Log: 15-8-13 / Giving back!

For many years I have always wanted to give something back to ordinary Singaporeans.

In the very beginning I thought it might have been farming – but the price of land has shot up to such helium filled heights – that to even have a modest hectarage these days, one has to be a multi-millionaire. So that idea crashed and burnt and promptly fizzled out.

Since then, I have searched for another way to give back – not too long ago, I turned my periscope on the highly secretive swiftlet business.

After using my Mossad secret agent techniques to infiltrate a group of swiftlet entrepreneurs – I ventured into this business big time – built a mega bird house the size of a mall. Many people said I was crazy. But it seems the same people are now calling me a visionary. In truth, I just put all my savings on one number and spun the wheel and hit the jackpot. As the current location for my bird house is situated on the equivalent of the bird world Bedok bus interchange. There is no Da Vinci code there. No mystery even. That is the solemn truth. And I am not going to get high on it by mythologizing my success – I want to desperately remain very grounded and accurate.

Based on my first prototypal swiftlet farm – I can say with some measure of confidence I have been very successful. Beyond my wildest imaginations. When one considers only 20% of bird houses make it while the rest crash and burn.

I have been most fortunate – coupled to that my enemies tried to sabo me. They have all been neutralised. Their lands are now mine. End of story.

I am still on the learning curve – no where near a guru, but give me two more years, I will be there with the immortals – so far with the help of the Underground Gamers Internationale and a couple of hobbyist that I cobbled together in the internet – I have been able to develop my own sonic solutions to attract birds, temperature and humidity controllers along with all the supporting software to farm swiftlets in a scientific way.

My goal is to demystify this mumbo jumbo industry and to transform it into a veritable science so that anyone can farm swiftlets scientifically. I mean anyone…it’s that simple.

I still have some loose ends to tie up – I still need to infiltrate the highly secretive swiftlet cartel to create my own silk road to the lucrative China market – I plan to go around the traditional gate keepers and establish my own distribution networks – that is the general outline of the game plan.

I already have the swiftlet farming know how that I have been able to glean valuable data from my current bird house – with the supply chain network, I will have all the raw materials I need to seize the high ground in one bold move.

After that my grand design is to identify a suitable location somewhere in the jungle to build a chain of bird houses – the goal is to use this as a platform to impart skills to aspiring Singaporeans who may wish to enter into this enterprise which would otherwise have been impossible given the secretive nature of the swiftlet business – to smash the monopoly of the old cartels in the way one kicks down a door!

I am very close to completing my mission. Just a few more months and I hope to close this chapter. And begin writing a new chapter where many of my friends who are now languishing in Singapore will be able to join me. Together we will prosper. It will be like the old days again – the happy days where happy hour just goes right on and on.

We will win!

———————————————————————————————————–

“For over 10 years, we have all been looking to the PAP for a solution to solve the perennial woes of native PMET’s. During this period, nothing concrete has emerged from government that convinces me that they are serious about arresting the rot of the middle class in Singapore.

All that seems to come out is talk, talk, talk, talk and more talk. Now these same circus clowns are singing the tune, ‘hey, you just don’t cut the grade. It’s not our fault that no one wants to hire you or pay you the market rate.”

Enough is enough.

I want to say this so that there is absolutely no room for speculation, ambiguity and misunderstandings. I am not driven by any hidden or malicious agenda – I simply do not believe there is any mileage in looking to the PAP for a solution to this problem any longer. To me they have long gone beyond the word useless…. and possibly even irrelevant.

And it is pointless to talk further. It is really as simple as that. There is nothing complicated about it. The end. Kaput. Finito.

You go your way, we go ours. That is all there is left. I wish them the very best. Bye bye.

As by nature deep down – I am a very simple man – so when I don’t trust someone – it’s perfectly natural for me to go my own way and to just close that chapter, put it in a cigar box and slide it underneath my bed and move right on.

But I am also a man who remembers his roots. This is a very agricultural way of seeing the world – and I always remember the goodness that once came my way when I once turned the wheel of life in Singapore. As I came across so many Singaporeans who befriended me and touched my life in so many ways that it is not possible even today for me to just turn away and forget.

Impossible.

Even today there I am often assaulted by moments of profound regret followed by guilt that I did not do more to help those who were once so kind to me – it breaks my heart today and even makes me white hot with rage sometimes when I see so many of my friends who were once proud professionals now languishing in Singapore driving taxis or moonlighting as tuition teachers, estate and insurance agents. Many of my friends back in Singapore do not even want to pick up my calls – I understand. I understand completely. As when a man is not down, he is like a wounded animal and just wants to run and hide in the forest – but I say, it is time to set aside childish thoughts.

It is this group of people who I have always been in my mind – my tribe in Singapore – I want to tell each and everyone of you (especially those in my bicycle team) – I never forgot you. You were always in my thoughts. You have been the reason why I have been cracking my head day and night to find a way to break out to a better tomorrow!

This may be very difficult for most people to understand – but I am fundamentally by nature a very simple man – if once upon a time, you gave me a dollar in a moment of need, the chances are, even if ten or twenty years passes by – I will still search you out from the ocean of men and return that dollar plus compounded interest and thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

By the same vein, if you trespass me, I will hunt you down sooner or later, no matter where you barricade your miserable self. I will scale those high walls and one day I will stand before you – and give you and your loved ones the same grief you once dished out so callously to me…with compounded interest, of course. Trust me, this I will do.

I can’t help it – that is just the way I am hardwired as the classical Chinese gentlemen – if I don’t square the accounts, its like putting me a room with a picture that is bengkok – it just riles me no end and I just feel the compelling need to straighten it..to right it..to square the accounts that is. I can’t help it – that’s just me.

That is why the success of this swiflet project is such an important milestone in my life – as this is my first opportunity ever since venturing abroad to seek my fortune – to give back some of that goodness that once came my way so many years ago – to just say thank you very much my friend for all the laughter and good times that my friends shared with me when I was in Singapore – now all I want to do is repay them back, the same kindness from the very bottom of my heart by giving them the key to a door called, opportunity.

I think you have to be very simple minded person to understand this philosophy – you may even have to sit on a park bench and to drive out all of the city from your brain. To reduce your thinking mind even to a simpleton like how a farmer sees the world.

I reckon, if you are patient and persevere…you will understand why this is hardly a matter of choice…I just need to see this through…to square the accounts that is. To close this chapter in my life, so that I can be free of this debt in my heart.

I am very confident you will understand…..if you just try…as I believe there is a farmer deep down in each and everyone of us. We just need to still our minds and find him.