Part 2: Le diner en fiasco à Singapour

Okay this is part 2 of a two part series - so if you haven't read part one yet, I suggest you start there. Now a lovely juicy piece of gossip to begin with, in case you haven't heard about this yet. Clemen Chiang, the host of Diner En Blanc Singapore, was famous for another reason back in 2009. Allow me to quote:

"Clemen Chiang, the founder of Freely Pte Ltd was sued by 48 people in the Small Claims Tribunal & ordered to refund close to 80 per cent of their fees for the seminar and a full refund for the cost of the software and 'webinars'."

Oh dear Clemen, you've fucked this one up big time. Like, for real.

Certainly, Chiang is no stranger to Singaporean netizens who remember his name from that court case in 2009 and have been talking about it in relation to the current DEBS fiasco. Anyway, here are a few links for you to have a good read so you know exactly what kind of character this Chiang is. Note that I have not passed any judgement on Chiang - I am simply directing you to what others have said about him and what he has done.

http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/showthread.php?133117-Why-is-clemen-chiang-on-google-hottrend-again 

http://www.salary.sg/2008/beware-of-people-who-claim-to-have-doctorates/

http://smallclaimsg.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/clemen-chiang-freely-business-school-2.html

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/471932/all

http://www.ripoffreport.com/seminar-programs/freely-business-scho/freely-business-school-by-clem-fbqb8.htm

http://therealsingapore.com/content/beware-singapore-malaysia-degree-mills

http://tankinlian.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/trading-expert-and-refund-claims.html

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091207-184374.html

Were the sponsors aware of whom they were getting involved with?

It beggars belief that DEBI would want to be associated with Chiang, a man with a badly tarnished reputation in Singapore. DEB has been successful internationally, but they are shooting themselves in the foot by allowing a man like Chiang screw things up this badly, Furthermore, Chiang is a man who comes with a lot of baggage and a bad reputation - whilst what Chiang has done in the past has nothing to do with DEBI or happened way before Chiang was associated with DEBSOC, he is still a terribly poor candidate for the job. Surely, the smart thing to do was to let someone else (Nicole Yee or Brian Yee for instance) head up the effort whilst he worked behind the scenes supporting her - but no, his ego is so big that he has to associate his name with the event. What a terrible error of judgement! Are you seriously telling me that Chiang is oblivious to the fact that he is tainted goods?

Let me share with you what another company did in my industry. I know of this fund manager who had a fund bomb - it performed really badly and he lost his investors a lot of money. He wanted to try again but he knew his reputation was always going to be associated with that one fund that crashed. Instead, he got an academic - this professor from a local university - to front the fund and be the 'face' of the fund, whilst he stayed very quietly in the background, running the fund without once showing his face to the investors. It worked. Once the second fund had a decent track record, he was then able to step out from the shadows and go '"Tah-dah! It was me all along. Sorry I had to get someone else to front the fund, but the investors wouldn't have given me a second chance otherwise."

Was Clemen Chiang aware of the public perception of his reputation?

What shocks me even further is the fact that OCBC are happy to be associated with DEBS in spite of Chiang's presence. Now my current employers (an asset management firm) has sponsored events before and in the past, I have also worked for a PR consultancy who organized such events on behalf of financial institutions. I know the amount of hard work that goes into any such sponsorship events - part of the reason why I left that area to work in media was because the budgets allocated for sponsorships dried up in 2008 when the recession hit.

Before 2008, you could get these investment banks and private banks to bankroll all kinds of champagne receptions in the name of sponsorship - it was such easy money as we would get a hefty cut of that sponsorship deal as the person who brokered that deal.  I wonder how much OCBC has coughed up to sponsor DEBS and how much due diligence was done on OCBC's part into the people they were working with and if any eyebrows were raised when they came across Clemen Chiang's tainted name. Needless to say, OCBC is suffering adverse publicity as a result of sponsoring this event. I'd like to think that same heads will roll at OCBC as a result of them agreeing to sponsor DEBS.

I'd be very surprised if heads haven't already rolled at OCBC over the decision to sponsor DEBS.

Let's come back to this gaffe - how did this happen? Who is responsible for this terrible mistake? Well to understand the mindset behind this gaffe, I would like to present an analysis of Singaporean culture and how our relationship with the French have evolved over three stages. Well, two and a half stages, I think stage 3 is a hypothetical projection that is based mostly on my personal experiences of having lived in France and I am not sure if and when we'll get there as a nation - but here we go. Please note that these 3 stages do not refer to any stage in time - any Singaporean could be at any of the 3 stages today.

Stage 1: "They hate us and we hate them."

My dad was utterly convinced that French are incredibly racist and hate us Asian people. Most of it is based on the fact that he is a racist who really hates white people anyway, so it is an assumption that white people hate us too on his part. He likes to retell this story to justify his hatred for the French. in 1988, our neighbour went to France on a holiday and was treated badly in a French restaurant in Paris because she didn't speak French and the staff there didn't speak English at all.

My neighbour visited Paris in 1988.

Now the problem with my dad's retelling of the story is this: it comes out differently every time. Our neighbour told us this story back in 1988 - I was there when she told my parents that about that trip to Paris. I remember her story and it sounded like a break down in communication and she was utterly frustrated that she wasn't understood despite speaking very good English. It was more an feeling of frustration on her part rather than racism per se, but my dad assumed that she was treated badly because the French were racist. Every time he retold that story, it would come out differently every time and I don't even know if he is inventing the stories as he telling them or if he is genuinely confused. Either way, I only shake my head each time I hear a totally different version of that story. I've given up trying to challenge my dad and accept that he is a racist that will never change his ways.

My dad has never set foot in France, heck, he's never set foot in a French restaurant or even watched a French film on TV. He has never ever met a French person before and he couldn't understand why I have embraced a language and culture which to him, is the epitome of racism. It baffles me how he can hate the French so much without knowing anything about them - but my perspective is very different as my opinion of the French is based on the time I have spent in France and life in France can be great if you do speak French fluently.

I have always had an infinity for the French language, French culture and French people.

My dad can be extremely stubborn too - the fact that I have lived in France, worked with French people (and for a French boss for 8 years) and can turn around and tell him, "No French people were never racist with me. Maybe they have been with others in the past, but it was not my experience." I am not sure how he reacts to that - most of the time he doesn't say anything because I think he is just mentally ignoring any evidence contrary to his long-held beliefs. Why? It's just more convenient to do so than to allow anyone to change your opinion.

For people like my dad, they're in stage 1: they hate the Angmohs and they believe the Angmohs hate us. He would view the tauhuay incident as a blatant expression of racism, of the French looking down on Asians and he would selectively choose to pay attention on a story like that to justify his hatred for white people (whilst mentally blanking out the fact that he has a son who has told him the contrary after having lived in France). LOL, so you can imagine how I wind my dad up each time I tell him that my French is so much better than my Mandarin today...

Now you may think that people like my dad are in the minority today - but given how many people (including Mr Brown) had this knee-jerk reaction of jumping to the wrong conclusion that is was a case of French people looking down on Singaporeans, oh dear. There are more people stuck in stage one than you think - is he just reacting to people like Clemen Chiang with this stance? Read on, let's find out.

Can't we all just get along?

Stage 2: France = atas, Singapore = low class

Now this is something I observed as a child growing up in Singapore amongst my peers and it was very much a product of the Singaporean education system. There was a social hierarchy constructed around the language(s) you used with your peers. Please note, there is absolutely no value judgment on my part here, I am merely reporting a social phenomenon that I observed in Singapore. I am a linguist who loves all languages and don't believe in this hierarchy system.

Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew = the lowest of the low, used by uneducated folk who have not had a formal education and haven't learnt English or Mandarin

Mandarin, Malay, Tamil = one step up from the Chinese dialects, used by those who have had some education but have not mastered English well enough to use it confidently

Singlish = used as a local lingua-franca, but perceived to be an inferior version of English, used by those who haven't had a decent education but still have a basic grasp of English

Standard English = the language used in education, business and administration in Singapore, usually used by those who have been educated to a level whereby they are capable of using Standard English confidently to a very high standard, often as a first language.

French, German, Japanese and Spanish = lagi atas, the three languages at the top of the food chain. Why? Because these were the three designated foreign languages by the MOE (aka the third language, after English and L2), reserved for those super students who were so academically gifted they were deemed smart enough to take on the challenges of a foreign language. Students in secondary schools lower down the food chain would have been discouraged from taking these foreign languages and advised to focus on core subjects like English, maths and the sciences. Even within the students in the best schools, those who are not deemed capable of scoring straight As are actively discouraged from taking on a foreign language.

Is this situation created by the Singaporean education system?

So for those who have managed to prove themselves worthy of taking on a third language like French in that context, there was a certain status symbol to it. Now I don't agree with that at all, speaking as a linguist. IMHO, Chinese is the most difficult language to learn in the world and in comparison, French is much easier. If a Singaporean student was brought up with English as a first language, then it would be far easier for him/her to master French than Chinese. There is just this presumptuous that just because someone has Chinese parents, that s/he would somehow automatically take to Chinese like a duck to water. It doesn't work like that.

Nonetheless, such was the system - those smart enough to have been allowed to do French as a third language would take great joy in switching into French mid-conversation, just to see the confused looks on the faces of those who didn't speak French. This status symbol of French was a product of the Singapore education system - whereas in the UK, for example, French has always been the most taught foreign language in the UK. You don't need to jump through hoops of fire to prove that you can score straight As for everything else before you're allowed to do French as a foreign language - hence that same prestige isn't associated with the French language in the UK. The skit below does demonstrate the attitude of many British students about having to do French at school.

Besides, as a child growing up in Singapore, I observed that many of my peers drew their cultural inspirations from the West through pop music, movies, TV, magazines and books. Since there wasn't much media produced locally in Singapore, many Singaporeans grew up on a diet of British and American media and literature. Many Singaporeans have not mastered their second language to a standard whereby they can read a newspaper or magazine with ease in Chinese, Malay or Tamil. Hence it wasn't uncommon for people of my generation to have expressed a preference for Western culture over Asian culture. I see that as a function of English being our first language (blame the MOE if you must) - but some see that as Asian people valuing Western civilization over their own.

Stage 3: French, Singaporean, European, Asian - c'est pareil.

I've lived in France, I've studied and worked with French people. Here's the punchline: we're all the same. Goodness me, humans from all over the world share so much in common because of our common humanity. In France, you get the full spectrum from elegant, articulate, graceful people to those who are uncouth, stupid and crude - the same way you see that same spectrum displayed in Singaporean society. There are superficial differences but having experienced France first hand, there are far more similarities than you think.

Singaporean, French, Asian, European... c'est pareil! 

So no, I reject stage one where one assumes a stance of superiority based on hostility and racism and I reject stage two where one assumes a subservient position to perceived French superiority. I am at stage three where I believe that individuals should be judged for their individual merits and we really shouldn't make any assumptions based on nationalities or ethnicities.

What I worry is Singaporeans using this incident as an opportunity to exercise their anti-French, anti-white racism. Stop it, don't even go there. This incident has probably nothing to do with the French people, it is most likely a terrible mistake made by the Singaporean organizers of the Diner-en-blanc event being stuck in stage 2 and looking down on their own culture. It has nothing to do with France or the French and is essentially a Singapore identity crisis. Don't drag racism unwittingly into this episode.

I would like to take this opportunity to dispel a myth - the French are NOT racist. Oh no. They are nationalistic, but that's not the same thing. Yes the French will refuse to speak English with you when you are in their country and you'll be expected to speak French when you are in France and if you don't, tough shit. Screw you, they don't care. Is that racism? No. Because they will treat blonde and blue eyed white American and British people in exactly the same way if they turn up in Paris without a word of French. On the other hand, I am a French speaking Asian person and my French friends have been extremely friendly and encouraging when I speak French with them. They know that I am making an effort to embrace their language, so in return, they reciprocate with so much warmth and love. They are wonderful people, but they will only offer this warmth and love if you show an effort to learn French in the first place.

So there you go. Personally, I think the organizers have well and truly shot themselves in the foot with this episode and it shocks me that Singaporeans can misjudge their home market so badly. Duh. If this was a mistake made by an FT who didn't understand Singaporean culture - then fair enough. But for a Singaporean to make such a huge error of judgement, oh dear. Aiyoh. Anyway, talk about a PR fiasco. Click here to read the grovelling apology offered by Clemen Chiang, the Singaporean organizer. Are you convinced? Are you satisfied?  Leave a comment, let's hear what you have to say about this issue - merci bien!