Once he was just an ordinary boy, now he is defender of the universe.
Look, there he goes now, off to save the universe yet again.
As well as your careers.
Faster than a speeding resume, a hero to the man on the street, and getting you back on
your feet.
He is Captain Careers, Adrian Chu.
How's that for size, man?
Oh, I love that.
That's the best intro I've had, Captain.
Look at my guns.
Okay, everybody, welcome back.
Welcome back to the Chris Hansen Conversation for the I Love My Job series.
And you know, he's going to be a regular guest each season for this particular segment, simply
because he is the authority on the subject.
I can dare say he's the authority on the subject.
And we like him here because sometimes on my show, at least he can be a little bit more
unhinged.
I have with me once again, back again for season four, the CEO, founder and career strategist
for Career Agility International, Adrian Chu, Captain Careers.
How you doing, Bones?
I'm doing fantastically well.
This is a no-holds-butt session, so I'm ready to get cancelled.
Really?
I look at the questions that you...
This show today, I got to tell all of you, this show today, this episode, is not planned
by me.
It is completely planned by Adrian Chu, okay?
So don't fucking cancel me.
You want to cancel anyone, cancel this joker.
Disclaimer, there's none.
There's no disclaimer.
No disclaimer.
Okay, everyone, Adrian, you know this.
I've given you a moniker as you heard the intro just now.
You are now called Captain Careers on this show.
And now all I need is a catchy tagline.
Yeah, I just call you Bones.
I will call you Bones because you are the body snatcher.
I will never fucking forget that story.
Still ringing in my ears again, still permeating in my brain that this man used to sell fucking
bones.
So for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, tuning into our previous season,
you've got a lowdown on me having 30 skeletons in my closet.
The body snatcher you.
Okay, all right, man.
So you've got a couple of things planned for us.
We've had the season.
Yours is usually going to be the final episode for the series, I Love My Job.
I've got a couple of people already who came in to speak, right?
And now it will always culminate each season with the final episode for this series with
you, with Captain Careers.
I'm so touched.
Not at all, man, because you are the expert on the subject, man.
Not me, man.
I'm just a guy that just...
A guy.
I'm usually the guy.
The guy.
The guy that will get everyone in and everyone else is the expert, everyone else is people
I'm honoring, you know, unless we're talking about fucking UFOs and maybe I can say I'm
a little bit more of an authority.
But other than that, man, other than stupid shit like that, yeah, you know, I'm quite
dumb.
You're the guy.
No, I'm the guy, but the dumb one, you know.
So I leave it to the experts, experts like you.
And I've got a few things I've prepared for you, though.
You've given me the questions and it's going to pop up on the screen.
Okay?
Of course, it has to.
I'm going to make it a little bit more fun.
Yeah.
Let people see what exactly we're dealing with.
So I put this in the order you've given me.
So do you want me to just flash it in the order?
No, that's good for you.
Okay, good.
Okay.
Okay, fuck it, man.
Let's go.
There you go.
The problem with being Singaporean.
Oh, fuck.
We're going to get screwed for this shit.
I think so.
So let me ask you a question.
How proud of you that you're Singaporean?
Singaporean per se as a citizen, I'm very proud.
As a citizen, I'm very proud, of course.
Me too.
You know, whenever I'm overseas or when I'm in the US or in Europe, first thing I tell
people is I'm Singaporean because I just don't want them to mistake me for anything of any
other nationality.
So, round of the bat, I love being Singaporean.
I'm a true blue Singaporean.
Wait, wait, wait.
What?
If anyone says to Adrian Chew, are you...
I should value my passport.
Are you Malaysian?
Oh, I love Malaysians.
Okay.
I actually prefer...
But what happens if you're...
I prefer to hang out in Malaysians more than Singaporeans.
No, no, no, no.
Based on what you just said just now, if you were mistaken to be Malaysian, how would you
feel?
I think it's fine.
I just said we are the better looking version.
So...
I'm just kidding.
You know, they're both Malaysian.
So...
Fuck, fuck.
I hope you don't go to GB too often.
Lots of...
I've got relatives in Malaysia.
So the thing is, when I'm outdoor...
There's a lot of kinship between us and Malaysians.
There is.
You can't tell one from the other, except when you ask them whether this is Roti Canai
or Roti Prata.
That's where the difference comes in.
Ours is called Singlish.
Theirs is called Manglish, right?
I have no idea.
No.
Yeah, yeah.
It's man-glish.
is when Singaporeans ask me whether I'm Singaporean.
I say, are you Singaporean?
I say, of course I'm Singaporean, but you speak different.
I'm Peranakan, so I speak different, just like you, you know,
you're Eurasian, so we are of the special heritage.
Oh yeah, of course, very extraordinary people.
But when it comes to work, I must say, being Singaporean,
being Singaporean, sorry, Singapore problem, that's a good word.
Singapore problem.
Yes, that is a Foydans slip.
Being Singaporean sometimes poses certain problems.
These are uniquely single problems.
Let me tell you, because for me, I've been in head hunting many, many years.
The composition goes like this.
I call up an individual.
I say, hey, you know, Joanne, there's a great opportunity for you.
This company, you know, is really, it's more money to pay,
it's a much better job, the company is more prestigious than your current one.
First question I ask is, where is the office?
Oh, it's in Jurong.
Oh gosh.
Too far, the one.
No, but this role is quite exciting for you.
No, too far away, the one.
Where are you staying?
I'm staying in Bukit Merah, or even Bukit Panjang, which is not too far from Jurong.
Yeah, it isn't.
No, the one, too far away.
Thank you for calling.
It's what case study.
Right.
The other one.
Jonathan, there is a role for you.
There's a company, where's the office?
The office is in town.
Which part of town?
Shantin Way?
Which part of Shantin Way?
Oh, it's in, you know, it's in one of the buildings.
Doan.
Why?
No shutter walkway from an MRT station.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
You're not kidding, right?
I'm not kidding you, okay?
So we are a bit spoiled.
So, you know, if you ask me what's the problem with being Singaporean,
I'm not talking about being, not the problem with Singaporeans,
but the problem with being Singaporean,
sometimes we are too pampered, we are too spoiled.
And I think it's hurting us as a resource, in terms of our own career.
Example, how many Singaporeans do you know would accept an overseas posting?
Okay, to London.
Wow, expatriate job.
Expatriate job.
Okay.
To Australia, Melbourne, Sydney.
Yeah.
To KL.
You mean, don't tell me that not many people prefer to do that either?
Yeah.
What?
To, okay, how about this?
Even to Bangkok.
There are reservations.
Okay, but if you're single, young and single,
it's a fucking opportunity, man, to be an expatriate.
But people still don't, you're talking about the young here.
Are you talking about the young or the across the board?
The younger ones and the millennials.
Sometimes, you know, you have a family, but even then, you know,
that's why I think we have not learned how to come out of our comfort zones yet,
if you ask me.
Okay.
And it's actually a result of being very blessed.
But the thing is, Adrian, the thing is,
have you encountered the Singaporeans who have really jumped at this sort of opportunities?
Have you?
I have, I have.
And these people, I don't know if you better you keep up with them
since they landed those respective jobs, yeah,
whether it's going to be, I don't mind traveling,
I don't mind getting caught in the rain,
I don't mind traveling overseas, no sort, yeah.
Those people, those people, to me, in my opinion,
these people have great aptitude, great attitude, right.
They have a verve for life and they're going to go out there
and grab opportunities as it comes.
These people that you know of, if you caught up with them,
I hope you have, have they done really well in their own lives,
in their own careers?
They have, they have.
Because they go overseas to get some exposure,
they go to another country to get exposure,
and they come back very experienced.
You see, the question is this, you know,
how many of our Singaporeans are truly global, global?
And this is a very sensitive question, okay.
Why is it sensitive?
Because then people will say, oh, but Adrian,
you're saying the Singaporeans don't have talent, you know.
No, we have talent.
Yeah.
Okay, how many Singaporeans can do what DBS CEO,
Piyush Kupta is doing?
He's doing a great job.
He's doing a fantastic job.
Okay.
How about our TikTok CEO?
What's his name, Chu?
I don't, I forget.
I wish he got a Christian name or something.
I know, right?
Yeah, it's so easy to remember.
You know that good looking smart dude, right?
Yeah, yeah.
How many people are of that caliber, okay?
If you look at his career profile, wow, you know,
he's been with the consulting groups, private equity firms,
fantastic.
How many Singaporeans are there?
And the question is, why aren't more Singaporeans in those global,
very senior leadership roles, okay?
Right.
Even the government, when they're looking for CEO of MRT or whatever it is,
okay, they do a global search and then it falls back onto some army dude, right?
Because not that Singapore does not have talented people.
I think that because we don't have the critical mass, okay,
let me explain why.
We only have 2 million Singaporeans.
Right.
Okay, aren't you going to correct me?
We have 2 point something million.
No, 2 million Singaporeans per se.
Really?
Okay, so why?
Okay, what's Singapore's population?
5.8 now, I think.
How many non-locals make that up?
Maybe about half.
Half, yeah.
That's why I said it's about 2.5, 2.6 million Singaporeans, right?
How many Singaporeans are, and I'm talking about non-naturalized,
how do you say that?
Singaporeans, Singaporeans.
Singapore, indigenous Singaporeans born here, yeah.
You know, we don't have that critical mass, okay?
Imagine if just 0.01% of the people are of that super caliber, right?
Maybe we have about 200 of these guys.
Okay, okay, wait, I've got to stop you there, because you know why?
Kwong B and I are fucking idealists, but since you're saying that,
I can see your point of view.
We don't have the critical mass, so therefore, the indigenous Singaporean,
you can hardly see one that can shine.
Is that what you're saying?
No, and it's not just the person who shine.
These people have to be put under very specific circumstances to reach that goal.
Sure.
As opposed to there are 1.2 billion Chinese, 1.2 billion.
So even a 0.01% of 1.2 billion, there's still like a 1 million.
Yeah, I know where you're going with this.
And of that group, you go in and you give them the training,
and some will fall by the wayside.
No, Adrian, I disagree with you.
I think it's got to do with attitude, and it's got to do with a pamphlet
and entitled generation.
And attitude is also one subset, but if you have a wide enough group...
No, let me give you an analogy.
Tell me.
Let me give you an analogy.
Look, man, how would the SAF plan to defend this country when they first started
and as the years progressed, okay?
Because we are so small, we don't have the critical mass in terms of population, right?
So, okay, we came up with a brilliant plan.
We go into conscription.
We have a conscripted army.
We work in technology.
And then, of course, I'm not wanting to say too much because I don't want to really let go
too many things, being a former soldier myself alongside with you,
because we're all conscripts.
The idea is that every one of us must go in with an attitude, right?
If you take a look at a section size of soldiers, a section is quite a small section
compared to most other armies in the world, right?
Armed forces in the world.
The infantry section is quite small.
But super-powered in terms of armaments and blah, blah, blah.
So that's an open secret.
And no one hides that kind of thing, so I can talk about it, right?
If we look at the attitudes there, we may be small,
but we all can, with a right attitude, get great at the things we want to do.
It's about an attitude.
It's about streamlining things and going,
okay, you know what, each of us have really got to be something else, man.
We've got to be really special, right?
There's always going to be one other guy that's going to be better than you,
but that's cool.
The point is that we all get very, very good at the things we have chosen to do.
I absolutely agree with you.
We can get good with training.
We can get good with the right equipment that can level us up and...
It's an attitude, man.
No, sorry.
You can train someone, man.
I'll give you another analogy.
I don't know whether or not I'm being fucking relevant here.
Musicians, like Aliyah and I, on our episode, we talked about this a little bit.
Let me just touch on that.
There are two kinds of music, okay?
One would be the technical guy.
The guy that, you know, mommy and daddy sent me for fucking piano lessons
since I was five years old, by the time I was 12, I'm grade eight, you know.
I can sight read, you know, I know how to really play.
Those are manufactured talent.
Manufactured talent, the technical guys.
Then you've got the musical ones, where yes, they are also technical.
They can read the notes.
They can sight read.
They can do all kinds of shit, but they have the feel in what they play, right?
That's a musical guy, right?
I'd rather have a musical guy because you have soul in it, right?
It's the attitude.
Agreed.
It's the attitude.
It's not just about being manufactured.
So anyone can go for training.
You can go to, you can go and sign up for whatever fucking courses you've got, right?
And then come out and say, yeah, I'm certified.
Yeah, but bollocks, the point is that how much did you put into that training
whilst you were undergoing training?
So it's about the attitude, don't you think?
And I think attitude also, you cannot deny the talent.
Because you've got no talent, you've got attitude.
We've seen a lot of people on America's Got Talent.
They sing horribly, but they've been practicing this for the past 15 years.
You've got no talent.
So I'm talking about talent here, not just attitude.
Okay, okay.
Now, since you're on talent, then I will have this to say.
Talent without hard work is being fucking stupid.
Agreed.
So all else being, but I'm talking about the attitude.
So it's still the attitude, right?
If you have talent, you still need to put in an attitude, a good attitude,
in order to hone the talent.
Exactly.
So if you've got a hundred people with a good talent, right?
If you've got a hundred people with a good talent, half of them don't have the attitude.
Okay?
They just fall off the table, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the other half are not given an opportunity.
Okay, now we're talking about opportunity.
Maybe they're born poor.
Okay, maybe they're born poor.
You see, how many musicians, successful musicians, are napple babies?
What babies?
Napple babies.
No napple babies.
What the fuck are napple babies?
Napple babies are nappletism babies.
Oh, say lah.
They're just parents.
They're called napple babies.
Okay, these napple babies, they're all born...
You can go and look up a lot of people.
They're all very talented, like shucks.
I'll give you an example.
Wilson Phillips, a Chinese, a Chinese Phillips.
A Chinese Phillips, yeah.
You go check out what dad is.
A beach boy.
He's a beach boy.
Yeah, yeah.
And the mamas and the papas.
Mamas and the papas, yeah, correct.
So, napple baby.
You look at all his...
Ben Affleck, okay?
What about Ben Affleck?
His dad is an actor.
Is he?
Yeah, if I'm not mistaken.
Who is it?
I didn't know that.
Ben Stiller, sorry.
Oh, Ben Stiller.
Ben Stiller, yes, his dad, yeah.
Napple baby.
So, okay.
So, if you look at talent pool, okay, half of it drops off because they don't have the
attitude.
The other half, because they didn't have the opportunity.
In the end, you end up with 50.
But imagine out of the 1,000...
Imagine if you had a much bigger talent pool.
That 50 grows up by 100, 200.
So, the question is, why aren't Singaporeans leading global companies?
And I think the problem with being Singaporean is that there's just not enough of us.
It's not that we lack talent.
I think it's not enough exposure.
And also, and that follows on with what I say.
They do put up their hand, okay, because they're pampered.
They put up their hands.
They don't go like, I want this job.
I want that job.
They see, okay, I hear you and everything you said about this.
And I take the whole fucking thing and I put it into a bowl.
And this is what I see.
I see, yes, pampered, entitled.
I want this.
I want that.
And yet, everyone is sheep.
If any single person in that bowl wants to stand out, he cannot be sheep.
Exactly.
But if he doesn't want to be sheep and he stands out, is he going to be thumbed down?
That's a good question.
So, truly, is it because of not having critical mass or is it because of not being allowed an opportunity?
And sometimes it's not just that, not being allowed opportunity.
A lot of times, it comes from the school education system as well.
You ask the teacher questions.
Shut up.
This is a stupid question.
Sit down with troublemaker.
We had that in the first school.
That was okay.
That's our day.
Today, I don't know.
Today is even worse.
I'll tell you why.
Okay.
I know where you're going to go with this.
Mathematics.
Not just mathematics.
Working.
Okay.
Nothing is different.
Tuition.
Private tuition.
Why?
I remember when I was in junior college, no, I was in university.
I was supplementing my income with tuition.
With bones.
Okay, with bones.
I was also giving tuition at the side.
So, I was giving tuition to this neighborhood kid just because after three months of just
two months of coaching him, he came back to me and his neighborhood school kid.
He said, Uncle Adrian, my chair, my teacher asked me to tell you something.
I said, what?
He asked me to tell you you're not doing your job because my maths grades are no good.
I said, what?
Seriously?
The teacher is telling the student that the tuition teacher is not doing my job.
I'm not doing my job because...
So, everyone is relying on tuition so much that the teachers, some of the teachers just
hands off.
Yeah.
You see?
So, a lot of times, the education system needs to be revamped.
I got to say this and I got to stop you there, man.
You know why?
Because that was during your university days, right?
Now, I think today could be...
I don't know, because you mentioned neighborhood school per se.
I don't know why you said neighborhood school.
Neighborhood school.
And then of course, we know who said before, every school is a good school.
Well, to me, okay, if you come from Chee Cheong Fun Secondary School and then...
I don't know, I can't speak for these guys, but the mission school that my boy is in,
I got to say, and I hope this is actually across the board today where MOE is concerned.
I think that's what they're striving to do.
Since we're on this topic, yeah?
Okay.
I don't think we're deviating because education is part and parcel of the job market.
Yeah, correct.
And the school principal, bless him, really.
I really like...
I think this guy is amazing.
And when my boy went into secondary one, and this is my old alma mater.
Okay.
And he said, if you need to employ tutors, private tutors for your kid, the school has failed.
Okay?
Now, that helped.
And I know they're striving.
They really are really trying.
And the school doesn't also emphasize just on academics.
They emphasize on truly holistic growth, character, which is more important, values, imbuing values, right?
Which is fantastic.
Mission schools are like that anyway.
Whether or not it's MOE sanctioned.
Okay.
I'm a product of the mission school system as well.
Which school again?
Sinandria!
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those bunch of guys running after a bloody ball sack.
Yeah, okay.
So...
I'm going to get beaten up by this.
I think so.
Okay, anyway.
It's a great school.
I got a lot of friends in Sinandria.
Okay, anyway.
So, only recently, man, like about three weeks ago, my son approached us and said that I
need some help.
And we didn't force it down his throat.
The trouble is a lot of parents force these down the kids' throats.
You know, you're going to have...
You're going to go to...
You're going to look at...
And he's forcing it down their throats.
You know, like trying to stuff food down a goose to get foie gras.
You know what I'm saying?
No, no, I agree.
But my boy approached us.
And when he does, we have to take it seriously because he's asking for help.
And I think that's positive.
That's okay.
Rather than him struggling.
I don't think the school has failed.
I think it's just a question of the kid really needs some help.
And also the parents also, like what you said, forcing food down.
I'll tell you what's the dumbest thing, okay?
I see, and I don't mind being quoted on this, I see parents of primary three kids,
paying top dollar for a particular agency to teach their kids how to get into gifted stream.
Why do that?
If you're gifted, you're gifted.
Full stop.
Why you want to try and game the system to get in?
And I can tell you from personal experience, being in the gifted stream,
I'm not a gifted streamer, my son went through it.
Nothing special.
See, on this series, I love my job.
I had just had Benjamin Lohner a long ago.
And he himself, I asked him, what does it take?
I mean, what would someone actually need to have to be able to do it?
What does it take to have to be a public speaking trainer, speaker, coach like you?
He was from the local universities, you know, he was bullied when he was younger.
And then he's an introvert and he's teaching public speaking.
And he's doing very, very well globally.
He's doing great.
Yeah.
And he said, I don't know, I can't tell you because why?
Depends on whether you have the aptitude for it, whether you like it,
whether you want to do it, you know?
And it's about that, isn't it?
See, at the end of it all, it's not about what the parents want.
And then you're living people, young people today are living their lives
based on the expectations of their folks.
And I'm afraid to say that the next 20 years,
the next 20 years are going to have the same bunch of people at that time
that's going to be just the same as the ones we've got now.
Because sadly, those kids that you've met and helped
and you've encountered are now parents
and they are doing the same shit that was done to them, to their own kids.
So we're going to see this vicious cycle going on, man.
It's true, it's true.
And that's why I think that there's nothing you can do about the education system
because it is what it is.
That's why as parents, we've got to train our kids differently
from everyone else to give them that edge.
Like both my kids, my oldest, my boy is going to uni already
and my daughter is doing the old levels.
I've been training them up to be career ready since they were young.
I've always wanted to make them have a certain degree of street smarts.
How do you train a kid to be career ready, to be street smart from young?
I always try to trick them.
So like, what's with my daughter?
I want him to catch my BS.
So I BS them a lot.
So like my daughter, when she was four years old, she asked me,
how do we get strawberry milk? I said, you know, take the cow in Australia.
The farmer feed them with strawberries and then the milk comes out strawberry flavoured.
Then she's like, eh, that's rubbish.
Yeah, that's what I do.
So I've always trained them to be street smart.
It's called playing them with dad jokes.
Yeah, I know, right?
Let them catch it. Let them catch things like this.
And to the point where I talk to them about cases at work.
All names are disguised and everything.
But you know, I say, I got this situation.
My boss is making things up for me.
You know, I'm doing this.
So I walk them through the adult journey.
So they understand why they're so...
And I think that's where we cannot sit down.
And that's another problem with being Singaporean is that
sometimes we have this learned helplessness that,
oh no, the government is not doing anything for me.
The government is allowing a lot of foreigners to come in, you know, things like this.
They are so what? What can you do about it? Right?
This is what you do about it.
So you can complain that the school system is not that great.
What can you do about it?
So what I do is I train them on this.
I even tell them to have a certain healthy disrespect for authority.
Okay?
Healthy disrespect for authority.
Not everything the teacher says is correct.
Yeah, challenge it.
Challenge it.
But the trouble is that, you see, remember what I think, was it you that I said this to?
These days, whether it's in the digital sphere or whether or not it's personal,
one to one, in social, under social circumstances or in a business meeting even, right?
I think I've done this myself before.
I was told to shut the fuck up.
I'm sure you get it a lot.
No, no, no. I got this once and I really went against it.
Oh shit.
And the guy was kicking me under the table.
I said, why are you kicking me under the table?
He still telling me to shut the fuck up and not engage with these people.
I said, I'm sorry, you can do that if you're chicken shit because I'm not chicken shit.
Yeah?
And this thing about, if you were, this is what I feel today.
If today, anyone of us in that matter were to ask a question at a forum, for example,
in a forum or in a town hall meeting or I don't know, any circumstance, yeah?
You just stand up and you challenge with a question.
Not because you're being recalcitrant, but because it's a good question.
And good questions are usually very hard to get to gather an answer, a real direct answer.
An answer that you're really looking for.
But they'll come, they'll give you some cockamamie bullshit, you know?
And then, you know, the skirt, the fucking issue.
And then the famous line that people say these days, we'll take that offline with you and never do.
And then you're then deemed, maybe indirectly, quietly, unofficially marked as being either...
Troublemaker.
A troublemaker, recalcitrant, your insolent, your subversive, you know?
I think that's really wrong.
And as long as that kind of culture exists in society and in the commercial world,
we will never be able to generate leaders.
And in school, we're talking about math, so don't get me started, I'm gonna fucking get you started.
I always hated this shit that...
This is more prevalent in primary schools.
I can say that because my kids, since secondary 3, primary 6, wasn't long ago.
When you're given a mathematical problem to solve, you write down your workings.
They want your workings, you get some points or marks for your workings, right?
But if you derive the right answer through your own working,
that shows you're in fucking genuity, right?
And then they cross you out on the working and say that's not my working, I didn't teach you to do it that way.
What are we doing? Are we going back to the fucking dark ages or what?
You know what I mean? I never agreed with their bollocks, you know?
They do that in primary school. Secondary school, they're a bit more lax, but you're right.
No, no, I agree with you.
That's why, because they want to encourage your uniformity and thought.
That's why someone once said, someone once said, some British guy once said,
if Singapore had an Olympic sports for students, it would be synchronized thinking.
Good one.
So I think that's bad.
So it's systemic, isn't it? I mean, I'm using the term loosely systemic.
Because if we're looking at, as what you said when you started the show,
these are the people I encountered.
The problem of being Singaporean, I think the problem actually is a bit deeper than just that.
That's why I'm still stuck on this thing. I still say that it's not about critical mass, man.
This is culturally how we've become.
And then what happens then, we start to rot a little bit.
We start being more self-centered, we get more selfish.
And of course, in the whole descriptive of self-centeredness comes this thing called entitlement.
You know, that's part and parcel of being selfish.
So I think it's kind of systemic.
As long as we are raised to be she, and we're not raised to question,
now MOE actually recognizes, in my opinion, this issue.
Because now they're allowing, they're talking more about critical thinking.
And it's true, because back in our day, I don't know, were you in the art stream?
No, I was in the triple science. I was a nerd.
You were a nerd, but fucking smart, triple science. Shut the fuck up.
Anyway, this guy with a diploma in BTC, Bo Tat Sik.
In my time, when I had to do history, I love history, by the way, literature and history.
Being a normal stream student, which was, I was deemed to be stupid.
And that's true.
And when we learn history as a rote learning man, we have to memorize and memorize.
To this day, I can still quote to you. To this day, man, this is fucking eons ago.
But today, history is different. You don't need to memorize stuff, man.
Yeah, I agree.
It's a lot of critical thinking.
They ask you questions, and you've got to tell them what you think about this particular point in history.
And lessons learned from it. Inference questions.
So I think it's better. I think MOE somehow realizes that, hey, look, man, we need to have critical thinkers here.
I was waiting for that big but.
With critical thinking, you've got to accept that you cannot make an omelette out of breaking a fucking egg.
You're going to have leaders coming out of these, because people who are going to be critical thinkers will question.
And they're troublemakers.
So are you going to label them?
So I don't know. I don't know. I mean.
But the big challenge about having teaching critical thinking is that I still remember during my time in university,
they were in fact in junior college, they were trying to use Edward de Bono's lateral thinking as a critical thinking tool.
And he does have some interesting models you can use to solve questions.
And when you use another model, sorry, it's not in the critical thinking book, so you cannot.
Then why are you teaching lateral thinking if I cannot question this thing?
And if I cannot think laterally in another direction.
And then you're stopping me from going there because it's against the modality?
Correct. So that's why the oxymoron.
And I think once again, it's a matter of the teachers may not be trained in, may not fully grasp critical thinking.
But to your point, and I want to complain.
Complain?
Complain.
Yes, and I hope Ministry of Education is listening to this.
He's hitting the sensor button.
I almost choked on my sliver.
Never mind, just say it.
What you said, history, fantastic.
My daughter's doing history.
Exactly what you're saying.
Thinking, the why, the what, how did it happen?
How does this event relate to that event?
Brilliant.
Geography on your hand is absolute trash.
The geography textbooks they're using now, absolute trash.
Why?
It's just pages and pages of facts to memorize.
I'm not kidding you.
So it's still rote?
Extremely rote.
It's just the textbook doesn't have any proper pictures in it.
It's more like walls and pages and pages of text.
So if any of our listeners out there, if you have your daughter doing the O level or sons,
any kids doing your O level, just have a look at it and you'll see the textbook.
It's absolute trash.
But physics and science is pretty good.
Oh lovely, bio and everything.
I only want my grouse against the joke.
I've written to the school and everything.
It's one of the teachers to just say, we use it as a guide.
We have our own notes, but that's the prescribed textbook.
It's beyond their pay grade.
So it goes back.
So once again, I think it is what it is.
No point complaining about what you can't change.
Now that we've talked about how the education system is like today and how it's changed,
and we can agree that I think we can, that MOE recognizes it and they're trying to make change.
They're trying.
So kudos to that.
That doesn't mean I'm blowing sunshine up their behinds.
I'm just saying that.
Yeah, credit the credit, it's due.
However, that being said, given the circumstance today,
and given that we're talking about Singaporeans per se,
10, 15 years from now when these school kids, your daughter, my son, goes out,
already been out there working, how do you think our workforce would look like?
At that point in time when we asked the question, at that point in time, hypothetically,
the problem with being Singaporean, what do you think is going to be like then?
Should we ask that question again?
I really don't know, you know, because right now I'm using this topic.
I'm approaching this topic about the problem about being Singaporean from an old curmudgeon,
two old guys, two Gen Z, Gen Xs, two old grumpy guys like Gen Xs,
the same way in the Muppet Show.
See, the very fact is the Muppet Show shows our age already.
The two old guys and the balcony, right?
I don't think the young people today even know who the two old fuckers are.
What do you want the grumpy?
That's complaining.
So to a Gen Z listening in, it's like these two old goats.
They probably don't give a shit about what we're saying.
Yeah, correct. So I really don't know what they're going to call me.
Oh, boomers.
But in 15 years time, I'm sure individually they'll do well.
If they embrace technology, if they embrace the changes,
and I think it is promising because Singapore is an environment where you can actually break out of,
you can break out and be successful in whatever you want to do if you put in the effort, like what you said.
It's a hard work.
Basically, hard work is still the formula, isn't it?
It's still the key to a lot of things.
Unlike some other countries, where you can do a lot of hard work,
but you're not of a particular race or you don't speak a particular language, right?
Then it's tough, you see?
So I'm not going to say which country it is, but you know,
sometimes the cards are stacked, the deck is stacked against you in those countries, but Singapore is like this.
So I think we'll do well. Singaporeans will do well.
Do you mean that?
Yeah, we'll do well. Overall, we will do well.
Cross your heart, man. Do you mean that?
Yeah, we will do well.
Okay.
Not everyone will do well, but we can do well if we put in the effort,
but it's a fast-changing environment and we have to learn to stop being so spoiled.
I'm very guilty of it.
I take the public transport and I complain.
I go to the food court now and I complain the serving is so small.
But it's a Singaporean pastime. I love being Singaporeans.
Because we complain. You love being Singaporeans because you complain.
I'm getting quite fucking sick of the fact that we are complaining.
To be honest with you, man, I mean, I am sick and tired of the...
You're complaining right now!
I am! Okay, fine. Granted, I'm complaining about the complainers.
I mean, think about this.
When we complain, why do Singaporeans complain?
The problem again of being Singaporeans.
To them lucky.
Huh?
To them lucky.
No.
No?
No. When we complain, it's because we want to be nannied.
And then, you know, when we want to be nannied, it means why isn't a government doing something about this?
Why isn't a government doing something about that?
And then, I always say, be careful what you ask for.
Because when you do that, yeah, the government will likely, you know, if they want to, they step in.
And then, what would they do?
If you want a government to take care of something, we have to regulate.
And when they have to regulate, you're going to lose certain amount of liberties.
Let's be honest here. You have to comply.
Everyone of us have to comply, right?
And then, what happens?
Then you start looking around you and you start seeing the four walls around you getting tighter and tighter and smaller and smaller.
And then you complain about it.
And then you complain about the fact that you can't breathe.
So, you know, I mean, they don't have to take care of everything.
We should be mature enough as a society to be able to handle our own shit.
And, you know, and sometimes some of these things, it's just this big word called tolerance.
Tolerate. Live and let live.
You know, enjoy each other for our differences.
And the way people go about doing the thing, so this virtue signaling, it's because...
Look, it's because you fan the fire, right?
And then you fan the fire, there's a lot more smoke signals coming out.
And then you say, oh, bad, bad. These people, bad, bad, bad.
Saying, who, what are you doing about this?
Government, come on in. What are you doing about this?
I mean, it's not virtue signaling here, man.
Sometimes it's about...
But sometimes it's not virtue signaling.
They just are in a negative phase, which comes to our second question.
No, no. They're in a negative phase. They don't want to admit it.
And then they use, they find some value in it.
They find some goodness in it.
And what I'm thinking, what I'm not happy about is the right thing to be unhappy about.
So therefore I go and copy-carve about it.
And the worst thing is these people, they congregate in the same spaces.
And they become each other's echo chambers.
Exactly. And then all the birds come together and start chirping together.
And suddenly becomes a... who can chirp louder?
Yeah, correct.
So to your point.
Yeah.
So, and especially this one, you know, if we look at the second topic, I'm going to jump into it.
Yeah. Which is, are foreigners stealing our jobs?
Kai, there you go.
Yes.
Which comes to an entitlement thing again.
Wow, this one is tight topic, man.
Tight topic.
Are foreigners stealing our jobs?
Can I say yes and no?
Okay.
Number one, what jobs?
Retiring jobs?
The cleaning jobs?
The clearing rubbish jobs?
Are they stealing our jobs?
The answer is no.
They're not because Singaporeans don't want to do those jobs.
So when you're complaining about...
Some people are complaining about foreigners stealing our jobs.
The answer is yes, they are taking the jobs that we don't want.
Okay. So let's settle that first.
Are foreigners taking our jobs? Yeah, it's fine.
Okay.
Then how about the good jobs?
The good jobs.
Look, every job, even the lower paying ones, the menial ones, are good jobs.
Let's not differentiate it that way.
Okay.
Let's talk about, when you say good jobs, let's find another definition for that.
Please do.
The positions, the executive positions.
That Singaporeans want.
Okay.
Can we boil it down to the PMAT positions?
Okay, the PMAT positions.
Okay, fine.
The PMAT positions, are they stealing our jobs?
Okay. The answer is, once again, why be our?
Our suggests that we deserve it.
It's our entitlement, it's our job.
So case in point, I know this guy.
He was in a company for five years.
They told him, you're going to be, you know, I'm going to reward you.
When the boss retires, I'm going to put you as country head.
Boss retires, they parachute this guy from the US in.
Okay.
And as country head.
And he says, see foreigners stole my job.
Okay.
Number one, was it his job?
Well, it was a position that not necessarily can be his.
Yeah, you're right, correct.
But because someone told him, or maybe he assumed it's going to be my job.
So yeah, number one.
Number two, you know, it's, so yeah, in a way, yeah, somebody took the job, which he thought that he was meant for him.
It was meant for him.
So that's true.
Okay. But it's a sense of entitlement.
Once again, it's my job when you've got people coming in elsewhere and it's a global, it's a global phenomenon.
It's a global mobility thing.
Okay.
Okay. So anyone can come in and see anyone's job.
Okay. So the point I'm trying to make is this thing that people still for us, still my, our job.
Okay.
As a certain entitlement to it.
What do you think?
Well, I think that this derogatory phrase that stemmed out the UK called bloody foreigners.
Because you know, in the UK, you hear that for decades, you know, people in England always go, bloody foreigners.
Neil Humphrey has a book on that.
It's a detective story.
It's a really good book.
And it's a phenomenon that is across the globe, not just in Singapore.
And you, I hear as well that the Australians, the Australians are also quite unhappy with, with, with.
Bloody foreigners.
With Asians coming in, taking in the jobs, you know.
But then again, as you, as we talked about earlier, the young executive given opportunity to work as an expatriate overseas and you refuse to take it.
The American guy in the example you just cited comes over, takes over your position or your promotion.
Is the expatriate in the US that took the opportunity to become an expatriate?
So that's one.
Okay.
Two.
Also on, okay, let me just get my thoughts together.
If you have, if you are good enough for the role, really good enough and yet so kind of raw, you can still grow better into that new role if he was first given an opportunity to get into it.
But there are companies, mostly MNCs, who won't let that happen.
They don't promote internally.
They bring in from either home office elsewhere or someone else recommended by the home office and bring them over.
Agreed.
Yeah.
And so on, on, well, if that's the case, then I say they're sad, you know.
And it does happen.
Yeah, a lot.
A lot.
Yeah, a lot.
So there's two, two sides to the coin here.
One is you don't want to be an expatriate.
Hello.
You could have taken over that guy's job.
There, who knows, right?
Possible.
Yeah.
But then again, there's also the other one that's a little bit more prevalent.
The very fact that companies today don't do a lot of internal promotions.
They will always have a new head coming in and the whole fucking thing changes.
So let me, let me tell you a true story, which got me so upset.
I almost banged the table and walked out of this client space.
So I was in a previous company and I was, because we, my previous company helped individuals who got retrenched to land new jobs.
So I went to talk to an HR VP, you know, okay.
This individual who was not Singaporean, but only in Singapore for one year.
Only in Singapore for one year.
Right.
The rest of the time she was out in her home country.
Right.
Okay.
And I was here to tell them about our program where we can refer candidates to you.
Good candidates who may have gotten retrenched, okay.
Who were really talented because the downsizing is not always about your, about performance.
The whole division goes, everyone goes.
Good performance, bad performance, everyone goes, right.
So I told her, I said, look, we would like to refer candidates to you.
Would you be okay with that?
She looked me in the, sweared in her face and said, oh, we don't like to hire retrenched people because they're no good.
Oh, and I said-
So even that is serotype.
Yeah.
And then I said, no, I want to correct you about that.
So I corrected her about their perception.
I said, no, they're not a lot of good performance.
And I was in the back of my mind, I was thinking, who has reached for your turn to be retrenched?
By the way, she was retrenched two years later.
Karma is a bitch.
I wanted to call up and go, hi, hi.
But, and then what she did, what she said next was shocking to me.
She said, oh, by the way, you know, even if there are openings here, we don't, we don't hire, we will bring someone in from our other countries to feel the back, the back feel.
And I was so upset with that.
Okay.
I was upset with that, that, and, and this is an individual who's only been in Singapore for a year.
Okay.
And she's really having the calm mentality.
I know we bring people in from our other, and this is a multinational company, huge one.
I was so upset with it that I said, okay, I think I've heard enough.
I got up and I walked off with my, with my sales executive and, and my sales executive asked me, Adrian, do you think it was rude to walk out?
I said, no, I was pissed off.
Sorry.
As a Singaporean, as a pro Singaporean.
Was this woman, was this HR person, was she Singaporean?
No, she's not.
She's not.
So, so to your point about companies hiring people.
So anyway, so two points came out of that.
I actually, this was when Teo Selak was the mayoral minister.
I bumped into him at an event about one month down the road and I shared his story with him.
First thing he told me was that, did you record it?
If you have it in recording, I'll get rid of her.
He said, we'll take action against her.
Okay.
But I said, I didn't record it.
Then he said, you can't, you can't record a conversation without the alibate knowing.
Yeah, I know.
The leaders, you know, he knew it, he could see it and he, they sent, I sensed their frustration as well.
And that's why the MOM has a policy about if you be, if a company misbehaves, they go on a blacklist.
So whatever they do, if they're trying to apply for more employment passes, they will get stonewalled.
But you see, this is where there's a problem for business owners, local Singapore, small medium enterprise, SMEs.
Yeah.
I think when we talk about whether foreigners are stealing our jobs, it is not about, I don't think people are upset about the menial work
because we all know that Singaporeans don't want to do those kind of work.
It's not about these guys.
We, the local businesses, need these guys.
Yeah.
And because of quotas and staff, right, these businesses get impacted in terms of costs because they have to hire Singaporeans as well.
Yeah.
That is an issue for these people.
But the gripe I feel, speaking as a citizen, yeah, it's not about these people.
It's about the PMET positions.
And people are upset about that.
What's the point of going to universities and coming out with your degrees and studying so hard?
Of course, it doesn't give you a passport to success in life, in your careers.
It's not about that.
The fact is that you think there would be greater opportunity.
And then I also believe, I also feel that there is this stupid thing that runs somehow unconsciously in a lot of Singaporeans' DNA.
Pinkerton syndrome.
Yes.
That's what I call the colonial mentality.
Yeah.
Even for our people, unconsciously, in my mind, the way I've, in my experience, I see the moment they have a white guy sitting there, they cannot speak properly.
They all try to put on an accent.
This is the end of Chapter 1. Catch Chapter 2 next week.
Mmm.