Chitchat Excerpts from PM Lee Kuan Yee’s book

Years later, I discovered old reports in files of the Singapore Special Branch claiming that Choo and I had frequented it in order to fraternise with pro-communists from China, where Mao Zedong was then heading for victory in the civil war and on 1 October 1949 proclaimed the People’s Republic. One report even said that Choo was a more radical left-winger than I was.

My confidence in Special Branch reports was badly shaken.
How did this shake his confidence in SB? He used the same method very well to incriminate his political rivals in Barisan ..
 
How did this shake his confidence in SB? He used the same method very well to incriminate his political rivals in Barisan ..
then there was the isd for the same purpose, helmed by his lackeys who reported directly to him and were amply rewarded and parachuted to iron ricebowls for being his attack lapdogs :rolleyes:
 
.... and the bastard angmoh continued the monopoly of opium trade in Singapore, Penang, Labuan for another 20 years.

My grandmother smoked opium in 1960s before LKY banned killed angmoh drug trafficker ....

Shameless angmoh dare not come back to Singapore to be glorify for their past today.

How can drug trafficker dare to glorify themesleves .... uhhh.

No, the chinese hated the brits after the returned, because the japs allowed them to be jn positions of power. Before that was all all white man
 
Lesson learnt: make gum get girl in the 1940s, now you get girl then give your gum
 
(LKY vs Lam Tian)

I suffered public embarrassment when the newspapers reported that Lam Tian, my Chinese-educated rival in the Democratic Party, had said I could not read or write the language, and was therefore not capable of representing the Chinese voter.

I gamely countered, “Logically, since Lam Tian does not read and write Tamil and Malay, it means he does not propose to represent the Malay and Indian population of Tanjong Pagar.” I blithely claimed I could read, write and speak Mandarin, Hakka and Hokkien, and that I also spoke Malay. It was election bravado. I had been advised by some Chinese reporters that it would be best not to admit my lack of command of my own mother tongue.

I remembered and bitterly regretted that I had not heeded my maternal grandmother’s wish that I should study Chinese in Choon Guan School. Now I had to exaggerate my linguistic skills. I could write some characters, but had forgotten most of them because I had not been using them since I gave up my job with Shimoda & Company in 1943. My spoken Hakka and Hokkien were pathetic, almost negligible. I vowed to make up for past neglect.

Lam Tian then challenged me to a debate at a street meeting in the Cantonese-speaking Kreta Ayer area of Tanjong Pagar. I dodged it, and counter-attacked by saying that to get things done in the Legislative Assembly and in the government, a candidate had to have good English, and that I would therefore be a more effective representative than he would.

But I made a supreme effort to say a few words in Mandarin at my biggest rally in Banda Street, another Cantonese area. A friendly Sin Pao reporter called Jek Yeun Thong drafted two paragraphs for me, and then spent several hours coaching me to read a speech that took only three minutes to deliver. But the crowd was with me, and they cheered me for the effort.
 
He is and always will be a fake chink. And yet he can somehow play race card in malaya! If this food who cant even speak mandarin represents you, then shame on you
 
He is and always will be a fake chink. And yet he can somehow play race card in malaya! If this food who cant even speak mandarin represents you, then shame on you

As LKY pointed out, u don't need to speak Tamil to represent the Indians do u?
 
He is and always will be a fake chink. And yet he can somehow play race card in malaya! If this food who cant even speak mandarin represents you, then shame on you
As a politician he can be whatever race he claims to be to win election.

His son learnt that well and took it to the next level with the presidential post
 
(LKY on the importance of air-conditioning)

After we were sworn in, everyone was keen to get cracking, to get to grips with his job and earn as much credit for us as possible before the euphoria wore off. We feared the communists would soon be busy eroding public support, with Lim Chin Siong and Fong fomenting industrial and social unrest. I knew from experience that enthusiasm was not enough.

To give of their best, the ministers had to have air-conditioned offices. That may sound odd, but without air-conditioning, efficient work in tropical Singapore would not have been feasible. After my first year at Laycock & Ong, I was made to sit in the main office. The heat, humidity and noise were hellish, especially in the afternoons. My energy was sapped, the clerks would work at only half the normal pace, typists would make mistakes, and lawyers more errors in correcting them, as well as in dictation.

The high court was even worse, for we had to appear with wing collars and tabs and wear a black jacket under our barrister’s robes –a dress originally designed for the dank and cold of a London winter.

A turning point in my life in terms of comfort and efficiency came in 1954, when Choo and I installed a one-horse-power air-conditioner in the bedroom.

Thereafter, we never lost sleep because of the humid heat. So I encouraged air-conditioning for all government offices.(LKY on the importance of air-conditioning)
 
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