate with each other?

The problem is now compounded by the fact that we now have brought in so many foreigners who cannot speak English. I have been to restaurants, especially Chinese restaurants, and the staff cannot speak a word of English.

It is strange no one talks about this in Singapore. Many countries now insist on language skills before they are allowed a work visa. In our case I suppose knowing a official language without English will suffice?

I was invited to their awards dinner which was tonight at the Shangri la Hotel.

I didn’t know anything about this organisation and I was very surprised when I received a WhatsApp from an unknown number a month back, inviting me to their awards dinner. I found out today that my invitor is the Founder and the current Chairman of this organization.

The GOH was Min Indranee Rajah and I was happy to be sitting next to Ambassador Kesavapany during the dinner.

Met quite a few people I know at this dinner and the food was actually good.

At the dinner I found out what the organisation does and the 6 award winners are truly inspiring and under normal circumstances I would not have know what good work these people do in the community.