time consuming to study the dialect which is not really helpful to assist
us earn a living in sg.
SINGAPORE is a "freak",
because it is lacking in terms of geopolitics, economics, size,
population and culture, said former communist leader Fang Chuang
Pi, dubbed the "Plen" by Mr Lee Kuan
Yew.
He added that, in his assessment, the country had "narrow room for
manoeuvre in various areas and will run into difficulties in
future".
He gave this assessment of Singapore as an unnatural country, a
freak of history, in an interview with Malaysia's Chinese-language
newspaper, Nanyang Siang Pau, in which he disclosed that he had
discussed the Republic's prospects with the Senior Minister when
they met in Beijing in August 1995.
He told Mr Lee: "I said that Singapore was a
'freak', but a 'freak' was often a genius, and most geniuses died
young. For in terms of geopolitics, economics, size and population,
Singapore is congenitally deficient."
The two men also discussed the issue of culture, he added.
"I said that using a certain language to
create a culture, the culture created can at
best be a commercial culture, or technology culture, or we may call
it pasar culture. It has no roots, and
identifies itself with a certain material interest. It is the
product of expediency.
"It is like duckweed,
floating at the harbour. When it absorbs fertilisers, it will
flourish very quickly. But once it rains and floods set in, it will
perish," he said in an interview conducted
in a restaurant in Haadyai, near the Thai-Malaysian border.
http://ourstory.asia1.com.sg/independence/
http://politics.sgforums.com/forums/1390/topics/368920
Singapore's brain drain
http://www.littlespeck.com/content/peop
