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Nov 14, 2010

Don't sell your HDB flat, says MM Lee

It's stupid to sell and then hope to get a rental flat; flats are assets that will be upgraded and rise in value

By Zakir Hussain, Political Correspondent

MM Lee with (from left) fellow Tanjong Pagar GRC MPs Sam Tan, Indranee Rajah, Koo Tsai Kee, Lui Tuck Yew and Baey Yam Keng at an event marking the completion of a covered linkway in Jalan Membina, and the annual Tree Planting Day in the GRC. -- ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN

 

HDB flat owners should not sell their flats, as they are assets that will appreciate in value year after year, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night.

Addressing some 500 residents at a constituency event in Tanjong Pagar GRC, he said: 'I urge you not to listen to the estate agents and sell it and go and rent a flat because that's a stupid thing to do.

'You sell it, you may not get a rental flat for a long time. And you cannot gain from a rental flat... Please remember that.'

Mr Lee's call comes shortly after the Government took steps to address the trend of homeowners who - propelled by record selling prices - are trying to sell their flats to make a quick profit.

To underline the need for financial prudence, the Housing Board on Nov 1 introduced a seven-day cooling-off period for people intending to sell their HDB flats.

Mr Lee was speaking at the annual Tree Planting Day in the group representation constituency. The event also saw a ceremony to mark the completion of a covered linkway in Jalan Membina in Tiong Bahru.

With the linkway up, residents from 1,306 households in eight blocks of flats - 25A to 27B - can walk from their precinct to nearby coffee shops, sheltered from the elements. It is part of a series of covered walkways that, by the end of this year, will allow them to walk directly to Tiong Bahru MRT station without an umbrella.

Half the households were also resettled from older flats in the Bukit Ho

Swee area as part of the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme.

In his off-the-cuff speech, Mr Lee assured the residents that the Government will keep on upgrading old flats and estates to make them better.

He took the opportunity to drive home the role that the Government's home-ownership policy has played in Singapore's continued stability.

'No other country in the world has every family own their own flat or their own place,' he said.

'If we had not done that from the earlier days, we would not have today's stable and peaceful Singapore.

'Everybody has a piece of property which has increased in value every year. The infrastructure grows, the economy grows, the value of your home can go up,' he added.

Mr Lee noted how flats 30 years ago cost $30,000 to $40,000, but the same flat today, after upgrading, can fetch $300,000 or more.

He told the residents: 'I congratulate all those who have kept your flats, and I urge those who have got old flats, keep them. Your upgrading programme will come, and you will have a much more valuable piece of property.'

And part of that value comes from beautifying the environment.

Asked by the media why he made it a point to attend tree-planting ceremonies every year for the past 39 years, Mr Lee said: 'We've got to keep on planting, otherwise it becomes a concrete jungle.'

'Because of tree planting, the bushes and shrubs, we have a green environment which makes for a refreshing city.'

zakirh@sph.com.sg

FT: The G20’s seven pillars of friction

 

The G20’s seven pillars of friction

By Gideon Rachman

Published: November 8 2010 14:29 | Last updated: November 8 2010 14:29

As the leaders of the world’s biggest powers gather for a Group of 20 summit, their South Korean hosts talk hopefully of the organisation as a “steering committee of the world”. But there are so many different hands grabbing for the steering wheel that the G20 will be lucky to survive without a serious accident.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

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In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Lehman Brothers, the world’s leaders pulled together. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France even enthused: “The G20 foreshadows the planetary governance of the 21st century.”

These days, however, the G20 looks more like it is foreshadowing the international conflicts of the 21st century. The central tension on most issues is between the US and China. But the world is not splitting into a pro-American and pro-Chinese camp. Instead, there are now seven major axes that divide the world.

Surplus versus deficit countries: Countries that are running large trade and current account deficits want the G20 to discuss global economic imbalances. But they face an “axis of surplus” that is sceptical about the need for action. America and China are at the heart of the dispute. But Germany, another big exporter, has taken an even harder line than China in criticising American economic policy and rejecting the call for numerical targets for current account deficits. Other large members of the axis of surplus are Japan and Saudi Arabia.

Manipulators vs manipulated: America accuses China of manipulating its currency by deliberately undervaluing the renminbi. China retorts that it is America that is manipulating the markets by printing dollars. The rest of the G20 worries about being caught in the crossfire of a global currency war. Some, particularly the Indians, seem more concerned about the Chinese undervaluation. Others, such as the Germans, seem more worried by the actions of the US Federal Reserve. But nobody likes being caught in the middle.

Tighteners vs splurgers: Two years ago, this was the big argument at the G20 – as America and Britain argued for deficit spending and Germany resisted. Now Britain has joined the tighteners and US politics constrain any further splurge in American spending. That could leave the International Monetary Fund as the sole voice calling for a new global spending stimulus.

Democracies vs autocracies: The list of G20 countries underlines how anomalous China’s political system now is. Of the 20 major powers around the table, China and Saudi Arabia are the only two unambiguously undemocratic countries – with Russia straddling the democratic-authoritarian divide. But, fortunately for China, the G20 rarely splits along these lines. This is partly because the G20’s agenda is still overwhelmingly economic. It is also because, even when the G20 nations stray on to political issues, there are other divisions that matter more than the one between democracies and autocracies.

West vs the rest: The very existence of the G20 acknowledges that the global balance of power has changed. The old G7 was essentially the white, western world, plus Japan. The new G20 includes rising powers that were once colonised or defeated by western powers – China, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil. That means that the G20 is divided by issues of emotion, identity and race – as well as by more easily defined economic and political issues.

The complex mix between economics and emotion is evident when the discussion turns to climate change. After the failure of the UN talks, some hoped that the G20 might strike a climate deal. In fact, the divisions at the UN are replicated at the G20. The Chinese, Indians and Brazilians point out that the industrialised nations of the west put most of the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and still consume far more energy per head than developing nations. The Americans and Europeans respond that China is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world – and that no deal can work, unless the developing world also cuts back. The result is acrimonious deadlock.

Interventionists vs souverainistes: The G20 nations face a fundamental philosophical issue – should they be looking for legally binding new agreements or should they proceed on a voluntary basis? For once, America and China – as big countries that care a lot about national sovereignty – tend to be on the same side. They are both wary of agreeing to new international legal regimes. The countries of the European Union, however, adore new international treaties and were hoping that the G20 might one day develop into the “planetary” government that Mr Sarkozy spoke of. The Europeans are liable to be disappointed.

Big vs small: There is one global divide that cannot be expressed at a G20 summit – and that is the divide between the 20 big countries that have secured invitations and the 170-odd that are excluded. The presence of organisations such as the UN and the World Bank is meant partially to compensate the unrepresented nations. But they are increasingly open in challenging the G20’s pretensions to be a “steering committee for the world”.

The conclusion is dispiriting. Far from being the solution to the world’s most urgent problems, the G20 looks increasingly divided, ineffectual and illegitimate.

Gideon Rachman is author of a new book, Zero-Sum World (Atlantic)

gideon.rachman@ft.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

FT: The job: Animal casting director

 

The job: Animal casting director

As told to Maria Crawford

Published: November 7 2010 22:19 | Last updated: November 7 2010 22:19

Gerry Cott, A-Z Animals

EDITOR’S CHOICE

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I choose and prepare domesticated animals for filming, photography, theatre and special events. After reading a brief I’ll suggest individual animals that would have the temperament, character and experience for that particular role.

I studied architecture, but didn’t finish because I started a band called the Boomtown Rats with some friends. After five years I left.

I had some horses and dogs at home, and an ad agency asked me to do a commercial for a pet food company. I knew about film-making, and it just developed into something very professional and structured. I’ve been doing this for 27 years now.

We can have 10 or 12 shoots in one week. We recently did a fashion shoot with 40 foxhounds and two horses, in effect moving a hunt into central London.

We’re now in the training process for Toto in Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s staging of The Wizard of Oz.

We did a commercial for a fast-food chain’s milkshakes. They wanted a cow with an udder but they didn’t want a very big udder. Those kinds of things crop up.

The first dog I provided and supervised for filming was my tricolour Border Collie, Marley. He taught me a lot about animal behaviour. I realised it’s only an accident of fate that I’m not a dog and he’s not a man.

Whatever species of domesticated animal I’m working with, I look for that little spirit.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web

FT: Stories from a real-life comic book hero

Stories from a real-life comic book hero

By Peter Marsh

Published: October 31 2010 22:14 | Last updated: October 31 2010 22:14

Schoolchildren in the Japanese city of Kyoto have been grappling recently with an unorthodox addition to their reading: a manga-style comic book that tells the story of Shigenobu Nagamori, an extrovert Japanese electronics entrepreneur whose company has grown from humble beginnings to become one of the world’s biggest makers of electric motors.

The chief executive of Nidec – who started his company in 1973 and remains chief executive – is depicted on the cover of the book (pictured below) as something akin to a Japanese version of Superman, described in garish kanji characters as “the man who is hotter than the sun”.

A 90-minute conversation with Mr Nagamori in his office on the 20th floor of Nidec’s Kyoto headquarters is a frenetic affair. Speaking in his characteristic high-speed staccato, at such a pace that the translator struggles to keep up, the former engineer explains why it is important to convey stories such as his to young people as a way of stimulating the formation of new companies.

“I believe if you want to be an engineer, money’s not the only thing. Engineers are often pursuing a dream about inventing new products that will benefit other people. I think you’ve got to put this dream to people, and that’s the way to motivate them.”

In Mr Nagamori’s case, his dream was using what was in the 1970s a novel concept – an electronically controlled, or brushless, design – to change the operation of conventional motors.

Brushless motors can reduce the energy consumption of electric motors by up to a third and promise to make a big impact on cutting the world’s total power needs.

“Fifty years ago, what we call the ‘rice’ of industry – the most mainstream product that drives everything else – was steel and 25 years ago it was semiconductors. But today it’s the electric motor,” proclaims Mr Nagamori, a lean and fit-looking 66-year-old.

“Look inside a car, and it’s got about 80 motors. In a few years’ time – especially with the emergence of electric vehicles – you will probably see 160 motors in each car. In 1973, when I started my company, the average American household contained 60 motors, [while today] it’s close to 150.”

Mr Nagamori is well known in Japan for making outspoken comments and indulging in slightly eccentric practices: he insists on being the “number one” in everything he does, for instance, when travelling by jet or in the bullet train. When Nidec built its new headquarters in 2003, Mr Nagamori demanded it was the tallest building by far in his home city.

One of his favoured management tenets is to make all new graduates who start at Nidec spend a good part of their first year cleaning out the company toilets. “It’s to convey the idea that life in companies isn’t always easy,” Mr Nagamori explains. With a stake of 14 per cent in Nidec, he is ranked by Forbes magazine as Japan’s 13th wealthiest person.

Mr Nagamori’s background was far from propitious. Growing up in a tiny three-room house on the edge of Kyoto with six brothers and sisters, he says he learnt important lessons from his parents.

He used to help his father – a farmer who eked out a living growing vegetables – to sell the produce in markets in the centre of the city. The youthful Mr Nagamori could never understand why the older man refused to sell his remaining stock at a discount at the end of the day, preferring to throw it in the river as the two of them walked home.

“But my father told me that if you’ve developed something with your whole heart and brain, it’s something special ... He told me that if you wanted to make a success of your life, you should value what you do, recognise the worth of your products, and do your utmost to keep the prices as high as you can achieve.”

After gaining a scholarship to study electronics engineering at university, Mr Nagamori worked for two Japanese engineering companies before deciding to start Nidec in 1973. The oil shock of that year, he says, gave him the chance to make a success out of his new “brushless” designs.

“Energy costs went up a lot. I reasoned that energy was becoming a commodity that people would value.”

But his mother initially tried to talk him out of this idea, arguing that by taking a gamble he might lose everything. “[Then] she asked me: ‘Are you ready to work twice as hard as everyone else? If other people work eight hours a day, are you going to work 16 hours?’”

The CV

Born: 1944 in Kyoto
Education: 1963-67 Studied electronics engineering at Tokyo Polytechnic University.
Career: 1967-70 Worked as an engineer at TEAC, the audio equipment-maker, in Tokyo.
1970-73 Joined Yamashina Seiki, a precision engineering company in Kyoto that was setting up an electric motor division.
1973 Set up Nidec, where he is chairman and chief executive, with funds of Y20m that he had saved up through selling shares in TEAC.
Hobbies: Calligraphy

 

After Mr Nagamori assured her on this point, his mother quietened down, and gave the venture her blessing, he recalls. With a hint of melodrama, he goes on: “At the end of the day, if I’m tempted to slacken off, I can look out [of his 20th floor office] and see my mother’s grave. I say to her on these occasions: ‘I made you that promise, [and] I am still working.’”

The stories of Mr Nagamori’s childhood are laid out – in a series of graphic pictures and with a fast-paced dialogue – in the Nidec-published manga book. It seems the 5,000 children aged 10 to 15 who have received the publications have been impressed.

“We’ve had a very enthusiastic response [to the books],” says Mr Nagamori. “Children read [them], and take them home to their families. And they then have a discussion, which I think is a good idea, because you have to get the mothers and fathers involved as well.”

He hopes his life story might trigger the impulse in a young person to do something similar.

“It’s necessary to say that this [setting up a company] is a worthwhile goal for a young person, as distinct from them going to work for a company that is already established.”

This year, Nidec is expected to have sales of nearly $8bn, two-thirds of which is likely to come from electric motors, the rest from other devices the company makes, such as electronic components. It has almost 100,000 employees, most of them in Asian countries outside Japan, including China, Thailand and Vietnam, where the company has most of its factories.

Nearly all the 1.2bn motors Nidec is likely to make this year are small units that fit into devices such as hard disk drives; most of the world’s desktop computers plus mobile gadgets such as the Apple iPod have inside them at least one Nidec motor.

But, helped by a series of acquisitions, including the purchase in the summer of the motor division of Emerson, the big US engineering group, the company is also branching out into bigger motors of the type found in domestic appliances, cars and factory machinery.

Mr Nagamori has given no hint of any ideas about retirement: he has set out plans to keep expanding the company partly on the basis of more acquisitions, with his goal being to reach sales of Y10,000bn (about $110bn at today’s exchange rates) by 2030, when he would be in his mid-80s.

In keeping with Mr Nagamori’s long-term way of planning, he is willing to be patient. He says he started talking to David Farr, the chief executive of Emerson, about buying the company’s motor division some 10 years ago. “He [Mr Farr] said he doubted Nidec had the capability to make this purchase in the near future. He suspected that it might be a bit too much of a risk for Nidec,” Mr Nagamori recalls.

After being initially “a little bit angry” at this response, Mr Nagamori says he resolved to wait for Mr Farr to change his mind – which he eventually did, with a deal to sell the division for an undisclosed sum being finally agreed in a meeting between the two men four months ago. Emerson declined to comment on the circumstances behind the deal.

Asked about his extrovert style, which is in marked contrast to the conservative approach of most Japanese business leaders, he says that much of this has come about from Nidec’s exposure to foreign businesses, many of them based in the US. “I’ve always loved the US; I like the approach to communications.”

Ike Takeda, chief executive of Nichicon, another Kyoto-based electronics manufacturer, and a friend of Mr Nagamori, says that in a few years’ time the Nidec man’s approach may not seem so unusual.

“More Japanese business people have had the experience of operating on a global basis and are becoming more outgoing – which is, I think, good thing for Japan as a whole,” Mr Takeda says.

Mr Nagamori says he spends little time worrying whether his approach fits in with the prevailing trends in Japanese business circles.

“I tend to say what I mean. And people, of course, know me. When they hear me say something, they say: ‘He’s just being Nagamori’ ... Perhaps I am treated as an exception.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web

ST: Singapore, Yunnan Doctor

ST: Singapore, Yunnan Doctor

 

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Sunflower Seeds - Tate - Ai Wei Wei

Sunflower Seeds - Tate - Ai Wei Wei

 

Download Sunflower Seeds_Porcelain_Tate_Ai Wei Wei

ST: Local animators, look before you leap

Think

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Nov 14, 2010

Local animators, look before you leap

By Irene Tham

 

 

You can count on two things to happen when a trend hits the peak of a hype cycle - publicity machines work themselves into a frenzy, and then a backlash occurs.

Over the past seven years, excitement had been drummed up for Singapore as the next animation and media capital. Government funds with eye-popping amounts - hundreds of millions of dollars - were created to finance new digital media projects. New companies threw their hats into the ring.

Since 2003, some 40 animation and visual effects companies have opened here. Among them: Lucasfilm's Singapore arm, which is on an expansion spree as it gears up to work on its new animation movie slated for global release in 2013.

Now that the fairy dust has settled - thanks in part to the economic crisis last year - it may be possible to analyse who is entitled to dream big in animation.

In the last year, at least three home-grown firms with animation aspirations have had their hopes dashed due to cash-flow problems.

Two have folded, while one - which spoke to The Sunday Times on condition of anonymity - is on the brink of bankruptcy.

No longer around are Big Communications and Mega Media - both 10-year-old media companies.

Big had a prestigious deal with The Jim Henson Company - known for The Muppets and Bear In The Big Blue House - to co-produce the TV Series Dinosaur Train, which aired on the PBS Kids channel in the United States late last year.

So what went wrong? Industry observers have put it down to inexperience in animation. Big's main business was live-action TV production before it ventured into animation in 2004.

Mega's founder, Mr Jonathan Foo, is an award-winning Singaporean film-maker. Mega had a stake in locally made animated film Katakune (2008) which was sold to the US, Thailand, Taiwan and the Middle East.

'Content creation is a very expensive game. Unless you are absolutely sure, don't go into it,' said Mr David Kwok, managing director of local animation house Tiny Island Productions.

Typically, it takes about 18 months to complete an animated TV series of 26 half-hour episodes. Investments are also huge - to the tune of $5 million. But the payback period is long, from three to five years.

'You need deep pockets or substantial financial backing to sustain your operations, sometimes up to 11/2 years after the TV series is produced,' said Mr Roy Ng, who was the general manager of now-defunct Big.

This is because studios need to find buyers for their completed TV series if they have not already pre-sold them.

Most would have to hawk their products abroad as the local market is too small and therefore unlikely to pay much.

For instance, Singapore's free-to-air broadcaster may pay onlyabout $500 an episode, whereas broadcasters in larger markets like Australia and France may pay up to 100 times more.

'The animation industry is hardly a place for mom-and-pop shops,' said Mr Seng Choon Meng, co-founder and chief executive officer of local animation house Scrawl Studios.

Big may not have been a mom-and-pop shop, having had 40 employees at the peak of its operations. It learnt a 'painful' lesson nevertheless.

Mr Ng said that Big got burnt as its funds dried up before it could see any returns on its previous investments.

'Venturing into animation was one of the main reasons why Big failed,' he said.

Keeping cash flow healthy is one reason those aspiring to win big are staying busy in 'low-level service work' such as motion graphics and TV commercials.

Such grunt work is 'bread and butter', something to 'tide you through until you receive the glory moment', said Mr Wong K.C., chairman of Sparky Animation.

He is dreaming of a day when his company creates the next Toy Story or Pokemon animated franchise.

It is not good enough to sell just broadcast rights as most of the money is in merchandising and licensing, he said.

Take global phenomenon Pokemon, which began in 1996 as a video game. The Pokemon franchise - including video games, TV shows, trading cards and the Pokemon theme park in Nagoya, Japan - has generated US$30 billion (S$39 billion) in sales worldwide, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

Besides those with deep pockets, who else can enter the ring?

Business-savvy animators, said the local animation studios which The Sunday Times spoke to.

When businessmen with no animation track record enter the business, they may bungle the job, particularly in quality control, they added.

Big's failure may well be a lesson for all - not everyone is cut out for the job.

'We're not making cakes,' said Tiny Island's Mr Kwok. 'Those who understand both the production and business mechanism will give themselves an added advantage over others.'

Finally, animation firms may also want to reverse the order of their process - which, currently, is to create a TV series or film first and then hope that the associated merchandise will take off.

In South Korea and Japan, some animation houses go to the toy makers for validation before they produce an animated TV series, said Mr Kwok.

'Since the money is in merchandising, it makes sense for the production chain to begin with merchandisers,' he said.

Investors also provide some form of validation. Savvy investors can tell from the design of the animated characters whether the creation has potential for big money.

The lack of private investors is a sign that a project may not be up to scratch, said the Media Development Authority (MDA).

'If a majority of the funding comes from the MDA, it suggests that the project is not popular with the market,' said Mr Kenneth Tan, MDA's chief operating officer and director of film, animation and publishing.

Together with the private sector, industry promoter MDA has co-funded 207 local media projects - including animation and games - since 2003.

'Public-private partnership in financing is increasingly becoming the norm,' said Mr Tan.

Asked about the recent closures, he said: 'Even if companies do not last forever, the learning experience has a lasting effect on the industry.'

Let's hope that he is right.

 

---

 

Cash flow issues

'You need deep pockets or substantial financial backing to sustain your operations, sometimes up to 11/2 years after the TV series is produced.'

MR ROY NG, former general manager of the now-defunct Big Communications

ST: In love with clouds

Lifestyle

Home > Lifestyle > Hot > Story

Nov 14, 2010

In love with clouds

By Huang Huifen

Members of the Cloud Appreciation Society (from left) Jane Hughes, Juliana Yasin and Tracey Yap with a book on cloud- spotting, the society?s membership certificate and an iron-on badge. -- ST PHOTO: NURIA LING

 

There are trainspotters, bus-spotters and now, cloud- spotters.

Looking at those fluffy bits in the sky is a serious hobby for some people, with Singapore boasting 31 members of the British-based Cloud Appreciation Society.

The society has designated the observation deck of Ion Sky in Orchard Road, which is due to open in January, as the world's second official cloudspotting area.

The first is an abandoned beach shelter converted into a 'cloud bar' in Anderby Creek in Britain, where cloudspotters can recline on chairs and admire clouds.

Do not be down if your head is not in the clouds, though - the society has teamed up with Ion Sky to display a chart detailing the 10 different clouds that you will be able to spot from the vantage point of the 218m skyscraper.

The idea of a new cloudspotting area is exciting for housewife Tracey Yap, 41, who is a member of the society and who has already made plans with other members to visit Ion Sky.

The mother of two boys aged 12 and eight cloudspots from her window overlooking a park in Woodlands.

'I can see beautiful and colourful clouds at dusk and dawn just outside my window. I take pictures of the clouds and post them on Facebook,' says Madam Yap, whose love affair with the meteorological cotton balls began when she got her digital camera three years ago.

Armed with pictures of clouds, some taken while holidaying in Bali, she identifies them using the society's handbook, The Cloudspotter's Guide.

The handbook, written by the founder of the six-year-old society, Mr Gavin Pretor-Pinney, shows how to identify different types of clouds in layman's terms.

Clouds that can be spotted from Ion Sky, for example, include low-lying puffy cotton-like cumulus clouds, mid-level clumpy altocumulus clouds and high-level feather-like cirrus clouds.

A glass area at the viewing deck will be covered with a frosted film bearing cloud-themed poems and text by Asian artists.

Ms Erica Denison, art director of design firm gsmprjct which came up with the cloudspotting concept of the Ion Sky observation deck, is a cloud lover and got the inspiration for putting a chart there after 'spotting' that the skyscraper would be one of the few places here high enough to boast a clear view of clouds on the horizon.

She sought help from Mr Pretor-Pinney, who provided a cloud chart template.

His society has 23,986 members in 85 countries. Membership costs about $12 and comes with a badge and certificate. Members here comprise Singaporeans and expatriates.

For local artist Juliana Yasin, 40, cloudspotting has more of an artistic resonance.

'The clouds display variations of colour, changing patterns and they reflect light. They change as they dance across the sky,' says Ms Yasin, who has done more than 100 paintings of skies. She puts them up for exhibition.

Cloudspotting is a blast back to his childhood for Mr Paul Brogden, a British geography teacher at the United World College.

'I remember lying down in the park in the UK and seeing animal-shaped clouds. Now, I have two kids and they are starting to point out animals in the clouds and I am rediscovering the fun,' he says. His son Jake is only two and already has his own membership to the cloud society.

'Kids are expert cloudspotters,' Mr Brogden adds.

Cloudspotting for teacher Jane Hughes, 48, is a form of relaxation. The Briton says: 'Clouds are very inspirational. When I think of my two children who are studying overseas, it is surprising how often I see a heart or a smile-shaped cloud.'

All Singaporeans are cloudspotters, whether they know it or not, says Ms Denison.

'Singaporeans know when it is going to rain and to rush back to their offices before the rain. We just don't focus on our skies because we are always surrounded by tall buildings,' she says.

ST: Wonton Praise

 her favourite phrase is 'wan hoi gin yuet meng'. The Cantonese proverb preaches patience and forbearance; it means 'the clouds will part to reveal a shining moon'.

 

==

 

Nov 6, 2010

Wonton praise

Madam Leong Yuet Meng used to run the wonton mee stall next to the old National Library

By my life story wong kim hoh senior writer V

WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME

'Be practical and be grounded. And be optimistic. There's no problem that time will not solve. You'll be a lot happier if you learn to look on the bright side'

Madam Leong Yuet Meng

Now 81, Madam Leong Yuet Meng is still putting in 10-hour days to sell her famous wonton noodles at her Far East Square stall. -- ST PHOTO: NURIA LING

Very politely but firmly, Madam Leong Yuet Meng waves away my protests. The interview, she says, can wait.

She beckons over one of the helpers at her Nam Seng Noodles and Fried Rice eatery at Far East Square.

'Make this gentleman here a bowl of wonton noodles. Make sure that it's good,' she instructs in Cantonese.

As the middle-aged assistant ambles off with a big smile, the 81-year-old says: 'She's new, this one, but she's learnt very fast and is pretty good. Do give me your feedback, though.'

I've not tasted wonton (dumpling) noodles made by the matriarch herself but the version I get is pretty darn tasty - firm noodles in a simple but delectable sauce garnished with lean char siew and blanched choi sum, with a side serving of scrumptious silken wontons. The sauce, I'm told, is her own concoction, and the noodles come from a supplier she has known for more than 50 years.

Madam Leong is proud of her wonton mee, and justifiably so. For more than 40 years until 1995 when the Government reclaimed the premises, she held court at a shed next to the old National Library in Stamford Road, serving up that dish as well as fried rice, hor fun (rice noodles) and other offerings. For thousands of Singaporeans, she was an institution.

The lament of foodies rang loud and clear when her outlet had to close. Many feared that this taste of Singapore had disappeared forever.

But to the relief of food-lovers desperate for this fix of yesteryear hawker fare, Madame Leong and her noodles resurfaced 10 years ago at Far East Square, where they have been satisfying hungry diners ever since.

'Many of my customers have been with me for years. Some ate my noodles when they were students, now they are grandparents,' she says, her aged but winsome face breaking into a gentle smile. 'I've been so lucky and so blessed,' she says simply.

Hard work and dogged survival in tumultuous times have played their part, too, in the success story behind the delicious noodles that I made clean work of in less than five minutes.

Madam Leong is the adopted daughter of a domestic helper who came to Singapore from Guangdong province in China in the late 1920s.

'My mother came here after she was widowed. She adopted me and raised me as her own. I have an adoptive elder sister who lives in Hong Kong,' says the kindly octogenarian who does not know who her real parents were.

She grew up in Chinatown and went to school for a few years but the Japanese Occupation put paid to her studies. But it instilled in her a love for Chinese literary classics which explains her melodiously Cantonese, often littered with piquant proverbs and truisms.

She had, she says, a sheltered upbringing. 'My mother loved me a lot and doted on me. She didn't allow me to work although I wanted to,' she recalls.

When she was about 20, an aunt matchmade her with a relative who worked as a clerk. They tied the knot in the late 1940s after courting for a year.

Three sons came in quick succession. They are now aged between 55 and 58 and work as a pharmaceutical sales executive, construction supervisor and civil servant.

Madam Leong set up her famous wonton noodle stall next to the old National Library in 1958.

'I had a cousin who sold wonton noodles in Kreta Ayer. It looked like something I could do and I had long wanted to start a little business. So I just got her to teach me how to do it,' she says.

Her husband, the late Mr Tang Leng Choon, was her financier. He died at 82 from lung cancer about 10 years ago.

'I paid $200 to take over the stall from a Hainanese man and spent another few hundred on equipment,' she says.

She hired an additional cook and two dishwashers, and plunged straight into business. The name Nam Seng was contributed by her mother-in-law in the hope that the business would 'thrive and grow in Nanyang'.

'Things were cheap then. I paid the cook $2.50 a day,' she reminisces. 'A bowl of wonton noodles cost just 30 cents and a plate of char siew rice 50 cents.'

It was tough going in the beginning.

'It was like walking up a flight of stairs, you go one step at a time. But I was determined to make it work. Without determination, there can be no success.'

And she made it work.

'I would wake up at 5am daily and my husband would drive me to the wet market because I liked to choose the ingredients myself,' says Madam Leong.

'I needed at least 15kg of pork a day to make char siew (barbecued pork),' she recalls.

Her dishes, especially her wonton mee with its al dente noodles and silky meat dumplings, won a huge following.

'On weekends, there were long queues and I could easily sell more than 500 plates a day,' she says.

An enterprising soul, she branched out into 'tingkat' catering, supplying lunches with 'rice, two dishes, one soup' in tiffin carriers to scores of residents in the area. 'I charged 75 cents for the meal, and every day, a trishaw man would help me deliver them. They were very popular,' she says.

Her mother-in-law helped to mind her children when they were young.

'When they started going to school, I'd get a taxi to fetch them after school to the stall where they would have their lunch.

'After that, they went for tuition nearby. I always told them their studies were very important. They are very filial,' says Madam Leong who now lives with her second son in Toa Payoh. She has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She had to close her stall in 1995 when the Government repossessed the land.

'I had no choice. The Government wanted the land back. Many people came to say goodbye and gave me a lot of presents - from little mementoes to jewellery. I was so touched,' she says.

After closing the shop, she and her husband took a trip to China, visiting the counties of Sansui and Shunde in Guangdong province to trace their roots.

Retirement did not sit well with her, and Madam Leong soon started operating a little stall out of a coffee shop in Joo Chiat.

However, she did not count on the resilience of Mr Chia Boon Pin, president of Far East Food Concepts.

A fan of her wonton noodles since his student days, he tracked her down in 1999 and persuaded her to move to Far East Square where she now operates out of a corner-shop unit.

Although she has five workers whom she graciously refers to as colleagues, Madam Leong still puts in 10-hour days. Her second son still drives her to the wet market every day to do the day's purchases.

'I open the shop myself, I'm here before any of my colleagues arrive at 8am,' she says. Throughout the day, she oversees the operations, takes orders and occasionally rolls up her sleeves to make her famous noodles.

'Some of my customers want me to do it personally. They have been with me for so long, how could I refuse them?' says Madam Leong, adding that her fame has spread to Hong Kong.

'A lot of Hong Kong tourists come armed with their guide books, asking to take photographs with me.'

That she has earned the affection of many of her customers is obvious. Several well-dressed Shenton Way types cheerily greet and ask after Ah Por (grandmother) in the course of our two-hour chat.

'Life is not all about making money. You have to have good relationships with people and treat them well,' says Madam Leong who has trained many 'disciples' over the years. One of them, Ah Chan, is a grandmother who started working with her before she got married.

'I've been very lucky with people, especially customers. Every festive season, I get inundated with gifts and goodies from my old customers,' she says, adding that many of them take their children and grandchildren to her stall.

An optimistic soul who enjoys watching Hong Kong drama serials and playing mahjong with friends in her free time, her favourite phrase is 'wan hoi gin yuet meng'. The Cantonese proverb preaches patience and forbearance; it means 'the clouds will part to reveal a shining moon'.

She has, she says, lived a great life. Her only wish is to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up, and for her second son to take over the business.

'He's a good cook and he will be retiring soon from the construction business. And a lot of people have told me that it'd be a shame if the business is not passed on.'

kimhoh@sph.com.sg

BT: Father of GIS

And a sad post-script: 'Most of the people that worked on that disaster changed jobs. They worked so hard, in such an awful situation, it just burned them out. They left our company, they left our field.'

Published November 6, 2010

A different business model NO borrowing, no venture capital, no incentives, no bonuses - this is the unique business model that ESRI CEO Jack Dangermond has established in his company. And with 2,700 US employees and annual turnover of over US$1.2 billion, it certainly seems to be working.   'I don't believe that my way is the only way. It's just a good way for me, personally,' he clarifies. On his policy of not taking loans, he comments: 'I don't want to borrow somebody else's money and place that as an additional burden on my own activities. That has been sort of my philosophy from Day One. I just don't like it.' He adds: 'I don't like incentives because they rob people of their dignity when they're doing their work. I like the idea that people work with me because they really love the work. 'And I pay well. I pay by the hour, frankly - if they work 60 hours that week, they get paid for 60 hours. If they work 80 hours, which we often do within high-tech, high-stress environments, they're paid a lot then. 'So this has a wonderful result, actually, in family life, because then they have enough reserves so that if they wanted to take off some time, they can do that. 'And the other observation I have is that I don't like the idea of sales incentives, because people then sell customers things that they don't necessarily want or they don't need. I want to have my salespeople to work with our customers to figure out what the right solution is - not because they're going to get some kind of bonus out of it, but because they do the right thing.' His approach derives from the way he looks at success, he says. 'Well, what is success? For me, it's my users being successful. And for that particular model, I find that my model of a non-incentivised sales force is a better one. And also, people are happier.' And while there are no bonuses, 'when people do very good work, I tend to pay them a lot more; because they deserve it'. Also, 'we take 20 per cent of our profits and we share it with all of our employees'. He doesn't consider that a bonus because 'that's done on the basis of their actual salary, not on the basis of specialness, or special incentives'. He sums up: '(Our) organisational culture is about making a difference, with technology. You don't want to hire somebody that (just) works for you, you want to bring in people that you nurture, and let them realise their life work. That's the magic of a successful business.'

 

Published November 6, 2010

Father of GIS Jack Dangermond says geographic information systems can change world for the better. By Kenneth James PASSION and purpose led Jack Dangermond to co-found the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) with his wife, Laura, in 1969. In the four decades since then, the ESRI president and CEO has had the satisfaction of seeing the discipline he pioneered, geographic information systems (GIS), transform the way people plan cities, position business outlets and even handle disasters.   But never was his life's passion more poignantly applied than in late 2001, when the 9/11 destruction of New York City's World Trade Center Twin Towers shook America and the world. 'It was the most wretched thing that's ever happened to us,' he says soberly. Mr Dangermond, 65, is talking to BT on the sidelines of an international GIS conference co-organised and hosted by the Singapore Land Authority. Coming in half an hour late because of an urgent phone call, he is profusely apologetic, and graciously stays on well into his lunch appointment to complete our conversation. We chat at length about the revolution in geography-based analysis that GIS has made possible for governments, environmental scientists and corporations. But the application of GIS in disaster recovery clearly touches a chord. Says Mr Dangermond: 'We face this often in catastrophes. When disasters hit . . . tsunamis, hurricanes, whatever . . . we have always provided our software available for free.' It never got more personal than 9/11. He recalls: 'Our office in New York City was in the Woolworth building, which was a couple of blocks from the Towers. When (the hijacked passenger planes) hit, our people were looking out the window as (the attack) destroyed the buildings.' Double whammy In a hugely unfortunate coincidence, the city's Office of Emergency Management, 'the emergency control centre for the city', as Mr Dangermond points out, was a victim of the attack. The office was housed in the nearby WTC Building 7. It collapsed after debris from the North Tower ignited fires in the 47-storey building. 'So our people went into action. Ultimately, we had 43 people in New York who stood up a new command centre with maps, and we volunteered for, I think it was about three or four weeks, 7 by 24, making maps. And . . . I don't know if this is really anything you want to print, but the maps were dealing with disaster recovery. You know, simple things like showing where we could put all the dead bodies, and morgues, and routing trucks, and moving junk out . . . it was not a beautiful sight.' And a sad post-script: 'Most of the people that worked on that disaster changed jobs. They worked so hard, in such an awful situation, it just burned them out. They left our company, they left our field.' Quite a different kind of disaster was the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a commercial calamity with catastrophic environmental consequences. Mr Dangermond is able to see the good along with the bad in this unfortunate situation. 'BP called us - they were already a customer - and asked if we would stand up a large server farm for managing all of the measurement information that was coming in: the sensor data, the aircraft information, the satellite pictures, the samples they were gathering. 'The results of that data were shared with the public agencies like National Guard and Coast Guard, and the people that were actually managing the spill in the field. So that gave situational awareness to what was happening. 'The government and BP were able to direct forces, to actually deal with the oil spill . . . like put out booms, and put out hay for clean-up as the oil moved around. So it became a decision support and resource allocation tool.' It wasn't smooth going, he concedes. 'Like all disasters, everybody's pointing fingers at everybody else. You know, 'You should have done better here', 'you should have done better there'. But frankly, GIS really helped BP and the government manage this very difficult situation.' Of course, most GIS-based work is less spectacular, though often no less useful. Mr Dangermond explains: 'We build a generic software product called ArcGIS. It's kind of a set of server and desktop and mobile device tools that people build applications on top of. They build layers of geography - not just electronic maps, they're actually geographic intelligence. 'The relationships and connections between all the objects on the maps are encapsulated within the database. And you can then overlay these maps and compare them. 'So, for example, there's a famous area in the United States where there's a lot of breast cancer. That's one map: density of breast cancer. And then there's another layer which deals with environmental contamination. If you overlay these two maps on top of each other, you can see the correlation between one and the other. This is a kind of obvious thing, but it's invisible to most people.' Mix & match Different organisations overlay different maps for their own purposes. 'So oil companies use it to find where best to drill for oil, mining companies manipulate this data to help them find out where and how to manage the extraction of minerals. Environmental agencies track change in the environment, from global warming to sea surface temperature, all the way down to pollution and contamination within local areas.' Mr Dangermond identifies four major segments of application users. 'One of them is in government. And the biggest government users are local government, like here in Singapore. They use it in all the different departments: transportation, planning, redevelopment and so on.' And since Singapore is 'a city and a state and a nation all in one' there are national applications like defence and security. The second big market is academia. 'Virtually every big university in the world uses our tools to teach geography but also to teach spatial thinking.' More recently, business has got in on the GIS act as well. 'So people like General Motors, for example, locate their retail stores for car sales based on territories and they do territory optimisation using GIS. All the large retail chains in my country, like Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Starbucks, Nike, they're all my customers. They manage their geographic information to be able to make better decisions: Where should I locate my store? Who are my customers? What are the demographics of the market so I can better locate a bank? And by doing that, they're more successful. 'Big companies like FedEx and DHL and others do the same thing. They figure out how to route on the roads using complex algorithms. Not simple point-to- point routing, but complex, time-space optimisations, using GIS. 'And I guess the fourth area is utilities: electrical utilities, water utilities, telephone utilities.' It's a market that ESRI has grown over the years, and, not surprisingly, it is the dominant player. One of the largest privately held companies worldwide, ESRI has, by one estimate, more than 300,000 customers. All of which has made the famously frugal Jack Dangermond a very rich man. Last year, he was included in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of US$2 billion. It's a far cry from his Harvard University student days, when time spent in a lab for computer graphics and spatial analysis led to an epiphany. 'What lingered in my mind there was the idea that we can not only use computers to display geography but more importantly do analytics,' he recalls. Before long, he was back in California, all of 24 years old, married and - with a US$5,000 loan from his mother, the only time he has ever borrowed - head of his own company, ESRI. He says of his wife and co-founder Laura: 'She was a social scientist. But her main philosophy was trying to bring rational thinking and rational analysis to the way people made decisions. And I remember in school having that very discussion with her - that we could actually take all of this quantitative analytic work and apply it to environmental planning and make a better world.' Rational thrust Well, not in such grand terms, he quickly qualifies, but 'the environmental movement was just starting, and we certainly thought about the idea of bringing rational thinking to the discourse of environmental issues'. 'So very modestly, we started ESRI. We helped design a little land plan for a developer, we designed a land-use map for a government agency, we helped Venezuela locate a new town in a forest. All of these were project-driven, but each of those engagements, we used our own little home-made software to be able to enrich or bring quantitative thinking to the problem solving.' The breakthrough came in 1980 when a colleague, Scott Morehouse, suggested rewriting the software to make it a product rather than a service. 'And that first came out in 1981, called ArcInfo. And ArcInfo was the first commercial GIS. We sold about four systems the first year, and then gradually sold 11, and then 17, and then 25 . . . and then hundreds and thousands, and tens of thousands.' Meanwhile, computers were evolving, and the software along with it. 'Right now, what's occurring is, we're moving all of GIS onto the Web,' Mr Dangermond says. 'It's a new generation of technology that's emerging, and it's Web-oriented and it's mobile-oriented. So on my mobile device now, I can download on my iPhone a full version of ArcGIS for iPhones - and it's free. 'And this has implications for democracy, for example, or open government. It's connecting citizens with their government more effectively.' This raises the question of just where Singapore is on the GIS curve. Mr Dangermond is positive: 'GIS in Singapore has been adopted extensively by most of the agencies - military, water, housing, urban redevelopment, transportation - and they've done a very good job. I'd say it's above normal for any metropolitan city in the world. You hold high standards here.' Asked if more could be done, he replies immediately: 'Yes, you can be doing better. You need to begin to think about a national GIS - a kind of enterprise system that cuts across all the different departments. And the technology that allows that to occur is Web services. So, linking the different map services together so that you see a cross-cutting GIS for the entire country - that will be valuable.' Singapore's initiative to develop a collaborative environment for geospatial information, dubbed SG-SPACE, is an excellent move in that direction. 'It's fantastic what they've done,' Mr Dangermond enthuses. 'I'd say it's edge-cutting.' He offers this proposal: 'Now that you have the foundation, why not open up more public participation using geography and maps as a language to communicate between government and citizens? Citizen-driven government - it's something that would be very exciting to begin to explore.' kenjames@sph.com.sg Jack Dangermond President/CEO, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Age 65 1968 MSc Urban Planning and Environmental Science, University of Minnesota     1969 Master of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University     1969 Co-founded ESRI     1981 First software product, Arc/INFO, released     2009 Forbes 400 list of richest Americans     10 honorary doctorates and multiple awards including:     2002 US Department of State Distinguished Public Service Award     2004 Lifetime Achievement Award, Geospatial Information & Technology Association     2010 Alexander Graham Bell Medal, National Geographic Society     2010 Global Citizen Award, presented in Singapore by the GSDI Association