Get people to shag without condoms or you’ll lose your job
31 August 2004
Promoting immigration, putting citizens first and making babies.
The Government intends to put these pieces together and look at the issues from a broader perspective, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday.
Into this total picture comes incoming Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng — Singapore’s new population supremo.
BBC News calls him the czar. I agree it’s important to have someone looking at the big picture when it comes to population size and composition, especially in a small and greying population like Singapore’s. It’s still funny, though, since Singapore has been desperately been trying to get its married and responsible citizens to have unsafe sex for years.
In my mind’s eye, I see the government changing its stance toward pornography: like chewing gum, it can only be dispensed to those bearing a prescription.
(Child’s excuse when caught checking out porn: “I’m only preparing for the day I’m called to serve my duty as a loyal Singapore citizen, honest!”)
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Don't know if you saw the New Paper article a day or two ago about the incidence of vaginitis in S'pore, where they interviewed a bunch of sufferers who were all taught crazy reactionary things about sex and dating when they were growing up. I know it's the New Paper, but I actually did hear a good bit of this stuff growing up in the HDB heartland (this was in the '80s), which is also why it is to this day a mystery to me that people actually manage to have sex in Singapore (I fled abroad after JC, which was, ah, highly therapeutic, but I still feel weirdly repressed every time I'm back for a visit – yeah, I know, I'm screwed up).
Still, am certainly not going to hold my breath wondering when the "Asian values" types are going to figure out that maybe some of their "values" are responsible for the, um, libido and birth-rate issues …
Comment by Anonymous — 31 August 2004 @ 1:57 pm
I went to a convent school, so the only message I got was 'sex is bad'. Ahem.
Comment by andrea — 31 August 2004 @ 4:17 pm
Oh, I can assure you that the Protestant mission school I went to wasn't all that different in that respect … Always wondered if the uniquely baggy uniforms (this should id the school, huh) were intentional.
Comment by Anonymous — 31 August 2004 @ 5:56 pm
My cousin went there, too. What year were you?
Comment by andrea — 31 August 2004 @ 7:11 pm
Oh, hey, I went to the same school, potato-sack uniforms and all. Um. When you said 'married and responsible citizens' I saw 'harried and responsible citizens' and thought 'oh, how apt'.
Comment by Grace — 31 August 2004 @ 8:27 pm
Am delighted that apparently am not the only one who's made the potato-sack connection …
(Was class of '94.)
Comment by Anonymous — 1 September 2004 @ 2:33 am
Ah, she was class of '92.
I went to the convent school whose girls weren't allowed anywhere except bookstores after school.
Comment by andrea — 1 September 2004 @ 9:55 am
Asia by Blog
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This is cross-posted at Winds of Change. Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Mondays and Thursdays (the latest edition is here). You can be notified by email when it is updated, just drop me an email at simon-[at]-simonworld-[dot]-mu-[dot…
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It’s time to have a look at East Asia and what’s been making the news in Asian blogs over the past month. We cover China (in depth), as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore et. al).
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