So, my wife is pregnant, and therefore, my mother in law will be coming over.
I have nothing against it actually, infact, i pretty much welcome her. Sweet old lady, who can cook (now, thats important)…
Anyway, getting her into Singapore is quite a PITA.
1. She will have to get her visa.
now, this visa will only allow her enter Singapore.
note that this DOES NOT mean that she will be allowed to go pass the immigration.
the visa only allows her to come into Singapore, up to the point of immigration.
to Apply for the visa, we will need to send her the application form.
She will have to fill them up.
She will then send it back to Singapore.
We will then submit it to ICA for consideration
she needs photocopies of her passport, and a recent photo (white background, non-gloss), my wife’s IC, and photocopy, a copy of her household booklet, and a security deposit of $1000, a processing fee of $20 (non-refundable), and a 3 day wait.
The processing of the deposit takes 4weeks…. and I need to fill in a giro form… right…
I will then send this visa to my mother in law, and she will have to bring it together when coming Singapore.
Good thing though, that this visa is multi-entry, so I bring her out of Singapore, and bring her back in again, without any trouble.
2. Now, upon arrival to Singapore’s immigration, she will then be judged by the ICA officer to see if she is granted to go pass the gantry.
if no, back she goes.
if yes, it will then depend on the mood of the officer to grant her up to 2 weeks (IIRC) of stay. This is what they call, a social visit pass.
Now, she will have to furnish her return ticket.
3. Well, since my wife is pregnant, we would like my mother in law to stay for a longer period.
But she was only granted 2 week! fret not, we have to go to ICA to apply for her LONG TERM SOCIAL VISIT PASS.
this pass can last up to 5 years, and comes with a multi-entry visa.
processing time is 4-6 weeks, and her stay is automatically prolonged by 8 more weeks to wait for the application outcome.
for this, we will need my wife’s birth cert, fill in some forms, recent photo,wife’s IC, employment letter from my wife’s employer stating her date of commencement, salary, and position, wife’s income tax assessment for the last 3 years, wife’s CPF statement for the last 12 months, AND another security deposit of $1000.
oh wait… I forgot to mention that ICA needs EVERYTHING to be in English. So if its in Mandarin, go get it translated. And it can only be done in the courts.
How convenient…
You know… it has been a while since I have been really happy… I mean really happy, overjoyed from the bottom of my heart…
and you know what?
No one else can be happier than I am now…
you know why??
baby at 5 weeks
baby at 7weeks 2 days
and of course… thats the scan of my wife’s tummy…
Got this from Lancerlord:
of lift question
I am just curious how many countries install lifts that do not stop on every floor.
source http://lancerlord.blogspot.com/2006/05/of-lift-question.html
man… that comment is hilarious!
My son is 2 years and 5months old, and stands above 0.9m as of today.
And I am have been told off by operators that my son has to start paying to take the public transport because of his height, even if he sits on my lap on the bus.
And what does LTA have to say about this??
read on…
Parents want height limit raised for free rides on buses, MRT
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia
SINGAPORE : With the average height of children going up, parents are asking for the height limit for free rides on public transport to be raised.
But public transport companies here say this is not possible as huge costs would be incurred.
Statistics from the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital show that children in Singapore are getting taller.
The height of a three-year-old girl may range from 87 centimetres to 101cm, and the height of a four-year-old girl may range from 94cm to 109cm.
Overall, the height of girls under seven in the 50th percentile has also increased, from 157cm in 1988 to 159cm in 1993.
But public transport operators do not allow free travel for children taller than 90cm, or 0.9 metres, and parents hope this can change.
“You really have to revise it to help those who are economically not so stable. A few cents matters to families like us,” one parent said.
“You should control using the age instead of 0.9m, because kids are getting taller and taller,” another said.
In Beijing, China, the height limit for free bus rides and other perks for children was recently raised by 10cm to 1.2m. That is because children in China, like in Singapore, are getting taller.
But the height limit is not likely to be raised in Singapore.
In an e-mail response to Channel NewsAsia, TransitLink says the original criteria for free travel applied to only infants in arms, but public transport operators later extended free travel to children whose height was up to 0.9 metres and who were accompanied by a fare-paying commuter.
With the introduction of the MRT system, sensors were installed at 0.9m in the fare gates for safety purposes, to prevent the gates from closing on commuters passing through.
Only children below 0.9m may pass through the sensor safely without having to pay a fare.
TransitLink explained that if the height limit were to be raised above 0.9m, there would be huge costs incurred to change all the fare gates and sensors throughout the MRT and LRT system, and this would adversely impact the full-fare paying commuters.
As for public buses, TransitLink says all concessionary fares are cross-subsidised by full-fare paying commuters.
There is no travel concession subsidy granted to public transport operators.
It is therefore in their interest that public transport operators exercise prudence when granting any further travel concession beyond the present arrangement.
Pre-schoolers, regardless of height, get travel concessions with a child Ez-link card.
The Land Transport Authority says it will work with the public transport operators to see if there is a case for adjusting the concession policy for children.
But it adds that concession schemes are decided by the public transport operators, which operate on a commercial basis, and any decision to improve on or grant more concessions is a matter for transport operators to decide. – CNA /ct
Refer to the following article by our fabulous Mr Mah Baw Tan…
STI Home > ST Forum
June 17, 2006
Upgrading is a unique programme by Govt
I REFER to the commentary by Ms Chua Mui Hoong and the letters from Mr Basant Kapur, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Yee Jenn Jong on the upgrading programme for public-housing estates (ST, June 13 and 16).
The writers argued that the Government has a fiduciary obligation to act on behalf of all Singaporeans who pay taxes and serve national service. I agree. Indeed, the Government has provided all Singaporeans with good and affordable health care, subsidised public housing, equal opportunity to receive a good education, and much more.
Granted, they HAVE done quite a bit for the nation, but they have not focused sufficiently on the whole band of middle class workers.
However, the upgrading of our older public-housing estates is over and above these basic obligations of the Government. It is funded out of Budget surpluses generated by the PAP Government. No other government in the world has anything similar, in terms of scale and commitment.
You mean the NEED by fellow citizens are not an obligation of the Government? Let’s see… oh yes! HDB does not have a warranty for the apartments that they built! They built, you buy, your problem!
Look. No doubt you used budget surpluses generated by the PAP government, but that does not mean that you have the right to use the money however you deem fit. No matter what surplus you have made, it is NOT YOUR money. It is still tax payers money.
Budget surplus simply means that you budgeted this amount for, say, buying a car, but when you actually purchased it, the price dropped 10%. So this 10% that you saved, is the budget surplus.
Now, even in the private sector, this amount of money that is saved, does not belong to you, rightfully.
What many people does is to spend this amount, so that next year, their budget amount will not go down, making things difficult for themselves.
Technically, it is still the company’s money, not yours or your departments. And this money if not spent, has to be returned to the last dime and added into the P&L of the company.
So Mr Mah, please wake up your idea.
The PAP presented upgrading as one of its key programmes during the election. It asked for the people’s support in order to carry out these programmes. Having received a clear mandate, the Government will now fulfil its promise to the people.
Once again, as a whole, there is no mandate in the most recent election, unless a mandate simply means that you win, even if its just by 1%.
And once again, PAP is a party, and not the Government. Well, granted that they hold more than 90% of the seats, but still, PAP is a party, and NOT the Government. When you equate that the party equals the government, this is called communism, or fascism, or whatever, but not democracy.
And once more again, who gives PAP the right to use the people’s money so un-democratically?
Upgrading is a national programme that will be implemented in all constituencies. But we cannot avoid prioritising upgrading, due to limited resources. It is not a question of generosity or otherwise by the Government, as Mr Yee suggested. Between PAP and opposition constituencies, other things being equal, PAP constituencies will go first, as the Government had made clear before the election. Ms Lim herself noted that no one living in an opposition ward expects special treatment, i.e. to jump ahead of PAP wards.
Yes, but then, those in PAP wards are given special treatments in your own words, no?
Why don’t you do it this way: Which ever ward needs the upgrading more desperately, gets it.
PAP members have more than once said that the opposition wards desperately needs an upgrade, and have even shown footages of how worn out their facilities are.
Curiously, after all these, those wards who are in better condition, gets to upgrade first.
Now, that is not democracy, no?
and citing our pledge, written by our national hero “… to built a democratic society, based on justice and equality…”
it seems like we are not practising democracy based on equality. oh wait, are we still building this democratic society, so we do not have to follow the pledge as yet?
Anyway, quoting the text “Between PAP and opposition constituencies, other things being equal, PAP constituencies will go first” Lets put Hougang and Toa Payoh in the same rank. Things between them are equal, like estate age, population, etc. So TP to go first is definitely alright. But lets compare Potong Pasir to Boon Lay. BL is much younger, population still almost the same, but yet, they are upgraded first!
Ms Lim stated that election campaigns should be fought over long-term national policies which affect Singaporeans’ lives deeply. Again, I agree. Unfortunately, during the election Ms Lim did not ask voters to think deeply about long-term national policies and support the Workers’ Party because it offered better policies than the PAP. Instead, she told them to go ahead and vote opposition, even if they wanted a PAP Government and its policies, because they could safely assume that the PAP would win, anyway. If enough Singaporeans had taken her advice, the opposition parties would have ended up governing Singapore, even though at least two thirds of Singaporeans preferred a PAP Government.
Hence, the need for the HDB upgrading-priority policy, so that Singaporeans’ votes will make a difference to their own lives in HDB estates, as well as decide which party will govern Singapore. Only then can our system of democracy work. Only then can we stay together, and move ahead.
thats really a world’s first on how democracy works…. I am flabbergasted…
but then… as mentioned… is OUT system of democracy… not just democracy…
Mah Bow Tan
Minister for National Development
Finally got a chance to watch this on my flight back from Tokyo…
And you know what?!
Its one of the few shows that made me shed tears…
Maybe to those whom are not parents, they cannot relate that much. But as a father, many scenes and dialogues touched my hearts.
I would highly recommend it to everyone. Really, go watch it if you have not.
Now, I must admit that Ah Leow was my tutor way back in 1988-1991.
Yes, he looks different. Yes, he does not behave like a tutor. Yes, he does not speak English well.
But man, he is someone that made me who I am today. If not for him, I would probably be somewhere in the streets now.
The title of the news on TNP is not flattering at all, and does no justice to his life time effort of passing on his knowledge and ethnics of being a human.
He has got himself into trouble many times by speaking his mind of politics in Singapore, and how unfortunate we are having certain person as our Minister of Education. His point of view did bring about many different opinions and pointed us to different ways of looking at a situation instead of blindly following the masses.
I remember he got into some trouble because he predicted the O level Biology practical exams almost to perfectly. What happened was that students who came for his classes were given the ‘tip’, while another few who did not attend, and later found out about it, was not happy, and reported it to CPIB. He was charged for selling the exam information to his students. And his friend who worked in MOE got fired, for the cause of giving such information to Ah Leow.
He got off without anything because there was no proof of monetary exchange.
The same thing happened a few years later.
But what was funny is this.
My cousin, my friends, my seniors, even my uncle-in-law (who got his PhD at the age of 26) were taught by Ah Leow, and he din even ask for any money from us for anything!
$40 per subject per month, and you can attend the lesson as often as you want. All printed matters included. Nothing more.
He has never pushed us when we are not able to pay the fees, but he will need to make a call to our parents to make sure that we din pocket the money.
To a cousin of mine, Ah Leow is an absolute ass though. What I heard was my cousin broke his chair, and Ah Leow demanded that he pay for it, but my cousin insisted that he did not break the chair.
Well, knowing Ah Leow, he would not have been that mean if my cousin has not been an ass in the first place. But I am not in a real good position to say anything on this because I did not see what happened.
One thing is for sure though, Ah Leow has been too open about his political views to the students for his own good.
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INSPIRING teacher. Religious man. Sexual predator.
To strangers, Singaporean private tutor Leow Thiam Heng, 62, looked like an ‘Ah Pek’ (heartland uncle). He was often in slippers, spoke broken English and cracked Hokkien jokes.
Hardly your image of a teacher.
But to many of his students, he was a caring, committed and inspiring teacher.
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Leow’s tuition centre was closed earlier this week.–Picture: DAVID TAN
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The private tutor did have a talent for maths, physics and chemistry, which he made easy for his students.
But, good as he was with numbers and formulae, Leow miscalculated when he thought he could get away with molesting his students.
He betrayed his students’ trust and took advantage of teenage girls.
Leow had been found guilty of molesting two of his students in February this year after a three-week trial.
He had his appeal in the High Court dismissed last Friday. He will have to spend two years in jail.
POPULAR TEACHER
For over 20 years, his tuition centre – now at Peace Centre – had been popular among students.
A tutor since 1964, he was the man behind the centre’s success, though some of his family members helped out.
He said he must have taught over 7,000 students over two decades.Students fondly called him ‘Ah Leow’ and during the weekends, his classes were often filled to capacity, with over 40 students in each class. He was popular, funny and friendly, said his students.
But his sordid side was kept well hidden from most of them.
Leow molested two secondary school girls, aged 14 and 15, in two separate incidents in mid-2004. They cannot be named as they are victims of a sexual offence.
The first victim, a Secondary 4student, had attended classes two days a week, for four hours each time. She went to the centre for maths, physics and chemistry tuition.
On 4 Jul that year, after her class ended around 6pm, Leow asked her to stay behind.
CHICKEN POX RUSE
She guessed he was going to give her cream for her face as he had done before. It was to help heal her chicken pox scars, he had told her.
She said Leow waited for everyone to leave before taking out the cream from the refrigerator.
He asked her to lie down on a sofa and applied the cream on her face.
Then he went to the fridge and returned with a bottle with a nozzle.
He asked her to lie down, and he lifted up her shirt and applied the cream on her stomach.
She said he continued rubbing his palms on her body, and moved upwards.He even pushed her bra up and started rubbing her breasts, and back down to her stomach.
She was too shocked to resist him.
Her parents noticed that she was quiet after picking her up and when she got home, the girl cried and told her mother everything.
The second victim was only 14 when Leow used the same ruse on her.
On 25 Jun 2004, Leow molested her while her two friends waited outside.
He even told her to shave her pubic hair in order to study better, she said.
He warned her not to tell anyone about the incident. But the girl told her friends and, after consulting a former tutor and her father, she made a police report.
Leow, who is married, with grown up children, accused the two girls of conspiring to frame him.
He claimed they had tried to extort money from him as they knew he owned private properties and shares.
But his statements to the police were inconsistent. This, he claimed,was because he had been shouted at and he couldn’t understand English well.
District Judge Toh Yung Cheong did not believe him and found the two victims’ testimonies to be credible and consistent.
Leow appealed against his decision.
In the High Court, Leow’s lawyer, Ms Melanie Ho, from Harry Elias Partnership, argued that even if Leow did touch the girls, he did not touch their breasts and private parts, but massaged only the waist area.
She presented testimonies about his character, from both his present and former students.
She said the accused was also a religious person who had been to Thailand and Myanmar for monastic training.
He also gave generously to charities, like the NKF, and Buddhist temples, she added.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Hay Hung Chun argued that both victims did not know each other before the case and had no reason to frame him.
He said it was Leow who offered $20,000 to compound the offences. The victims did not ask him for money.
CUNNING
He added that Leow had abused his students’ trust and ‘there was pre-meditation and cunning on (his) part’.
‘These acts were not fleeting or momentary intrusions but lasted for a few minutes,’ he said.
High Court judge V K Rajah dismissed Leow’s appeal saying: ‘Once tuition teachers do silly things to their charges, it’s no point nuancing the charges and what part he touched or did not touch.’
Students, parents stand up for tutor
TWO teachers and a dentist who were once taught by Leow Thiam Heng wrote testimonies vouching for his character.
In all, over 150 present and ex-students, and at least 20 of their parents, signed a mass testimonial. Some wrote letters in support of him.
One, a dentist in private practice, was Leow’s student in the early ’90s.
He said he had been a rebellious teenager. It was with Leow’s help,’his ability to connect with his students’, that put the ex-student back on the ’straight and narrow’.
Another of Leow’s former students, who is currently pursuing a degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering, told The New Paper that Leow was a ‘caringteacher’.
‘He would go to any extent to help you with your work.
‘You could go to see him any time if you had problems.’
Another ex-student, whom he taught from 1992 to 1994, said: ‘He is a responsible and helpful teacher (who) has inspired many of his students. Although he may, at times, be full of jokes, he is a kind person at heart.
‘I have benefitted greatly from his instruction and am now a full-time school teacher.’
The mass testimonial, signed mostly by his present students, said that even though Leow went through a tough time during the trial, he still continued teaching his classes – a ‘testament to his commitment’ to his students.
Leow’s lawyer told the court that his daughter will take over managing the school.
But the school was closed when The New Paper paid a visit to its premises at Peace Centre, Sophia Road, earlier this week.
Numerous calls to the school also went unanswered.
