Politics, P&G, and Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous in Singapore

So, people are really afraid to talk politics in public here. We had the final session with one of our professors here who is actually Korean, but teaching here at the National University of Singapore. The guy is really interesting and has had a lot of good stuff to say, but when Professor Maillet asked him about something with a slight political tinge, he stated plainly the he learned early not to talk politics in public in Singapore. It's just not done. When you get Singaporeans and people in private, then they'll spill the beans. However, you really have to wonder, Lee Kaun Yew and his family are well connected and remain tightly in power throughout the city-state. Once Lee dies, I can only imagine the power struggles that could take place.

Funny enough, the subject came up again at our interview with Proctor and Gamble. We met with the management team for P&G in Asia (or most of Asia, sans China, which gets its own team), and at one point, the manager quietly told us that P&G doesn't make any hard decisions past a certain deadline based on when they think Lee Kaun Yew will die. He made sure to only hint at various things and was quite clear that he wasn't going to mention anything about politics overtly. Most of the management team are Indian nationals, so that was interesting to see too.

Singapore has certainly benefited from being a generally free-market oriented system, but it has also benefited in that its neighbors have generally been horrifically socialist. This has allowed them to get away with more. I'm certainly looking forward to Hong Kong, where freedom is less limited, except the beast of China will stare down at it. Even one of the Chinese students is uneasy about the lack of political voice in Singapore.

Singapore must have severe restrictions on residential property. I may have said this before, but one million Singapore dollars (about $750,000 American) nets you only about one thousand square feet of living space. Today, we actually went to a house, and a nice one at that. It was ritzy, expensive, and would probably only sell for about $750K in America, but was worth about $18M in Singapore. This was a meet and greet with Singaporeans who went to or are going to go to UVA and current McIntire.

Going back to P&G, McIntire and P&G have had a long-standing good relationship, but the presentation today, as well as a little exercise that had us go out and look for their brands in local shops, all ended up with very good impressions on both ends. However, to make it even better, after everything was said and done, our professor received an email from the management team with P&G saying that they wanted to talk about establishing a closer relationship between them and McIntire (and I think they meant the MS in Commerce program in particular). It was a great little ego boost, especially since one of the lead P&G guys had an awesome accent and was fairly cute (thought a little too big for my tastes, though certainly not fat). What? I'm allowed a little shallowness from time to time. Not everything is metaphysics, epistemology, and politics with me (sometimes its also logic).

Anyway, I know this blog was a little technical and dry, but I promise more fun stories and tellings are to come.