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Our first podcast has just dropped! Who exactly is Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s fourth prime minister? How did he rise to become the city-state’s first leader from a so-called “neighbourhood school” (rather than an elite one)? And what are the challenges Singapore and he will face in the coming years? Host Jean Hew seeks answers to these questions through interviews with his schoolmates, colleagues, and political competitors, as well as other Singaporeans. “The Neighbourhood Boy” is a four-episode series, premiering August 7th 2026, with a new episode every Friday. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're curious about how and why we made it, read "The story behind ‘The Neighbourhood Boy’"

*** Elsewhere in "Singapore This Week" at Jom The deepening crisis in India with leaked exams and the satirical Cockroach Janata Party Why did Faishal Ibrahim have to resign? How hopeful or worried should we be about agentic AI? What might have been alternative names for Circle Line’s three new stations? Hiroshi Sugimoto and Maria Taniguchi at the Singapore Art Museum https://www.jom.media/singapore-this-week-240726/

Politics: KJ and the tougher path JB Jeyaretnam (JBJ), then with the Workers’ Party (WP), broke the parliamentary monopoly of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1981. For his willingness to challenge Lee Kuan Yew, he was lionised in many quarters but demonised by the state. So much so that Kenneth, his older son, found it difficult getting a job. “After I graduated [in economics from Cambridge] in 1983—which was two years after my father was elected into Parliament—I wanted to return to Singapore,” he told CNA. “The Monetary Authority of Singapore rejected my application after one round of interviews. A lot of financial institutions and banks also rejected my applications.” A decade later Goh Chok Tong, Lee’s successor, sent “KJ” a letter saying “the Government has nothing against you and no employer will be disadvantaged by employing you”, adding that “[i]n Singapore, the politics of a parent will not be visited on his or her children.” But it was perhaps too late, and KJ worked in finance in the UK for most of his career. By then Philip, JBJ’s younger son, had followed his father and mother into law—but was slowly gaining establishment acceptance. He became senior counsel at a youngish 38, on the way to his aappointment as High Court judge in 2021, where he still serves, admired across the political spectrum. When JBJ passed in 2008, Lee Hsien Loong, Goh’s successor, wrote a “condolence” letter to the brothers, shocking in its reassertion of JBJ’s supposed damage to Singapore. (Thankfully others, including The Economist, penned wonderful obituaries.) KJ returned to Singapore ostensibly to continue his father’s political legacy, taking over the Reform Party that JBJ had just founded. But for opposition politics, 2009 was a very different time from 1981. The WP was on its way to gaining critical support across the country, not only among Hokkien and Teochew speakers in the east. With Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and many others growing their public profiles—helped by social media—the opposition field was becoming crowded. Singaporeans were starting to distinguish more between them. The English-accented KJ was always going to have trouble fitting in. “You have spent a large part of your life overseas…Can you relate to the average Singaporean?” CNA had asked. “Let’s get it straight,” KJ snapped back. “Do you think that I left Singapore by choice? I couldn’t get a job here.”  The most he ever got was about a third of the vote in 2011. After the bizarre 2015 election—held shortly after the elder Lee’s passing and independent Singapore’s 50th birthday, grief and gratitude buoying the PAP—KJ did himself no favours by sticking it to the electorate. “I guess Singaporeans get the government they deserve. I don’t want to hear any more complaints.” The ridiculing of the Singaporean voter’s choices is a trope that increasingly rankles—and delivered in that British twang, no less, it simply confirmed poor KJ’s unelectability. Still, there is much to admire about his willingness to trod the tougher path, and continue, like his father, to doggedly expose any perceived failings of PAP leaders, for instance sparking the Ridout Road saga. “Taking on the PAP needs nerves of steel, a stubborn commitment, ample resources, and a blemishless past. Ken had all of that, and more,” wrote Salil Tripathi in Singapore Unbound, following the news of KJ’s death this week at 67 (deep vein thrombosis and autoimmune disease were some of the ailments he’d been battling). The SDP’s Paul Tambyah and a letter writer in The Straits Times (ST) are just two of many to reminisce about KJ. The PAP and WP, the only two parties in Parliament, have yet to say anything. Perhaps we still live with the ghosts of 1981.

Some further reading: Lim’s entire judgement, particularly her discussion of the Reynolds privilege, a development of the common law defence of qualified privilege in England, which the defence had argued they can rely on (she disagreed), and which touches on the balance between constitutional free speech and protection of reputation. She ordered Bloomberg to retract its original article but a copy remains visible at the bottom of the judgement. *** Elsewhere in "Singapore This Week" at Jom Are robots the answer to our construction labour woes? How content creators are turning homes into monetisable spaces “Charged”, the critically acclaimed play exploring racial tensions gets a rerun next week Obituary of artist Chua Mia Tee https://www.jom.media/singapore-this-week-170726/

Society: Poor ministers defamed Few public figures are as polarising as K Shanmugam, Singapore’s fearsome home affairs minister. For over three years, his housing has been under scrutiny. First were revelations that he’s been renting from the government a palatial colonial bungalow on Ridout Road; and subsequently that he sold a good class bungalow (GCB) on Astrid Hill for S$88m, or almost 150 times the value of a median resale flat. With the former, he emerged unscathed from a ministerial review. And this week saw the dénouement of the latter saga, when a court found that Bloomberg and its reporter Low De Wei had defamed him (and manpower minister Tan See Leng) in an article, “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy”. Though the accuracy of Bloomberg’s reporting on both ministers’ respective GCB transactions was not disputed in court, in her judgement Audrey Lim, high court judge, mentioned “material falsehoods” and repeatedly referenced the “impression” that was being conveyed to the reader, concluding that “the natural and ordinary meaning of the Article is that the claimants took advantage of the absence of checks and balances or disclosure requirements to conduct their property transactions in a non-transparent manner, and that they did so in order to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering.” Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, while respecting the ruling, said “we continue to believe that the ministers have imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story.” This too is our view. We worry that such interpretations by the subjects of stories will have a chilling effect on all journalists. It’s notable that while the mainstream media regularly reports on property transactions by the rich, it appears to shy away from the political elite. Put another way, such public interest journalism is not being performed by our taxpayer-funded behemoths. Sure, not all in this country would agree with this purpose. “[T]here isn’t any legal recognition or political acceptance of the media as a Fourth Estate,” SMU’s Eugene Tan told The New York Times. But maybe there should be. This is a world where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of plutocrats. The wealth gap between Singapore’s senior politicians and ordinary citizens appears to be widening by the day, whether through property dealings or otherwise. Unlike many other democracies, Singapore doesn’t require public asset declarations by its politicians. How might personal investments in, say, Singapore landed property, Chinese firms, or AI bias one’s policy decisions? Even if we accept that our current politicians are squeaky clean, will it always be so?  These weren’t Bloomberg’s lines of inquiry, but we worry about the judgement’s broader impact on such interrogations. In his response, Shanmugam said that he chose to “bring defamation proceedings” because if “irresponsible outlets like Bloomberg get away with publishing lies and falsehoods about public officers, it will set a new norm” that might eventually deter others from seeking public office. It’s a puzzling assertion. None of these property “scandals” appear to have affected Shanmugam’s popularity—his team romped home with 73.81 percent of the vote at GE2025. And the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has such a robust pipeline that it was able to introduce a whopping 32 new faces last year, nudging five MPs out after just one term. On the contrary, beset by digital disruption and other forces, the media industry globally is staring into the abyss. The vulnerable group in Singapore is not PAP politicians but journalists. Any suggestion of victimhood by the former effectively functions as a sophisticated exercise of power. What Singaporeans should actually worry about is that one day we’ll be left only with neutered, sycophantic media outlets and lots of AI slop. Which perhaps is what some prefer.

Elsewhere in "Singapore This Week" at Jom What do university rankings actually depict? Why are so many workers disengaged from their jobs? Khatijah Terung’s compendium of charms, and bodily pleasure in the Malay- Muslim world “Berahi: Holy Unions” by P7:1SMA “Dear You”, and Mandarin versus Teochew https://www.jom.media/singapore-this-week-260626/#food-suckers-for-blood

Found some time and space these past two weeks to write about food, an area I feel Jom should be doing a lot more in. Yakult and the microbiome last week, and the return of pig's blood (hooray) to our tables this week. Food: Suckers for blood South-east Asians love blood. Coagulated, tofu-like chunks of pig’s or duck’s blood float up in all manner of Thai soups, often gobbled up first thing in the morning. Laotian larb is perhaps the pinnacle of the caveman’s diet, with raw meats and fresh blood sometimes tossed with bile, to make their signature “salad”. Lawar plek, similarly, is Bali’s pork equivalent of steak tartare—with dollops of pig’s blood—and further proof, if the more common babi guling wasn’t enough, of a Hindu’s diverse diet in the world’s largest Muslim country. And the best way to invoke nostomania in your Pinoy buddy is to whisper “dinuguan”, its black, vinegary porkiness camouflaging the essential ingredient.  Vietnam’s tiết canh is perhaps the bloodiest of all, as fish sauce and broth are dripped to moderate coagulation, producing a sheet-pan red pudding then decorated with chopped offal, peanuts, and herbs—as if Dracula had been consulted on haute cuisine. Those who prefer streetside hip might tuck into duck blood curry mee in Penang, a whitish, laksa-ey broth whose textural play—coagulated cubes swimming next to tau pok, julienned ginger and chunks of siew yok—helped earn it a Michelin Bib Gourmand. And why do we all savour our blood? Reasons include Chinese influence in the region; nose-to-tail zero wastage; and nutrition, of course, with blood dense in protein, heme iron, and vitamins. Many Singaporeans grew up with coagulated blood, found everywhere from the grittier kway chap to the gentler yong tau foo. Then in March 1999, just as the Singaporean economy was rocketing back from the depths of the Asian Financial Crisis, a 47-year-old abattoir worker showed up at SGH with, as researchers described in The Lancet, “fever, headache, and confusion. His level of consciousness deteriorated rapidly over the next 12 h, and he died from what appeared to be [sic] a viral encephalitis.” Only he died, but 10 other abattoir workers were found to have antibodies of the same virus detected the year before among Malaysia’s pig-farming community, and which resulted in some 100 deaths of over 300 infected. Though Malaya has seen no new outbreaks since, the zoonotic virus whose natural host is the fruit bat, and which was later named Nipah, is still periodically reported in South Asia. Singapore’s quick closure of all abattoirs that March—and attendant banning of blood supply from locally slaughtered pigs—helped contain the outbreak, and by the end of April pig imports from an accredited farm in Indonesia had resumed. That blood itself was never again permitted has been a sore point for foodies, although if one considers the regular warnings from Vietnamese authorities about bacterial infection with tiết canh, perhaps in this case some conservatism was warranted.  Still, our thirst for blood cannot be quenched. Following industry pressure, in 2018 the Singapore Food Authority started assessing blood as an ingredient again. This April it announced that it had approved the import of heat-treated pork blood products from an accredited establishment (Thailand’s Bangkhla Pig Slaughterhouse). Since early June, 400g packs of “Pig Blood Curd” from CP Foods (S$6.95) have been flying off the shelves at supermarkets, while restaurant chains like Crystal Jade and Haidilao have added it to their menus. During this bloody interregnum, the Singaporean palate has grown far more adventurous, broadened by everything from regional budget flights to boundary-breaking influencers like Anthony Bourdain. Hopefully, with the vim of creatures returning from a parched desert, our chefs now allow their creative South-east Asian juices to flow. “I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars,” said the most famous animal-blood-drinking vampire ever, Twilight’s Bella. —-

*** Elsewhere in "Singapore This Week" at Jom Cockroach Janata Party, the newest Gen Z movement rocking a government, this time in India Laurence Lien, the only Singaporean on TIME’s 100 Philanthropy 2026 list Singapore’s jaywalking elderly Political drama, current and historical, in Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan Valentine Willie, art titan, dies Marcus Pang, public power washing art, and “simi sai call police” https://www.jom.media/singapore-this-week-120626/

Society: It’s the cockroaches Indians again Disinformation divides. From Russia’s attempts to drive a wedge between blacks and whites before the US presidential election in 2016—“intentionally pouring gasoline on racial division”, said one analyst—to China’s efforts to demonise Ukrainians as Nazis, sophisticated psyops globally destabilise societies by exploiting ethnic caricatures or divisions. Amidst the recently concluded Shangri-La Dialogue, perceived by many in China as a pro-West jamboree, it’s now Singapore’s turn. This week the government announced that it had ordered YouTube, Facebook, and X to block 14 posts, likely from a China-based platform, which “target the Indian community and undermine Singapore’s model of multiculturalism”, under the Online Criminal Harms Act. Among the narratives perpetuated: that Singapore is “overcrowded” with Indians, leading to a “concentration of curry”, alongside videos of packed Little India streets; and that Indians are overrepresented in government, with one showing Tharman Shanmugaratnam, president. No social issue enlivens Singaporeans as much as the notion of over-immigration by those derogatorily called “CECA Indians”, referencing the 2005 free trade agreement. Ho Ching and Calvin Cheng, the establishment’s social media doyens, railed against the “BS” racism online. Others, like Ravi Philemon, leader of Red Dot United, and Jack Sim, “Mr Toilet”, sought to explain the attractiveness of the disinformation, pointing to everything from housing and labour woes to the “credential inflation problem” and the “sovereign wealth paradox”. Anthea Ong, former nominated MP, suggested that societal resilience must be nurtured through a reimagination of cohesion—“the capacity to surface tensions without tearing the social fabric”—and harmony—“not the absence of conflict but the ability to remain in relationship despite conflict”. She said we must create spaces to ask “uncomfortable and necessary questions”, such as: “How much immigration is optimal?” and “How do Singaporeans experience competition?” To aid these important conversations, we believe the government must live up to its commitment to transparency. Release full immigration data, including for instance, the number of dependents and long-term visit pass holders that came to Singapore on the back of Inter-Corporate Transferees, a CECA provision. This will allow society to finally banish the idea that CECA markedly changed our demographics. Bigotry thrives in opacity. Also, given its commitment to truth, the government should encourage a full interrogation of Singapore’s historical bias against non-Chinese, beginning with the racist musings of Lee Kuan Yew. One of the claims made in the recent “criminal” videos was that Singapore’s stability cannot be attributed to its multiracial policy, but to its majority Chinese demographic. Wonder where they got that from. In 1989, Lee said that the lower Chinese birth rate justified the government’s programme of encouraging Chinese immigration from Hong Kong. According to him, the Chinese majority must be maintained, “or there will be a shift in the economy, both the economic performance and the political backdrop which makes that economic performance possible.” He implemented a discriminatory policy, still maintained, to give preference to Chinese immigrants, in order to ensure that the Chinese never lose their supermajority status. Some “global” city, huh. (The policy’s been laughably repackaged in recent times as minority protection.) So even as the government does the important work of censoring racist and hate speech, it must also engage in the more difficult job of fostering a more open, honest, collaborative public discourse about race and immigration. Otherwise, particularly in this AI-fuelled era, we’ll simply be engaged in an endless game of whack a mole—without understanding why they keep popping up in the first place. Some further reading: In “Why always LKY?”, Jom argues that Singapore’s preferred ahistorical approach to dealing with contemporary issues is a mistake.

We've been discussing the above story, Pritam, WP, etc on our new Jom on Tele channel. Do join that if you'd like to see/join the convo! https://t.me/jomontelegram (Don't think I'll be opening this personal channel to comments anytime soon, just unsure if i have the time to monitor and moderate, that's all....)

Raeesah, who floated into Parliament citing American activist Angela Davis and criticising policing, represents the party’s dalliance with what’s come to be known, often derogatorily, as wokeism. In the annals of the global anti-woke backlash that’s helped elevate Trump 2.0 and others, the convoluted struggles of one Singaporean politician will hardly register. Sebagai api dalam sekam, like fire smouldering in padi husks, is a Malay peribahasa that depicts a quiet, stealthy danger. In a few weeks we’ll find out if Singh, and possibly the WP, have been badly burnt; or, conversely, if the fields of doubt have finally been razed, leaving a rejuvenated Singh to usher in a period of regrowth. *** Elsewhere in "Singapore This Week" at Jom Given Hegseth’s mocking of it, and China’s “low-level” participation, is the Shangri-La Dialogue still relevant? How worried should you be, medically, about savouring wok hei and charred foods? Pink Dot returns, refreshed “Samarang”, a 1933 film set here, and the experience of lost cinematic rituals Obituary of Lionel Tan, violist and co-founder of the T’ang Quartet https://www.jom.media/singapore-this-week-050626/

Politics: One smouldering Raeesah Shangri-La in Orchard, and an inferno in Geylang. Almost five years after Raeesah Khan, then MP with the Workers’ Party (WP), lied in Parliament, Pritam Singh, WP secretary-general, is still dealing with the fallout. This week, somebody leaked a notice to CNA about a special cadres conference on June 28th, “arising from a requisition from 25 cadre members”, or about a quarter of the (reported) 100 total. Their ultimatum to Singh: offer to step down as party chief or face a secret vote. Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at SMU, called it the “first overt challenge—to the Pritam Singh-led WP leadership”. To understand how we got here, consider Raeesahgate from last December, when Singh lost his High Court appeal following his conviction for lying to Parliament’s Committee of Privileges. “While I am disappointed with the verdict, I respect and accept the judgment fully and without reservation,” he said. The S$14,000 fine didn’t prevent him from continuing as a parliamentarian. But in January this year, Lawrence Wong, prime minister, stripped Singh of his leader of the opposition title following parliamentary censure. (Singh’s rebuttal referenced Tharman Shanmugaratnam, president, who’d also disagreed with his own criminal conviction.) The WP’s internal investigation concluded in April. Noting that Singh’s behaviour reflected judgement calls—including how to empathetically deal with Raeesah, herself a sexual assault survivor—rather than ill intent, its Central Executive Committee (CEC) issued him a “formal letter of reprimand”. Cadres first requested a special meeting last December. That it’s proceeding despite the reprimand suggests that some are still dissatisfied. Their noon meeting will be followed by the WP’s biennial CEC election. Singh remains incredibly popular both amongst the public—his initial guilty conviction hardly affected his electoral performance—and within the party. On Wednesday, members and volunteers were in buoyant mood at the launch of “StepUp: The Workers’ Party of Singapore 2.0 — The Road to GE2025 and Beyond”, a book co-authored by political historian Loke Hoe Yeong and former WP MP Yee Jenn Jong. “My vote is not secret. I’m going to support Pritam”, said Yee. Like many in Singapore, he believes Pritam is just the latest in a long line of WP leaders to be targeted by the PAP. Yet some cadres will wonder how to reconcile that with respect for an independent judiciary’s findings. A “convicted liar” as leader? How is it that Singh gets off lightly while Raeesah and (another former MP) Leon Perera were (effectively) booted out for…lying? The usual false equivalence retorts, including with the politicised COP origins of Singh’s lie, will for some be academic. That Gerald Giam, MP and head of policy research, is chairing the special meeting will also invite questions about factionalism amongst the WP’s seniormost politicians. (The WP did not respond to a question about whether Giam is one of the 25.) A final concern will be about the mentor-mentee relationship. “It has to be careful with the people it fields,” Yee replied, when asked about the party’s mistakes. He then referenced Raeesah: “not mature enough”, “don’t do your homework”, “no correction made” even after Singh pointed out a problem in a speech. “It's the responsibility of the person that we put out there,” he said, appearing to absolve her early champion, Singh. But surely there are others who blame him for picking her.

Jom now has an official Tele group! Our recent Tele Book Club, featuring Unease by Teo You Yenn, was such a success that we've decided to try sparking conversations about our weekly content as well. Once a week, we’ll post articles/blurbs there for us to talk about. Look out for the first one, “The Fight for Singapore’s Wild Spaces”, which looks at ecology, land use, and environmental activism in SG. We published it on Friday, it's outside the paywall, and the author, Yi Feng, has kindly agreed to join us for the Tele chat. Join: https://t.me/jomontelegram

Our Jomfest page is live! You'll find the updated programme, panel descriptions, speaker images and bios, FAQs, and our sponsor and partner list. Jomfest: Striving from the margins In a time of intense global turmoil, with immense human suffering across the world, there is much for us all to be thankful for in this city state we call home. Yet beneath the glittering facade lies the harsh reality of gross inequalities, the intense rat race, and entrenched societal definitions of, and pathways to, “success”. Our inaugural Jomfest is a celebration of those striving on the margins: those seeking to nurture a more compassionate, egalitarian, and inclusive educational system; those nurturing artistic communities by creating spaces where interdependencies can flourish, and liberate individuals from unforgiving market conditions; those pushing our conceptions of food and heritage beyond tourist-driven caricatures; and those who, despite seemingly impossible odds, continue to push us to greater sporting heights. Join us to hear from, and talk to, these incredible people who’re helping shape a gentler, kinder, more forgiving Singapore. https://www.jom.media/jomfest2026/

Separately, though related, we will soon be kicking off our first-ever book club, running Apr 7th-May 11th. This one's free, anybody at all is welcome to join, Jom subscriber or not. Please join our Book club Telegram group now: bit.ly/jom-unease-tele

Hi friends, please join us on May 19th for Jomfest, our first big ideas festival! Been a lot of work pulling this together, but glad it's finally happening. Our great lineup of speakers: Pooja Bhandari, founder, EveryChild.SG Usha Chandradas, co-founder, Plural Art Mag May Ooi, former Olympic swimmer turned MMA fighter Anugerah Murni, co-founder, Sendok Rakyat Quah Ting Wen, three-time Olympian and national swimmer for Team Singapore Vasunthara Ramasamy, chef and MasterChef Season 2 Finalist Aditi Shivaramakrishnan, writer, editor, and arts worker Teo You Yenn, sociologist and author, This Is What Inequality Looks Like Toffa Wahed, researcher, librarian, and publisher, The Lemongrass Press UK Shyam, former national athlete and 100m record holder XUE, founder, Singapore Butoh Collective Yeo Min, co-founder, Museum of Food This is the last week to purchase early-bird tickets (till Apr 13th). Get them now. https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/lite_jomfest2026

Last year’s Jom print essay, about Faezah Shaharuddin and Sharifah Maznah, was the first time I so deliberately conceptualised visuals and text, what you see, when you see them, as your gaze moves across the page. While writing, my artistic process seemed to enter a new phase, image and words interacting and circulating in my mind in a way never before. Mostly thanks to Jaya Khidir. We’d collaborated before, on a satirical housing series in Jom’s first print issue. Kali kedua, I felt a deeper synchronicity. Corrie Tan, the print editor, had decided on the themes of magic, movement, and materiality. This forced me to reimagine what had been a traditional profile of mum and daughter into one about materiality and movement, the lineages of wood and women. Hearing that, Jaya just jammed. He decided to use long exposure to capture actual movement within the photographs. In the final image in the book, you see Faezah sitting, on her favourite chair, with poise, elegantly, “properly”. But if you look closer you’ll also see her moments before, leaning to her right, elbow on the chair’s arm, chin cupped in hand, chilled out, an homage to the little(r) girl and past self that’s captured in archival photos, the movement from adolescence to established artist implied. (Aside: she’s just opened a studio in NYC.) The first photo here is Jaya capturing that. The second is the interview with Faezah and hubby Ian Snyder. Thanks also to Liyana Batrisyia, sitting (unseen) next to me, for the research help. I don’t like to dwell too much on identity, but of course ethnicity and intersectionality and all the rest of it is important, and it wasn’t lost on me that I was writing about two incredible Malay women artist/entrepreneurs, in collaboration with two incredible Malay artists/researchers. (Oh ya—and one really cool white guy.) I’ve been wanting to write about this favouritest piece of mine for a while, but only just found the time—if keen, you can read at Casual Poet’s Library, there’s a browsing copy there.