January 21, 2010
The recent ugly fiasco of a PRC family who “hijacked” a SBS bus for 6 hours just because the bus does not have wheelchair accessibility and the bus driver refused to drive due to safety reasons may be appalling for most Singaporeans, but such incidents are common occurrences in mainland China.
Though China’s economy has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1980s, much of the country is still stuck in medieval times where power comes from the barrel of a gun together with money and connections instead of rules, regulations and laws which Singaporeans are so used to.
There are four “Chinas” within China itself today:
1. The political elites who governed China from the capital Beijing as the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties have done so for the last 700 years, but in reality, they are not in full control of China. There is a Chinese saying which goes – “The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away”. The central government in Beijing has very little say on many matters happening at the provincial and county levels.
2. The provincial barons who run Chinese provinces, cities and counties like their personal fiefdoms. These are the local thugs who ruled the people under their purview according to their whims and fancies – their words alone is the law.
3. The business class who needs the patronage of the local Communist cadres in order to survive and vice versa. The “collusion” of the political and business classes at the local government level with some of them be involved in organized crime like a former senior judge of Chongqing who committed suicide in the detention center last year is a ticking time bomb waiting to be exploded right in the face of the Chinese Communist Party.
4. The common folks with no power, connections or money, be it city dwellers or rural peasants who form the majority of China’s diverse population.
While many Singaporeans have an unfavorable impression of mainland Chinese, the fact remains that they do have some highly educated, sophisticated and qualified talents who will contribute to our nation – the problem is: they are not coming to Singapore.
According to a Gallup poll done in July 2009, the number one emigration destination for college students in China is the United States of America, followed by France and South Korea. Singapore is not even featured among the top five destinations in spite of its open door policies to mainland Chinese.
You can do a simple experiment by asking any ten Chinese new citizen in the streets where their hometowns in China are and chances are, they are more likely to come from places like Changsha, Zhanghua and Shenyang instead of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
In reality, Singapore is getting many mainland Chinese from the poorer inland provinces who does not have any understanding of what the rule of law means.
To them, “law” means having the right money and connections to get things done and sometimes taking it into one’s own hands when all else fails.
This is not to say that lawlessness prevails in China. There is a general set of written laws and some resemblance of a judiciary system in place, but whether the law is enforced strictly is a different matter altogether.
For example, prostitution is illegal in China, but there are countless of KTVs, massage parlors and saunas where women provide sexual services legally under the law so long the operators pay a monthly “protection fee” to the local police who are often their clients.
There were 58,000 “mass incidents”, the Chinese state’s euphemism for strikes, street protests, roadblocks and other forms of mass protests, in China in the first three months of 2009 alone compared to 120,000 in 2008 and 90,000 in 2006.
Such antics by the PRC family is quite mild compared to the countless cases of civil unrest which gripped China yearly at the provincial and county levels.
Unlike Singaporeans, the mainland Chinese are generally more “hard-driving” and “hard-striving” as rightly pointed out by MM Lee and they seldom back off quietly when their interests are threatened.
Parents are known to have protested outside university school campuses for days to pressurize the authorities to accept their children who cannot make the grade.
When property prices took a dive last year, disgruntled buyers who suffered a paper loss from earlier purchases stormed the offices of the property developer demanding a refund.
Angry villagers had no qualms burning down the office of a City Council in Henan province whose officials tried to evict a household from occupying land belonging to the government.
Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said in a recent speech that “an army of sheep led by a lion is stronger than an army of lions led by a sheep”.
The mainland Chinese are definitely not sheep – they are hungry wolves which will even devour the lions if they are not careful enough.
Even under the repressive rule of Communist China, they are not afraid of breaking the laws to gather and protest against the government and more than often not, the local officials dare not take action against them out of fear of making matters worst.
If Singapore is considered a man-made artificial garden, then China is a jungle. We are now “transplanting” the inhabitants of a jungle to this lush serene tropical island of ours, how can we ever expect them to integrate into our society?
It is quite obvious that the policy planners who allow such a huge influx of mainland Chinese have no idea what kind of people they are bringing into Singapore.
The mainland Chinese are highly united, organized, nationalistic and protective of their own kind. They prefer to mingle around themselves in their own clique rather than to reach out to others.
With so many of them already present in Singapore, they have even fewer incentives to socialize with other Singaporeans which is already made difficult by the language barrier, thereby leading to a widening rift between the two communities and the emergence of ethnic enclaves in the HDB heartlands.
During China’s long 5,000 year history, it is always the Chinese who assimilated other races into its own fold and not the other way round.
The ethnic Manchus who ruled China from 1644 to 1912 A.D. were absorbed into the Han Chinese in less than 100 years now that there are hardly any of them left saved for a few autonomous counties in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.
We are now seeing the sinicization of Xinjiang where Han Chinese now make up more than 50 per cent of the province’s population due to mass migration, reducing its original Uighur inhabitants to a minority. Do we see the Han Chinese integrating into Xinjiang or the other way round?
Though the forefathers of Singapore’s ethnic Chinese hail from China, most of them now consider themselves as Singaporeans rather than Han Chinese.
A Singapore Chinese has more in common with a Singapore Malay or Indian than an ethnic Chinese from China. We are from two different planets altogether.
As China is so vast a country with so many different races, cultures and languages, the racial term “Chinese” has little meaning.
A southern “Chinese” in Shenzhen will feel more at home in Singapore than with a fellow “Chinese” living in the border town of Dandong along the Yalu river where many are of mixed Han/Korean stock.
A Hui Muslim Chinese from the inner Gansu province looks essentially “Chinese”, but has more in common with Tibetans than let’s say a Muslim or Chinese in Singapore.
So when MM Lee said in a recent interview with the National Geographic magazine that “it is a good thing that the island has welcomed many Chinese”, which “Chinese” is he referring to? The “Chinese” from Shenzhen, Dandong or Gansu?
Based on demographics alone, we should be focusing on getting the Chinese from the two southern provinces of Fujian and Guangdong since the majority of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore are Hokkiens (Fujian), Teochew (Guangdong), Cantonese (Guangdong) and Hakka (Guangdong) who should encounter fewer obstacles integrating into our society due to similarities in language and culture.
Then again, Guangdong is the richest province in China with a GDP comparable to Spain and its city dwellers have few incentives relocating to Singapore.
With the Pearl Delta region catching up with Singapore in terms of standard of living, the flow of immigrants may reverse in the next few years. There are already a sizable number of Singaporeans working and living in the cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, and Guangzhou.
The myopic and flawed immigration policies of the ruling party pertaining to immigrants from mainland China will have disastrous consequences for Singapore in the long run.
Now that they have allowed so many mainland Chinese into the country, we will have no choice but to live with them and knowing the near impossible task of integrating them, tensions between the two communities will inevitably rise and threaten the social fabric of the nation eventually.
Can or cannot the govt don't care, they want us help them integrate. Never has it been so beneficial for foreigners until these days that govt coming up with programmes and whatever to help them.
o f l k a of PRCs
I like this article. =)
Why must Singapore be flooded with country bumpkins from China and we Singapore citizens be forced to "intergrate " with them in the first place?
PAP never ask whether Singapore citizens want their country to be flooded with PRC country bumpkins, they just unleashed the floodgates on us.
They didn't say they were going to unleash the floodgates during 2006 elections.
In 2006 they said that would secure the gates.
We are conned by PAP.
'You want union? You want free entry of people, of foreigners . . . are you really talking about making this place so everyone can come here? No work permits, no employment pass no control? Think again. Think very carefully,' he said.
http://www.asiaone.com/specials/ge2006/news/20060501_story7_1.html
PAP lied to us in 2006.
They are liars.
How can we trust PAP when they lie until like that to people. Bunch of scum bags.
PAP 2006 elections:
No work permits
What if these happen in Australia...(thinks about the riots...) and compare with Singapore...hmmm
Originally posted by RoyFang:What if these happen in Australia...(thinks about the riots...) and compare with Singapore...hmmm
What about comparing the benefits given by oz govt to the people, PR in oz?
Originally posted by Fantagf:
What about comparing the benefits given by oz govt to the people, PR in oz?
You talking about how PR are treated better by the oz govt?
Originally posted by RoyFang:You talking about how PR are treated better by the oz govt?
Citizens and PRs of oz
Originally posted by RoyFang:What if these happen in Australia...(thinks about the riots...) and compare with Singapore...hmmm
If the race riots of aussie ever happen in Singapore, I promise to hang the testicles of those who never help in the intergration of FTs and yet want cheap labour for Singapore from the tallest building in Singapore.
Socially acceptable or Socially unacceptable.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.............
To what extend is it morally and socially acceptable in Singapore? And where does that end of the ruler cover?
If they fail to observe the law, then they will go through the social reforms of the book when they had been caught.
How can we define or pass sufficient judgement that they will adhere to the norms and the laws here when it is not possible to identify deviants even within our own society? How can we judge that they can integrate or cannot?
Is there a feasible way to technically classify based on examination? Why do we have crooks as lawyers and corrupted politicians?
Is there a certain criteria we can set to limit the damages? And who can confirm?
Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
If the race riots of aussie ever happen in Singapore, I promise to hang the testicles of those who never help in the intergration of FTs and yet want cheap labour for Singapore from the tallest building in Singapore.
Seems like you also bought into PAP propaganda. you are not a political person afterall.
China now become 'big brother', just like USA.
PRC now become daring. Everything they dare to do in spore.
Originally posted by likeyou:China now become 'big brother', just like USA.
PRC now become daring. Everything they dare to do in spore.
maybe they look down on the people in Singapore. They see we are weak. table tennis players also import PRc. PAP regime praises aliens.
So they lost respect for the locals.
Some people even bought into PAP propaganda. They the PRC will even look down more on this type of people.
Aiyo..really headache to see this kind of things happen in spore.
.
His action just like my current manager.
Originally posted by likeyou:His action just like my current manager.
What's your story?
Can Singapore ever integrate mainland Chinese with no sense
Lee Kuan Yew is a peranakan, he himself cannot integrate with the people in Singapore, yet he wants to impose rubbish on us.
Get the hell out of Singapore lky, you bastard.
Originally posted by ztreyier:What's your story?
Oh..nothing related...off topic.
i would like to remind ztreyier or any other people who hate LKY and his rumoured heritage please leave the prenakans out of the picture, you might be right on his own inbred culture but PLEASE leave that culture out of the picture, other innocent prenakans suffering along with the people will suffer even more if you keep generalizing it, so please keep it out of the picture.
what right do i have to say this?? i am a prenakan, i am also a singaporean like you all, i also suffering the same like all of you, what your doing is adding more salt to the woundand making it worst, not isolating the problem or solving it.
and i would like to repeat again for LKY= he's a hakka prenakan, i am can be considered more as a hokkien prenakan than a teochew prenakan.theres already a difference here.
Originally posted by Annilator47:i would like to remind ztreyier or any other people who hate LKY and his rumoured heritage please leave the prenakans out of the picture, you might be right on his own inbred culture but PLEASE leave that culture out of the picture, other innocent prenakans suffering along with the people will suffer even more if you keep generalizing it, so please keep it out of the picture.
Yes, this is a difficult problem. But I am not instigating any racial or ethnic conflict here.
People of all races have suffered under LKY's PAP regime. That is true.
My criticism is more against LKY himself than peranakan but it is not possible for me to discuss on the issue of suppression of dialect culture in this country without pointing out that LKY is a peranakan.
Because LKY was the one who destroyed the chinese schools, suppress dialects, intent on destroying dialect language in this country. Want to impose his OWN language against us.
It's not possible to understand the reason why LKY wants to implement such policies, make such moves without pointing out that he is peranakan. And the tensions between peranakan and dialect chinese.
This is part of Singapore history. There's nothing I can do about it. Studies of influence of ethnic groups in a country's politics and history is also normal in political science and analysis.
It's not me that is against LKY or peranakan, but it is LKY that wants to destroy dialects in Singapore.
Annilator47 you are hokkien peranakan while lky is hakka peranakan, so how do you think we can resolve this problem when discussing on lky's policies of suppressing dialects and killing off dialects in Singapore?
Originally posted by ztreyier:Yes, this is a difficult problem. But I am not instigating any racial or ethnic conflict here.
People of all races have suffered under LKY's PAP regime. That is true.
My criticism is more against LKY himself than peranakan but it is not possible for me to discuss on the issue of suppression of dialect culture in this country without pointing out that LKY is a peranakan.
Because LKY was the one who destroyed the chinese schools, suppress dialects, intent on destroying dialect language in this country. Want to impose his OWN language against us.
It's not possible to understand the reason why LKY wants to implement such policies, make such moves without pointing out that he is peranakan. And the tensions between peranakan and dialect chinese.
This is part of Singapore history. There's nothing I can do about it. Studies of influence of ethnic groups in a country's politics and history is also normal in political science and analysis.
It's not me that is against LKY or peranakan, but it is LKY that wants to destroy dialects in Singapore.
Annilator47 you are hokkien peranakan while lky is hakka peranakan, so how do you think we can resolve this problem when discussing on lky's policies of suppressing dialects and killing off dialects in Singapore?
the issue now is what policies do you have in mind to repair the damage first that has been caused or is causing to this country would be your top pirority,where admendments for the policies made by singaporeans for singapore people to help repair the damage thats already done, already slowly but steadly one by one the safeguards of this country used to protect singaproeans is slowly being dismantled away, ideas must come up by people to make apporiate suggestions for the polictial party whom they believe they would support.
as for dialects, you are right to i agree , his policies are destroying them, however you also fail to see another part of polilcies made by his son, it appears after the assumed failed 2 child policy, not only the popluation is shrinking, but the culture of the prenakan itself is also shrinking, unkown to you actually prenakan is actually more of a culture of chinese and malays in a mixed manner which i think is abt maybe 400 years old, in this shrinking the only possiable future might be so few that they may all be belong or related to one branch of family, i think you can figure this one out youself, another possiable future is the prenakan culture might exist in a few unknown or almost forgotten culture since LKY himself might want to revert back to his roots as a chinese..again i don't have to elobtate which chinese is that since he visit china a number of times and the reason is very obvious.
in a nutshell he's not only destroying dialects, but maybe also possiably his very own culture too by being a chinese.
Originally posted by Annilator47:the issue now is what policies do you have in mind to repair the damage first that has been caused or is causing to this country would be your top pirority,where admendments for the policies made by singaporeans for singapore people to help repair the damage thats already done, already slowly but steadly one by one the safeguards of this country used to protect singaproeans is slowly being dismantled away, ideas must come up by people to make apporiate suggestions for the polictial party whom they believe they would support.
as for dialects, you are right to i agree , his policies are destroying them, however you also fail to see another part of polilcies made by his son, it appears after the assumed failed 2 child policy, not only the popluation is shrinking, but the culture of the prenakan itself is also shrinking, unkown to you actually prenakan is actually more of a culture of chinese and malays in a mixed manner which i think is abt maybe 400 years old, in this shrinking the only possiable future might be so few that they may all be belong or related to one branch of family, i think you can figure this one out youself, another possiable future is the prenakan culture might exist in a few unknown or almost forgotten culture since LKY himself might want to revert back to his roots as a chinese..again i don't have to elobtate which chinese is that since he visit china a number of times and the reason is very obvious.
in a nutshell he's not only destroying dialects, but maybe also possiably his very own culture too by being a chinese.
What he fails to understand is that the destruction of the chinese dialects as well as the peranakan culture is the effect, not the main objective.
He thinks that LKY is deliberately targetting chinese dialects for no other reasons other than senseless malice.