Blog

Tonight I attended their National Day Dinner. The event was at NS Home Team Khatib and the GOH for the event was Minister Edwin Tong.

The event started of with a rendition of some Tamil songs and a dance performance whilst waiting for the GOH to arrive.

Once the GOH arrived, the National Anthem was sung followed by a sumptuous Indian dinner catered by Taste of India.

The Minister gave a very inspiring speech and on hearing him, one can really feel his passion for Singapore. Good for him!

Whilst at lunch yesterday, I caught up with Tan Wah Thong. An amazing man. He is the Chairman of the ACS International school board and is going to be 87 this year. But he still makes it a point to go to the school every day. He is actively involved in all that the school is doing, including all its overseas ventures. And he is still driving. His contributions to ACS are incalculable.

I first got to know Wah Thong in 1996, when he first became Chairman of the ACS Board of Governors. I myself had just gotten onto the Board that year. He was an outsider of sorts as he had never been involved in anything ACS until then, other than being a student there.

I liked him and he was so full of drive and energy. So many things in ACS now are the result of the initiatives started during his tenure as Chairman of the board.

The reconstruction of the ACS campus at Barker Road into a integrated primary and secondary school happened during his time. Some of us in the board took so much flak when we had to demolish the old clock tower. But it worked out well in the end.

Getting rid of the ACJC school badge and getting them to wear the ACS badge also happened during his time.

He made changes to the ACS board of governors constitution to change the structure and composition of the Board .

He was so focused on bringing all the schools together and to ensure that they all worked together as one ACS.

One of the initiatives I suggested to him was to do a joint newsletter for all schools. We started the Echo and to make it financially viable, made the schools pay for the copies. I was in charge of this project whilst he was the Chairman. And he ensured all the school principals played ball to make it a success. Till today, the newsletter is operating.

He also asked me organise a joint Founders Day celebration for all the ACS schools. We had never done this before. We did this event in the year 2000 and it was a massive undertaking. I chaired the organizing committee and we did the event at the Indoor Stadium. The then PM Lee Hsien Loong graced the event as GOH. It was a roaring success with 8500 students present celebrating Founders Day together. We then did another one in 2005 again at the Indoor Stadium. This time with the then Education Minister and an old boy Tharman Shanmugaratnam as our GOH. He ensured that every one of our principals was committed to ensuring these events were a success.

When we started off in 1996, the quality of our education in our ACS schools was rather wanting. ACS Independent was ranked 20 the first time rankings came out which shocked everyone. ACJC had become an institution no one picked as a school of choice, even our own ACS boys. He worked to improve the quality of teaching and CCA standards at all the ACS schools and within a few years both ACS Independent and ACJC became first choices for Singapore students.

Although ACS has been in existence since 1886, no one had compiled any sort of history of the school. He asked Ernest Lau, my former principal in ACS and who at that time was an archivist for the Methodist Church, to write the history. And so the ACS Story book was born. A huge undertaking. It also gave me an opportunity to work with Ernest Lau on the chapter of the book on the ACSOBA.

He was also responsible for the birth of ACS International. He negotiated with MOE, EDB and the SLA to get the suitable site, funding and staffing to start that school from scratch. I remember being part of the interviews for the principal. He chose John Barrett, an excellent choice.

He stepped down as Chairman of the ACS board of governors in 2008 to focus on ACS International. He became the Chairman of ACS International board and he holds that position till today. He asked me to be part of the original board of directors of that school in 2007 and I am still on that board. That school had been such a success and it contributes more than a million dollars each year from its operating profits to the Methodist Mission and the other ACS schools.

When one looks back on the history of ACS, his time as Chairman of both the ACS board of governors and ACS International will stand out as some of the most outstanding years of growth and unity in the history of ACS.

Today was the board meeting cum lunch of the ACS Jakarta board.

I have not been attending many of their meetings and I haven’t been to Jakarta on the occasions they have invited us over so I told myself I will make it a point to attend this one.

Lunch was at Tung Luk Signatures at Renaissance Hotel. Very good food and service and with pleasant company.

The school in Jakarta is doing well and they are now opening another campus as they are filled to capacity in their current location. Good for them. And their academic results are impressive as well and so many of their students doing the IB have gone onto top overseas universities. They have the best academic results of any international school in Jakarta. While we were having lunch, the owner Mucki raised so many interesting initiatives that he wants to try out.

I shall make it a point to attend their next event in their Jakarta campus.

Today is the first full day after the 50% tariffs imposed by the US on India took effect.

India exports quite a huge amount of goods to the US, inter alia, textiles, gems and jewellery, electronics and pharmaceuticals. They are sure to take a massive economic hit and it is only a question of a very short time before that impact will be felt on the local economy. India was touting its Make in India programme over the last 6 years and that is now in tatters. Who would want to manufacture in India if it subject to such high tariffs?

Over the last 5 years, India was capitalising on the fact that manufacturers wanted to shift out of China. India seemed a safe bet as everyone assumed the US would not touch India as it needed it as a counter balance against China. Modi assumed India could do anything and there would be no consequences, including buying cheap oil from Russia with impunity.

Well the time has now come for India to face the music. It can either stop buying cheap Russian oil, pressure Russia to stop the war or look for alternative sources for its goods.

However none of these options seem viable in the short term. The pain is going to be real.

This morning I messaged Kaling to see how he was and surprisingly he suggested lunch.

He chose Bistro du Vin at Shaw Center. When I arrived Virginia was also there. She just arrived this morning from the US after dropping off her son in the US. Lunch was good. I haven’t been here for quite a while and they have a decently priced set lunch.

While we were having lunch, I started talking about Chinese tea. Kaling was interested and off we went to Woosee at Mandarin Gallery to have tea. I think they have some of the best tea in Singapore and it’s also a decent place to sit down and sample tea.

We went there in Kaling’s i7, which is a lovely car when you are the passenger.

We sampled a 2004 raw puer. I think Kaling must have felt good drinking it because he ended up buying that one and another Bindao tea, which was the most expensive one they had in their store. He also got a beautiful tea pot.

I do hope he enjoys his tea and drinks it regularly for its health benefits.

Drove back from Kl this morning. I left at 1015am this morning from KLCC with a 100% charge. The navigation showed that I would reach Tuas checkpoint at 150pm with a 19% charge. There was no traffic at all except for a 7 minutes delay at the Singapore immigration.

Such a breeze compared to flying. Flying would have meant an hour ride to the airport, then about at least an hour wait for the plane, an hour journey on the plane, waiting another 30 minutes to disembark a d collect luggage and finally another 30 minutes home.

Culina in KL is currently having a Merdeka promotion menu. Its on till end September. So yummy and so reasonably priced. I have been coming here every evening and I have tried almost all the items in this menu.

The sambal pizza is yummy, the chili crab spaghetti was good, the grilled Sabah sea prawn spaghetti was excellent. The only item I wasn’t so hot on was the chicken. And they all so well priced. I topped off my meal with a fruit selection of papayas and pears I picked from the Culina market just nearby.

I shall have another round in September.

Last night I watched the MPO perform this concert. Initially they were only performing this programme on one night and I bought my tickets for this last year. But it was so popular that they are now doing this on 6 nights for which all tickets are sold out.

The performance started with a rousing performance of Negara Ku. And as always, the orchestra played well. The first half featured pieces by JW. They played Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, ET, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Superman. For HZ, they performed Interstellar, Dune, the Crown, Dark Knight, Gladiator, Man of Steel and Lion King.

Both of them have very different styles. JW pieces are majestic and brassy. HZ pieces are generally expansive, moodier with lots of strings. Both of them use a full orchestra to achieve the sound they want. I have to say that I am more familiar with JW pieces. How can one ever forget the opening music of Star Wars. I remember watching this on the big screen and being mesmerized by the opening theme. I listened to it so many times. Or the flying scene in ET where Elliott is on the bike with ET flying across the silhouette of the moon. Bring back wonderful memories.

I enjoyed this performance as they used lights in the hall to also create a effective and appropriate atmosphere to go well with the music.

Of course the notable omission was Schindler’s List by JW. Clearly they didn’t want to play one of his most well known pieces, for which he won an Oscar, because of the Jewish theme of the movie.

Today I finally signed the sale and purchase agreement for Anyara. Now to arrange the first 10% payment.

Together with this I get 4 acres of Mao Shan Wang durian planation which is already in its 5th year of growth. I am waiting for the 4.2 km link road that will cut down the travelling time to KLCC to 25 minutes. That will take about 18 months. The facilities will take about 24 months to build. I need to build the house within 5 years.

Will meet up with designers and architects to get some ideas next year. Anyway in no hurry as I want others to start building. Good to see who they use and what their designs are.

Will be fun. Also found out that my house number will be 7. Nice single digit!

This morning I drove up to KL. Started off at 515am with a 100% charge. Both Tuas and Malaysia checkpoints were a breeze. No traffic at all. Strangely by the time I was clearing Malaysia immigration, my charge was down to 91%. I thought it weird that it came off so quickly for the first 10%. Still as I was driving, it showed that I would reach KLCC with a15% charge remaining.

Anyway as it was still very early, I stopped at Ayer Keroh and charged the car for 15 minutes, which brought the charge up to 80%. I had a long black at Starbucks, which opened at 8am, while waiting for the quick charge. The service at Starbucks was superb.

Arrived in KL at 10am. Morning traffic.