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RJC 2007 J2 Prelims Paper 1

Examiners' Comments, .doc and .pdf

RJC 2007 J2 Prelims Paper 2 (Compre on "Asian Values")

Answer Scheme.

Additional material for the AQ.

India tries outsourcing its outsourcing,

"Many... Americans, recently graduated from college... accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: Fly [to India] to learn programming from scratch, then return to the United States to work in the Indian company's back office.

Now India is outsourcing outsourcing."

"Wipro's [another Indian company] chairman, Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia [states in America], to take advantage of 'states which are less developed,' Premji said."

(What is the irony in this situation? - One would expect America, a developed nation, to outsource jobs to India, a developing nation. In actuality, however, Indian companies are dicovering less developed regions in America where it would be cheaper to outsource Indian jobs.)

"Such is the new outsourcing. A company in the United States pays an Indian vendor 7,000 miles, or 11,200 kilometers, away to supply it with Mexican workers situated 150 miles south of the U.S. border.

Read more.

Myanmar crackdown sheds light on Beijing's aspirations.

Some material to use for the essay question on whether China's growing power is a world threat, as well any other question on China's place in the international community.

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At stake here is China's identity as a rising superpower, whether China will use its clout in the region to (in the short term) force a de-escalation of violence against the pro-democracy protestors, and (in the long term) effect an improvement in governance. More generally, what will be China's foreign policy be towards regimes that violate human rights (Sudan, Zimbabwe) or which violate or refuse to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (North Korean, Iran)?

With the great economic and diplomatic pressues China can bring to bear on these countries (Sudan and Zimbabwe due to China's huge investments in those countries, North Korea and Myanmar due to historical relationships), merely doing nothing (pursuing a policy of "non-interference") may constitute a threat to the well-being of the people under oppressive regimes, and to world security.

"To what extend is cybergaming a healthy pursuit?"

Daniel Radosh argues that too many video games over-emphasize realistic graphics and providing gamers with a "cinematic" experience, which undermine the sense of involvement. Many new video games, then, leave gamers with a sense of emptiness, once the initial thrill wears off. Instead of stimulating our intellectual and emotional growth (the traditionally cited advantage of gaming), they may stunt our inter- and intra-personal problem-solving capacities.

Instead, video games should strive to "offer experiences that are emotionally and aesthetically profound - stories that resonate deep inside us, reveal truths about humanity, and alter our perception of the world."

Read more.

(Point on language use: one "places emphasis on" something, but one "emphasizes" something - no "on" in the latter case. The same rule applies to words like "stress", "highlight", "accentuate", etc.)

China and America

Understanding Mattel’s Mea Culpa:
Quick to blame its Chinese suppliers for a massive recall, the toy giant now apologizes for its own mistakes. Why Mattel—and other major American companies—must save face with China. Read more.

In Mumbai, one man's meat is indeed another man's poison

Cooking chicken has become a high-security, covert operation for Shailaja Hazare, an undercover meat eater... Read more.

Common errors in English

Christianity

The use of religion as a political tool.

Cinema: Jesus camp

"One is tempted to think that what we're seeing is a cult. But "cult" is a wholly inadequate word when some 100 million Americans are evangelicals and 30 million of them are charismatic or Pentecostal -- the type who lay great store in speaking in tongues, rolling and writhing on the ground, and who believe in healing through the laying of hands...

Such churches are not confined to America. They're here in Singapore, some with the "mega" label too. Have they gone as far as Becky Fischer? I don't know. But one cannot help but wonder what really, really, goes on in some Sunday schools."

"And as a gay person, I have seen an unremitting campaign to spread disinformation about gay people. One of the most common tactics is the conflation of homosexuality with paedophilia. Homosexuals, according to the propaganda handbook, are always on the lookout to recruit children into the "homosexual lifestyle"."

Yawningbread argues that some homophobics conflate homosexuality with paedophilia, commiting the fallacy of association. I suspect he himself is guilty of it in this post ridden with political agenda - associating various standards of christianity together. While, he only refers to "some Sunday schools", his lack of effort in clarifying what "schools" these are makes it an attack on Sunday Schools as a whole. For the uninformed, this may translate to disinformation about christianity - since you do not know which sunday schools are extremist in nature, you grow to think that all Christians are out to wage war against pagans.

Erwet posted the article "The next Christianity" sometime back.

"Perhaps the most remarkable point about these potential conflicts is that the trends pointing toward them have registered so little on the consciousness of even well-informed Northern observers. What, after all, do most Americans know about the distribution of Christians worldwide? I suspect that most see Christianity very much as it was a century ago — a predominantly European and North American faith. In discussions of the recent sexual-abuse crisis "the Catholic Church" and "the American Church" have been used more or less synonymously...

By any reasonable assessment of numbers, the most significant transformation of Christianity in the world today is not the liberal Reformation that is so much desired in the North. It is the Counter-Reformation coming from the global South. And it's very likely that in a decade or two neither component of global Christianity will recognize its counterpart as fully or authentically Christian."

Surely, yawningbread should realise by now there are different schools of thought within christianity itself - I do not think the liberal Christians in America actively discriminate against homosexuals, nor do I think Christians in Singapore are as charismatic as those children in "Jesus camp" yet.

Why Indians fight modernization.

A former American ambassador to India, William Saxbe, put it into words in the 1970s: "When I call on cabinet ministers, the president, or governors, they all love to talk about their sons, sons-in-law and daughters in the U.S. and how well they're doing and how well they like things. The next day I read in the papers the very same people are denouncing the U.S. as a totally different kind of country."

Excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew

The following are excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew, who served as prime minister of Singapore from 1959, when it gained partial independence from Britain, until he stepped down in 1990. He is currently minister mentor.

The interview took place at the Istana, where the Singapore president and prime minister work, on Aug. 24, 2007. Lee was questioned by Leonard M. Apcar, deputy managing editor of the International Herald Tribune, Wayne Arnold, a Singapore correspondent, and Seth Mydans, Southeast Asia bureau chief.

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China: Economics, and Politics

Western Australia reaps huge profits from Chinese boom.

Here in the capital of vast, mineral-rich Western Australia, a wave of prosperity unleashed by Chinese hunger for its metals and energy have sent property prices soaring so high that affordable homes became scarce.

...

While the resources boom has enriched the state, it is also increasing its political clout on the national and international stage.

Web versus Newspapers.

I'm killing newspapers.

Is it ethical to adopt a policy of non-intervention?

The UN's silence on Myanmar.

Chaos in Darfur on rise as Arabs fight with Arabs.