BEYOND SG

Eurasiana - A Musical Tribute

Friday night's presentation of Eurasiana was graced by President and Mrs Nathan. It was a huge success, a celebration of the Eurasian community in Singapore. There was a special tribute at the end to recognise Eurasians who contributed so much to Singapore's national development like E W Barker and Benjamin Sheares. Iskander Ismail as conductor of the Singapore Pop Orchestra had a wonderful chemistry with everyone on stage which in turn connected them to all of us in the audience.

I contributed a message as the Minister representing the Eurasian community in Cabinet.

Message

 Eurasiana, A Musical Tribute, tells the story of a community. Though small, the Eurasian community is an integral part of Singapore society with a history going back 500 years ago when the Portuguese first arrived in our part of the world. When different human groups meet, whether for trade or as a result of conquest, it is inevitable that blood and culture mix. It is this encounter that has created the Eurasian community in Singapore which is naturally and organically linked to Eurasian communities elsewhere in Asia.

When ethnic relations are good, there is greater mixing which enables the Eurasian community to grow and flourish. When the races are polarised, the Eurasian community suffers as members prefer affiliation to larger communities. For this reason, the vitality of the Eurasian community in Singapore is a good barometer of the state of ethnic relations in Singapore.

In a new age of globalisation, with new waves of migration into Singapore, conditions are favourable for the growth of the Eurasian community. One can sense a New Eurasian spirit developing.

The Eurasian Association (EA) celebrates its 90th Anniversary this year. It is now well-established as one of the four Self-Help Groups in Singapore. The EA's mission is to assist Eurasians through education, sports and the arts. EA's Family Support Services ensure that families in need receive support from various government and non-government agencies.

The EA also promotes Eurasian culture as a living heritage. While preserving aspects of our culture and tradition is important, we must also evolve with the rest of Singapore society. We might be a small minority group but our contribution to Singapore is special. Like the shrimp paste which gives rojak its flavour, a vibrant Eurasian community adds much to the diversity of life in Singapore. Over the years, Eurasians have made big contributions to Singapore in all fields from politics and economics to sports and entertainment.

Fifty years ago, Singapore became self-governing with its own flag and anthem. That was also the time when four arms representing the four races were linked together expressing our multiracial ideal. Because we have been united as one people, there is much to celebrate and I congratulate the Eurasians of Singapore and the Eurasian Association for helping make Singapore what it is today.

George Yeo

Rompin-Endau National Park

My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary deep in the Malaysian forest without any telephone connection. The road there from Kahang turned out to be much worse than we expected, potholed all the way once we transited from oil palm plantations to jungle. It was pitch darkness until we arrived at about 8.30pm. The small cluster of chalets which welcomed us was a spot of civilization in the vast wilderness. We had a good dinner of Malay food and very good durians which a group of Kulim planters generously shared with us. We slept well even though the giant geckos crawling on the walls outside made frequent noises. A symphony of bird calls woke us up in the morning. When we entered the toilet to wash, gecko droppings were everywhere even though we did not see even one throughout our stay there.

After a breakfast of nasi lemak and pratha, we took a boat ride on a nearby river. It was shallow. In flood, the river gets much wider. Floods during the monsoons in the last two years had washed away most of the bridges and scoured the road surfaces. The pristine forests on both sides, with their abundance of vegetation, were magnificent. We were tiny creatures on a bark intruding into Mother Nature.

After the boat ride, my two younger sons and I were brought on a trek, along a loggers' trail to the bank of a river. My wife and her parents wisely opted out because it turned out to be quite a strenuous hike. On the dry boulders of a waterfall, we had our lunch of nasi minyak, fried chicken and sambal udang. We then forded a stream to see the habitat of a protected species of fish, the ikan kelar. Leeches were everywhere, on land and in the water. They clamber on to our legs and go about their meals silently. I wasn't bitten but my driver Hassan discovered one that was an inch long and a quarter inch fat on his ankle. He poured salt on it which caused the parasite to disgorge the blood that it had sucked, a disgusting sight which we all watched with the greatest fascination.

Throughout our day's adventure, our guide Francis from the National Park Authority pointed out all kinds of wonderful things to us, from the tracks of wild animals to patterns of plant growth, to rock formations. We also learnt much about animals that we were happy not to see like tigers and snakes. We ended our trek by rafting back to our starting point. As hardly any rain had fallen in the previous weeks, the river carried little water and we had to do some hard paddling.

George Yeo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PM's Bilateral Visit to Korea

Following the ASEAN-ROK Summit, PM Lee proceeded to Seoul for a short bilateral visit.  PM Lee met members of the Singapore community, was hosted to lunch by PM Han Seung-soo and dinner by President Lee Myung-bak.  He also met Korean business leaders.  Both leaders agreed to consider establishing a Korean cultural centre in Singapore.

George Yeo

Meeting with Overseas Singaporeans

With Singaporean Businessmen

Group Photo with Singaporean Students

Lunch hosted by ROK Prime Minister Han Seung-soo at the Prime Minister's Residence

With ROK Amb Kim in the Courtyard of the PM's Residence

 

PM Making Remarks At Lunch

Minister Leaving the dining hall

 

Delegation Meeting with ROK President Lee Myung-bak at the Blue House

 Singaporean Flag Fluttering at the Blue House

PM shaking hands with President Lee

Delegation Meeting

Dinner Hosted by ROK President Lee Myung-bak at the Blue House Everspring Pavilion

Walking Past Ceremonial Guards

Talking to President Lee at Pre-Dinner Drinks

 

With President Lee, PM and Legislator Park at Pre-dinner Drinks

President Lee Proposing Toast

Others

Honour Guard at the Airport for PM's arrival in Seoul

PM Making Remarks before Dinner with Korean Businessmen

PM Meeting Minister of Strategy and Finance Yoon Jeung-Hyun

Reflections on 4th June

When the Tiananmen Incident took place 20 years ago, many of us in Singapore, especially ethnic Chinese, felt very upset.  At that time, I had been in politics for less than a year.  I remember the Singapore Government issueing a statement expressing our horror and disappointment.  My late mother, who was born in China and read only Chinese newspapers, took a different view.  She saw the student unrest as being partly instigated by outsiders and took particular objection to the symbolism of the Goddess of Democracy.

Twenty years have passed and the China we see today is a global power with whom the US has to deal with almost as an equal. In the Financial Times this morning, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was reported to have said that "China backs US stimulus".  At Beijing University, he assured students that "Chinese financial assets (in the US) are very safe".  China has become the US' biggest creditor.

In Chinese historical terms, 20 years is not a long time.  Only after almost a century is the official history of the Qing Dynasty now being written up in China.  While one might reasonably argue that the student uprising at Tiananmen could have been put down with less bloodshed,  few doubt that China could be where it is today without strong and decisive leadership.

George Yeo

ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Republic of Korea's dialogue partnership with ASEAN, a special Summit was held in Jeju on 1 and 2 June. All ASEAN leaders turned up. President Lee Myung-bak was the perfect host, even doing some of the BBQ-ing for the leaders at the farewell lunch. With the North escalating tension, security was tight with short-range SAMs deployed next to the conference centre.

Arrival at Jeju Airport (Photo from AFP)

 

Lunch hosted by ROK Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan for ASEAN Foreign Ministers

 

 

Welcome Dinner

  

 

 

 

 

ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit Sessions

 

 

 

Leaders' Luncheon hosted by ROK President Lee Myung-bak

 

 

Others

 

 

How Google really works?... I think

Ever done some egosurfing and Google your own name? And wondered how the ranking is done? Google's algorithm called PageRank is a very complex (and obviously a secret) search engine. Its ranking of any search word is dependent on many factors but it has revealed a few:

 

1. How long the site has been around? Since many sites come and go, the longer presence on the Net and better still, you own that website, that particular site will have a relatively higher ranking.

 

2. How many links are connected to that site? The link is considered a vote by the net community. So more votes means higher ranking. There is a Singaporean who self procliamed that he is the most successful blogger with No. 1 ranking in the blogspace. He makes several thousand dollars a month by linking his site all over the net to increase traffic and sell ad space and e-commerce products. He uses real links. But Google is always morphing and evolving to catch fake links and ignore them.

 

3.Specific keywords and unique names for that site. Being asian has a natural advantage because "harold fock" is easily more unique than "james kirk". There are ways to fool the engine. Say, Paris Hilton is the top 10 highly searchable word on the net (unfortunately, it is). You can hide Paris Hilton on every page of BeyondSG and make the text invisible to the eye. Such tricks used to work. But Google engine has improved and will ignore such words.

 

4. There is a debate whether social network site should be ranked no. 1. A social network like Facebook means thousands are linked to you and by default should be the top site. But FB belongs to Microsoft and Google wants a piece of the social network revenue for itself too so you know how Google's engine will be tweaked ;-)

 

5. The popularity, brand name and uniqueness of that site. So wikipedia or C/Net or CNN will be high. So is Company website. If "harold fock" is repeatedly seen in C/Net, then C/Net will override BeyondSG because C/Net has massive global hits.

 

By using these 5 simple rules, you can easily figure out the ranking logic behind any search word.

 

The clever thing about Google is that despite all the attempts made by Microsoft and others to do a better search engine, they somehow fail to achieve a higher relevancy than Google. I guess that is already reflected in their respective share prices.

 

 

Harold