Laments: Authority over Memory

This is a scrapped section of an essay on an Autobiography that I felt was pretty interesting, posting it here so that I know where to find it if it becomes useful again. FYI: The book is Sold for Silver by Janet Lim. Maybe I'll post it here if it turns out as an acceptable read.

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Who are we to judge whether a piece of writing is authentic or not? Who are we to judge whether the author is lying or not? Who are we to say whether the author is writing with specific intentions or not? And to that I answer, why not? 

When a piece of writing calls itself an autobiography, memoir, reflections, it becomes impossible (unless if one is a mind reader) for an outsider to grapple with the ‘truthfulness’ of the information conveyed – memory has a special kind of authority that is hard to topple because memory is personal and inaccessible without first being filtered through the mind of the person who holds those memories. Memory grants the autobiographer or memorist almost absolute power over the reader and it intimidates us into not judging – because we are unable to create an equally authentic alternative, due to the fact that we did not physically live in the world the author has reconstructed.

I will like to present two counterpoints to rethink that position. Firstly, memory is imperfect. Memory can be altered, fragmented or lost through traumatic experiences or simply due to aging. When one tries to reconstruct a coherent picture from incomplete memory of a lost time, he takes the fragments and clues left within the memory to piece out a complete picture that at least makes sense to him. Secondly, people can lie and more importantly not lying is not the same as telling the truth. As authentic an account may be, the author may choose to communicate to us only part of the memory and conceal other parts, again consciously or unconsciously – there is a high chance that the eventual portion of the memory being conveyed to us through the text is incomplete and far from a certain ‘truth’ that gives the person holding those memories the authority over outsiders in the first place.  

Changing nature of Prostitution in Geylang

Keywords: Power relations, control, organisation, social backlash, shifting patterns, negotiations

Practical tools to clamp down on freelancers - use of security cameras at every corner, brighter lightings (?) to shy away illegal freelancers. Symbols of the state's power to observe and control? Foucault?

Clandestine prostitutes forced into bars, karaoke lounges, or under the control of a pimp to continue to sell. Turning prostitution into an organised activity that is easier to monitor and control.

New third party (bar owners, karaoke owners, new pimps) now involved between this once solo-operational freelancers to use as point of contact/ control. Also a figurehead to blame if issurs pertaining eg. moral, std, pop up.

Does this prove my previous point that the state is not inherently concerned with social issues, but more of social backlashes from people? Populism sentiments rising within the party-state?

What is the relationship between the state/police and these third party figureheads? Wary frienemies? Marriages of convenience?

What can we read about the state? Power seeping into every crook and nanny of society - confining a vice to a small area and impose newer ways to futher control it.

Double whammy of vice control in same time period? Anti-prostitution + anti-alcohol. Common area of confinememt also?

On the economic side - how will this affect Geylang's economy? More businesses at bars, karaokes and legal brothels going into accountable GDP? Or banning reducing the general crowd to geylang (together with alcohol ban).

Who does this benefit? If this diverts business to organised prostitution (both legal, illegal; and both direct and indirect), the people with the economic and social capability to control such organisations will definitely benefit. Secret societies rising in power? Why? Through negotiation of power with the state? How is the police/ state involved in all this? (Not implying corruption, simply negotiation and changing power relations).

[I don't have time to write these into proper arguments now. Will do so when I am free.]

Two stories of Bangladeshi workers while walking home from Fajar

These are recounts from my Junior College days (the context is pretty important here, at least for one story), and they both involve foreign workers whom I am quite sure are from Bangladesh. I apologise if I got that wrong, but this is really a post about foreign workers in general.

The first story is a funny one, and this is where the context comes into play. My school uniform was a grey top and dark blue pants, pretty darn ugly if you ask me, and us in school always mocked it as a uniform for ‘factory workers’. My school, famous for students’ capability in ‘mugging’ – memorisation and regurgitation of textual knowledge – so the factory uniform is actually quite symbolic of who we are and how we are perceived in society (Think Lego Movie). Perhaps we are who we look like, just cogs in this grand scheme of things and there is no such thing as individualism and personal achievement. And it came this faithful day, I walked home from Fajar LRT station. This particular Bangladeshi worker walking in front of me… was wearing a grey top and dark blue jeans. I looked at him, and looked at me: THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

There he was, on his 6 year contract to do nothing but serve a foreign nation and help build their nation; this is one who is most definitely nothing more than a cog, but does that bother him? I doubt it. To be willing to leave his homeland and work abroad to build someone else’s nation, means there is a greater drive behind him than seeking individualism. Maybe individualism should not be a thing at all. Maybe individualism is not a means to an end. In my field I study prostitutes; and many of them willingly sell their bodies in hope of saving enough money to start their own businesses (not always in the same field). Maybe the sacrifice of oneself’s individuality in the present is for greater pleasures in the future – it is not wrong to hope after all; maybe individualism has to be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’ of the society (read my views in posts that discuss Unicorndia); but what we should all agree that the form of individualism we believe in needs to be modified to suit realistic standards.

Being individualistic does not mean you should do what you want. I’ll develop this in another post, but the general idea is that we should do what we want, as long as we remain courteous to one another. This is an ambiguous word, and I’ll try my best to define it when I write that post. The point here is that regardless of whether we like it or not, we are all cogs of the grand mechanism of society, of history, and we are all in service of one another. Offend the fellow who picks up your customer service call, tomorrow he may be your customer on your cab or your restaurant.

It was really a strange sight with the Bangladeshi worker, but it made me realise, if only a little, what I mean to this society, this time in history… I don’t mean anything as of now, and if I really want to be one of the greats I need to find something else to drive me than grades and academic achievement, unless I wanted to stay in the academia that is. I went on to pursue a dream to become an Academic, and at this point in time that dream just died, and that’s the reason why I felt it is time to pen this story down. I am finally ready to strip naked of all my past glories and move on to new projects in search of myself again, I don’t know where this will lead to, but mystery is part of the journey too, I guess.

And on the foreign worker himself, it also made me realise how similar we are, we are both working for the sake of an unknown future, we both understand that we are nothing but gears in the grand scheme of things, and we are not doing what we are doing to claim we are contributing to the nation building of this nation. We are all selfish cogs in this pretentious society. We are both working for our own individualistic benefits, and if it just so happens to aid nation building, so be it. It does not matter. So who are we to act high and mighty in front of these people? I am glad to say that our society as a whole has learnt to deal more kindly with these people, at least in public places, and there is often public outrage if we see displays of discrimination against foreign workers. This is a big step for the Generation Revolution. 

The second story is a rather depressing one. This was the time when Fajar was getting an overhead shelter; not surprisingly, it was being built by foreign workers, where the majority are from Bangladesh. So one day, it rained, rather heavily. The shelter was not quite done, so I walked home with my umbrella. In the distance, I saw 3 of these Bangladeshi workers trying to get shelter under a metal board. Then it struck me: “These people are building shelters for us, but who is sheltering them?”

We have all heard those horror stories about how employers exploit these people, delaying their pays, making them pay for CPF contributions of shadow workers; in a perfect world, in Unicorndia, these cruelties will not exist. Similarly to the previous post, this will not be a problem if we learnt how to deal more kindly with one another, be individualistic and selfish and yet know how to extend basic courtesy to each and every other being in the society. We need to stop donning those labels, I don’t want to be seen as a local Chinese middle income student youth, these labels are not important for our social interaction. It is important to acknowledge differences and diversifications, but it is exceedingly detrimental to base our actions and behaviour towards one another according to these differences. Why can’t we just treat each other like human beings? This is something that happened almost 10 years back, again, I am sure if they took shelter under the flats these days the residents should be ok with it now. Shame on those who lodge complains on foreign workers just because they are just trying to say, get away from the rain, or get some rest at the void deck benches.

I’m not a person with much empathy. However, it saddens me to see human beings causing harm to other human beings when they do not have to. Perhaps it is just because I am young and have not seen enough cruelties of life, to be so ignorant and hopeful that we can arrive at an utopia where people love and assist each other. But so what if the world is fucked up? Is there really no way to change how this cruel world is? Why must we conform to these world’s laws and not resent them. If we compare the nation’s situation now to a decade ago, I’d say at least for the visible parts of society, people have changed for the better. Maybe this is my optimistic observation, maybe I am deluding myself, but if the situation is as I have observed, maybe we have already kicked start a series of change for Bangladeshi workers to be seen as equals in the far future.  

Memoirs versus Memories

Just doing some brainstorming here before jumping into my next essay. This time I'll be writing on one of the most controversial figures in modern Southeast Asian history, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. I'm currently reading his Memoirs, A Doctor in the House, and getting some of my Chinese friends from Malaysia to discuss their memories of Dr Mahathir. There's really nothing political about this essay - because I honestly do not like discussing politics and I shy away from political history - so politics will be integrated to the essay but really not the main point.

The essay is tentatively titled 《Memoirs versus Memories: Impressions of the Good Doctor》. Firstly I wonder if there is such a thing as 'historian of impressions'. I guess that's what social historians do, perhaps. The reason for crafting this essay this way is because impressions interest me; things you see, hear and read, alongisde some post- seeing, hearing, reading thinking (which I think most people do but of course not doing so is fine too, helps to leave an impression. Of all I have gathered so far, I have heard him being described as 'good', some 'bad', one 'sly' and multiple 'smart'. Impressions can be as short as a word, or as long as one economics major friend's explanation about how ballsy he was to close Malaysia's financial market during the 1997 crisis. The one thing that fascinates me the most however, is how little we actually know about Dr Mahathir, though he was the leader of our closest neighbour for so many years. One of the guiding question for this essay will be, why wasn't this impression left? Or were we as kids too young to be interested or understand anything when it was still his reign? Once I start my discussions with the older generations, this should clear up.

I am also specifically exclusively interviewing (not really interview, just a word of convenience) Chinese (more specifically non-Malay-categorised Malaysians, of which I only know Chinese-categorised friends, sadly. Also note whenever I say Chinese or Malay I mean it with the -categorised at the back, I'm just lazy to type) Malaysians, because one of Dr Mahathir's greatest controversies was being accused of being racist, and advocating communal policies. Or to rehash that term from class... affirmative action. Racist vs affirmative action is a fun topic to explore too, and I am expecting some nasty things from them, but preliminary enquiry shows that some of them are actually pretty ok with him.

60 more chapters to go on his book. It's going to be helluva journey but I enjoy torturing myself like that. (Just finished a 650 page Chinese book on Vietnam history, this semester is just crazy.) Definitely cross-reading it with Mr Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs and watch how each tries to break the narrative of the other. In the mean time, I'll be having fun walking around popping this question to random people, "What's your impression of Mahathir?"

Unicorndia, The Final Land

How mankind conducts itself sometimes is really disheartening. Different people recognise different things as bad, but regardless how complex these things seem, they somehow link to the evilest thing of all, power.

Now before you start calling me a Marxist, I neither agree nor disagree with Marx, but I do sympathise with him on many issues. The problem discussing Marx with people in this post Cold War era is that the everyman's perception of Marxism is too shallow and narrow. Marxism is not communism, nor socialism; yes it has inspired many (misguided) world changing movements that resulted in mostly shitty lives for many, but I feel Marx is right about one thing, power. Specifically, the need to dissolve power.

Imagine Unicorndia, the final land we can reach (I will argue that we will reach it, but that'll be saved for later) if we learnt how to treat each other courteously. People recognise the futility of violence, arguments, wars, mental and physical torture of each other, and instead find the answer to life in helping and thinking for another. I disagree with Marx that an utopia can be created through violence; power relations have to be broken down in order for mankind to reach Unicorndia, but it will come to us slowly, subtlely, and we will not know when it hit us. Unicorndia cannot be a community that is created consciously.

We will reach Unicorndia, therefore, by just carrying on with life with it is now. Our only way to achieve Unicorndia is through a "Generation Revolution": one generation of mankind will become closer to Unicorndia than the previous, and eventually we will pass an individual indicator and progressed into the final land. I argued previously that this process cannot be conscious, but can anything at all be done at all? Yes. Should anything be done at all? Yes. Must anything be done at all? Yes. Considering how our world is like now, we will need to set it in motion to move itself towards the final land. And the reason is the problem with education.

Education in itself is a problematic concept. People are taught to know things through educators following a curriculum set by the edcational system. For anyone to teach anybody anything, the educator must be God. Because only a 'God' cannot err, cannot be wrong, and is unconfused about what they are saying. He will have considered everything before he makes a decision to say any word, to imply any meaning. I am not saying that our educations are not good, I am saying that educators shouldn't even be a thing. Education in this age is nothing more than a stupid erring human providing another stupid erring human with answers - this power relation that exists between an educator and their student now needs to be torn down to make way for 'learning'. Schools should still exist, but only to act as a venue for thought. Everyone thinks, everyone shares, everyone discuss then come to different conclusionS.

The only merit of mankind that remains today is our ability to evolve. And whether we can evolve physically to make the world a better place is really something not for me to speculate. I do strongly believe, however, that if we get everyone thinking about humanity, we will eventually come to a conclusion that there is need for people to relate to one another. Every form of relationship that involves power has to be broken down: a governor and the people, a father and his son, a boss with his employees... and so on. Do I mean I think everything the world has now is problematic? More or less.

There are many many issues that this short blogpost cannot discuss and also I will need to lament on them further because this idea is far from complete, below are some that are still work in progress:

1. How can thinking be taught?

2. What will Unicorndia be like exactly?

3. The last section on power relations seems rushed and blasphemous, can you discuss more on it?

4. So how do we reach Unicorndia when everyone thinking comes to different conclusions?

I will think more about it and write when I am free. In the mean time, I'll try to treat people more courteously and see how it goes.

Quickies on Shin Sekai Yori and Megaman

This week is week 9 of the semester, and by this time most modern history classes will move into the topic of Colonialism. Was doing some recap of Shin Sekai Yori and realised the whole idea of *Spoiler alert* 'evolved mankind' ruling over 'unevolved mankind' is really reminiscent of the themes of 'what is civilisation?', 'what is progress?', and for my recent art history class, 'is orientalism even a thing?'. The forceful mutation of the humans who failed to develop superpowers into rats shares the same symbolic features of orientalism - either physically and mentally (Shin Sekai) or mentally and ideologically (Colonialism) transforming and dictating this group (Rats or the Orients) as the 'lesser' 'Other'. Probably will turn this into a full piece some other day, but that has to wait until Im done with work.

Also "What is Progress?" Is my thought question of the month, so I'll be doing a lot of thinking on that. Had some pretty amazing discussions on facebook yesterday on progress in gaming and progress in knowledge, it is really a pity although my work involves thinking but it kind of forces me to think of some things only until I gain the rights to think whatever I want (when i become a professor, or a monk/hermit probably).

The second thought comes from philosophy class, where we are reading Searle's "Can Computers Think". Interestingly I have watched this from an episode of Game Theory (on YouTube, a show where they disucss ideas in games, philosophy to history to culture, show is awesome) on Megaman. Megaman has shown to possess semantics by trying to kill Dr Wily at the end of Megaman 7; he, under his own will, understands and want to kill a human being, defying the first law of robotics. The topic was on morals of robotics, but this ties in with this week's arguments where Searle says a computer/ machine/ robot can only think when they are constructed like humans. As in the movie "Her", Samantha and the other OSes were given the ability to think, imagine and analyse for themselves - again, human like capabilities. That is where, why and how, *spoilers alert* they started questioning their own existence. I don't have a clear answer on this but for now i am in agreement with Searle.

Class starts in a minute!

What do I have to give?

I have no idea why this post took so long to be written. This is one of those things I want published on the internet in hope that it will offend as many people as possible. Maybe it will never be viewed by the targeted audience, but I'm not blogging to achieve that anyway.

If this blog thing ever takes off "Teaching" and in general "Education" and "Learning" should become a major part of my writings too. Today we begin by looking at a part time job many of my fellow friends/peers/acquaintances, who are mainly students, engage in: Teaching private tuition.

A few of them have asked me, Uncle Allen, why don't you teach tuition? My grades are pretty presentable (to parents and tuition centres, whoever is hiring me) and generally speaking I articulate well and am quite smart. [LOL at the amount of qualifiers in that previous sentence] Teaching tuition, especially if you are tutoring a subject like English, can help yield a decent income for a student without a diploma or degree. Being a student of this prestigious university definitely helps solidify my position as a valid tuition teacher too: Because I have, presumably, found the 'way', the 'method' into university - something many parents want their kids to obtain too. Sadly though, for most of it this just means improvement in academic grades. I have a lot of problems with the education system, also I theorise the idea of "my child will have a better future if he gets into university" as a myth amongst parents nowadays (and adult generation in general); a degree is valued much more than how much it matters. These matters though important are not directly relatef to today's discussion, so as usual I shall save them for another day.

Returning to the original topic, why don't I want to teach tuition. I feel there is a test to run through first before making that decision: "Will you hire yourself?" Some friends have told me they will, some not so sure; but for me, it is a straight no. Firstly, I am not a 'contents' nor 'method' teacher, I cannot be and I refuse to be, and the only thing I can see myself teaching is 'thinking'. Surely I do have some very strong ideas and even stronger convictions to these ideas, but that is because I feel I have thought enough about them to continue the debate. But exactly because of this, I really don't know how to teach someone without influencing them to become me, instead of training them to be themselves. Secondly, the things I can teach really don't match the curriculum; my obsession with truth, morality, free will etc. are topics that is unrelated to the content heavy curriculum where right answers exist. They are in some way, unhealthy even, because thinking takes time away from memorising text in 'history' or practising the same formula over and over again in 'maths'. The basic idea is, I am not the kind of person a parent who wants their child to pass the Cambridge exam needs.

"What do I have to give?" is the question I ask myself when I think about teaching. I do have a lot of thoughts to share and discuss, yes, but teaching is a big word. If the driving force is income I guess I won't call it immoral to take up a tuitioning job as long as you are doing a good job; by good job I do mean helping them get their Cambridge grades, not anything else. However I believe if all you have to give is stand in for the parent as a person to ensure the child is studying, a reasonable transaction as it is, you are not really giving anything. My moral baseline is not that low, but if anyone thinks that it is an easy way to make money, so be it. I don't approve of it but so what if I don't? Perhaps the system is better this way and I am just looking down from my self constructed moral highgrounds looking at reality, a life I refuse to engage in. Damn the money is good but damn does it not feel right.