Essay writing competition for people our age!

Now, friends, after many years of being overaged for essay competitions, the time has come once again for you to pick up your pens. Young People's Action Party Women (YPW) is organising this competition - 'Writing our future: Singapore 2020' for women aged 17-40.

The idea is to 'first get young women to think about the future Singapore they live in (the future Singapore they will live in? the future of the Singapore they live in?), and then be encouraged to take action as they see more clearly how they can play a role.'

The prize: 'an opportunity to have dialogues with prominent leaders and thinkers such as Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan; women Members of Parliament such as Minister of State for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua and YPW Advisor Irene Ng; distinguished diplomat Tommy Koh; and the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Kishore Mahbubani.'

Come on, come on, get down to it. Very shortly, some of us will be considered overaged even for this kind of competition.

* quotes (in orange) taken from YPW website

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True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the ...

No wonder

According to a poll of about 300 people, reported in yesterday's Sunday Times, (how come nobody ever asks me these things?) , the Seven Wonders of Singapore are (in order of merit): 1. The Esplanade (a whopping 82 votes) 2. Changi Airport (53 votes) 3. Sentosa 4. The Merlion 5. The Singapore River 6. Food 7. Mount Faber and LKY (tie - 10 votes each) Some 'offbeat choices' which didn't make it to the top 7: aunties selling tissue paper at coffee shops, Singlish, kiasuism, 4D-Toto outlets and Newater (said someone of Newater: 'We are probably the only country with branded recycled sewage.' Well said, ha ha.). Maybe it's a personal bias but I feel that a 'Wonder' must also have strong historical and cultural/social value (so I'm rather miffed that Angkor Wat didn't make it to the 7 Wonders of the World; in fact it was never in the running for the top 7). Therefore, these choices are a little too modern for me. The Esplanade, for example, is a...

True train school - a bit more

I realise I didn't give the context of Totto-chan's story, so here it is: Mr Sosaku Kobayashi, the headmaster, started Tomoe Gakuen in 1937. Totto-chan was in school during the WWII years and the school was destroyed during the Tokyo air raids, before she completed elementary school. Here is something from the last chapter, entitled 'Sayonara, Sayonara!' "The school that had been the headmaster's dream was enveloped in flames... In the midst of it all, the headmaster stood in the road and watched Tomoe burn... 'What kind of school shall we build next?' he asked his university-student son Tomoe, who stood beside him. Tomoe listened to him dumbfounded. Mr Kobayashi's love for children and his passion for teaching were stronger than the flames now enveloping the school. The headmaster was cheerful." Indeed, a man ahead of his time. The school was never re-built, and Mr Kobayashi passed away in 1963. In her postscript, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi explained ...

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