O is for 'over': Giving O levels the finger

Dear fellow parents of students taking O levels this year,

High five!

It’s over. It’s finally over.

I can’t feel my face after the last paper on Friday, but I love it.

But I love it.



We should go to Zouk before it moves to Clarke Quay, get drunk and vomit on the toilet aunty to celebrate.

And I know she’ll be the death of me. At least we’ll both be numb.

Of course, the O levels weren’t just stressful for us parents. The kids did their part too.

They were the ones who actually had to take the exam, the poor things.

We just had to pay for their private tuition.

For all the money I spent on my children’s tuition, I could almost afford an Uber ride during surge pricing.

Twice.

My son took his O levels two years ago. This year, it’s my daughter’s turn.

But it’s worth it.

I mean, sending them for tuition is better than doing nothing, right?

It’s for the kids. For their future.

So what if it meant making their present hell?

As if their kiasu schools weren’t sucking the soul out of them enough by giving them so much homework, we kiasu parents were vacuuming whatever soul they have left by making them go for tuition as well.



But the stress is only temporary.

The O level results will be forever.

At what cost, though? (Apart from the private tuition fees.)

My daughter is possibly more relieved than I am that the deed is done for better or for worse — although “relieved” may not be the right word.

She said that after taking her last paper, she and her friends walked out of their school and pointed their middle finger at it.

I don’t know where she learned such a rude gesture.

She certainly didn’t learn it from me since I have never given anyone the finger in my life.

I give only the thumbs up.

And the Vulcan “live long and prosper” salute from Star Trek.



And maybe throw the occasional horns as tribute to the late great Ronnie James Dio, lead singer of Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio.



But never the middle finger.

So I can’t say I approve of such behaviour from my daughter, but I can empathise.

I hated school at her age too.

The thing is, I don’t think it even matters what school it is.

Remember four years ago when we were so stressed about PSLE?

All that because we want our kids get into the best secondary school possible.

My daughter actually got into her first-choice school.

Now, four years later, she’s giving that first-choice school the finger.

Honestly, why did we even bother?



Same with the O levels — they are just to help you get into a junior college or polytechnic.

My guess is that if my daughter ends up in either one of those, in a couple of years or so, she’ll probably give that institution the finger too.

What I’ve come to realise is that the real reason we try to get our children into the best school is not so much to give them the best education, but to ensure that they have higher-calibre friends.

Hopefully, friends who don’t teach them to flip the bird since, as I’ve established earlier, my daughter certainly didn’t learn it from me.

On the one hand, the finger my daughter gave her school could be seen as an indictment of our whole education system and the damage it does to our children.

On the other hand, it’s also like Daniel Craig saying he’d rather “slash his wrist” than do another James Bond movie after Spectre.



They just needed to blow off some steam, but when the time comes, I trust they’ll do the right thing.

In Craig’s case, it’s playing 007 again.

In my daughter’s case, it’s A levels.

Or else.

Speaking of which, my son still has more than a week to go for his A-level exams.

So, dear parents of students taking A levels now, you can expect another invitation from me to go puke on the Zouk toilet aunty soon.

She told me: “Don’t worry about it.”

She told me: “Don’t worry no more.”

- Published in The New Paper, 15 November 2015

Will Thanksgiving (or Black Friday) be as big as Halloween in Singapore?

A month ago in this column, I suggested as a joke that since Singaporeans are already celebrating Halloween, we might as well celebrate other American holidays like Thanksgiving which was on Thursday.

At least, I thought I was joking (whether I’m actually funny is irrelevant).

It turned out I was prescient.

Because just over two weeks later, I saw in The Straits Times an ad by local supermarket chain FairPrice Finest with the headline: “Joyful feasting this Thanksgiving”.



Okay, a couple of things.

If I ask my wife for some “joyful feasting” tonight, she would probably say she has a headache.

Another thing is that I think this is the first time I’ve seen an Thanksgiving ad in Singapore.

Sure, it was only one ad and I assume it was just targeted at Americans living here, but this is how it starts. This must be how Halloween first gained a foothold on our formerly devil worship-free island years ago.

Before you know it, local netizens will be calling for the resignation of the CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore after she replaces Thanksgiving Turkey Day at Jurong Bird Park with some Deepavali event.



Maybe President Tony Tan Keng Yam will pardon a turkey at the Istana. Maybe Singaporeans will start watching American football.

Okay, now I’m just being ridiculous, I know.

I mean how can I expect Singaporeans to care about a sport played by teams in a country practically half way around the world from us?

(Oh, by the way, how’s Man U doing this season?)

But American football and presidential turkey pardons notwithstanding, I believe that Thanksgiving’s insidious takeover of Singapore is imminent and inescapable, thanks to our fixation with American entertainment and its accessibility through the Internet.

So to get ahead of the game, I decided to practise celebrating Thanksgiving this year by listing what I’m thankful for – and what I’m not thankful for.

For a start, I’m not thankful that Thanksgiving Day was also PSLE Resultsgiving Day.

But I’m thankful that my daughter’s results were good enough to get her into the Express stream.

I am not thankful that my 12-year-old daughter is now getting hooked the Twilight book series.

But I’m thankful that the latest Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part 1, is rated PG13, so that my daughter is too young to see it and be spared the vampire sex scene.



I’m also thankful that Sitex is back this weekend, so that I can get a good deal on a new hard drive to replace yet another hard drive that broke down which I bought at Comex earlier this year. Or was it at the IT Show? Maybe it was the PC Show...

But I’m not thankful Sitex is held at Singapore Expo, which is a long way from my home in Choa Chu Kang. Maybe I’ll shop for a new hard drive online.

Which brings me to what I’m thankful for most of all – Black Friday.



Not named after how some 12-year-olds and their parents felt the day after getting disappointing PSLE results, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season kicks off in the US in earnest.

Ironically, even though Singaporeans don’t care much about Thanksgiving (yet), Black Friday is another matter, thanks to the Internet (again) and the universal appeal of getting something at a discount.

Last week, I saw ads by local companies such as vPost and comGateway promoting Black Friday deals. It’s like the US version of The Great Singapore Sale crammed into a single day with the convenience of online shopping for Singaporeans (thus avoiding getting pepper sprayed).

If you missed Black Friday, don’t worry. Just be thankful for Cyber Monday tomorrow.

So you’ll still have a chance to “feast” on more good deals. Just don’t tell the wife.

- Published in The New Paper, 27 November 2011

Post-PSLE anxiety: After six years, it comes down to this

At exactly 6.14am on 22 Dec, my wife was woken by the frenzied opening guitar riff of the song Wonderland by Big Country.

The 1984 UK top 10 hit was coming from her Walkman handphone which she had placed beside her on our bed where I was still snoring away.



The song meant that she had received an SMS. We had been waiting for this SMS for three weeks.

But in a way, we had been waiting for this moment for six long years – from when we balloted for the place in my son's primary school to agonising over whether his PSLE score was good enough to him into his first-choice secondary school.

A few months ago, he had taken the selection test to get into NUS High School of Math and Science.

When we were informed that he had failed to qualify for the next round of selection, the blow was like a death in the family. Our hopes had been raised - then snuffed out.

After a few days of mourning, we regrouped and re-evaluated our options.

I said let's forget about trying to get him into a supposedly "good" school and just go for the nearest. I was aiming low to avoid another heartbreak.

My wife baulked at the idea.

This is even though she had sometimes regretted not sending our children to the primary school that is right next to our home and opting instead for the supposedly "better" neighbourhood primary school, which was farther away.

My wife quickly did some research and came up with Bukit Panjang Government High School, which had perfect blend of reputation and "nearness".



Being a casual parent, I never heard of the school before. For one thing, I didn't know it's not in Bukit Panjang, but in Choa Chu Kang, which is where I live.

That was three weeks earlier.

Barely conscious, my wife instinctive flipped open her clamshell phone, cutting off one of my favourite songs, and read the message:

"From MOE: S97XXXXXJ is posted to BUKIT PANJANG GOVT HIGH SCHOOL, Exp course. Please report to the secondary school on 23 Dec 2009 at 8:30am."

She immediately leapt out of bed to tell our son the good news. Meanwhile, I was still dreaming about being a pro golfer.

Then she came back to wake me. "We got Bukit Panjang!" she said excitedly.

"Oh, good," I replied, closed my eyes and went back to my 14 mistresses.

At exactly 7am on 23 Dec, my wife was woken by the frenzied opening synthesizer riff of the song Strange Love by Depeche Mode from her handphone.

That was the alarm that she had set to wake her up and get ready to be at the school by 8.30am.

She immediately leapt out of bed to go wake our son, before coming back to wake me. “You going with us?” she asked.

“No,” I replied and went back to my 30 mistresses.

By the time I woke up at lunchtime, my wife and son had already returned from the school with a folder containing several lists of things we had to pay for.

Apart from the usual uniforms and textbooks, there were two name tags ($5.40), a school tie ($7.40), a yearbook, an organiser, a locker, a padlock and passport-size photographs.

I'm glad I'm a citizen so that I don't have to pay higher school fees from 2011.

Also in the folder was a flyer promoting a blood donation drive organised by the school. Talk about bleeding us dry.

At least, we didn’t pay for the folder.

My wife then told me that she found out Bukit Panjang is the National Science Challenge 2009 champion - after beating Raffles Institution and NUS High School on TV!

And that somehow made it all seem worthwhile.

- Published in The New Paper, 27 December 2009

PSLE: Why can't my son be a China girl who could hardly speak English?

My son got his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) results on Thursday and he wasn’t Singapore’s top scorer. Which is fine.

But then my son was not even Singapore’s second top scorer. Which means his life is as good as over.

He might as well become a loan shark runner. Too bad the Government decided last week to clamp down on the vocation.

I guess as a last resort, he could go into banking. I read in the papers last week that banking as a career choice is not as hot as before.

My son is certainly qualified since he’s good at maths and has little sense of moral responsibility.

Who knew that to be the national PSLE champ, you have to be a girl from China who couldn’t speak English when you first came to Singapore?

Which means that the waitress who couldn’t understand my ribs order at Cafe Cartel the other day has the potential to be a top scorer.

I should’ve adopted. Madonna and Angelina Jolie adopted kids from overseas. And I’m almost as famous as them.

My son even went to a neighbourhood school like the top scorer did. Maybe I’m just living in the wrong neighbourhood.

The top scorer is from Qifa Primary School in West Coast. But I don’t want to live in West Coast. No MRT.

You know what? I blame myself. Why couldn’t I be a physiology research fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS) like the top scorer’s father? I even know what “physiology” means (I think).

And why didn’t I marry a physiology research assistant at NUS like the top scorer’s mother?

My wife likes to sew bags. No wonder our offspring turned out to be such an academic cream puff.

But to have both parents who are such super-geeks is just stacking the gene deck to produce a super-duper mega-geek bred to take over the world and rule us all!

Talk about parental pressure. Imagine if the kid hadn’t become the top PSLE student. Then rain would fall up and Adam Lambert would like girls.



Should I reveal my son’s less than world-dominating PSLE score?

Let’s just say I added a zero, bought 4-D with the number and was disappointed once again.

Neighbourhood secondary school, here we come!

- Published in The New Paper on 29 November 2009

UPDATE: MOE to stop publishing names of top-scoring students

I want to be 'up in arms' over PSLE maths paper too, but...

Every few years it seems, parents are “up in arms” over how ridiculously hard a Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) paper is.

This year, it was going to be my turn. My oldest child took the PSLE two weeks ago.

I’ve never been “up in arms” before. I was looking forward to it. I even started working out.

And right on cue last week, parents were up in arms over this year’s PSLE mathematics paper.

One parent complained in the AsiaOne forum: "My son was so sad and lost his confidence when he finished the paper.

"Why make it so tough for kids in Singapore? Every year, we hear about how PSLE Maths kill the children's confidence and drain them so much that after the paper, they would lied flat on the bed."

Another one wrote: "My daughter cried the moment she came out of the school gate after the Maths paper.

"I understand that even if the question is super tough, it is still a 'fair exam' as all student are subjected to the same question.

"However, the issue here is what is the rationale for setting questions far beyond a reasonable level ... and if this is 'fair' to a kid."

I want to join in this indignation, but...

Okay, there’s no way I can say this without sounding like I’m bragging even though I’m not, but here goes: My son thought the PSLE maths paper was easy.

Not “so-so” or even a non-committal shrug, which is how he usually communicates nowadays. He actually used the word “easy”. And he's not that good a student.

At first, I was somewhat relieved that this could be one of those years when the Ministry of Education decided not to kill the children’s confidence – then I heard about the complaints that the exam was too hard. Was this the same exam that my son took?

So I asked him if he was sure the maths paper was easy. “Yes!” he snapped, annoyed by my incredulity.

Now I’m really worried. Why can’t he lose confidence like the other kids?

The trouble with my son is that in the past, whenever he thought an exam was easy, he usually did worse than expected. And when he thought the exam was tough, he did surprisingly well, possibly because he was less complacent.

Unfortunately, as parents, we can’t really gauge whether a PSLE paper is actually “too” difficult.

Usually, someone would cite an exam question that most educated grown-ups couldn’t answer to show how unfairly difficult the paper is for the children.

But this is hardly a reliable indicator because as an educated grown-up, I can’t even do my daughter’s homework – and she is in Primary 4.

“Didn’t you go to university?” she would sass me.

“Yes, but I got only a basic degree in journalism,” I would retort. “Not a PhD in primary school maths!”

“Then what are you good for?” she would ask.

I wonder that myself.

As for my son, I can’t do anything about his PSLE now, except wait for next month’s results and cry then.

And in two years, I’ll be doing it all over again with my daughter. It will be my last chance to be “up in arms”. I have a feeling she won’t let me down.

- Published in The New Paper, 18 October 2009