“If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society. The men don’t believe me. Every year, I produce them the results. You marry that kind of a wife, you get this kind of a result. They close their minds. I think we are not going to become as good a society as we were with each generation … This is the basic stock of success. If you don’t have this, you can have the best human resources programme, but your human resource is poor.
“In the older generations, economics and culture settled it. The pattern of procreation was settled by economics and culture. The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more wives you have, the more children you have. That’s the way it was settled. I am the son of a successful chap. I myself am successful, so I marry young and I marry more wives and I have more children. You read Hong Lou Meng, A Dream of the Red Chamber, or you read Jin Ping Mei, and you’ll find Chinese society in the 16th, 17th century described. So the successful merchant or the mandarin, he gets the pick of all the rich men’s daughters and the prettiest village girls and has probably five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten different wives and concubines and many children. And the poor labourer who’s dumb and slow, he’s neutered. It’s like the lion or the stag that’s outside the flock. He has no harems, so he does not pass his genes down. So, in that way, a smarter population emerges.
“Now, we are into a stage of disgenics – not eugenics – where the smarter you are, the more successful you are, the more you calculate. And you say, look, yes, for the good of society, I should have five children, but what’s the benefit to me? And the wife says, What? Five children? We can’t go on holidays. So one is enough, or at the most two. The people at the lower end – in our three-room flats, two-rooms – some of them have 10, 12 to 14 children.
“So what happens? There will be less bright people to support more dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem. And we are unable to take firmer measures because the prevailing sentiment is against it. But these are the realities. You cannot disapprove of it and say it’s a pity that it should work that way. That’s the way procreation has been structured by nature. And we are going about it in an obtuse and idiotic way.”
For Lee then, while individuals were free to choose whom they married, their collective decisions would have a profound effect on the nature of the society in future. This was not something governments could choose to ignore. A society’s human stock, the cultural traits its people were imbued with, and the ethos of the society, he believed, were crucial factors in its success. It is to these matters that we turn to in the next chapter.
A Japanese executive chef in Singapore’s Shangri-La. Lee was an admirer of Japanese culture, believing that it was the Japanese instinct to do a job well, whether it was shoe polishing or being an ace chef, that had helped the country rebuild after World War II. “If you want to succeed, that is the kind of society you have to be … whatever you do, do to the best of your ability.”
8
Culture, the X-Factor
At the basement of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo is a shoe polishing station manned by two elderly Japanese who, for 700 yen, will give you the shiniest pair of shoes you have ever seen. Their prowess with wax and brush was chanced upon by Lee Kuan Yew while on a visit to the city in 1994. He paid them this glowing tribute.
“I have never seen such a shine on a pair of shoes. No army shoes or pair of boots shone like the two that I saw there. What they did, including polishing shoes, they did well. That’s the first thing I learnt about the Japanese. If you want to succeed, that is the kind of society you have to be. Whatever you can do, do to the best of your ability. They have succeeded!
“Another anecdote. I was in Takamatsu, which is on Shikoku island, after a Tokyo visit in the 1970s. This was a very small little hotel in Shikoku, the capital of the province. The governor gave me dinner. When it came to fruit time, the cook came out … it was persimmon time because it was October. And he demonstrated his skills and peeled the persimmon in our presence and formed beautiful shapes on a plate and served the persimmon. He was an ordinary chef, but he did his job to perfection. It became an art. So I asked, ‘How many years?’ Three to five years as an apprentice to learn how to cut and do simple things. And he has become the chief chef after 15 years, but the pride with which he did his job!
“It’s not just the person who can paint a beautiful picture who’s an artist. In his way, as a chef, he was an artist and he gave pleasure. Well, there is something in the culture that makes the Japanese admire people who do their job well. … If that’s what you can do, okay, let’s see how well you do it. And that has created a successful Japan.”
Lee had long pondered why some people, or societies, were better – more skilled, hard-driving, predisposed to success – than others. Why indeed were some communities able to progress faster? How is it certain ethnic groups were more driven in the pursuit of material wealth? What explained the dominance of some races in the upper echelons in societies, or in certain professions? Why did they emerge ahead of other ethnic groups in multiracial settings? Was it in the genes, a product of history, or both?
These were not just the philosophical musings of a curious intellect. They were practical matters Lee believed had to be addressed if a society was to succeed and stay ahead. The answers to these questions were crucial if one were to understand the forces working with, or against, a people in their effort to improve their lot. He had to know. And he believed that any government that was interested in achieving better standards of living for its people would also have to face these issues squarely, touchy and thorny though they may be.
He grappled with these questions for many years. What was it, for example, that made the Jews renowned for their shrewdness and intellectual prowess? Why were Jews from some backgrounds more successful than others? One answer was suggested to him by an American Jew he met.
“I’ve always wondered: why are the Jews so extraordinarily smart and why are the European Jews smarter than the Arab Jews? If you look at the Nobel Prize winners, they tend to be Ashkenazi Jews, not Sephardi Jews. (I was reading a book called The Jewish Mystique. It was recommended to me by a Jewish banker, an American Jew, a top American banker.) Its explanation, I did not know this, was that from the 10th to 11th century in Europe, in Ashkenazim, the practice developed of the rabbi becoming the most desirable son-in-law because he is usually the brightest in the flock. He can master Hebrew, he can master the local language and he can teach it. So he becomes the son-in-law of the richest and the wealthiest. He marries young, is successful, probably bright. He has large numbers of children and the brightest of his children will became the rabbi and so it goes on. It’s been going on for nine, ten centuries. The same thing did not happen among the Sephardis, they did not have this practice. So one had a different pattern of procreation from the other, and so we have today’s difference. That was his explanation.
“The Catholic Church had a different philosophy. All the bright young men became Catholic priests and did not marry. Bright priests, celibate, produce no children. And the result of several generations of bright Fathers producing no children? Less bright children in the Catholic world.
“In the older generations, the pattern of procreation was settled by economics and culture. The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more wives you have, the more children you have. That’s the way it was settled.”
Closer to home, Lee noted similarly striking differences between the various ethnic groups in multiracial Singapore, as well as among various subgroups within each race. Looking around him in the Singapore Cabinet, he found a disproportionate number of Teochew Chinese, whose ancestors hailed from villages in southern China, as well as Hakkas, Lee’s own dialect group. He did not believe this was pure chance.
“Look at the number of smart Teochews there are … just count them. Teo Chee Hean, Lim Hng Kiang, George Yeo, Lim Boon Heng. Is it a coincidence? In a Cabin
et of 15, how do you explain that? For that matter, the Hakkas consider themselves very special too. They are tough, resourceful, they were latecomers who got squeezed to the mountainous areas of the south when they came from the north. They were the only Chinese group that did not bind their women’s feet, because they lived on hilly terrain, had to make a living and couldn’t afford to have women with feet bound. You also have more Hakkas in the Cabinet than are represented in the population. They are supposed to be harder-working, tougher and therefore higher-achievers. So there are these differences even within the races.”
Teochew – The second most prevalent Chinese dialect group in Singapore, with 212,600 speakers. Top on the list is Hokkien (465,500) and third is Cantonese (203,400).
What the porters told Lee
Lee’s observations of ethnic and cultural differences began as early as his student days in Cambridge and were to continue throughout his life during his many travels abroad.
“I visited Europe during my vacation (as a student) and then saw India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Japan, Germany … You look for societies which have been more successful and you ask yourself why. On my first visit to Germany, in 1956, we had to stop in Frankfurt on our way to London. We had [earlier] stopped in Rome. This languid Italian voice over the loudspeaker said something … And there were Italian workers trundling trolleys at the airport. It was so relaxed, the atmosphere and the pace of work.
“Then the next stop was Frankfurt. And immediately, the climate was a bit cooler and chillier. And a voice came across the loudspeaker: “Achtung! Achtung!” The chaps were the same, porters, but bigger-sized and trundling away. These were people who were defeated and completely destroyed and they were rebuilding. I could sense the goal, the dynamism.
“Then Britain – well, they were languid, gentlemanly. With welfare, the British workers were no longer striving. They were getting West Indians to do the dirty jobs as garbage collectors, dustmen, conductors. They were still drivers because that was highly paid, the conductors were paid less.
“So one was looking for a soft life, the other was rebuilding and pushing. That made a vivid impression, a very deep impression on me.
“I also visited Switzerland when I was a student in ’47, ’48, on holiday. I came down by train from Paris to Geneva. Paris was black bread, dirty, after the war. I arrived at Geneva that morning, sleeping overnight. It was marvellous. Clean, beautiful, swept streets, nice buildings, marvellous white pillowcases and sheets, white bread after dark dirty bread and abundant food and so on. But hardworking, punctilious, the way they did your bed and cleaned up your rooms. It told me something about why some people succeed and some people don’t. Switzerland has a small population. If they didn’t have those qualities, they would have been overrun and Germany would have taken one part and the French another, the Italians would have taken another part. And that’s the end of them.
“… the Japanese. Yes, I disliked their bullying and their hitting people and torturing people [during the Japanese Occupation], a brutal way of dealing with people. But they have admirable qualities. And in defeat, I admired them. For weeks, months, they were made, as prisoners, to clean the streets in Orchard Road, Esplanade and I used to watch them. Shirtless, in their dirty trousers but doing a good job. You want me to clean up? Okay, I clean up, that’s my job. None of this reluctance, you know, and humiliated shame. My job is to clean up; all right, I clean up. I think that spirit rebuilt Japan. It was a certain attitude to life. That assured their success.”
These impressions had a lasting impact on Lee. They confirmed in his mind the idea that there were profound forces which shaped, and continue to influence, the qualities of peoples. To understand these, he believed one had to delve deep into history, as well as the collective memories of a community.
“If you read the history of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, you will find that a different culture developed in East Asia, primarily from China, that slowly spread over the whole of East Asia – Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Up to 800, 900 years ago, Vietnam and Korea were part of China. And even when they were not part of China, they were vassals or tributary states that acknowledged China as supreme. They all used the Chinese script. Vietnam used the Chinese script. The Vietnamese have Chinese names. You can render their names into Chinese … an Italian priest came along and romanised it. And the Koreans too, they still use Chinese script. And the Japanese.
“Buddhism was an overlay. When Buddhism got imported from India into China, and into Japan from China, from Dunhuang where the Buddhist caves were, Buddhism was transformed. It is not the difference between Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism. The difference was there in East Asian culture, already in being, when Buddhism was imported slightly more than 2,000 years ago. So Buddhism underwent a change and it became Mahayana Buddhism to fit in with a different culture. Even in their meditation techniques, between the Chinese and the Japanese, there’s a slight difference. Because when Buddhism reached Japan, it underwent another transformation, it got ‘Japanised’. I have been to these Buddhist temples. Zen Buddhists, theirs is a stricter discipline. There is a certain Japaneseness about it.
“But throughout East Asia, because they were influenced by China and probably not just by culture alone, there must have been a lot of similar genes, similar stock, probably the physical makeup was not very different, so they were very intense types, hard-driving, hard-striving people. Whereas if you go to India, you’ll find sadhus, holy men, people who abjure the world, who go around giving land away or begging from the rich to give to the poor. It’s a totally different culture. There’s the sort of Gandhi saintliness. It’s not the model in China. In China, the model is either Three Kingdoms or Shui Hu Zhuan, Water Margin, the kind of hero who forms a robber band and kills off wealthy people. You don’t go begging from the wealthy to give to the poor. You just kill the wealthy and take from them.
“So it is a completely different philosophy to guide a man in life. The Indians have a more tolerant and forgiving approach to life. More next-worldly. If you do good, then in the next world you’ll get rewarded.”
These observations led Lee to conclude that nature and nurture had combined to produce distinct “tribes” or ethnic groups which were different in their genetic and cultural makeup. Some of these were more predisposed to success. At one time, he contended that as much as 80 per cent of this was due to nature. Later, rather than become embroiled in the ongoing nature versus nurture debate, he would assert that whatever the relative importance of the two factors, there was no denying one central fact: that, willy-nilly, culture was a key determinant of the success of certain groups over the years. In this regard, not all men or cultures were equal, Lee believed, contrary to the politically correct cultural relativism of the day.
“I started off believing all men were equal … I now know that’s the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils.
“You take the American Red Indian. He is genetically a Mongolian or Mongoloid, the same as the Chinese and the Koreans. But they crossed over, according to the anthropologists and the geologists, when the Bering Straits was a bridge between America and Asia. But for a few thousand years, in Asia, they had invading armies to-ing and fro-ing, huge infusions of different kinds of genes into the population from Genghis Khan, from the Mongols, from the Manchus, God knows how many invasions. And in the other, isolation, with only the buffaloes, until the white men came and they were weak and defenceless against white men’s diseases and were eliminated. So whilst they were identical in stock, origin, they ended up different.
“I didn’t start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I’ve come to.
“This is something which I have read and I tested against my observat
ions. We read many things. The fact that it’s in print and repeated by three, four authors does not make it true. They may all be wrong. But through my own experience, meeting people, talking to them, watching them, I concluded: yes, there is this difference. Then it becomes part of the accepted facts of life, for me.”
The cultural X-factor
But being “part of the accepted facts of life”, as Lee put it, did not mean that these observations were only to shape his intellectual map of the world about him. More importantly, they were to influence profoundly his thinking on the best approach to economic and social development. Understanding the cultural forces at work in the region where Singapore was situated was a significant part of the process of transforming it into the economic dynamo it is today. Without such an awareness of the cultural ethos at work, government policies were doomed to either failure or raising false hopes, Lee believed. In other words, to succeed, a society’s leaders would have to know the nature of the people they were charged with.
If we get swine fever, we’ll tell the world
The remarkable thing about Lee’s belief in culture as an important factor for success is his willingness to bring it out into the open even though he knew it might cause offence in multiracial Singapore. To a large extent, few others could have done it – be so brutally frank and yet cause no violent reaction among the population. Singaporeans have come to accept his style and indeed expect no less from him.
Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas Page 22