Dreams of world domination.

I asked a Chinese English language student what he most wanted, the other day. His answer was discomfiting to stay the least.


"I would like the power to give China many advanced weapons. Then China would grow more powerful and all the world would respect China. Then everyone would have to learn to speak Chinese. That would make me very happy."


I almost shuddered at his words. If this is the dearest wish and profoundest dream of a random Chinese student, I wonder if the world is really safe from an ascendant China. Dreams like his don't come from nowhere - they are born in a social milieu which fosters such thinking. Perhaps America is right to be worried about the rise of China.

Recently, America issued its annual report on China's militarization. China reacted angrily saying that it portrays China in a false light and that China's weapons are for defensive purposes only. It also stated that it "interfered in our internal affairs". This is a reference to Taiwan which China believes is an internal matter but which Taiwan and the rest of the world believe to be an external matter.

Most telling, perhaps, about the student's dream is that the dream of power was not for him, personally, but for his nation. He wanted China to be ascendant, but not himself. This is a very Chinese answer, I think, in which the individual is subsumed into the mass of the people of the republic.

I didn't share my thoughts on his comment with the young man concerned: I just observed his ardent expression of the desire for military power for his motherland and wondered whether the world is sleeping, as a new Dragon awakes.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

On the need for civil discourse.

Once upon a time, discourse between people in public was conducted with civility. At least, this was the ideal. However, this no longer seems to apply, in the modern world, particularly on the internet.

Recently, I wrote a post about the experience of native English speakers, encountering Singlish. It was a distillation of the experiences of many native English speakers that I have known in my life, from all walks of life, and from all the major English speaking countries. All confessed to have been baffled by Singlish at times - and all thought, basically, that it would be better if a more standard version of English were current, from the point of view of effective communication. Only one liked Singlish, a Canadian, who thought it was "funny". Basically, Singlish made him laugh, so he liked it.

Now, one would have thought that getting an external perspective on the local linguistic situation might be of interest to Singaporeans. However, this has not been the case. The post has been greeted with great hostility in some quarters - such hostility that I wonder if it is even worth engaging such people in conversation, in any form.

One poster, in particular, whose comment I posted, went on to write on his or her own blog in a defamatory fashion. Their post is filled with ad hominem attacks (personal attacks) upon me. It seems to be motivated by a lot of anger and quite a bit of spite. It is a most unpleasant post and one that is, actually, libellous in several instances. This is not what I call civilized discourse.

When I grew up and received an education, I imbibed the idea that when engaged in intellectual discourse that one should never attack the bearer of an idea, and only to argue with the idea itself. That notion doesn't seem to be understood in the Singaporean blogosphere. It seems that Singlish is a minor communication problem, here - the greater one is the lack of respect for civil discourse.

A nation that speaks a corrupted version of English, I can accept, though I would advise that they be conversant in standard English, as well, for purposes of international communication - but a nation that has lost - or never had - an understanding of civil discourse really is unnacceptable. When Singaporeans indulge in uncivilized attacks on others, instead of engaging in well-behaved discourse to come to an understanding of ideas, they show, ultimately, what is lacking, in some people here: an appreciation of what it means to be a civilized being, in a sophisticated world.

I didn't fully appreciate how lacking some Singaporeans are, in basic civility, until I saw the reactions to my post. It has been enlightening...it has also lowered, somewhat, my opinion of the element of society responsible. One got the impression that the posters were the kind of people who would engage in lynchings, in other times, and places.

I have to give some thought to this: perhaps it is not worth trying to engage local people in any kind of discourse at all. A civilized conversation is only possible with those who have learnt what it means to be civilized. One poster, in particular, most certainly has no idea what that means. Some others are not far behind.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

More buses please.

Could we have more buses in Singapore, please? My thinking is that if I put it as a polite request, it is more likely to be listened to, than if I put it as a criticism. However, I must explain why we need more buses in Singapore.

If you have ever taken a bus quite early, in the morning, in Singapore...say 7.15, up to town, you would have noticed an interesting phenomenon: it is possible to squeeze a surprising number of people on a bus, if you don't care how comfortable they are. This morning, I was on one such bus. I was travelling earlier than usual and was unable to find a seat. Indeed, I found myself standing, alongside what seemed like most of the other people on the bus. It was most uncomfortable. At one point, in fact, the doors of the bus were having trouble closing, because there were simply too many people squeezed on the bus. It was only possible to close the doors after a little more shuffling and greater squeezing of the people deep in the interior of the bus. After that, the bus was completely full. It wasn't a fun journey.

Now, the number of buses on a route is not an immutable number. If there were a willingness to improve the lot of commuters, more buses could be put on the route. I would think that at least 50% more buses are needed in peak hours, on many routes, to save most people from an uncomfortable journey. Perhaps on some routes a doubling of bus numbers would be necessary.

The word "bus" is usually accompanied by the word "service". Now, if it is truly intended to provide a bus service, then scheduling more buses would seem the obvious thing to do. I shouldn't even have to be writing about it. However, if the intention is to maximize profit at the expense of the comfort of the passengers then the present situation is what the operators will choose to create: deliberately schedule too few buses to maximize the revenue per bus, by maximizing the "human packing" per bus.

If nothing is done to increase the numbers of buses (and their frequency) on routes in the morning, one can assume that maximum profit of this supposedly public service, is the goal. If, however, I find myself able to get a seat at 7.15 in the morning, I will understand that service is truly the goal of the bus service.

I hope for change for the better.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

The mysteries of Singlish.

Singlish is the version of English current among most Singaporeans. It is the result of the influence of Chinese and other languages in Singapore on English - and the result is not pretty, to an international ear. Yet, there is great resistance, among many Singaporeans, to adopting a more internationalized version of English.

I think Singaporeans are unaware of how unintelligible Singlish actually is, to foreigners. This is where the problem lies: to them it is a perfectly comprehensible language. What they don't realize is that no-one outside of Singapore, Malaysia and Batam is likely to understand them. I will give you some examples to allow you to understand the problem.

There was a poster campaign some while back, when the government (briefly) promoted better English. These examples are taken from those posters, with official translations.

What does: "Got people sit one.", mean? Please have a good think about it.

Have you any idea, yet? No? Well, I will let you know, soon.

"Got people sit one" means: "Sorry this seat is taken" (or that would be what an English person would say in the same circumstances: I don't believe there is a "sorry" in the Singlish version.)

How about: "Like that also can, ah?" Have a think about it.

This is a phrase I have heard quite a few times.

"Like that also can, ah?" means: "How can this be acceptable?"

How about: "Die, die, must finish." Please think about it.

I, too, have heard this one and thought it rather strange.

"Die, die, must finish" means "We must finish this."

Singlish, at its best, is an impenetrable language to outside speakers of English. I have found myself completely unable to understand supposedly intelligent middle-aged Singaporeans, in business, when they spoke Singlish. No information was communicated by them, at all. Words were spoken, which were recognizable individually, but together meant nothing at all.

Singlish is a problem for Singapore, but it is a problem which is not really acknowledged. The campaign to speak better English failed, because there was no resolve among the people to speak better and because I don't think they have any examples of good speech to learn from (many politicians, for instance, speak noticeably badly). The campaign quietly went away - at least, nothing much has been heard from them, for some time.

Singlish is not just a spoken problem, it is a written problem. There are sites on the internet, written by Singaporeans, that are incomprehensible to a native speaker of English. This, of course, limits the reach of communication of Singaporeans to those who grew on up on this small island.

There is even resistance to adopting international standards of English, at the governmental level. I was once employed, for instance, to assist a Singaporean government department on the language use on a website - and there was resistance, from some of the government employees, to accept my corrections of their language. They argued that most of the readers of the site would be Singaporeans so the language should be what Singaporeans expect, irrespective of what correct usage would be. I found their view at odds with that expressed by other government departments on the language issue. It seems there is not even unity at the top, on the issue of the quality of language use in Singapore. There is not, therefore, much hope of change on the ground.

The funny thing about Singlish and its Singaporean speakers, is that I have sometimes found native Singaporeans correcting my language use, from standard English to Singlish...and being most insistent that I am wrong! (One memorable shop assistant said to me: "Why you speak slang, ah?") That this should happen indicates that not only are many Singaporeans not speakers of standard English - but that they do not even recognize it when they hear it. They are, therefore, not conversant in English but what amounts to a localized dialect of it.

Singapore is not, in short, an English speaking country, it is a Singlish speaking country with some English speakers in it (those whose English has, perhaps, benefitted from overseas exposure).

For non-Singaporeans only: were you able to work out the correct meanings of the Singlish samples I gave? What did you think they meant? Comments please - but no comments from Singlish speakers who would have known the answers, please. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

A leader without a sense of morality.

President Obama is a leader without a sense of morality. He has demonstrated this, already, in his short Presidency, twice, to my knowledge - and perhaps more often, since I am not paying close attention to his daily deeds and utterances.

His first immoral decision was to give the go-ahead to the "harvesting" of embryonic stem cells from embryos. This cannot be achieved without murdering unborn children. Yet, he sees that as a reasonable decision - even though alternative sources, from adults, for stem cells are now available.

His second immoral decision was to try to save 540 million dollars annually by NOT giving free medical care to wounded and disabled war veterans of the US armed services. What he wanted to do was to refer them back to their private insurers and let the private insurance plans pick up the tab.

I was, at once, struck by the moral reprehensibility of sending young men out to war and then NOT taking care of them when (inevitably) many of them come back with lasting injuries and lifelong disabilities. He is saying, as directly as it is possible to say it: "I hereby order you off to war. You are to fight for your nation and do my bidding. However, I don't care if you lose your life, your health, your happiness. I don't care if you spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair - and I am most certainly not going to pay for it."

The idea that the US state would actually shirk its responsibility to care for those who have sustained injuries or loss, while working on behalf of the US government is quite appalling. It shows, however, most clearly, that Obama is not a man who understands moral issues. He is not a man of compassion and insight. He is a man who is a paradox - for though very charming and personable, he cares not for people. He does not care for the lives of unborn embryos and he does not care for the lives of combat veterans. Perhaps, deep down, all that Obama cares for, is Obama.

No nation can ask men to fight and perhaps die for it, and then turn its back on them, when they get disabled. Yet, Obama wanted to do just that: to turn the nation's back on its war veterans.

I find his early decision-making disquieting for what it says about him. President Obama is seemingly not guided by an inner sense of what is right, wrong or appropriate. This leads him to fail to care for those he should care for and fail to understand which course of action is the right one, in the sense of good and true.

Another indicator was his crass comparison of his bowling skills to those of athletes in the Special Olympics. Though he apologized later for his remark, the fact that he made it, seems to show that he looks down on the disabled. They are people to make fun of. Indeed, it is telling to note that two of his recent "boo boos" refer to disabled people: the withdrawal of medical support for disabled veterans - and joking about the abilities of disabled athletes.

I am beginning to think that President Obama is all charm and no soul. The outer image he presents is polished and urbane, but the inner world is empty of morality or compassion.

Only a man without compassion could joke about the Special Olympics. Only a man without compassion or morality, could withdraw state medical support for those wounded or disabled in the service of that state.

President Obama is yet at the beginning of his Presidency, but there are already cracks in his character showing that indicate his Presidency could be littered with many ill-founded decisions; decisions that have no moral underpinning.

Personally, I would like to see a President of less charm and more soul. Charm might make for good television - but soul makes for a good man - and good decisions.

Knowing what is right and what is wrong, is instinctual. If it is not in a man - as it is not in Obama - I think it is very difficult to acquire. Then again, a man without it would usually not value it or see any need to acquire it. Given this, the only thing that will spare America from an immoral Presidency, is if some of his advisers make up for his character defect, by supplying him with a solid moral viewpoint. Without it, President Obama may not, in fact, turn out to be the great President everyone expects him to be. Indeed, he may do unexpected harm to the nation that elected him with such expectation.

There was a great outcry about President Obama's decision regarding veterans' medical care and seeing that he was being met with a lot of resistance, Obama backed down and cancelled his plans. I was amused to see how this was marketed: "President Obama made the right decision not to move forward", said Daniel K. Akaka, Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman. This is funny because it makes it look like Obama was the one who decided in their favour, when, in fact, he was the one proposing the move against them. His capitulation has been restated as his "decision".

A good President shouldn't need the moral outrage of others to tell him what a moral decision is, or is not. He should make moral decisions at the outset and not have the public inform him of the immorality of his choices, through their appalled reactions.

President Obama has a lot to learn, like any new President. Alarmingly, however, what he has yet to learn, it seems, is a basic sense of right and wrong. That could be awkward for the USA, in the years ahead.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)