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By Jeanette Tan | Yahoo! Newsroom,
In a recent hour-long phone interview with Yahoo! Singapore, former SMRT bus driver He Jun Ling opens up to Yahoo Newsroom to share why and how more than 170 bus drivers ended up going on a two-day strike against their employer on the morning of 26 November 2012. You can read Part One here. In this second part of the series, he shares his views on xenophobia and integration of foreign workers in Singapore.
The 33-year-old had more emotional words for his wife, though, remembering that while he was gone, she had to be breadwinner, mother and father to their daughter all at the same time. âI told her it must have been tough on her â she suffered quite a lot,â he said.
Why work in Singapore?
Back in 2011, as He mulled the decision to spend 2 years working abroad, away from his wife, daughter, parents, other relatives and friends, he said he had only heard good things about Singapore.
âWe had two modes of thinking about why we were inclined to go to Singapore to work: in terms of remuneration, we knew that we would earn more in Singapore,â he explained.
âThe other is the language barrier (in Singapore) wouldnât be as great as it would be elsewhere â after all, 70 per cent of the local population is Chinese, and our English is very poor, so we thought we would be able to integrate here faster. We all thought Singapore was a very good country; a really, really good one.â
On the first point, He saw it was true enough. He was able to send the bulk of his salary â amounting to more thanS $1,000 a month â back to his family, living off a remainder of about $400 for food, phone bills and his share of the broadband bill in the dormitory he shared with other drivers.
On days when he worked the morning shift, He was able to chat with his wife and daughter on QQ, a popular messaging platform used in China, and on other days, they spoke over the phone. These conversations, said He, were what kept him going despite his daily experiences and encounters with Singaporeans at work.
âItâs like we were lesser peopleâ
On the second point, He found he was considerably off the mark.
âFrom what Iâve seen, experienced and heard personally, Singaporeans donât view people from the mainland in a very positive light,â he said. âSome of them look down on us⦠there is a breakdown in communication between Singaporeans and Chinese people.â
He related incidents where he and several of his ex-colleagues faced harsh criticism on their driving from elderly passengers, some of whom told them to return to China if they couldn't drive properly.
âThese incidents gave us the impression that some Singaporeans really didnât welcome us,â said He.
He feels that Singaporeans have little idea of the struggles faced by foreign workers, noting that many Bangladeshi workers go without food because they earn too little.
âAfter my time there I ended up feeling that the way Singaporeans looked at and treated us made us feel quite uncomfortable,â he said. âItâs like we were lesser people than them⦠as if we were second-class citizens.
âWhether youâre from China, Bangladesh or India, Singaporeans treat foreign workers very passively,â he continued. âThey feel that problems experienced by foreign workers should be handled by their employers only and are less helpful when it comes to problems we face⦠this is something I feel isnât too good.â
âA lot of online comments accuse Chinese nationals of stealing Singaporean rice bowls, and that our coming here aggravates the stress some locals face in searching for jobs here, so from that perspective I do understand where the angst comes from,â he said.
âBut the government knows it needs to rely on foreign workers â there are a lot of jobs Singaporeans wonât do, and we are here with the backing of the government to do these jobs. And when you bring in so many foreign workers, of course there will be problems or issues, so you need to think of contingencies to accommodate them and to ensure that (social integrity is maintained),â he noted.
He was also forgiving of the negative comments made online against him and the other 170 bus drivers who went on strike last November.
âI also can understand where theyâre coming from,â he said. âAfter all, Singapore is their country, and they would definitely be unhappy when foreign workers create unrest. But they might not have understood the background and the issues leading up to our action⦠so I really can understand their reaction, where it was negative.â
When asked, two of He's three companions, who served six weeks in jail with him and travelled home a week earlier, shared similar sentiments on the issue.
"Singaporeans are like frogs in a well," wrote Liu Xiang Ying in an email interview with Yahoo! Singapore.
"They didn't treat me with a friendly attitude, and I was often looked down upon. (In responding to the strike) Those who were more fluent
in Chinese were slightly better, while those who spoke English tended only to look at the end-result (the strike) and not the process."
Liu, who worked in Singapore for more than 4 years, said he would not have come to the Republic had he known about the "severe lack of freedom" and workers' rights. "However, I don't regret coming to Singapore to work, because I observed and learned a lot there," he continued. "I can only say (in reference to his participation in the strike) that when they discover the truth, they will understand why I had to do this... it's a matter of fighting for our rights and dignity."
Added Wang Xianjie, "Any foreign worker with courage and a sense of uprightness would confront such unfair and unreasonable treatment."
However, He said it was not all bad and there were many Singaporeans who came forward to help him and his three compatriots. Assistance ranged from bailing them out to finding them tempora
temporary housing in Kallang for the three months their case wore on in court. âI do think the environment there is very good. Even after everything that happened and my return home, I still think (Singaporeâs) infrastructure and transport is very good. The roads are orderly, living standards for locals are high, landscaping is beautiful and the streets are generally safe. I still think it is so.â
@ Dog Lover, What you referred to as Chink must be your Mainland friends recently come over from China who speak no English and no proper manners and behaviors of a free world, the people I associate never call people Chink though. May be there's a problem with your commie gang. The Chinese ethnicity I come across there are either professionals, eg doctors, lawyers, professors or successful businessmen.
@ Thanks to WNL's interesting answer and links.
In short, living in a corrupted place as China, one has no social protection/security nor peace of mind but full of unexpected dangers and risks. Which liar(s) still claiming 1-party dictatorship is good??
@ coolwid forgets to tell also her mother is doing business in China through CCP's connection, silly rant. She's wasting US' taxpayers money to promote an inhuman and mass murderer regime. If she could give facts to substantiate China is not practicing inhuman and mass murdering towards Chinese People, she would not be named silly idiotic kid.
Answer
They prefer to work at driving busses in Singapore, where being treated as a lower-class citizen is completely understandable (since they are NOT citizens of Singapore; they are VISITORS, and taking jobs from the local people), because it's safer operating a Singaporean bus in Singapore's streets than operating one in the nuthouse known as The People's Republic of China.
See references:
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbcnews.com/51480162/#51480162
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/01/world/asia/china-bus-fire
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-01/13/content_16110493.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qbxkY8z-vM
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100721-228236.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-05-17/china-bus-explodes-after-crash-14-dead/2439812
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire
http://www.euronews.com/2012/12/25/eleven-children-killed-in-china-school-bus-crash/
They prefer to work at driving busses in Singapore, where being treated as a lower-class citizen is completely understandable (since they are NOT citizens of Singapore; they are VISITORS, and taking jobs from the local people), because it's safer operating a Singaporean bus in Singapore's streets than operating one in the nuthouse known as The People's Republic of China.
See references:
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbcnews.com/51480162/#51480162
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/01/world/asia/china-bus-fire
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-01/13/content_16110493.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qbxkY8z-vM
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100721-228236.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-05-17/china-bus-explodes-after-crash-14-dead/2439812
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire
http://www.euronews.com/2012/12/25/eleven-children-killed-in-china-school-bus-crash/
Why with ever increased levels socialism do we also see more frequent mass shootings in America?
Thunderous
Is it at least far to point out the obvious?
Answer
Save your breath.
Everyone but unthinking gun-grabbers intuitively concedes that all predator-humans hope their targets are unarmed, whether the predator is a Lanza, Stalin or Hitler:
-Thomas Jefferson, "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776: ââLaws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Even pacifists believed human beings should have a right to defend themselves. Mahatma Gandhi said: "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." An Autobiography, pg 446.
But liberals and democrats will always religiously cling to their dogmatic faith that âmore guns leads to more crimeâ no matter the amount of evidence in their face, including:
-9/27/01 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/156671â¦"Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept"; âIn addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons.â
-1/15/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/26568⦠BBC: "âIf guns are outlawed only outlaws will have gunsâ" may prove prophetic. Gun crime in the UK is soaring even though it has the strictest gun control laws of any democracy.â
Nine years later:
-12/17/12 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-⦠UKâs violent crime rate per 100,000 people is 2,034; USâs is 466.
-9/25/10 Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5c1b6a72-⦠In 1982, the Kennesaw [Georgia] City Council passes law requiring households to own at least one firearm. The result? 3/28/01 http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/arti⦠FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that Kennesaw crime rate has remained far below cities of similar size.
2/2/11 Daily Telegraph:
-âAs of this month, some 40 ships are in their hands and more than 800 crew held captive in these seas south of the Gulf of Aden.
-âThe safest ships of all are flying the Russian flag: armed guards aboard them simply blow pirate boats out of the water and leave any survivors to drown. Attacks on Russian vessels have abruptly ceased.â
-7/25/12 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-07-â¦Since 1950 all but one mass-murders in the U. S. where more than three people died were committed in gun-free zones. The Gun-Free Schools Zone Act was passed in 1990.
9/25/12 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5c1b6a72-c5eb-â¦
âBut almost 30 years after the law [which mandates that all households own at least one firearm for self-protection] was passed, it is still in place and still popular, not least because Kennesawâs crime rate has remained disproportionately low, even as the townâs population swelled from 5,000 in 1982 to almost 35,000 now. According to the latest FBI statistics, Kennesaw recorded 31 violent crimes â mainly robberies and aggravated assaults â during 2008. In other similar-sized local towns the figures were much higher â 127 in Dalton and 188 in Hinesville. For property crimes â largely burglaries and thefts â Kennesaw recorded 555 while Dalton had 1,124 and Hinesville 1,802.â
-11/23/12 http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/â¦Between 2006-2011 gun purchases in Virginia increased 73%. During the same period gun-related crimes fell 24%.
1/6/13 http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/01/06/senator-feinsteins-all-out-assault-on-gun-rights/: According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, the firearm crime rate dropped from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. This has occurred as more and more citizens have armed themselves under right-to-carry State laws. While major crimes show continuing decline in those States, this phenomenon parallels a major crime rise in heavily gun-controlled cities.
Save your breath.
Everyone but unthinking gun-grabbers intuitively concedes that all predator-humans hope their targets are unarmed, whether the predator is a Lanza, Stalin or Hitler:
-Thomas Jefferson, "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776: ââLaws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Even pacifists believed human beings should have a right to defend themselves. Mahatma Gandhi said: "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." An Autobiography, pg 446.
But liberals and democrats will always religiously cling to their dogmatic faith that âmore guns leads to more crimeâ no matter the amount of evidence in their face, including:
-9/27/01 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/156671â¦"Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept"; âIn addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons.â
-1/15/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/26568⦠BBC: "âIf guns are outlawed only outlaws will have gunsâ" may prove prophetic. Gun crime in the UK is soaring even though it has the strictest gun control laws of any democracy.â
Nine years later:
-12/17/12 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-⦠UKâs violent crime rate per 100,000 people is 2,034; USâs is 466.
-9/25/10 Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5c1b6a72-⦠In 1982, the Kennesaw [Georgia] City Council passes law requiring households to own at least one firearm. The result? 3/28/01 http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/arti⦠FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that Kennesaw crime rate has remained far below cities of similar size.
2/2/11 Daily Telegraph:
-âAs of this month, some 40 ships are in their hands and more than 800 crew held captive in these seas south of the Gulf of Aden.
-âThe safest ships of all are flying the Russian flag: armed guards aboard them simply blow pirate boats out of the water and leave any survivors to drown. Attacks on Russian vessels have abruptly ceased.â
-7/25/12 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-07-â¦Since 1950 all but one mass-murders in the U. S. where more than three people died were committed in gun-free zones. The Gun-Free Schools Zone Act was passed in 1990.
9/25/12 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5c1b6a72-c5eb-â¦
âBut almost 30 years after the law [which mandates that all households own at least one firearm for self-protection] was passed, it is still in place and still popular, not least because Kennesawâs crime rate has remained disproportionately low, even as the townâs population swelled from 5,000 in 1982 to almost 35,000 now. According to the latest FBI statistics, Kennesaw recorded 31 violent crimes â mainly robberies and aggravated assaults â during 2008. In other similar-sized local towns the figures were much higher â 127 in Dalton and 188 in Hinesville. For property crimes â largely burglaries and thefts â Kennesaw recorded 555 while Dalton had 1,124 and Hinesville 1,802.â
-11/23/12 http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/â¦Between 2006-2011 gun purchases in Virginia increased 73%. During the same period gun-related crimes fell 24%.
1/6/13 http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/01/06/senator-feinsteins-all-out-assault-on-gun-rights/: According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, the firearm crime rate dropped from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. This has occurred as more and more citizens have armed themselves under right-to-carry State laws. While major crimes show continuing decline in those States, this phenomenon parallels a major crime rise in heavily gun-controlled cities.
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