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Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
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1 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
This reminds me of the time I was talking to a group of university students about "fake news" and one said that China's Great Firewall might be a good idea because then they keep all the external "fake news" out and only need to worry about dealing with internal "fake news".
Among younger Singaporeans, I wonder how much attention or understanding there is of what's going on in China. There are many SGeans who aren't even aware of human rights issues in our own country, much less China. We're also not used to paying attention to politics+power.
I'm seeing some older friends/acquaintances skew towards China more these days. I'm not sure what the exact reason is, but suspect: they're consuming Chinese media (or people around them are doing so) or there's just a lot of muddle about what's true, suspicion of "the West".
There's also generally a lot of credulity when it comes to authority. When I expressed misgivings about Singapore sharing contact tracing/tracking tech w/ countries like Cambodia, I was told off for suggesting that Hun Sen might use it for something other than Covid-19 measures.

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More from @kixes

Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
9 Jun
1/ Here's my quick translation of today's @zaobaosg editorial on racism in #Singapore.

tl;dr It attributes racist incidents to #Covid19 frustrations, social media, and Critical Race Theory, described as an imported idea encouraging racist hatred against white people.
2/ Here is the original, if you would prefer to read it in Chinese: Original: zaobao.com.sg/forum/editoria…

I don't read @zaobaosg often, but from what I've seen, this is in character for Singapore's Chinese language daily broadsheet.
3/ According to @zaobaosg logic, racism is the fault of everything but racist systems/structures, and long-held prejudices. While it notes in its opening paragraph that recent incidents were perpetrated by Chinese people, it doesn't bother to examine what that indicates.
Read 9 tweets
Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
3 Jun
1/ This @straits_times headline and graphic is so thoughtless and frames this issue in such a damaging way.
Throughout the article, it's made clear that these transnational families are more financially disadvantaged than families where both parents are citizens, which leads to particular stressors and challenges. This is a class issue, not a nationality issue.
It really isn't about "the mother's origins", but about income levels and marginalisation. The professor makes this point, but it's lower down in the article and, with that headline + graphic, too little too late.
Read 9 tweets
Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
1 May
On the individual level, it's "nice" to see people donating to help others in need. The local media loves to highlight this; the angle is usually how Singaporeans are generous and caring and empathetic, really.

What's less examined is *why* we're crowdfunding in the first place.
Donating is a nice thing as an individual, but as a society we should be asking if it's just that a delivery rider doesn't get work injury compensation/accident insurance 'cos we have a gig economy that leaves companies free of responsibilities for the workers who prop them up.
Local media focused on how encouraging it is to see Singaporeans chip in to raise money for Piang Ngaih Don's family after her case came up in the press. That might assuage our conscience, but I'm sure her family would have preferred her to *not* be murdered by her employer.
Read 15 tweets
Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
20 Apr
🧵on #Covid19 tech + surveillance in 🇸🇬

1/ Unlike this time last year, when Singapore's epidemic curve shot up and we were seeing new cases in the 100s/1000s (mostly within migrant worker dorms), the number of cases have come right down now, and tend to be mostly imported cases. Image
2/ Of course, this drop in cases + vaccination roll-out doesn't mean that we should get complacent and think that #Covid19 is over, because it isn't.

But what are we doing doubling down so hard on #Covid19 tech and surveillance?
3/ Early last year, the government introduced TraceTogether, a contact-tracing app that works via Bluetooth to ping close contacts.

This is a #wethecitizens issue I wrote with support from privacy conscious friends in March 2020: wethecitizens.net/tracetogether-…
Read 31 tweets
Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
16 Apr
While thinking further about @the_ayeminthant's piece, as well as looking at responses to my own piece on @splicenewsroom (thank you everyone!) I'm reminded of this experience that I had years ago... (here comes the 🧵)
1/ This was back in the day when I still thought that freelancing might only be a temporary arrangement for me. A well-established and respected Western, English language media company was hiring a Southeast Asia Correspondent, so I thought that I'd apply.
2/ The job ad (obviously) stated that fluency in English was necessary. But it also said that proficiency in a Southeast Asian language would be a strong advantage.
Read 11 tweets
Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 Profile picture
8 Apr
When the ruling party in your effectively one-party state country sees its succession plan go up in smoke, you don't wait until the regular Saturday slot to send out your newsletter weekly wrap. Here we go with this week's #wethecitizens: wethecitizens.ghost.io/not-according-…
One thing I didn't add about Lawrence Wong was that he was the minister who talked about "culture wars" when asked about MOE's policy re: transgender students. That's one black mark against his name, although I'm not sure how many (esp. older) Singaporeans would make a note.
With HSK out of the running for the premiership, people are now going to be reading tea leaves and placing (real/figurative) bets on who’s up.

I argued in #wethecitizens that this isn’t the most important question for Singapore.
Read 9 tweets

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