Of TCJ and cardboard collectors...

[Isogallardo]

Just take a look at the alt media sites and personalities trying to twist what Minister Tan Chuan Jin said about the cardboard aunties and uncles. What he gathered was from a project by a group of youths who took the effort and make friends with these aunties and uncles to find out more about their situations. There are many reasons for those who are doing this. Some even do it for leisure and exercise which the group found out.

Here is the results from the findings by one of the youths which clearly stated from interacting with these aunties and uncles.

1. Most cardboard collectors do it for the money (no doubts about it).
2. Minority does it for other reasons – form of leisure/exercise, recycling (small but exists).
3. Most hold another job (in order to earn enough/have other sources of income security, depending on how you see it).
4. Most are financially able to support themselves/deny the need for assistance (again, depending on how you see it).
5. Most are supported/offered support by their families, including a few who do not want their families to know,as they do not approve.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/cheng-jun-koh/yes-we-have-spoken-to-cardboard-uncles-and-aunties/10205354745042776

 

[xpo2015]

Re: Some cardboard aunty and uncles do it for fun & leisure!

Poor reporting based on personal political objectives should be exposed.

 

[laksaboy]

Re: Some cardboard aunty and uncles do it for fun & leisure!

Poor reporting based on personal political objectives should be exposed.

That's typical propaganda from our resident PAP shill.

 

[Poomer]

Re: Some cardboard aunty and uncles do it for fun & leisure!

Im sure Mr Lui is definitely not doing it for fun and leisure. Clearly, he is ensuring the trains are running smoothly. Singaporeans are so blessed to be graced by the presence of such natural aristocrats.

 

[jw5]

Re: Some cardboard aunty and uncles do it for fun & leisure!

Obviously, even if that's what the cardboard uncles and aunties told the young folks, they were trying to save face.

People who continue to be taken in by this are really nincompoops of the highest order.

 

[Confuseous]

TCJ's highly idiotic attempt to white-wash cardboard people

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015/07/msf-ministers-post-on-cardboard-collectors-draws-flak/

One of the strongest reaction to Mr Tan Chuan-Jin’s post was from Mr Gilbert Goh, who works with Transitioning.org, a self-help and counselling set-up.

“We did two cardboard collections with a elderly woman at Chinatown late last year and her experience told us that it is not as fun as Minister Tan would suggest,” Mr Goh posted on his Facebook page.

Mr Goh said he has also heard of two elderly cardboard collectors who lost their lives on the streets in traffic accidents.

“The cardboard collector we met has two grown-up sons but both are struggling and to lessen their burden she has being collecting cardboard for the past decade,” Mr Goh explained. “She earns not more than $20 a day collecting cardboard and sell it to the main collector nearby.”

“She also has to compete with PRC collectors nowadays and has to wake up earlier so that she has the first bite at the cardboard before it is all snatched away.

“Our belief is that our elderly should not even be doing such tough manual work in our prosperous first world economy even though some may enjoy the work for personal reason.

“I have travelled widely to many first world countries and have never see their elderly work as hard as ours in their twilight years.”

 

[Confuseous]

Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

by Bertha Henson

HIS wife called him naive for thinking that he wouldn’t be pilloried for his social media post about speaking to older folk who collect cardboard. Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin ticked off the epithets that had been used to describe him: “ivory tower”, “out-of-touch”, “stupid”.

He had half-expected that, he said, but “wah lao…”. He launches into how politicians especially from the People’s Action Party, simply couldn’t “win”. If they stayed put, they would be scolded for being too cloistered; if they went out, it would be linked to how they were prepping for votes.

He said he was simply trying to show that people shouldn’t make generalisations about how others live their lives. Go talk to them. Find out how they’re doing. And help them or direct help to them.

As for those who described the post, “Have you ever Spoken to a Cardboard Uncle or Aunty”, which he uploaded yesterday as “wayang”, to paint a softer, gentler image for the impending General Election, he replied: “But I’ve been doing this for the past four years! I don’t post everything I do, but I do post some.”

A check on Facebook showed active feeds on both his public-figure and personal Pages. On this public page, the former Manpower Minister shares mostly photos from his visits with residents or of community events he has attended.

On occasion, Mr Tan has also posted his thoughts about everyday Singaporeans, not unlike his post on cardboard collectors, such as his encounter with a tissue-paper seller in February. He also posts regularly on Twitter (@chuanjin1).

But few of his posts have attracted the same passion with which netizens have taken to his most recent note about the elderly who earn or supplement their income by collecting cardboard. While some praised him for taking the time to find out about other people’s livelihoods, others have been more cynical. Among these, some responses have been downright derisive, especially towards his comment that some of the older folk were treating cardboard collecting as a “form of exercise”.

Why would anyone collect cardboard as a form of exercise? Was this an excuse the minister was giving for the failure of the system to provide for older folk?

 

[xpo2015]

Re: TCJ's highly idiotic attempt to white-wash cardboard people

Money are not for the poor weak and the underprivileged.

They are for HC Temasek Shopping spreee. Like recently they bought a shopping centre in Brazil.

 

[bigboss]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

Why would anyone collect cardboard as a form of exercise? Was this an excuse the minister was giving for the failure of the system to provide for older folk?

The Minister is naive not because he could not understand why elderly folks have to collect cardboards for money but because, and this is true, many of these cardboard collectors are not locals but foreigners.

These foreigners came into the island on work permits, dependant pass and all kinds of passes issued by ICA. Job openings are not often open to these foreigners. How to survive? Resorting to crimes or collection of cardboards, drink cans, stealing and stripping cables, etc is the alternative way to get the money to survive in the island.

Did the Minister find out about the nationalities of those elderly folks that he had encountered? Or did he simply assume that they are locals?
If so, he is indeed naive.

 

[xpo2015]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

There are always assholes around.

You can't stop them from speaking up.

 

[laksaboy]

Re: TCJ's highly idiotic attempt to white-wash cardboard people

Mr Goh said he has also heard of two elderly cardboard collectors who lost their lives on the streets in traffic accidents.

They died because they were having too much fun exercising.

 

[laksaboy]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

Tan Chuan-Jin was not naive. He was self-righteous. Same as many of his brothers and sisters in Christ. :kma:

 

[Poomer]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

If you think that old people are collecting cqrdboard as a formof exercise, you are definitely naive. The last time I checked, we have exercise corners for that.

If he stated that there we should improve our existing social nets, he'll definitely be applauded across all ends of the political spectrum. Except for maybe the PM, and MCYas minister... Oh wait, he is the MCYS minister. oh well.

 

[shittypore]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

If you think that old people are collecting cqrdboard as a formof exercise, you are definitely naive. The last time I checked, we have exercise corners for that.

If he stated that there we should improve our existing social nets, he'll definitely be applauded across all ends of the political spectrum. Except for maybe the PM, and MCYas minister... Oh wait, he is the MCYS minister. oh well.

Social net work is all abt giving and it frighten tos MIW, they only believe in collecting Taxes so tat they can pay emself millions.

 

[ginfreely]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

Tan Chuan-Jin was not naive. He was self-righteous. Same as many of his brothers and sisters in Christ. :kma:

Only idiots will believe people who are so old and frail will do such strenuous work for exercise.

 

[enterprise2]

Re: TCJ's highly idiotic attempt to white-wash cardboard people

They died because they were having too much fun exercising.

I suppose he'll say they died happy doing the things they loved!

 

[enterprise2]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

Only idiots will believe people who are so old and frail will do such strenuous work for exercise.

He's an idiot. Even if it was true, he's an idiot to say it!

 

[shittypore]

Re: TCJ's highly idiotic attempt to white-wash cardboard people

Money are not for the poor weak and the underprivileged.

They are for HC Temasek Shopping spreee. Like recently they bought a shopping centre in Brazil.

HC bot it wit the Familee's money, wats in TH Sinkies has no share.

 

[enterprise2]

Shitty Times tries to protect TCJ, shift blame to students

They embarked on a six-month project to try to understand the needs of old folk who collect cardboard for a living, in an attempt to help them. Instead, the group of students faced a torrent of criticisms online as if they had "committed atrocities and transgressions of the worst nature", said team leader Koh Cheng Jun yesterday .

The attacks started after Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin posted on Facebook on Saturday that he had visited cardboard collectors in Jalan Besar with some of the team members.

In his post, Mr Tan said that the findings of the project showed that not all elderly folk do it for a living.

"Some prefer to earn extra monies, treat it as a form of exercise and activity rather than being cooped up at home," he said.

For his comments, Mr Tan was soon criticised by people telling him to get out of his "ivory tower" and to talk to the old folk on the ground. Mr Tan said it was "not unexpected" that the post drummed up so much discussion and noted there were some thoughtful comments as well.

"The main message that I wanted to convey is that we should not generalise the things that we see, and we should always speak to the people involved," he said.

The online criticism was also targeted at Mr Koh, 21, a Ngee Ann Polytechnic graduate, and his team from the Youth Corps Singapore. But Mr Koh said the project was done with good intentions."We are not political pawns that can be manipulated for reasons other than the genuine desire to serve the community," he said on Facebook.

The group spoke to close to 45 people over two months, and conducted in-depth interviews with 13 of them. Mr Koh noted that while there were extreme cases, such as one cardboard collector who lives in landed property and others who are in need of help, most are "somewhere in the middle".

Workers' Party member Daniel Goh, a sociologist at the National University of Singapore, said on Facebook that he did not think the the minister and the Youth Corps volunteers are trying to "whitewash the poverty issue".

"They committed the basic error sociologists would warn our students against in social research: accepting what people say in surveys or interviews as representing the truth without contextual and deeper interpretation," he wrote.

 

[mojito]

Re: Even his wife tells TCJ that he was naive

Tan Chuan-Jin was not naive. He was self-righteous. Same as many of his brothers and sisters in Christ. :kma:

Are you mad? You want to be thrown into IMH for religious agitation?