No Boys Allowed - will this perpetuate gender differences or diminish gender inequality?

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,197240,00.html?

The Electric New Paper :

NO BOYS ALLOWED

Students set out for Nepal base camp to meet S'pore's first all-women Everest team

INSPIRED by Singapore's first women's Everest team, a group of six secondary schoolgirls have set off on an adventure of their own - to the Everest Base Camp.

By Tay Shi'an
 
29 March 2009

INSPIRED by Singapore's first women's Everest team, a group of six secondary schoolgirls have set off on an adventure of their own - to the Everest Base Camp.

The girls from Christ Church Secondary School, who are between 15 to 17 years old, flew off yesterday to Nepal.

They will start trekking today from Lukla (2,800m above sea level), and hope to reach their destination at Kala Pattar (5,545m) in about 10 days.

There, they will meet up with their heroes - the six-member women's team, who are currently in Nepal on their own attempt to reach the Everest peak (8,848m).

Said Tan Wen Ting, 16: 'This is something very cool, a very rare chance. The guys in our school wanted to go, but it's an all-girls thing.'

They are accompanied by three female teachers and a female team leader from YMCA Singapore, which was engaged to organise the trip. They have been training hard for six months for this trip.

Twice a week - for up to three hours on Wednesdays and five hours on Saturdays - they trekked, climbed stairs, ran and cycled.

Ng Xin Fang, 17, said: 'Some parts were quite tough, but we managed to endure it.'

For example, climbing to the top of a 25-storey HDB block.

But the girls are no strangers to tough training.

Five of the six girls - Xin Fang, Wen Ting, Cherry Tan, Cheryl Koh, all 15, and Noriyuki Abdullah, 16 - are actively involved in sports CCAs.

The sixth, Priscilla Yau, 15, comes from a family of active hikers, and has already been on two other Nepal treks with her parents and siblings.

The girls also had to juggle school, CCA, exams, family and friends.

Three of them are in Seconday 4 and will be taking their O-level examinations this year.

Said Xin Fang: 'At the start, it was quite difficult to balance all the activities. But when I plotted out my own timetable, I still had time for studies.'

Blog

To encourage and motivate each other, they set up a blog at ebcgirls.blogspot.com.

As it's term time now, the girls will also be missing classes during the 18-day trip. They are set to return on 13 Apr.

To help them, intensive remedial programmes and makeup lessons during the June holidays have been arranged to ensure they catch up.

They will also be taking some worksheets to do during the trip.

Teacher Puah Mui Kiang, 40, said the school was inspired to organise this trip after the Singapore women's team went to the school in January last year to give a talk.

Christ Church, a centre of excellence in outdoor education, has been conducting regular expeditions over the last few years, including trips like the Australian Bushwalk, Beijing Ice Climb, Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal and Mount Kinabalu.

They decided to make this an all-girls team to coincide with the Singapore women's team's Everest climb, so it would be more meaningful.

Ms Puah said the selection process included physical training, an aptitude test, teachers' recommendation, interviews, and assessment of the girls' commitment towards training and working as a team.

The school also met with the girls' parents in January, and said they were very supportive about the trip, even if their children had to miss school.

Parent Mr Yau Mun Loong, 45, a sales manager, said: 'Two weeks is nothing. This is part of learning also - it's not necessary to learn only from textbooks.'

The trip costs about $3,000 per student, which is partly sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The students used cash or Edusave to pay for the remaining amount.

Ms Puah said that after all their physical and mental preparation, the biggest challenge will be adapting their bodies to the harsh climate and high altitude.

They have taken along blood pressure monitoring devices to keep an eye on the girls.

Because of their young age, the team has hired one porter for every two girls to help carry their 19kg worth of gear and other belongings.

They will also be staying in lodges along the route, rather than camp out.

Marathon runners

The four women accompanying the girls are also in good shape to take care of them.

The three teachers - Ms Puah and Ms Tay Hoon Lay, 29, and Ms Lim Lee Hoon, 31, are all marathon runners, while YMCA's Ms Melissa Mak, 28, runs triathlons.

But the girls are not fazed by the difficulty of their route.

Cherry said: 'It's not about reaching the base camp. It's about realising the potential in me. I must learn to push myself.'

Said Ms Mak: 'It's a joy working with such inspired young women... whether they make it to the highest point of their trek or not, they are still champs in their own right to me.'
 

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It never pours but it rains ... in this episode: wayward domestic employees

When term reopened for the Snowypups, Snowylass told us one of her classmate had his "aunt" ran away with his piggy bank while his family was in Australia.  It's such a curious coincidence that less than a week later, the same thing happened to my mother-in-law.

Since work became hectic, I was not able to pick up the kids as early as usual.  On Friday, also thanks to very heavy traffic along PIE, Stevens Road and Bt Timah Rd, it was after half-past six when I got to their childcare.  By the time we got to their grandma's place for dinner, it was almost seven, and we got there the same time as my sister-in-law who returned home.

My mother-in-law told us that when she was showering, the maid left without locking the front gate, and the day before, had said something about wanting to go out to buy some stuff.  We thought she was skiving, and only realised something was seriously wrong when not only did she take my mother-in-law's mobile phone, but my sister-in-law also found her ring missing.

I called the mobile phone but only heard background sounds when connected ... first time it was "Chinese Garden", second time "Boon Lay".  We still didn't feel too worried until my brother-in-law came back and could not find her passport too.

This was about the 4th maid my in-law had, but the 1st from Myanmar and 1st who could speak Mandarin.  Earlier maids were from Filipino and Indonesia and displayed such surly attitudes taking care of my father-in-law who had dementia and stroke that my in-laws tried for a while without maid.

My mother-in-law told me this Myanmarese maid has a brother working in JB and thought that's where she'd head for.  Leaving my kids with her, I drove with my brother-in-law to Boon Lay, to see if we can spot her among some of the pick-ups for coaches going to Malaysia, and then we headed to Tuas 2nd link ourselves.  Along the way, he called the police, but the police IO apparently didn't know the proper procedures.  Another pal told my brother-in-law that Myanmar passports need visa to get into Malaysia, so it was a little bit of assurance that even if she passed through Singapore's immigration, she should be refused entry at the Malaysian end.

We got to the 2nd Link, but not knowing the place, I had no choice but to join the queue of cars going to Malaysia while my brother-in-law went down to the ICA office to speak to the officers.  Eventually, my turn came and I explained to the immigration officer in the booth that I'm not there to go to Malaysia but to make a report to the ICA.  (I didn't even have my passport).

Probably not the first time it happened for them, the ICA officers took our ICs, instructed me to park the car at the side, and then explained to that they can only put the maid's passport number on their blacklist if the police HQ made a request to ICA HQ.

It was certainly a novel experience having an ICA officer running (literally) ahead of the car to show us the way out of the 2nd Link.

I drove my brother-in-law to Central Police Divisional HQ to join his wife who was making the report.  Later, we learned since the maid didn't take the FIN, she won't be allowed to pass Singapore immigration anyway even if she had her passport and the passport was not blacklisted.

Which means she either had to go to Myanmar embassy to get some alternative way of exit, or smuggle out or use fake documents.

My wife was upset and wondered how the maid thought she could get away with it, and how it could be worth becoming a fugitive.

I don't know much about the Myanmarese, but I do know a few years back before Snowylad was born, a neighbour of ours caught their Filipino maid red-handed pilfering their money.  The maid was deported but somehow managed to come back to Singapore.

Taking care of my bed-ridden father-in-law who can't speak is not easy, and my mother-in-law is exacting in requiring the maid to follow instructions.  But she was not abused or deprived.  Yes, she wanted to quit, but there are proper procedures for it and she was required to fulfil a minimum period of service, which she didn't want to.

At first, we were glad that there was a maid who could speak Mandarin to my mother-in-law.  In the end ...

My brother-in-law went to the maid agency today and they are going to get another maid from Indonesia ... in 2 weeks' time.

For them, they'll have to take more precautions.

For me, I'll just have to bring my kids to my in-laws less so to trouble them less.

Business downturn measures by my company

It was announced to us that subjecting to agreement signed with the unions, staff would be required to take 1 day's leave every month from May 2009.  Such monthly leaves cannot be taken on consecutive days across the months.  I.e., if I take 31 May leave for month of May, there must be a break for my June's leave.  If I also take June 1, it is not considered as June's monthly leave.  For those whose annual leave is insufficient, they will be required to go on no-pay leave monthly.

The rational is not really explained all that well.

The main reasoning is that it is the "cover story" presented to the Board that since our business volume is down, we need measures to deal with surplus manpower company wide, and this is one way to do it without pay-cuts.

By chipping away our leaves, one possible result is get staff to take no-pay leave if they want to take long-holidays.  Another target is to prevent staff accumulating leaves for long absences from work, now and in the future.

While I appreciate the move to avoid pay-cut, the problem is that the concept of "surplus manpower" is not really company wide.  For my division, we're busier than ever, with as one of our regular vendors put it, an astonishing number of RFPs continued to be published in recent weeks, given the business climate and all.

My work as PM (Project Manager, not Prime Minister) has been so hectic that it affected not only my exercise programme, but also made me late to fetch the kids from childcare.  A fortnight ago, I couldn't even fetch them.  Fortunately, Snowylady was on course and could get off at more regular hours to fetch them, though for one particular day, she couldn't do it and the childcare was gracious enough to have one of the teachers send Snowylass and Snowylad to my in-laws in a taxi, and declined to accept any reimbursement (we felt obliged, so we took care of the school's pet terrapin for a week during their term break).

March 15, 2008, Sunday, 5:30pm GMT+7 : Passing of a generation

Surely it means something when the last of one's living grandparents passed away.

Her husband, my maternal grandfather, passed away more than three decades ago from illness, when I was too young to know what was happening, and somehow, excluded from the funeral even though I was there.  Strange, I thought later when I grew up.  All traditions I know of dictated a role for the oldest grandchild, be it a maternal grandchild or paternal grandchild, yet nothing was told to us, and nothing was asked of us.  Perhaps arrangements were simplified - my youngest aunt was going to get married, and some things had to be facilitated.

About a decade later, 1987, my paternal grandfather passed away.  This time, I was across the sea, doing my O-levels prelims.  It was my maternal grandmother flew in to mind us brothers.

And almost a decade later, it was my paternal grandmother who passed on.  Again, I did not go back for the funeral, having received the news when I was in the midst of assisting in a wedding where I was the best man.

My maternal grandmother was the only grandparent who saw me get married and had my first child.

But irreconciable differences severed relations between my and my parents, and she became a casualty.  Mindful that she was dependant on her children, and their attitudes towards me and my wife, and their nosiness, it was a difficult decision yet one I had to take forsaking regrets to keep her at an arm's length.

My cousins cannot understand, though they tried to intervene.

When my last grandmother became very ill in recent months, I was urged to give her a call - yet it slipped my mind in the midst of the busiest time at work I ever had in my career.

When I got a message on Saturday that she had been hospitalised again and those of us in Singapore who wants to had better take the next available flight, I knew it was too late.  I could only beg God to tell her that I wish her to be at peace.

With her passing on Sunday marks the end of a generation to me.

All of my grandparents passed away and I was not present, and will not, be present at the funeral at any one of them.  The first three are circumstancial, but not the fourth.  I chose not to be there because I do not want to meet any relatives there, especially my parents and one particular aunt.

And I will not be there either when my own parents go, such is the state of things between us.

I had learned before through attending wakes that funerals are less for the dead and more for the living to come to terms with the passing of someone close.

I turned to my wife and told her I am depending on her to relate to our children her experiences at her grandmother's funeral, and when the time comes, at her parents', both who are still here.

Do I not have feelings?  Yes.  But things are such that I am choosing not to partake in the normal human experiences when their grandparents or parents pass away.

A freak.  An abnormal person.  I can only console myself that almost nothing in my whole life have ever been normal, normal like the normal life my neighbours or classmates had known.

Even now, I am struggling, and my wife struggling along with me, to bring about normalcy to our children's lives.

My tears finally came out last evening, but they were tears of anger at those who are responsible for the state of things.

Having been informed of her deterioration, I only wanted for my grandmother to be at peace ...

ST 2009-03-01 Grad trips still a must, but on a smaller budget?

Hhhmmmmpppphhh - this reminded me of my own final undergrad year.  Among some of us who were mugging away, there were many who were also booking for the post-exam holiday tours, some as long as 5 weeks in Europe.

I could only look on enviously as I did not have such means.  And not all my friends who did it were sponsored by parents - some had been saving for such a trip for years, from giving tuition, piano lessons and working during the holidays.  It's just that at that time, as a foreigner on student pass, I was not allowed to work.  The last semblance of an income I had was during my internship, and that was just enough for my transport and meals, and printing my FYP reports.

Incidentally, I also never knew there was such a thing as "grad trip" until the tour companies came round conducting fairs on campus.

Anyway, the day after my last paper, I had an entry test with a prospective employer, whose applicaiton form I filled in hurriedly the night before after coming home late from celebrating at a school friend's house.  I hadn't even gotten anyone to be my refereee, so I put "N/A" in those columns.  The week after was an interview with the company, and then almost four weeks of no news from them while I was busily scouring Classified Ads and sending out application letters by the dozens, blissfully unaware that the then recent postal rate revision meant many of my mails had insufficient postage.

As it happened, that first company must have had their acceptance of some candidates rejected, and they offered me, a second choice candidate, an opening to report for work on 27 May 1993.  (Serve them right too, the company rejected all applicants during the first round of recruitment drive in December, and that round had the best students applying!)   It gave me just about a week to make a quick visit to my grandmothers in Indonesia before starting work.

Well, finally, I thought, I would have the opportunity I'd always dreamed of to travel around the world.  My first job turns out to be with an airline with staff travel benefits/privileges.  At least, it gave me some consolation and something to look forward to when my pals who went on holidays came back with stories and photos of their trips.  This was in 1993 - before there was blogging, and internet was primarily in textual UI and only available through university computers or MNCs, even before there were cybercafes.

Well, as it turned out, not so fast, buster.

First, I also signed up to do postgrad courses which consumes almost all my annual leave.

Second, I also learned that the air-ticket is just a small part of the whole travel budget, especially for a novice traveller like me who did not want to join tour groups.

Third, my pals just weren't too keen to join me to jaunt off to distant destinations after we all started work - for those who had already gone, it's "been there, done that."  For the rest, they didn't have the advantage of working in an airline, needed more time to save for it or weren't ready to splurge.

Of course it would never be the same kind of fun as going with a big bunch of fellow schoolmates, but I'd still like to take that trip someday and travel around countryside of Europe.