I have missed writing the diary, a function of a rather stressful and purely self-imposed extraction from my comfort zone in Singapore. Moving three different apartments in as many weeks, missing out on more horse racing with the Queen, and moving 2,791, has led me to question why, at the age of 39, I am embarking on another start up.
If I am honest it is less to do with ego this time than with a sense that I must keep challenging myself, or I will atrophy in the uber comfortable confines of Singapore. Arriving back from Beijing to Singapore two weeks ago I realized just how easy it is to relax in an environment where really all major decisions and threats have been neutralized by warm weather and omnipresent government control. As the latest elections in Singapore ‘heat’ up the main debate is happening on-line, but journalist Lee u-wen of the Today newspaper worries about Bloggers, ‘They're anonymous, they are eager to comment, but do they know the rules? According the Parliamentary Elections Act bloggers ‘are legally not allowed to indulge in anything that can be construed as campaigning. ..Nor can blogs conduct "political advertising". Listening to Power 98 with fresh ears, I heard all the recruitment advertising for the army – I’d forgotten that one of the main stations is Singapore Armed Forces Radio. The patronizing tone, the false American accents and the absence of any issues being discussed on any of the stations reminded me immediately of the China International radio in Beijing – these two states are run in parallel lines and somehow the perpetual dumbing down reduces one to aquiesence.
As I moved out of my China-town apartment and into St. Martins Lodge, the stability of the Singapore political system seemed more of a guarantee than a threat. I bought the 3 bed apartment at the top of Orchard Road as a base for myself as I headed to Beijing, but I hadn’t envisaged the strength of longing that I would have for actually settling in. Sonya, one of the team at EASTWEST, urged me to organize a housewarming party, and as I watched Queenie face paint friends I knew that she was right to encourage me. Jim Littel, instrumental in the Beijing housewarming 2 weeks prior, observed that I have a habit of holding parties in empty spaces – and that’s kind of how life feels right now; 2 new spaces for new opportunities.
Some of my inspiration comes from the sense that I am not the first to do this, far from it in fact, and indeed I am sometimes embarrassed it has taken me so long. Singapore is the 7th largest trade partner of China. Temasek Holdings, established in 1975 to own and manage the Singapore Governments assets, has invested over US$4.2bn in China but this is dwarfed by the US$33.15bn in bilateral trade each year, although in fairness it appears that nearly 90% of that is Chinese goods being sold or shipped via the ports of Singapore. There are some 1,217 projects that Singapore companies have invested into China, and I guess that with my little venture we can make that 1,218, as EASTWEST is technically a Singapore company.
I mentioned my latest exploits to Daisy Goh, Deputy Director International Operations of the Economic Development Board, as we placed our S$5 bets at the Queen Elizabeth II horse races on Saturday. The British High Commissioner had kindly invited me. I thanked him that day shortly after he was knighted by the Queen, becoming Sir Alan Collins. I asked him if he had been slightly nervous kneeling before an 80 year old lady waving a length of sharp metal about his head, and it occurred to him then that he had been in some danger and it rather added to the occasion. Daisy and I were pleased to place winning bets in the US$275,000 Queen Elizabeth Cup, and I chose to see it as a good omen for my own race to get EASTWEST established in Beijing. Daisy is an interesting and well travelled mandarin of the EDB, having studied and worked in Paris and been responsible for negotiations with Lucas Film and other creative industry initiatives, and it was with pleasure that I accompanied her in the High Commission Jaguar back to town from the Kranji race course, overlooking the Straits of Johor.
On the drive back, Daisy echoed Ken Livingston comments, Mayor of London who said on opening Mayoral offices in Beijing and Shanghai, “I view closer relationships with China as the very highest strategic policy for London.” I took these words, and the winning of S $14 on the Queens Cup, to be encouragement as I boarded Air China 970 from Singapore to Beijing – this is the overnight flight that leaves at 00:15 and arrives at 06:00 and promises no sleep as the seats fit Asian behinds and the trolley dolleys wheel through when they should in theirs. It was only halfway into the 30 minute trip at dawn to JianWai SOHO, sipping my Starbucks latte, that I remembered that in order to reduce my luggage to a prudent 20.7kg I had stowed my tennis and squash rackets in the overhead locker. These were now en-route to Singapore no doubt. By the way - there is no English language phone number on the Air China website – not any, and certainly not for left luggage.
All this moving has resulted in me losing several things, and forgetting others, in a way that I have found disturbing not for the loss of a material possession but rather it has lead me to question whether after 10 years in the comfort zone I have not lost something else. Ever the eternal optimist, in researching this diary I discovered that if the fortune of Bill Gates was stacked in US$1.00 bills it would reach from Singapore to Beijing, 2,791 miles. Coincidence – or just a comforting thought – I know which I will believe.
NOTES
1. "They are anonymous, they are eager to comment, but do they know the rules?" Lee U-Wen, TODAY Online, 18 March 2006
2. ibid
3. The Straits Times, page 51, 4 March 2006
