"So, hardware and software got to be in harmony, coexisting. So, STB - attractiveness. EDB- competitiveness. And the regional aspect, the external aspect, and we will say collective competitiveness. And therefore, we can borrow space, borrow scenery, and therefore, Singapore unlimited in the case of EDB, and tourism unlimited in the case of STB. So, those are the concepts that would be very crucial. And why ‘borrow scenery’? Because in 1986, at a visit to Nomura Villa, led by Lee Hsien Loong. We were seated in front of the Nomura Villa. Our guide told us, look at that beautiful scenery. The garden landscape is enhanced by the integration of the distant scenery in such a seamless manner. This is called shakkei. Borrowed scenery. 借景. So, that concept was converted into an economic development strategy, right? Singapore unlimited. [...] And Singapore unlimited concept will be promoted in London, in Hong Kong, etc., in order to invite people to come to Singapore, so that they will be able to make use of Singapore as a hub, under this philosophy of borrowed scenery, which is still in existence today. So, Singapore unlimited in EDB, that will be converted into tourism unlimited. [...] So, it is all about the application of the shakkei concept."
"You need to work with people. Unfortunately, we cannot work alone. So, a success[ful] organisation, you have to motivate your staff and make sure we all move towards one single direction. So, I always share with my colleagues, there are two types of people. One type of people, we call them paper clips. Paper clips are people who are very well-organised. They only focus on tasks. And the other type of people, we call them teddy bears. Like when you hold a teddy bear, you feel very good, very happy, very comfortable. But in real life, if you observe people carefully, he's a paper clip, he's a teddy bear. So, in an organisation, you need both [the] paper clip and teddy bear. So, in a school setup, usually the principal is a teddy bear. Put everybody together. And usually the assistant principal deputy is a paper clip. So, if the principal wants to get something done, get the assistant principal to do. If both principal and assistant principal are paper clips, it's very, very difficult. You learn under a pressurised environment. If both principal and assistant principal are teddy bears, nothing gets done. So, basically, what I bring up this one is we need to work with people. So, nurturing relationships is important. Networking. Friends are the ones who can help you. So, you need to make friends. All of us, we are not just all paper clip or teddy bear. We are both. But I think it's important to know who you are."
"My main contribution and function there is to act as an educationist. My main forte there is to run a top 10% programme. And this was requested by the Minister of Muslim Affairs, Ahmad Mata at that time, that I should groom the top 10%. The Ministry of Education will give me who is top 10%. And every year the top 10% will come to me, there are about 100 of them. And my job is to groom them so that they continue to remain good in top 10%. They develop self-confidence and we want them to develop leadership skills. In simple words, we want them to become religious, civic-minded, intelligent, compassionate, and caring leaders who will serve not only the Muslim community but the nation as a whole. And that was the mission entrusted to me. Now I have decided from the start that we need top educationists to help the Muslim students and that means that we should be open-minded and invite the best from all races. From the Chinese, from the Indians, in addition to the Malays, to teach our Muslim students. And I found that, to great happiness, the other races are very keen to teach Muslim students. And I got the best from the NIE, National Institute of Education, from the gifted programme and so on. So the structure which we did was we run English camps with instructors from the British Council for them, once a year. We also realised that another important key topic is Maths Camp. And there I got Dr Tan Lee Choo from the gifted education unit to run special Maths, A-Maths, E-Maths for our students. We also run a training workshop to get mentors who become like brothers and sisters to these students so they will groom the students on their own. As for the leadership, we run a four-day leadership camp. And to be more exciting for the students, we brought them to Malaysia. […] They will be teaching life skills, even how to cook. I remember a group of students said, you know, Prof, how do we cook rice? We have never cooked rice. Fortunately I cook rice for my mother almost every day. So I told them put like this, put the rice up to this finger and extra level, you add the water. And that was quite fun and interesting. They also found it fun and we bonded very well."
"I arrive. And I vividly remember on an SQ flight, the plane lands at Changi. It's very early in the morning. The sun is just starting to come and I see this beautiful expanse of blue. And then the golf course, the green and the plane starts to land. And I was sleepy. I had been sleeping on and off. I opened my eyes and saw this beautiful scene. I said, wow, in my mind. And then I looked away and I said, no, I don't like it. Very childish, very immature. But I'm being honest. That was how it was. I loved it, but I was determined to not love it because I didn't want any attachment here. I wanted to go back. And that was the main thing in my mind. We were picked up at the airport by my husband's boss, the person who had interviewed him. And he took us to a hotel in Scotts Road where we were supposed to stay for 15 days. And then look for a house in the interim, get admissions to school. So this was a Saturday morning when we came here. And he pointed us to the hawker centre, the Newton Hawker Centre. And he said, this is the best hawker centre, you can have food there. And we came here with four suitcases and four boxes of household items to just start our new life. We got dressed. We went to the Newton Hawker Centre and it was new sights, new smells. And just the ducks and the chicken and the fish. And here we are, four vegetarians who were absolutely not used to... it was like in our face. We didn't know what to do, where to look, what to eat. And we came back and we asked the hotel if we could have something. This was a different time. In Singapore, people are more conscious about you are a vegetarian, then they will not offer you onion. They will not offer you garlic. And they will say, no, in this pan, the non-veg food was cooked. So maybe you can't eat in this plate and you can't eat in this pan. And the hotel said, no, we are afraid we can't give you anything. Maybe bread and jam. But we can't promise that the plate in which it is served, non-veg food may have been served in it. I said, that is fine. You know, that is not an issue. As long as you are not cooking in the same fat as the chicken was cooked. Just give us bread and jam. So they did that. And then we walked because we were on Scott's Road. We walked along Orchard Road looking for food. We had no idea Little India existed. So that was for the next two days, Saturday and Sunday, Orchard Road was where we were. We found Pizza Hut, which had veggie lovers pizza. So that was our first meal. Our second meal was French fries and Coke at McDonald's. And dessert was apple pie. And so Saturday and Sunday, that was on a repeat. That is what we were having because nothing else seemed to be vegetarian."
"There was a point of time when I did kind of stray a little bit off the ballet and I wanted to do piano. So my mother said, you have to choose because we can't afford both. You decide whether you want to do piano lessons or you want to do ballet. So I figured piano would involve my mother having to buy a piano. And that was going to be expensive. So I figured, well, ballet, you use your own body to express how you feel. And apart from just buying the ballet shoes and the leotard, it didn't involve much of an expense. So I decided I'd go the ballet route and never turned back since. Yes, because my mother said, you know, you decide and that's it. [Interviewer: Wow. Was that when you were eight years old or slightly older that you decided?] Slightly older. It was when I was like 12, 13. Which is why by the time I was 16 and finished my O-Levels, I knew that I wanted to dance. Then, of course, came this decision of, you know, going to England was the first time I'd ever flown in a plane, the first time I was ever away from my mother. And it was quite a scary thought. And so I decided if I applied for the Royal Ballet School, I wanted to teach. I wanted to get my certificate. I wanted to ensure that my rice bowl was secured and I would dance if the opportunities came my way. Getting the teacher’s cert was more important. Because I remember when I landed at immigration, they asked me, you know, you see, Miss McCully, you are here for an audition at the Royal Ballet School. And I said, yes. And he said, and what will happen if you don't succeed? So I said, oh, then I guess I'll have to go back to Singapore. And then this gentleman said, well, you better succeed then because it's a long way to Singapore. That was so long ago. I remember how scary it was at the time. [Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, at 16 years old, you know, travelling by yourself. But that, I guess, shows that you really wanted to pursue ballet. And then you got into the Royal Ballet.] Yes."
"[Interviewer: So do you find that over the last five years or so, there has been more help and also more activities for the migrant workers?] Yes. There's more now. Unlike five years ago, six years ago, there's nothing. I don't hear anything about migrant workers' activities. I knew that there were some courses offered for domestic workers before. But that's very common 10 years ago. But now doing poetry, photography or different kinds of art is a very good thing for migrant workers. Because at least they have an outlet. It helps a lot. (Do you feel that there's still a long way to go in terms of getting more migrant workers to be involved?) Yes. [Interviewer: How to get more people to be involved?] I remember telling my migrant worker writers that we should start inspiring them. We cannot keep on doing things for ourselves. I think the best thing is to show them the difference. Just being a domestic worker and a domestic worker with talent. Because for me, like for TikTok, they followed me because they knew that I can help. So they like me doing it. I have 8,000 domestic worker followers. [Interviewer: What?] Yes. [Interviewer: Social media influencer.] Kind of. [Interviewer: What do they call you?] Madam. [Interviewer: Do they have a nickname for you?] My friends started that. They call me Bhing. Bhing is very common. [Interviewer: Your actual name is Robina. Is that a short form?] Bhing. being in it? Yeah okay so yeah, that's how I do it and I enjoy it because I knew that, you know, these people follow you because of what you do, right? I mean there's a lot of, like for example, for tiktokers, they dance or they do silly things and they get followed and they, you will know, oh this is the guy who does silly things But for me, it's like, oh, she's the one who's giving advice. Sometimes on Sunday, I will experience that in the MRT, like, hi. I'm your follower. And I said, hello. But sometimes I feel shy because, you know, I'm not used to that."
"I think there was one death, unfortunately on a weekend, where, you know, the patient collapsed in the dorm itself and died of a heart attack, which was quite a... I mean, the first responders were the NSF police and the dorm workers themselves, which was a little bit traumatic. And I think on a Sunday, we came down. I got my native speakers to come down as well. You know, I mean, a bit of sacrifice on their part because they were with their families. But I just felt that we need to talk to the two or three rooms around to see what they saw, how they felt. In a sense, a debrief, because things like that will erode confidence, right? You know, I mean, what the heck, right? What happened here? How come, you know, you all didn't pick this up or whatever it is. But I must say, they were very kind and there was no panic, right? They were very with it. There was one young, I think the person who passed away was probably about 60, about that age, just at the brink of 60. [Interviewer: Oh, he was 60?] Yeah, you'd be surprised. There are quite a few people in the dorm. Although minority, there are people who are 65. [Interviewer: Not everyone is young.] Not everyone is young. That was another learning point, right? But in the same room, there was a young worker who was maybe about in his 20s or 30s, who saw this man as like his father figure. And that young man was actually quite affected. So we had someone to come and, health staff came and helped us talk to them."
"[Interviewer: What do you think then would be the kind of legacy from this COVID-19?] Oh, I'm really, really worried about this. Because the other thing that people don't realise is that flu has completely disappeared. And in fact, let me just pull this up for you. Flu has completely disappeared. Interestingly enough, the common cold has not disappeared, and is rebounded. So it's not because of the, you know, the safe distancing measures worldwide. But there has been, and this is actually a publication done by the SingHealth people, where they looked at the incidents of the different respiratory viruses. And the last case of flu reported in Singapore was May 2020. Worldwide, it's the same. Okay. So I think it's just a matter of time before we get a flu pandemic. And you know, the thing is, coronaviruses live in bats in caves. Flu lives in ducks, birds, and pigs. So it's hard to go to a bat cave and find a virus. But to go to handle a duck, and even again, H1N1, 2009, everyone is looking to China and Southeast Asia for, but it appeared in Mexico. So it could appear anywhere. And what I'm really afraid of is just when, you know, Tokyo Olympics goes, everything goes fine. Then suddenly, somebody announces that they found a new strain of H2N1 or something like that. Then we're back to square one. And then we'll be locking down, looking for it. And flu cannot be stopped. So we'll just go through the whole thing for no point whatsoever until, and you know, again, the scary thing about the Spanish flu was that it was young people who were affected. So this time around, a lot of old people have died, which is tragic in itself. But if we start getting 20, 30 year olds dying, or children dying, which is what might happen if it's a novel strain of influenza, then, you know, the kind of reactions that we have done through COVID will be considered mild. Yeah. We'll be like locked in our own homes."
"And I remember that in the early years of Mediacorp — not just for Masters of the Sea, but also for Phua Chu Kang — they had acting teachers from the U.S. Didn’t work for me at all. Zero. I resisted, and I almost want to say, I rejected that way of learning about acting. By then, we had many, many years of discovering our own ways of what worked and what didn’t work from our days in the theatre. And I didn’t like the way, that sort of sensory acting, or… And it’s so funny, because many, many years later, here in North America, I sat in at a couple of acting classes, right? And it’s still the same. Just sort of like, very confessional, you know? Everything about, oh, use your own tragedy to make yourself a better actor, all that sort of… yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t say I have gone through any tragedies in my life, and yet I think I understand tragedy enough to play many, many tragic characters. In our second session, we talked about Andromeda and all the tragedies, and, you know, I mean, you don’t have to lose a child to understand what it feels like to lose a child, if you are curious enough about human nature, and have the propensity to be compassionate and empathise."
"I think Lee Kuan Yew urged me several- three times, more than three times, you know, to go into politics. The first time I said, hey, don't play the fool I'm not big, you know, kind of quality to be a politician, you know. He said why? Firstly, educationally I'm not up to the standard. If I'm able to become a politician to teach people, to tell people, I must be better than the people themselves. But I'm not better than people themselves. The people are much better than myself, you know. […] The second time he asked me, he said, you come in. You must come in, you know, at that time. Not that Singapore haven't got that quality, but I'm being given the opportunity, chance to come to know these great people, you know. So they also think that I'm moderate, moderate can go in and just, you know, take the job as a candidate. Might be, by chance, I'm being elected. So I told him no. The third time he gave me something which, you know, made me more or less accept his argument. I said, I can't make a speech. I wouldn't dare to make speeches, you know. You know, I was a clerk, a bank clerk. Never talked to people in a group, you know. And you stand higher, talk to people, I shiver, you know. I wish I could, there's a hole below I can hide there. So how can I become a candidate? He said something, you know. He said, yeah, you don't want to become a candidate. But you know who is taking charge of you? The British. Whatever they say, you've got to follow. I said, yes, I know. But why should I go and take over the job? The British, the British for so long already, the other people better, you know. He said, no, not just that. There are other people who are wanting to go into the politics. And they are in charge of you, good or no good, they are in charge of you. You want to have people, good or no good, taking care of you? You go in. You know, you want to be a good man, you must go in. You want to have a freedom of speech and all that. You must go in and see how they do it."
" So I contacted social welfare department. Her case, her mother's case is known to them, you see, this girl. So they said, okay, we have to wait. We waited for three, four months and nothing came out. And then one fine day they just gave me a call and said, okay, there's a place now, you bring her tomorrow. I said, eh, this kid, she's roaming the streets and so free and easy. How can I just go and tell her today, tomorrow I'll bring you to an institution. She will rebel, she will run away and all that kind of thing. So I said that you have to give me a little time for me to talk to her. Try to counsel her and tell her, you know, advantages of going there, disadvantages of going there. This kind of thing, do a bit of casework. And this darn social worker down there said, she's in charge of the children's centre. She said, eh, she knows I came back from America. And she said, hey, we are not America here, you know. We don't just have to wait and take the time. I cannot hold this place for you forever. You either bring her or you don't. So I was a bit mad with her, you know. I said, what do you mean America or not America? This little girl is a human being, you know. You just cannot uproot her from her free and easy life and just institutionalise her. But she didn't understand this business. No, you just go, you need to go, you just go, you know. You don't care what the other person feels. Later on she became sort of a social work colleague and friend. But that's how they work. So I was not used to it. So finally she gave in. So she gave me two weeks. Then of course we put the girl there. And then pretty soon after that I didn't follow up. They took over. So I was only there for four months. But this is how they work here in Singapore that I was not used to."
"[Interviewer: Back during the 1990s, who were the people who generally benefited from ComChest (Community Chest Singapore)? Because looking at the current profile of people who benefit from them, it's mainly children with special needs, youth at risk, adults with disabilities, families in need, and vulnerable seniors, people with mental issues. So, were these examples that were already around back during the 1990s?] Basically, I believe ComChest, NCSS, look at the total needs of the community. The emphasis might have changed over the years, but at that time, health, community, the elderly, sick, people with special needs, for example, special education, actually took up a big part of the budget. And I believe it still takes up a big part of the budget today as well. Children, youth and families. Singapore has always believed that a strong family is important. Family is the building block of society, so we always wanted to have strong families. The issues might have been a bit different. For example, in those days, you would have children who had a lot more health problems. When Children's Society was established, it was to take in children who suffer from malnutrition, worm infestation and things like that, which do not exist today. You don't have that kind of problems, but the problems are more social in nature, rather than health in nature. Youth, there's a lot more emphasis on youth at risk today because of their greater exposure to social media and so on. So, there's emphasis more on youth and of course, the new knowledge about early childhood development and education, there's emphasis on that as well today. So, if you look at kids with special needs, actually we monitor them from birth today to see if they have any mild needs or more needs that require special attention and follow up. So, I would say what has changed is that we will increase knowledge. Today, we have become a lot more specialised and a lot more targeted in terms of how we help people with their needs."
"Then the next thing we also did in terms of just some of the work was that we started working actually closely with several agencies. And one of the actually very productive outcomes was that we got to just work very well with MINDEF. So MINDEF, because a lot of the areas with good biodiversity reside in MINDEF areas. Tekong, SAFTI (Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute), live firing, all the live firing areas. We were in a way, people might say stray sleeping partners, but on the other hand, everywhere around the world, it's been shown that conservation and defence people always get along very well. Because defence people want to keep as much natural vegetated areas, as much as possible, if they want to do their training. They don't want to just raze everything off, but they want to maintain certain vegetation, especially if they think this is the vegetation where our enemy might be in. So this is a good training ground. So we got along so well with Ministry of Defence, so that between 1998 to 2003, we actually did surveys of Pulau Tekong, flora and fauna. Quite amazing. They allowed you all to go on? Yes. Did they do it themselves? No, we went with, so I coordinated a team. So I think a few things to highlight here again, the importance of actually interaction with agencies. Two, in order to be able to conserve our biodiversity, you need to know what you have and where you have it, and its conservation status. So we were building up our knowledge base of biodiversity in a wide range of taxonomic groups. [Interviewer: Even your working relationship with MINDEF, you said was successful. Was it because of individuals involved? Was it someone in MINDEF who were quite, who like nature and also quite supportive?] Yes. Partly that. But also when you have somebody go in and show them what they have, why we should learn about it, how they can help us. Any agency, I think any agency is not against biodiversity conservation, just that they didn't know of such things because people were not aware of biodiversity, why biodiversity is important. And so that's why with us going in, showing them, you've got all this rich biodiversity, you go and defend Singaporeans. This one is the original Singaporeans, man, right? They have been here for even longer than human beings, so you also can say that. To the point where they were so supportive that they had an article, you know, MINDEF has this magazine called Pioneer. They featured the biodiversity survey in Pioneer. They made a big article, they blew it up and then they laminated it and gave it to me. It's quite amazing with my picture in it. So those are the days when they were very supportive. And basically it's G6. And because I knew quite a bit about parasitology and ecology, I provided a lot of advice to MINDEF with regards to various kinds of health-related things. So it was a lot of give and take kind of thing. So I think that was important."
"But I remember Punch (Coomaraswamy) telling me something which stuck in my mind. He was teaching evidence in the university on a part-time basis. So I asked him, why do you choose to teach evidence? Well, he said that when he was asked to teach, whether it would help the university by teaching, he thought very hard. Now, this was before I joined university. He was the teacher in evidence before I entered law school. So he said, he thought very hard. Where is it that you can make the greatest contribution to the law? And he says, the one thing that every lawyer must know, whether you're a corporate lawyer, you're a conveyancing lawyer, or you're a litigator, the one thing every lawyer must know is evidence. Because at the end of the day, if there's anything that's not agreed, any problems, it will end up in a case in court. And to be able to go to court, you must know the rules of evidence. You must know what is it you can put forth, what is it you cannot put forth. And that is why he decided to teach evidence. And I must say that in my year, when I was a law student doing evidence, many of my classmates had notes of their seniors from Punch Coomaraswamy's days when he was teaching evidence. So that gives you some idea of the quality of his teaching. So I had some insights to the man. Of course, Punch towards the end of his days was very sick. And we hear stories about him falling asleep on the bench because he suffered from emphysema. And when he retired as a judge, I think that he found it hard to just stay at home. So I encountered him a few times leaning against the door of the court, smoking away. And dressed very casually. You never imagine that he's actually a retired judge."
"Because, when I joined, it was 1976. The population not interested. Those days, you were only allowed to withdraw money for your housing. And they call it coffin money. That means, when you die, you're in your coffin, then you get your money. So, enforcement was very, very... [Interviewer: But we could withdraw from the… on the record, only for housing?] Yes. [Interviewer: Only for housing?] Yes. [Interviewer: Okay, the rest of it is coffin money?] No. They call it, when you go and collect, they say, this is coffin money. [Interviewer: Oh, okay.] So, as a result, there were a lot of evasion. So, you need to go in and then see how you go and refine the enforcement system. [Interviewer: When you say enforcement, what do you exactly mean?] Enforcement means the payment of CPF. You need to make payment of CPF. So, we got to... Enforcement means you make sure that whatever needs to be collected is collected. [Interviewer: The employer is paying the CPF contribution.] Yes that’s right. [Interviewer: That is where the enforcement comes in.] Yes. You see, the collection, the employers will make the payment and it goes to the computer, and then the finance will keep track. But then, how do you know the employer has made the correct contribution? So, you use the computer to check, you use various other systems. For example, we have got two other systems to complement this, to supplement this. One is the complaint. So, if anybody complains, we will go into the company and then ask for six years' records, and then check payroll and check on contributions and see where it goes wrong. Then, we also do what is known as surveys. That actually brought in my study, the knowledge I gained in the university. As doing statistics, I do surveys. So, what I do is, if you look at the... I divide the whole employer's list by different industries, and I take samples. I take one or two percent of the samples, and those selected will need to go and submit to us the records, and from there we see what is the level of non-compliance. So, those with very high level of non-compliance, we go in and survey the whole industry. So that if employers who have not made the correct contributions, we go in and we collect millions of dollars. [Interviewer: Was there a lot of non-compliance?] Yes, especially things like the construction industry, the restaurants- [Interviewer: the service industry.] -the service industries, and also the, the what you call- those guards, securities and so on."
"There was one particular session, Kuo Pao Kun was there. And he was really giving it to me about our lack of cultural policy, that what we're building didn't serve the needs of our artists. And he went on. And quite rightly so. So I remember looking at him, and I said, “Pao Kun, I can't change the decisions. I can't undo the decisions made. If I walk you outside, this complex is being built. Would you work with me to help make it work? Because this is now what I have, I'm charged with, and I want to make it work. My heart is with the local community. Will you help?” I guess it took him by surprise as well. He did pause, and he softened. And basically, I can't remember his exact phrasing, but he said, “Okay, I will help.” And from that meeting, at least with him, that wall was no longer there. And that, for me, was an important meeting. [Interviewer: Was it the turning point?] It was the turning point. And we only knew of each other then. That was my first real encounter with him. And of course, he was very watchful thereafter about what I did. But I like to think that I was quite consistent in my actions and in what I said. But, with all these sessions, I know that, whilst I may have said the things, the right things, I may have said things that seemed supportive, but understandably, the artist was still circumspect. Because, as I said, and I acknowledge, they're mere words. At the end of the day, it's the decisions and how we conducted ourselves that matter."
"It was of a lot of energy. The people who come to work for a place when it doesn't even exist yet, or kinds of students who come to study at a place that when it doesn't exist yet, are a little bit bold and crazy, right? Like, it's not everybody who would do that. Everybody had a vision. I remember, it felt like emotions were high a lot. Everybody really, really wanted to see this place succeed. Everyone had their own ideas a little bit of what it could look like or what it should be. Those didn't always agree with each other. There was tension and really high expectations. I remember feeling like we're being watched, in a sense that everybody's got their eyes on Yale-NUS, like, are we going to succeed? Are we going to fail? Are we going to make a misstep? It was a high pressure environment in those first couple of years, I was just telling a colleague, I didn't think I would make it to the one year mark. There were moments where I just thought I can't do this, this is just too much stress. It wasn't even the hours so much. I'm fine with long hours, but it was just the tension was really high at the beginning. But that's settled after a year or two, we weren't doing everything for the first time there was a little bit of precedent to build off of."