Basket.

Well, here I am in Cambodia.

A very uneventful two-hour flight took us to Phnom Penh International Airport, which was spartan but clean and adequate. We were processed efficiently enough and were soon on our way to the city proper in a tuk-tuk.

What we shortly noted was that Phnom Penh had a rather rustic, small-town air. I mean this as no insult, and the signs were readily apparent that this was a city very much still under construction. Most of the largest buildings appeared new, and piles of construction materials lay by the roadsides (the roads themselves being mercifully adequate), ready to be turned into more concrete/fibreglass symbols of modernity.

We then found accommodation and had dinner. Yes. The first day of any trip is almost never exciting (except previously in Thailand). Things promise to be more thrilling tommorrow.

Our trip can also be followed at our travel blog.

Back from one holiday, onward to the next.

What did I do in Australia? Well, basically I ate and slept. But isn't that the very definition of a relaxing holiday? A tromp to, and through, Brisbane also yielded five excellent books, and a bookstore with one million texts is truly an awe-inspiring sight. Little else was achieved besides realising, once again, how vast other countries actually are. It takes four hours to fly across Australia and just over an hour, at the most, to drive across Singapore.

Next - Cambodia, and Angkor.

After somehow managing to do alright in a semester where I put in considerably little effort, I'm going to spend much of the next two months away from this island. Which is good, because I need a break from this place. There's really no better way to spend an exceedingly long holiday.

For starters, I'll be in Australia from Friday the 13th until the 21st; 3 days later I'll be in Cambodia until the 5th of July, and about 3 weeks after that I'll be in Vietnam until just before the new semester, and academic year, begins.

That ought to ensure I'll be in a fair enough mood for a possibly less relaxing semester than the previous two.

I realised a little late that I have no posts in May. Well, what better to return with than more sterling citizens' letters from our august national broadsheet?

Does NUS Still Prefers Muggers?
ST Forum, June 3rd

WHEN are two Bs and a C not good enough for entry to the National University of Singapore (NUS) arts faculty? When, it appears, one of your Bs is in that 'new' subject, Knowledge and Inquiry (KI).

While people are keen to have a fourth university offering a liberal arts degree, NUS seems to eschew the liberal arts.

Of course, I may be wrong, and biased, since it was my son who received the NUS rejection letter. However, it rankles when he has a bunkmate who has secured a place in NUS with one B and two Cs (and the requisite pass in General Paper).

I watched my son enjoy KI. The subject offered him the chance to hone his critical faculties, debating and research skills.

As a philosophy major myself, I revelled in the discussions we had on moral philosophy, the scientific method, his research paper. I rejoiced in his rekindled interest in physics.

We looked forward to him pursuing his love of military history, politics and philosophy at NUS, confident his Bs in History and KI and C in English Literature were enough. It was not to be.

It appears NUS still prefers students who pass in the traditional 'mugging' subjects, and relegating KI to the status of General Paper.

This is ironic, as KI could be considered the most basic of university subjects - it was the only course of study in the past, and requires the skills any thinking, creative person must possess - ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically, and passion to defend one's stand.


I must say that I have not seen a finer specimen of the "my son" letters so disturbingly common in this part of the world. Truly, this - this - is the way to write them. Gets right to the heart of the matter, makes the entitlement complex crystal-clear and is not embarrassed at all about making ludicrous statements and ridiculous demands.

That is very unfortunate, because the letter implicitly raises a good point - which is that our universities are not transparent about the process(es) whereby they select their students. It is a problem prevalent in Singapore, of course. Government agencies almost(?) never need to give you a reason for anything, and our bureaucracy is superb at politely stonewalling reasonable enquiries. Feedback is sent in and vanishes into an endless chasm, never to be heard from again, and nothing changes despite bland promises that such feedback is valuable and important. We know incredibly little about how most things work around here. If the writer had chosen to hammer home this point regarding our system of tertiary education, it would have been a perfectly sensible letter, although it probably wouldn't have helped much.

Instead, however, the letter does not explicitly make the point. Instead, it goes down the all-too-familiar path of a patent, poorly-explained inability to accept rejection, followed by fulsome praise for the offspring in question, presumably thought of as being justification as to why said offspring deserves and is entitled to a place in a university that receives well over twice as many applicants as it accepts (I daresay, has space for) every year.

It is this entitlement complex which is really irksome. The worst thing is that in many of these letters, with this one absolutely taking the cake, it is combined with a very haughty superiority complex. Look, no one deserves a place in university - maybe you'll get one if you know people in the right places, who knows really, but the vast majority of those in our local universities worked hard to get there. The effort they put in does not deserve to be cheapened by anybody insisting, implicitly or explicitly, that their own offspring simply deserves a place because, in a nutshell, "he is so smart". Your son or daughter is not entitled to a place in university just because you think he is smart or qualified. Get that straight.

As for that superiority complex, the last two paragraphs collectively make up a brilliant example:


It appears NUS still prefers students who pass in the traditional 'mugging' subjects, and relegating KI to the status of General Paper.

This is ironic, as KI could be considered the most basic of university subjects - it was the only course of study in the past, and requires the skills any thinking, creative person must possess - ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically, and passion to defend one's stand.


KI is not special, despite what you might like to think. Of course it requires "the skills any thinking, creative person must possess" and the "ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically", and the "passion to defend one's stand". Here's some news for you: it isn't the only A Level, or even AO Level subject to require that. GP does, too; no excellent GP essay can be produced by someone who lacks the "ability to reason and express oneself clearly and critically" and who lacks the passion and ability to defend his stand. In fact, most of the Arts subjects (can't speak for science, personally) at A-Level standard require thinking individuals who are able to reason critically and express themselves clearly. To denigrate all other subjects besides KI in this way is grossly unfair of the letter-writer.

I can understand how frustrating it is to not be able to get something you desire. Who can't? It's how you deal with that frustration that marks you out as the kind of person you are. We can then see that the author of this letter is no better than a petulant child.