Ok Health

2008年2月29日（金）0:18 (Vietnam time)

I believe I’ve been in the best health condition in many months even with the stupid trouble with a stay extension, which frustrated me so greatly. I feel I’ve gained weight. However, I shouldn’t drop my guard now as health is a very elusive thing to me. Five more nights to go in Ho Chi Minh City.

18:53 (Vietnam time)

Watching the “NHK World” channel, I found a few familiar faces, even though there are many people I’ve never seen before. It is like, “Oh, she is still doing the same program!” “I haven’t seen him for such a long time…”

Phnom Penh

2008年2月23日（土）23:33 (Vietnam time)

Yesterday, I submitted the two tasks for speaking and writing. The director said in her reply that, when I came back to Singapore, she would apply to obtain a student pass for me so that I could stay with reassurance. Very nice of her. I await her comments for my work. I hope they are not totally off the points. Today, there was no important message in my inbox.

*

I’m finding out yet again that being with someone all the time is not easy, and even so frustrating. Only being alone, I can work or read… if someone watched me work/read, I can’t. I truly appreciate my private hours. Yesterday and today, I sent messages two of my friends using Skype. I’m getting tired of here, maybe…

*

I went out alone tonight for the first time. I just walked around the block and was stopped by two pimps. Both were riding scooters, and the first one looked a beautiful guy, who was saying to me, “XXXXXX” (Japanese four-letter word). The second one was a middle-aged woman who was saying, “Young beautiful woman to your hotel…”

*

Where is my home? Japan? Singapore? Vietnam? Or some place else? Can I find an answer or any answer in The Alchemist, which I plan to finish during my one-day trip to Cambodia?

2008年2月25日（月）0:14 (Vietnam time)

Off to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, taking a tourist bus that leaves here at 8:00 am. It takes six hours to reach Phnom Penh, and I’m gonna spend only one night there.

*

The director e-mailed me saying that we would discuss my tasks when I returned to Singapore…

2008年2月26日（火）15:49 (Vietnam time)

About 10 minutes after 8:00 am on Monday, I, with a few other tourists, got on a mini bus only to move into a large tour bus, which was going ahead of us. I don’t know why we didn’t hop on to the large one in the first place. Anyway, here we went to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The change of the scenery was stark. Green rice fields and water buffaloes appeared. After we crossed the border over to Cambodia, a pavement work of the road was going on and the ride was a little bumpy, and simple-built raised-raised floor houses (or rather shacks) were everywhere. The signs of the Peoples’ Party, Sam Rainsy Party, FUNCINPEC and Human Rights Party were also seen.

Introduced a guesthouse by the tourist agency where the bus stopped, I took a tuk-tuk for the first time in my life. I paid US$2.00 folmr the ride, maybe ripped off, but the enjoyment of riding a tuk-tuk was much stronger. The guesthouse room was good enough just for one night (US$6.00), although it had no toiletry (even a toilet tissue, which I had no choice to buy at the reception at US$0.50) and hot water shower. When I settled in the room, it was around 4:00 pm. It was an 8-hour trip.

When I was having an Angkor Beer and waiting for my fried noodle to arrive, a tour driver approached me. Because I had only one night, I accepted his offer to bring me to the Royal Palace to look at it from outside and took photos and the “Russian” market. He charged me US$4.00. Ripped off again?

He asked, “Night lady?” I replied, “No energy…” Then, he asked, “Smoke?” I, ever innocent, didn’t understand the question. So I asked back, “Smoke?” He answered, “Yeah, marijuana.” I declined.

Phnom Penh was quite clean and the level of development compared with outside it was contrasting, though I saw a desolate apartment block.

For the room, food and drinks, I paid $15.15 to the guesthouse. To the departure point, it cost US$2.00 again but this time by a motorbike.

It took only six hours, as scheduled, to come back to HCM. On the way back, I finished “The Alchemist.”

*

From Part Two: “Even though I complain sometimes,” [the boy’s heart] said, “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

Cheated in HCMC

2008年2月21日（水）0:00 (Vietnam time)

I went to the coffee shop (“Bobby Brewers”) as usual. I couldn’t finish my work today very unfortunately because I didn’t receive an answer to the questions I sent yesterday. Apparently the shop forgot my order of a hot café latte. So I spent a few hours there only with water. It was OK because I go there to work and check my e-mail inbox and papers, not really to have a coffee or anything. Then because of no-answer to my questions, I got back to working on my course assignments and I found out that they were tough. I managed to find a seemingly good material for writing work by learners, but I’m not sure how to make them prepare appropriately for their writing, which is the fundamental point for the assignment. Some adjustments may be necessary.

*

I bought a 2GB-memory card for my camera yesterday. While I was not sure if the card was set properly into the camera, I suspected that it was really not functioning. I selected the memory-formatting function despite the warning of “All images will be deleted.” As a precaution, I “protected” them before formatting. But, but… it seems they are all gone!! Oh no…

*

Fidel Castro announced his resignation from the major positions he has held since the revolution. How this affects the Cuban (and US) politics remains to be seen. (Photo: a Vietnam paper reporting Fidel's resignation)

23:26 (Vietnam time)

My first bad experience in Vietnam: I’ve got cheated twice by the same tiny shop. The memory card I bought there was not for cameras. Last night, I tried to set the card and immediately found it didn’t seem to fit to my camera. Even so, I still believed the fault was with my way of setting the card because I asked a girl and a guy manning the shop if the card would work with my camera and they answered yes. And it was definitely stupid of me to press “yes” to formatting. All the photos I’d taken by then were gone.

This afternoon, I checked the operation manual of the camera online and the drawing clearly showed the card was not the type to be used for the camera. I brought the card to the shop to get my money back. The man there showed me another card, which was just fine with the camera. I wondered, just as I did yesterday, why the package was already opened… Moreover, the formatting message, which should’ve appeared automatically on the camera screen, didn’t appear. Well, I should’ve asked but at the same time I thought that “Maybe it is the way of business transactions here…” At a nearby restaurant, I turned on the camera and discovered three photos that were left behind. The card was not new!! I have no idea who took the photos. I erased two of the three, and I think I should upload to my blog the remaining one, which showed a smiling blonde lady. And she is beautiful!!

*

I learned that the fax machine of the hotel is broken. What’s worse, a document seems missing. I managed to arrange it so that I can receive the documents by fax at another hotel. So troublesome… It is simply impossible that anything would go missing as I’ve never taken any document outside. It is taking time to clear the last step to complete the work. This shouldn’t have taken this long if I were in Singapore.

*

I spent many hours in bed while waking up several times. It’s been a tiring day with a few troubles.

My Second Trip to HCM

2008年2月12日（火）0:27 (Singapore time)

I’m at the Changi Terminal 1… the Jetstar check-in is only possible from two hours before the departure time. My plan to go through the immigration counter before the day was over failed. Now, I have no idea how much of overstaying fine I must pay… Many hours to kill and already tired with my luggage.

2008年2月13日（水）22:17 (Vietnam time)

After all, I had to wait until early morning for my check-in… At the airport immigration, I said to the officer, “I guess I have to pay…” She looked at my passport and asked me, “Have you overstayed before?” I answered, “I don’t think so.” I was then taken to another officer who was sitting at the counter. “So you overstayed five days… What happened?” I finally had a real chance to explain my case. He had an ear to listen to me. I showed the letter from the director and told him the whole story again.

2008年2月14日（木）23:30 (Vietnam time)

He listened to my story sympathetically and attentively, and said with a rather friendly smile, “No fine this time. Only warning. Don’t overstay again.” It took me so many unnerving hours and cost me so much money to see him. But I was scot free, with a warning. I felt relieved a great deal.

This is not a holiday journey. Here in Ho Chi Minh, I need to proceed with my assignments and try to finish a translation work of a substantial volume. This is no time to be lazy.

2008年2月19日（火）21:19 (Vietnam time)

I arranged a trip to Cambodia today. The trip is going to be on 25th and I will stay there only one night. I really don’t want to go anywhere, but without a visa to allow me to stay in Vietnam for more than 15 days, I have to leave here once. A girl of a nearby hotel who did the arrangement tells me that the travel agency is asking US$25 for a visa arrangement for me to re-enter Vietnam from Cambodia. I don’t understand why I need a visa to stay here for another eight days when it is not required for Japanese-passport holders to obtain a visa to stay for 15 days. I’d better check the truth tomorrow. In the map of this area on the wall of the hotel, “Cambodia” is still spelled “Cam Pu Chia (Kampuchea)” of the Khmer Rouge years.

*

My feeling is rather stable even though I have nights also in Vietnam when I can only managed to have fitful sleep like last night. It was very hot in this hotel room and I was turning the cooler on, and when it became too cold, off. And on again. And off again… I was watching the “Mr. Bean” movie on TV and found the NHK World channel. (I was a bit surprised when I heard, “This has been the 2:00 am news,” but it was still midnight here…) Then, I finished the remaining pages of “The Singapore Story” and started “The Alchemist,” which I had borrowed from my friend, A. A few hours later at 4:30 am, I was still awake. In a scene of the dream I saw last night, my psychiatrist appeared at the door of my Kyoto house. My mother told me that someone came to see me. And the visitor told her she was the pioneer of some ancient mathematical theory. Indeed she discovered the theory, and she used the term “始祖” to describe herself, trying to speak to my mother in Japanese. I instantly realized that it was my doctor, but my mother was very skeptical about her, thinking she was some phoney figure. The doctor said to me, “Don’t worry. I know you are not living on layers of dust in your room.” She was reassuring as ever to me in spite of my mother.

A recurring scene I see is one wherein I ride a slider down to somewhere… The only slider I have experienced for the past 20 years was the one I tried (twice) on a field trip in Michigan in 1987. Sliding down and down…

*

Every day, I go to some place where I can connect my PC to the internet by Wi-Fi, mostly to continue with my work and also to check my e-mail inbox and Japanese newspapers.

*

Some more from “The Singapore Story”:

“[In 1957, Alan Lennox-Boyd] had… introduced a non-negotiable provision to bar all the persons known to have indulged in or been charged with subversive activities from running as candidates in the first election to be held under the new constitution. I objected to this, saying that ‘the condition is disturbing both because it is a departure from democratic practice and because there is no guarantee that the government in power will not use this procedure to prevent not only communist but also democratic opponents of their policy from standing for election.’” (pp. 257-258)

[The Tunku] was disarmingly frank in his self-deprecation, confessing that his Malay father, the sultan, was a weak man and that his strength came from his Thai mother. The Malays, he said, were not very clever or demanding, and therefore easy to please. All he needed was to give them a little bit more and they were quite happy. These views were similar to those expressed by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his book The Malay Dilemma, published in 1971. He wrote, “Whatever the Malays could do to the Chinese could do better and more cheaply”, and “they resulted from two entirely different sets of hereditary and environmental influences”. Years later, in 1997, when he was Malaysian prime minister, Dr Mahathir said he had reversed his stand and no longer believed what he wrote in The Malay Dilemma. (p. 441)

What were the real reasons for the Tunku, Razak and Ismail to want Singapore out of Malaysia? They must have concluded that if they allowed us to exercise our constitutional rights, they were bound to lose in the long run….
This was the nub of the matter. The PAP leaders were not like the politicians in Malaya. Singapore ministers were not pleasure-loving, nor did they seek to enrich themselves. UMNO had developed to a fine art the practice of accommodating Chinese or Indian ministers in Malaya who proved troublesome, and had, within a few years, extended its practice to Sabah and Sarawak…. (p. 656)

*

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure if this trip of mine to Ho Chi Minh will have a life-long influence on my life, though things seem going that way. It’s so much easier to jump or leap when you are young. Now I’m looking at the same, or a longer or shorter, distance with some hesitation. Is it because of fear of another failure?

A DAY THAT MADE ME FURIOUS!!!!!

I AM REALLY MAD!! I FEEL CHEATED IN A BIG WAY BY THE IMMIGRATION OFFICE HERE!! I VISITED THE LAVENDER OFFICE AGAIN TODAY AND SHOWED THE NEW LETTER THE DIRECTOR VERY KINDLY PRODUCED FOR ME, ASKING THE AUTHORITIES TO ALLOW ME TO STAY UNTIL THE COURSE IS OVER.

AGAIN, MY PLEA WAS NOT HEARD. THE MAN AT THE INFORMATION COUNTER I TALKED TO LAST WEEK WAS REASSURING AND THE POLICEMAN AT THE WOODLANDS CHECKPOINT SAID A NEW LETTER WOULD DO. EVEN THE STERN-FACED OFFICER SAID, “DON’T WORRY.”

NOW, I’M AN OVERSTAYER AND AN ILLEGAL ALIEN!!!

BEING PANICKY, I THOUGHT ABOUT A FEW OPTIONS I HAVE AFTER COMING BACK FROM THE IMMIGRATION OFFICE. ALL TROUBLESOME, AND I DECIDED TO FLY OUT AGAIN, COSTING ME A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT.

AM I RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SHIT??

A Day that Made Me Mad

The venue for today’s class was the Kallang classroom. Though I’ve been there once, I didn’t know the way from the Kallang station. The last time I visited there, I was given a ride by Angela. Some days ago, she e-mailed me describing how to get there from the station. Out of the station this morning, I believed I was walking the right way. However, it turned out that I was going to the completely wrong direction. In her e-mail, she said “turn left from the station.” I’m not sure but it seems that it should have been “turn right.” Having walked a rather long distance and been unable to find any shop that should be familiar from the last visit, I called her. It was already about six minutes past 10:00 am. I walked back to the station and started all over again. This time, just across the station, I noticed a structure that I believed I had seen last time. After 10 minutes, I managed to reach the classroom. Good walking exercise!!

*

Coming back from the class, I checked my application status of a stay extension. I had not doubt of the result. It must be positive. But what I found was this message “your application was not successful. You are required to leave Singapore on or before the expiry date…” I immediately prepared to go out again to the Woodlands Checkpoint as the ICA office had been already closed.

At the checkpoint, a thin old Malay man with a stern face and mustache said to me, “We can’t explain why here, but rejection means rejection. You must go to lavender.” “Can you talk to my course director?” “Why?,” shaking his head. Very unhelpful and he was even not looking at me. I was worried because my visa had been already expired. “Then, I must wait until Monday?” “Yes, and let me say for the last time. You must go to Lavender…” Does it mean the amount of fine for overstay I have to pay accumulates over this weekend? The man said, “Don’t worry about it.” Quite unfathomable. I’m deeply worried and what does he mean by “Don’t worry”?

Worried, frustrated, even angry, I came out of the office and started walking down. The police man stopped me. “Where are you going?” “I’m going home!!” “You can’t go this way. Show me your passport. Hmmm, nihonjin desuka…” I told him what happened and he said, “You must register yourself at the office.” I went back to the office to talk to the unfriendly man. “Just outside, I was told I needed to register…” “No no. just tell him about your case.” “I told him the whole story!!” He stamped today’s date and scribbled on the envelope of the letter from the director “OF ST OFFICE.” I don’t know what it means but anyway showed it to the policeman outside. He said, “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but you should get another letter from the school to ask for a stay extension.” Then, he let me through.

Completing a Circle

It seems that the first few assignments have been finally accepted. Though it should be possible to submit all the assignments at the same time along the schedule of the workshops, I found myself not that good… Therefore, I will still be working on them after the final workshop. I don’t have to complete the course with distinction. I just want to finish it with a passable grade. Let me move forward, but not too fast.

A big thought I have now is that this is completing a circle. In 1987, I was just an ESL student in Kalamazoo. And now I’m trying to be certified to become an instructor who is qualified to teach people like me of over 20 years ago. This is quite something to me.

David Marshall in MM Lee's Autobiography, and Singapore in FEER

“… [W]hen [David Marshall] made what he considered a sound proposal, we often could not help laughing at him. He was apolitical and naive. We knew he was a prima donna who loved to be centre-stage and would be uncontrollable. On one occasion, he was so furious when we laughed at him at the wrong moment that he flounced out of the room in a tantrum and then out of his own flat altogether.” (pp. 177-178)

“… [T]here was now a Labour Front government consisting of weak opportunists, with a well-meaning but politically innocent chief minister in David Marshall, who did not understand the Chinese-speaking people, but was extremely anxious to live up to his self-perceived role as a liberal and a socialist bent on freeing Singapore from colonialism.” (pp. 196-197)

“While the trade unions continued to simmer away and grow in strength, Marshall stirred up one political crisis after another. He had a knack for creating them.” (p. 211)

“Under populist pressure, Marshall predictably moved a resolution on 9 February 1956 that ‘this Assembly is of the opinion that for the purposes of oral debate, the language of the Assembly should be English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil and that a select committee be appointed to examine the report and make necessary recommendations.’ Marshal knew he risked becoming irrelevant by this move. He recounted how a Malayan (sic) had told him, ‘with multilingualism, you are going to hand us over to the Chinese. They will swamp us.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he had answered, ‘one must accept the rule of the majority. The Chinese are 76 per cent of our population. Let us not avoid the issue.’ This was typical of Marshall – half idealist and half (or more than half) an opportunist anxious to prove he was more Chinese than Chinese, and therefore acceptable as their champion, at least for another term.” (pp. 219-220)

“Marshall, already in London, had read the statement I made on leaving Singapore and thought I was undermining him. He attacked me bitterly in an address to 200 Malayan students, warming them that I was inviting communists into the PAP and preparing the way for a communist capture of power in 1959….
… He was too involved in his own emotional processes. Before he left Singapore, he said publicly that he would resign if he failed to get independence… Marshall demanded immediate merdeka… Merdeka, he argued, would rally the people against communism.
But [U.K. Secretary of State of the Colonies, Alan] Lennox-Boyd was not impressed….
Far from reading the weather signals and battening down his hatches, Marshal decided to sail ahead.” (pp. 234-235)

One incident will always stand out in my memory. In the middle of an impassioned flow from Marshall, a private secretary tiptoed up to Lennox-Boyd’s chair to put a cable in front of him. Lennox-Boyd read it and began to write on it. Marshall was miffed. He stopped in mid-sentence, and in a high-pitched voice that showed he was really angry, said, ‘Secretary of State, we know that you have many important possessions around the world, but we have come 8,000 miles to London to present our case and we demand that you give us your attention.’
Without lifting his eyes from the cable, Lennox-Boyd continued writing and said, ‘Chief Minister, let me assure you that of all our valuable possessions across the world, Singapore is one of our most valuable. It is a precious jewel in the British Crown. I am all ears. You were saying, Chief Minister’ – and he repeated verbatim Marshall’s last sentences. It was a virtuoso performance, very British, quite devastating. Marshall was livid and speechless, an unusual state for him.” (p. 236)

“… The [London] conference had proved to be a fiasco. But it was not without value, for it purged Singapore of Marshall’s erratic exuberance. Marshall had to resign…” (p. 238)

“When Marshall finally returned to Singapore on 25 May 1956, he was still sore and angry with me. He ordered me out of the room when I turned up at the airport to greet him, intending to stay on for his press conference. Looking right past me, he said the conference was for friends only. I left.” (p. 240)

“… [W]e were prepared to see the pro-communists abandon us and form another party using David Marshall as cover. Marshall’s retirement from politics was brief; he was shortly to launch a new party, the Workers’ Party. We knew that with him as leader, they would have enormous problems. He was erratic and temperamental. He did not have the political skills to keep the balance between constitutional and non-constitutional methods, and would soon get their new party proscribed.” (p. 268)

Marshall of Singapore and the Opposition (Far Eastern Economic Review, September 15, 1955):

“… Within a few days of his becoming Chief Minister, [David] Marshall had a host of troubles on his hands. Singapore’s turbulent Communist-minded students and its restless labour force plunged the colony into its bloodiest rioting in recent years. The riots and the continuing unrest pose a serious threat to the precarious grip Marshall has on the Singapore government. He holds a slender majority in a government in which five subjects – finance, defence, security, foreign affairs and the civil service – are reserved and will be in the hands of three British officials. Over these subjects, the Governor can exercise his overriding powers….
… Troublesome problems and difficult questions are already arrayed before him. How will he solve the problems and answer the questions which are being levelled at him almost daily now? He knows he and his government cannot avoid criticism, but he believes that his creed, his beliefs, his reading of constitutional progress and political freedom will benefit this Colony.
With this firm in his mind, his philosophy may well be enunciated as: to live in harmony with his own personality, to perform such tasks as befit his temperament – all within the framework of his obligations to the society of mankind. His speech at the emergency meeting of the Legislative Assembly – a fearless and undaunted challenge to those who are trying to wreck his ship of state on the rocks of Communism -- shows his will and determination to speed steadily ahead.
The greatest opposition which he has to face as the head of the Government now is from Singapore-born fellow lawyer Lee Kuan Yew, the stormy petrel of Singapore’s present political scene. His People’s Action Party aims at disrupting the smooth working of the Labour Front regime and forcing its resignation….
It was not until the birth of the PAP baby that lawyer “Harry” Lee became news. Until that time, little was heard of Lee in public. If he had any political views, only his intimate friends must have been regaled with his ideas. Always nattily attired in the best English fashion, speaking fluently and easily with hardly a trace of Eastern accent, Lee watched the changing political scene.
Whatever thought he harboured in his mind until then were suddenly unleashed in urge for prominence as the champion of the poor downtrodden worker, the slave and the tool of the “arrogant, hard-hearted and brutal British” and their colonial system of government in Malaya. He joined the new PAP and found in it people with his own brand of political learning – the hotheads, the tempestuous admirers of the Communist doctrine which had been brought nearer to them after the Nationalist Government of China was chased of that unfortunate and battle-scarred land.
… Like Chief Minister David Marshall, lawyer Lee used his English education to full advantage in his remarkable showmanship at pre-election meetings. His hearers, the labour forces of the wharves, building firms, city council and large engineering and motor firms, stood and listened with rapt attention to his accusation against the British overlords. Came the elections that were to move Singapore nearer the goal of independence and self-rule. With one voice the workers threw their franchise in support of lawyer Lee Kuan Yew, who, for all his insults and vituperation against the British, still stalks jauntily into his club and social gatherings nattily dressed in English fashion.

Singapore Separation (by Han Suyin, Far Eastern Economic Review, August 19, 1965):

The end of Malaysia is near, sooner than even the Barisan Socialist opposition expected.
… It was known that the Tunku, prior to his departure to London, had remarked: “We had no trouble and we were quite happy before Mr. Lee talked me into this Malaysia business.”
If it is true that the separation was the Tunku’s decision, one can only praise him for this; that not a drop of blood was shed, and that there is relief all round, is by itself something that Tunku Abdul Rahman alone could have achieved.
To ascribe, however, the separation to a question of “racialism” is to simplify the issue. The fundamental problem was not racialism as such, but the very terms of reference of the merger, the incompatibility between the unequal citizenship given to a certain section of the population, and the claim of equality for all. Some years back, Mr. David Marshall, Singapore’s first Chief Minister, suggested an “independent Singapore.” This was vigorously resisted as non-viable, dangerous, unfeasible, “playing into the hands of the Reds,” etc.
… Now that one faces the fait accompli, perhaps in the near future we may see anyone who claims to staunchly believe in “Malaysia” called a saboteur, an extremist, and an anti-national element… when the reverse was the case only yesterday.
Perhaps now a passing thought may not be amiss for the unfortunate who protested in good faith against the ruinous arrangement of Malaysia, and were branded “anti-national extremists,” or “communist.” Some were hauled off to jail, others lost their jobs, their families thrown out of their flats, because guilt by association became a salient feature of proceedings during the episode of Malaysia.
… It would be an act of wisdom and statesmanship if the Prime Minister of Singapore, now that he is again in position of his rights, can show that the McCarthy type of hysteria which prevailed in the last three years, and affected some of the public speeches and actions of his Government, was only a temporary phase, and can now be remedied.
For Singapore itself, survival depends on its reassuming for a while its free port status, while making strenuous efforts to industrialise and to offer the kind of facilities, amenities, and services which make Hongkong prosperous, viable and famous… [I]t is much safer [to invest] when prosperity rather than prison terms is the aim.
… At the moment, though neither Sabah nor Sarawak show signs of wanting to secede, one can hardly imagine that things will remain as they are… The behaviour of certain Malayan regiments sent there some months back left much to be desired. No less a person than the president of a certain Rotary Club reported on this matter in terms which would have earned him jail or expulsion, had the press reported him. One cannot imagine Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, with his unbounded energy and perpetually active brain, refraining from putting ideas into the heads of certain people in the Borneo territories, where he has many supporters, particularly in Sarawak, where 90% of the Chinese there are Hakkas like himself.
… Relief is the first emotion in Singapore, and it is to be hoped that this feeling of release from tension will lead to constructive approaches. In Djakarta there is also a feeling of jubilation.
First because Singapore’s opting out has “justified” President Sukarno’s “crush Malaysia” movement, although not perhaps in the way forecast. Secondly because new and subtle trade rearrangements will become possible. The proclamation of non-alignment, the maintenance of the Bank of China (which finances almost 75% of the small businessmen in Singapore), the hope of a more realistic and sane policy (following Hongkong’s admirable example) – all this is bound to make Afro-Asian States happier in their dealings with Singapore than hitherto.