MM Lee: Different talents needed

May 7, 2009

Different talents needed

By Yang Hui Wen
		Singapore needs people with a sense of the aesthetics and not just people who get straight As in school, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

SINGAPORE needs people with a sense of the aesthetics and not just people who get straight As in school, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

He made the point to illustrate that different jobs require different talents, citing landscape architecture as one job that requires an aesthetic sense.

Recalling Singapore's early years, he said he was struck by what he saw in Japan, where every little plot of land was beautifully manicured.

In Singapore then, 'we had lots of traffic circles and triangles that could not be used because all we had was wild grass', he said last night at Singapore Botanic Gardens' 150th anniversary celebration.

So he asked Japan for two landscape architects to help 'make every corner where there is a piece of land, unused, make it a Japanese-style garden with tropical plants'.

After two years, the duo returned home and the gardens became unkempt and unsightly. They were called back and asked why it happened. The architects explained that training alone was not enough, the Singaporeans also needed an aesthetic sense.

'In Japan, to say you are a landscape architect, you have to have an aesthetic sense.' The aesthetic sense is identified from a young age in Japan, he said. 'From the first day in school, you set out to discover what is your talent.

'They see how good you are with drawing, sculpture, playing with clay. If you're very good, when you grow up, you become an artist, sculptor, painter...If you're not so good you become an interior decorator, you dress up windows.'

So for Japanese garden experts, 'it's not that you plant a tree here and there, he has a conception and a vision of what will make the place beautiful'.

In comparison, 'we hired people on the basis of their O- and A-level results', Mr Lee said to loud laughter. 'So you've got symmetrical minds, and the same thing happened with HDB flats, I looked at them, all the same shape and size.'

But Mr Lee takes heart from what he saw during a recent visit to Nanyang Polytechnic. A design student's drawing caught his eye. Her graphics, he said, stood out from the other students' 'because she had an artistic sense of shape, form, colours'.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=28516.2

Singapore's green trump card

May 7, 2009

S'pore's green trump card

Making Republic a 'First World oasis' helped woo investors, says MM Lee

By Clarissa Oon, Senior Political Correspondent
		Sprucing up and greening Singapore with trees all over the island was a key economic strategy from Day One, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew (right) said. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

SPRUCING up and greening Singapore with trees all over the island was a key economic strategy from Day One, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said on Wednesday night.

Getting people to be eco-conscious Dr Geh Min, former president of the Nature Society: What do you see in the next 50 years from an environmental point of view that will keep us ahead in the competitive race? I cannot predict what technologies will be discovered in the next 50 years, but I know that innovations that will take place will now move much faster than in the last 50 years. ... more

In order to differentiate the country from its larger neighbours, one of his first tasks on becoming Prime Minister was to develop a Garden City with good infrastructure and telecommunications.

To woo investors from developed countries, 'we had to make this a First World oasis in a Third World region', he told some 600 guests from the public and private sectors, non-governmental organisations and the landscape and horticulture industry at a dinner marking the Botanic Gardens' 150th anniversary.

MM Lee took part in a dialogue at the event on the greening of Singapore, moderated by Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh.

Professor Koh asked him at the start of the hour-long dialogue why cleaning up 'dirty and smelly' Singapore was a priority when it faced numerous other challenges upon gaining independence in 1965.

'It was part of a bigger plan. After we were asked to leave Malaya, we had to work out a strategy which would allow a little island dependent on Malaya for its hinterland to survive,' MM Lee said.

What could be done immediately was 'to show investors that this was a well-organised place', he said of what was effectively Singapore's secret weapon.

Coming from the airport into town, they would pass by lush greenery, and when they visited him in the Istana, they would see well-maintained lawns and shrubs.

'So without having to tell anything to the chief executive officer, I knew he would understand that when I say we will deliver, he knows we can deliver; that this is a country where the administration works, where there is a system,' he said.

The fact is, he added with a laugh, 'you can't just plant a tree and walk away. The tree will die'.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=28516.1