Games...

Found more interesting online games. Placed some links on the side bar.

Hooked onto Super Crazy Guitar now. (^_^)

Greedy/ Gullible Singaporean

It was in today's Sunday Times. A teacher was swindled of $61K by some Chinese syndicate. Apparently somebody called her up, telling her that she won some lottery/ lucky draw kind of thing from Hong Kong. The lure: $150K.

First they got her to cough out $5K+ on the pretext that she was only allowed to claim the prize after paying the tax. I do not know how tax systems work in HK, but in Singapore and US no lottery pays out before deducting the tax due on the winnings, and in UK and Canada lottery winnings are tax-free. Anybody with commonsense would smell a rat here, check and double check the tax system in HK before making the commitment.

Next under the pretext of other excuses such as signing up for membership with the company to claim the prize, the teacher was further swindled another $50K+. She borrowed money from friends and even took a bank loan with a 17.9% interest. All in hope of getting the $150K. How she realised she was duped I do not know, but what amuses me was her comment, "I am not greedy, I am just too trusting. That is my nature."

Not greedy my foot. These syndicates work on human greed. The greedier their victims, the better because it would be easier to fleece the money from them. Compound with the lack of commonsense, victims like the one mentioned above are making the syndicates laugh their way to the Swiss banks.

Practise a little commonsense here. If you have never bought any lucky draw/ lottery ticket from HK, would you be winning any prize from there? And I really cannot decide which is worse, a greedy teacher or a teacher who lacks commonsense.

Rule of the Game

Once again Singaporeans prove they are sore losers, especially parents with high expectations of their children. Just as I thought the recent spate of discussions on "difficult" PSLE Math questions, and GEP training classes died down, somebody has to go announce her daughter had an overall "fail" grade for her sec 2 year-end result because she failed her Higher Chinese.

Quoting from her letter to the ST forum, "it is the Ministry of Education (MOE)'s policy that a student who is in the Special Stream must pass both English and Higher Chinese in order to achieve an overall 'Pass', regardless of her performance in the other subjects."

And her answer to this was, "if my husband and I had known about the policy, we would not have encouraged our daughter to take Higher Chinese." Wonderful way of educating our future generation; take the easy way out, and bah humbug to our mother tongue.

What truly amuses me was the mother wanting clarifications from MOE on such an "unfair" policy. Oh come on, Higher Chinese was never forced onto anybody. MOE encourages students to take the subject, but that does not mean you can just come join the program and fail it if you cannot cope. MOE has been lowering Chinese standards over the years, and I think the last we need is for MOE to lower the standards of Higher Chinese just so some stupid kid can pass her exam. In addition, I believe the policy was put in place to deter parents/ students from jumping onto the Higher Chinese bandwagon due to the perceived elitism.

在此总结，本人与几位好友都是所谓的双语精英制度下栽培出来的。虽说读的是高级华文可也不敢说自己的华文程度顶呱呱。但至少我们都玩得起新加坡教育部定下的游戏规则。玩不起的就不要跟风也不要抱怨，只能怪自己不够格。还有，不是常说“家丑不可外扬”吗？怎么把自家女儿华文成绩不及格这等丑事刊登在报纸让全国上下的人都知道。