Singapore Management University Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Lee Kong Chian School of Business Business 1-2017 Making sense of life @ / & SMU: A partial guide for the clueless Eng Fong PANG Follow this and additional works at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Business Commons, and the Higher Education Commons Citation PANG, Eng Fong. Making sense of life @ / & SMU: A partial guide for the clueless. (2017). 1-488. Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business. Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5607 This Edited Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business by an authorized administrator of Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. For more information, please email [email protected]. Making Sense of Life @/& SMU: A Partial Guide for the Clueless Edited by Pang Eng Fong This extraordinary volume provides unexpectedly heartwarming and heart- breaking insights into the interior lives and thoughts of SMU business graduates. It is both a paean to and an indictment of Singapore’s education system and its excessively powerful formative impact on individual lives, family relationships, and Singapore society as a whole. The youthful contributors overwhelmingly accept life aspirations imposed by the expectations of family, society and self, which they themselves recognise are uniform and limiting. Their intensely per- sonal reflections, unleavened by humour, lay bare the contradictory liberating and homogenising effects of an undergraduate business education (not peculiar to SMU or Singapore only), while refreshingly engaging the too-often-taboo topics of race, religion, sexual orientation and social class. Linda Lim, Professor (Strategy) Stephen M Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Know Thyself: SMU graduating students have taken to heart the advice of the ancient Greeks. They write in this volume about their growing self-awareness, angst, anxieties, achievements and setbacks. Students, parents and faculty will appreciate their refreshingly frank look at what really matters and makes sense to them. Dr Francis Pavri, Adjunct Faculty, SMU, Netflix Fiend A lucid look into the vicissitudes of life and its meaning from the perspective of millennials, a group still searching for ways to contribute to the world. Well worth reading for the insights into the lives and aspirations of graduating students at SMU. Dr Lim Tai Wei, Senior Lecturer, UNISIM Be under no illusion that this book will twitter the meaning of life in 140 char- acters. Still, what the students have written with honesty and courage provides an illuminating glimpse into the hearts and minds of millennials. Bryan Tan, SMU Graduate, 2015 Making Sense of Life @/& SMU: a partial guide for the clueless © Pang Eng Fong, 2017 ISBN 978-981-11-2910-0 Published by Pagesetters Services Pte Ltd 28 Sin Ming Lane #06-131 Singapore 573972 www.ethosbooks.com.sg www.facebook.com/ethosbooks Editor: Pang Eng Fong Cover and book design by Bayu Prasetyo Nugroho Printed by Ho Printing Pte Ltd All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit- ted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. v Contents Foreword xi Acknowledgements xii Introduction 1 PART ONE : Making Sense of Life @ SMU Keeping Track : Four Years in SMU 12 Phua Kuan Hua Growing Up : My Years Before and in SMU 30 Teo Choon Wei Jonathan Getting and Staying Ahead 40 Nicholas Teo Coping and Managing 52 Ng Rui Qi Jumping and Learning 64 Matthew Goh Learning Life’s Lessons Since Thirteen 70 Joanna See Yi Ning Balancing Work and Life in Five Steps 78 Stephenie Pang With Grit, Friends and Family 86 Lim Ke Hao Overcoming Setbacks 92 Nishit Dilip Shah Making Choices 98 Choo Teck Li vi Making Sense of Life @/& SMU A Self-Report Card 106 Max Pang Jing Han A Rounded Perspective 114 Lee Peck Khee The Beauty of Life Experiences 122 Quek Chui Jin Kenneth Thirsty at Thirty 130 Muhamad Hilmi Turning Points 134 Aisyah Hanani Binte Mahmud My First Twenty-two Years 140 Amanda Tan Kar Mun A Different Dictionary 146 Loo Hui Ying Shermaine PART TWO : Making Sense of Life – A Wider Perspective “Write Anything” 158 Vince Tan My Spice Blend 164 Brenda Yung As Told by Me, As Seen by Her 170 Anonymous Being and Becoming 200 Favian Wong As I Watch Them Age 206 Chan Yi Ping Rochelle vii Life, Death and Life Again 210 Vani Shriya Innermost Thoughts 224 Mabel Lim Qian Hui Love and Lessons on Friday Mornings 240 Courtney Kristen Kheng Yin Captivated by Death 250 Incognito Thinking Not So Fast and Relating 262 Ivan Yong Jiaxiang In Search of Equanimity 268 Joel Fan Zhiwen Examining Life : Muddled Thoughts 276 Lai Foong Ming Losing My Inheritance Happily 290 Arnold Ong Episodes and Epiphanies 294 Teo Sheng Hui Bernard Identity : A Chindian View 304 Aka Identity : My Struggle and Search 312 Joel Tan Identity : Still Struggling to Make Sense 320 Nameless viii Making Sense of Life @/& SMU Family and Filial Piety 328 Hou Chee Peng Mark 李 Looking Back 334 Lee Tye Wei Looking Forward 342 Sherlyn Cheng Prologue : To be Continued 348 Quek Yee Ler Goodbye : Not a Suicide Note 354 Puar Si Wei A Letter to My Future Self 368 Lim Rui Si Diamond in the Rough 374 Joshua Jo Privilege and Humility 382 Jasmine Laurence Just My Luck : Finding Myself Finally 388 Chua Bao Hui Why We Shouldn’t Live Our Lives Based on the 396 Fear of Losing Out to Others Way Yi Ling Samantha Why We Fight : A Kickboxer’s Corner 408 Ryan Lee Changwei PART THREE : Making Sense of the World – Special Topics ix Money Suit Social Experiment (1) : Orchard Road 416 Eugene Peter Money Suit Social Experiment (2) : Ang Mo Kio 422 Chan Si Ning Vanessa Chan Yi Ping Rochelle Choo Teck Li Teo Sheng Hui Bernard Money Suit Social Experiment (3) : 426 Holland Village and Clementi Chua Bao Hui Muhammad Danial Bin Yusuf Oon Chian Yi Gabriel Teo Choon Wei Jonathan Cynicism is Easy 438 Chen Zhan Feng On Meritocracy, Hard Work and Death 442 Travis Ng Japanese Corporate Culture and the Salaryman 450 Seet Kai Yan Ryan Wabi Sabi : The Beauty of Impermanence 462 Tracy Tan My Take on Stoicism 470 Marcus Tan Chao Ming On Inequality 480 Tan Li Jian xi Foreword Arnoud De Meyer s President of Singapore Management University (SMU), I am genuinely interested in getting to know more about the people behind the Anames and faces of our students. Thus, when Professor Pang Eng Fong sent me the manuscript of this book, I promised him (and myself) to glance through it. Little did I know I would be captivated by it. I have spent several evenings reading the essays, the poems, the musings and the outpourings of the authors. Words that went through my mind while reading and often re-reading the different chapters were ‘candid’, ‘passionate’, ‘moving’, ‘perse- verance’, ‘existential doubts’, ‘differences’, ‘admiration’, and also ‘happiness’, ‘fulfillment’ and ‘munificence’. I gleaned many new insights about the people we have on campus. SMU’s faculty and staff are clearly doing something right in creating an environment that truly allows for the transformation of our students. But I have also seen how tough the SMU environment can be, and the difficulties students go through in the first semester. I learnt about the transformative experiences that arise from networking with peers or going overseas for a semester of exchange, and more about the role of CCAs, and the generosity of some seniors. We, the students, the alumni, faculty and staff are building a very different and distinct university. Reading these essays provided stories and touching anecdotes that clothe with flesh our statistics on achievements, placement, learning outcomes, etc. Reading these essays made me proud of the University and strongly reinforced my conviction that being an educator is a great job. I encourage all of us here at SMU, and also parents, friends, employers, policy-makers and leaders in our society, to read this book. I believe you will learn much about what lives in the minds of educated Singaporeans in their mid-twenties, the generation on the brink of entering a profession and build- ing tomorrow’s Singapore. In some ways, their pre-occupations and existential questions about religion, family life, professional careers or relationships are similar to those I wrestled with at that age. But some are different, partially because we live in a more complex, information-rich, globalised world, and partially because of the differences in cultural backgrounds. xii Making Sense of Life @/& SMU My thanks to all the students (many now alumni) for being so candid in your writing. You made my day and made me proud and happy to be President of this University. I hope your wisdom will inspire many others in Singapore and the world. xiii Acknowledgements thank, most of all, the four groups of students who took the Capstone Course with me in 2016. They wrote the essays in this volume and made class discus- I sions a distinct pleasure and an intellectual adventure every Friday. SMU President Arnoud De Meyer wrote the foreword, for which I am deeply grateful. Professor Linda Lim, Professor David Chan, Professor Koh Tai Ann, Dr Yeoh Lam Keong, Mr Donald Low, Dr Lim Tai Wei, Dr Francis Pavri and Mr Bryan Tan graciously responded to my requests for comments on a draft of this book.