Now look here…I KNOW the pandas are important. That the Chinese don’t anyhow give them away. That Singapore is among dunno how few countries to have got them. That it symbolises deep, wide, broad, long ties between China and Singapore. That we spent a lot of money to make sure they can survive well here. But, hey, do we need to turn the Prime Minister into some kind of zookeeper?? Page One lead on the national newspaper? And so many pars on how we seem to waiting with bated breath for their arrival?
All I can think of is, it must be a dry news day.
In any case, if we really want the Chinese to feel good, there must be other ways to make the point and still keep pandas somewhere….
Like: China’s gift of pandas signify the strong ties between Singapore and the Chinese province of Szechuan, with trade between the two jumping to US$908 million last year, up 22 per cent from just two years ago.
PM Lee yesterday told his Chinese hosts that Kai Kai and Jia Jia will receive a royal welcome, on the first day of his visit to tour Singapore investments in Szechuan, such as blah blah.
Singapore’s investments climbed 60 per cent to US$652 million last year, making it Szechuan’s fourth largest investor.
Methinks that would be much better….
Actually, the better story would be on what PM said about PCF. Provided that there was some more work done to his general comments. I wonder why no one asked him or PCF head Lawrence Wong about the PCF concerts that are so expensive (which was on Home page 1). After all, the pledge was that PCF would remain affordable. More could also be asked about the SPARKS accreditation, criteria in teacher training etc – 39 of 330 PCF kindergartens have this.
Anyway, I can’t wait for the next panda-monium – when the pandas arrive.
An ex-journalist who can't get enough of the news after being in the business for 26 years
