358 Days in Singapore

The original objective of coming to Singapore for 9 months has been met, in fact has been exceeded by 3 months! It was indeed a valuable lesson to experience first hand the difference between Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore has shown that how good management can propel us to greater heights against all odds. It is a slight culture shock to see different races mingle together in a truly harmonious way in Singapore; something which the Malaysian politicians have been preaching all along but no action whatsoever. All the answers to Malaysia's problem could be found in Singapore if the government is humble enough as to recognize it. I have long try to refrain myself from talking politics in my blog but I just can't help to notice how far behind Malaysia is in terms of nation building. It is no point having the highest twin towers in the world when the fundamental social structure is still in the same condition before independence; or even has deteriorated.

Some might ask, can we change it? Malaysia celebrated its 52nd National Day recently, we are 52 years old already! Middle age crisis has sink in and yet it is still in a mess. My personal opinion is change will happen, but unfortunately will not be in my lifetime...............

Migration is the logical answer for now.

350 Days in Singapore

Time flies, today is my 350th day working in Singapore. The time now is 6:05am.

Singapore is a vibrant city with a sustainable economy. Comparing it to Penang, it is easier to do business here. Everywhere you go, there are people. Together with an efficient public transport system, people can be moved from place to place in a breeze. This fast flowing pattern of people is the ingredient for a fast progressing economy. And the government never feel contented at what their country has achieved so far, they continuously coming out with ideas on how to further raise the living standard of its citizen. This is indeed the most obvious contrast I found when compare to my country Malaysia where politicians are more concern with securing their ruling power.

For career development, Singapore is a much better place to consider due to its more systematic and advance way of doing things. But for living I still consider Malaysia home because of its flexibility and less intense way of life. Well, it is never easy to get the best of both worlds.

Sacrifices have to be made somehow.

Penang Hokkien

I recently came across a wonderful site while surfing the net. For a long time I've thought that Penang as a place and its culture is very unique in that what we have here could not be found elsewhere. For example, it doesn't matter how many Penang restaurants you could find at foreign countries, the taste will never be the same as what you can find on this wonderful island.

Cuisine aside, the next most noticeable characteristics of being a Penangite is our spoken dialect. Our Hokkien is one of its kind since it is very different from those spoken in Singapore, Taiwan and China. Years ago someone told me that when we speak Hokkien, it sounded like music to him. I took it as a compliment.

I strongly recommend this website to those who wish to experience Penang Hokkien and those who stay overseas but wish that you are here on the island.

By the way, if you want to have a good laugh, do listen to its podcast also:

http://penanghokkien.com/

Making Waves

Old House Cafe, George Town

Retracing Memory Lane

Went back for a one day presentation session at KDU on 9th july 2009. Managed to catch up with a few old friends and students along the way. The college environment is more vibrant now especially with all the display at the foyer. As for the fourth floor, only a few familiar faces, the rest were new students to me. I enjoyed the presentation whole day long, it reminded me of those teaching days again.

However, towards the end of the day when people start going home and the gallery became quieter and deserted, a kind of sadness enveloped me. In retrospect, our team has put in tremendous effort building up the school to its current status but we would have to leave it behind in the end due to certain circumstances. Over the years we have established emotional connection to the place where we educate and share our experience with students to the best of our ability. We once had burning desire to grow the school and everyone working towards the same vision and goal. It was indeed a memorable period in my career.

The day-long rain on Saturday reflected my mood and it further dampen my spirit at the same time. I guess that's the way things go, nothing is constant in this world and we will just have to learn to adapt to changes as they come along.

I sincerely wish everyone (lecturers and students) success in their future endeavours.

2nd Anniversary @ Minori Restaurant, Singapore

We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in a simple manner at this Japanese restaurant at UE Square, Dhoby Ghaut. Atmosphere was good, not that crowded (which is a rare scene in Singapore) and the food was good. The only downside was that the salmon wasn't that fresh. Other than that, everything else was perfect!

A Humble Suggestion to CM

Ideas on Penang Development - Creative City‏
From:Cheng Keat Tan (tanckeat@hotmail.com)
Sent:
Wednesday, 17 Jun, 2009 1: 34 AM
To:
Lim Guan Eng (limguaneng@penang.gov.my)
Dear Chief Minister,

I'm writing this email in response to your call recently for ideas in developing Penang. Here are some of my thoughts:

Signature Community
A plot of land could be identified for a substantial housing scheme and invite renowned architects from all over the world as well as Malaysia to each design a single house on the land. It has been proven that architecture has tremendous potential in attracting tourist dollars. The obvious example is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao designed by American architect Frank Gehry. Bilbao was a dying old industrial town until this building comes along, and it is now a must visit location for those who visits Spain. However, there must be something special in order to attract these architects to come to Penang. One way of course is if the buildings are really huge which I think Penang doesn't really need that now, another way is if the scheme could contribute to greater cause such as environmental protection. Architects could be asked to build affordable and yet environmentally friendly future houses for the lower income group in this country.

Transport Around George Town
George Town is unique in the sense that we have the most collection of heritage buildings within an intact urban fabric. However, it is exactly because of its scale that people find it hard to visit all the places that they wish. With our hot and humid climate together with the absence of proper pedestrian walkways, visitors will soon find it inconvenient and uncomfortable. A tram system has been proposed by an Australian a few years back to the then Gerakan government but somehow they thought that it was not viable. I can't understand why, maybe because they had no confident in securing funding from Federal. But if we want people to move back and stay in George Town which has no parking facility, then the tram has to be seriously considered. Once the tram is in, then cars could be banned from entering most parts of George Town and the entire area could be pedestrianised. A lot of small European towns operate in this way.

Connectivity
Penang is an island surrounded by sea but we have yet to fully utilise this natural gift that we have. Water transport has to be seriously looked into to solve the traffic congestion problem. A few nodes could be identified in several key locations and integrated jetties be built. This jetty will have to be like the MRT stations in Singapore where they also function as community and commercial nodes. If they are just built as a jetties, then it will not be popular with commuters. It is very obvious that federal funding again is an issue here if not the previous governemnt would have done it already. But they should rope in the private sector. And now with your open tender initiatives, I'm sure a lot of developers would like to participate. Penang has got a number of capable private sectors. But these people will want to see the benefit that they can get in return before they pour in their investment. I suggest the government allow them to reclaim land off the sea and build their integrated jetty/commercial hub there. In that way if the water taxi business does not earn money due to operating cost, they still have their commercial property functioning. Commuters could moved from place to place without the hassle of traffic jam while enjoying the beautiful coastline of the island.

Creative City
Penang has always produced good artists and designers. It could be due to the picturesque environment that we live in. The sad things is most creative people have ventured out of Penang to seek a livelihood. Major reason is that there are lack of career opportunity in the creative industry. The industry is not highly regarded by the authority as well as the public. There are now 3 major art schools in Penang, namely USM, KDU and Equator. The One Academy will soon open its campus opposite KDU. It is a very competitive business in the education industry. All these colleges wanted to showcase their students work to the public so that they can attract a bigger enrolment in the coming semester. And this is where they can contribute. There are a lot of left-over spaces along the edges of higway as well as roundabout. Public sculptures could be built in these places and it will indeed be great if they were designed by students from these colleges. You will be surprised to find very creative art work from these young people. We all want Penang to be a global city but there has to be a theme. And I believe Penang could be turned into a creative global city.

Richard Florida in his book 'The Rise of the Creative Class' has showed us that sustainable cities are those that could attract lots of creative people to work there. In order to attract these people, variety of amenities also have to be provided such as entertainment, recreation and transport. These people are highly emphasize on lifestyle as oppose to living. Singapore has long recognized this trend and that is why the city state has intensively boosted its entertaintment amenities, the largest of all being the 2 casinos that are under construction. They were called integrated resorts because it is not just gaming places, there are theme parks, retails, galleries and exhibition places.

This is what I can think of in this point in time but I still have a lot on my mind, just that I haven't digested it yet. If you don't mind, I shall email to you again on new ideas.

Best regards,
CK

Desire to Win

They are fired up and they want more. Those who won competition must have this feeling every time they successfully beat the rest to climb to the top. Now that they have tasted the sweetness of victory, they must not stop but keep competing even after they leave college. Winning competition is the guaranteed way to gain recognition in the design industry.