Rainbows

My blogger friend James Seah aka Thimbuktu recently wrote about a Beautiful Rainbow in Simei. This post is inspired by him.

According to Wikipedia, a rainbow is:

"...an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch.

A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours; the distinct bands are an artifact of human colour vision. The most commonly cited and remembered sequence, in English, is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (popularly memorized by mnemonics like Roy G. Biv). Rainbows can be caused by other forms of water than rain, including mist, spray, and dew."

I too have seen many rainbows in my 55 years of life. Most of the rainbows which I have seen appeared in Singapore after a rain. (I did not travel overseas until I was in my twenties. In those days, photos were only in black-and-white and hence, a colourful rainbow would hardly show up on film anyway. In addition, it is only in the last decade that photo-taking became affordable enough for me to capture what some people consider as a frivolous subject, both of interest as well as photographic.)

In Nov 2007, I was travelling in a tour bus in Taiwan with my family. (I usually keep awake on the bus to watch out for any interesting sights. After all, we are supposed to be doing sightseeing, aren't we?) All of a sudden, I saw this beautiful rainbow outside the window. I whipped out my camera and captured the scene. At that precise moment, a bus, which was no less colourful than the rainbow, appeared at the end of the rainbow and this was the result:

Doesn't it look like a trolley bus of yesteryear with colourful trolley poles to match?

On 11 Jul 2010, the New Paper published an article about the Jewel of Muscat which is a ship presented by the Sultanate of Oman to Singapore. A rainbow appeared in the sky when the newspaper's photographer toured the ship:

Then as if by coincidence, Yesterday.sg published a post today titled The Making Of Tiong Bahru. In the post's YouTube video, a rainbow appeared in a shot of Serangoon Road:

(Don't ask me why. I am still wondering what the Making of Tiong Bahru has to do with Serangoon Road. Maybe we will find out when the film is completed some time in early Oct 2010?)

No doubt, the above photos are inspirational but there is one shot that got to me. I do believe, that in these difficult and mean-spirited times in which we live, there needs to be a message of hope. We can all use a single image that speaks to us of love, harmony, peace, and joy. An image that suggests the universality of us all. I have been sent that image, and I want to share it with you. All I ask is that you take a moment to reflect upon it...
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Brings tears to my eyes!

Celebrating 55!

Part of the 2,000 or so retiring CPF members who attended the seminar. Their ages added up to more than 100,000 years!

In a few months' time, I will be 55. In the blink of an eye, I have worked more than 30 years with my current employer. I have collected Long Service Awards (LSA) countless times. (I am lucky to have a benevolent employer who gives out LSA every 5 years from the 15th year of employment onwards.) It seems like only yesterday that I wrote this post when I turned 50.

Most working Singaporeans know that turning 55 is a watershed in their lives. You will be considered a senior citizen if there is a GST offset package again and you will be given a Senior Citizen's Bonus. You also qualify for Senior Citizen Admission Rates when you visit most of National Heritage Board's museums. However, you age slower when you travel on our public transport system - you don't qualify for its Senior Citizen Concession Card until you turn 60. (Could it be that driving on Singapore roads is so stressful that it makes you age faster? Must be due to the frequent traffic jams and the exorbitant COE and ERP charges that you have to pay when you drive. So if you take public transport, you are not considered a senior citizen until you are 60.)

In preparation for the big day, I attended Central Provident Fund (CPF)'s "Celebrating 55! Seminar" on 27 June 2010 (Sunday). According to CPF's website, at the seminar, members "will find out what happens to their CPF savings when they reach 55, and learn about the new CPF LIFE scheme. A guest speaker from MoneySENSE will share useful financial planning tips on how to invest in one’s golden years".

It's a bittersweet feeling. I'm happy that I'll be collecting the fruits of my labour (never mind if for me, it's only 30%) after more than 3 decades of hard work. At the same time, I'm sad that I'll soon be considered neither productive nor reproductive. My total CPF contribution rate was slashed from 35% to 29% barely 5 years ago and it would be further cut down by another 8.5% when I reach 55. (Refer to table here.) Tell me if that is not a way of saying that I am not so productive.

However, I am grateful that I can still collect 30% of my total CPF balance. Tough luck for those who turn 55 after 2013 - they get nothing unless they could set aside the required minimum sums in their Medisave and Retirement Accounts.

The CPF Board presented everyone who attended the seminar a "Celebrating 55 Years" umbrella. If I walk the streets of Chinatown or Geylang with this umbrella, I am likely to attract female streetwalkers who are more interested in turning my 公积金 (CPF) into 供妓金 (fund for prostitutes). So I must be very careful where I use my CPF umbrella.


The CPF is really thoughtful. In addition to the handy erectile extendible umbrella, I am also given 2 golden eggs. They are not made of gold, of course, but only painted gold.


Most of us know that the golden egg signifies our valuable CPF nest egg or retirement savings. But suddenly, I realise that CPF might be sending me another message. Putting the 2 eggs together with the umbrella, I get this:


Hmm... maybe they are telling me that I will still be reproductive after 55? In that case, I really ought to be very careful where I use my CPF.

When You Have No Shoes (2)

Do you remember this post which I wrote more than 3 years ago? It is about a foreign domestic worker whom I met in my block's lift. Her footwear had given way and she was making her way home barefooted.

Well, last Sunday the same thing happened again. No, I didn't meet another woman whose footwear was spoilt. This time, one of the pair of sandals I was wearing decided that its time was up:


I was stranded somewhere in wilderness of Marine Parade Central and was left with little choice but to drag my right foot along with the broken sandal when I walked. (Trust me, you'll never realise how far away the nearest shoe shop is until you are forced to walk this way. Although the shop is barely 100 feet away, it seems more like a mile.) I had to endure curious stares from passers-by. Stares were still alright but two young ladies even had the audacity to giggle to each other on seeing me in this predicament. How come nobody was kind enough to offer me a hand slipper in a time of need like this? Talk about working towards being a gracious society! Tsk, tsk, tsk. Frankly, I think we are a long way off.


After a literally dragging long time, I finally arrived at the shoe store. At $4.90 a pair of flimsy slippers, they were probably overpriced. But then when you are in my broken sandal shoes, you will realise that you do not have any bargaining power at all. So I reluctantly paid up without putting up any fight.

I was just glad that I wasn't climbing Mount Kinabalu when my footwear broke.

Jack Neo Admits Affair With Model

I was shocked to read about Jack Neo having an extra-marital affair with a 22-year-old girl by the name of Wendy Chong - read articles here and here.

Jack made a name for himself as Singapore most successful film-maker with his first film Money No Enough in 1998. He even earned a mention by the then Prime Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong in his National Day Rally Speech on 18 August 2002:

Why not be like Jack Neo? He has applied his creative energy to produce three movies. Two of them were highly successful ? "Money No Enough" and "I Not Stupid". I watched "I Not Stupid". I can understand why it touched many parents' heart. My wife liked it so much that she watched it three times. She felt that Jack Neo deserved a National Day award. But I told her, "Two No Enough"!

Indeed, in 2004 he became the first local filmmaker to be honoured with a National Day Award. In the following year, he won the Cultural Medallion by the National Arts Council (NAC), the highest art and cultural award in the nation.

All these years, the public's impression of Jack is that he is a model husband who will not stray in marriage. In fact, Jack himself told The New Paper in a 1996 interview that it was too difficult to have a secret affair:

My philosophy on an affair: I have no time for it. If you want to look for a secret lover, you got to pay for it, not in terms of money but something more valuable - time. You got to make lovey-dovey phone calls, go pak-tor (dating), spend time making yourself look good for the woman. (Sigh) Too difficult for me, lah.

Now let me try to interprete the real meaning behind the sentences in the preceding paragraph:

Jack: I have no time for it.
Meaning: You will find time if you take her along on overseas working trips.

Jack: You got to make lovey-dovey phone calls
Meaning: SMS also can

Jack: Go pak-tor
Meaning: See movie Lucky Star also same same

Jack: Spend time making yourself look good for the woman.
Meaning: Actually, I look quite good already. With or without the clothes. Maybe better without.

I remember the dialogue in one of Jack Neo's movie (can't remember which one) said something like this:

偷吃要记得擦嘴巴

Translated, it means "when you steal a bite (=stray), remember to wipe your mouth clean (=remove all incriminating evidence)". Tsk, tsk, tsk, talk about dishing out advice which you don't follow yourself. Seems like Jack forgot to follow that golden rule.

They say that marriages go through the seven year itch. Wah, Jack is 20 years late - he is married for 27 years already. Maybe it is because his name Liang Zhi Qiang 梁智强 has the same hanyu pinyin as 两支枪 which means "have 2 guns". No wonder for him "that one no enough".

And I am not withholding any admonition for the woman in the story either. No, not Madam Irene Kng (Jack's wife) who is the real victim but Wendy Chong. The latter said that she just wanted people to know that "(Jack Neo) may say that he loves me, but the next moment, he lies to me".

Hello young woman, is lying more severe a crime than being a third party to a marriage? I certainly don't think so. And whoever invited reporters and photographers to come along for the meeting in Crowne Plaza hotel definitely had an ulterior motive.

Why not be like Jack Neo? Do be careful where you apply your creative energy though.

But alas, Jack seems to be playing Tiger Woods too. Aw come on, that girl is young enough to be your daughter, okay? What do you have to say? That you are human too and are prone to making mistakes just like all of us? Sigh, I just hope that this whole episode didn't actually happen but is only a publicity stunt for your current movie, aptly titled Being Human. But then, it is too early for an April Fool's joke, isn't it? Aiyah never mind lah, you can always make good use of this third-party first-hand experience to make your next "social issue" movie.

Who knows? You could even earn another mention in this year's National Day Rally Speech. If this happens, I hope it is for the right reason. I wish you well.

What? Got To Get Today From Orchard Road?

I am not so lucky as some people who get Today and MyPaper newspapers delivered to their doorsteps everyday. To get my hands on a copy, I need to visit my neighbourhood 7-Eleven convenience store. Usually, I will buy a copy of the Straits Times so that I "qualify" to get my free copy of Today. Also, I have to do that early as the free newspapers are usually all given out by noon.

Before committing 90 cents for a copy of the Straits Times, I would peep behind the counter to see if there are any copies of Today left. If there are no more copies left, usually a serious-looking middle-aged Chinese woman behind the counter would tell me, "Finished."

But today was different. A Malay woman staff saw me looking behind the counter and said, "Ah, ah, no peeping."

I asked her, "Got Today?"

She replied, "No Today today. You've got to get it from Orchard Road today." But with that, she passed me a copy of Today without me having to buy anything. Just then, YG called me on my mobile to wish me Merry Christmas and also to arrange a meet-up with a mutual friend.

After talking on the phone for about a minute, I went back to the counter to pay for a copy of the Straits Times. I asked the woman, "How much?"

She replied, "90 thousand. You made me wait so long". Then she broke into a smile.

I congratulated her for being so cheerful and humorous in doing her job. I said her predecessor was a bit too serious. She said, "Must joke lah. Otherwise very stressful."

Hmm... did this taxi plough into the 7-Eleven at Tiong Bahru Plaza to get his free copy of Today too? Aiyah, no need so gan cheong lah!

The Idiosyncrasies Of My Car's Fuel Gauge

A strange thing happened to my car's fuel gauge the other day. I topped up about 11 litres of fuel to full tank. Usually after a full top-up, the fuel gauge would show 8 bars, i.e. fuel tank full, after I restarted my car. However that day, it showed only 7 bars.

Not knowing whether it was my fuel gauge's fault or the petrol station trying to cheat me, I topped up the tank again the next day. This time, I paid $10.00 (about 7 litres of fuel) before the tank was full. To my great surprise, immediately after I started my car, the fuel gauge showed only 6 bars this time!

I began to think that if the number of bars displayed in the fuel gauge kept dropping every time I topped up the tank, soon my fuel gauge would show less than "3/4 tank filled" even when it was actually full. Alamak! Like that how to go Malaysia?

Lucky for me, I am not a regular visitor to Malaysia so I have no reason be worried. In fact, I have not visited Malaysia for many years be it for cheap food, cheap petrol, cheap groceries, cheap cigarettes, cheap haircuts, cheap naughty massages or pirated DVDs. I don't see the need to shop in Malaysia because whatever I wanted, I could get it in Singapore. (Yes, even naughty massages and pirated DVDs although they may not be as cheap as those in Malaysia.)

But perhaps what is even more fortunate is that the fuel gauge is now back to normal. Sigh, I guess that's part and parcel of driving a cheap "non-luxury class" continental car. What I didn't realise until now is that how a seemingly innocuous problem with a fuel gauge could affect something like one's visit to Malaysia.

Tofu Snafu

In the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, you could choose to have a personalised or vanity plate for your car:


Here in Singapore, there is no such option. However, you could bid for a car number plate. Before a series of numbers is released, the Land Transport Authority would invite vehicle owners to bid for the numbers they are interested in. The minimum bid is S$1,000/-. Numbers such as "8", "88", "888" and "8888" which are auspicious to the Chinese because the figure "8" sounds like "fa" (发 prosperity) in Chinese, are expensive. Unlike other commodities where more in quantity means that you pay more, for bidded numbers, typically the less the number of digits, the more expensive the number. Hence a single digit "8" would cost much more than "8888" which already may be worth more than S$10,000/-.

A long time ago, I saw a Mercedes Benz with a nice number plate - "EA5Y". The owner of the vehicle had probably asked for the characters to be placed close together so that it read like the word "EASY". Very clever.

I have never bidded for a number before because I don't feel I have a need for one. An extraordinary number won't look good on an ordinary car anyway. Bidded numbers usually go with luxury and flashy drivers cars. Maybe there is a need to impress upon other people that the owners are successful in life. To each his own. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people bidding for a car number. After all, they help to contribute to our government's coffers and we should be thankful that they help lighten our tax burden.

For me, I am contented with my allocated number plate. I did once fantasise about having a cheeky number plate though but was promptly admonished for having such a dirty thought.

I was therefore rather amused to read about this piece of news:

April 9, 2009

Denver — One Colorado woman’s love for tofu has been judged X-rated by state officials.

Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her fondness for bean curd by picking certain letters for her SUV’s license plate.

Her suggestion for the plate: “ILVTOFU.”

But the Division of Motor Vehicles blocked her plan because they thought the combination of letters could be interpreted as profane.

Says Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch: “We don’t allow ‘FU’ because some people could read that as street language for sex.”

Officials meet periodically to ensure state plates stay free of letters that abbreviate gang slang, drug terms or obscene phrases.

The 38-year-old Coffman-Lee says that tofu is a staple of her family’s diet because they are vegan and that the DMV misinterpreted her message.

Religion And Alcohol Do Not Mix?

You might have recently read about the Buddha Bar in Jakarta being the scene of almost weekly protests from enraged Buddhists who alleged that the business was insulting their religion. Now you will never find that happening in Singapore. I don't mean that you can never find alcohol in a religious place in Singapore but rather, if it happens here, there won't be any protests at all. After all, Singaporeans have a high level of religious tolerance although they may not have the same degree of alcohol tolerance, at least in the eyes of the authorities. Besides, protests are illegal in Singapore.

YG recently blogged about a Chinese temple which served free Chinese tea here. Nothing surprising about that. In July 2007, I passed by another Chinese temple and saw nothing unusual about it either:


However when I revisited the temple again in November last year, I noticed that there was a bar of sorts set up within the temple's premises:


The sign outside said "Cafe". I did not verify whether the cafe actually served alcoholic drinks or not but at least Wikipedia tells me that "Happy Hour" is a marketing term for a period of time in which a restaurant or bar offers discounts on alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine and cocktails.

Question:

Is it permissible to serve alcoholic drinks in a place of worship in Singapore?

Religion and alcohol do not mix, or do they?

Can you identify this temple?

How Much Is A Haircut Worth?

Our PM in his 2006 National Day Rally Speech mentioned that a certain celebrity hairstylist charges $250 for a haircut:

"Some of you may know David Gan. He is a celebrity hairstylist. According to the newspapers, it cost $250 a haircut. He came here from Malaysia to work, he's been here 22 years. Recently he got his citizenship last December. He said it was the best Christmas present he had ever received because 'Singapore groomed me, gave me many opportunities. I've felt Singaporean in my heart for the past 12 years.'"


David definitely deserved to get his Singapore citizenship. After all, he groomed Singaporeans (their hair) while Singapore "groomed" him back in return. Fair exchange, wasn't it?

With Singapore's inflation rate of 2.1% in 2007 and 6.5% last year (see this article), David Gan could very well be charging $280 for a haircut today.

Well, I too had 280 haircuts nowadays. No, not by David Gan. Frankly, I would have to think very hard to have him cut my hair. Not so much because of my lack of money (or hair) but because I have never seen David's own hairstyle before. Have you? Now can anyone be assured of a hairstylist's skill if he doesn't even have his own hairstyle to show?


Well, my haircut costs only $2.80, not $280. And hey, it's not that "toot" (roughly translated as "ugly") at all, is it?


So while YG goes to JB for a $3.20 "toot" haircut, I prefer to stick to my 280 haircuts.

Besides, the shop is so near my place that it's only a 5-minute walk. I don't have to drive to a foreign land and possibly risk my personal safety.


However, I must say that although I have cut a tomato many times before, it's the first time ever that I have been cut by a tomato:


Read more about the $2.80 haircut in this article, aptly titled "Forget JB - all head for a snip at Snip Avenue".

My Luck In The Toto Hong Bao Draw

Caution: This post is rated NC18. It contains discussion on gambling gaming.

Warning to my 2 sons: You stay away, okay?. (Studies have shown that parents who are avid gamblers gamers are likely to have children who take after them. Wanna bet?)

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Many people buy 4D, Toto and Big Sweep for a hope. As they would say in typical Singlish, "Don't buy, no hope. Got buy, got hope. No win, neber mind. I do charity lor." (According to the Singapore Pools' website, its surpluses are "channelled toward funding worthy causes and projects through the Singapore Totalisator Board".)

I seldom buy Toto. Not that my religion forbids it. (I am a freethinker.) Not that I am not greedy for the money either. After all, "something without labour" is always better than Nil Sine Labore ("nothing without labour").

I only buy Toto when the grand prize grows to an astronomical amount and even then, only when I happen to pass buy a Toto outlet with no queue and all the stars are aligned in my favour.

Alright, enough excuses for being greedy. I finally succumbed and bought myself a $10 Prosperity Pack today. (Included in the pack are 2 boards of "Quick Pick System 7" and a "Singapore Sweep" ticket.)


When the results were published, I could not believe that I struck the Group 1 prize didn't even strike a single number out of the 14 numbers I wagered on:


Now could someone good in maths please tell me what were the odds for that happening? If chance was very slim, they ought to award me a prize as well, don't they? After all, if I had picked 38 numbers and didn't strike any of them, the chance would have been the same as correctly picking all 7 numbers that came out in the draw, am I right? (38 + 7 = 45, the total number of balls in the game.)

Frankly, I don't understand why people are so excited about the yearly Hong Bao Toto draws with big prizes. Consider this - the previous "non-Hong Bao" draw had only ONE Group 1 winner who won all of $1,592,705 while this Hong Bao draw had a total of 14 Group 1 winners sharing a prize of about $10 million. Each winner took home only about $732,000, less than half the amount which the previous Group 1 winner won. It doesn't make sense, does it?

In any case, now I feel like a really sore loser charitable person. As they say, it's time to move on and I am looking forward to striking $2.2 million 1st prize in the Singapore Sweep draw on 4 Mar 09.

The "Celebration Of Life" for Shin Na

I have been following Shin Na's blog for some weeks, ever since a documentary on her was telecast on CNA some time ago. You all probably already know the very sad news by now - Shin passed away last Tuesday. She was truly a brave, remarkable and inspiring woman. I would like to express my deepest condolences to Tony, Josie and Toby.

When I read that her funeral service would be held at Asian Civilisation Museum, I thought it was a rather unusual venue too. But Shin was an unusual woman.

My mind wondered - would a FOYer (Friend of Yesterday.sg) like me be granted this privilege as well when my time comes? Having "written some" philatelic books here and there, I thought it would be nice to have mine held at the Singapore Philatelic Museum. Even better, if I could have a stamp issued in my honour for the occasion.

Haha, I am only kidding, of course. I know that only kings and queens are deserving enough to have their faces published on stamps. Certainly not a peasant like me, am I right, Wee Kiat?

It is just wishful thinking on my part. Besides, my anonymity on this blog should be carried into the nether world. If not my name then at least my face. :)

A Crooked Product Or A Crooked System?

Recently, many people who bought structured products burnt their fingers when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial markets trended downwards. Investors of Lehman Brothers Minibonds, DBS High Notes, Morgan Stanley Pinnacle Notes and Merrill Lynch Jubilee Notes were among those affected.

There was an article about the debacle in the Sunday Times of 7 Dec 2008 titled "Structured Products, Anyone?". It appears that many people have lost confidence in such products, if not in the banks that marketed them. I for one have lost all trust and confidence in my banks and relationship managers (RM) to invest my money for me. DBS recently retrenched 450 employees in Singapore but it claimed that the retrenchment had nothing to do with the High Notes debacle. I personally don't believe that claim. A relationship between and a bank and its customers is based very much on trust. If you lose that, you have lost everything, not just people's money. And it is going to take a long, long time to build up that trust again.

It turned out that banks in Singapore started marketing such high-risk products to retail investors (aka ordinary folks like me) from as early as 1999. How they managed to do so for so long is a wonder. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Many other questions remained unanswered:

1. How many similar products were sold?

2. What is the total sum of money involved?

3. How many people have bought such products?

4. How many of these products are still in-force, i.e. have yet to reach maturity date?

5. What are the current values of these products?

I am a risk-averse investor myself. When you are barely 2 years away from collecting your CPF money, you should not be taking high risks. Moreover, I have been burnt badly before in 2001 when the technology bubble burst so I know how it feels like to lose your hard-earned money.

In June this year, I visited a well-known foreign bank in Singapore together with a good friend. I was there to look at their investment products. I told the RM that I was a risk-averse investor because of my previous bad experience investing in technology unit trusts. She showed me pamphlets of 3 products - the first was an agricultural commodity fund, the second was a structured product called JPMorgan AsiaConfidence Notes while the third was something called a "retail note" which I believe is also a structured product.

The expected return for the first product was not stated in the brochure. At that time, prices of commodities like wheat and rice were already quite high. So was the price of crude oil, at above US$120 a barrel. I thought the high prices were unsustainable, so I decided against this product. As for the second product, it paid an attractive coupon of 7.5% p.a. The principal was safe unless any of the 4 indices fell below 50% of the initial levels of the indices. (I do not know if any of them has already reached this so-called "unlikely" scenario by now.) I thought that the second product was too complicated and also likely to be of higher risk because of the high coupon payout. In the end, I invested a 5-figure sum in the third product which paid what I considered as a very modest 3.3% p.a. fixed coupon payout on a 5-year investment. The RM also reassured me that the third product was very safe. After all, she asked, "What is the probability of a country going bankrupt? Practically zero, right?"


Well, after what had happened in the global financial markets in recent months, I am not so sure if I could agree with her now. In any case, I now know that with structured products, you could lose your entire investment even if the reference entities did not fail. This was the case with the Lehman Brothers Minibonds and other such products. It looks like I have also been misled into investing in a vulnerable product. The irony is that in the eyes of the financial regulator, I am not considered as a vulnerable investor. I understand that the unofficial (or should it be official?) definition of a "vulnerable investor" is "someone who is above 62-year-old and has no more than primary education", arbitrary though the definition may seem.

After I had indicated my interest in the product, the RM quickly filled in a survey form for me, saying that it was an MAS requirement. I remember that I specifically told her that I was not willing to take any risk at all. It took less than half an hour to close the deal. Such easy money (for the RM and the bank)! I did not receive a copy of the prospectus nor the survey form that I signed. It didn't occur to me to ask for them. Now I know that I should have. All I received was a brochure with a lot of fine print:


A few weeks later I received my bank statement and was very surprised to see the product that I bought being classified under "non-capital protected investments". I quickly looked for the brochure and scanned the small print. And I found this statement:


DAMMIT!

I got to be crazy to risk my entire principle for just a miserly 3.3% p.a. yearly return. You bet I will never trust a bank or an RM ever again. The next 4-1/2 years is going to be a very long and nervous wait for me. Meanwhile, nobody could say how likely my note-issuer might collapse like the Lehman Brothers or how much money I would get back in the end, if at all. To make matters worse, there are people who would say that I am greedy or I "went in with my eyes open". For some people, the situation is so bad that they are even contemplating suicide. Don't worry, I am not thinking of that yet.

A Crooked Car Or A Crooked Driver?

I parked my car at the open-air carpark near Blk 83 Marine Parade just now and went to the food centre at Blk 84 to have dinner. (This carpark has perpendicular parking, i.e. the carpark lots are drawn perpendicular to the curb.) Because the adjacent cars were all parked out of alignment to the lots, I had no choice but to follow accordingly.

When I came back from dinner, I was surprised to find a white car parked very close to my car's driver side. The gap was less than a foot wide and hence it was almost impossible for me to get into the car through the driver's door. I checked on the other side of the white car and found that there was a large gap from the adjacent car. Just then, the driver of the white car came along and opened the boot of his car.

I said to him, "How can you park your car like that? How am I supposed to get into my car like this?"

What irked me more was actually not how he had "misparked" his car but his reply: "But look at my car - it is parked right in the centre of the lot. It's your car that's crookedly parked."

I said, "Hey, look at the car on the left side of mine - it is also parked out of alignment so I just have to follow him."

What he said next almost caused a parking-rage incident. By then, it seemed evident to me that he had purposely parked his car that way. I couldn't believe my ears when he said, "You can climb in through the other side."

I was lost for words for a moment. I felt my blood boiling inside me. After a while, his conscience seemed to prick him and he asked, "Do you want me to shift my car?"

Hey, I thought that was a no-brainer, right? But instead I said, "No, it's alright." And then I went away for 15 minutes to buy something sharp. That seemed to have worked - when I came back, the white car had been driven off.

Now you tell me who was the crooked driver?

Smallest Roundabout In The World

I apologise for disappearing from this blog for a quite a while. Well, the reason is that I have been doing some roundabout in my life, literally. ;)

You see, YG wrote about what could possibly be the smallest roundabout in Singapore here. While I do not dispute his claim, I think I could have found the smallest roundabout in the world:


The above photo was taken when I was holidaying in Taiwan in November last year. It shows the entrance to a carpark near Pacific Sogo in downtown Taipei where land price is at a premium. Hence the approach road and the entrance to this car park is exceptionally narrow. They are so narrow that there is not enough space for a car to turn right normally into the carpark. So how did they manage to solve the problem? By using a powered roundabout or rather, I should say a turntable. The driver manoeuvres the car onto it; the operator presses a button to rotate it slowly 90 degrees to the right and voila, the car is facing the entrance directly within a few seconds. When the car exits the carpark, the process is reversed, with the turntable turning in the opposite direction.

Well okay, I admit that the yellow circle appears bigger than the roundabout in YG's article but if you could imagine and compare the turning motions of the cars in the 2 circles, you will realise that the car in my example is actually turning on its own axis, i.e. it is turning in a much tighter circle. So could this be the smallest roundabout in the world?

Note: I think that the man in the photo is the carpark operator. The driver is seated in the car on the lefthand side as cars in Taipei are lefthand-drive.

Effects Of The Current Financial Turmoil (1)

I read with sadness that quite a number of people have lost large sums of money recently because they invested in structured deposits linked to the collapsed Lehman Brothers bank. For some of these people, the money they lost were their entire retirement savings. I heard one elderly Singaporean couple invested $250,000 and may not get any of their money back.

As for me, I have made quite a few bad investments myself. A few weeks before the dot-com bubble burst in Mar 2000, I bought into ABN AMRO Star Global Information Society Fund. Needless to say, when I sold off the investment after the bubble burst, I got back only less than 20% of its original value. It was only after the dust had settled that I realised that the fund was classified as "high-risk and narrowly-focussed". To make matters worse, the investment was sold to me by a very close relative. I won't deny that our relationship had suffered because of this unpleasant experience.

More recently (in Aug 2008), my wife and I bought some OCBC non-convertible preference shares. We were attracted to them because they paid 5.1% annual dividends - not bad when you consider that interest rates for savings and fixed deposits are only a small fraction of that. As promised, the shares did pay a 5.1% pa dividend, i.e. S$33.53 for every S$10,000 invested for the 24 days which the shareholder had held on to the shares. Not too bad except that the closing price of the share had dropped from $100 to $93.42 within the same period - we had a paper loss of more than $1000 within less than a month and got back only less than $100. Would you have subscribed to the shares if you know that this is the outcome? Of course, with the benefit of hindsight now, the answer is an obvious one.

My many bad experiences in investment make me wonder how people like Mr Oei Hong Leong can make S$7 million by trading AIG shares in such a difficult market condition. No wonder they say that the rich gets richer (people like Mr Oei) while the poor gets poorer (people like me). Alright, Mr Oei did a good and noble thing by donating his S$7 million gain to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. (I would like to donate too but now, I am badly in need of donations myself.)

I feel that our MAS has not been very pro-active in its role as a financial regulator. It should not have allowed highly risky products to have been marketed as relatively safe investments to risk-averse investors. This would have constituted as misrepresentation by the sellers. The least it could do is to label the products as "high risk" and this fact should be made known to buyer by the seller. The buyer should also be told in layman's terms the various scenarios which will cause a loss to the investment and by how much.

How Come Sennett Road Is Not In Sennett Estate?

Today, Patricea left a comment on this post saying that her family used to live in Sennett Estate. Some 14 to 18 years ago, she would take bus 154 or 151 to school in the morning, and it would pass the National Aerated Water building at the traffic junction directly opposite it.

I must confess that I did not know exactly where is Sennett Estate in Singapore until recently. (For those who still don't know, it is in the corner bounded by Upper Serangoon Road and Macpherson Road.)


All the while, I thought that Sennett Estate was off Upper East Coast Road where a cluster of streets with names starting with "Sennett" are found - Sennett Road, Sennett Lane, Sennett Drive, Sennett Place, Sennett Close and Sennett Avenue. Who would have thought that Sennett Estate is actually so far away?


Some people may also confuse Sime Road with Simei Road or Anderson Road with Henderson Road but at least their spellings are different. A taxi driver once complained to me that a passenger asked to be taken to "Bedok Park". When the taxi arrived at Bedok Park, the passenger said he actually wanted to go to "Bedok North" (pronounced as "Bedok Park" in Cantonese). Now how do you expect the poor taxi driver to ever decipher that?

Do you know of any other places in Singapore with similarly confusing names?

Am I Superstitious Or What?

I am usually not superstitious. The lunar seventh month doesn't end till 30 August. As you probably know, this month is also known as Hungry Ghost Festival. The traditional Chinese believe that it is a period when spirits from the netherworld roam the earth. Whether you believe it or not, I think it is better not to mess around with such things. It is not advisable to do anything that might antagonise the spirits.

Recently one of my bicycles parked below my block had a flat tyre because of a leak. I am not blaming the spirits for it but this kind of thing seems to happen mysteriously every now and then. Whenever it happens, I always go to an old bicycle shop in Joo Chiat Road to change an inner tube. I have patronised this shop since a few decades ago. The shop itself must have been existence for more than half a century, i.e. older than me.


This man was a young boy when I first patronised the shop. Now we are both old men, although I think he's got more white hair than me, hehe.

As the shop location is about 5 km away from my block, I mounted the bicycle on a rack which was hooked on to the back of my car, like this:


My wife came along. On reaching an URA open-air car park near the shop, my wife alighted first. When I was reversing the car into one of the empty lots, my wife gestured to me not to park in the lot. The reason? There were some burnt-out joss sticks and candles at the back end of the lot:


Not wanting to take any chances, and respecting my wife's good spirit (pun intended) I moved to another lot. Just as I was almost done reversing slowly into the lot, I heard a loud bang. I was stunned for a moment as I didn't know what had happened. Then reality hit me - I realised that my rear windscreen was shattered!


Alamak! I had reversed into a pillar which suddenly jumped out into my path! :p The pillar pressed against the bicycle rack which was resting on my car's rear windscreen. The windscreen simply imploded.

Some glass splinters even flew to the front seating areas. My wife and I had a hard time cleaning up the glass splinters:


There were so many of them. At one point, I thought they looked like diamonds:


If they were, I would have been very rich indeed!

And who says that shattered tempered glass won't cut?


So I have instantly changed my car into some kind of convertible which is perhaps the only kind that I can afford:


I quickly checked my car's insurance policy. Phew, luckily all the windscreens are covered under the policy. I only have to pay an extra S$53.50 to have the privilege re-instated when I next renew my policy.

But one question - I avoided the joss sticks and candles - so why did this accident still happen? Hmm... it must have been due to my own carelessness and bad luck, not my wife's good spirit.

Last Monday, I made an appointment to have the windscreen replaced at the agent. It would cost the insurance company about S$1,400 - $900 for the windscreen and $500 for the labour to replace it. I took leave for that day. I had a foldable bicycle in the boot of my car which I used to roam around town while the workshop was replacing the windscreen. I went to the River Valley area and took this photo of Gianurn Building which used to be C K Tang, according to a recent post on Laokokok's blog, Times Of My Life.

Do You Want S$11,600?

While Frannxis was shocked with his recent experience with a bank, I was elated. No, I am not 幸灾乐祸 (gloating over someone else's misfortune). You see, yesterday I received 3 signed cheques from UOB - one for S$7,000.00 and two for $2,300.00 - making a total of $11,600. I just can't believe my luck! Nobody has ever given me so much money before.


Make no mistake, the cheques are not specimens; they are real. They come with the banks' authorised signatures. I was really tempted to bank them into my account until I read the accompanying letter properly:

"Transfer your outstanding balances... to us... or get cash drawn... at this special rate of 2.88% p.a. for 6 months by banking in the cheques into your non-UOB account... The prevailing interest rate will apply thereafter."

Phew, lucky thing I know English... and a bit of Maths. ;)

With such easy credit available, it is little wonder why the number of bankruptcy cases is rising in Singapore.