Alright, this has got me really hot under the collar

I received a trackback on the Wee Shu-minÂ cyber-drama entry I posted a couple of days ago.

I went to see the website, and it belonged to some Canadian dudes who were giving their opinions on the issue. You can read it here, but I am reproducing it to ease your reading:

The Wee Shu Min Sage

October 23rd, 2006

You have to love the scandals that come out of Malaysia and Singapore and how out of control they get. From Tammy Nyp to election censorship to this. Wee Shu Min, the daughter of a prominent MP, rants on her blog blasting another blog. And immediately she gets blasted to the point where she had to close the blog down. Then her bikini pictures are published all over the internet. All this for just a rant. People over there really love to create scandals.Â Â Â

Details here, here and here.

Posted in Blog(t) , Commentary(t) , Scandal(t) | No Comments Â»

Honestly, I hope that the owners of the website are not representative of all Canadians. If it is just a rant by a nobody, no one will give a hoot about what was mentioned. The problem here is that the rant embodied deeply entrenched issues in Singapore society. Granted that the bikini pictures were uncalled for, but the bottomline is that this is no bloody scandal. It’s a serious issue.

ByÂ comparing the Tammy sex video case to this, itÂ clearly shows your lack of knowledge on the matter. As a believer in freedom of speech, I respect your right to comment. However, my suggestion for your own good is to read up a little more before you comment, or else you end up looking like a fool. Of course, if you don’t mind looking like a fool, then don’t mind me calling you one.

By the way, Shu-min would have castigated you for spelling saga as sage.

Ed’s note: Those dudes probablyÂ realised that I got hold of their entry and quickly changed their title. What you see that’s reproduced above wasÂ taken before they made the change.

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This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 24/10/2006 at 12:50 am, and is filed under Ramblings. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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Comments (5)

#1 written by Layman
about 3 years ago

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Do not worry too much about it, some people want their hit counters to increase. You will notice that this WSM affair has generated so much internet traffic (good for Google Adsense), even the father has to say something which actually did not say much. Their headline text is designed for search engines. You are actually giving them too much exposure. I suggest that you should not be part of their scheme. There are people now using the MRT man and WSM events for their personal gains and not contributing to anything. The reality of making money is more important than having a social conscience.
#2 written by nctobo
about 3 years ago

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How one individual reacts does not mean that others within the group will react in the same way too, because that would simply be stereotyping. This goes the same for all other cultural groups as well. Internet media loves all forms of newsworthy material, factual or not. I guess the bottomline to note, has a lot to do with the misconception of culture.

Singapore is a rather conservative society based on religious and cultural taboos e.g. censorship of sexually suggesting material; this also explains why the NYP case was taken seriously. Likewise, Singaporean may have reacted negatively to the WSM saga, but we can’t expect non-Singaporeans to react in the same manner, simply because the basis of culture is defined differently. It’s like expecting another to follow one’s own set of beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviour, and ideals (which of course isn’t really fair).

As for Miss Wee, it may be just the case of the id running out of control behing the ego’s back, with the clueless superego failing to exert control.

From a Singaporean residing in Canada.
#3 written by Aaron Ng
about 3 years ago

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Dear nctobo,

I like your Freudian analysis!

Yes, I agree that different cultures may view different issues differently, but I think that to label this a scandal is ridiculous. Coupled with the condescending tone, it just makes one wonder about the maturity of the person who wrote that. In Singapore, our cultural diversity has at least taught us to be a little more sensitive. It’s fine to br frank, but it’s not fine to mock, especially when you don’t understand the background.
#4 written by Jimmy
about 3 years ago

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Tell the Canadians it’s Tammi for god’s sake lol. Not that it matters anymore – just let the poor girl live her own life.
#5 written by phil30k
about 2 years ago

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I’d like to put it into perspective.

An analogy you all may understand would be going to church, donating money to church, participating in church activities, volunteering time, evangelizing. The church is doing well, the church elders are paid well and they have the freedom to spend the funds as needed. They build more churches, the congregation grows and the church uses the money to finance businesses of church elders and they prosper.

Then you notice a problem in your community. A father has passed away and the wife is struggling to make ends meet. So you write an open letter to the church elders urging them to look into a way to address the needs of families who are going through times of trouble.

A church elder’s daughter responds. She says God helps those who help themselves. Stop pestering us for a handout. Don’t whine for money, if you want to be a saint, go support that woman yourself.

Later the church elder steps forward and supports his daughter’s point of view. He says his daughter may have been crude but the message was true. People have to stop expecting the church to give out hand outs or assist the needy. The have to learn to look after themselves.

The way you would react to that would be the way Singaporeans reacted to this.