5 C's

Sorry, I've been so busy I haven't had time to write a new post for my blog, but at last here it is!

In this post I'm going to tell you something about the 5 C's of Singapore. To reach the highest echelons of the Singaporean societal ladder you need to be high on the ranking of the 5 C's. So what are these 5 C's? Some time ago this term started as a joke about the wide-spread materialism in Singapore, but has now become an established term in Singlish (Singapore-English). The 5 C's are the following: Cash, Car, Condo, Credit Card and Country Club. People in Singapore are basically rated according to these C's;

Cash: is self-explanatory, the more you have the higher on the food chain you are.

Car: is an 'ueber' status symbol here in Singapore as cars are, relative to other countries, extremely expensive. The base tax on a car is around 191%, excluding road tax and something called the Certificate of Ownership, which basically allows you to own and drive a car which is easily some double digit percentage of the value of your car. So you want, let's say a nice Volvo XC 90 SUV? Then you better be prepared to shell out $250,000 and that's without the sunroof option ;) This explains the strong connection of the car you drive in with the food chain ranking.

Condo: 84% of Singaporeans live in so called HDBs (Housing Development Board), which basically is government built and subsidized housing. Within HDBs you have a food-chain system as well basically linked to location. Some HDBs near the city centre are really pretty luxurious while others near the airport are much less attractive to live in and therefore are meant for the lower echelons of society. Condos however are where the affluent locals and expats live in. Basically they're pretty much hotels without the room service. So if you can afford a condo, you are doing very well. If however, you can afford a freestanding house with a garden, you are so much the shit you don't even have to look at your 5 C's anymore so the condo doesn't count for you anymore.

Credit Card: To apply for a Credit Card here in Singapore you need an income of at least $30,000 annually. However, there is a ranking within the CCs as well, such as Platinum, Elite, Gold, the whole deal. The level of your card therefore also plays a great role. It is of such importance that most banks here now even offer platinum cards for a much higher annual fee even if you don't really have enough on your account to be eligable. And people actually pay those fees in order to get a platinum....

Country Club: As there is very little empty open land in Singapore country clubs are very rare. The ones that do exist are therefore extremely exclusive. Some clubs even have waiting lists of several years. What helps is that you can usually sign up your 5 year old kid for a golf membership which kicks in when he turns 18/21 just to make sure he has a tee-off time on his birthday of course. Oh and don't forget you'll have to start paying a 'holding' fee for the years he has to wait. This is of course only available to people who are already members of course and already pay several tens of thousands of dollars a year to have the sticker on their windshield of their cars. (here in Singapore you need a sticker on the windshield of your car so the guard at the club can see you are a member, otherwise they will deny you entry). Therefore the more stickers you have on your windshield the higher on the food-chain you are.

So much for the latest lesson on Singaporean society!

Business Asian Style

Yesterday I decided I wanted to have a suit dry-cleaned before my working week starts on Monday. What I didn't know is that for some reason dry-cleaning here still takes about a week to get done. Pretty much everything else from ordering a cab by phone, having your cable installed to even having an MRI scan happens at the speed of light, but for some reason the mysterious science of dry-cleaning takes more time for the Singaporeans than to build a new part of town (actually that might be one of the things they really do fastest here). The problem was however, I simply did not have that time. The lady of the dry-cleaners told me it would be ready on Monday or Tuesday and they'd give me a call. I asked if there was no way they could get it done any faster, she pointed to racks of clothes behind her and said they were swamped and they really couldn't get it done on time. Then my Asian blood kicked in; "How much does the dry-cleaning cost?" "S$ 13, sir." "Alright fine, I'll give you S$ 20 if you can make sure you can get it done before the weekend." She then took my suit pushed a bunch of clothes aside on the rack so mine was first in line, turned back around with a smile on her face and said "Ok sir no problem, you pick up tomorrow at 5pm?" HAHA isn't that great! In Holland people would probably depict this as a direct bribe, but Asians see it as what the market is prepared to pay for an 'express service' even though at first this doesn't even appear to be an option. I prefer the latter interpretation ;) So people, I'm off to pick up my dry-cleaned and nicely pressed suit now! Bye!

The West and the East put in a blender

The best roads I've ever seen, filled with cars with some of the worst driving I've ever seen. A super modern, efficient metro system, but anyone above 1.80 meters will have to keep their head down to fit in. An ueber-hip and trendy restaurant filled with people following a 'day at the beach' dress code. A hefty fine for not wearing a seat belt in the back of a cab, while construction contractor's pick-up trucks race by with 10 passengers sitting on top of each other in the back with not even a roof, let alone seat belts. Singapore is probably the most irrationally mixed country in the world. As it is much richer and much more developed than all the other countries in the region it looks more like a 'Western' country than most countries in the 'real' West do. But even then it still has such a clear Asian identity through these examples I mentioned above. I could go on and on, but I think you pretty much get the idea. It's as though somebody dropped 4 million South East Asians into Switzerland, added palm trees and turned up the heat. It's the strangest thing and that's what also makes this place so amazingly unique. In many countries the various cultures live along side each other or they are mixed so extensively that one can not see the differences, but here it's as though the blender lost power half way. For those who have no clue what I'm talking about...come visit this great town.

Finally arrived in Singapore

(not the typical Sing skyline pic, but the view from the balcony)

At last the long wait is over and I actually am in Singapore. It's great to be here again. Today I woke up at around 12.30 after a horrible jet-laggy night of waking up and falling a sleep again for short periods. After that I went for a walk down Orchard Road to soak up capitalism at its best, Starbucks here, Gucci there, Prada over there, D&G accross the road, Mc Donalds everywhere haha, but it's cool as there's definitely A LOT to do. I can already see the slight changes Singapore has been experiencing over the past years. One example is that in Watson's (like Boots, or Etos for the Dutch readers) the Durex condoms are in a rack next to the cash register in plain sight WAAAA soo progressive and liberal, lah! ("lah" = common suffix here by the way just like in Malaysia). Wanted to pick up a simple Singaporean Singtel sim card for my phone and even for pre-paid they need a passport so have to go back to get one. Will pass it on asap to those who want it. Tonight I'm going to meet up with Giovanna who will be room mate for the rest of the year. She's busy all day with a La Perla fashion show somewhere in town, I better get an invite next time... :) Alright gonna head back with my passport this time.


(My new best friend :) haha)

Singapore, here I come!

I know times passes quickly, but this is high-speed supersonic stuff we're talking about. I'm moving to Singapore in less than 3 weeks!! I remember the time when I still had months and months ahead of me... So going to pack up my stuff here, say bye to my friends and then move to the Switzerland of Asia for half a year. I'm actually especially looking forward to the food :)

The Colonel

Leader of a coup d'etat removing a royal family from power and placing them under indefinite house arrest. Sent revolutionary hit squads abroad to kill dissidents of his country who had fled the country, they managed to find and kill 9. Invaded a neighboring country. Was a major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics and also bombed a Berlin discotheque in 1986 killing several and wounding hundreds. Paid "Carlos the Jackal" to kidnap a number of Saudi and Iranian oil ministers to release them for ransom. Supplied weapons to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. Organized several of his diplomats to leave the UK under diplomatic immunity after they had accidentally shot a police officer dead in front of their embassy who was there to protect the embassy from demonstrators. He actively supported the PLO in their war against Israel with money and weapons. And finally two of his intelligence service officers planted a bomb on Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. After more than a decade of sanctions he finally agreed to hand over the men and accept the responsibility for the bombing in exchange for the lifting of the UN sanctions.

Who are we talking about here? Yes, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya. I knew this man was dangerous, but the list mentioned above was really shocking to me. Why is that man even still in power? Sovereign state or not, this is clearly an international criminal and an international financier of terrorism. I really can not understand how he can just get away by apologizing and paying $2.7 billion to the families of the Lockerbie tragedy. What...that's it? Done deal? Closed case? Now let's get to the even juicier part of the story, which is probably a good explanation of why he still is in power. He decided to give the countries who lifted their sanctions exclusive rights to oil fields....yes OIL. AGAIN... The same week Britain decided to start diplomatic relations again, BP and Shell announced they'd each invest around a billion pounds into oil exploration in Libya. How amazing is that? Well ok, the guy's being nice now, let's get on with the drilling!! Woohoo!!

And now there is a big case going on in Libya with several Bulgarian nurses on trial because they allegedly infected nearly 500 children with HIV purposely in a Libyan hospital. According to research from the EU the infections happened before the Bulgarian nurses had even started to work there... The Libyan courts are ignoring that evidence and are saying there are enough testimonies from Libyan employees at the hospital who say otherwise (imagine what would happen to those employees if they had given another story...). So the verdict is the death sentence for all the nurses. Now the Bulgarian government has intervened together with the EU by offering to pay $1 million to each family of the HIV infected kids. That's nearly half a billion dollars in total of (ahem....MY) tax money. Libya seems content with that so the courts changed the sentence to a life sentence... Are you kidding me?? Now Bulgaria wants to get them extradited in order to clear them of charges due to lack of substantial evidence. Libya probably just wants a bit more money, before they can do that. What's so horrible about this, is that a large number of health experts around the world all agree the HIV infections probably occurred due to the bad conditions in the Libyan hospitals and that this is just a good way for the government to divert the attention from that fact.

Somebody please get rid of that dude...

Reality TV - not so real

As you all must have noticed there is an increasing number of reality TV shows on TV. Industry 'experts' have repeatedly predicted the end of reality TV, because people wouldn't be interested in watching ANOTHER show 'The life of [fill in some celebrity's name, usually B-class]'. The interesting thing is these shows remain to attract huge numbers of viewers. My production company has recently finished some work for a large TV network here in Holland; the program was a reality TV show on a famous cook here setting up the largest fish restaurant in the country. The format was a contest in which 8 selected cooks had to compete in order to become the chef cook of the new restaurant working for this celeb cook's group of restaurants. It was a big hit on TV ranking in the top 5 nationwide every episode. But I can understand that, it's very similar to Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen and that's fun to watch as it's also interesting.

However, that wasn't what bothered me, actually intrigued is the better word. Why are people so extremely interested in watching other people's lives? And then I'm talking about all aspects of it, even scenes of parts of their lives I wouldn't even find interesting of my biggest idol. Take the TV show Big Brother for example (the producing firm pays over half our bills so I won't be too harsh haha) isn't actually even a real TV show. It's a network of CCTV camera's hanging in a house built out of containers in a studio park with people locked in it for months. I have tried to watch it once, but I hated it. Why do people like to watch that kind of stuff? Those prime time hours could be filled with much more interesting shows. And then it struck me...reality TV shows are far from reality for about 99.9% of the viewers. On the one hand you have the celebrities who live lavish lifestyles that would even make many millionaires feel embarrassed and on the other you have shows about 'normal' people like Big Brother. The celebrities have their own little world and I can understand to a certain extent that's fun to watch now and then. But the most popular reality shows remain the shows like Big Brother and the reason is the brilliant selection of the contestants. Most 'normal' and sane people wouldn't even think of having themselves locked up in a house with a group of strangers just for the slight chance of surviving long enough to win a quarter of a million dollars. That's what makes or breaks these shows. When stories about big fights or racist comments on live TV hit the press, the market share shoots up. I know we all like to catch up on gossip and juicy celeb stories, but this is different. Here we want to watch it live and wait for something to get totally out of hand in there. Because we know it's going to happen, we just don't know when and you want to have seen it first and live. You can deny it all you want, but these shows are actually very similar to the gladiator spectacles in ancient Rome. We are still a blood thirsty bunch, but just with less blood because that's not done anymore. We humans are strange beings sometimes... Would like to hear/read your comments!

A little lump of coal becomes a diamond

Paul Potts, a 36 year old mobile phone salesman struggling to support himself and his wife with the 1,50 pound commission per sold phone, dreams of being a professional opera singer. A mobile phone salesman singing opera? Yes, an opera singer! He signed up for Britain's Got Talent on ITV and ended up winning the entire contest racking up 100,000 pounds, a performance for the Queen and other members of the Royal family and a million pound record deal with Simon Cowell. His album actually has entered the top 20 on Amazon worldwide, and it hasn't even been released yet (pre-release orders). Watch the youtube video of his first performance on BGT to see the reactions of the judges and audience (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA). What an amazing story...

Currently the most polluting country in the world, but with pandas...

China's economy is growing with double digits, China's wealthy are getting wealthier, China is now the most polluting country in the world, China will be the next 'superpower', etc. That's all you read now about China. But then a question hit me, a question which gave China a lot of news coverage years ago before this whole 'boom' took off; how about the pandas??

Even though China has problems such as the overheating economy, the undervalued currency, WTO disagreements and heavy pollution, they have managed to turn around the fate of the giant panda. For many of us probably a symbol of China and of course the logo of WWF. According to the latest research the wild pandas in China are doing much better than we thought! Instead of 1,000 pandas recently thought to be living in the wild, recent estimates from 2006 show there probably are currently as many as 3,000 pandas living in the wild. Two decades ago there were 13 panda reserves in China, in 2006 there were 40. Thanks to a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, a large portion of the pandas' natural habitat has been placed under protection. However, pandas are still an endangered species according to the WWF and much work needs to be done to get them off that list. But it looks as though their future is definitely a lot brighter than a decade ago. Good news is nice now and then isn't it? :)

Laugh about economics

Sitting in my macro and micro economics classes I never would've thought you could make the basic theories of economics sound amusing in any way. The people who have studied economics/business at university should know exactly what I'm talking about. The ones who took eco at high school only know what I'm talking about if you paid any attention during those classes at all. I stumbled upon 'The world's first and only stand-up comedian', a young economist in the US with a PhD degree. Follow this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4 and have a laugh. And if you really like him you can book him on his website, because that's the only way he can convince his dad this is actually a good profession after having studied for 10 years haha.

Two-Way Street

Why Two-Way Street?

Well, it's actually very simple. I felt like having my own spot on the web where I can post ideas and comments on various topics and a blog seemed a good way to do just that. Don't expect any first-class literary material or stuff like that. I am a two-way street, an extremely busy one... On the one hand I am an information junkie, I love information on, well, basically anything. I read tons of newspapers, magazines, websites, etc every single week and locking me up with Discovery Channel and the History Channel for a week is actually not even near to torture to me. I seriously read about everything, for some reason I love to know things especially about stuff that actually at first doesn't interest me. The result of this hunger for information is that I like to pass that information on very much :) This is the other direction of the two-way street. I love to tell people, actually mainly my friends, about stuff I've read about even though they usually really couldn't care less. Sometimes this results in hilarious situations where I'm talking to a group of friends at the dinner table about some new bird species explorers discovered in the Amazon, only to discover at the end of my story that I'm not even sure if it actually truly interests myself haha. But it's all about passing on the information I pick up. Probably I now sound like some geeky nerd who lives in libraries while on the other hand loves attention talking about absolute crap, but I'm actually completely the opposite (well, maybe not the latter part...). So drop by now and then to catch up on stories that got caught up in my chaotic and busy two-way street and I feel are worth sharing with you ;)