Sunday, October 07, 2007

Newbie.

Today I was taking the train to the Expo.

On it were two caucasian tourists heading to the airport.

And I must say.

I love tourists!

I wish I could start a tourism centre and tell tourists about Singapore. Or go on exchanges with people from other countries.

I'm so curious. My ears perk up, my eyes rivet onto them, whenever I see tourists!

If they're more well educated and widely travelled, would they be thinking, 'Hm, this iS a beautiful place. But it's so hot! Damn. And heh.. they may have all the creature comforts of the Western world, but deep beneath the thin pretty facade is a society which is without free speech, a society that still believes in the cane, a society which censors its movies, and suppresses public demonstrations. This mAy be a first-world environment, but it is also a Third World society. In other words, un-American.'

I think this is simply jealousy, that a tiny Asian country can rival the almighty Western civilisation, and magically convert everyone to English, no?

Or if they're Chinese mainlanders or from a less well-off country, would they be thinking, 'WOW! What a beautiful, organised place! And it's full of Chinese! I think China should really learn from here. Singapore is like a vision of China's bright future.'

In fact, this is true, as many Chinese students go overseas to study, then return to China to contribute to their motherland, which means that they take what they learnt from overseas and try to make China equal the country they experienced. (and then there are others who don't, which is the famous, much-reported Chinese brain drain.)

I know of a Malaysian who got a scholarship to study engineering in NUS. Growing up in a suburban area, nature was always close by, and once forced to live out of a high-rise apartment, and stressed by school's workload, he had a breakdown and discontinued his studies to return to Malaysia.

Interesting, huh? How we are used to HDB flats and high-rises, our 'meat', which is 'poison' to another, who has a breakdown simply by living in a flat.

I am soo curious about these things, because I am a tourist myself. When I travel to a foreign land, my eyes are wide open... Every little detail about daily life in a place so distant from home, thousands of miles away, they all interest me. It's the sheer beauty and awesome-ness in realising that humanity is united by countless similarities, while remaining unique to their place of dominion.

Man, I love travelling.

jOhn thought at 1:33 PM

Monday, October 01, 2007

Moneh.

Today I read about some shipping magnate who has hundreds of millions of dollars.

He said this:
"Wealth is only one way of measuring people. It is not the corret or best way of benchmarking people as there are many other things that should be considered."

In other words, money is not everything.

Well, easy for him to say. He has so much money he doesnt know what to do with it.

I believe that to be truly able to say 'money is not everything', you have to first be wealthy.

Poor people shouldn't turn up their noses and declare what they lack to simply be 'of no value', and that other intangible stuff like family and health and happiness supercede money. They may be, I'd say, but poor people have absolutely no authority to declare that.

The truth is, you must first be able to say 'been there, done that', before you can diss something.

Just like the way an ex-smoker can convince smokers to quit smoking better than some loud-mouthed health-nut blowhard,

Only people who aRe rich, or wEre rich, should be given the right to say, 'money is not everything.'

Because if those words come out of a poor person's mouth, it means nothing. Its rubbish. How is some loser who has never been rich, who doesnt know how to handle wealth and it's responsibilities, able to criticise money?

I'd never say that, because my own finances are still ridiculous. Until the day I become rich, and then I can be all high and mighty and say that MONEY IS NOT EVERYTHING. Why? Because then i'd have proven that I have the ability to master the world's greatest evil/need. Only then can I say that i am complete.

So what's poor?

Poor is when you earn less than $10,000 a month.
When Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Starbucks are considered luxuries, and when a dinner at Jack's Place is only a monthly affair.

Average is when you pull in $10,000 to $50,000 a month.
When home is a condo, and the car's a decent-sized Mercedes, and your 3 children can all afford to go overseas to study without borrowing from a bank.

Rich is anything above.
When finances don't matter anymore, because the bank account grows so fast you can't keep track of the number of zeroes you have.

Please fully understand my words before trying to counsel me.

^_^

jOhn thought at 2:35 PM