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### A: “I don’t think you’d be dazzled but this is what they give when they interview a big shot.”### B: “Okay. Barbara Poulson, she’s the CEO, owner?” |
### A: “She’s the editor. The writers don’t deal with the CEO. The writers go economy class.”### B: “Thank you.” |
### A: “It was interesting. The thing about National Geographic is the joke but it’s not really a joke, I guess, the photographers go business class and the writers go economy class. I never cared for that very much myself.”### B: “The writers go by economy class.” |
### A: “The photographers go business class.”### B: “They’d get tired. They don’t have, what do you call it, DVD?” |
### A: “No, you can watch it. In the airplane, the DVD is about this close to your face, so you can’t really move very much. It’s sort of like sitting in the first row of the movie theatre. So actually I’ve interviewed Presidents and I was born in 1948, there’ve been 10-12 American Presidents. They come and they go. B... |
### A: “The crucible of fire. In your book, you said that the three years of Japanese Occupation were the most, probably the most important years of your life. Do you feel that way, do you still feel that way?”### B: “Yes, of course. First, I was in my late teens, they captured Singapore in February 1942. I was 18-plus... |
### A: “Those are significant years in anybody’s life.”### B: “So I was Chinese male, tall and they were going for people like me because this was the centre for the collection of ethnic Chinese donations to Chungking to fight the Japanese. So when they came in, they were out to punish us. So they slaughtered 50,000, w... |
### A: “Well, 1945 seems to be a, if you look back over history, 1945 was a cataclysmic year for humanity in general. You see difference between the combination of the detonation of the atom bomb and the discovery of the Nazi camps. So at that point, tell me what you think? It seems that humanity began to stop thinking... |
### A: “I would say so.”### B: “And there are many American sociologists who also would like to prove that to be correct, the latest one being the professor who has done some research insists why ethnic Jews and Asians and West Indian Blacks do so well in America and they came to the conclusion that’s because they emph... |
“Actually, I went to the University of California at Berkley back in the 1960s and early 70s, I never graduated, then I went back and finished my degree in 2004 to show my children their father wasn’t a bum and it was interesting to see how the demographic composition of US, that’s the number one public college in the ... |
### A: “It was sort of striking because you feel like, what you’re saying is interesting because it’s like some people seem to thrive in certain environments and some people don’t, I don’t know why.”### B: “Well, we’ve got ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians here. The settled ones have become less hard-driving and hard-s... |
### A: “Is that okay? Is that fine, I mean?”### B: “No it worries the old citizens. They say look this is fierce competition, my children won’t be getting the scholarships because they’re doing well in schools, they push their children very hard. In fact, they need no pushing. They come here from China with no English ... |
### A: “That’s interesting, it’s like my grandparents came to New York. When they came in, they don’t speak English and they did great. They just really tried hard and made a life for themselves and I think after a number of generations, it’s very difficult to keep that kind of drive up.”### B: “Of course, of course.” |
### A: “Do you think that’s inevitable or do you think that people just get lazy or what?”### B: “No, I think the spurs are not stuck on your hinds. They are part of the herd, why-go-faster? But when you’re lagging behind, you must go faster to catch up with the herd. I’m quite sure that there are children of the migra... |
### A: “I actually wanted to ask you about that.”### B: ”So it’s a worrying factor. So we’ll need a constant inflow but we’re a small population, so we get the inflow and we get the inflow from the educated end of the population, both Indians and Chinese and they’ve got surplus populations. Well, I won’t say surplus bu... |
### A: “They have people to spare, that’s for sure.”### B: “No and they’ve got fierce competition there, so when they come here, higher standards of living for the time being, better social environment with jobs.” |
### A: “What would you say the parents of the second or third generation of Singaporeans and their children are not able to compete with the new people? How do you tell them?”### B: “We tell them look they have got to work harder or they’ll become stupid. It’s just that they don’t see the point of it. Why race when you... |
### A: “You’re not saying that arts, sports and ballet are not important, are you?”### B: “No, I’m not saying they are not important but an inordinate amount of time is spent on extra-curricular activities.” |
### A: “I told my son if you stop playing basketball, you do better on these tests but I like playing basketball. I said, well.”### B: “Well, I think it’s an inevitable evolution of any society and therefore, a regular inflow of migrants without too huge a deluge will keep that society on its toes.” |
### A: “You have 25 per cent here of people who are expatriates. Is that too much?”### B: “Well, there’s a little discomfort in some areas because in some areas, they seem to congregate, the new ones. The Indians somehow find the East Coast congenial. They concentrate there, so they become very obvious. The Chinese are... |
### A: “Well suppose, if you were the owner of a restaurant and you were going to hire a chef.”### B: “I’d choose the best chef.” |
### A: “You’d chose the best chef. It wouldn’t make a difference how much you have to pay.”### B: “Well, because the customer will make up for any difference. I mean, good chefs are difficult to come by. That’s as simple as that.” |
### A: “The talent.”### B: “It’s the taste buds, your nostrils, sense of colour, et cetera.” |
### A: “We ate dinner at Iggys, somewhere at the Regency Hotel. He was telling us, we were eating the food and he’s sitting there watching us eat which is so disconcerting I have got to say and he was explaining how they put together each dish. It was like listening to a painter telling you.”### B: “Yes, they make it a... |
### A: “It was an art form.”### B: “It’s not only just food. It’s presentation, it’s for the eyes, for the smell, for the texture and so on.” |
### A: “You have a favourite food hawker?”### B: “I can’t go.” |
### A: “Or is it really too good to say?”### B: “Well, I can’t go anymore because so many people want to shake my hands and I become a distraction, I can’t really get down to my food.” |
### A: “So can you have take-out?”### B: “Well, that’s not quite the same. I tend to go to restaurants when I go out and I try restaurants with a quiet corner where I can sneak in and sneak out with my friends and not have a crowd wanting to shake hands with me.” |
### A: “One of the things that I did when I came, I’ve been here about two weeks, and I know I have this interview with you. So they say what are you doing in Singapore? I say well, I’m going to interview the MM and they said, oh yeah. I said well, what would you ask him if you have a chance and people have a lot of qu... |
### A: “I thought probably you would appreciate that.”### B: “I’m 85 coming on to 86 this September. I’ve had many eggs thrown at me. |
### A: One thing that really struck me, coming from an American perspective is how much people, as much as they may seem to complain, they obviously feel a sense of home here and they love this place and this is their home and whatever problems they may have with whatever, that love of it comes through which I don’t th... |
### A: “I’m staying at Merchant Court.”### B: “Merchant Court? Opposite?” |
### A: “In fact, just next to Clarke Quay.”### B: “Yes, yes. You can. Nobody has been mugged, nobody has been raped. The crime rate is the lowest in Southeast Asia because we have a fairly disciplined population. Everybody is educated, nobody, there are a few dropouts who go in for glue sniffing and drugs and so on but... |
### A: “One thing that struck me is how you never see a policeman. I live in New York and I see police, cops all the time.”### B: “You have got to show your presence to scare people, I mean, that I’m around. But in Singapore, we’ve got what you call neighbourhood police, that they are stationed in the neighbourhood. Th... |
### A: “It’s not necessary to be driving around with the search light and all of the stuff like that. That’s the way it is in most places, really. This is a law abiding society in general.”### B: “Well, it’s the education in the schools and at home partly because we’re such a densely populated kind of buildings, all hi... |
### A: “And it’s worked.”### B: “It’s worked. And so we have a more homogenous and more homogenous in the sense that they haven’t changed their religions, the Malays are still Muslims and they go to the mosques every Friday and they’ve slightly different habits. The influence from the Middle East has made them have hea... |
### A: “Actually, it’s an interesting question that just came up recently that I was going to ask you about. I know that you put a premium on racial harmony and religious harmony and it’s actually more or less legislated here, right?”### B: “Yes, because you can have enormous trouble once religions clash.” |
### A: “Well, the two things I’ve been interested to ask you about that because I agree with you is number one, the recent rise of Evangelical Christians in Singapore.”### B: “As a result of American efforts.” |
### A: “I don’t know if it’s American efforts but I went to the New Creation Church and you might as well have been in Tennessee , it was exactly the same. As soon as you walked through the door, it was exactly the same but it seemed very popular. Is that a new monkey (?) ranch in there?”### B: “No, I don’t think so. Y... |
### A: “Well, in the US, as you say, it’s import from the US or an export. These people have been very politically active.”### B: “Well, they know here that if you get politically active, you will incite the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Muslims, the Hindus and others to do similar response. We used to teach in the schools... |
### A: “That may happen, that’s valid I think there is a rather large emphasis on individual autonomy in Western cultures that is sometimes detrimental to the larger society. But that’s the way you’re brought up, that’s what we’re used to, so it becomes….”### B: “No, it’s the philosophy of society you start with. You g... |
### A: “So when, don’t take this the wrong way, but when you decided to close the Chinese stream education and the college, what was the rationale behind that and do you ever regret doing that?”### B: “No, I regret not doing it faster because politically, if there’d been a violent electoral protest in the next election... |
### A: “In recent events as China begins to ascend, I mean, would you?”### B: “No, no. It makes no difference. We are not going to tie ourselves to China to the extent it makes us hostage. I mean, we have many investments there because the older generation are Chinese-educated, they feel comfortable but the younger gen... |
### A: “Do you think that, I mean, one question I wanted to ask you was building a country from scratch is obviously an enormous achievement, accomplishment.”### B: “No, it’s not a nation. It’s a society in transition. You need a few hundred years to build a nation.” |
### A: “Oh really?”### B: “Yes.” |
### A: “You have a lot of countries running around claiming they’re nations. You don’t think they really are nations?”### B: “Well, we make them say the national pledge and sing the national anthem but suppose we have a famine, will your Malay neighbour give you the last few grains of rice or will she share it with her... |
### A: “Depends on the person, doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t?”### B: “No, I think there comes a time, I read a book by Edward Wilson who was Harvard.” |
### A: “I know who he is.”### B: “And he wrote about human beings.” |
### A: “Actual past ones.”### B: “And he described the Maoris. So when two tribes were fighting, the third tribe will come and see which tribe is more our side, more genes like us and they joined that side. So it’s an instinct. Can you overcome that instinct? Edward Wilson says culture can overcome because he’s America... |
### A: “I live in New York which is similar to Singapore in a way.”### B: “No, I mean, I used to talk to an Indian. He was the administrator of Agra and we were driving back to Delhi. This was in the late 1970s. So he was telling me he was writing a thesis on Shakespeare, a highly-educated man. At that time, English-e... |
### A: “So as long as you have enough human trail people will figure out who you are.”### B: “Yes, and in Japan, they do it a different way. They exclude the Chinese and the Koreans who have been there for generations. They’re still not Japanese citizens. Some had become since the West started criticizing them because ... |
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