Singapore's scientific racism.

There are many ways to be racist. Singapore likes to explore such possibilities, unconsciously, in the choices it makes and in the projects it deems worthy of pursuing. It is clear, though, that Singaporeans are unaware of the racism that they are steeped in, so deeply are they so steeped.

A recent example of Singapore's racism is a project to map the genome of the Han or Southern Chinese. This was backed by the Genome Institute of Singapore, the GIS. Apparently, they saw fit to draw on the genomes of 8,200 Han Chinese people from all over Singapore and China.

Please mull over the implications of such a project, in "multicultural", "multiracial", "integrated" and "harmonious" Singapore. A Singaporean state-funded institution, the Genome Institute of Singapore, sees fit to pour money into a project aimed at uncovering the secrets of the Han Chinese genome to ultimately help this racial grouping with various genetically linked diseases. I wonder if one of those "diseases" could be racism itself? You see, this project has rather overlooked the Malay and Indian populations in Singapore - not forgetting the Eurasians, Caucasians, and "others". What about these races? Don't they have diseases to worry about too? Oops, I forgot: in Singapore only the Han Chinese really matter. They are, after all almost 80% of the population. They do, after all, own almost everything. They have, after all, allotted almost all the best jobs to themselves. So, it should be no surprise that government money should be devoted to uncovering the secrets of their genome, so that they might be rescued from such earth shattering, mindbogglingly important conditions as "lactose intolerance" (Yes, the researchers actually used that example to justify the enterprise). Other susceptibilities apparently include diabetes and nasopharyngeal cancer. (No investigation, however, is being done into the causes of relative poverty among Singapore's minorities...is that genetic...or perhaps social?)

Worryingly, Associate Professor Liu Jianjun, who headed up this rather odious project, went to the trouble to point out that the results could be used to determine a person's racial origin. He was quoted as saying: "We can determine whether an anonymous Singaporean is a Chinese, his ancestral origin, and sometimes, which dialect group of the Han Chinese he belongs to." Now, excuse me for asking - but why is it so important to know that? Why would so much money be wasted, (sorry "invested") just to be able to prove that someone is, or is not, an authentic "Han Chinese". This smacks of Hitler's Aryan race dogma - and his obsession with "pure" Aryans. The abhorrent stench of a profound, unconscious racism rises from every base pair of the enterprise.

I am struck by the sharp contrast between Singapore's understanding of the possibilities of modern genetics, and the West's understanding. In the West, they had something called the Human Genome Project, to determine the genetic map of a HUMAN. In Singapore, they don't care about humans, at all...they just care about Han Chinese. Thus, Singapore has reinvented the project as the Han Chinese Genome Project - because, after all, no-one else matters, do they?

Now, if Singapore was really, really interested in Singaporeans, the project would have comprised not 8,200 Han Chinese, but perhaps 2,733 Han Chinese, 2,733 Malays, and 2,733 Indians. Then one would have had results of benefit to almost all Singaporeans. However, Singapore has never been about Singaporeans...it has only ever been about the Han Chinese. Were this not so, I would not have had to write this post, because the Han Chinese Genome Project (or whatever they have actually called it) would have been, instead, the Singaporean Genome Project. I could understand a project that focussed on all racial groupings in Singapore - but not one that focussed exclusively on the dominant race. That is a very sharp insult to all members of the minority races in Singapore. It says, most clearly, that "your diseases are not important to us".

Singapore has certain merits. However, fairness between the races is not one of its more evident ones. There are an infinity of examples of instances in which unfairness towards one race or another, can be found. However, what is most interesting, is that that unfairness is never towards the Han Chinese. This study of the Han Chinese is unfair to every member of every minor race in Singapore. It shows, more clearly than anything else the state could have done, that the minor races are, quite literally, of minor concern to the dominant race - and rulers of Singapore.

It is interesting the way science becomes perverted by the local racial-political agenda. When handling human genetics, the West focusses its attention on the nature of the Human and the species as a whole. In Singapore's hands, however, genetics become a tool to further an unconscious - or perhaps even conscious - racist agenda. Just imagine if the tools of genetic mapping had been available to Hitler and ask yourself what would Hitler have done? He would, rather disturbingly, have used them in the same way that Singapore is doing: he would have used it, first, to prove that the Aryans were a separate race and how to identify them. He then would have taken the next step of mapping Jews, so that he could identify - and eliminate them.

Singapore has taken the analogous first step. It has developed the capability of identifying "true" Han Chinese. The next step would be to be able to identify "true" examples of Singapore's minorities and so classify them as "non-Chinese". At this point, I shall halt my train of thought and writing, for I don't know what Singapore would do with such information, were it readily available. A clue lies, perhaps, in the immigration policies of the country: the vast majority of newcomers are PRCs/Han Chinese. This seems to show that a nation consisting entirely of Han Chinese would be seen as desirable. Perhaps gene mapping tools might one day be used to further that end and ensure the great, grand Singaporean future of a monoracial, Han Chinese, island and effective southern most offshoot of the Great Motherland - or is that Fatherland?

(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.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

Of bricks and prayers.

There is a building site not far from where we are living in Malaysia. Now, you may think that there is nothing unusual about building sites - but there is, about this one. You see, I am awake, not long after 5 am, to an unexpected sound. Perhaps you might like to guess what it is. Just think, what noise could a building site be making shortly after 5 am in Malaysia?

Please have a think about it. I, for one, did not expect a building site to make this kind of noise, of a morning. Well, have you got your answer? I will tell you then. I am awake to the sound of prayer. That is right: this building site is praying to the world, on a public address system, pre-dawn, every morning.

I like travel, for one major reason: experiencing the new. For me, it is a new experience to hear the sounds of prayer arising from the rubble of a building site, every morning. It is really quite surreal. It is as if someone had changed the rules of the world, overnight.

The funny thing is, is that the praying is louder than the building. That is, this particular building site is quieter during its work of putting up a rather large structure, than it is in praying over it. The prayer can probably be heard kilometres away...but the building noises don't reach much past a few hundred metres, at the most.

I should point out that the building is NOT a mosque and this is not the call of a muezzin. It is actually just the sounds of amplified prayer. It has been going on, now, for over half an hour...

I have told you the unusual thing that happens in my mornings: how about yours? Comment below, please.

(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.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

Living in a TV drama.

Life, in Malaysia, is turning out to be a bit like living in a TV drama. By this, I mean that far too many unusual events seem to occur in a short space of time, to be at all possible in the real world. However, this is the real world and they are happening.

I shall explain. We are staying in a house in KL, right now. We have just begun our stay. Yet, already we are receiving odd phone calls from people claiming to be persons in authority of some kind. Today, for instance, we had three people call pretending to be from the phone company, asking us questions, whose answers the real telephone people would already know. It was all just a lead up to arranging a visit from someone who really, really shouldn't be given admission to our home. Then again, we had a visitor from the "gas company", asking our kids to open the gates to let him in the house. However, most oddly, we hadn't called the gas company and weren't in need of their services, in the least.

So, what we have here, is four attempted scams in one day. That, I must say is quite something for the real world. It is just like a TV show in which a cascade of unlikely things happen to the protagonists that everyone, who pauses to think, would not believe for a minute, could happen in the real world. Only, in Malaysia, they do.

The worrying thing about all of this is what would happen were we less aware of the possibilities of duplicitous crime, here. You see, we had been forewarned that there are a lot of "chancers" around here, who will try their best to gain admission to a home to do there what they can to rip you off - or worse. No doubt, there are newcomers here who are not so prepared. God knows what their introduction to the country might be like.

The other worrying thing is just how these people have managed to get my details. All the callers knew my name. Some of them used my full name. Some inquired whether I was my wife's husband. All of them, obviously, had our phone number - though it had only been registered three days before. I am left to assume that someone at the phone company - or at the phone store - is selling information of new subscribers to the criminals for personal gain, so that the con men might have the base material they need to work with: knowledge of identities, contacts and location.

Funnily, for the "gas man", all we did was wait. After a couple of minutes parked outside our house, he got the message and left. If he had been a real gas man, who had been really called to do some work at our house, he would rather have persisted, I think.

I am reminded of the Nigerian con men who continuously send out email scams, all over the world. Here, much the same thing goes on, but it is not based around emails: it is based around telephone calls and personal visits from people who are not who they say they are.

I am thankful that we had been forewarned about all of this. Without such warning, perhaps we would have let our guard down...and who knows what might have happened then. For now, the gates shall remain closed and unexpected callers shall receive a cool response.

I must say, watching TV dramas is a lot less unsettling than living in one!

(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.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

One hotel too many.

A couple of days ago, I was startled into an understanding that my children had been spending a little too much time in hotels, recently.

We were in a large house in Malaysia, and the boys were enjoying looking around. As they ran from room to room, driven by the kind of curiosity only young children seem to possess, Fintan suddenly stopped as he passed me by, and raised his head to look up at me:

"Daddy, could you take me to the Business Centre?", he asked, in all seriousness.

I didn't laugh. I could have, but I didn't. I understood why he had asked that. Everywhere we had been - all three hotels - had had a "Business Centre" where the kids had used the computers to play games. So, he had grasped the idea that, in Malaysia, every building in which people live, has a "Business Centre".

"Fintan, this is a house. It doesn't have a Business Centre."

He looked momentarily unimpressed - surely, everywhere that was anywhere, should have its own Business Centre? I realized then, that we had been spending a little too much time, in hotels.

He ran off, knowing he wouldn't find a Business Centre, but still in open-minded search of what he might find.

(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.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

A land of shortchangers.

How often are you shortchanged in your country? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? How about everytime you buy something? That, rather oddly, is the case in Malaysia.

You see, I had become accustomed to the Singaporean way in which if a bill comes to an amount requiring change smaller than the existing coins, that the shop would round DOWN, the bill - and therefore, absorb the loss for itself. Singaporean stores don't therefore, shortchange, the customer. However, Malaysian stores...all of them that I have been to so far...have a rather different approach: they have "rounding adjustments" on the bill - which are always upward alterations in the bill total - to make the change easier. Malaysian stores always try to shortchange the customer: this happened to me in MacDonalds, and in a Supermarket, in 7-11...in fact, everywhere I went, the stores would automatically shortchange me.

Taxi drivers almost always shortchange the customer, too...but that deserves a post of its own.

It strikes me as funny that Singapore and Malaysia were once one united country, yet on one side the shops never shortchange the customer - and on the other side, they always do. Why did one country choose one path - and the other choose the alternative? It is most strange.

I know that the sums involved are small, at each transaction - but since they apply to EVERY transaction, it adds up and would, in the course of a shopping year amount to a sum that anyone would object being picked from their pockets by a passing thief. Yet, picked from their pockets it is, every time they shop in Malaysia.

I should add, at this point, that prices are generally much cheaper in Malaysia than Singapore - except for imported and brand name goods - yet, the point remains, that shortchanging is the norm, in Malaysia, whereas it would be considered abnormal in many other places.

However, it was a surprise to me to see "rounding adjustments" on bills - because I have never seen that, before, in the 20 or so countries I have visited. So, that makes Malaysia unique, in my experience. It is not the only way in which they are unique, but more of those on other posting occasions.

Where even the taxi drivers are creative.

Malaysia is not Singapore. That might seem like an obvious thing to say, but it isn't really, since Singapore and Malaysia were both once part of Malaya. They have a shared history - yet, their nature, particularly their psychological nature could not be more divergent.

We have spent the past few days in Malaysia. In that time, I have been rather surprised by some of the differences in behaviour I have noted. I shall address but one, today.

On two of the taxi trips we have taken, the taxi drivers showed a quality I have never noted in Singaporean drivers: creativity on the road. By this I mean that they showed creativity in how they navigated their way across the city. In one case, the driver took a short cut through a hospital by pretending to be visiting a patient, and taking an entry ticket, just like every other visitor, so that he could circumvent a traffic jam! I was most impressed with his resourcefulness.
In another case, the driver doubled back, on seeing a huge queue of traffic and took a meandering way off the main road onto a back road that was virtually empty of traffic: "Not many people know this way.", he observed in explanation. Sure enough, he got us back to our hotel in about half the time the outbound journey had taken with another taxi driver. Again, I was most impressed with this evidence of creativity.

Singaporean drivers never really show evidence of creative thought. Indeed, many Singaporean drivers don't know their own city well enough to get one there at all, never mind invent a special time saving route. The difference in knowledge between some of the Malaysian drivers we have seen, and their Singaporean counterparts is quite stark. Perhaps it is a matter of survival in a way. The Malaysian drivers have a strong incentive to avoid traffic and some become inventive in response, to do so.

Yet, that is not the only evidence I have seen of creativity here. I will write of those other evidences in other posts.

In the meantime, I look forward to the not infrequent surprise that is a taxi trip, here.