Song of a Reformed Headhunter

  Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . In the Cherokee tale of the first fire, which my sixth-graders read as part of a unit on creation narratives from different faith traditions, a river divided the freezing animals from the burning sycamore tree. How to fetch fire back? The big and strong raven couldn't do it, and he was burned black when he tried. None of the owls could do it, earning red eyes and white eye rings in their attempts. The snakes tried, but the fire sent them swimming home. It was up to the unlikellest heroine, the water spider. Not only did she skip across the water, but she also spun her threads into a basket, into which she deposited a burning coal.  At Singapore Unbound, we wish to imitate the little water spider. Internal discussions on labor equity are landing on the need to pay all team members, including interns, a monthly volunteer's stipend, not just after a year of service, but from the ...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . I'm buried, overloaded, drowning in work, but how could I turn down an invitation by a fellow Singaporean to try some cheap and good Chinese food in a place that I knew nothing about?  Spicy Village  is an unassuming establishment on Forsyth Street, in Manhattan's Chinatown, whose claim to fame is its da pan ji, or "spicy big tray chicken," a dish from Xinjiang. I did not do my research beforehand, so I did not know about the chef's specialty. Instead, I had soup dumplings (delicious but small), spicy beef brisket hui mei, or handpulled wide noodle (chewy good), and fish balls stuffed with pork (yummy), as my friend and I chatted about the various business scandals that had broken out in Singapore, about  FICA , about Singaporeans in NYC doing this and that, and about the trials of New York real estate. As the evening went on, I was feeling strangely revived in that tiny, five-table restau...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . If you are partnered parents with two school-going children, you will need a minimum of $6,426 per month to live with dignity in Singapore. If you are a single parent with one child, you will need $3,218 per month. And if you are a single elderly person, you will need $1,421 per month. These are the findings in the recent report released by a team of Singaporean researchers. Using a consensus-based methodology known as Minimum Income Standards (MIS), which is sensitive to local contexts, the researchers have determined the household budgets necessary to meet basic needs. They also suggest that "a reasonable starting point for a living wage in Singapore is $2,906 per month ." Although the median work income among all workers in 2020 exceeded this amount by 56%, the median work income for cleaners, laborers, and related workers were less than half of what is needed. The median earner in s...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . In tropical Singapore we used to joke that we had four seasons, just like any temperate country, except that our seasons were hot, hotter, hottest, and shopping, which was all-year round. Underneath the joke is a tragic truth: the rapid economic development of Singapore, together with its urban transformation of the island, has desensitized us to the trade winds and the monsoons of the region. More, it has desensitized us to the dismantling of our basic human rights, free speech, free assembly, free and fair elections. Climate change in Singapore—not just rises in temperature but also more frequent flooding—has also been social and political. Jolene Tan, whose compelling essay "Out of the Well," kicks off our month-long series of writings on the theme of climate change, puts it this way: "... on this island, we enact routines especially distant from any self-sustaining equilibrium,...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here .   We are very excited to announce the results of Singapore Unbound’s 1st Flash Fiction Contest. Held in conjunction with our Gaudy Boy launch of Victor Fernando R. Ocampo’s The Infinite Library and Other Stories in the US, the contest had the title of this thrilling collection of speculative fiction for its theme. Every entry must be between 90-100 words. Open to everyone, the contest was judged by the novelist Monique Truong. Winners received a cash prize, publication, and a copy of The Infinite Library if they lived in the US. We received a total of 221 entries. They came from 22 countries around the world. Singapore leads with 76 entries, followed by the US 48, the Philippines 19, India 17, Canada 9, Indonesia 9, Malaysia 5, the UK 4, Argentina 3, Australia 2, Austria 2, Belgium 2, Nigeria 2, Pakistan 2, Brazil 1, Denmark 1, Finland 1, Israel 1, Italy 1, Kenya 1, South Africa 1, and Sri Lanka 1. Bec...

Singapore Unbound released our public statement on BooksActually this morning. Below are my own personal reflections on the revelations that emerged last weekend. Like many of us, I'm still processing the news. My heart goes out to the women who had to endure the ill treatment and have now so bravely told their stories. I believe them, and I wish for them justice and healing, however difficult it seems right now. I have a professional, not personal, relationship with Kenny Leck, the owner of BooksActually. He published two of my early books, and I have done readings in the past at the Tiong Bahru bookstore. I have only spoken with Renee, his ex-wife, at the bookstore when she worked there. I have heard from a writer closer to him about Kenny's divorce due to his philandering ways, but I had not known how young and vulnerable were the women that he hit on. Thinking back now, I should have been more alert to the unequal power dynamics at the store, which I visited often on my tr...