#however she could also potentially be singaporean

[minnaci]

im running out of masterchef canada seasons to rewatch BUT NOW masterchef world is starting to post full episodes of masterchef australia dessert masters featuring my king my beloved reynold poernomo!!! and also amaury guichon is judging!!!! it's SO good so far. all the contestants are professionals and so the quality of the pastries are literally UNBELIEVABLE and i am so so so endeared to literally all of the contestants so far

[wordsaloud]

entry 1: change/get to know me

16th August 2023

change is the only constant in life.

21 years and i still struggle to internalise, let alone embrace change. it’s tough to embrace something that you can’t expect, something with the potential to make or break your life.

yes, hi. before we get any further into this entry, i’m nelly. 21. undergraduate. from singapore. and very, very lost.

i know that at this age, it’s commonly known as a transitional period where we��re starting school, ending school, starting our careers, moving overseas and whatnot. basically going all over the place, just hoping we’re making the right decisions for the sake of our future.

i graduated polytechnic in may 2022 and decided to take a gap year. i was already working as an intern during my last semester of polytechnic, so the transition into the industry wasn’t too abrupt. but still, it was the period when I also decided it was time for me to sustain myself. i stopped taking allowance money from my dad, i paid for my own bills, my food and all other expenditures and i was even giving my parents money.

this was a change, alright. but it was a controlled change. so still, not too bad right?

1st December 2023, 11:00pm

so. um. a little change of plans. and a little fast forward into time. the words above were written just days before my world felt like it was collapsing into me. my initial intended message of this entry to you, was to embrace change. i was also kind of hoping that i could convince myself that life right now isn’t too bad afterall.

but boy, i didn’t even manage to finish this entry before life bit me in the ass.

don’t get me wrong, nothing drastic happened. things in uni just got too overwhelming to quickly. academically, physically and boy…. emotionally.

to be fair, i didn’t even want to be in uni in the first place. but yknow, asian parents. so frankly speaking, i came into uni with not an ounce of proactiveness and initiative in my system. i knew nothing about the uni curriculum, the syllabus, requirements.

but at the end of the day, i was simply still a singaporean child yearning for academic validation. and when i realised i wasn’t doing too well, i panicked and i spiralled. for months. everyday i wake up and all i would feel is immense dread. for most of the struggle, my issue was feeling alone.

i think i can speak for most uni goers that there are no constants in uni. especially if you’re in a double major programme. unless you’re really lucky. there are no form classes like in poly/jc, no close rapport with your lecturers, and for the past few months i still feel like i’m still introducing myself with people. so i, have not been very lucky in that sense. my only friend in uni is my roommate, and she studies computer sciences. me? linguistics and english. most of my programme related ‘friends’ are all on a hi-bye basis. so that sucks.

i wanted so desperately to belong in some type of friend group or just have one constant friend, but to no avail. and i eventually just stopped trying. i still felt alone, though. just doesn’t feel too bad if i don’t try anymore, you know what i mean?

yeah, so i was struggling with trying to catch up with my module contents and i always just kept thinking about how it would feel if i had somebody else to struggle with, you know? the semester has ended, and this still hasn’t changed for me. but i’ve made peace with it. you can’t force friendships and i’m okay with that.

i, however, did spiral for months and it affected my relationship because i was relying too much on her emotionally. i was asking too much from her. since i didn’t have any uni friends, every lament, every whine, every complain went through her ears. and i won’t go too deep into it, but it did affect our relationship for a while and to be honest, it’s still kinda rocky now. but that’s a story for another entry.

along the way though, it felt like something changed inside of me. in a good way. maybe i was tired of constantly throwing myself a pity party instead of doing the shit i needed to do. maybe it was because i joined other things in school that didn’t make school feel like absolute hell.

it was a risk, of course– to add more things into my schedule when i was already struggling with what i already had on my plate. but god, they were such blessings. i am so eternally grateful for my dance cca. it’s not like we’re besties, but every time i came into practice i always just felt like i belonged. they treated me like it. it’s something that i didn’t, and still don’t feel in my programme. so it was really so, so refreshing.

after i joined, we were practising for a big scale performance so it was trainings after trainings after trainings and i was so so busy but so, so determined and excited. it gave me some sort of purpose as well as an outlet to destress physically in between rushing assignments and studying for my finals.

it’s semester break now. yay i survived one semester of uni! 7 more to go. it’s needless to say that i have more time on my hands, but i also have a lot i wanna do. go back to the gym, spend more time with my loved ones, write more! and of course, to NOT repeat my mistakes of this semester. so i’ll be reading up on my next semester texts to give myself a headstart.

anyways, i apologise. this is my first entry. so structure and content distribution wise, i’m not too sure what’s the right way to go about it. just take it as a little get-to-know-me piece hehe.

maybe you can let me know! did you read through the whole thing? did you get bored? was it tmi?

thank you for reading, remember to be kind to yourself <3

till the next entry, friends!

nelly.

[spike-and-faye]

Hello, I require your infinite wisdom please!! :O So I just finished cowboy bebop and I am so confused like who the fuck was Julia. WHAT was Faye's past. I literally never process tv shows and the bebop was not immune to my stupidity LMAO like... I guess the ending just really confused me, from what I gathered Spike and Vicious were friends? But then they weren't? And Julia dated Vicious but also Spike? And he? Went after Vicious even after Julia had died? I am Confusion. Please help. Thank u...

Oh BABEY I am so glad you asked! :) Be prepared for a long answer and I apologize in advance for how incoherent it will probably be.

ALSO Please note: this show is fucking complicated. I have watched it all the way through several times a year, every single year, for over a decade now, and I am *STILL* finding new shit every time I watch it. It's packed with symbols, motifs, allusions and underlying themes that are just so rich. It is so extraordinarily well-written that it could give a lot of classic literature a run for its money. I'm literally working on an in depth literary/film analysis my husband lovingly calls my Manifesto on the series right now. SO PLEASE don't beat yourself up about not catching everything on the first go round.

HEY BTW for anyone who hasn't finished the show, please know there will be MANY spoilers ahead!

Anyways ~

1.     Spike / Julia / Vicious:

The information we get on Spike's past, including Vicious and Julia, is pretty limited considering how big of an impact they have on the story. We get our first glimpse in Session 1: Asteroid Blues, then again in Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels, Sessions 12 + 13: Jupiter Jazz, and Sessions 25 + 26: Real Folk Blues. I recommend reviewing these episodes for you Julia and Vicious fix.

What we know:

Spike and Vicious were both members of an organized crime syndicate called the Red Dragons, which is roughly analogous to the Yakuza or the Mafia. Their positions in the organization are not clear, but there are some images alluding to them being hitmen, and they likely rose up in the ranks as they were close acquaintances of Mao Yenrai, a Capo of the Red Dragon.

Spike and Vicious were close comrades. Spike taught Vicious everything he knew about fighting, and the two had a deep trust in each other. Which Spike fucked up ….

^^Vicious looks hot asf here

Julia was Vicious' lover/girlfriend. One night in 2068 (three years prior to the time we watch in the Bebop) Spike is injured, presumably from a syndicate-related fight and he passes out in front of her door. She takes him in and nurses him back to health and he SIMPS HARD for her. We’re all but told he's in LOVE love with her. They start an affair, and Spike tells her he's ready to abandon the whole life - the syndicate, Vicious, Mao, all of it - and they could run away together.

WELL Vicious finds out about this whole affair, and is DOUBLY betrayed because his literal best friend and girlfriend have been having an affair, and tbh I think he was just as jealous of Spike's attentions as he was of Julia's. (Whether or not it’s a sexual thing for Spike … well … I have my own headcanons about that). SO when he finds out they're going to run away together, he gives Julia an ultimatum: you can either kill him, or I'll just kill you both. Spike had written her a letter about meeting him in the graveyard to start their new life together, which she tears up to hide his location from Vicious. (This is the falling ripped up pieces of paper we see in Spike's flash back in Session 5).

^^ r/gifsyoucanhear

**NOTE: There are those who disagree with this view, (looking at you Cowboy Bebop wiki) instead suggesting Vicious and Spike were buds in the past, but then hated each other once they were both considered as potential successors to Mao. That's why Vicious wanted him dead, and he was enlisting Julia (who he didn't necessarily have a romantic connection to) to help kill Spike since he knew Spike loved her. Personally, I think there is plenty of evidence that Vicious also wanted Julia, and in fact was already with her, when Spike started seeing her. If you want me to cite my sources please send an me an ask about it :)

Spike gets the idea, whether by her just not showing up or word around the syndicate being like YO Vicious wants you dead. Despite Vicious' ultimatum to Julia, he was gunna kill Spike either way. SO he sets up an ambush, and SadBoy™ Spike walks intentionally into their trap. Somehow, he doesn't die, though the entire syndicate thinks he did. (Note Annie's reaction to seeing him alive in Session 5). It’s also implied that this is where he lost his eye.

HIS EYE - possibly the most important symbol in the show so I do have to mention it. In episode 26, he explicitly explains to Faye that one of his eyes only sees the past. (PS this isn't dissimilar to Jet's arm… we can get into that another time). Basically, he's constantly living halfway in the past and halfway in the present, and describes the past like a dream he can never wake up from. Because dysfunctional or not - the syndicate WAS his family. (Again - see his relationship with Annie, Mao, and Vicious (prior to Spike's betrayal)). It's his reminder that Julia didn't run away with him, and that he'd left behind that life for her. (He didn’t know she was being threatened until the final episode). Basically Spike is hyper-fixated on what he had and what could've been.

Not long after this, Spike starts bounty hunting because like? What else is he going to do. He doesn't care if he lives or dies but if he has to be alive, he may as well be able to eat. He joins up with Jet Black on the Bebop.

TL; DR: Spike stole Vicious' lover, Julia, so Vicious made Julia choose between her killing Spike or Vicious killing them both. She instead went into hiding and Spike thought he'd been stood up. He fake died and got the hell outta dodge.

2.     What was Faye's past?

Ok let me start by saying Faye is my wife and my life. HOWEVER I hated her the first time I watched this show circa age 13 because I thought she was annoying/vain/shallow (also because #internalizedmisogyny lol am I right fam). Good news! She is all those things! But she's also very lonely and scared and an amnesiac and secretly a sweetie and she realizes she loves the crew of the Bebop like family.

SO my wife's backstory:

she was born in the 1990s (#only90skidsremember). There's some debate over her race/nationality, but due to the images of her hanging out in Merlion Park in Singapore, my bet is that she's Singaporean. She comes from a wealthy family with a big house, and we see some utterly *adorable* film of her as a child/young adolescent in Session 18: Speak Like a Child. I cry everytime </3

^^ Holla for the representation

In 2014, circa age 20, she and her parents were going into space when the shuttle they were on had some kind of malfunction/accident and it killed an unknown number of people, including her parents. At the time, the technology didn’t exist to be able to save her, so she was put into a cryogenic sleep state. Meanwhile, the Lunar Gate accident occurs, breaking up the moon and causing rock showers on Earth's surface. Most people died, moved to Mars, or settled underground.

She wakes up from her cryogenic sleep in 2068. (Also the year Spike leaves the syndicate.) She's 'woken' by the corrupt Dr. Bacchus who plans on charging her for the years and years of medical debt she's accrued. (See Session 15: My Funny Valentine.) Luckily a lawyer takes interest in her case (Whitney Haggus Matsumoto) and tries to help get rid of her debt. The two fall in love, but turns out Whitney is a Scumbag. He's actually Dr. Bacchus's nephew, and faked his death, writing Faye as the sole inheritor to his will. This means she'll take on all his debts. So baby girl has LOTS of debt at this point.

In the intervening years prior to her joining the Bebop, she gambles, cheats, gains a lot of street smarts, and adopts a very seductive character to get her way. She joins the crew on the Bebop in Session 3: Honky Tonk Women.

TL;DR: Faye is Austin powers

YIKES this is so long I am so sorry. Bitches are obsessed with this show. (I am bitches)

3.     The Ending

Okay I'm going to present this in the way, in my scholarly opinion, would be correct, though there are SO many interpretations other than simply 'Spike died :/".

To understand the plot of the last couple episodes we actually have to go back to Session 5: Mao is instructed* to sign a treaty with a rival syndicate called the White Tigers. (*He's instructed by The Van (Council of identical creepy old men) who are the actual head of the dragon. I think we only see them in Session 26.) Well - Vicious is a Bastard Man and he and his fellow mutineers blow up the White Tiger guys' ship and slit Mao's throat. Before he dies, Mao is like "Gotdamnit if Spike was still here this shit wouldn't have happened." Later in the Cathedral battle, Vicious explains to Spike he killed Mao because Mao 'lost his fangs'. He planned on killing Spike for good her, IMO, so there'd be no rival to take over as Capo for the Dragons.

^^These guys are The Van btw

THEN in Session 25, the Van basically catches Vicious and is like “you killed Mao and now you have to go to Time Out.” The Van also decides to just kill everyone associated with Vicious, just 2 B safe. That's why there's a big ass shootout at the Loser Bar where Jet and Spike are chilling, drinking, (missing Faye and Ed and Ein lol) and Shin (younger brother to Lin, who's helping Vicious overthrow the Dragon) explains all this to Spike. OH and PS JULIA IS ALIVE AND HERE IS HER LOCATION :). (**Notice Spike's reaction at this point is different than his reaction in Jupiter Jazz when he hears there's a Julia on Calisto. Much less excited… hmm…).

SO THEN you know we get some flashbacks of the past as previously explained *and* Julia just happens to run into Faye. She recognizes that Faye is one of Spike's friends from the Bebop (she was keeping tabs on him it seems) and picks her up. Faye doesn't know who Julia is but is like damn bitch I'm a little gay for you. (I mean … that may just be my bi ass projecting, but Faye is REALLY struck with her. Look at how she describes her to Jet, I mean come on.)

 Faye's like, 'we should team up' and Julia says 'no thanks but also tell Spike to meet me at *the place*'. Meanwhile back on the Bebop Spike and Jet are talking and Spike goes on about some dream woman who was his other half. (We assume he means Julia … I have my reasons to doubt this … I have a lot of angry DMs about my opinion here lol but I just do not give a fuck (: I can expand on this in another post or you can refer to the title of my fucking blog haha) Personally, I think Watanabe personally left this specific scene open ended, the same way he does with the ending and various other things.

more like SIMP Spiegel

ANYWAY Faye comes back to the Bebop to tell Spike about Julia, and Jet gets intel from a former cop buddy that there's some shit going down with the Dragons. (Again, the Van is hunting down everyone ever associated with Vicious, including your pal Spike). Bebop is attacked, Faye tells Spike what's up with Julia, and he heads out.

 PAN TO VICIOUS chained up - about to be executed - but what's that!? It's a bird!? It's a pla- no it's just a bird. (With one glowing red eye … hm … reminds me of Spike, also the drug Red Eye. Pls let me know if you have any thoughts on this). Just a bird with a BOMB! Explosion (RIP bird c. 2065 - too soon), Vicious kills the elders, his buddies show up and are ready to go fuck shit up.

this show could not be more of an aesthetic

MMMPhhh okay RAINY CEMETERY. Spike and Julia. She draws a gun, explains why she didn't meet him that day, and then hugs him. Now Spike is not *great* at showing his emotions but he literally just stands there. Maybe it's a stoic expression of how sad he is that he never knew she still cared, when it seemed like she dumped him. Maybe he's finally getting some closure on his past. Maybe the past doesn't mean the same thing it used to. (I'll elaborate later on this).

They go to Annie's to get stocked up on stuff, she lets them know she denied knowing Spike was still alive and hey also the Van was assassinated by Vicious and his guys so. Watch out for that. Then her shop is surrounded by Vicious' guys and she dies :(. Spike and Julia escape to the roof, but she's shot and dies in Spike's arms, and says 'it's all just a dream' :(. (Refer to: Spike living in a dream of the past).

Anyway Jet SAID he wasn't gunna go after Spike but. Jet's parental instincts kick in (oh yeah he was shot in the leg earlier btw) and he goes to Sitting Bull to see if he knows where Spike is. He basically says yeah Spike's about to die somewhere. (I want to do a further analysis on all the Sitting Bull scenes.) Well conveniently Spike returns to the Bebop, eats, tells his story about a tiger-striped cat. (At one point Jet asks if he's going there for her, and Spike is like well she's dead now so whatever). THEN we get to the scene where Faye is like HEY YOU CAN'T GO OFF AND DIE ASSHOLE and he's like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I 've been living in the past so I might as well see if I'm living now. (**This will play heavily into my interpretation of the ending). Faye is pissed, shoots the ceiling and he goes off to the syndicate headquarters to fuck shit up.

He basically John Wicks his way through the building, Shin dies, he and Vicious have the big boss battle and whatnot. He kills Vicious and stumbles back out down the stairs and says "Bang!" and collapses. We pan to the sky and see a star fade away.

Well that explains the plot … now here's what I think happened!!! ALSO may I mention, anon - you picked up on something I feel like a lot of people miss out on. Why *did* Spike go back to kill Vicious if Julia was already dead??

Basically, once it became clear that anyone associated with Vicious was being killed, Spike knew they'd hunt him down, and they weren't beneath Kill-Billing their way to him, (i.e. systematically destroying this companions to get to him). And for all his apparent indifference - he really loves his new found family. Jet is literally like an older brother to him. Ed is a little sister. Ein is well … a very good boy. And Faye? Well the relationship is complicated, and I'm not going to get into the 69,420 reasons I ship them here, but I think it is beyond argument that he really does care for her, even if that just in a filial way. He didn't want the syndicates to kill them for their association to him, or in order to get to him. So he did what he had to do to protect them. *AND NO* I am not saying that he didn't love Julia. But it was clear that his desire was no longer to run away with her. I think he genuinely loved and cared about her, but at some point between Jupiter Jazz Pt 2 and now, he accepted that their time together was over. Now he had a new raison d'etre, which is the Bebop.

I think at this point Spike has 'woken up' to reality (as he implied to Faye in their final conversation in episode 26: "Look at these eyes. One of them is a fake, because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I have been seeing the past in one eye, and the present in the other. I had believed that what I saw was not all of reality...I thought I was watching a dream that I would never awaken from. Before I knew it, the dream was all over." (This is from the sub btw I'm too lazy to look up the dub transcript.) He wasn't going there to die, he's going to find out if he's really alive. This line is fucking cool and everything - but it's implications are multitude. I won't go into them all here but basically : what makes him alive now is that he's free from his past. He's alive because he has this new family and protecting them is all he really wants now. Spike was protecting Jet, Faye, Ed, (and Ein) by going and facing the entire syndicate, knowing that their lives would all be in danger.

SO - did Spike die? Well again - Watanabe has purposely and artfully left this open ended. Well, if we're following the symbolism from Sitting Bull, then yeah, the man is as dead as disco, and wouldn't that be a fitting ending? BUT at the same time, Spike always refers to having 'died' before (meaning when he was ambushed by the syndicate, and they all thought he died, and he pretty much did). Don't forget that in  movie (takes places roughly between episodes 22 + 23, and yes, was made AFTER the series but whatever) he like .. DIES dies. He goes to the afterlife and everything. He wakes up to find he's chilling with Sitting Bull, who's like nah it wasn't your time to die yet. So the fact Sitting Bull confirms Spike will die in the final episode, means yeah, Spike is pretty much dead.

BUT -- okay now hear me out -- could this death in the final episode be a death to his previous life? The person he was in the syndicate? Now that he's extinguished the Red Dragons for good, is it not possible that its merely *that* life which has ended? That's the optimist in me saying that, but if it keeps me from staying up all night crying, I guess it'll have to do. Watanabe definitely wants to leave it up to the viewer, so whatever you think, I feel like there's validity to it.

WELL any anon, sorry for the fucking lecture - and believe me, I could've said MUCH, MUCH more - but I enjoyed this question. I always love talking about this show so please all you fuckers feel free to message me or send an ask about anything any time. I am really slow at replying because #life'sAbitch.

Love you all.

SY,SCB <3

[prometheanglory]

i am parched, i am starving, i am craving, give us holly lore, i beg of you, oh holy vy

wailcum 2 the blog of im vy and i luv women

bonus thing here for convenience

5 facts abt holly here

consider holly to be something akin to one of the prototype-sarges; there are a number of ocs in my (non twst) roster that could be seen as beta-versions of sarge, in terms of overall demeanor! in all honesty, it was pretty much just a period of time where i was making a bunch of characters to work through particular tropes/clichés abt purity, beauty, alienation, aspects of mortality (specifically what is seen as ‘good’ or virtuous), etc. where holly differs from sarge is more-so in the sense that she is much less benevolent than sarge — where sarge may tell people lies and truths to aid them as he sees fit, holly instead does it for her own sake of enjoyment and enrichment. she’s much more ‘two-faced’ and has more potential to be malicious than sarge… but it’s not an outright malice. it’s just not very beneficial to anyone but herself.

sometimes i sit up and i think abt wtf even Is the ethereal four and the conclusion that i’ve come to is that it’s mainly just a thematic grouping in my head for categorizing how ocs are meant to be perceived. the ethereals require a certain sense of lacking and a sense ‘distance’ that can’t quite be bridged. …holly actually is a pretty good candidate to be slotted into the ethereal four, however she can’t really be categorized as part of the ethereals due to her ability to actually understand (and be understood) on some aspects of living and existing on a much more intimate scale. however arbitrary that may be.

holly within diasomnia… i kinda wanted her to be a bit of a subtle ‘sore thumb’ in terms of aesthetics and vibes. where diasomnia may be reliant on gothic imagery… something somber, dark, mysterious, and intimidatingly elegant in a way that’s pretty reminiscent of western european aristocracy (just slap a low saturation filter on it) — i wanted holly to be more associated with more ‘modest’ and ‘modern’ origins alongside some warmer tones (and associations) as well as an atmosphere that’s lacking in structure and rigidity but still retaining a certain style of elegance? in terms of inspiration, i like to specifically associate her with a blend of art nouveau and art deco! a shock of modern frivolity to the german gothic!

reviving some of the og kusomushi dynamic…. holly is definitely a very artsy person and i feel that she would very much enjoy painting portraits of people, moreso than she enjoys painting scenery or inanimate objects. she likes the temporary things. she doesn’t really want to preserve the entirety of them, she just wants to express the experience of their impermanent moment.

if i had to pick a voice actor…. fuchigami mai as rpk-16 does pretty well for her 😳

she doesn’t particularly rub against anyone in the wrong way but she’s not incredibly well-received either. at best, she’s known in diasomnia for being flighty and free-wheeling but not an inherently bad person. just unreliable. sometimes a little weird.

i wouldn’t really say that she has close friends (or a lot of friends in general) — not that she’s particularly saddened by it ! she just genuinely has… very little interest in extending herself so far in terms of intimacy. she likes to have many many acquaintances though.

i know that twst exists in a weird space of cultures n whatevah but if i were to ground it in a more realistic context, holly would be singaporean (chinese/malay) !

she is an only child (derogatory)

in line with sebek and silver’s assertion that theyre the only two ppl born in their generation of the valley of thorns…. holly is older than both of them (and edgar included, but only by a small margin). but also i was considering making her family originally be from where sarge is from 😳 granted it’s been a few generations but. the thought still counts.

she’s very prone to saying out of pocket things specifically because of the information her butterflies bring back to her when she uses her UM. she has a bit of a poor distinction of what she knows versus what her butterflies know. it comes off a bit as stalkerish when she offhandedly mentions things. not that she cares though. it’s not like the information doesn’t technically belong to her.

[warenakita]

Interview with Lensa Seni (Cendana)

For the first time, we were on the opposite side of the interview table! A weird feeling but welcoming one nevertheless. We'd like to thank Lu Yin for giving WK the opportunity to sift our thoughts on why we do what we do. Anyway, here's what we wrote back to Lu Yin upon receiving the questions via email. You may also read the published interview by Lu Yin here.

1.How did the Warenakita Collaborative come about? How has its goals, focus or strategies changed over the months?

BQ: Nisa and I created Warena Collaborative (WK) to give a name to our collaboration in 2020.

Our first collaboration documents the natural pigments we used in our practice of ceramic and printmaking. Hence the old Malay name “Warenakita” which means “warna kita” or “our colours”.

Our goals have always been to share our/other creative journeys, findings and resources with those that can benefit from it. WK focus has always been about craft, design and natural philosophy (natural science or study of nature). Our strategies? Always adapting with the tides of interest, resources and (economical) platforms. We get bored easily so it’s very important to have fun and enjoy the things we do here or change it up to make it anew.

2.You focus on the crafts of work that are made from natural environment. Also, you combine arts and science together to address issues that matter such as climate change. Through this project, why is it important to address these topics?

NN: Balqis and I are both practicing very different crafts, Balqis with sun printing and myself doing ceramics. However what we share and feel strongly about in both our practices is the appreciation of nature; the beauty and wisdom that nature offers. While working with elements of nature, we can’t help but re-examining our understanding and perception of the world around us, questioning the world view or the Weltanschauung. Oftentimes, we find that the ways we live our life are not aligned with the natural order of things, which consequently generate undesirable effects. We have become so used to the ‘unnatural’ way of life because it is deeply embedded within the fabric of society, local and global scale at large. We were never intentionally trying to fight for environmental causes such as climate change but by immersing ourselves in the natural world we cannot help but be aware of the issues surrounding it. We start realizing that the world and everything in it is much more intertwined and connected than we ever give much thought of. Everything that we do, some ways or another will have its consequences, be it positive or negative on our surroundings. That’s what we hope to share with our audiences as well, the intricacies and complexities of our world, that we are very much connected and dependant on each other. To put it simply, we are a part of nature.

3.How did the both of you meet? What are your individual entry points or reasons to working on this project and these themes?

BQ: We both first met at a mutual friend’s exhibition in Zhongshan Building, two wall flowers fending for themselves. As two in-silo makers, we both voiced the lack of financial and resources to support young practitioners. A lot of (online) check-ins, sharing our insights and figuring out ways to move forward together. Basically being a good cheerleader to one another. On a plus side, we both compliment things we lacked in each other. Nisa is quiet but she has a powerful observation that packs a punch and perhaps on my side, I contribute through my love for order and planning. Empowered from our collaboration, we want to support other alternative practitioners too . By giving them this platform (Alternatif Sundays), a safe space to share, inspire and garner potential collaborators from other disciplines.

4.Could you explain the creative process behind working on Warenakita Collaborative, from selecting the participants to supporting their projects?

NN: At the moment, we are running a project called Alternatif Sunday under the banner of WarenaKita Collaborative where we highlight stories of great interest and importance which are aligned with the intention of WarenaKita. We begin by identifying potential individuals, groups or projects to be highlighted. Once Balqis and I agree on them, we will have a brainstorming session with the invited guest(s)/collaborator(s) where we get to know more about them personally and also their works. After the brainstorming, we will start to formulate and prepare for the interview session which is the culmination of the collaborative efforts. After the interview, we will move on to the editing and curating before we release the content. We are still new at this, so it has been pretty much a lot of trial and error, exploring different ways and platforms that we can best utilize to create the most beneficial outcome. We’ve been utilizing a lot of the online platforms, as a response to the current situation we are in. We are still in that process of learning, exploring and growing alongside our guest(s)/collaborator(s) and we are extremely grateful that they have been so supportive throughout the entire process.

5.What are the criteria when selecting the participants to support them?

BQ: Local practitioner(s) that works in silo (solo, isolated or works in niched practices) in the field of craft, design or science. We want to highlight those research and practices working in the interjection of culture, tradition, history, ecology & scientific knowledge. Many creatives benefit from multi-disciplinary backgrounds and collaboration so we want to show and highlight that as much as possible so we can encourage an ecosystem of practitioners. One that can help each other and drive on healthy collaboration and competition.

6.What were the challenges you faced in this project? How did you overcome them?

NN: One of the major challenges would be balancing between the commitment for WarenaKita and our own practices and works. WarenaKita came to be as a passion project for both Balqis and I, meaning that we are investing our own time and effort into this while still running our own creative practices and businesses, as well as working other jobs. So we have to adjust the amount of commitment that we can give to WarenaKita depending on our availability and capacity. For now, we are in the middle of recruiting more people to get on board and be part of the team as well as building up our portfolio to apply for funds and grants to ensure long term sustainability of the initiative.

7.From the episodes in the first IGTV series, which story impacts you the most and why?

BQ: Each individual's story impacts us in one way or another. But on a personal level, Afiq and Shu's “The Last Glow” collaboration has challenged my worldview with its message. I can't unsee the damage we have done to our ocean nor its inhabitants. Ignorance is not a bliss. Last but not least, Huda & Dr Azril's sharing in “The Darkroom Practitioners”- based on a mutual love for slow craft and traditional image-making. Just talking and listening to both of them gives me so much hope and courage to persevere in my own journey. I can't emphasise how important it is to listen and share our own creative journey with others in order to relieve and empower each other. We need to practice more empathy and solidarity.

8.What exciting episode in your upcoming series we will be looking forward to?

NN: We do have a number of guest(s)/collaborator(s) in our mind, from diverse backgrounds and places. Among them are an artist-curator, a Singaporean writer, paper artisan, furniture designer, art teacher and many more. We are always on the lookout for potential guest(s)/collaborator(s) so the list will grow as we go along.

9.Since the pandemic, people in the art industry have shifted gears to incorporate technology such as showcasing exhibitions on social media and websites and running online discussions via Zoom and Google Meet. For your case, how do you transcend your art with technology? How has technology benefited or hindered you in the creative process?

BQ: With practitioners that use their hand, traditional tools and variety of materials or components for making, the physical and tactile experience with their work and clients are still superior over online presence. However, we don't deny the limitations we faced today with the inability to meet or travel as freely we did before.

Social media and websites helped to boost our business presence whereas online discussion via Zoom & Google Meet allow the best of face-to-face, real-time conversation with audience or potential clients during this pandemic. With the right strategy, technology can assist hands-on practitioners to cast a wider net of clienteles and sustain their business in these hard times.

But personally, for small practices, it's a double edge sword. For instance, too much social media and time spent online takes away the spirit and time for creation and exploration. We as practitioners need to be in full presence, in the physical field or consciousness to develop our craft. Each practitioner needs to find their own balance in order to avoid tech anxiety which Nisa and I personally faced from time to time. No doubt about that.

10.What are your opinions about the craft industry adapting to modern aspects (such as science and technology) in Malaysia?

NN: Craft originally has never been separated from science and technology. Take ceramics for example, the craftsmen need to have a good understanding of the clay material and other minerals, which involve to some extent geological and chemistry knowledge. They need to know how to control and predict the firing, which requires extensive experimentations and a whole lot of trials and errors to be developed. It’s just that the knowledge was never formalized in writings and books but was passed down from generations through verbal communication. Craft was not something trivial, but accompanied with long time dedication and commitment to knowledge and learning. However today it feels like most of our crafts have lost that meaningful tradition and perhaps that could be one of the reasons why the general perception of craft is rather shallow and reductive. I hope we can revive that tradition again, that craft should be practiced alongside the pursuit of knowledge. That’s how we can bring meaning and value back into our craft practices.

11.In 5 years, what do you hope to see in the Malaysian craft scene?

BQ: I hope for the craft scene in the coming years to be more embolden to make our tradition relevant to the younger generation, to thrive together in a symbiotic ecosystem not based on driving away competition but rather on support and encouragement for one another. To not just celebrate the objects, art or tradition but also the very people, community and individual that is the 'heart' of the craft.

Today we see a lot of young craft practitioners are starting out and they are looking for the meanings and values to their particular crafts, us included. I hope to see more meaningful exploration of craft that is accompanied with the pursuit of knowledge, wherever the knowledge can come from; be it from nature, the wisdom of the past or the modern technological advancement and research. There is so much value and lesson in craft that we take for granted or are not aware of, and I hope to spread the joy and appreciation for craft, for simple things in life. Naturally, the preservation and appreciation of craft will continue on as we see more practitioners are dedicating their passion and commitment and most importantly, love into the craft that they are producing. People will notice, and they will become appreciative. It’s also important to see more of such stories being told out there so that the voices of the craftspeople, researchers and thinkers can be amplified to reach a wider public. There is strength in numbers, so I also hope to see more craft communities emerge where ideas and knowledge can be shared and discussed actively.

Check out the published article in Cendana website here.

[pigmentplantplace]

Interview with Lensa Seni (Cendana)

For the first time, we were on the opposite side of the interview table! A weird feeling but welcoming one nevertheless. We'd like to thank Lu Yin for giving WK the opportunity to sift our thoughts on why we do what we do. Anyway, here's what we wrote back to Lu Yin upon receiving the questions via email. You may also read the published interview by Lu Yin here.

1.How did the Warenakita Collaborative come about? How has its goals, focus or strategies changed over the months?

BQ: Nisa and I created Warena Collaborative (WK) to give a name to our collaboration in 2020.

Our first collaboration documents the natural pigments we used in our practice of ceramic and printmaking. Hence the old Malay name “Warenakita” which means “warna kita” or “our colours”.

Our goals have always been to share our/other creative journeys, findings and resources with those that can benefit from it. WK focus has always been about craft, design and natural philosophy (natural science or study of nature). Our strategies? Always adapting with the tides of interest, resources and (economical) platforms. We get bored easily so it’s very important to have fun and enjoy the things we do here or change it up to make it anew.

2.You focus on the crafts of work that are made from natural environment. Also, you combine arts and science together to address issues that matter such as climate change. Through this project, why is it important to address these topics?

NN: Balqis and I are both practicing very different crafts, Balqis with sun printing and myself doing ceramics. However what we share and feel strongly about in both our practices is the appreciation of nature; the beauty and wisdom that nature offers. While working with elements of nature, we can’t help but re-examining our understanding and perception of the world around us, questioning the world view or the Weltanschauung. Oftentimes, we find that the ways we live our life are not aligned with the natural order of things, which consequently generate undesirable effects. We have become so used to the ‘unnatural’ way of life because it is deeply embedded within the fabric of society, local and global scale at large. We were never intentionally trying to fight for environmental causes such as climate change but by immersing ourselves in the natural world we cannot help but be aware of the issues surrounding it. We start realizing that the world and everything in it is much more intertwined and connected than we ever give much thought of. Everything that we do, some ways or another will have its consequences, be it positive or negative on our surroundings. That’s what we hope to share with our audiences as well, the intricacies and complexities of our world, that we are very much connected and dependant on each other. To put it simply, we are a part of nature.

3.How did the both of you meet? What are your individual entry points or reasons to working on this project and these themes?

BQ: We both first met at a mutual friend’s exhibition in Zhongshan Building, two wall flowers fending for themselves. As two in-silo makers, we both voiced the lack of financial and resources to support young practitioners. A lot of (online) check-ins, sharing our insights and figuring out ways to move forward together. Basically being a good cheerleader to one another. On a plus side, we both compliment things we lacked in each other. Nisa is quiet but she has a powerful observation that packs a punch and perhaps on my side, I contribute through my love for order and planning. Empowered from our collaboration, we want to support other alternative practitioners too . By giving them this platform (Alternatif Sundays), a safe space to share, inspire and garner potential collaborators from other disciplines.

4.Could you explain the creative process behind working on Warenakita Collaborative, from selecting the participants to supporting their projects?

NN: At the moment, we are running a project called Alternatif Sunday under the banner of WarenaKita Collaborative where we highlight stories of great interest and importance which are aligned with the intention of WarenaKita. We begin by identifying potential individuals, groups or projects to be highlighted. Once Balqis and I agree on them, we will have a brainstorming session with the invited guest(s)/collaborator(s) where we get to know more about them personally and also their works. After the brainstorming, we will start to formulate and prepare for the interview session which is the culmination of the collaborative efforts. After the interview, we will move on to the editing and curating before we release the content. We are still new at this, so it has been pretty much a lot of trial and error, exploring different ways and platforms that we can best utilize to create the most beneficial outcome. We’ve been utilizing a lot of the online platforms, as a response to the current situation we are in. We are still in that process of learning, exploring and growing alongside our guest(s)/collaborator(s) and we are extremely grateful that they have been so supportive throughout the entire process.

5.What are the criteria when selecting the participants to support them?

BQ: Local practitioner(s) that works in silo (solo, isolated or works in niched practices) in the field of craft, design or science. We want to highlight those research and practices working in the interjection of culture, tradition, history, ecology & scientific knowledge. Many creatives benefit from multi-disciplinary backgrounds and collaboration so we want to show and highlight that as much as possible so we can encourage an ecosystem of practitioners. One that can help each other and drive on healthy collaboration and competition.

6.What were the challenges you faced in this project? How did you overcome them?

NN: One of the major challenges would be balancing between the commitment for WarenaKita and our own practices and works. WarenaKita came to be as a passion project for both Balqis and I, meaning that we are investing our own time and effort into this while still running our own creative practices and businesses, as well as working other jobs. So we have to adjust the amount of commitment that we can give to WarenaKita depending on our availability and capacity. For now, we are in the middle of recruiting more people to get on board and be part of the team as well as building up our portfolio to apply for funds and grants to ensure long term sustainability of the initiative.

7.From the episodes in the first IGTV series, which story impacts you the most and why?

BQ: Each individual's story impacts us in one way or another. But on a personal level, Afiq and Shu's “The Last Glow” collaboration has challenged my worldview with its message. I can't unsee the damage we have done to our ocean nor its inhabitants. Ignorance is not a bliss. Last but not least, Huda & Dr Azril's sharing in “The Darkroom Practitioners”- based on a mutual love for slow craft and traditional image-making. Just talking and listening to both of them gives me so much hope and courage to persevere in my own journey. I can't emphasise how important it is to listen and share our own creative journey with others in order to relieve and empower each other. We need to practice more empathy and solidarity.

8.What exciting episode in your upcoming series we will be looking forward to?

NN: We do have a number of guest(s)/collaborator(s) in our mind, from diverse backgrounds and places. Among them are an artist-curator, a Singaporean writer, paper artisan, furniture designer, art teacher and many more. We are always on the lookout for potential guest(s)/collaborator(s) so the list will grow as we go along.

9.Since the pandemic, people in the art industry have shifted gears to incorporate technology such as showcasing exhibitions on social media and websites and running online discussions via Zoom and Google Meet. For your case, how do you transcend your art with technology? How has technology benefited or hindered you in the creative process?

BQ: With practitioners that use their hand, traditional tools and variety of materials or components for making, the physical and tactile experience with their work and clients are still superior over online presence. However, we don't deny the limitations we faced today with the inability to meet or travel as freely we did before.

Social media and websites helped to boost our business presence whereas online discussion via Zoom & Google Meet allow the best of face-to-face, real-time conversation with audience or potential clients during this pandemic. With the right strategy, technology can assist hands-on practitioners to cast a wider net of clienteles and sustain their business in these hard times.

But personally, for small practices, it's a double edge sword. For instance, too much social media and time spent online takes away the spirit and time for creation and exploration. We as practitioners need to be in full presence, in the physical field or consciousness to develop our craft. Each practitioner needs to find their own balance in order to avoid tech anxiety which Nisa and I personally faced from time to time. No doubt about that.

10.What are your opinions about the craft industry adapting to modern aspects (such as science and technology) in Malaysia?

NN: Craft originally has never been separated from science and technology. Take ceramics for example, the craftsmen need to have a good understanding of the clay material and other minerals, which involve to some extent geological and chemistry knowledge. They need to know how to control and predict the firing, which requires extensive experimentations and a whole lot of trials and errors to be developed. It’s just that the knowledge was never formalized in writings and books but was passed down from generations through verbal communication. Craft was not something trivial, but accompanied with long time dedication and commitment to knowledge and learning. However today it feels like most of our crafts have lost that meaningful tradition and perhaps that could be one of the reasons why the general perception of craft is rather shallow and reductive. I hope we can revive that tradition again, that craft should be practiced alongside the pursuit of knowledge. That’s how we can bring meaning and value back into our craft practices.

11.In 5 years, what do you hope to see in the Malaysian craft scene?

BQ: I hope for the craft scene in the coming years to be more embolden to make our tradition relevant to the younger generation, to thrive together in a symbiotic ecosystem not based on driving away competition but rather on support and encouragement for one another. To not just celebrate the objects, art or tradition but also the very people, community and individual that is the 'heart' of the craft.

Today we see a lot of young craft practitioners are starting out and they are looking for the meanings and values to their particular crafts, us included. I hope to see more meaningful exploration of craft that is accompanied with the pursuit of knowledge, wherever the knowledge can come from; be it from nature, the wisdom of the past or the modern technological advancement and research. There is so much value and lesson in craft that we take for granted or are not aware of, and I hope to spread the joy and appreciation for craft, for simple things in life. Naturally, the preservation and appreciation of craft will continue on as we see more practitioners are dedicating their passion and commitment and most importantly, love into the craft that they are producing. People will notice, and they will become appreciative. It’s also important to see more of such stories being told out there so that the voices of the craftspeople, researchers and thinkers can be amplified to reach a wider public. There is strength in numbers, so I also hope to see more craft communities emerge where ideas and knowledge can be shared and discussed actively.

Check out the published article in Cendana website here.

[mymemoirs]

Unrecorded Memories and Missing Taiwan #4

I’m back again with the continuation from my previous posts! Although I need to admit that it does get boring that I have to write the same topic over and over again while personally wanting to write a different post (literally been itching to write something new), but I don’t like the idea of not finishing this post series till the end (just because it looks great to have 1, 2, 3, and so on side by side without having something unrelated in between).

If I have to describe my last two weeks in Taiwan, I would say that it’s just like a holiday rather than a summer exchange program. 

Me and My Roommates: Karen, Vincy, and Iris (from left to right) in Gaomei Wetlands

12) I have never mentioned my dorm roommates in my previous posts, that’s because they just moved in when I’m on my last week of AI program. I was actually quite busy with the AI studies (yes, when I get back to my dorm, I do try to revise what the professors have taught us) and trying to blend in with the students in my class that I didn’t have any time to hang out with my roommates. I feel bad for always rejecting them whenever they ask me out. They were really kind to even include me in most of their outings.

Since I lived in a room for 4 people, I have three roommates and they were from Hong Kong. Their names are Vincy, Karen and Iris. The three of them join the same summer program class and they’re also from the same university. Although they said that they didn’t know each other yet before this program, they were so close together. Maybe having a lot of similarities help them bond. Vincy and Karen were from the same major which is social work, while Iris came from journalism major. Among the four of us, Vincy was the oldest as she is a senior (class of 2015) while the rest of us were juniors (class of 2016). 

13) I think I started going out with them after my AI summer class ends. Every time we didn’t have any class trip on the weekend, we would plan our trip around the city. My friend, Iris, were like the tour guide among us because she was always the one who plan out our day (researching the best routes and where we should go)

I also get to befriend Singaporean friends, Jasmine and Hui En, who also took the same class as my roommates. They came with us during one of our trips and that was the time I were introduced to both of them.  

14) Our first trip, if my memory still serves me well, is going to various places during the weekend. We went to Taichung Old Train Station, which is a heritage building and the trains are still operating in there! I forgot if we went there by bus or taxi, but I think it’s more likely by bus. 

Taichung Old Train Station can be seen together with modern buildings.

Since the EasyCard/ Youyou Card that is used in public transportation allows a free 10 Km of ride by bus, we didn’t spend a lot. In fact, when I was there for a month, after buying the card for 100 NTD and depositing another 100 NTD (I think?), I had never recharge the card again. Some people say, they can even not recharge it for a year or so if you just make use of the 10 Km free ride (if you know what I mean). 

15) After that, we went to ride the bus to our next destination which is the Miyahara Ice Cream Shop. When we get there, there was a long queue line and it was packed with people. The shop is one of the tourist spot in Taichung and besides selling ice cream (duh), they also sell souvenirs and other delicacies like traditional cakes and so on. The shop is quite big and if we go further inside beyond the ice cream display, we can see a souvenir shop like below. The interior of the shop also gives off a Harry Potter vibe which is really cool and could also serves as a potential photo spots (although it would be hard with the place being packed with tourists). 

Inside Miyahara Ice Cream Shop where they sell their various souvenirs

It was a good experience overall. You would think that a long queue would mean waiting long but since I came with my friends, time flies so fast. We were also given a menu to choose and tick off while waiting in our queue, so we were really busy debating what flavor we would want to try. Pst, by the way, they also give out unique toppings for the ice cream. I have to admit that the ice cream is quite expensive but worth it for the size and taste. I especially love ice creams so when we arrived there, I was really excited (hahahaha!).

16)  For our lunch, we went to a mall to find a place for us to eat together and ended up with an Italian themed restaurant, which is one of the most expensive meal I had in Taiwan. Fortunately, we split it among the six of us and shared various menus ranging from main dish to dessert. I think it’s also the main reason it’s expensive, we ate 6 different dishes with 3 of them in large servings. For those who’s interested, the name of the Italian restaurant is called Miacucina located in Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Taichung. However, I don’t recommend eating here if you want to eat on budget. 

The Ice Cream Waffle shared between six people

17) Another destination for our Saturday Adventures is the Gaomei Wetlands in Taichung. We went there using taxi because we didn’t want to run late especially since we wanted to be there before the sunset. Aside from wetlands, there’s also a Wind Turbine. In fact, one of the bus station near Gaomei Wetlands is called Wind Turbine No. 18, which is also around the location where we alight. I remembered walking through the bridge, but I think to get to Gaomei Wetlands, we need to take a shuttle bus or walk more to get there. 

We took a photo on the bridge viewing the Wind Turbine (Strong Wind!)

After arriving at the Gaomei Wetlands, we need to cross a wooden jetty to actually accessed the wetlands (wet feet here I come!). This is because below the jetty there were baby crabs and we were not allowed to walk there for fear of crushing those precious lives. There were even staffs who’s guarding it, sometimes blowing his whistle when he spots someone trespassing. We were there for a limited time because we need to beware of the high tide after certain hours. 

When we get to the end of the jetty, there were a lot of shoes left there because we all wanted to get into the wetlands and it would be a no go if your shoes get wet too. This is where I think I made a mistake on my choice of outfit that day, because as you can see I was wearing long black jeans. So, I had to roll my jeans up but thankfully because of the low tide, our feet didn’t get too submerged into the water. I took a lot of pictures and videos that day because of the unique experience. TBH, I rarely took pictures of my activities but I just had to that day because it was an all new experiences for me. 

You can even bring your dog there, because I’ve seen one or two dogs walked by their owners. We even had the chance to actually take pictures with the cute dog and it was taken by the owner who later send us the pictures. 

This is one of the pictures I took when I reached the wetlands. Most of my picture were backlighted so this is the best one among the others. 

18) After watching the sunset for a while, we went to our last destination. I think we took a taxi to the night market. I forgot which night market it is but I think it should be Yi Zhong Night Market. We had our dinner there by indulging ourselves from one stall to another. I also tried Xing Fu Tang, my first brown sugar bubble tea, upon my friend’s recommendation and it was only around 50 NTD (which is much cheaper then the Xing Fu Tang on my country). The first time I tasted the bubble tea, I came to love it so much for its rich and surprising taste. It was sweet warm caramel at the top and cold milk tea at the bottom, it was mixed together but in a good way. However, when the franchise is available on my country, it wasn’t as good as the first time I tasted it. I wonder why. 

Pedestrians @ Yi Zhong Night Market

19) So that’s it for our Saturday adventure! After walking for a few hours tasting snacks and delicacies we found on the night market, we went back to our dormitory by bus. It was exhausting to walk all day outside, but I really enjoy going out with them because there were a lot of places I wouldn’t go if it weren’t for them and they were fun to converse with. I also am not confident enough yet, to go solo travelling in a country foreign to me so I was really grateful.

That night, we took a late night bath and I for one were taught on an early age not to take a bath late at night because it was not good for our health but because of our activities, I had to. Fortunately, the dormitories in Taiwan provide water heater (All hail water heater!). 

While we’re on the topic of ‘bathing’, I just realized this after observing my roommates for a few days, they tend to take a bath late at night before they went to sleep and they didn’t take a bath early in the morning before they go out. They just wash their face and did their makeup. I was actually very surprised with this since all three of them did it. So, I was intrigued to ask them about it and they explained that since they took a bath last night and going out will get them dirty, so why bother take a bath before going outside? Instead, they would take a bath before hitting the hay because that way the bed won’t get dirty. I thought to myself that their reasoning makes complete sense to me too apart from my own reasons to take a bath twice a day. It was trivial but I think these small things shapes our cultural behavior and it was actually interesting for me know that people from different country have different ‘normal’ too. While I think taking a bath twice a day was normal, it was not the case for my roommates.

I guess I’ll continue my ‘Sunday Adventure’ with my roommates in the next post because I think this post has been too long. There were a lot of places we visited that eventful Saturday and I had fun reminiscing about my trip. Since today’s Saturday, I think it’s the perfect time to actually post this! So, enjoy~!

PS. It has been so long since I write and this post have been on my draft since forever! I had been busy trying to find jobs (but not lucky yet) and tried to make my time more meaningful by studying online. 

[orabasesolutions]

Superhuman resources: How HR leaders have redefined their C-suite role

For all the ambiguity caused by the historic events of 2020, one thing is certain: The center of gravity in leadership teams has swung toward the human resources function. Yes, other members of the C-suite, such as finance, marketing, and legal, also have important functional responsibilities that keep the company in full stride. But there’s one person who is being put on the spot to answer the many unexpected questions that companies are facing this year.

These questions are fundamental to the business. Some may be existential. How do companies keep everyone safe as they shift to remote working overnight? How do leaders provide medical, emotional, and mental health support at a distance? How do they gauge performance and develop talent so that people can thrive in this era of uncertainty? What is the company’s stance on social movements such as Black Lives Matter? How is it delivering real change when it comes to inclusion?

All eyes in the room (or on video calls) have turned to the chief human resources officer (CHRO) for the answers. “The financial crisis of 2008 relied on CFOs to help their companies,” said Tanuj Kapilashrami, group head of HR at Standard Chartered bank. “But the companies that will come out stronger from [2020] will be those that have a strong HR function.”

That represents a sea change. For decades, the HR function struggled to be heard in the C-suite, primarily because it was expected to manage only personnel transactions. That wasn’t enough for some CHROs, though. A handful started to redefine the possibilities of the role, including contributing to strategic decision-making. This reinvention also meant that individual CHROs — leaders of a new “superhuman resources” function — took on additional responsibilities, including commercial real estate, customer experience, and organizational transformation. The expansion of the role has led to growing stature within many organizations for one of the more gender-diverse roles in the C-suite. (Of the 44 senior CHROs we recently interviewed, 23 were women and 21 were men.)

The importance of CHROs varies widely from company to company. “Many CEOs say they want a strategic CHRO, but they often don’t think through what it really means,” said Jorge Figueredo, the former longtime head of HR at McKesson Corporation. However, this year has in many ways ended those Hamlet-like musings about what the function should be and should not be. CHROs are in the spotlight, which adds urgency to the question “What sets the great CHROs apart?”

At Merryck & Co., we have a strong vantage point from which to observe the transformation of the role. Since 2010, we have spent considerable time with well over 500 CHROs in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, discussing their challenges and watching the development of new approaches to their work. And we have seen patterns in the way the most effective ones have developed their roles. Many of the interviews we conducted with CHROs were for our recent Strategic CHRO interview series on LinkedIn. In those conversations, we steered clear of company-specific questions and instead asked about the leaders’ frameworks for doing their job, what they’ve learned, and what CEOs have had to change in order to fully leverage HR.

The CHROs we’ve interviewed and worked with represent, according to their CEOs and boards, some of the highest-impact leaders in the field. We spoke with career HR leaders such as Donna Morris, CHRO of Walmart, and with others for whom the top job was their first role within HR, such as Kathleen Hogan at Microsoft. Collectively, they represent a broad and deep range of experiences, including working through CEO successions; navigating wholesale cultural and business model transformations; translating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities into measurable outcomes; and serving on company boards themselves.

From those conversations, five priorities emerged for maximizing a CHRO’s contributions to the organization. Together, they establish new benchmarks for defining the role and measuring its performance. The complexity of the top HR job is intensifying, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simply defining exactly what CHROs do remains a challenge. “This role is fascinating because it’s a job almost without a job description,” said Rhonda Morris, the CHRO of Chevron. “We live in a world where virtually everything is gray, rather than black and white.”

To be clear, company-specific attributes will always be contextual and unique. But to help provide more clarity amid the ambiguity — and to provide a useful foundation for HR executives, CEOs, and board directors to build upon — here are the key priority themes that we have identified. We included extended quotes from many CHROs to help bring the themes to life.

Priority 1: Put strategy first, function second

World-class CHROs understand their organization’s strategy, not as passive observers but as contributors. They can see the implications of any new initiatives on revenue streams and contribute to discussions about the competitive landscape. Though HR is categorized as an “enabling” function, the best CHROs are active contributors within C-suite team discussions. Rather than being seen as the office of “no” with a primary focus on risk and compliance, they work to find ways to say “yes” to new initiatives. They bring a unique perspective and expertise for building and executing human capital agendas, and they embrace the label of commercial.

“I am a businessperson who happens to know a thing or two about HR,” said Kirsten Marriner, the CHRO at Clorox, a multinational manufacturer of consumer and professional products based in Oakland, Calif. “That’s how I approach it — how you equip yourself with knowledge, your skills, how you spend your time, how you frame questions, how you think about opportunities, how you think about what you’re here to do. It’s about being clear on the purpose of your HR organization in service of the broader business objectives. So, I wear an enterprise hat first, and I wear a functional hat second.”

Marriner added: “I often say that we’re not here to do good HR for the sake of good HR. It is about driving business outcomes with all the levers and tools that we have at our disposal. The point is to not put yourself in a box. In my first CHRO role, the CEO said early on to the whole executive team — there were eight of us who reported to him — that if somebody walked into our staff meeting and listened to us for a while, they should have no idea who does which jobs, because everybody is contributing to every discussion about the business.”

CHROs have to be able to envision how the strategy will be executed, the talents and skills required to accomplish the work, and the qualities needed from leaders to maximize the organization’s potential. Increasingly, that requires a nuanced understanding of how technology and humans will interact.

“HR leaders sit at a crossroads because of the rise of artificial intelligence and can really predict whether a company is going to elevate their humans or eliminate their humans,” said Ellyn Shook, the CHRO of professional-services firm Accenture. “We’re starting to see new roles and capabilities in our own organization, and we’re seeing a whole new way of doing what we call work planning. The real value that can be unlocked lies in human beings and intelligent technologies working together.”

Priority 2: Optimize the organization, not just processes

CHROs must operate at a slightly higher altitude than their peers on the leadership team to ensure that the different parts of the business work well together. At their best, these leaders view the entire organization as a dynamic 3D model, and can see where different parts are meshing well and building on other parts, and also where there are gaps and seams. The key is to make the whole organization greater than the sum of its parts.

“In the past, HR was about optimizing a process, like incentive plans or talent development plans,” said Susan Podlogar, CHRO of New York–based insurer MetLife. “Now HR is expected to provide macro solutions rather than micro solutions. It’s moving to optimizing the organization, not just a function or process, and moving to maximizing the productivity of the organization as an integrated whole.”

Podlogar cited work she was doing with MetLife’s chief technology officer to identify where tech advances could augment the company’s workforce. They were exploring how to best leverage technology so that a supervisor in the customer service group could monitor, on the basis of length of pauses, tone of voice, and the words customers were using, whether a call was proceeding well or whether someone needed to step in to help. The goal was not to replace the person handling the call, but to support that person’s work.

“Leaders in the past could operate in silos and achieve outcomes, but now optimal solutions come from networks,” Podlogar said. “The problems that businesses are facing are becoming so complex that organizations have to come together much quicker to facilitate a solution. That’s not how many business leaders have operated in the past, but that’s a specialty HR can drive. This is the new way of working.”

And it’s not just a matter of optimizing the strategy for today. The best CHROs also see industry disruptions as opportunities, rather than threats, and look for ways to align the workforce and the business to take advantage of those opportunities.

“As industries overlap more and more, innovation is not happening anymore in silos,” said Paul Baldassari, who led HR for Flex, a U.S.–Singaporean manufacturer of components, for five years. “The strategic challenges for companies are accelerating. Companies get disrupted really fast, but they also have huge growth opportunities if they can react quickly. That’s where the strategic element of the CHRO function comes into play. Innovation is happening between the operations function, the HR function, the engineering function, and the IT function. You need to be able, as a CHRO, to bridge those gaps and have a holistic view about combining all of that and making a new strategic service available in the company. It’s about changing your company’s strategy around talent so that you connect the dots going forward between all those different industries for the ‘people supply chain.’”

Given that framework, perhaps it’s no surprise that Baldassari was asked in 2019 to take over as executive vice president in charge of strategic programs and asset management at Flex. There are also many examples of CHROs who have been given new responsibilities as chief transformation officers, including Brian McNamee of biotech company Amgen and Dermot O’Brien of ADP, which develops human resources management software.

“There are a lot of intricate moving pieces when you cut across the range of things you do in HR — from pension plans in different countries to comp to diversity to leadership,” O’Brien said. “There are all these categories, and they all have to fit together. For me it was a good training ground, because any transformation is a cultural change.”

Priority 3: Bring a viewpoint to the boardroom

Culture has shifted from a “nice to have” conversation to a “need to have” discussion in corporate boardrooms. Many widely publicized corporate scandals can be traced back to gaps between the stated culture and the ways in which people actually operated. A truly healthy culture is a major draw for talent. But a poor culture, insufficiently explored or addressed at the executive and board levels, represents a significant reputational risk for how the company is perceived by consumers as well as prospective recruits and investors.

Boston-based investment firm State Street Global Advisors, for example, said it will be taking into consideration the cultural practices of companies as part of its investing strategy. “We all know the old chestnut that culture eats strategy for breakfast,” the firm wrote in an open letter to boards in 2019. “But studies show that intangibles such as corporate culture are driving a greater share of corporate value, precisely because the challenges of change and innovation are growing more acute.”

Culture issues are leading to harder conversations in the boardroom with directors who want to know more than trending directions on annual employee engagement scores. “When I joined my first board, the topic wasn’t regularly on the board agenda,” said Beth Comstock, former vice chair of Boston-based General Electric, who is currently on the board of Nike. She said a director’s role includes pushing for more detail. “When you ask to see culture surveys, don’t just settle for the aggregate results. Show us the worst ones. Show us the toughest feedback that caused you concern. Ideally, it becomes an ongoing discussion.”

And CHROs are responding with more detailed dashboards for measuring cultural health. “Boards should expect regular reporting and discussions on pulse surveys from employees, alumni surveys that give [them] insights about why people are leaving, and retention rates for high performers,” said Amy Cappellanti-Wolf, reflecting on her work at software services firm Symantec, where she’d led HR for more than five years. “On a quarterly basis, I report out to our board on our culture and our efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. A board has to be asking for more of that information — not to armchair quarterback, but to have a good sense of what’s working and what’s not. Nobody wants to be surprised. I think some boards have been surprised when these ethical concerns or questions about a talent drain come up. You need to have facts and data for the conversation with the board.”

And those conversations become easier when CHROs build relationships with directors outside the regular board meetings. That way, the CHRO establishes his or her reputation as an independent protector of the company. “The head of HR should not only report to the CEO but should also have a core relationship with the board of directors,” said Donna Morris, of Walmart. “The HR function should be pretty independent, just like audit is on the board. If you really are going to act as an ombudsman for the effective operation of your organization, you have to feel like you can push back against your peers and even the CEO.”

Priority 4: View culture as a business driver

The best CHROs excel at translating the values and cultural expectations of the company into crisp, specific, and memorable messaging, and they understand the importance of relentless communication. The strategy has to be as clear to everyone in the organization as it is to the CEO. And these CHROs strive to create processes and a work environment that will help recruit and retain talent. At its best, culture is a virtuous circle, beginning with the articulated values that are reinforced and referenced in rewards and promotions, as well as the practices for hiring, firing, and onboarding.

“I’m crystal clear that the CEO has to own purpose and culture, but heads of HR have this unique vantage point and unique ability to help in that discussion,” said Kevin Cox, who was appointed CHRO at General Electric in 2019. “It’s another reason why it’s so important for the CHRO and CEO to connect. I believe that most CEOs don’t have that complete answer, and I don’t think most CHROs do either. My definition of culture is that it is what leaders do, not what they say. I spend a lot of time trying to pull culture into leadership behaviors at the top of the organization. In a company that is super-clear about its purpose and culture, the head of HR might want to shift focus from developing culture and purpose to thinking about how culture, strategy, and talent actually intersect. The most important Venn diagram to me is the one that shows those three aspects intersecting.”

One of the strongest case studies of culture driving strategy can be found at Microsoft, where Satya Nadella orchestrated a remarkable turnaround when he took over as CEO in early 2014. To help him lead that transformation, he reached out to Kathleen Hogan, who at the time was running Microsoft’s US$5 billion services organization, with about 20,000 employees. To many, the change from managing an important P&L to running HR may have seemed like a demotion. Nadella saw the role as key to delivering his strategy. He called Hogan while she was at her sister’s 50th birthday party, and simply asked, “Will you help me in my new role?” Together, they refashioned the company’s culture messaging.

“The first step in the transformation effort was to honor your past while you define your future,” Hogan said. “It was really important to look at all the things that were incredible about our culture and our history that we didn’t want to walk away from or dismiss. Yet we were clear that we needed to change from a bunch of ‘know-it-alls’ to a bunch of ‘learn-it-alls,’ and that was tricky to navigate because many people wanted a simpler narrative of ‘This is good; that was bad.’ It was really important for us to say, ‘This is how we have to evolve to be relevant in the future,’ versus being dismissive of the past.”

Hogan added: “We also spent nine months defining our culture around the ideas of empathy and learning, which was informed in part by the work by Dr. Carol Dweck on growth mindset. That was our overarching theme with key pillars under it, including being customer-obsessed, [being] diverse and inclusive, [integrating as] One Microsoft, and making a difference. The thing I tried to do was not to say that the people agenda is the HR agenda; it’s the business agenda.”

Priority 5: Model leadership excellence

The best CHROs are easy to collaborate with personally, and they create a function that is easy to work with. They earn respect and credibility because they embody the leadership behaviors that they expect of everyone else.

That starts with viewing an excellent HR function as table stakes, rather than the endgame of their role. They don’t harbor mediocrity within their team; they show an ability to rotate talent in and out, and they groom their team members to be fluent in business discussions with divisional or geographic leaders.

“First, if others in the company still think that your function has trouble hiring people or retaining people effectively or monitoring or addressing employee concerns, then it’s going to be hard for them to think that they should be inviting you in to talk about key organizational changes they need to make,” said Donna Morris, the Walmart CHRO. “Second, you better know your business and not fixate on shiny new programs. Focus instead on what’s going to help your business be really successful. If that means getting rid of some of your shiny programs, you better ’fess up and disrupt the very things you might feel wedded to. Third, you’ve got to role-model everything you’re asking every other leader to do. The bar for you in terms of people leadership is actually higher than the bar for everybody else. What’s your strategy in terms of attracting talent, developing talent, and managing performance? If you’ve got an employee survey, [HR] better not be the lowest on the totem pole in terms of organizational health. People should be envying how you lead.”

Susan Podlogar, the MetLife CHRO, and her peers who are reinventing the role of the chief human resources officer simply are not satisfied with the status quo. “Many people continue the same practices and benchmarking against others and say, ‘OK, that’s good enough, I’ll use it,’” she said. “We’ve got to redefine HR, and, most importantly, we’ve got to redefine HR against our business strategy, the future of work, and the future of the workforce. This is one of the most complex times to be in HR, but one of the most exciting times to be in HR. HR is in a very different place than it’s ever been, because we have practices that don’t fit anymore.”

Our goal in this analysis has not been to provide a rigid playbook for human resources. After all, the frameworks and approaches for doing the job must be customized to the particular needs of an organization. The ambiguity of the role is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity. The insights the CHROs shared above, and the five priorities we have identified, serve as a solid starting point for constructive conversations among HR executives, CEOs, and board directors.

“Many HR executives grew up in a world of process, and that is the world we’re leaving behind,” said Diane Gherson, who recently announced she would be stepping down from her role as IBM’s chief human resources officer. “So it’s important for CHROs to get out in front of that and get into the world of outcomes and particularly experiences that they’re creating — and that means reinventing pretty much everything they do.”

This Article Source is From : https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Superhuman-resources-How-HR-leaders-have-redefined-their-C-suite-role?gko=8be06

[southeastasianists]

On a muggy Friday afternoon, Edmund Wee is spinning a yarn in an office unit tucked away in one of many industrial parks scattered across Singapore’s heartlands. The founder of local publishing house Epigram Books is adamant that a new wave of disgruntled Singaporeans are turning their hand to writing novels to voice their frustrations at the order of the day.

“The person that is totally happy and just wants to relax will never write,” he says from atop a high stool, his face illuminated by piercing LED lights that hang from an exposed ceiling. “As a whole, you can say Singapore is part of the first world, but there is a lot of dissatisfaction here – just like in the West with Brexit and Trump… So now you have people who want to be full-time writers – and I think, in the future, even more people will write.”

In the minds of the local literati at least, Singapore is in the throes of a literary renaissance – one that can be traced back to the late 1990s, when people realised fewer and fewer pupils were studying literature, according to Angelia Poon, an associate professor of English literature at Singapore’s National Institute of Education.

“Once the problem was highlighted, there was a reaction not only from teachers, but also curriculum planners in the Ministry of Education, writers themselves and other people who loved literature and felt that this was something that needed to be addressed,” she says. “The scene now is quite vibrant: there’s quite a number of people writing and new works coming out every year.”

Wee, who is in his late 60s but could easily be 20 years younger, is one of the “people who love literature” to whom Poon is referring. A former journalist and designer who spent 12 years at the state-owned Singapore newspaper the Straits Times, Wee established Epigram Books in 2011 when his design business began slowing down. Four years later, he set up an annual fiction prize for Singaporean novelists to encourage interest in the form, awarding 25,000 Singapore dollars (USD18,375) to the winner.

Out of the 72 entries received in the first year, four were shortlisted and published. All four sold out their initial run of 1,000 copies within two or three months, a milestone that normally takes bestsellers a year to reach in Singapore, according to Wee.

“Until recently, the Singapore novel was a rare thing. That has changed,” says Peter Schoppert, president of the Singapore Book Publishers Association. “Epigram’s Fiction Prize has given the form a big boost, and other publishers have stepped up their game as well.” However, while more Singaporeans are writing books, few read them.

A 2015 survey by the country’s National Arts Council (NAC) found that only 44% of Singaporeans had read at least one literary book during the past year and that only one in four Singaporeans had read literary books by Singaporean writers, a deeply entrenched discriminatory attitude that falls on the shoulders of multiple parties, according to Wee.

“For many years, it has been in Singaporeans’ minds that foreign books are better and local books not so good,” he says. “I blame everybody. I blame the schools because literature is not compulsory. I blame the bookshops. I blame the press because they still want to interview famous international authors instead of local authors.”

But Wee has a plan. Earlier this year, to get more Singaporeans reading books written by local authors, he opened up a shop in the UK. It sounds paradoxical but, in Wee’s eyes, it isn’t. Only books that are published in the UK are eligible for the Man Booker Prize – the world’s most celebrated literary award – and Wee believes that a Singaporean winning the prize may be all it takes to stop Singaporeans from overlooking local writers.

“I’ve been running this company now for six years. I’ve reached practically the bottom of my pocket. I’ve really got no money left,” Wee says. “The last throw of the dice is opening in London. If London flops, then I think it’s not going to work.”

Economics also played its part in Wee’s decision to establish a UK imprint. While Singapore’s population is a little over five million, and not all of its citizens speak English as a first language, the UK is home to more than 65 million potential customers. And that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the advantages enjoyed by Western publishers, according to Schoppert.

For one, Singapore allows parallel imports, which means that if a Singaporean publisher has sold the rights for a local title to an overseas publisher, the overseas edition may find its way back to Singapore and compete with the original edition. Given the larger economies of scale they enjoy, overseas publishers can actually afford to undercut their local counterparts.

To date, Wee’s UK imprint has published six books, with two more scheduled for release later this month. While he has only sold 100 copies of each title to UK bookstores so far, he remains “convinced” that his UK venture will be a success and hopes that his quixotic quest for Booker recognition will bear fruit. “A Singaporean novel doesn’t even have to win the Booker prize, but at least get shortlisted, mentioned in the same breath,” says Wee. “I hope that if that happened, that would be a turning point for people to see that Singaporean books aren’t that bad at all.”

[bangkokjacknews]

'We Are NOT sex-workers,' insist Sugar Babies

"Lucky" and "grateful" were words that Singaporean Felice Ang, 23, used to describe her state of mind when she's with her boyfriend.

And the expensive gifts and experiences that he showers on her? They are a "privilege" of their relationship. The gifts include hotel stays, the latest gadgets and custom jewellery. That, as well as cold, hard cash. If this all sounds a little odd, that's because these are perks that Felice enjoys as a "sugar baby" to her 35-year-old "sugar daddy". Felice, a member of controversial Malaysian-based sugar dating site Sugar Book, shared with AsiaOne how she entered sugar dating, the process of finding her sugar daddy, and if providing sexual services is part of the job. She meets us at Orchard (our choice) dressed in an off-shoulder wrap dress with a crotch-high slit that threatened to expose her with every step. A pair of matching heels appeared to lend her an awkward gait. Instead of a Louis Vuitton or Chanel we were expecting, a Kate Spade bag hung over her shoulder. UNIVERSITY FRIENDS INTRODUCED HER For Felice, choosing to be a sugar baby "two to three years" ago stemmed from a very basic motivation: money. Then an undergrad, Felice described her decision as a "necessity" for her at the time, so that she could afford her university fees that were "well into the $50,000 range". She declined to reveal which university she graduated from, except that it's "one of the top universities in Singapore". Her parents, who work in F&B, were unable to cope with her hefty student loans, and Felice, an only child, struggled to keep herself in school working two part-time jobs. At her lowest point, Felice said she subsisted on just instant noodles and a loaf of bread for a week. Said Felice: "I got to know about sugar dating when I was attending one of my student hall parties. "Some of my mutual friend's girlfriends were talking about their 'sugar daddies' very excitedly, so that got me intrigued. "They introduced me to the ropes of  dating, so that got me more familiarised with it."

PHOTO: AsiaOne So what are the rules exactly? "Like firstly, you have to respect that the sugar daddy will have to have his needs met, and you'll have to respect what his schedule is like. Also, as a sugar baby, what are your boundaries." Another requirement that the agency demands, according to Felice, is exclusivity on both sides, but like many relationships, faithfulness is not something one can easily enforce. THE WORLD OF SUGAR DATING So what exactly is sugar dating? Some websites explain that a sugar relationship is one where one party, usually male and the sugar daddy, provides mentorship and financial support to a much younger woman. In exchange, the sugar baby offers whatever the sugar daddy requires of the relationship. However, Felice stressed that sex is not an obligation and what they are doing is not akin to prostitution. "So the thing about sugar babies is people tend to think that we are illegal sex workers, but we are not," said Felice. "Actually, we don't have to provide sexual services to our sugar daddies. Mostly, we provide emotional support to our dates, or my boyfriend, as I like to fondly call him. "Whenever he's in Singapore, I'd like to provide him with the companionship to understand each other better, to build on our relationship. So that's what we like to term 'having our needs met'." Felice's first sugar-dating relationship which lasted more than a year was with an Indian expatriate. The arrangement ended after he was posted to the US. Her current sugar daddy of almost six months is a 35-year-old British banker who's divorced. She meets him about twice a month when he flies in to Singapore. When prodded, Felice let in that both her sugar relationships were sexual, but made sure to let us know that she sees it as a natural progression of any relationship. "I find that it's a very mutual feeling, that even if we give sex as part of the relationship it's a form of expressing our love for each other in a physical way. So to me, it's a very natural development of the relationship," she shared. A TYPICAL DATE

PHOTO: Pixabay Describing sugar dating as "just like normal dating", Felice said she met with three guys before settling into her first long-term sugar relationship. "Like Tinder, the first guy may not be the first one for you." And not every date is like a scene out of Pretty Woman either. Said Felice: "Usually, my current sugar daddy will make a reservation at a restaurant, so that's why I see him, to have dinner with him over wine and dessert. "But if he's too busy to  a reservation at a restaurant, I do go to his residence to have dinner with him. I'm very lucky that he stays near the beach, so we can get to enjoy some leisurely strolls along the beach." On dates, Felice has no qualms about being physically intimate either. "For me, I'm more ok with touching or physical , because I'm a  24-year-old young woman, so it's fine. "First date, I mean you can hug, you can kiss, that's fine. (Anything further?) No, because the first date is for me to learn about him as a person, and not even (to) consider him as my sugar daddy arrangement." BOUNDARIES Dating a married man is where Felice draws the line. "I do have friends who don't mind, but I feel it's a bit of a grey zone. I cannot say it's the right thing to do, I cannot say it's the wrong thing to do. Maybe at that point the married man was a good choice for them," she shared. "Personally, I will not date a married man. Because as much as I believe in sugar dating, I have my own parents, so I don't wish  my father to have another sugar baby outside when he has my mum, so likewise, I don't want to be the party that cuts into another man's marriage." Another thing that she would not tolerate is disrespect from her sugar daddy. The word "respect" was bandied about a lot by Felice in our conversation. "Even though he's very successful and I'm just starting out , we also work hard for what we get, so we should respect each other. "Secondly we should respect each other's cultural differences... Maybe some Asian and Western values are not always the same, so we should speak up and not  over each other's culture."

PHOTO: AsiaOne Physical violence is also a no-no. "My boundaries are not to inflict hurt on each other. So there should not be any physical act that could potentially leave bruises behind," she added, before clarifying that nothing of the sort has ever happened. Expectedly, being a sugar baby has its other downsides. For example, close friends who cast aspersions on her. "I mean, the ones that are closer to my age, they'll misunderstand me. They're like, 'Why do you choose sugar dating, are you only in it for the finances?' "But those older ones  28, 29, they understand that a relationship needs some solid ground to build on," she shared. In fact, Felice defended sugar dating as a form of female empowerment, where women have a choice on the type of relationship that they want to pursue. "My stand on being a sugar baby is that it should not be viewed negatively, it should not be viewed transactionally. It's just like a platform where women can choose their ideal relationship," said Felice, whose first and only non-sugar relationship ended when she was 18. It left an indelible mark on her. “I was working abroad doing my internship when we parted, so I felt hurt in some way also. I wished it didn’t happen repeatedly because then it’s quite painful.” Felice also saw how a friend’s five-year relationship ended due to the intrusion of a third party. "I think everybody has that kind of experiences, which is why I feel that sugar dating is not so painful," she shared. FROM SUGAR DATING TO MARRIAGE? If it sounds like sugar dating affords one quite the life, it probably does, but at what price? Surprisingly at the end of our interview, Felice threw a button-up shirt over her dress and swapped out her high heels for a pair of flats before heading home. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that her parents remain in the dark about what she does, but we get the impression her get-up was just a front put up for the interview, and possibly for her dates. Sans the thick makeup which ages her by several years, we are sure the braces-wearing young lady in front of us could still pass off as an undergraduate. Describing her current relationship with her sugar daddy, Felice at times sounded almost over-accommodating and, dare we say, subservient, in putting his needs above her own. But she views it as learning to "manage my emotions", part of being "understanding" in the relationship, and disagreed when we likened it to providing a service for a client. Despite her remonstrations, a relationship of such unequal footing begs the question: can it be real? And it seemed Felice is under no illusions that sugar dating would transform into a long-term "love relationship". To be a sugar baby, one has to be practical, she said. "I do believe in love, but when I go through sugar dating, learning about my boyfriend (and his failed marriage), I realise that love can be a double-edged sword," said Felice. "I think in sugar dating this is the thing we have to realise. We have to be not so emotionally attached to the arrangements. "As long as they have the ability to keep up with the meeting frequencies, and with him I enjoy the finer things in life, that's sufficient." - ANN – You can follow BangkokJack on Instagram, Twitter & Reddit. Or join the free mailing list (top right) Please help us continue to bring the REAL NEWS - PayPal Read the full article

[sibelbaydan-blog]

Post Exhibition

Empathy: In an attempt to gain the ability to emapthise with the target group. Students were required to participate in organised empathy activities in the first workshop. This included the use of a four-wheel frame and glasses with grease marks to get a better understanding of how clients mobilise, allowing to gain a deeper insight into their lives. 

Define: The group outlined a problem post the first visit to ADA site. It had been identified that there was an issue regarding clienteles’ engagement in organised activities. Clients needed regular prompting to follow along and their overall body language showed disengagement. On initial discussion, clients said that they enjoyed activities yet their body language did not convey this message. On the second visit after further discussion it was identified that there were clients that had no interest, those that were disengaged had no limitations or other factors which could cause a lack of interest (i.e. mobility impairments). 

Ideation: The group then explored potential options as aforementioned, in the earlier post. Then they selected the concept that was the most appropriate, also they sought out guidance and advice from the project supervisor. Initially, the wall was themed as a meadow with three activities being a memory-based game, a light-based game, and a pulley activity. Although after pitching the initial idea to the ADA we were told that the concept was great, however, some of the games were inappropriate to the clients' cognitive abilities. The design was reconsidered and made appropriate adjustments were made based on recommendations. Whilst doing so the team thought about making the theme of the wall kampung, as it would utilise a form of reminiscent therapy. As ideation continued the concept kept growing however it was decided that by the end of the first week ideation had to come to a halt and that the next component of the design process had to commence.   

Prototype: This phase included the production of images for the poster that the design and architect students had created. The development of the image for our wall was completed by the architecture student using various software. The interactive board which had magnetic elements and was an interactive prototype created by the groups' architecture and a Singaporean nursing student. 

Test: No testing has been done at this stage as it cannot occur without funding and implementation. If the ADA decides to fund this concept then testing can occur. The point of the presentation, an attempt to appeal for funding. 

Within the group, I was heavily involved in the empathy, define and ideation phase of design. I had spent a lot of time with the residents in an attempt to define the problem and identified poor engagement amongst clientele. In Ideation, I was proactive in finding current and relevant research and discussed how its findings could guide the design of the prototype. However, in the prototype physical construction I was not as involved since the architect, design and nurses who had artistic talents, were heavily involved in this component of the design process. 

The cultural elements that were implemented into the design where none of what the Australian students saw in the cultural visits but came from the Singaporean students. They suggested that we make our wall Kampung themed and utilise it as a form of reminiscent therapy. Students from other groups were aware of our groups concept and on their visit to gardens by the bay they came across some various traditional textiles which they took pictures of which gave the idea of implementing traditional materials to promote tactile stimulation. 

After regular meetings with the site manager and her feedback, the team developed new activities to better suit clients’ cognition. She had suggested that the target group be the moderate dementia group as they have poorer engagement rates. 

[thelocalrebel]

The Child We’ve Been Hiding In Our Basement

Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide and self harm (mostly mentioned as facts, but includes some anecdotes)

Sometime in January, I chanced upon a Straits Times article titled “What dark secret is in the Singapore basement?”. It refers to the novel The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin. 

In the city of Omelas, life is essentially utopia. Everyone is happy and there are no conflicts. However, other than their shared happiness, everyone has another thing in common - the knowledge that there is a child who is locked in a basement, who is tortured and deprived and denied. The novel neglects to explain why the child is in the basement. On the other hand, it is an unspoken fact that in order to maintain the city’s happiness, the child has to be kept under the basement. Letting the child out of the basement would bring about chaos and ruin the image of a happy utopia that everyone else maintained so dearly.

Those who cannot bear the moral burden of torturing a child in their basement leave the city, but the novel only states that these people go towards a place “even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist.” Notably, the novel adds a powerful afterthought - “But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”

The article then brings up various interpretations of the story, with one being the exploitation of cheap labour. It is easy to see how this novel is an allegory and is full of parallels and symbols of everyday life in today’s capitalist and ‘secular’ society.

Towards the end, the writer poses a question - What child is in the Singapore basement?

Mr Han, the writer of this thought-provoking article, then characterises the child as “something we are not proud to be associated with, but which exists nonetheless and can be rationalised in any number of ways, always for the greater public good”. He later classifies the child as, potentially, low-wage workers left behind in the economic race that has brought Singapore to where she is today. He also points out that much is done in effort to help the child in our basement. In total, he brings up three examples of what could be the child in our basement, and points out how more is being done to help the - child? Children? - in our basement. He concludes the article on a relatively positive note, stating that an increasing number of Singaporeans are walking away from their Omelas, and this in turn changes the city.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas strongly reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the cave, there are people chained and facing the wall. Their entire knowledge only consists of what they see on the wall, which are the shadows cast by the puppeteers moving freely behind them. The people chained to the wall only know that the shadows exist, while the puppeteers behind them are free to move around and manipulate the truth and knowledge that the chained people know of. However, all it takes is for one of the chained prisoners to start questioning who cast the shadows on the wall in the first place for them to question the “reality” that they have known, and for them to turn around to realise that there is a whole other world that existed beyond their shadows on the wall. Similarly, the citizens of Omelas are the prisoners chained to the wall - their whole life, they have only experienced great happiness, and know nothing beyond protecting their own interests by ignoring the child in the basement. However, those who begin to question the fairness and morality of their treatment of the child are the ones who start questioning the source of the shadows cast on the cave walls. Those who cannot bear this immoral treatment end up leaving the cave, and in that sense, become the puppeteers, not in their ability to manipulate what others think they know, but they are now able to freely walk in and out of the cave due to their decision to choose the unknown. The puppeteers in the cave, in a similar tangent, are exploring the unknown, seeing how they have chosen to break free from the “truth” they once knew - the shadows on the walls.

To me, both The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and it’s link to Plato’s Cave represent the issue of mental health in Singapore.

In a local context, the issue of mental health is not talked about and is constantly swept under the rug. Similar to how the people of Omelas bear the burden of the secret of the tortured child in their basement to maintain their superficially happy lives, Singaporeans hide the issue of mental health in their basement and pretend that the issue does not exist on the surface. We keep our child locked up in our basement to keep the shiny, perfect image of a caring society living perfect lives.

E/N: Continued in Zine #2.

[un-enfant-immature]

Grab co-founder says Southeast Asia still has plenty of competition despite Uber’s exit

Grab may have bought itself a dominant position in Southeast Asia through its acquisition of Uber’s regional business, but the company still believes there’s competition in the ride-hailing space despite what consumers may feel.

But Grab customers aren’t alone in feeling that the Grab-Uber deal is detrimental, the Competition and Consumer Commission Singapore (CCCS) last week expressed concern that the tie-up is hurting consumers and that a lack of competition will reduce innovation. The watchdog is in the process of an investigation into the deal which could see it dish out fines for Uber and Grab, or potentially unwind the deal in Singapore altogether.

Despite that threat looming, Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan told an audience at the Rise conference in Hong Kong that the market, and ride-hailing more generally, remains competitive in Southeast Asia despite Uber’s exit.

“There’s still a lot of existing competition, we don’t foresee it ending ever.. and to be honest we don’t want it to because we continue to learn from them,” Tan said. “We continue to learn from alternative players who take alternative strategies [and] operational tactics.”

Go-Jek, the billion-dollar firm that dominates Indonesia and is plotting a regional expansion to fill Uber’s void, may be the most obvious rival, but Tan said that Grab is competing with more basic forces.

“From day one, our primary competitor has never been other ride-hailing apps, it’s actually been what [Grab CEO Anthony Tan] calls the hand — the hand that waves down a taxi on the side of the road,” Tan, who is not related to the Grab CEO, said. “That market is huge, [and it is something] we’re trying to provide an alternative service to because it isn’t exactly efficient as is.”

10 July 2018; Tan Hooi Ling, left, Co-Founder, Grab, and Kara Swisher, Executive Editor, Recode, on Centre Stage during day one of RISE 2018 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Hong Kong. Photo by Stephen McCarthy / RISE via Sportsfile

CCCS, the Singaporean watchdog, doesn’t agree, however. Last week it expressed concern that no other taxi apps rival Grab and that a prohibitive barrier of cost and network effects prevents new entrants from competing squarely. A lack of competition has already led to Grab raising prices, it argued, although Grab has denied doing so.

Tan didn’t comment directly on the regulator’s comments, but she did say at a subsequent press briefing that regulating ride-hailing is a tricky process.

“We’re all trying to figure out what’s the right way to balance the needs of the consumer and need to create an environment that’s supportive of innovation,” she said. “Together we’re trying to figure things out, we make mistakes together but are 100 percent combined in terms of our intent.”

Grab’s acquisition of Uber Southeast Asia drives into problems

An entity with which Grab is more unexpectedly combined with is Uber, and Tan’s comments certainly paint the relationship between the once-sworn enemies as a very pally one.

“The partnership makes a tonne of sense to us because we saw [Uber] as really true potential partners,” Tan said. “For example some of the things that they’ve been helping us a lot on… they have Uber Eats in Southeast Asia, which we didn’t have, and since we’ve helped take over their operations we’ve helped them expand it from two countries to six countries right now with a bunch more growth expansion plans.

“They’ve also had some of the best technology know-how, whether it’s mapping or just basic scaling infrastructure, those are some of the other things we’ve continued learned from them,” she added.

Tan said that Uber and Grab are educating each other on how their respective businesses are developing, and on that note Grab today went beyond ride-hailing with the launch of its “super app” that integrates third-party services. Uber has embraced scooters with its acquisition of Jump Bikes, but it will take some imagining for the ride-hailing giant to adopt non-transportation services like Grab’s push into payment and financial services.

But then that’s entirely the point of its Southeast Asia exit. It’s widely-believed that Uber left Southeast Asia’s loss-making market to clean its balance sheet ahead of a future IPO. Nonetheless, it got a solid 27.5 percent share in Grab in return and with the Singapore-based firm in the process of raising capital at a valuation of over $10 billion, Uber is already reaping the rewards on paper.

Grab raised $1 billion from Toyota last month and that is the first tranche of a larger fundraising effort to support the one-stop “super app” strategy in Southeast Asia’s post-Uber world.

After Uber buyout, Grab aims to go beyond rides to become Southeast Asia’s one-stop app

[weirdlandtv]

Behind the scenes of the making of: “Captain Eagle Man”.

This post contains background information on the Captain Eagle Man (Rogues Gallery Auditions) video, which can be viewed here:

Superheroes. Superheroes, superheroes. Kids that like to draw, draw superheroes. Whenever I had invented a new one, I thought: “This could be the big one.” I was always eagerly leafing through nature encyclopedias with my little kid fingers, looking for potential totem animals. Bats were already taken. Spiders were taken. How about… Owls? Panda bears?

Panda Man, Owl-Men [sic], and Frogger (huh) are from the 1980s. I must have been seven or eight. Midknight is from 1992, and I crowned the momentous event that was his creation by adding the exact date, thus generously helping out future historians. None of the characters took flight of course, but combine those animal-themed heroes with 1992′s Midknight, and you can see where Captain Eagle Man (right) comes from.

One of my super-creations that had a longer life was Superdog. He was my Mickey Mouse. My main comic character. Dog by day, Superdog by night, he battled crime and solved pitiful spats with his neighbor by knocking him out:

I drew those panels when I was about five. I love that next-to-last image of him sitting at home, staring forlornly at the reader. He seems so down. With great power comes great depression.

Superdog’s nemesis, the neighbor in the comic above, was called Boris Bulldog (my, long time since I wrote down that name). I loved cooking up villains for Superdog: apart from Boris there was The White Sheet, a sort of evil mastermind; Chilli, a green sumo wrestler based on a character from a C64 computer game starring Bruce Lee; Godrepus, Superdog’s evil double (clever), and more. Supervillains make the story; they are the story. For Captain Eagle Man, I couldn’t stick to just one–I wanted a whole roster. I wanted to open up the floodgates. Anything I could think of. The very first villain we see in the video was inspired by the Green Goblin obviously. My main memory of the Green Goblin is Corgi’s “Spiderbuggy” toy, which I received for Christmas 1982: it came with a little plastic Green Goblin, and for a week or so it was my pride and joy. Then I lost it and forgot about it.

That’s the Phantom Cowboy, the second villain to step up. The initial design, left, seemed a little too cartoony, like one of the Daltons from the Lucky Luke series, so I redesigned him. On the right is the original pencil drawing of the character as he appears in the video.

That’s one of my favorite shots. I like the big transvestite character; she reminds me of Divine, the late actor/drag queen. She’s called ‘Mama Mu-Mu’ according to my notes, and she was actually inspired by an image of a Singaporean prostitute that I stumbled upon on Google (yes, stumbled upon, shut it). There’s also a hint of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wiz (1978) in there, a film that fascinates me (those dark, needle-like buildings, the empty streets, that strange, filtered evening light: it has the atmosphere of a nuclear fright dream). 

The character had various different hairstyle designs before I settled on the final one:

I stole Sola’s pose by the way. I used it as a guide at first, a template, but it ended up in the video virtually unchanged.

The Pit of Souls is similar to the Cave of Hands from the later “Silex the Barbarian” video, which also features Sola actually. It’s a trope, basically. Similar concepts appear in the 1965 Polanski film Repulsion and Jim Henson’s Labyrinth (1986), for example.

I’ve always liked the idea of a living environment, of material objects with souls, and locations that have an instinctive will to protect themselves and that set out traps for unsuspecting trespassers. Jim Henson was a genius at this sort of thing: he could breathe life into rocks, bananas, toasters, frying pans, whole news desks even.

Twin Peaks and The Muppet Show–where those two shows meet, my stuff appears. I was obsessed with Twin Peaks as a teen; I remember biking to school and thinking about it, mulling over it. So when I had to think of a series of colorful villains, creatures and mystery men for this video, it was inevitable that a Twin Peaks character would pop up somewhere. It could have been BOB, it could have been The Giant (”One and the same”), but I felt that the Man From Another Place fitted best. The brief scene as it stands is a homage to a show that greatly influenced me. Salute, David Lynch.

Captain Eagle Man and Sidekick Boy face their archenemy, Doctor Dragoon. At first, Doctor Dragoon looked like an albino lizard in cheap 1970s sci-fi clothing:

But I just didn’t like that design. All the while I kept thinking of the old Hanna-Barbera antagonist Dick Dastardly (as you do): his red and purple aviator outfit, the haughty manner, the waxed moustache. His image kept poking me, as if it wanted to force itself into my video somehow. I knew Dastardly mainly from reruns of Yogi’s Space Race, a dreary show that I watched as a kid before going to school in the morning, but he appeared often in Hanna-Barbera cartoons and even had his own show. Dastardly was a throwback to the typical silent film villain really: the evil banker, the scheming businessman, always threateningly waving mortgage papers in the air and tying the hero’s love interest to a railroad track–a character, actually, that I had nearly included in this scene:

I crossed out the lizard villain and, fine, decided to include Dick Dastardly, though my own version of him, with some Spring-heeled Jack as an added flavor. Once Dastardly entered my video, things took a more comical turn:

On the left is the original pencil drawing of Dragoon’s grand entrance, on the right is the lava splash animation that follows shortly afterwards. It’s basically a water splash of course, except it’s on threes, possibly even fours, not ones, to convey the feeling of a thick, dense substance (animator jargon there). The ripple is fat as honey.

At this point, I thought it’d be funny if Sidekick Boy remarked, “Well, that was the last thing I expected.” Captain Eagle Man would then say: “Nah. A herd of unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster, a yeti, all on the sunken continent of Atlantis, where Elvis is alive and well and king of the lizard people: that’s the last thing you expected.” But it didn’t work, it broke the rhythm of the scene, the natural flow. So I discarded it. The video’s final shot however is a remnant of this alternate ending:

I’m quite fond of Captain Eagle Man. When I picked up animation, I hadn’t really drawn for a long time, so when I got to this video all these characters came out, unleashed like the angelic beings in Raiders of the Lost Ark, finally freed from their cramped surroundings. It’s a very personal video. It takes me right back to those relatively carefree days when I was seven or so and sat at the dinner table, fervently drawing my superheroes:

That’s the end of this post. Until next time.

[dailykhaleej]

Saving the senior exec’s profession, Brunch

AFTER rising up the company ladder, middle-aged, mid-career professionals would possibly discover themselves abruptly out of a job, and in peril of being left behind by relentless technological progress. Some take up stop-gap work that turns long-term; others face competitors from youthful hires. This story isn’t new. It has been instructed again and again: from the Asian Monetary Disaster to the dot-com bubble, from the world monetary disaster to at present’s virus-driven recession. An extended-running structural fear that additionally impacts new cohorts every time, the problem of displaced older professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) has resurfaced – even earlier than the Covid-19 outbreak intensified over the final month or so.

With Price range 2020 together with new efforts tohelp this group, a query arises: how completely different is the problem that they face at present, as tech performs a rising position in the economic system? To what extent can the story change?

A perennial drawback

Every downturn in latest historical past has revived considerations over the lot of older PMETs, who’re susceptible to retrenchment and have a tendency to take longer to return to employment – if in any respect.

“The issue of displacement of mature PMETs is not new, as structural unemployment among senior workers – including PMETs – is one of the long-term challenges encountered by Singapore,” says SIM International Training senior lecturer Dr Tan Khay Boon.

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As the share of mature PMETs in the labour drive grows, so too does the problem. Singapore College of Social Sciences affiliate professor Walter Theseira notes that in 2009, simply over 1 / 4 of the labour drive held a level; at present, the determine is 37.5 per cent. “The point is that even while the economy has increased demand for PMETs today compared to 20 years ago, having a PMET qualification or work history really doesn’t stand out anymore,” he says.

There tends to be an enormous hole in earnings and expertise between an entry-level PMET position and a senior one, making it onerous for the latter to seek out equal positions as soon as displaced, he provides: “The experience you have may not be relevant to growth sectors.”

Issues stay robust for older PMETs, or PMEs as the labour motion refers to them. Says Nationwide Trades Union Congress (NTUC) assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay: “Based on labour market statistics and reports, we have seen that our middle-career workers continue to be the most vulnerable and affected by retrenchments, with higher skilled, middle-aged PMEs the hardest hit.”

Based on Ministry of Manpower (MOM) figures, there have been 6,790 native retrenchments in 2019, of which PMETs fashioned 73.6 per cent, or almost 5,000. Of the native retrenched PMETs, 37.7 per cent have been aged 40 to 49, and one other 32.7 per cent aged 50 and above. By these calculations, over 3,500 native PMETS aged 40 or older have been retrenched in 2019.

Superb-grained figures should not obtainable for re-entry into employment after six months, however the total fee for PMETs is 61.9 per cent, decrease than different occupational teams. For all staff, the re-entry fee is 65.eight per cent for these 40 to 49, and 52.2 per cent for these 50 and over, decrease than these for youthful staff – 82.5 per cent for these beneath 30, and 76.Three per cent for these 30 to 39.

The present financial disaster has the potential to be worse than earlier downturns corresponding to Sars and the world monetary disaster, notes OCBC Financial institution chief economist Selena Ling.

Granted, the instant influence has fallen on front-line service workers. However she provides: “Typically, the first hit may be on the non-PMET roles, but as the pandemic continues, not many industries, firms or workers may be immune.”

Regardless of authorities help, there’s a danger that corporations eager on cost-cutting could lay off older staff, together with older PMETs, she says.

“The employment and employability of our PMEs is something that the labour movement is actively looking into,” says Mr Tay.

The brand new Job Safety Council, as an example, goals to put PMEs – particularly these “in their 40s and 50s who may be at higher risk of displacement” – in new roles with taking part employers, forward of their displacement.

Price range 2020, in the meantime, featured the SkillsFuture Mid-Profession Help Package deal for locals of their 40s and 50s, aiming to double the annual variety of such staff who’re positioned into jobs by way of authorities reskilling programmes, to about 5,500 by 2025.

The bundle consists of the ramping-up of such programmes, with enhanced wage help for mid-career rank-and-file staff throughout coaching; an incentive for employers who rent job seekers ages 40 and above by way of these programmes; an extra S$500 SkillsFuture Credit score top-up for residents aged 40 to 60; and constructing a pool of volunteer profession advisors.

In the Committee of Provide, one other scheme was launched: the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) Mid-Profession Advance Programme, to get Singaporeans aged 40 and above into tech-related jobs. Ten corporations are already on board, with 500 positions dedicated and the goal of inserting 2,000 extra locals over the subsequent two to 3 years.

This goals to create extra alternatives for mid-career professionals and match them “with companies that otherwise may not be naturally looking at mid-career professionals as a source of talent”, says Infocomm Media Growth Authority (IMDA) chief trade growth officer Howie Lau.

The IMDA’s start line was to not handle the problem of displaced PMETs per se, he clarifies: “Our starting point was that there is value from both the company perspective as well as the mature PMET perspective to consider this option.”

Instructing new methods

Granted, getting older PMETs into an trade typically related to their youthful counterparts won’t look like the most blatant transfer.

“It is not easy, as tech-related roles which are in huge demand are getting more technical in nature, and it is not easy to pick these skills up,” says Patricia Teo, director of govt search agency Kerry Consulting’s expertise apply. Roles with a “constant talent shortage” embrace chief expertise officers; software program engineers; website reliability and DevOps professionals; digital product homeowners and industrial leaders; knowledge science; and in cybersecurity.

Based on the MOM’s newest job vacancies report, the prime PMET vacancies in 2019 included software program, internet, and multimedia builders, and techniques analysts – each roles which require technical expertise.

Nonetheless, there are prospects, says Ms Teo: “Technology project management roles have been the easiest of the transitions for non-tech PMETs, particularly if these candidates had domain or industry knowledge.”

Such “tech-lite” jobs are a big a part of tech labour demand, says trade physique SGTech’s chairman Wong Wai Meng. The tech expertise scarcity is throughout the entire spectrum of roles, he says: from deep tech and tech-lite to “for-tech” roles that help the growth of options.

Whereas deep tech roles require correspondingly deep expertise, tech-lite roles are supporting ones corresponding to digital gross sales advisors, which “do not require very strong technical capabilities but are very important”, he says.

For-tech roles could also be much more appropriate for mid-career PMETs with no tech background, he provides.A human sources (HR) skilled in a “for-tech” position may assist in the creation of HR software program modules, even when they could not know the tech itself.

Equally, in growing enterprise useful resource planning options for manufacturing, “just the application knowledge is not good enough”. A options developer may achieve from hiring a PMET with earlier experience on the manufacturing flooring.

“Technology is always applied. An application is useless when the business doesn’t use it,” he says, including that older PMETs have priceless enterprise expertise and undertaking administration expertise, too. “So that’s where I think some of these conversion programmes will help fill the gap.”

The TeSA Mid-Profession Advance programme addresses this with its number of jobs, cut up roughly 50-50 between tech specialist roles and tech-lite ones.

Sarcastically, one impediment to getting PMETs into tech jobs is perhaps their very own reluctance. As Mr Wong notes: “I think the tech industry somehow has this very mystical (reputation), that it’s hard to get in.”

Anecdotally, retrenched PMETs typically take up stop-gap roles corresponding to insurance coverage brokers or taxi drivers, which can develop into everlasting occupations.

“To reskill for the new demands of the labour market is costly and time-consuming, with an uncertain outcome,” says Dr Tan. “For immediate survival, it is natural that the older retrenched PMETs take up stop-gap occupations.”

Says Dr Theseira: “I believe it’s price learning whether or not credit score constraints and the lack of unemployment insurance coverage clarify why individuals go to and keep in such stop-gap work.

“If you don’t have income to support you during skills training or job search, you naturally have to spend more time in work, so you might never get out of that.”

The federal government’s new Covid-19 Help Grant, for individuals who lose their jobs amid the virus outbreak, may mitigate this problem. Profitable candidates will get a month-to-month money grant of S$800 for 3 months whereas they search for a brand new job or attend coaching.

The TeSA Mid-Profession Advance programme, in the meantime, supplies the certainty of a assured job. Members are employed, with a wage, whereas attending company-led coaching for the required expertise.

Taking part corporations obtain funding help whereas committing to hiring trainees for as much as 24 months. That is thus very completely different from, say, doing a brief on-line course the place “you may or may not have a job outcome”, says Mr Lau.

The structured, job-linked nature of the comparable TeSA Firm-Led Coaching programme was what prompted Ms Erina Tan, 48, to make the leap final yr. Earlier than, she had thought of IT reskilling however discovered it onerous to inform which course to decide on.

Beforehand a product supervisor with an IT coaching organisation – although with out IT information – till the agency underwent reorganisation, she joined Y3 Applied sciences by way of the TeSA course and is on the method to turning into a digital advertising and marketing supervisor.

“For those people who have doubts, I would encourage them to have the courage to try out new paths for themselves, especially in the technology space,” she says. “Everybody has to be agile nowadays.”

Taking part TeSA Mid-Profession Advance employers embrace ThoughtWorks, with three completely different roles, all open to these with no prior ICT (infocomms expertise) expertise. “For the IT consulting analyst and IT support analyst roles, we focus on their previous experience,” says Wong Wen Shun, ThoughtWorks’ managing director of South-east Asia.

For the software program developer position, profitable candidates should bear an intensive engineering bootcamp. “For all the roles, ThoughtWorks has created a support infrastructure to help in the transition to support each individual be successful,” he provides.

Additionally taking part is DBS Financial institution, which is trying to rent and practice 15 mid-career professionals. Says the financial institution’s Singapore head of human sources Theresa Phua: “Mid-career professionals bring with them a sense of maturity and their past experience gives us new insights to improve our customer journeys.”

The precise match

Basically, the method of ascertaining market demand and matching job seekers with particular roles is greatest, says SGTech’s Mr Wong. “Match the demand and the supply, then we train. If you just train loosely… then what if the person can’t find a job?”

Matching advantages either side, he notes. Even when a brand new rent doesn’t know the firm’s expertise, they might nonetheless be a superb match: “When a match is there, I can train the person specifically for that purpose, then we realise the success factor together.”

SGTech has seen success in its one-year pilot run of the Skilled Dialog Programme (PCP) for Salesforce Professionals. It was launched in September 2018 with virtually 50 contributors throughout 18 corporations, of whom almost half have been both aged over 40, had been unemployed for over six months, or each. SGTech is now scaling up from one PCP to 3, aiming to safe job placements for over 300 PMETs via 2022. The roles provided don’t require programming information.

Primarily based on the pilot run, SMEs are certainly open to hiring older mid-career PMETs, says Mr Wong. He hopes that for his or her half, such PMETs shall be prepared to make the leap, whereas having real looking expectations.

Some PCPs specify a minimal wage of S$2,500, and the funding cap is S$6,000 per 30 days. Whereas SGTech doesn’t specify wage necessities, this vary roughly corresponds to what they’ve noticed in the market – presumably a step down from earlier roles for mid-career PMETs.

There may be additionally a broader shift to make. Simply as how the Job Safety Council goals to put staff earlier than displacement happens, Mr Wong believes that efforts must be extra proactive: “We always react to the problem when jobs get lost. Shouldn’t we look ahead, into the industries that we know will have displacement, the roles that we know will be lost?”

Attain out to these in peril of being displaced and guarantee they study new expertise, he provides. However he recognises this won’t be straightforward: “Companies don’t want to acknowledge it, they don’t want to scare their workers. Workers also don’t want to acknowledge it. …How do we get everyone to start facing up to the hard truth?”

One older PMET who needed to withstand that is Bernard Chew, 45, who had an IT-related position in the early 2000s, then a string of jobs – together with menial duties in the meals and beverage trade – earlier than deciding to plunge again into the space of IT.

“Computing in this age has changed so much,” he says. IT expertise picked up in earlier years can expire swiftly. “Given this set of skills that you have, you know it’s going to be obsolete – you have to venture out and pick up new skills to remain relevant,” he says.

Impressed by friends who have been in the IT discipline, he started taking short-term programs at NTUC LearningHub, inspired by the SkillsFuture Credit score launched in 2015. This February, he landed a job in IT desktop help.

He hopes to take a diploma course quickly, in the identify of steady studying: “It gives you a sense of hope that one day you can land a better job with better career prospects.”

“From time to time, we do meet non-tech people who would ‘deselect’ themselves from tech-related job opportunities,” says NTUC LearningHub chief govt officer Kwek Kok Kwong. “But we also meet people who will brave the journey and venture into uncharted territory by taking the first step in acquiring the right tech knowledge and skills through training with us in NTUC LearningHub.”

Over 34,000 trainees aged 40 and above took expertise programs with NTUC LHUB in 2019, representing about three-quarters of attendees.

Each Mr Chew and IMDA’s Mr Lau share a objective: to indicate older PMETs {that a} change into the tech discipline is feasible. “People my age, in our forties, still can learn,” says Mr Chew.

Says Mr Lau: “It’s about using the (TeSA) programme to change perceptions as well… You cannot change perceptions by telling people. You can only change perceptions by showing that it works.”

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[hardtalksmy]

THE SECRET POLICE THAT RUNS MALAYA'S KETUANAN MELAYU AGENDA

THE SECRET POLICE THAT RUNS MALAYA'S KETUANAN MELAYU AGENDA

Malaysia’s Special Branch and the Deep State

July 11, 2019

5047

By: Murray Hunter

Malaysia’s Special Branch, a secretive division within the Royal Malaysian Police force (PDRM), has functioned as one of the country’s most covert units, or did until earlier this year, when the human rights NGO Suhakam accused it of being behind the disappearance of two social activists, Amri Che Mat and Pastor Raymond Koh.

The new Director General of Police, Absul Hamid Bador, denies the accusation, claiming that the unit has no operational capabilities. Nonetheless, the accusation shines a light on a shadowy organization that had its beginnings as an intelligence unit established by the British after WWII to primarily gather human intelligence (HUMINT) on the communist insurgency throughout North Borneo and Malaya as well as spying to counter the growing Communist influence as well as watching the Singaporean trade union and political movements. A third important task was to undertake surveillance and infiltrate the Chinese triads operating in the towns throughout Malaya.

As a colonial creation, it has never been legitimized by act of Parliament, It has, no public charter, and reports neither to the National Parliament or the executive. It became an arm of the police organizational structure with a director who reported to the Director General of Police (IGP). The only indication of its mission and objectives are on the police website, stating that it is“responsible for collecting and processing security intelligence to preserve the law and order of the public and maintain Malaysia’s peace and security.”

Today it conducts surveillance, intelligence gathering, and infiltrations that span all aspects of Malaysian society including religious organizations, mosques, churches, and temples, Chinese schools, universities, the state and federal civil services, government agencies, local government, trade unions, NGOs, media organizations, social activists, and even Royal households.

Special Branch attends many public gatherings, press conferences, and events where there are people of interest. Both opposition and government members of parliament are kept under surveillance. It has expanded from just utilising HUMINT gathering and now utilizes all the tools of modern electronic intelligence gathering, with sophisticated cyber abilities.

A former officer who wants to remain anonymous told Asia Sentinel writer that during the first Mahathir era in the 1990s, his responsibility was to film and photograph cabinet ministers and state chief ministers in compromising situations which could be utilized as a lever against them if necessary at some future point. The ex-officer went on to say that a number of guest rooms in hotels around Malaysia have been set up for this specific purpose, making it intriguing that recently Mohamed Azmin Ali, the former Selangor chief minister and current minister of economics, was allegedly surreptitiously filmed in a homosexual liaison by unknown actors.

Politicians from Sabah and Sarawak are of particular interest due to the sensitivities about seccession from the Federation. Just recently Parti Warisan Sabah, a member of the Pakatan Harapan government, announced publicly that they would ban SB officers from their press conferences. However, Abdul Hamid Bador, formerly the agency’s director, said it is the SB’s prerogative to send in their people to press conferences despite the ban.

The unit has even been involved in royal household politics, choosing sides in a power struggle within the Kelantan Royal household in 2010 by reportedly ambushing the then-Sultan Ismail Petra on the road to prevent him from travelling to Singapore for medical treatment and restrained him in hospital.

The SB’s Political Division monitors the political climate and regularly undertakes its own polling. Its officers actually knew that the Najib government would most likely lose GE14 when that was by no means clear to political analysts. However, we will never know what role it played during the election and transition.

However, the warning that Abdul Hamid Bador gave to Najib when he was dismissed as deputy director and mothballed within the Prime Ministers Department before the election may in retrospect be very telling. The Political Division conducts propaganda and misinformation campaigns.

During the first trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy, the then director Mohamed Said Awang told the court the Special Branch had conducted ‘turning over operations’ to change the political views of targets. Wikileaks revealed correspondence between Australian and Singapore security agencies in which the Singapore agency told the Australian agency that the allegations against Anwar were true and result of a ‘honey trap’ set up.

Activities are not restricted to Malaysia. Officers are found in countries where Malaysians are studying including Australia, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Ireland, the United States, and Egypt. SB officers monitor the activities of Malaysian students and also use the opportunity to groom and recruit potential informants, where those students on scholarships will be future civil servants. Officers usually work independently of Malaysian consular missions, although some officers may either work within the consulates or are the consul in charge of student affairs.

The SB also operates in Thailand, especially the southern provinces. Another SB officer who also wished to remain anonymous told me the main focus in Thailand was to monitor Malaysian criminals and Islamic sects with Malaysian connections. The officer also said that if the SB wanted to capture their targets, they would abduct and take them straight across the border. These extrajudicial renditions are usually carried out on those wanted in Malaysia and using Thailand as a safe haven.

The Malaysian and Singaporean special branches have very close relationships. A Malaysian officer once told me the Singapore SB are “their brothers,” which allows Malaysian SB influence to flow down into Singapore. Time Magazine reported that the Malaysian special branch knew Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown had planned to visit Singapore and had arranged for their Singapore counterparts to arrest her upon arrival.

The SB uses the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA) which replaced the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA) as a platform to arrest and interrogate people of interest. Although hundreds of suspected terrorists have been arrested and held under SOSMA, the Act has also been used to arrest and hold civil rights activists, including Maria Chin Abdullah of Bersih.

This is purely political. Other detainees under SOSMA/ISA have included politicians Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang, Jeffrey Kittingan, Karpal Singh, Michael Jayakumar, Lim Guan Eng, Mohamed Sabu, and Teresa Koh.

According to ex-detainees the special branch methods to interrogate suspects include stripping them, forcing them to stand for long periods of time in the cold, intimidation, threats against families, isolation in spotlights or darkness, sleep, food and water deprivation, ‘good cop, bad cop’ routines, and truth drugs. The aim is to make the detainees completely dependent on their captures to break them down mentally.

Detainees have no right to lawyers, no right to judicial review, or other legal recourse. The SB itself has no known system of checks and balances, which leads to abuse. The 2005 Dzaiddin Royal Commission into Police Reform found that many SB actions fall outside the law. Interrogations also contravene the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, a treaty which the Malaysian government has refused to ratify.

Mahathir as Prime Minister has always been close to the Special Branch. In 1987 he cracked down on his critics in what was known as Operation Lalang, rounding up more than 100 politicians, social activists, academics, students, artists, and people seen as being critical of the government. The prime minister’s hold over the unit is just as strong today with his staunch ally Abdul Hamid Bador, the newly appointed IGP. Mahathir in support of the SB was dismissive of Suhakam’s findings about the abduction of Pastor Koh.

This is in stark contrast to former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s experience. Suspicious of the SB is that it built its own security apparatus from the Malaysian External Intelligence Organization, known as ME10. Building ME10 up to more than 1,000 operatives, Najib bypassed the SB. The charges against the former Director-General of ME10 Hasanah Abdul Hamid for misappropriation of election funds can be seen as payback for the letter she wrote to the CIA before Najib lost the federal election last year.

Today, the SB has a budget of more than RM500 million, which doesn’t include the slush funds it has to run secret and sensitive operations. Over the last decade SB staff have more than doubled to over 10,000. This doesn’t include 10-15,000 informers that the SB is handling across the country. This represents about one SB operative to 1,500 citizens, a ratio not unlike the old East German secret police, the Stasi.

Rather than use sodomy to destroy an adversary of Mahathir, ironically the SB is now using misinformation dissemination, aka ‘deepfake’ to protect a Mahathir ally. Many more clandestine operations to handle the transition are certain to follow.

The SB is now in the hands of a person who has used it before to blackmail, silence, incarcerate, and detain his critics. If Malaysia aspires to be a true democracy, then the SB is totally out of control. Who is a subversive or terrorist is left for the SB to decide. Extra-judicial abductions are unconstitutional. Many detainees have been prisoners of conscience or prisoners for their religious beliefs.

Under Mahathir the SB is even more powerful now than it was under the last BN Government.