They like to Jio Meng Lang

I had a good laugh when I saw this on the front page of the Sunday Times this morning.

If you do not already know, AWARE has created a sexism award called the Alamak! Award to crown the person/entity with the sexist-est comment made publicly in the year.

For his sexist comment during GE2011, Desmond Choo is currently leading the race with more than 50% of the 600+ votes. 

If only he had garnered such a margin for his recent Hougang contest, where he got pwned by WP's Yaw Shin Leong at 65% vs 35%. 

While I think the Alamak! Award is cute, I find this particular response by Desmond Choo more intriguing.

See excerpt below:

I don't understand this response of:

(1) You are entitled to your opinion (i.e. of disliking me, my words, my actions etc.), BUT 

(2) I'm happy to meet up with you who have misunderstood my words to clear the air.

This 'meet up' line seems to be a 'standard issue' amongst the 'younger' PAP politicians. It's their way of dealing of people who neither agree with, nor support them.
"It's a misunderstanding!" so they claim.

A few weeks ago, a Minister of State emailed me thrice, referred to the fact that I had blogged about him, requested for me not to blog about his emails, and repeatedly invited me to meet up with him for clarifications.

FWAH!!! A Minister of State emailed me siah!
By repeatedly asking me to meet up, was he trying to Jio Meng Lang?

Once again... I dun geddit.
What's the meeting gonna achieve?

If I were an anonymous blogger, then suggesting a meet up with me would make sense, coz he would at least find out who I was in the flesh life.

But I'm not anonymous. And he already knows who I am. We've met in the work context.

When told, none of my friends could believe their ears. One said the politician just wanted to clock his 'public/ new media engagement KPIs'. Some laughed at how he could not tolerate his own unpopularity. A couple of female friends thought it was inappropriate for a (married) male to repeatedly request for me to meet up with him.

Others got rather excited about the meet up proposal. They really want to find out what he is gonna say or do at the meet up. They want to see for themselves what a ridiculous Singaporean leader looks like in action.

On whether to meet up, I quote a popular Korean saying:

똥인지 된장인지 먹어봐야 알아?

Must you taste it to know if it's shit or soy-paste?

알겠어?


Back to this 'meet up' line...

At the rate which their popularity is slipping, they cannot be serious about meeting up with everyone who neither agrees with nor support them, right?
Too many lah!

Instead, such time and effort ought to be channeled to helping Singaporeans/constituents in need and/or their respective portfolios.

Do the right thing and win votes for yourself and your party.
Don't waste time on vote-losing behaviour.

The quality across our leadership is really inconsistent at the moment. It's frustrating to observe, not to mention, to suffer it.