The Singapore Sport

I read a regular sidebar on the Sunday newspaper last week. In it, they ask the man (or woman) on the street for their opinions regarding a current affair. Last week's issue was the state of S-league in Singapore. It seems like there are more and more imports on the soccer pitch across many of the teams in the league, so much so that "S-league" was a misnomer. African-league might be a better name for it.

Most of the people interviewed said they did not keep up with S-league, for reasons varying from "it's too slow and boring" to "their skill levels cannot match the EPL" to "there are no pretty faces to watch". I made the last one up, but it's a very plausible excuse.

A high-and-mighty person in Singapore once dreamed of putting Singapore on the World Cup map by 2010. Well, it's 2010 and we're nowhere close to being on the Asian Cup map. Why is it so difficult to get good soccer players in Singapore? I mean, you're looking at the country that is showing USA how to teach maths to their school children. You're looking at the country that won the bid to host the first Youth Olympic Games. We also have a top-ranking airport, a university that has "ang moh" students choosing it over Harvard (if advertisements are to be believed), an efficient public transport network....

If we put our thoughts to it, we can make it happen. (This is what the army means by "eye power".) In the case of Goal 2010, we even had ministerial backing, so what went wrong? Well, it seems like we didn't really put our thoughts into it. As seen from the responses from the man/woman on the street, we're not really into soccer. Sure, many Singaporeans are crazy about how foreign leagues will pan out, will watch matches at 3 am in the morning and will queue for an hour to place bets on such matches. But play? Siao ah? Under the hot sun? 3 years of training? Boh liao.

Putting our thoughts into sports is one thing Singaporeans can't fathom themselves doing. In US, they have their major sports: Football, Baseball, Ice Hockey. On top of supporting their teams like rabid fans, these sports enjoy massive sign-ups in junior schools all the way up to college. What is Singapore's sport?

Definitely not soccer. It was never the cool CCA to be in. Sure it was fun to play once in a while, but no one wanted a regimental training plan to follow. And attendence at S-league matches are underwhelming, so our soccer fan base isn't as rabid as the undying love and support that Americans give their teams.

Take out any of the other team sports for that matter. Perhaps netball comes close in that we are quite a presence in ASEAN and Asia Pac even. Girls did think that it's a good CCA. But still no rabid fans. Singapore is strong in Table Tennis, but largely due to imported talent.

So what are the sports Singapore is good at? Individual sports like swimming, shooting, bowling and sailing provide the best yields during SEA games. Does it make it a "Singapore Sport"? Not all schools offer these activities as CCAs, either due to facility limitations, or manpower (ie, teacher-in-charge) limitations. As such, only the "mainstream" sports like soccer and track and field are widely offered as CCAs. And besides the decent turn-outs during swimming meets, I'm starting to believe that the image of Singaporeans and excited fans are mutually exclusive events. (Of course, I'm proven wrong by a televised singing competition.)

If "Singapore Sport" were defined as:
A competitive sport;
Featuring majority local sportsmen;
Strong community support (whether or not sports are televised);
Good talent scouting and development, even from a young age,
Then I don't think we have a Singapore Sport.

This post isn't about whether or not this is a problem. It's about uncovering the reasons why the situation is so. There are many sports out there that Singaporeans enjoy and actively participate in. In terms of competitive sports, it seems like Singapore is pretty open to accepting the wide variety of sports out there. Even "exotic" sports like Capoeira and sports that appeal to a very niche demographic like paintballing are available in Singapore.

There are many sports that gather local sporting talents. Many sports that have been introduced to Singapore have quite a healthy following. Take marathons, ultra-marathons and triathlons, which have become popular of late. While talent scouting and development still needs, uh, development in most sports, they have been generally healthy for sports with mature development support. Even a niche sport like gymnastics enjoys the benefit of multiple gymnastic schools (even catering to pre-school kids) and good coaches at a national level.

Ultimately, I feel that Singapore will not be able to call a "Singapore Sport" because of all of them lack a community support element. It's not that we're too results-focused and only detail-oriented to efficiency. That televised singing competition is proof that Singaporeans are willing to rally around anyone with skills (and sometimes, they're very willing to rally with their wallets too). Perhaps sports is not something that spurs as strong a community spirit as, say, music.

Perhaps no one cares that Singapore doesn't have a "national sport". But it's sad that a country that has developed so well intellectually is neglecting such an important aspect of her citizens' lives. -Jimmy

Born to Fight

Act 1: Fight or Flight

The EA ships, well-built and slender, formed up in a line and assemble at their rally point. Observers on the bridge of these ships updated the captains that the AU ships were also forming up their lines about 3 klicks ahead. Much smaller signal boats travelling alongside the battleships relayed the message down the line. In the EA flagship, Prosperity Dragon, Captain Chen assessed the situation.

The wind was in their favour; the AU ships had to perform some form of tacking in order to travel up the line towards them. This would tax the commanders of their boats with additional workloads and would also mean that their gun crews will have to adjust their aim more often. Good thing he had chosen this rally point after winning the coin toss.

The Watcher signal boat relayed the go-ahead to Prosperity Dragon and Captain Chen acknowledged by ordering his signal officer to fire a green and an amber flare. The EA ships unfurled their Draft Nets, which quickly filled up with the tail wind. The glorious Dragons were on the move, while the AU ships took some time to move up into the head wind.

The EA's medium-bore steam cannons scored higher overall accuracy and managed to hit the AU ships even as they tacked past. Even with their numerological superiority, the AU ships were being battered by the Dragons. This is another victory in the EA streak, thought Captain Chen.
From amongst the AU ships, a contraption was launched. According to Captain Chen's spotters, it had the shape of a man, but many times the size. They also note a sizeable torso (presumably to house the massive steam engines, the same ones that power the ships) and a backpack assembly (presumably to house the gravity repulsion generators also found on the ships). The man object darted through the air towards the EA ships, firing the gun it held in its hands. Every shot that landed on a Dragon resulted in a huge plume of smoke and debris. Jade Dragon was heavily damaged and listing to her right, while Imperial Dragon (the previous flagship of Eastern Sun flotilla) had failing GRGs and was falling down towards Earth at an alarming rate.

Captain Chen broke into cold sweat. All these were still being recorded by the Watchers. It will not look good on EA's scorecard and will result in several penalties in the subsequent engagements against the AU. The EA had to find a way to develop their own Demon Armour.

Act 2: The age of Frames

It was the golden age of Frames. The common name given by both sides was "Fully Articulated Armoured Mechanics", or Frames for short. (The EA still informally refer to them as Demon Armour.) In place of battleship engagements, which were taxing on raw materials and manpower, more battles were fought as Frame duels.

Imagine: A ship of the line will sit in the dock for an equivalent of 40000 man-hours to construct, using 4000 tonnes of raw materials. In a battle, it needed a crew of 200 men in various positions on board:
chiefly in gunnery and engineering. The steam engines burned through 100kg of fuel to the minute. If the ship was shot down in battle, it was a burden to replace the materials. A Frame only took up 1% of the resources to construct, burned through just 5% of the fuel and only needed 1 pilot.

Frame pilots were the new gladiators, prized by both sides. The Watchers had a comprehensive set of rules for Frame duels, just as they had for battleship engagements. Military commanders preferred not getting themselves killed in their flagships, and liked that Frame engagements usually lasted much shorter than ship battles.

In the EA, the up-and-coming Frame ace was Chen Long. He had survived enough battles to be noticed in the EA public and participated in the "blockbuster" battles that earned him the reputation and fanbase he enjoys. His crowning glory was participating in the Watcher-sanctioned battle with him leading a lance of 2 other Demon Armours in a surgical strike against an AU flagship. Although other gladiators would have gladly snatched the glory of delivering the finishing blow on the stricken ship, Chen Long made a display of allowing his juniors deliver the coup de grace. This display of humility and sharing the limelight made him immensely popular with both the EA public and military. There have even been rumours that the Watchers contributed into the EA coffers as a direct result of that battle. Too bad both pilots died within the next 2 months in seperate incidences in matches.

The Watcher-sanctioned match for the day involved 2 EA ships of the line supported by 2 platoons of Frames going up against 5 AU ships and their Frame detachment (estimated equivilent to 2 platoons of Frames). As the opposing lines approached each other, the AU ships cut between the EA ships and having isolated it from its sister ship, began pummeling the Silver Dragon. Chen Long's lance launched with orders to "surpress the Frames surpressing the Yangtze Dragon so that it can assist the Silver Dragon". It was a messy affair. His lance mates were picked off by the AU sharpshooters. To even the odds, he had to get close enough for their muskets to be a hindrance more than a threat. He pushed the limits of his body dodging the flak thrown against him, at one point splattering his displays with the blood he threw up. However, once he got in range, he opted to use his heat blade and carve vengeance on the AU frames.

The first one, he simply sliced through its torso and put its steam engine out of commission. The second one, he took the time to carve the armour off the cockpit, then yanked the pilot out from his seat. The third one, he soured its GRG with a deft stroke of his blade, then grabbing it against his Frame, guided it in a headlong fall towards earth.

Act 3: Watch, and learn

It was a battle worth mentioning in the fables. The entire amassed fleet of the AU and EA formed around the Watcher Headquarters building in a show of force. They had to see that they couldn't be the puppetmasters forever. The puppets refused to be pawns in a game. Even if they understood that the Watchers only had a tiny proportion of their population in that massive fortress of a Headquarters, even if this rebellion were to incite the vengeance of the other Watchers living higher up in the sky, even if the Watchers had technology far surpassing that of the AU and EA, even if an all-out war between pawns and the ruling class turned out to be an absolute defeat and annihilation of the pawns, they refused to bow before the rulers.

For isn't it in man to fight? From fighting against the elements, against wooly mammoths, against discrimination, against opposing values?
To expect man not to fight is to deny over 2 million years of evolution.

Chen Long's heart raced in anxious anticipation. He was flying amongst AU Frames, Demon Armour he would have shot down in a previous life. But today, he is just a small part of the hundreds of craft in the attack meant to overwhelm the Watcher's fortress. The battle commenced and it became apparent that even the battleships' largest cannons did little more than scar the fortress walls. Frames were being shot out of the air by the armour-piercing defence cannons. In true Chen Long style, he led his lance through the hellish wall of metal slugs and began slicing through the cannons with his heat blade. The defences might be overwhelmed afterall.

They had not planned how to make the entire structure crumble as they did not know enough of it structurally to exploit any weaknesses. They had banked on total and overwhelming firepower (which was already proven
insufficient) or total defeat (which seemed slow in coming). As the siege continued, Chen Long heard reports of a new Watcher Frame chassis that had appeared. It's swatting Frames like flies, they said. Being a gladiator, Chen Long had this urge to meet the best contender in the field and gauge his skills against such competition. He streaked off to find this formidable Frame.

His fate was to be the same as that of the underclass. -Jimmy

The Trick to getting that Job Promotion

The company organized their monthly breakfast last week, the first one I attended. The MCs for the day were 2 relatively new entrants to the company and new members of the "Connect committee", the people running these welfare events.

It occurred to me right then that someone has to do these events. These are probably the people who need extra items on their already overflowing plates (cos the company is famous for lacking the balance in "work-life balance") to boost their performance during performance evaluations. It's a good deal, right? The office needs some welfare events once in a while to upkeep the morale of the staff and these young staff need an additional platform to showcase their dedication and motivation for the company.

Question is, who sets this rule that new staff need to prove their worth to the company through extra work? Is it no longer enough to just do one's work, and do it well? Or are these people lacking in terms of their work performance and are thus resorting to doing extra work to fare better during evaluations?

The second suggestion is less likely, as a person who is not doing his work well will very likely be discouraged from taking on more work. He will not be able to concentrate on the additional portfolio if the very reason for his employment rests on weak foundations. His supervisor will advise him to concentrate on his own job and perhaps even ask him to withdraw from the committee.

So it seems like the reason these people to it is because they are already proving their worth to the company from their assigned portfolio perspective, but feel the need to improve their standings by taking on these extra roles. In a promotion exercise, it is reasonable to expect managers to promote the worker who involved himself in more work opportunities than one who did his own job just as well but did not take on any extra roles. In a distributive justice viewpoint, he provided more for the company, so the company will provide more for him.

All this is well and good, except for 2 points:

1) Mis-aligned motivations

2) Value of such work

How much are these workers willing to put into organizing these extra activities? Sure they add to the performance evaluation, but it probably does not matter too much how well they performed in such committees.
There is little extra "promotional potential" between doing an excellent job and an okay job in these committees. If a large proportion of the committee was made up of these people, the resulting welfare events will be of an "okay" standard.

How much more likely will you promote a worker who contributes an "okay"
performance into such a committee as compared to a worker who does his normal job well and is assigned more work just by the nature of his job?
What is the value of contributing to these committees? If it's much lower than the everyday work, then it'll be difficult to recruit for these committees and even more difficult to motivate them to produce just an "okay" standard. If it's as high as everyday work, then workers would work in these committees rather than contribute to his everyday work (which theoretically should have a more direct impact on the company bottom line).

Just what is this ramble about? It's not that these committees do more harm than good, in an entire HR perspective. It's not that such committees should be outsourced since they produce so many problems.
They do serve a purpose, the problems are not that big a deal in some companies and they will continue to exist. This ramble is about how the corporate world serves to drain your soul. Glory to those willing to give up their personal time for the company. Glory to those who flaunt their abilities to their evaluators. You don't have to be good per se, you just have to be good at showing your good sides to the people who are watching. -Jimmy