Foreigner Bashing

At a dialogue during “The Singapore Summit” conference on 20 Sep 2014 Lee Hsien Loong was reported as saying, “If we just open our doors and say everybody can come, free movement of labour, tomorrow, there will be one million people on their way here, maybe more. Some will fly, maybe more will come by boat, and I think it will be a very different Singapore. So, you can’t do that.”

That's a taiji move right there. Somebody else let in the barbarians, not him. Never mind if Yang Yin, MP Intan's grassroots Integration Champion, is feeling the heat right now. The new headache is how to handle the aliens who have settled within the city gates.

We were unfortunate to be seated at the same table as one of those new citizens at a clan dinner, partially funded by the $10 million budget for making foreigners feel welcomed. Husband and wife have been in country for more than 5 years, but they still weren't prepared to converse in English or Singlish, each attempt at polite discourse was responded to in Mandarin. We had to speak their mother tongue. On learning that the guy was a music teacher at a local primary school, the obvious thought that came to mind was whether that was a rare talent not found among Singaporeans. When a quartet of senior ladies took to the stage, he volunteered to lead the impromptu choir, but proceeded to drown out all the female voices with his show-off baritone. Yang Yin is not the only one warming up to the support of fans like Intan and the like.