Music & Me

It has provided a soundtrack to my life so far. I used it, Can't Buy Me Love by the Beatles to be precise, to start my TED talk three years ago. Depeche Mode's Somebody was "our" song. I was featured on BFM and to make that segment personal was asked to pick a few of my favourite songs. Amongst others, I chose Those Magic Changes ... because we need to start at the beginning, when all the boys wanted to be Dany Zuko, what more a boy hitting puberty.

Recently, an old pal from JC, Y, tagged me for a week of 80s music challenge. I chose the following:

Feels Like Heaven by Fiction Factory. It's apt to name a Scottish band who contributed to the decade known as the British Invasion. They had just one hit and what a song. Like other 'one hit wonders', they demonstrate how tough the music industry is. Still, it's better to have had impact once than none at all

Sometimes It Snows In April by Prince. Along with David Bowie and Glenn Frey, Prince died this year. We mourn these artists not because we know them but because they help us know ourselves.

Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. This one features two artistes, sadly no longer with us, who provided plenty of anthems to grow up with. Both Mercury and Bowie were theatrical, both felt immense pressure and lamented, in this number, "this is our last dance!". Fortunately for many of us, we continued to dance on.

In The Sentimental Past by Leslie Cheung. More than a decade since Bruce Lee introduced the Asian hero on the global silver screen, John Woo brought us 'A Better Tomorrow'. This was also the height of the Cantopop Craze, a music movement across East Asia not unlike the British Invasion. This tragic theme is by Leslie Cheung (why do I keep picking songs of dead people? 😢) is so moving, achingly so, that one wishes for a world with more heroes (but hopefully without the violence).

Running To Stand Still by U2. We can't relive the 80's without U2. Uber cool then and still so now. Political activists to boot! And then their poetry...

"You got to cry without weeping

Talk without speaking

Scream without raising your voice"

Sabai Sabai by Thongjai McIntyre is from our neighbourhood; an infectiously happy song about feeling good from a country of fun loving folks. It's been updated for the 21st century and it's still as happy sounding as ever.

Key Largo by Bertie Higgins. This one is special only because we (P, K, B and I) were not. We tried to perform it at a JC talent competition. Well, at least one of us went on the cut a couple of albums.

Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. This is technically not 80s music, though it's from the album titled 1989 and performed by the artist that is defining our kids' teenage years angst, Taylor Swift

"Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off

Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break

And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it of"

Although I bent the rules with Taylor Swift's number, there were just too many good songs I couldn't include. I left out Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Wham!. I also had to leave out greats songs from the 60s and 70s. Not exactly from my teenage years but I certainly grew up listening to them. 

These included:

- Yesterday because if not for Beatles then, we will not have the music of today

-  Summertime by Janis Joplin because she leaned in first and broke all barriers incl one of those gone too soon at 27

- Hotel California because the Eagles remind us that we have all checked in to this world and can't leave (not yet anyways)

- The Soft Parade by the Doors, helmed by the iconic Jim Morrison

And more recently songs by divas such as:

- Angel because Sarah McLachan has the voice of an angels and in today's world, we all need guardian angels more

- Rehab by Amy Winehouse whose life imitated her art and vice versa

Truth be told, there is one idol from the 80s that I still listen to every time I have the chance. He has since disappeared and so in my mind he is still looking like this. Like an idol should. 

Photo from Mesosyn.com

Thinking broadly on business trips

In my last entry, I mentioned a few places I've recently been to. Whenever, wherever I travel, for business or for leisure, I pick up impressions, and these then mix with earlier memories. They serve to embellish and enrich my understanding of the place and more meaningfully of its people.

Here are a few scenes and attendant thoughts, captured on the road, for posterity.

Johanesburg, South Africa. 

The legacy of Mandela still looms large. The country is in real trouble, economically and socially, after years of inept management and rampant corruption. A month after my trip here, the ANC did poorly, as expected, in local polls indicating the people are fed up and want better. Indeed, this beautiful lands deserve better. I suggested to the minister's advisors that they should capitalise on this outcome to lead an internal reformation, one committed to delivery on the ground. It's an uphill battle but at least the leaders and the people have an iconic hero they can think of and hopefully get inspired and motivated to do better. 

London, United Kingdom. 

I was here just as Theresa May got sworn in as the new Prime Minister, following a Brexit-induced departure of David Cameron. It's been 500 years since the British Empire, and a bit more than 50 years since it gave its colonies independence. For a country with such history, choosing to go it alone may seem surprising even surreal. But then again, isn't this is just another sign of the cycle of rise and fall of great powers. A reminder to us all that history will repeat itself until the lesson is learned! Yet for all these signs of turning inwards, Britain's half a millennium of global hegemony doesn't dissipate easily. First of all it has chosen to exit a difficult European Union construct, and not the global economy. London is still one of the major capitals of the world and will remain a magnet for talents, and that in turn will keep it strong. Indeed, it's one of the major advantages we seek to secure for this city as we report on what the new government needs to do.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

Going back further in time, Arabia was once the greatest civilisation on earth. It's a harsh land and like all hard places, tough people emerge. People who impose their will on inclement environments and change the world. They invented astronomy, particularly crucial to navigating the formless lands using the stars I the skies. They invented mathematics. They thrived as a hub on the Silk Road. Then they discovered oil. And in the century or so since, in an ill-conceived effort to share the wealth with the population, their people quickly degenerated. They have become used to getting something for nothing. Critically, the hunger and work ethic have been lost. Just look at how slow the queues at immigration counters clear, despite the impressive hardware all around them. The leaders, especially an ambitious young deputy Crown Prince, has now formulated a new vision for the country. We are helping him bring about the most ambitious transformation: that of the mindset and psyche of his people.

Berlin, Germany. 

Transformation is enormously difficultly. Unless of course the entire population have such discipline as the Germans do. They are tough people who get things done and are extremely detail-oriented in the process, so the learnings are captured and passed on systematically. Yet, they are compliant. Only in such a society can one enact large scale, and I mean nationwide scale change quickly. It is really felt here in Berlin where the Stasi (Ministry of State Security, of the now defunct East Germany) psychologically tried to rid its population of capitalist tendencies. And no more pronounced than preserved in this Stasi prison, now museum. [Note: I am intrigued by a remark from a colleague, T, whose parents managed to get out of East Germany before the wall came up, that all communist era buildings have the same smell. He's spot-on! I've been to a few places, here in Berlin, in Moscow and in Hanoi, and he is right. It's a strange mix of antiseptic odour that is trying to contain the salty tears, sweat and blood beneath.] It would be remiss of me not to add while they brought upon change (bad change, I should say), it didn't endure. The wall came down 25 years ago and Germany has progressed significantly as a European and global power.

There are many more walls to bring down to advance human progress. In ancient times, these walls were that of Mother Nature's: the climate, unpassable mountains and oceans, formidable predators. Now, it's made of extremist ideologies and insular nationalism. I am thankful my teams and I can play a small but important part in this: that of dealing with all disagreeable elements resisting change, making the right case for it and then helping in ensuring it happens.

Business trips

I have always loved travel. Alone. Or with the family. Roughing it out on a shoestring. And of course in luxury. And then there's business travel. That unique journey undertaken with a purpose beyond leisure. When I first heard about it, it fired up all my senses: business class flights, first star hotels, airport limousines...

Be careful what you wish for, they always warned. In my case my travel (and thank god for SQ that makes the experience more bearable), it meant a flight every other day, nearly 180 flights a year. This year, the number of flights has thankfully reduced on account of my new role but the distances travelled very much extended. Since taking on this role, I've been in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Riyadh, Munich and Berlin (apart from my usual pan-SEA trips).

Even D got back on the road. As one of her first purposeful project, she flew to Jakarta and back and promptly gave the transport infrastructure of the city a failed grade. So, she doesn't quite like it either. That said, if we do the jobs we do, we can't avoid it.

I am presently in Berlin Tegel airport. Waiting to board my flight to Munich and then back home to Singapore. I will be arriving shortly after J, who is on his own business trips. Except business isn't quite the word to describe the nature of the trip. More like a service vocation. And as for accommodation, it's way more basic. Think muddy ground. Think hazy, humid weather. dirty clothes. And then there's the 2-day ration to last nine days in the jungle. He will do more such trips.

But like all business trips, there is an aim. In my case, it's managing the team, the work and serving clients. In his case, it's learning Warcraft. A nobler purpose especially if he learns never to go into one.

In time, M will also enter the workforce and have to do her objective-driven trips. We are all travellers. And as the wise Confucius once said, "wherever you are going, go with all your heart".

In my case, the next two flights are the best. It takes me home. Where my hearts are.