Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

SINGAPORE AND THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS 157
school-leaving examinations among each cohort of graduating primary-school
students.
3 While the pattern we describe is true for the great majority of Singaporeans, and
more particularly for the new rich, it should be noted, for example, that marginalised
poorly educated Chinese and Malay youth dress differently and have quite different
entertainment patterns. Moreover, they are labelled differently in local popular
parlance: the Malay youth as ‘Mat Rock’ and the Chinese youth as ‘Ah Beng’.
However, in general, ethnicity in Singapore is a highly privatised phenomenon, or
tends to be limited to such activities as the wearing of ‘ethnic’ clothes on particular
festival occasions.
4 In fact the financial assistance is greater than the cash grant. The three-room flats are
purchased by the public-housing authority from existing tenants at a market value of
$70,000-$100,000 and refurbished for another $30,000 and then sold to the poor
households for about $70,000 before the $30,000 cash subsidy. The currency in this
chapter is the Singapore dollar, which in 1996 had an exchange rate of
approximately US$0.71.
5 More than half (56 per cent) of heads of households in the $1,000-$ 1,499 income
range are between the ages of 35 and 54, inclusive. About 97 per cent of these heads
of households have a secondary education or less. Also, in 73 per cent of marriedcouple
households in this income range, only the husband is working because the
wives are likely to have no wage-earning skills or are confined to domestic work.
6 The study was conducted as an honours-year undergraduate academic exercise by
Foo Sek Min (1995), at the Department of Sociology, National University of
Singapore.
7 For now, an irony should be registered; that is, ownership of private property,
especially condominiums, may be more easily attained than cars in spite of the former’s
much higher cost. This is because payments during the long mortgage period can be
made directly through one’s monthly compulsory social security savings, which
amounts to 40 per cent of one’s salary, while borrowing for the car is subjected to
higher consumer-loan interest rates, shorter repayment periods and cash repayment.
Car ownership is particularly onerous because of its prohibitive price as a result of
stringent control of the car population which restricts ownership to a small population
segment; 28 per cent of households owned cars in 1990 (see Table 5.6).
8 The high expectations of the younger generation, particularly the university-educated,
was highlighted in the speech by senior minister Lee Kuan Yew to undergraduates of
the two national universities on 14 March 1996.
9 In public housing, kitchen and washing facilities are standard provisions and not
added into the room count. For more details of the public-housing system, see Chua
(1995: ch. 6).
10 This is in sharp contrast to the recruitment pattern of the second generation that
included individuals with proven track records in private enterprises, such as Dr
Tony Tan, Mr S.Dhanabalan and Dr Yeo Ning Hong. All three had resigned from
ministerial duties by 1994; however, Tony Tan was recalled in 1995 to assume the
post of deputy prime minister and Minister of Defence.
11 Following media hype around annual junior-college graduation dances, there was one
attempt in the late 1980s to organise a ‘debutante’ party for the daughters of wealthy
families. Those who were left out organised a counter-event. Each then tried to hide
the real intentions of these events by both limiting the expenditure permitted to each