Dr. Hsu's forum

Imagine having a car with doors that can disappear the moment you want to enter or get out. That is innovation.

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There is s saying that ” when poor, improvise.. When improvise, everything will be OK”（ 穷则变).  You don’t have to be rich to be innovative.

I am posting a few photos here , sent to me via email. In the email, it was stated that the photos were taken by French Photographer, Alain Delorme.

Look at these ordinary people. They are not rich. They cannot afford a lorry or a van. But they can carry goods as much as a small truck..

I remember when I was small, we did see some of these things in Malaysia, maybe the goods were not stacked as high as these, but tricycles stacked full of goods were quite common. Of course, it may pose a danger to other road users if the whole stack collapses or if the cyclist falls.

We  may admire the innovative spirits of these poor people, especially when we are sitting behind a computer and looking at these; or as bystanders looking from the side-walk.

However, if you are  a driver in a car following these, you may not be amused by these .   See how our  viewpoints can change depending which side of the table we are sitting..

Ancient peoples developed and ritualised mourning practices to express the shared grief of family and friends, and together show not fear or distaste for death, but respect for the dead one; and to give comfort to the living who will miss the deceased.
I recall the ritual mourning when my maternal grandmother died some 75 years ago. For five nights the family would gather to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised professional mourner.
Such rituals are no longer observed. My family’s sorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.

In October 2003 when she had her first stroke, we had a strong intimation of our mortality. My wife and I have been together since 1947 for more than three quarters of our lives. My grief at her passing cannot be expressed in words. But today, when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life. In our quiet moments, we would revisit our lives and times together. We had been most fortunate. At critical turning points in our lives, fortune favoured us.
As a young man with an interrupted education at Raffles College, and no steady job or profession, her parents did not look upon me as a desirable son-in-law.
But she had faith in me. We had committed ourselves to each other. I decided to leave for England in September 1946 to read law, leaving her to return to Raffles College to try to win one of the two Queen’s Scholarships awarded yearly.
We knew that only one Singaporean would be awarded. I had the resources, and sailed for England, and hoped that she would join me after winning the Queen’s Scholarship. If she did not win it, she would have to wait for me for three years.

In June the next year, 1947, she did win it. But the British colonial office could not get her a place in Cambridge.
Through Chief Clerk of Fitzwilliam, I discovered that my Censor at Fitzwilliam, W S Thatcher, was a good friend of the Mistress of Girton, Miss Butler. He gave me a letter of introduction to the Mistress. She received me and I assured her that Choo would most likely take a “First”, because she was the better student when we both were at Raffles College. I had come up late by one term to Cambridge, yet passed my first year qualifying examination with a class 1. She studied Choo’s academic record and decided to admit her in October that same year, 1947. We have kept each other company ever since. We married privately in December 1947 at Stratford-upon-Avon. At Cambridge, we both put in our best efforts. She took a first in two years in Law Tripos II. I took a double first, and a starred first for the finals, but in three years. We did not disappoint our tutors.

Our Cambridge Firsts gave us a good start in life. Returning to Singapore, we both were taken on as legal assistants in Laycock & Ong, a thriving law firm in Malacca Street. Then we married officially a second time that September 1950 to please our parents and friends. She practised conveyancing and draftsmanship, I did litigation.
In February 1952, our first son Hsien Loong was born. She took maternity leave for a year.
That February, I was asked by John Laycock, the Senior Partner, to take up the case of the Postal and Telecommunications Uniformed Staff Union, the postmen’s union. They were negotiating with the government for better terms and conditions of service. Negotiations were deadlocked and they decided to go on strike. It was a battle for public support. I was able to put across the reasonableness of their case through the press and radio. After a fortnight, they won concessions from the government. Choo, who was at home on maternity leave, pencilled through my draft statements, making them simple and clear.

Over the years, she influenced my writing style. Now I write in short sentences, in the active voice. We gradually influenced each other’s ways and habits as we adjusted and accommodated each other.
We knew that we could not stay starry-eyed lovers all our lives; that life was an on-going challenge with new problems to resolve and manage. We had two more children, Wei Ling in 1955 and Hsien Yang in 1957. She brought them up to be well-behaved, polite, considerate and never to throw their weight as the prime minister’s children.
As a lawyer, she earned enough, to free me from worries about the future of our children. She saw the price I paid for not having mastered Mandarin when I was young. We decided to send all three children to Chinese kindergarten and schools. She made sure they learned English and Malay well at home. Her nurturing has equipped them for life in a multi-lingual region.

We never argued over the upbringing of our children, nor over financial matters. Our earnings and assets were jointly held. We were each other’s confidant. She had simple pleasures. We would walk around the Istana gardens in the evening, and I hit golf balls to relax. Later, when we had grandchildren, she would take them to feed the fish and the swans in the Istana ponds. Then we would swim. She was interested in her surroundings, for instance, that many bird varieties were pushed out by mynahs and crows eating up the insects and vegetation. She discovered the curator of the gardens had cleared wild grasses and swing fogged for mosquitoes, killing off insects they fed on. She stopped this and the bird varieties returned.

She surrounded the swimming pool with free flowering scented flowers and derived great pleasure smelling them as she swam. She knew each flower by its popular and botanical names. She had an enormous capacity for words.
She had majored in English literature at Raffles College and was a voracious reader, from Jane Austen to JRR Tolkien, from Thucydides’ “The Peloponnesian Wars” to Virgil’s “Aeneid”, to “The Oxford Companion to Food, and Seafood of Southeast Asia”, to “Roadside Trees of Malaya”, and Birds of Singapore”.She helped me draft the Constitution of the PAP. For the inaugural meeting at Victoria Memorial Hall on 4 November 1954, she gathered the wives of the founder members to sew rosettes for those who were going on stage.

In my first election for Tanjong Pagar, our home in Oxley Road, became the HQ to assign cars provided by my supporters to ferry voters to the polling booth. She warned me that I could not trust my new found associates, the left-wing trade unionists led by Lim Chin Siong. She was furious that he never sent their high school student helpers to canvass for me in Tanjong Pagar, yet demanded the use of cars provided by my supporters to ferry my Tanjong Pagar voters. She had an uncanny ability to read the character of a person. She would sometimes warn me to be careful of certain persons; often, she turned out to be right.

When we were about to join Malaysia, she told me that we would not succeed because the UMNO Malay leaders had such different lifestyles and because their politics were communally-based, on race and religion. I replied that we had to make it work as there was no better choice. But she was right. We were asked to leave Malaysia before two years.
When separation was imminent, Eddie Barker, as Law Minister, drew up the draft legislation for the separation.
But he did not include an undertaking by the Federation Government to guarantee the observance of the two water agreements between the PUB and the Johor state government. I asked Choo to include this. She drafted the undertaking as part of the constitutional amendment of the Federation of Malaysia Constitution itself. She was precise and meticulous in her choice of words. The amendment statute was annexed to the Separation Agreement, which we then registered with the United Nations. The then Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley said that if other federations were to separate, he hoped they would do it as professionally as Singapore and Malaysia. It was a compliment to Eddie’s and Choo’s professional skills. Each time Malaysian Malay leaders threatened to cut off our water supply, I was reassured that this clear and solemn international undertaking by the Malaysian government in its Constitution will get us a ruling by the UNSC (United Nations ).

After her first stroke, she lost her left field of vision. This slowed down her reading. She learned to cope, reading with the help of a ruler. She swam every evening and kept fit. She continued to travel with me, and stayed active despite the stroke.

She stayed in touch with her family and old friends. She listened to her collection of CDs, mostly classical, plus some golden oldies. She jocularly divided her life into “before stroke” and “after stroke”, like BC and AD.
She was friendly and considerate to all associated with her. She would banter with her WSOs (woman security officers) and correct their English grammar and pronunciation in a friendly and cheerful way.
Her former WSOs visited her when she was at NNI. I thank them all.
Her second stroke on 12 May 2008 was more disabling. I encouraged and cheered her on, helped by a magnificent team of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses.
Her nurses, WSOs and maids all grew fond of her because she was warm and considerate. When she coughed, she would take her small pillow to cover her mouth because she worried for them and did not want to infect them.
Her mind remained clear but her voice became weaker. When I kissed her on her cheek, she told me not to come too close to her in case I caught her pneumonia.
I assured her that the doctors did not think that was likely because I was active. When given some peaches in hospital, she asked the maid to take one home for my lunch. I was at the centre of her life.
On June 24, 2008, a CT scan revealed another bleed again on the right side of her brain. There was not much more that medicine or surgery could do except to keep her comfortable.
I brought her home on July 3, 2008. The doctors expected her to last a few weeks. She lived till October 2, 2 years and 3 months. She remained lucid. They gave time for me and my children to come to terms with the inevitable.
In the final few months, her faculties declined. She could not speak but her cognition remained. She looked forward to have me talk to her every evening.

Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together, as we were in life.
The last two years of her life were the most difficult. She was bed-ridden after small successive strokes; she could not speak but she was still cognisant. Every night she would wait for me to sit by her to tell her of my day’s activities and to read her favourite poems.
Then she would sleep.

I have precious memories of our 63 years together. Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children. She was always there when I needed her. She has lived a life full of warmth and meaning.

I should find solace at her 89 years of her life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sadness.

My readers will know that all these while, i have been advocating a third force in between the 2 big coalitions , pushing for change and acting as a watchdog. I have not been able to convince the leadership, and I have indeed failed in this.

Now,  a group of us in the civil society may want to form a social movement as a third force for national reform. I will post my friend as well as well known political analyst Khoo Kay Peng’s article on this:

The Case for a Third Force

I understand the concern of a three corner fight which might dilute the chance of Pakatan in the next general election.

However, the possibility of establishing a third force is not to side with the other two forces (BN or Pakatan). We are not contesting in the next general election, not yet. But we must not discount this option in the future if the politicians continue to ignore us for pure power crave and self gratification.

When politicians from both sides collide, do they stop to listen to the people? Did BN listen to the people or are they still taking the ‘we-know-best’ attitude?

Did Pakatan listen to the people and embark on the reforms we wanted or the newly minted coalition is too focused on its ambition to capture Putrajaya and forget those who stood by the roadside watching, supporting and cheering their stride towards national power?

This third force role and responsibility is to ensure that the politicians and policy makers listen to us, the stakeholders. This country cannot be allowed to go on the way it is being run now.

We need to change. We cannot allow politicians to dictate all terms. Politicians cannot be fully entrusted to implement change or reform because any political power left on its own will not proactively surrender its power and influence through people centred reform.

Reforms in other societies were successful because of individuals who sacrificed their own freedom to mobilize the people through their messages and sacrifice e.g. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama and others.

Not any political party. Political party fights to retain and capture power and not to hand it to the people to decide and chart their own future.

As a way forward, we need to push the regime to implement a structure and all necessary processes to limit power and to ensure there is a proper check-and-balance mechanism. Only with the existence of a proper structure that we can stop power abuse and political arrogance.

It is unacceptable for any citizens or minority communities to suffer social abuse, negligence and economic deprivation in their own country. Alas, this is exactly what happened in Malaysia e.g. the Penans, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, the poor and powerless of all races.

These abuses must stop now if we do not want this country to go down the drain.

It is still not too late. Please sign up to join a Third Force for National Reform Facebook. We should unite to ensure that our voices are LOUD enough to be heard by the feuding politicians.