With a carrot and a stick

(Chili-Crab...one of the most delicious and very Singaporean dishes...hmmm...)

WELCOME AGAIN TO THE ARMY!

Every male Singaporean has to do either military or police service or join the civil defense for 2 years soon after becoming 18 years old. The difference in the drawing-in process is profound compared with the so-called compulsory military service in Germany. Equality is not a big word anymore in my home country, where less then one third of all young men have to face any service because of the army downsizing in the past decade. It is simply not fair when some young men ‘accidentally’ are being drawn in to the army and therefore have a disadvantage compared to those who are lucky enough not to face any service, because there are simply not enough positions.

(What you see here is the Infineon / Qimonda Asia Pacific headquarter in Singapore..I like this stylish building, whose 2 wings are connected via sky bridges..also for the reason that its design has partly been based on some simple Feng Shui rules, that I will outline further down. Feng Shui (which literally translates 'Wind Water') follows ancient Chinese rules and teachings about the correct placement of artifacts in space. To be sure many houses and buildings are constructed according to Feng Shui rules even in Singapore...)

ABOUT SLIM SINGAPOREANS

Well, at least this kind of justice is still present in Singapore, but another regulation marks an interesting difference. Every man is automatically part of the reserve after he leaves and therefore faces the obligation to join the forces for up to 40 total days in a year. My current flatmate, who has done his service with the Singaporean police, had to show up for a shooting exercise just yesterday while he happened to be in S’pore as part of his job with Singapore Airlines.

I was wondering whether this practice meant any danger for the current job, but apparently the Singaporean state fully compensates the respective company with the full salary of the person in question, no matter what enormously paid position he currently has. Understandably, this can be extremely expensive and leads to one simple equation: The better you are paid and the higher your position in your company, the fewer amounts of days you eventually will have to serve a year. This is just a nice, unofficial incentive for the many career-oriented Singaporeans to move up the career ladder even more quickly. Yeahh…

(picture taken from one of the sky bridges of the Infineon headquarter building. The little artificial hill that you can see is supposed to be a mountain...it even smokes from time to time, but this is only design and no function :-) According to Feng Shui, buildings have to be built in a way that ghosts and spirits who live in the mountain and want to reach the sea have to be able to do so without being obstructed by some artifact. If the spirits happen to bump into a building with living beings, this is believed not to be very beneficial to their genereal health...:-)

CARROT AND A STICK

Well, even more interesting is the fact that every man has to undergo a physical fitness test every single year up to an age of 40. If you don’t pass the test right away (which involves for example running the 2.4 km in 14 minutes for a 36 year old man) you will have to take part in 6 weeks of training with two 4 hour-sessions a week to MAKE you pass. Nobody really wants to spend 4 hours after a long working day doing exercises and then again 4 hours during the precious weekend for this.

(a look at the other end of the building. What you see is the water...for a reason that I don't quite understand the evil spirits always seem to be keen travel straight to the water. To support the intention and to win several design awards the building was designed in a way that allowed the spirits to travel from the artificial mountain through the wings to the artificial water. The only thing missing now are artificial evil spirits...where would we get those from...IKEA?)

On the other hand, one can earn from $100 (ca. 50€) to $400 for outstanding performance and is therefore rewarded. For the above example, $400 would mean to run the 2.4km in less then 10.45Min., to do at least 31 sit-ups, 6 chin-ups, do a 4x10m shuttle run in not more than 10.7s and a standing broad jump of more than 215cm. Now, is this one of the main reasons why the number of obese, male Singaporeans is so low? It is striking to see how slim the people here are in general..or is this just another outcome of the ever-prevalent peer pressure and fast lifestyle that penetrates all parts of daily life? I would like to know, how much this system of punishment and reward influences the personal decision of living a healthier life…

(Malaysian Coffee, called Kopi and some hot/cold dessert with soybean skin, barley and gingko nuts. The Kopi tastes way different from Starbucks coffee or any Americano..It is made by running water several times trough something that resembles a sock, but is filled with coffee powder. The final resulting liquid tastes of very fine coffee powder and will be blended with that kind of thick, sugared condense milk that so much reminds me of my childhood...my granny always used to get this for me from the Czech Republic and I feasted on it until nausea..)

Why is something like this not possible in Germany? I mean, not necessarily as part of a follow up to military training, but as a general incentive to live a healthier and therefore at little better life? Government and health insurances could jointly conduct a scheme to pay a certain amount of money for good sportive performance in an optional yearly test (Germans would go nuts if there would be a requirement for this…doesn’t go so well with Bratwursts and beerbellies) This might result in a more motivated society and drive down the costs for the ever-complaining health insurances…huh, am I dreaming here?

And, above all, with some monetary incentive Germany would within no time have the fittest students in the world ;-)

Maik