Sensei Michael

One of our favourite imported goods store, Silver Palate, is closing down after 6 years in operation. This has been a favourite neighbourhood store for the expatriates living here for its fair prices (compared to many other imported goods stores), and a chat with the clerk revealed that the landlord wanted to raise rents triple. Similarly, book stores are closing one by one  in Singapore  – Borders, Harris and Page One, one by one. All quoted the same issue, that the landlords are increasing rents as much as double the previous rate. Students of Economics know that Adam Smith noted three means of income: profit, wage and rent. Much arguments have been made about the wealth-creating ability (or lack of) of rent. Arguments against rent note that rent takes away from the creation of wealth by creating unproductive overheads (unlike utilities or wages,which are productive) for the profit seekers. Rent-seeking behaviour also takes away from the creation of wealth by directing efforts toward...

With the advent of keyboards and the computer, China realised it needed a mean of input into computers that is better than the current clumsier method using keystroke input. With more and more foreigners streaming into China, the nation also realised it needs a mean of romanising its Chinese characters, into something anyone who uses Latin languages can read. Chinese Hanyu Pinyin came about precisely because of all these reasons. The romanisation, however, is different in many ways from how an English-speaker uses these same letters. Even the way the Chinese initially pronounce them is different, just like how A is not read as "ay" but "ah" in Indonesia. Of course, as China modernises, and the English language assumes an importance as a compulsory second language, our familiar "ay", "bee", "see" returns to the Chinese tongue. As a bilingual and bicultural person, I could understand the many hilarious situations that come about when the...