Singapore ‘politician’ (who has never won anything): I will stop using homophobia as my party platform if you don’t field an openly lesbian candidate
Fuck off, GMS and your ‘party’
I feel like I can laugh about him coz he’s such a loser and has no chance in hell, but all of this is making me concerned about what happens when we have a homophobic populist politician
I’ve been thinking lately about how I grew up very strictly Anglophone in an Asian society, when my parents barely spoke English (not the same way my brother and I do). Like when we speak, we sound like we are speaking different languages (even in English). Depending on where I am, I can sound like the local native English speaker.
Many of my compatriots do not sound like me. There’s Singlish, which is a type of creole combining English, Hokkien, Mandarin, Malay and some Tamil. But that’s not quite it either: there is a ‘basolectal English’, the one that is grammatically ‘correct’ but unmistakeably places the English speaker in the location they come from (Singaporean, Aussie, Kiwi basolectal are very obvious).
It is usually a function of class and society and privilege that a person in a colonial society speaks English a certain way. In my parents’ time, our English teachers and newscasters spoke with a ‘stiff upper lip’. Maybe that was class, then. When I was a teenager, upper middle class people spoke like the BBC newscasters. But not stiff upper lip. Today, we sound.. American or some form of British.
And I don’t know how I started to speak like that. I went to an elite school, but my family barely spoke English. My language at home was not even Mandarin, the language of the upper class Sinophones, it was Teochew and Hokkien; the language of the pasar (the wet market). In formal situations in Singapore, I can code switch into basolectal English, kind of less American sounding formal English, so more older professional people understand me. In the cab, I can curse in Singlish at taxi drivers who ask me if I’m American.
In this video; I sound ‘generic American’, maybe Californian: https://youtu.be/I6m82wB2qhY
When I speak with people from ‘back home’ I sound completely different.
Found on a sendudok bush, this spiky caterpillar from the family Lasiocampidae was as long as my middle finger. I thought of bringing it home so that I could brag to peoples that "I has a pet lappet".
Nomura Holdings is expanding its wealth management team in Singapore and Dubai after its global business turned a profit last year, 18 months ahead of target. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/03/12/companies/nomura-singapore-dubai/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #companies #nomura #brokerages #wealth #investments #dubai #singapore
Potential fintech ‘bank’ collapse in Singapore with Chocolate Finance
This ‘bank’ did not come with SDIC (equivalent of FDIC) guarantee for any stored amounts
Now there’s a ‘bank run’ on withdrawals there
Economists lowered the growth outlook for Singapore and Hong Kong in the second half of this year on increased uncertainties from U.S. President Donald Trump imposing higher tariffs on China’s exports. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/03/10/markets/singapore-hong-kong-us-tariff-china/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #markets #singapore #hongkong #us #trade #china #tariffs #tradewar #donaldtrump
Very good overview of housing in Singapore and why it’s not replicable elsewhere (nor should it)
https://www.academia.sg/academic-views/chua-beng-huat-public-housing/
Singapore academic Donald Low writes about the thing I've been worried about: Singapore's 'born again Chinese', or ethnic Chinese people in the diaspora who have been targeted by CCP propaganda in social media and chat groups
I was starting to see people say things like 'oh, I will only use the Chinese vaccine, it was created for Chinese people' and I just could not believe what I was hearing. Not isolated cases too: lots and lots of people. Especially Boomers.
A lot of this is just step one towards challenges to national sovereignty (Singapore is also a Chinese state so you belong to us), and worsens racial issues in the country by emphasizing more 'Chineseness' (already the majority group there with oppressive features)
So the news about a Singapore political party coming out (haha) as anti-LGBTQ is very timely because the ruling party is likely going to field a LGBTQ activist. She will likely win due to the ‘unique’ traits of our political system (you vote for a group of people rather than an individual, most places). But comparing the anti vote to the regular anti vote will give you a good electoral indicator of how strong homophobia really is (I’m guessing not really)
I had a realization that maybe I planted the seed for Singapore’s first openly anti-LGBTQ party (because I once asked this asshole to try saying something other than ‘foreigners bad’)
Oops
Joke but also maybe
But if he couldn’t win a few votes as the leading xenophobic politician at a time when xenophobia was super high, he’s just useless anyway
https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1j4m6zc/comment/mg9t5cq/
#Singapore #LGBQTb#TootSea #SingaporeElections
food pictures from an Italian restaurant (Solo in Telok Ayer, Singapore)
Yesterday (Thursday) really sucked but my Italian team mate had great foresight and brought me to try Solo in Telok Ayer. Best! #food #italian #singapore
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Useless Singapore opposition party: we will campaign on anti-LGBTQ!!
“As far as I know, no other political parties have made a clear stance on this important issue because everyone is chasing after the 'Pink Votes'. PPP is the only political party that is making a principled stance in full clarity. ..... For a nation to survive, the family unit must be a union between male and female. I don't see how any rational voter could disagree with that.”
Fuck off
Just physically moved my #Raspberry #Pi from #Singapore to #Belgium — it's my #Mastodon server ;)
Back online it is!
Going to spend a few years here now, until I'm sick of Belgium again.
Around 15 years ago I went to an event in Singapore and met this queer woman who had just gotten married. She was the first queer woman I knew who had done that.
Today she lives in Seattle with her beautiful family.
Both of our families sometimes appear on newspapers together back home on topics like ‘married gay women!! find out more about them!!’ (I guess cos we were the most visible people back then)
Today we are just going to have a normal dinner with our normal lives. Here in Seattle. We do this when they come to SF too. I wish I could go back in time to tell that version of me.
City Developments Ltd., Singapore's biggest listed developer, plunged into crisis when its billionaire Chairman Kwek Leng Beng accused his son, the firm’s chief executive officer, of orchestrating a boardroom coup. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/02/27/father-son-singapore-richest/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #singapore #citydevelopmentsltd #kweklengbeng
