SINGAPORE: For Lee Zhi Peng, deciding not to go to university was, contrary to what others may think, not a difficult decision to make. 

After finishing national service in 2010 and waiting to start his studies at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), he took up an internship at technology start-up MatchMove. A non-techie then, the six-month stint opened up a whole new world to him.

“They just needed an extra pair of hands to test their website and make sure there’s no spelling errors but during all that, I got interested in the tech aspects. So I sat down with the developers and started learning,” said the former student of Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC). 

When he was later offered a full-time position with the start-up, accepting it – which meant giving up his spot at NTU – was a no-brainer. 

“Why not?” Mr Lee said with a grin. “There was no reason for me to say no.” 

Eight years on, he is the founder of programming school Upcode Academy, which in October set up its second location at The Cathay shopping mall. 

An investment of nearly half a million, the 6,000-sq-ft space marks Mr Lee’s ambition for Upcode Academy to be more than just a school. It also wants to be an incubator for budding entrepreneurs. 

Given these plans, it is perhaps unsurprising that getting a degree is nowhere to be found on the 28-year-old’s to-do list. 

“I went through phases of worrying about being seen as a failure and not having something to fall back on,” he said. “But I’m happy now and there are many things I want to do.” 

FINDING A DIRECTION

The youngest of three sons, Mr Lee said he rarely veered off the beaten path while growing up. 

After doing “relatively well” for the Primary School Leaving Examination, he enrolled in River Valley High School before moving on to ACJC. But his two years in junior college turned out to be “a blur”. 

“I wasn’t interested in the subjects so I was skipping school or not paying attention in class. I don’t think I was the worst kid but my teacher certainly thought I (had) issues so my parents were called in several times.” 

He managed to “scrape through” his A-level exams. Clueless about his next step, Mr Lee followed his peers to apply for electrical and electronic engineering at NTU. 

“It was one of the courses that everyone around me wanted to get into so I thought I’d just follow,” he said simply. “I had no direction then.” 

The direction he needed came during the internship at MatchMove where he fell in love with coding.

“They gave me a lot of freedom to do and learn whatever I was interested in. I started coding things here and there … I also started imagining myself running my own start-up. 

“Then one day, the CEO asked if I wanted a full-time role and, of course, I said yes.” 

While he decided quickly, his parents needed some convincing. Mr Lee recalled his mother asking repeatedly if he was very sure of taking an unconventional route. 

“She was worried but at the end of the day, my mum knew I liked what I was doing. I even had a pay check of more than S$3,000 – a salary comparable to a fresh graduate. I also have two elder brothers who did not go to universities and they are doing well in their own ways. So in the end, she gave up.”

OVERCOMING DOUBTS

But given that he had no tech background, he soon found himself thrown in at the deep end. 

“I’m not the first to arrive but I’m almost always the last to leave,” Mr Lee recalled. “Learning programming by myself was difficult.”

His age also worked against him. “When you do quality assurance, you are checking other people’s work and you’re like the enemy. It was a bit adversarial at the start – people were thinking who am I to check their work? It got better when I won their respect by becoming better coders than them.” 

But that wasn’t his biggest challenge. 

“Losing friendships was the bigger difficulty for me,” said Mr Lee. “I didn’t share the same journey as my friends so they couldn’t understand my stress and I couldn’t understand theirs. I lost many friends then.”

That made him doubt if he had chosen the right path. 

“Loneliness brings doubts and sets you wondering what if I can’t do my job and I get fired? Can I find another job or go back to school? If I can’t, will I become a failure in the eyes of other people?” 

“It was also difficult because time was never enough. I don’t know if I was spending time on the right thing – should I be learning this programming language or should I be practicing something else?” 

But little achievements along the way helped get rid of a lot of these insecurities.

At MatchMove, Mr Lee would eventually move on to becoming a product manager and by the time he left in 2014 to join another start-up as a senior engineer, his pay had more than doubled. 

STARTING UP

Keen to give it a shot at becoming his own boss, he quit a year later and invested S$35,000 into his first venture. Riding on the wave of flash deals and discount sites, the start-up called 40Tasks had an app that alerted users to deals nearby.

But he soon felt that he “was in the wrong space”. 

“I felt there was very little value add in what we were doing so I tried skewing the business to offer help in building websites or marketing. But in reality, merchants only cared about profit margin,” he said. “I was jaded.”

After leaving his first start-up, Upcode Academy came about last September when Mr Lee spotted a gap in the market.

“More people are thinking of becoming start-up founders but they do not have the relevant tech skills. I also realised that fresh graduates here, sadly, have skills that do not match industry needs.”

With his experience in mind, Mr Lee said he wanted to provide beginners with a place to pick up tech relevant skills in a structured manner. 

Since starting slightly more than a year ago, the school, based at Ayer Rajah Crescent, offers courses in data science, artificial intelligence and different programming languages like Python. 

Its instructors are professionals who continue to hold day jobs in tech firms and start-ups here. 

Mr Lee also takes on the role of a trainer. Outside of Upcode Academy, he teaches entrepreneurship at Singapore Polytechnic. 

While going through the stories of successful entrepreneurs during his classes, he said he has also tried looking back at his own journey. The key takeaway, he reckoned, was the realisation that the paper chase was not the only way to obtain an education or career success. 

“I didn’t go on to get a degree but I found my passion,” he said. “If you are very clear of your passion, you can focus on the learning and not the certificate. Learning has nothing to do with certificates.” 

While there is nothing wrong with using qualifications as a benchmark for one’s ability, he thinks there remains an “unhealthy” focus on academic certificates here in Singapore. 

“One thing why I love start-ups so much is because the pathway to success is very open,” he said. “It is brutally honest and rewards when you work hard and deliver. Having qualifications doesn’t matter.”

In fact, he has hired an employee who, like him, decided to put aside plans for a degree. 

Not that Mr Lee didn’t give university education another shot. 

A few years back, he enrolled in a part-time undergraduate program but decided to quit after one semester when he realised that the curriculum lagged behind industry practices. 

After learning of his story, some people have come up to him for advice, but Mr Lee said he does not think of himself as an inspiration or role model. 

“Don’t copy anyone’s path is what I always say. Don’t look at me and think it’s cool. It’s not,” he said. 

“At the end of the day, its knowing what you want that’s most important.”

SINGAPORE: Mortuary supervisor Moshien Mohamed has received all kinds of bodies in his 14 years in the job: Infectious bodies, accident fatalities, the rare murder victim, tens of thousands of bodies in all.

He always looks at their faces.

To others, the dead tell no tales, but the 62-year-old might see a story in their final expression. A look of calm tells him of a nice ending; an air of worry could be because of family or money.

Sometimes their eyes are open and he sees shock. An accident can do that to someone.

But the living do not ask him about that. When they find out that he works in the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) mortuary, they want to know if he has any “funny story” that cannot be explained.

“People have a wrong conception of a mortuary,” he said. “They have the fear that (there are) all kinds of stories which they watch in the movies … A movie is (meant) to create excitement.

“Here, (there’s) no excitement. Here, every day is normal, quiet – no sound at all.”

The doors of the mortuary in Level B1 open to reveal a brightly lit corridor. In one of the rooms on the right, there are bodies stored in fridges – where the only sound is the hum of the refrigeration units.

The smell of cleaning agents fill the air. The labels indicate that amputated body parts, from the operating theatre or otherwise, are stored here too.

What there is in abundance, however – as CNA Insider discovered after gaining unprecedented access to the hospital’s mortuary – is dignity, respect and love on the last leg of a patient’s journey.

It starts the moment he or she dies and lasts until the body is transported from the hospital. And it is a journey that has taught lessons in life to Mr Moshien.

FROM SECURITY GUARD TO UNCLE FESTER

Life itself has taken the father of three on different trajectories. His first job was as a security guard at Singapore Telecommunications. Retrenched after 18 years, he joined TTSH in 1995, also as a security officer.

Within three months, he was promoted to assistant car park supervisor. Then in 2004, he wanted a new challenge and was told there was an opening for an assistant supervisor in the mortuary. He asked for the transfer without hesitation.

But his decision caused consternation in his family. “They were scared that … the dead would follow me (home),” he recalled. “I said no lah, don’t worry lah.”

He told them it was a “noble job”, although it took a lot of persuasion to convince his wife that he would benefit from learning new things.

“Excited” as he was to find out what happens in a mortuary, and even though he did not consider himself superstitious, he admitted that he was also a little fearful at first – that he would “hear some noise”, for example.

“But as time went by, the fear went away,” he said. And in all the years since, “nothing has happened”.

Neither has he heard any of his staff say the mortuary is haunted. But for the many who have joined and left quickly, they did not need to hear things that go bump in the night to find another job.

“Sometimes they might work for one week. After that … they fall sick,” he said. “They fell sick not because they were working here … but they made use of this to say, ‘Oh, I work in a mortuary. I’ll fall sick.’”

There are others who say they cannot get a good night’s sleep, which makes Mr Moshien “start to laugh”. “Some of them are too scared,” he said wryly. “I tell them, ‘Don’t worry, if at night you’re lonely, read books.’”

Ask him if he is scared of the dead at all and he says the living are scarier. As he would tell others, “(A dead body) can’t do anything to me, right?”

Amid the high staff turnover, he has been a constant. “Everybody (in hospital) recognises me, mortuary man,” he said.

Or, as some of the TTSH staff told CNA Insider half in jest, he is their Uncle Fester from The Addams Family, pop culture’s kooky household with macabre humour for the ages.

FROM ANGER TO EMPATHY

The jovial supervisor is part of a team of nine, including mortuary attendants, mortuary registration officers and medical social workers, who work round the clock to receive about 3,600 bodies annually from various parts of the hospital.

There was a time, however, when Mr Moshien was less jovial and more short-tempered. “Before I joined the mortuary, if anybody told (me off) in a (heated) tone, I’d very easily get agitated and get angry,” he admitted.

So his first six months were rough. Faced with grieving families who may have been impatient to claim the body of their loved one, he often lost his cool when scolded for perceived delays or items thought to be misplaced.

Eventually, he started to reflect and realise he was wrong. “I’m an ambassador for TTSH … Why should I behave like this? The image of TTSH won’t go down because of me,” he resolved in his mind.

While it should take no more than 30 minutes for his attendants to return with a body once the mortuary gets the call from the ward, sometimes there may be a few deaths around the same time.

“But we can’t just tell them (the families) that we’ve got many cases. Because they aren’t interested. They only want their (loved) one,” he acknowledged.

That means his job entails a lot of apologising – and commiserating – to relieve the emotional tension of family members. 

It was a hard adjustment for him to make, but his bosses kept advising him on the importance of empathy. And it took one incident to touch a chord in him emotionally.

While he had seen families offering prayers in the mortuary or telling the deceased not to worry because they would take them home, one day he encountered a different sight: A convict escorted by prison officers to see his mother.

“He really regretted what he had done … He said: ‘Mother, I’m sorry. I hurt you a lot during your life,’” recounted Mr Moshien.

It struck me that when a person is alive, whether a friend or parents, we shouldn’t hurt their feelings, so that’s why we must have empathy … I realised anger doesn’t make anything out of my life.

THE LAST OFFICE

It is not only the living he has to be gentle with, but also the dead.

“We want to respect them. Okay, respect means (we) transfer the body from the bed (to the mortuary trolley) … very carefully and slowly. And when (we) push the trolley, it has to be very slowly,” he said.

This process of care after death – the last office performed for a patient – begins with the nurses.

And like the mortuary team does, they treat a body as if it were alive by, for example, apologising as they work in pairs to clean it from head to toe, so that the deceased look presentable for their families.

Senior staff nurse Shahirah Moshien, who works in the intensive care unit and is Mr Moshien’s daughter, explained: “It reminds me of myself – (if) people (were to) clean me in my private areas … So we always say so sorry.”

In the ICU, where patients generally require more life support, such as breathing tubes and arterial lines, the cleaning takes longer than in the general wards.

Once a body is ready, it is wrapped in a shroud – or a body bag in infectious cases – with the legs and arms tied together to prevent movement during rigor mortis, the stiffening of the joints and muscles after death.

The last office is significant not only for a patient and the family, but also the nurses themselves, as a symbol of their final goodbye.

“Definitely, we’ve developed some kind of connection with our patients. So the last office is definitely some sort of closure between the nurse and the patient,” said Ms Shahirah. “At least we know it’s the end of the (patient’s) journey.”

The 28-year-old remembers one patient in particular, a “bubbly old lady” from four years ago. It was Chinese New Year’s Eve, and the woman had asked her family to go home for their reunion dinner.

“She told me not to leave her alone, and I said I wouldn’t,” recalled Ms Shahirah. “I went out to just take medicine for her, and (when) I came back, I saw … her blood pressure crashing down.

I had to call her family and go, ‘I’m so sorry, your mum passed on’, when they were having their reunion dinner.

The patient was in hospital for only three days, but Ms Shahirah “will always remember her” for being “so jovial” despite being unwell.

“I really cried when I did the last office,” she added, her tears falling again at the memory. “I felt that it (the last office) was a way for me to thank her for being so nice.”

UNCLAIMED BODIES

As Mr Moshien has also seen, closure is important. For example, if there are family members overseas, some families wait for them to return before they claim the body of their loved one.

In such cases, it can be stored in the mortuary’s fridges, which can accommodate up to 30 bodies and come in different dimensions to cater for various body sizes.

At 4°C, the bodies are kept from decomposing or freezing, with the infectious ones stored separately from the rest.

These fridges are also where unclaimed bodies can lie for up to a month. TTSH sees about nine cases a year, and its medical social workers go all out to locate the next of kin to do the last rites.

The social workers are also activated to support grieving family members and those who need financial help for the funeral arrangements.

Mr Moshien, who liaises with the workers, cannot but be affected by cases of unclaimed bodies. “It’s very sad to find that at the (end), there’s no one … There won’t be closure,” he said.

“(A dead person) shouldn’t be alone. There’s supposed to be somebody next to him.”

If no one comes forward, he arranges for their last rites by engaging an undertaker for the cremation – with the ashes scattered at sea by the National Environment Agency – or burial in the case of Muslims.

“At least there’s somebody to handle the cremation or the burial … for the closure, dignity and respect,” added Mr Moshien, who also makes these arrangements for body parts not claimed by the deceased’s family.

The only times the TTSH mortuary does not issue the death certificate are for coroner cases, in which the cause of death must be established at the Health Sciences Authority’s mortuary in the Singapore General Hospital.

A police hearse will transport these bodies, which have a yellow tag instead of the usual blue tag.

THAT’S LIFE

Among the many death certificates Mr Moshien has issued, some have been for his friends’ parents. And he is moved by their emotions at times, especially when the death was unexpected.

He has also assisted the families of TTSH colleagues, for example a security officer who died of cancer.

“In the morning in the ward, we were laughing and … suddenly two hours (later), we got information that he died,” he recalled. “From there, I realised that life is very fragile. Anything can happen any time.”

In the beginning, as his job changed his outlook on life, he often used to go home and tell his family, “Tomorrow, start afresh. Don’t think about what happened yesterday.”

It was his idea for his daughter to study nursing. And since she joined TTSH, they have often talked about patients who have died.

Invariably, if any were involved in an accident, he would have a reminder for his youngest child, who got married not too long ago.

“He always tells me, because I drive, ‘Drive carefully … Wait for the rain to stop, then you drive off,’” said Ms Shahirah.

She also attested to his change from being hot-tempered to managing his emotions well, “so now he’s very cool and … everyone loves him”.

Her friends have even asked her if he could take them round the mortuary, but she herself has not gone inside.

“We aren’t mortuary staff, so … we aren’t supposed to enter. As much as I’m curious about it, I respect what he says about it,” she said.

What her father would like people to think about, however, is death itself. “Because one day, they’re bound to fall sick. They’re bound to die,” said Mr Moshien, who is “100 per cent ready” to meet his Maker.

“Every morning, I wake up (and) say, ‘I’m blessed and grateful … to be alive, to be peaceful and to enjoy this (life).’ So life’s a celebration.”

What everybody has, he added, is the power of choice. “Your life is a lump of clay in your hands … God’s a creator, but you’re a co-creator. That’s what I’ve learnt. So you’re the author of your own life story.”

SINGAPORE: From time to time, cases of teacher misconduct surface in the local press.

Just last week, educators have been found engaging in reprehensible behaviour, for instance, leaking examination questions and answers as was the case at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

It did not help when further news of a Woodgrove Secondary teacher allegedly misappropriating money collected from students and that of a former Nanyang Technological University director being charged for conspiring with others to cheat the university out of more than S$200,000 broke on the same day.

These incidents have shone the spotlight on the professionalism of educators and threatened to erode public trust in the education line of work.

A PROFESSION THAT DEMANDS HIGH STANDARDS

The Ministry of Education has placed the utmost importance on teacher professionalism and set the tone for the field for many years. 

In 2011, the Ministry put in place its Ethos of the Teaching Profession in an attempt to codify professional standards for all teachers.

Part of this ethos includes the teachers’ vision, centring around three key words: Lead, care and inspire.

Teachers are called upon to care for their students and touch their lives. They are looked upon to lead and inspire their students to believe in themselves and to be the best that they can be. They are also expected to forge trusting partnerships with families and the community in the wider interests of students.

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Indeed, the vision expresses noble ideals that the Ministry hopes teachers will aspire towards and live by in their craft.

Very often, it is not so much the formal lesson content that students recall after they have left school, but the simple and seemingly insignificant acts outside of the classroom that teachers perform.

For instance, a recent news report about a Teck Whye Primary School teacher hugging her students as she handed them their Primary School Leaving Examination results highlights how a teacher’s work goes far beyond classroom instruction and examination preparation.

Her action illustrates the importance of attending to the socio-emotional well-being of students and how these connections form the basis of trust between teachers and students.

EDUCATORS MUST UPKEEP TRUST

How can teachers establish trusting partnerships with their students and their students’ parents?

This question is especially pertinent in view of the relatively young profile of the teaching workforce and amid challenges wrought by long hours, huge class sizes and an increasingly heavier administrative workload

For one thing, teachers need to demonstrate not just in word but in deed that they are competent and hold high professional standards.

First, teachers have to demonstrate to parents and students their competence – that they have a firm grasp of their subject content, and that they have a flexible pedagogical repertoire that meets their students’ varied learning needs.

For instance, an English language teacher might discover that some students learn more effectively through watching instructional videos that reinforce key grammar concepts. The teacher could then arrange for them to view the videos after school hours and monitor their progress in mastering these concepts.

Second, teachers must be clear-eyed that their every action will come under constant scrutiny by their students. Do teachers appear fair in terms of praise and punishment, in terms of allocation of duties in class and in co-curricular activities? Do teachers show overt favouritism towards students who are more academically able? 

Third, teachers must connect with every student and motivate him or her to do their best. This means taking the trouble to know each student and guiding him or her through the ups and downs of life in school (and often outside of school as well). 

For instance, teachers may detect signs of child abuse in the home and take appropriate measures to help the child, including seeking help from social services.

READ: A wake-up call, when a disadvantaged child gets 8 out of 100 for an exam, a commentary

Not only is trust difficult to build up, it can easily be dissolved at a moment’s notice. All it takes is one unhappy incident, one case of perceived teacher bias or one case of teacher insensitivity to a student’s inability to follow the pace of lessons.

Having said that, though, it is important that teachers uphold professional integrity and make tough decisions when necessary.

It can be all too tempting to pander to students’ whims, for instance in designing less demanding assessments, in order to be viewed favourably by them.

Teachers also need to mete out punishments when there is clear evidence of student wrongdoing and be able to explain their rationale clearly to students and their parents if asked.  

Such occasions often test the limits of parental and student trust in teachers as professionals, and may serve as a litmus test of teachers’ care for their students’ emotional and moral development.

How willing are teachers to stand up for what they believe to be sound pedagogy or moral principles in the face of possible adverse reactions from students and their parents?

REMEMBER TEACHER AREN’T SUPERHUMANS

All in all, it does seem like we expect our teachers to be superhuman, in a job that is demanding and highly emotional.

Amid the pressure of preparing students for examinations and competitions, teachers are also expected to be role models for their students.

They have to juggle these multiple tasks while having to meet tremendously high public expectations placed on their shoulders. It was just a few years ago that local media reports debated whether it was appropriate for teachers to smoke, drink or go clubbing.

When cases of misconduct arise, it is easy to throw shade on these educators who do not live up to their high calling but we should be careful not to paint all teachers with a broad brush.

Parents and Singapore’s wider community need to support teachers. Let’s not forget an indispensable part of a constructive relationship between teachers and parents involves trusting teachers to do the right thing.

READ: What an effective parent-teacher meeting looks like, a commentary

One factor that could challenge this longstanding public trust is the rise of overly interventionist parenting. Some parents might feel that some teachers fall short in attending to their children’s needs – and might constantly check in, intervene and suggest how teachers can do a better job.

These instincts need to be balanced against the need to put trust in teachers’ professionalism. When children see their parents constantly overriding school teachers, teacher-student trust is weakened.

Another challenge is the prevalence of private tutoring. When tutors offer alternative pedagogies that prove effective and can focus exclusively on the needs of a single student, there is a tendency for parents and students to measure school teachers’ work against private tutoring experiences – and come to view the teacher-student relationship in transactional terms.

READ: What is lost when we spend more on tuition, a commentary

The Ministry of Education claims that the future of the nation passes through teachers’ hands. In light of this, teachers’ work ought not to be under-estimated or denigrated.

At the same time, teachers have to constantly remind themselves that they have to uphold the ethos of the teaching profession so as to earn the respect of their students and the wider community.

Jason Tan is associate professor at the National Institute of Education.

ULAANBAATAR: Singapore broke six Asian records and bagged a total of 41 gold medals at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship 2018.

This year’s team, which comprised five female and twelve male competitors, also bagged 10 silvers and five bronzes, Powerlifting Singapore said on Saturday (Dec 8).

Powerlifting is a strength sport in which athletes lift the heaviest weight in the squat, bench press and deadlift. This year’s Asian Classic Championship was attended by 18 nations and 253 athletes.

Female athletes Thor Qian Qi and Farhanna Farid both became newly-minted Asian Record holders.

Thor, 19, took home four gold medals and pulled a 145.5kg deadlift for an Asian Record in the Women’s Under-52kg Junior category. She also achieved a squat of 130kg and a bench press of 65kg, beating the Junior and Open National Records in Singapore.

Team-mate Farhanna, 26, finished her competition with an Asian Record in the deadlift, at 173kg in the Women’s Under-52kg Open category. Despite coming into the competition with a back injury, she exceeded the Asian record by 13kg, said Powerlifting Singapore.

Team-mate Venus Tang, 25, achieved one gold and three silver medals in the Women’s Under-57kg Open category, while Carrie Choy (Under-63kg) and Hiromi Takeuchi (Under-47kg) each won four gold medals.

READ: Strength runs in the family: The record-breaking brothers raising the bar for Singapore

For the Singapore Men’s Team, Norfatris Danial, 22, finished his competition with a 281kg deadlift followed by a 293kg deadlift, earning him the gold medal and two Asian Records in the Men’s Under-83kg Junior category. He also won a silver medal for the squat and overall gold medal.

Matthew Yap, 19, achieved a 248kg squat, winning the gold medal and Asian Record in the Men’s Under-74kg Junior category. He also earned a bronze in the bench press, a silver in the deadlift and the overall gold medal.

SINGAPORE: Parents all over the world are gawking at Ryan, the highest-paid YouTube sensation and star of Ryan ToysReview, and the seven-figure mother lode he hauled in last year. If you have a cute and precocious primary schooler under your wing, news like this might make you go: 

Darn, why didn’t I think of that first?

It seems so simple – buy the latest toy, unbox it, and film your child going gaga over it. (Adult theatrics are completely optional.)

Did you know that unboxing videos are a genre of its own? It’s as if watching someone unwrap a box and remove a product from its box allows us to live vicariously in that moment.

Some commentators say that such videos ride on consumer aspirations, pandering to our insatiable appetite for objects of desire.

The money and fame are enticing, but how realistic is it to expect our kids to become instant online celebrities?

Beneath the facade of well-polished videos, what is lost when our kids focus on capturing content for others rather than living in the moment?

And what happens when a young star does everything for the sake of an audience and his popularity?

THE WORLD THROUGH A CAMERA LENS

A friend of mine recently went on a holiday with some friends. In the group were two young YouTubers who basically did a running commentary on their phones everywhere they went. 

Everything on the trip – from scenery to people to food – were seen and experienced through the camera lens.

Like adult influencers, these kids aspire to be rich and famous by racking up popularity on YouTube and other social media channels.

READ: Confessions of a wannabe social media ‘influencer’

Some even unabashedly tell their parents not to worry about retirement as they will earn enough through their trade to support them.

We don’t wish to be a wet blanket and douse their dreams of online fame, but how do we inject a healthy dose of realism when faced with such sentiments?

BEWARE THE PITFALLS 

Apart from your child possibly getting starry-eyed or having hands glued permanently to their devices, what else can you expect if your child is an aspiring YouTuber?

READ: When should children be allowed to have their own mobile phones? A commentary

Some kids get carried away by the winds of popularity and cannot stop themselves from asking random strangers to follow their channel.

Others may find it hard to manage the digital distractions coming from fans or viewers leaving comments and asking questions online.

As self-control and other executive function skills are still developing in a young child, it is also easy to swept up in the dynamics of social media and get carried away with the hustle and bustle of wanting to create more YouTube videos.

It’s not merely brainstorming ideas and seeing them to fruition; one has to work hard at figuring out how best to connect with others online, and what makes them stand out from the millions of others.

Your child will have to work doubly hard to keep up with their studies and homework, in order to maintain such a time-consuming endeavour. 

One may argue that it is just another hobby, no less legitimate than more traditional hobbies like music, sport or art. 

However, where it differs is in the medium. 

Because this hobby entails interacting with others online, it may leave little room for face time and socialising with peers, if left unchecked.

Common sense will also tell us that we cannot let kids loose with a phone and YouTube channel without supervision. They may chance upon unwholesome content, leading on to other addictive behaviours, or get obsessed with one too many Internet celebrities. 

This is the reality of our digital world. Perhaps in posting, we try to satisfy our yearning for attention and recognition of our unique individuality, yet have become more vulnerable and exposed in the process. Having our kids plunge into it requires us to have a full appreciation of and how to manage its effects.

READ: YouTube stars make bad role models and it’s all our fault, a commentary

THE POSITIVES

Granted, there are many lessons to be learnt in this new digital art form of making videos and constructing other online content in expressing ourselves.

Young people can exercise creativity when thinking about what they want to say and what they wish to be known for, and build discipline in planning and publishing regularly. 

They might also learn how to communicate, build self-awareness and get in touch with their emotions. If they come to see it as a way of personal journaling, their foray into YouTube might help them build authenticity and define themselves better.

After all in today’s world, practically everyone is a content producer. So these YouTubers are definitely picking up handy skills.

But parents beware, striking a balance requires close parental guidance.

A friend of mine wholeheartedly supports her son in his newfound interest in making cooking videos. He recently started his own YouTube channel and plans to create and upload three videos a month.

He researches, plans and directs his videos, while his mother helps him film them and gives feedback along the way. She also ensures that he doesn’t divulge private information in any of his videos.

She shares: 

As long as there is a responsible adult around to guide the kids, it can be a great opportunity to learn not just the technical aspects of creating videos, but also other issues such as privacy, time management, and providing viewers with value. 

I see that he is serious about this because he spends time researching recipes as well as how to film and edit.

Another friend lets her children watch Nas Daily videos to get an idea of what high quality, well-thought-out videos look like. 

CONTENT CREATOR VERSUS INTERNET STAR

There is definitely value in kids getting their feet wet in communicating with the world and creating their own unique digital footprint, but the process is what we need to be mindful of.

Even as we want to support our child’s interests, we need to take the time to educate and guide their decisions first.

We also need to prepare them mentally for any criticisms or negative comments that might come their way. They should also be aware that once their content is published, it is really not possible to take it back, so they must be aware of sensitivities viewers might have.

As with any kind of art, putting our work out for the world to see takes courage. It also takes a fair amount of careful planning, thought, and precision.

Are you and your child prepared to do what it takes to flourish as a YouTube star?

Just set yours and their expectations right, put in place boundaries as to what they can post, and limit their time spent online.

Apart from that, go full steam ahead. Just don’t expect them to be rolling in the dough anytime soon.

June Yong is a mother of three, an educational therapist and owner of Mama Wear Papa Shirt, a blog that discusses parenting and education in Singapore.

SINGAPORE: Before there was such a thing as BTO (Build-to-Order) flats, blocks of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats were built before they were sold. 

Sometime in the 1990s, there was a massive oversupply of flats in Woodlands and Yishun. In response to the oversupply, HDB combined many of the unsold units into jumbo flats, effectively halving the number of unsold flats. Jumbo flats can also be found in Jurong East.

READ: HDB to launch fewer new flats next year; 2,000 homes in Tengah on offer

READ: 7 things to take note of when buying old properties in Singapore

WHAT ARE JUMBO FLATS?

Jumbo flats are rare – there are only 485 such units in Yishun and Woodlands combined.

These properties are made up of two units (typically three-room flats) that have been combined into one.

Ranging between 1,442 sq ft to more than 2,000 sq ft, Jumbo flats are huge by HDB standards, but not a lot of space is dedicated to bedrooms.

Instead, there is an abundance of common space because of the combination of two living/dining areas and a kitchen. That said, many Jumbo flat owners decide to partition the additional living area into an extra bedroom.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT A JUMBO FLAT?

For starters, they are huge. They also offer a range of advantages you won’t find in traditional HDB properties:

1. A compromise between getting more space, and having to buy a pricey condo

Yes, there are already five-room and executive HDB flats, but these sometimes don’t offer enough space for extended families, especially for three generations under one roof. A Jumbo flat would give flat owners 15 to 30 per cent more floor area than an average five-room HDB flat.

If you were to look anywhere else for an apartment of such a size, the only choice would be a condo, which is too big a step up in terms of per square foot price when you’re looking at 1,500 sq ft.

While a 2,066 sq ft Jumbo flat in Woodlands is listed for an average asking price of S$380 psf, an equivalent leasehold condo in the cheapest Outside of Central Region can easily cost double or more.

So if space is your main concern, Jumbo flats present a viable alternative to going private. And as a bonus, these are HDB properties, so you can use an HDB loan rather than taking on a private bank loan (that means you can get up to 90 per cent financing).

READ: HDB resale market: 4 key predictions for 2019

2. Opportunity for an affordable family home

Jumbo HDB flats are answer to the prayers of big families. The whole kampung can now live under the same roof. Best of all, if you and your parents and/on in-laws share the cost of the Jumbo flat, the financial commitment for both parties will be fairly manageable. Every member of the household can have a space to call their own, a benefit usually enjoyed by those living in landed properties.

3. Themed homes, which are tough to do in most other HDB units

If you want a themed home, for example French cottage, industrial, shabby chic, there’s only so much you can do within a regular HDB unit.

With Jumbo HDB flats, the sky’s the limit. With all that space at your disposal, you can pretty much have a different theme in the each living area.

READ: Tenant tips: 7 effective steps to negotiating rent in Singapore

4. Good rental income and potential returns

Jumbo flats aren’t just aesthetically pleasing; they provide a unique opportunity for rental play.

For instance, if your children eventually move out and vacate what’s essentially an entire standalone unit, you have the flexibility to market the HDB as a “whole-unit” rental by re-partitioning the area between the original units with a mandatory door adjoining the two units that can remain closed.

This arrangement enables you to net a stable rental income without having to move out or sacrifice privacy (when renting out individual rooms).

In addition, and much like the million-dollar maisonettes, the scarcity of Jumbo HDB flats lends them some resistance to downturns. If the seller’s agent markets the flat correctly and the flat itself is in good condition or tastefully renovated, there’s almost always a pool of interested buyers.

CAN YOU CREATE YOUR OWN JUMBO HDB FLAT?

Yes, you can. For resale flats, HDB has a Conversion Scheme whereby eligible buyers/owners can apply to join up two existing flats on either of these two conditions:

1. You currently own a three-room HDB flat (or smaller) and want to buy an adjoining three-room or smaller resale flat. The two title deeds will be merged and only one unit number will be retained.

2. You do not own a flat and are looking to by two adjoining units of three-room or smaller resale flats. The title deeds for the two flats will be merged and only one unit number will be retained.

In either instance, the two merged flats (ie, a converted flat) cannot be split up again into individual units. Single buyers, as well as joint singles, are not eligible for this scheme.

The buyers must also consist of at least one Singaporean Citizen aged 21 or above, and apply for the scheme together with either: Spouse and children (if any), parents and siblings (if any), children under you legal custody, care and control (if widowed and divorced).

This article first appeared on 99.co.