Mar 7, 2009 Comments

Hey Stupid, who do you call Stupid?

Categories: Government, Leadership, Letter Tags: Chee Hong Tat, dialect

To: chee_hong_tat@pmo.gov.sg
Dear Mr Chee

We are forwarding to you the following mail from one of us, for your kind attention.

Civic Advocator

Chee

Hi there. You don’t mind if I call you Chee right?

I came across your letter to Straits Times forum this morning. You wrote responding to an earlier article which quoted something by Dr Ng Bee Chin, the acting head of NTU Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies.

I did not read the earlier article, because it is not my job to scan newspapers to defend previous policies of my boss. But I do agree with your position that bilingual education is good for Singapore, and maintaining dialects might not have helped some of us learn two languages, which is already quite a tough job.

Unfortunately, I became quite distressed after I read the sentence, “It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin.”

I checked up Facebook and saw your photo (I assume that is you with your family). I even realise we have mutual friends!

Because the friends of my friends are my friends, I decide to write you a heart-to-heart note.

Chee, please don’t call other people stupid.

When a person has a view, she speaks with a certain bias, which came from certain experiences and perhaps (most probably) she is defending some vested interest. That is not stupidity.

Just because you work for a big boss, can write grammatically correct papers, and are drawing a big salary (you are probably from the Administrative Service, which in my view, takes salary which does not commensurate with market risks, but because your salary needs to be padded up by PSD so that the salary structure is not too far off from the ridiculous [oops pardon my language] salaries that the politicians want for themselves), that do not give you the right to go around calling people stupid in public.

I might know something that you don’t know. For example, I might know why banks are not lending even though Singapore government is sharing more loan risk. You might not know why. So should I call you stupid, Chee?

GIC and Temasek are sitting on billions of paper loss, because they went in “a bit early”. No one even seems to be apologetic about losing generations of Singaporeans’ money. Should I call their Chairman, their boards of directors and all their MDs stupid?

If you show people respect, I show you respect. If you don’t show people respect, then I say **** off!

Please Chee, don’t anyhow call people stupid. I know some very smart people who do not even know how to speak English.

As your friend, I hope you can read my note, so I am sending it to you directly. Now that you know what I have told you, I know I have got this off my chest, and Civic Advocator knows all about this, the weekend begins to look much better already. And don’t worry about responding. This is not part of your job description and therefore it is not worth your time.

By the way, I am not writing to forum, because I have written off The Straits Times, who likes to pick and choose what to say according to their own agenda, which I think mainly relates to what they think will please the big boss. Don’t tell them, ok?

So Chee, bye for now. Perhaps we will meet at some gathering of our mutual friends. I look forward to that.

Yours Truly,
Arthur

Agree?

Yes (100%)No (0%)Huh? (0%)So? (0%)

14 votes

Comments

938CommentsHey+Stupid%2C+who+do+you+call+Stupid%3F2009-03-07+08%3A00%3A05aB to “Hey Stupid, who do you call Stupid?”

Hey Stupid, who do you call Stupid? : Civic Advocator : shout & b … on March 7th, 2009 17:06

[...] Hey Stupid, who do you call Stupid? : Civic Advocator : shout & b … [...]

Civil Servant called his parents and grandparents and his great-grandparents stupid « Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot- for lesser mortals only on March 7th, 2009 17:12

[...] his parents and grandparents and his great-grandparents stupid Jump to Comments I read this interesting and funny letter sent to this highly sensible and smart Principal Private Secretary Chee Hong Tat, who actually [...]

feedmetothefish on March 8th, 2009 03:01

Hi Arthur,

Great post!

I have my ire on the subject and I hope you do not mind my linking your post to my blog.

Thank you

feedmetothefish

aB on March 8th, 2009 08:00

It is okay to link to articles here. See http://civicadvocator.net/website-disclaimer/

joker on March 8th, 2009 08:13

Hi Arthur,
I love your last line :

“So Chee, bye for now…” It underlines what the rest of the People are thinking when they read the forum page regarding this topic of dialects.

Ang Kong Kia on March 8th, 2009 08:38

I like the last paragraph. Well use of the words.

Wally on March 8th, 2009 11:53

Chee isn’t calling those who speak dialects or who can’t speak English stupid. He is just saying that promoting the learning of dialects would be stupid, since it would take the emphasis away from English and Mandarin. And he clearly targeted his comment at “Singapore agencies or NTU”, and not any particular individual.

Please read carefully before frothing in your mouth and bashing other people next time.

Dan on March 8th, 2009 12:22

Words like foolish and stupid shd not appear in forum letters in the first place. It shows utter lack of respect to alternative views and basically, shows lack of proper upbringing. It leads me to think maybe learning dialects in Chee’s early years might result in him being a gentleman n not some arrogant civil servant milking from the blood and sweat of fellow S’poreans. It was really stupid to use the word stupid.

Joe on March 8th, 2009 13:29

Even it is in his opinions, learning dialects has no economical benefits to the government, I think that he should not use such word to belittle the importance of using dialects.

Our early forefathers did not learn English or Mandarin, but their efforts together with whatever languages they knew have brought much to Singapore. Actually, many overseas people have marveled at our abilities to speak a few official languages and dialects all the same time.

Mr Chee, by saying learning dialects is stupid has put you in a stupider position.

ling1010 on March 8th, 2009 15:29

Dear Arthur,

You are sincere and wise! Also unlike the others foolish stupid!

The Void Deck on March 8th, 2009 16:14

hehe zhoon or not dat Facebook photo is his? If not, chek ark man misfire salah orang. Otherwise, hoot ah!

ling1010 on March 8th, 2009 17:00

Our bilingual policies, do not encourage to use the dialect, already line for years, the advantages, the people felt innately, does not need many theories.
But does not encourage is not prohibited, so we are usually in the general election when you can see the many candidates, including the ruling party representatives, will express a view in dialect.
The author’s article, but are in fact also reflect an objective reality, and frankly there is nothing much wrong. However, not studying dialects to acquire a higher level language, this smart people, why do not know how to word it?
Placed “Unwise” but select “Foolish” such words are wise than those of us who study more than two languages?
Choose the wording of insulting to talk about sensitive topics; Who is stupid?

Anonymous on March 9th, 2009 08:59

targetting singapore agencies and ntu IS targetting pple wat. you mean these organizational entities are staffed with robots???

pls, think carefully before foaming at the mouth and smashing other pple’s views next time…

Augustine on March 9th, 2009 13:59

Hi Arthur,
It is a well written reply to Chee. It summerises many true facts in Singapore. Chee’s issue is another classical example how top salaried servants who has lost their feelings with the people they serve.

As a Singaporean, we don’t own them a living but they own us a service as a civil servant and political leader!

The SS on March 9th, 2009 15:39

Thanks… this is real funny…

Wa piang, that guy’s arrogant… typical. tsk tsk tsk.

Hahahaha

GC on March 9th, 2009 22:28

Recently one top civil servant bragged about how he can waste money bringing his family for french cooking lessons. Now this civil servant being totally rude and uncivilised, despite writing in his professional capacity. Well, this is the product when you pay civil servants with an iron rice bowl huge sums of money equivalent to people outside who have to take business and job risk to earn that sort of money. Bottom line: a promised path to the top regardless of performance just because they are scholars, overpaid in the process, and an iron rice bowl : this is final product. Get ready for more such behaviour from others like these.

Tan Ah Beng on March 10th, 2009 00:02

With elites like Chee making fool of themselves regularly… no wonder big boss said it’s not the right time for election…

Roger on March 10th, 2009 11:22

You must forgive Chee, he is one of the few left over by the British colony who feels good at being a banana, inside Ang Moh outside Chinese. Although he seems to support bilingual, English and Chinese, I bet he is still Ang Moh, but because his boss says support bilingual, he has to say it too. I am lucky to know many dialects and I regret the environment did not give our children opportunity to expose to dialect. I am retired and my only source of income are due to my knowledge of dialect.Perhaps I am stupid, but I love myself of being stupid. Looking at Chee’ family photo, I can see the residues of the colony.

streetsmart to speak dialects on March 11th, 2009 12:06

The only effective way of communicating and bonding with the older generation is through dialects.
Since Chee works for MM, he should know that MM communicated with his political audience in hokkien in the early years, and in recent years had to intervene for Ho Peng Kee whose grass-roots support appeared to be negatively affected by some temple dispute.
Mind you, the majority of temple devotees speak dialects, so there is much political mileage to gain in speaking the right lingo to the right people in the right environment.
Anyway it is not surprising to read Chee’s comments, he is typical of the PAP system, trying to measure every damn thing in dollars and cents.

john tay on March 19th, 2009 17:33

Your last paragrah is classic when intepreted
in local colloquial dialet and cleverly used for
the topic.
He should have used the word “unwise” or “not
helpful” iso of stupid.

Leave a Reply

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]

Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere. Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere. As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]

Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org. Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]

Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.

1. If you want [...]