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Overview
Outlier Nation?
Singapore is so small, it may not show up even in maps of Southeast Asia, let along world maps. It is the only independent city state left in the world. It is the only Chinese majority country in the world not to claim to be the real China. It is the only country in the world to achieve independence against its will. It was the improbable nation that no one expected to survive.
Yet today, by every metric one judges a nation’s success – economic, social, education, housing, social welfare, Singapore is often within the top few.
Yet today, 5.6 million people pack into a tiny island, one of the most densely population countries in the world, and while very ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse, there is harmony and riots and protests of any sort are nearly unheard of. And still finds plenty of space for parks and nature reserves, and has learned to live cheek by jowl with wildlife.
In this book, a Singaporean born and bred, shares insights and highlights sometimes rarely known information, to illustrate just what makes what he calls, the Outlier Nation, tick. It wasn’t supposed to work, let along succeed beyond the wildest imaginations of the founding 1960’s generation. But it did. In this book, you will glean the answers to the two most important questions: how and why.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940165834387 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Ronald Hee |
| Publication date: | 04/06/2022 |
| Sold by: | Smashwords |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 488 KB |
About the Author
Ronald Hee was born in Singapore in 1964. He is rather tickled that the delivery was done by a Dr G.H. Coffin, a fine name for a fine baby doctor. With some irony, he now lives minutes away from the hospital where he was born. The hospital no longer exists and the building has been taken over by the Salvation Army.
After the usual run ins in school, he served in his limited capacity in his nation’s defence as a Combat Engineer. He is thankful he saw no combat and didn’t do much engineering, since he spent most of his stint as an instructor.
He obtained a B.A. Honours in History from the National University of Singapore in 1989. After he left, the university started to gain international recognition for excellence.
Leveraging on his complete lack of media experience, his first job was with the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, as a feature writer. The broadcaster has undergone some corporate changes since and is now known as Mediacorp. In more recent years, Ronald has gone back as a writer / director for documentaries, and as an actor for some of the docudramas and for various corporate shoots. He plans on continuing to do both until they cease to be fun. He’s done some work for other broadcasters as well and considers Singapore 1942 (check out IMDB) to be his best work. So far.
His next port of call was in exhibit development with the Singapore Discovery Centre, where he took charge of among other things, the centre’s interactive multimedia kiosks – in the days when the word ‘multimedia’ was still new, and he himself had just started using Windows 3.1. After leaving, he was contracted to research and script new exhibits and attractions. It was during his period that he started freelance writing for various publications. He plans on continuing to be an occasional journalist so long as it is fun.
In 1996, he decided to enter the glamorous world of public relations and joined Ogilvy Public Relations. Leveraging on his complete lack of a tech background, he nonetheless found himself in charge of various technology accounts, some for MNCs which no longer exist (no coincidence).
2000 was the Year of the Dragon and it seemed as good a time as any to try to build a company. He was drawn into a dotcom, The Internet CallCentre, which with uncanny timing, was officially launched a week before NASDAQ tanked and the dotcom bubble burst. It was fun yet stressful while it lasted. He eventually walked away wiser but poorer.
After a short stint with property giant, Suntec City Development, in searching for a new port of call, fate linked him to a biotech company, CordLife. As before, leveraging on his complete lack of a biology background, he became the company PR guy, aiding in their expansion and Australian listing.
Briefly joining a renewable energy company after, again as the PR guy, when his father passed away, it seemed, at the age of 44, a good time to take stock, realize that there is more to life, that his financial planner has done a great job, and it was time to retire. One, however, retires from formal work, and never from life itself. Lots to do and see still. Like doing some charity work for old soldiers. Like spending way too much time playing a Facebook game or on Civilization. Like being an evil slumlord. But that’s another story ….
Ronald is unmarried, his former wife deciding to give him his freedom early for good behavior during that little dotcom bust. He has no children that he knows of; just a dog that acts like one. He is perversely proud of having probably the strangest eyesight in the country.
1,001 Things You Didn’t Know Happened in April (2014) is his first book, and The Trial of Pontius Pilate (2015) is his second. He hopes you have enjoyed them.