Last night of River Hongbao 2010 to be organized as “National Integration Night” for new immigrants
February 6th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
It appears that new immigrants have been on the minds of Singapore leaders lately with every measure taken to make them feel welcomed in Singapore.
Besides collaborating with the Chengdu City government in co-hosting the River Hongbao this year, the last night “would specially be organized as the National Integration Night when activities are organized to integrate new immigrants so that all residents could celebrate the Chinese New Year and soak in the festive atmosphere together.”
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province located in the southwestern part of China.
The five key organisers for this event are Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations, People’s Association, Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Singapore Tourism Board
The River Hongbao is a week of festivities held yearly to celebrate Chinese New Year. This is the first time that it will involve an external organization outside Singapore. It is not revealed if the $10-million Community Integration Fund will be tapped on to organize the “National Integration Night”.
Singapore has seen an influx of new immigrants from China in recent years as a result of the ruling party’s liberal immigration policies to boost Singapore’s declining birth via immigrantion.
Many of them are unable to speak English and come as construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes, but are still given Singapore PRs and citizenships.
MM Lee Kuan Yew said in a recent interview with the National Geographic magazine that it is a “good thing” that Singapore has welcomed so many new immigrants from China as they are more “hard-driving” and “hard-striving” than locals.
A $10 million Community Integration Fund was unveiled last year to help them integrate into Singapore society. It has been used to organize events for the immigrants and to provide free English language classes for them.
Mr Lim Swee Say, Advisor of the Singapore-Sichuan Trade and Investment Committee (SSTIC), said:
“Sichuan and Singapore are close partners in trade and investment. I am happy to see this collaboration being extended to River Hongbao and Chengdu. It serves to promote both trade and cultural exchanges between us. My best wishes for a successful staging of River Hongbao!”
The new China immigrants will not feel left out in Singapore as there is already a sizable number of them here. Certain parts of Singapore like Geylang now resembles more like provinces in China.
Despite widespread frustration, resentment and anger on the ground at the influx of foreigners, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said lately that there would not be a “turnaround” in the government’s “foreign talent” policy and the number of foreign workers may actually increase though the rate of their inflow may slow down in the next few years.
Foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990.
At the rate the ruling party is mass importing foreigners into Singapore, it is only a matter of time before native Singaporeans become a minority in their own country.
Perhaps in a decade’s time, River Hongbao will have an “National Integration Night” solely for local born Singaporeans to be “reintegrated” into a new Singapore dominated by mainland Chinese.
Posted in Headlines
35 Responses to “Last night of River Hongbao 2010 to be organized as “National Integration Night” for new immigrants”
Loading ...
Alex Tan Allan Ooi AWARE Chee Soon Juan Chiam See Tong Claire Lee David Widjaja DBS Dr Allan Ooi Dr Silviu Ionescu Foyce Le Xuan George Yeo GIC highnote5 highnotes5 Hong Lim Park Jack Lin Xinli Jack Neo Jack Neo affair Jack Neo press conference Jack Neo scandal Josie Lau Josie Lau Meng Lee Lee Kuan Yew Lehman brothers Lighthouse Evangelism Malaysia MAS minibonds Miss Singapore World NTU stabbing Pastor Rony Tan Ris Low Romanian diplomat in hit-and-run Rony Tan S-League Sex silviu ionescu Singapore Tan Kin Lian Thio Su Mien Tiger Woods affair Tong Kok Wai Top 8 Wendy Chong
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
How about doing something for citizens??
any flip to the pro-immigration policies.
What else do you expect from LHL/LSS
the govt can achieve better integration if they spend the $10-million to improve the living of the lower income S’poreans instead.
It is getting so much clearer now! First they open the floodgate to allow influx of immigrants, then they give them all the benefits of citizens, then followed by expedited PRships and finally spped up their citizenships approval! If I am a new immigrant from lesser developed parts of China I will automatically give my vote to PAP during the GE! Any idiots can see through their ploy as PAP knows that they are losing support among local born Singaporeans, especially the younger voters and they resort to importing new Singaporeans who do not understanding out local socio-political history and PAP! They are not only fearful of losing power but the inevitable legal backlashes from independent inquiries into the financial records of GIC and Temasek Holdings, not to mention what other skeletons that are in their closets! This could result in the complete dismantling of LKY’s political legacy and not to mention delegating his precious memoirs to the fairy tale section of National Library! Fellow Singaporeans, please open your eyes and see the potential disaster that we and our children will face if the current insane immigration policy is not reversed! We must vote them out this coming GE as if we miss this chance, the new citizens can potentially tip the votes in PAP’s favour for another few decades!
but the new immigrants or FT or PR or transient workers or watever all don’t want to integrate. what can you do?
simgapore is already a “society” in its free fall. I have read recently in the internet, that there are a lot of comments from other countries correspondents writing their negative views on the singapore government. pap immigration policies and their million dollar salary are two most hottest discussion.
Don’t you all think that pap treat singaporeans as idiot, by trying to glorify themselves with million of dollars over their disgusting Foreign Talent policies.
Mmm … increasingly, Temasek Review’s articles take on a polemic, almost childish, tone instead of a nuanced and rational one to air its opposition to the Government’s immigration policies. “Many of them are unable to speak English and come as construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes, but are still given Singapore PRs and citizenships”? That sounded almost childish and dripping with venom – almost similar to the Malaysian PM’s former aide Nasir Safar’s recent widely-reported odious statement that “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially the women came to sell their bodies.” If Temasek Review wants to be a real voice of opposing viewpoints to the Government’s official one, it will have to do better than this. Much better. Otherwise you’ll just come across as being prejudiced snobs.
Just because you were born in Singapore, you think that you are so superior. You mean that your forefathers were not poor manual labourers, who also did not speak a word of English? Even if they were rich merchants, I doubt that they were as snobbish as you are.
It is also sad that you still don’t know the difference between foreign talent and foreign workers.
now they know hongbao is no more enticing to the locals as many locals have waken up and decided to vote them out.
their desperate move is to give away hongbao and all sorts of benefits to win the New Citizens, and their votes of course.
the new citizens will later also realise the hongbao given to them will be taken back more than double after the election, just as the locals realise after many rounds of election.
I think the pigs are now worried that there is another dip in Economy.
So, they deliberately change their tone on immigrants again (with Goh talking cock again).
Then there is a pressure on election nearing.
We must not give them any chance.
The power of 30 opposition mp:
1. PAP cannot anyhow vote in any changes to the constitution.
2. PAP need to convince the opposition (at least 1 of them) to change the law.
3. 30 opposition members is necessary to check on the PAP to ensure they do their work.
4. Opposition members of parliament have been humble and responsible.
5. if we don’t like the opposition members, we can easily replace them.
6. PAP will try to squeeze out these opposition members and will check on them like crazy too to win back these high paying jobs.
7. So, we don’t need to worry opposition not doing their work.
At the end, the populace win.
Isn’t River Hong Bao supposed to be for celebrating Chinese New Year??????
Why did PAP hijack it to become a “national integration” program. Disgusting to the core!!!!
What next? Hijack Hari Raya for “integration” program as well?????
Why don’t the ministers set an example????
Why don’t each of our chinese ministers invite a dozen foreign workers to their homes during Chinese New Year. Let these foreigners seat on their branded sofas, swim in their olympic sized pools, chat with their kids. How about that, dear ministers????
Remember the construction marketing manager from China given PR and caught naked in a KTV lounge and later found to have lied about her degree qualifications.
If she had not been caught literally naked, she would still be a GENUINE FOREIGN TALENT and given singapore shitizenship in due course and unfairly denying a genuinely qualified singaporean her job.
This is the sort of trash PAP mass imports into Singapore.
物极必反
Oh yeah man!!! Oh I just can’t wait! I really look forward to the day when I have RE-INTEGRATE back into a society I was BORN AND GREW UP in. Way to go our dear ministers!
To the albino vampires:
ooIoo
We , the citiens will be rewarded . 1st to be sack , 1st to get GST increase , 1st to force to retire .
That’s one of the highest percentages of foreigners anywhere I believe and a token of tolerance should I say. As for population statistics and other statistical data etc.: I have posted a Statistical Reference Inventory (http://crisismaven.wordpress.com/references/) to my economics blog with economic and statistical data series, history, bibliographies etc. for students & researchers, probably the most comprehensive on the Internet. Currently over 300 meta sources, it will soon grow to over a thousand. Check it out and if you miss something, feel free to leave a comment.
I hope elections will be held soon. I can’t wait to vote for the opposition.
We don’t want integration. We want the foreigners/ new immigrants to ASSIMILATE.
The PAP knows that immigration policy will be a red hot issue in the upcoming GE. Such events are held to reinforce the impression that immigration policies have worked, everything is fine and dandy, hey, no problems at all. Be grateful.
Expect the propaganda machine to step up a few gears from now on.
My mom wants to go to the Philippines to get a job cos she cant get one here.
Oh the glorious, delicious irony.
On that night, Imported Citizens will be FLOODING the place and given the sentiments on the gound against the massive influc, the gahment might want to consider NOT allowing Sinkaporeans (true blue) to be there else something very very bad is going to happen if any small spark is ignited.
Sinkaporeans is best advised to STAY CLEAR on that night NOT for boycott or protest sake, but for SECURITY and SAFETY sake.
But then for those who have never been to China, surely can go on that night look see look see cause it would look like some city in SzeChuan.
I for one, will not let the current party dismantle the country that our forefathers have built up.
WE MUST WORK TOGETHER FOR EVERYONE’S FUTURE, AS TRUE BLOODED SINGAPOREANS!
we are quite the nation of party animals
MC: Singaporeans are you ready to party? Lets make some noise!!
Singaporeans: *cross arm and stare*
wohoohoooo! party time! party animals !!!
yeah!! shake that booty, come on shake it !!! i will be there parteeeeeing with our new citizens and prs!!!
dont hate you suckers!!! wohooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
shake that thing…shake that thing..come on..shake that thing…
it sucks partying with singaporeans
i am glad to party with my bangladeshi,indian,chinese,philipino brothers!!!
anyone going for it!! wohooo!!! we are party animals babeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Better vote the Lee PAP out, before citizen becomes new immigrants or when Lee declare Singapore as China province.
We need to help ourselves by voting in majority of opposition party MPs into parliament and enact laws to force companies to employ at least 50% of NSMen as their staff. If PAP still can win two-third majority in this coming GE, they will bring in at least another 1 million foreigners, mainly from China. If you don’t believe, see this news, they are so many waiting to come to Singapore:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_487270.html
THEY SHOULD DIRECT THE MONEY TO HELP THE POOR, like indicated below.
No One Will Be Left Behind [ JUST LEFT ASIDE TO DIE ]
http://news.asiaone.com/News/NDP+Rally+2007/NDP+Rally+2007.html
Singaporeans Comes First For Govt [ FIRST TO BE LEFT BEHIND ]
http://news.asiaone.com/News/the%2BStraits%2BTimes/Story/A1Story20100101-189132.html
I also hope to understand more about the new Singaporeans.
walau !
very soon we native singaporeans become the minority new citizens……..
Every here !!!!! we need to seriously discuss this matter with our family, relatives and friends what action need to be done before it it too late
wow , what a way to unite new citizens. Would not the new citizens be grateful to the PA which is ….
We might be like the Aussie Aborigines.
At the river hongbao, suddenly there was a 50-year freak flood and many ft and new citizens were swept into the sea. Incidentally, no Singaporeans were affected. The possibility is that the Singaporeans had deeper roots compared to the FTs and new citizens and thus were not so easily swept away by the flood waters.
i’m sorry, but this article is ridiculous. yes, its another one of those silly stat-board organised “community” events, and yes, its got a ridiculous name and concept behind it, maybe it can be construed as something – but so what? ITS SUCH A MINOR LITTLE EVENT.
but of course, any event can have YOUR spin put on it.
“Many of them are unable to speak English and come as construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes, but are still given Singapore PRs and citizenships.”
have i never seen a more gross overgeneralisation??? falsely conflating level of skill, literacy with the issue of citizenship/PR when citizenship and PR is more an issue of LOYALTY.
when all the articles are written specifically to appeal to emotions rather than being informative or objective, then how can i take what you write seriously?
each time i read it, Temasek Review become more and more disingenuous – seizing on small incidents and making them out to be “symbolic examples” and then giving everyone stupid names (which i cringe at). and then the comments are full of people seemingly brainwashed or oblivious to the small-mindedness of the writing. in a way its brainwashing all the same.
i’d say its more important for more people to be INFORMED or engaged with issues (and not just riled up by emotions thru some clever twist on words), and to let them make their own decision from there.