Monsters Beneath the Skin

Casey wasn't the first foreign big mouth annoying the hell out of Singaporeans and he wouldn't be the last either. Where foreign expats are concerned, there are bad ones, there are good ones and that will not change in the future. That doesn't tell us much about foreigners, as if Singaporeans are really interested to know them better. If anything, the Anton Casey saga tells us more about ourselves more than foreign expats.


Now that the dust has settled, we should ask ourselves why we got so worked up with that 'poor people' comment. I am beginning to suspect that our Government's reluctance to draw the poverty line of Singaporeans because of they fear the consequences and see no benefits of doing so. Instead they are focusing on helping the 25% of Singaporeans that they defined as needy (revealed unwittingly?) Thus I'm convinced there is a poverty line drawn recently, if not all along. The Government didn't want you to know and perhaps now we can see why. After this Anton Casey incident, I am sure the last thing the Government wants to do is to call a portion of Singaporeans, "poor".


Poor people takes public transport. That is a sad fact and Singaporeans know that. I know not everyone who takes the train are that poor. There are people who chose to take public transport for practicality or prudent reasons, not that they cannot afford to drive a car to work. But that doesn't take away the fact that the average folks on the road are generally wealthier, or at least having a higher income at that moment, than the average Singaporeans on the trains and buses. I don't have the figures to show for that but I don't think it is difficult to agree on that. So why are we so pissed off when somebody tells us we are poor? Two reasons. 

1) We don't think we are poor. 
2) We feel that being poor is a shameful thing.

Basically these two points are the same thing. No one in the world enjoys being labelled poor (doesn't matter we are really poor or not) but especially so for Singaporeans. Perhaps after decades of decades being told we are the best, we have formed a unique materialistic Singaporean ways of thinking about ourselves. So our self righteous aura crank up a indignation self defense against the "Si ang mo" who dared to show Singaporeans who are the poor not being aware that Anton Casey is just a reflection of ourselves if we reach his economic status with the same materialistic conscious within us. We are Casey and he is us. Hard truth, people.


Unfortunately, though it doesn't feel good to hear that from the big mouth of Casey, our public transport does stink. Don't we feel so ourselves? Given the option of driving through the city in a convertible (even with haze) or smelling armpits in the MRT train, which will you take up if you have the luxury of the former option? If each of us is to fill up a feedback form for SMRT, the magnitude of our comments will dwarf Casey's.


I am not speaking up for Casey. He has his British humour and I have done my share of Singaporean humour to honour his effort. I will never condone foreigners throwing their weight around like as if they own the place no matter what his social standing is. I dropped these few points just to illustrate how inconsistent our sense of objectivity is. Most of us, being brought up in this system, see economic standings over a worth of a human being. The handful of us who make it to Casey's position will be the same cocky, snobbish bastard that looks down on majority of the Singaporean population. Under the skin colour, we are just the same, ugly materialistic monster.

16 comments:

  1. Nix,

    Nobody can tell you how much you are worth or how good you are as a person. I don't quite understand what all the fuss is about and why are people up-in-arms over a comment from a complete idiot.

    'So our self righteous aura crank up a indignation self defense against the "Si ang mo" who dared to show Singaporeans who are the poor not being aware that Anton Casey is just a reflection of ourselves if we reach his economic status with the same materialistic conscious within us. We are Casey and he is us. Hard truth, people"

    Amen. You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. The realization that we are not what we own is what is important, and thats something that even I struggled to get away from when I left SG because it has become so ingrained in each and everyone of us since young that our social standing and status comes from the labels we wear, the type of work we do and the houses we stay in define how good we are as a person and how we have lived our lives.

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    1. "You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. The realization that we are not what we own is what is important, and thats something that even I struggled to get away from when I left SG because it has become so ingrained in each and everyone of us since young that our social standing and status comes from the labels we wear, the type of work we do and the houses we stay in define how good we are as a person and how we have lived our lives."

      Hey Flo,

      You are absolutely right. Have you read this? http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

      I wonder how many of us will only realise what we have been chasing are the most insignificant things in life.

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    2. Nix, I am born and raised Catholic but this resonates so much with me.

      The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity :
      “Man surprised me most about humanity.Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
      Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”


      ― Dalai Lama XIV

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    3. That's philosophy not religion, don't worry about it :P

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    4. Enlightment of philosophy usually comes from religion.

      i feel the whole saga actually revolves on a person 修养over their nationality, skin color and lastly social status.

      and Anton Casey no longer works for HSBC. He used to, in the past. He no longer works there now. He works for Crossinvest Asia today.

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    5. "Enlightment of philosophy usually comes from religion."

      No it doesn't.

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    6. kacau u, prove it prease :d

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  2. everyone is entitled to his own opinion although sometimes it hurts. i do not think most of those highly paid ministers viewed the citizens as equals or any better than him.

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  3. Are some of you saying that what Casey did is justified? Sorry not in a million years. He is a very rude and obnoxious person. And there is a reason why "rude" and "obnoxious" appear in the English language - so that we can blast people like Casey.

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    1. No one is entitled to being a douche bag. It is a privilege that comes with consequences. According to sources (people who know him personally and/or worked with him) Anton Casey has been a scumbag as far as time remembers him. It's a matter of time he gets caught up and it happened.

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    2. how different does it makes u from anton casey if u were to use the words to scold him?

      thus the topic of the blog -- monsters under the skin

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    1. Heard recently one siao zhar bor drive into Singapore without clearing custom. We are no longer invincible like the past. Remember Michael Fay? Singapore didn't back down even when we got pressured by their government for leniency. Today, we let criminals who hurt our people get away scot free.

      If the government removed Casey's PR, there will be no such nonsense for a long time. But they are too soft to do so and Singaporeans know that. They are just focusing on getting him lose his job now.

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    2. Anton casey bolt out of singapore with ex-wife and kid, 1 am on 24th jan if i saw the twitt correctly.

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  5. You have the point that our SMRT stink when it is crowded with all sort of people. We complain SMRT is not giving people a comfortable ride. All these complains are justifiable, the intention is good to hope SMRT will try to improve it service over time. On the other hand, the intention of Casey's complaints is very unlike others. He is all out to belittle via facebooks, videos and it was not done once by several times on people who hardly knew him nor hurt him before. He crossed the bondary as guest in the host country. As such, the two scenarios are very different, the former with good intention, the later deliberately cast others in bad light.

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