Singapore's Kiasu Syndrome - An Excerpt

Asia Inc Sept 93

SOCIETY: Singapore's Kiasu syndrome

Sept 1993

Capitalizing On Kiasu
Three Enterprising Singaporeans have Turned a Local Word into a Money-Making, Attention-Grabbing Concept, and The World is Noticing.


Singapore. On a tour abroad, do you recall seeing the tourist who rushed onto the bus, chose the best seat and then put bags, camera, sunglasses and every other possession on the seats around him to reserve them for family and friends?

* At a department store sale, have you noticed the shopaholic who grabs everything in sight and decides at the cashier's counter whether

to buy it or not? And if short on cash, he hides the bargain-basement offer elsewhere in the store so that he can buy it later?

* At elegant resorts have you seen the tour group that brings plastic flasks to the breakfast buffet and fills them with freshly squeezed orange juice?

If your answer to any of the above is "yes," chances are you've met the boorish grab-all-you-can person, whom the Hokkien Chinese call Kiasu, or one who is afraid to lose out. Every nationality has its own Kiasu-types, but Singaporeans have coined a word and mascot for it. Now fast- food king McDonald's Corp. has even put its stamp of approval on the concept with the local introduction of a chicken sandwich with extra lettuce, extra sauce, extra-long buns and 47 sesame seeds, aptly called the Kiasu Burger. Explains Fanny Lai, McDonald's marketing manager in Singapore: "A year ago we identified Mr. Kiasu as a popular local cartoon character and began conceptualizing our marketing plans with its creators."

And in Singapore, when McDonald's talks, people listen. As the republic's biggest advertiser, McDonald's spends over $4 million annually on advertising and promotions. The Kiasu campaign cost the chain nearly $433,000, and the burgers practically flew out the door. McDonald's expected to sell 1.5 million Kiasu burgers nationwide during the 10-week promotion, which began in late May; it sold 600,000 in the first three weeks. One marketing gimmick when the burger was launched: People who showed up at 6:30 a.m. could buy the burger for one Singapore cent. As many as 135 were sold in half an hour, with Kiasu Singaporeans queuing up as if it was the last sale on Orchard Road.

McDonald's promotion of the Kiasu Burger is part of a worldwide trend for international advertisers to localize their marketing efforts. "Singapore is a global city, an open market, so Kiasuism is one of the few things uniquely Singaporean that sets Singapore apart from the rest of Southeast Asia," says Jamie Pfaff, creative director at Leo Burnett Pte. Ltd., which handles McDonald's account in the U.S. and three Asian countries. "There is a lot of homegrown pride among some Chinese Singaporeans that one of their terms is getting acceptance from a global organization like McDonald's."

Kiasu didn't always have such positive connotations and still remains a somewhat hazy concept. Originally, it was a derisive term used by Singapore's National Servicemen to describe the recruit who tried extra hard to impress his sergeants at boot camp. It began trickling into the civilian vocabulary in 1990, thanks in part to the creativity of three enterprising Singaporeans -- James Suresh, 37; Johnny Lau, 29; and Lim Yu Cheng, 25 -- who met during their army days. They gave form to the word, creating a cartoon character named Mr. Kiasu who spoke Singlish (Everything also in Singaporean English can, lah), wore loud ties, always wanted the best of everything, had a girlfriend called Ai Swee and a dog with a pager. The cartoon was a hit and soon came to symbolize boorishness in the island republic.

The trio, who call themselves the Kiasu Urban Professionals or Kuppies, have become a mini-franchise. In addition to the success of the three Mr. Kiasu books -- Everything Also I Want, Everything Also Must Grab and Everything Also Number One -- they rake in another $150,000 annually from the sale of everything from T-shirts to stickers. The Kiasu magazine, which features the antics of Mr. Kiasu as well as other locally created characters, is also selling briskly: rising from 12,000 copies for the first issue to 24,000 for the third. Says Lau: "We hope this becomes something like Singapore's MAD Magazine."

Enquiries have come from China and Taiwan to market Kiasu products and books, but the Kuppies are treading warily. John Lent, managing editor of Pennsylvania-based WittyWorld magazine, who is working on a book about Asian comics, applauds the caution: "I have seen other instances of marketing cartoons in Asia. Lat (Mohammed Nor Khalid) in Malaysia has gotten a lot of mileage out of his kampong (village) characters and Nonoy Marcelo's Ikabod adorned a number of products at one time -- though according to Marcelo sometimes without his knowledge or permission -- in the Philippines. But what is different with Comix Factory (the Kuppies' company) is the team effort and dedication. Unlike some cartoon factories in the U.S., Comix Factory does not just maintain the character and its products. It continues to create and control Kiasu.

"The humor is first-rate. It is incisive without being offensive and, most importantly, it is relevant. For too long, the cartoons in some parts of Asia aped those of the U.S. and Great Britain, at times forgetting who the audience is. Kiasu does not do that."

Besides McDonald's, other businesses have picked up on the potential of Kiasu. Concorde Hotel, a division of Hotel Properties Ltd., has a Kiasu package at its Kuala Lumpur facility: A special rate of $51 to $62 per night includes a three-minute phone call home, an $8 food- and beverage-redemption voucher per day and late check-out time, plus, two kids can stay with parents for free. Concorde officials say they've seen at least a 10 percent to 15 percent increase in visitor arrivals. Meanwhile, the Marina Mandarin Singapore hotel has staged sketches with local actors on Kiasuism.

Just three years ago, the success of any self-deprecating business in Singapore was unthinkable. A nation determined to be No. 1 and dependent solely on its human resources did not have time for fun and games. Observes Kuppy Lau: "The environment has made Singaporeans Kiasu. We were always told to be No.1, so we had the best airport, the biggest port. We were always told that if we relax others will take over. We are still insecure."

But suddenly, the tiny, intense nation began learning to laugh at itself. If Britain had Mr. Bean, the U.S. Bart Simpson and even Malaysia enjoyed Lat, why not Kiasu in Singapore?

The timing was right: George Nonis, a local cartoonist, had produced the first Singaporean political cartoon book, heralding the generational change in Singapore's leadership -- with Goh Chok Tong, who personified the kinder, gentler nation, stepping into the shoes of stern patriarch Lee Kuan Yew. Entertainer Dick Lee had created the Mad Chinaman, lo- cal rap artist Siva Choy produced an album making fun of Singlish called Why you so like dat?, and writers like Philip Jeyaretnam, Simon Tay, Gopal Baratham and Catherine Lim were raising significant issues like racial identity, sexuality and feminism.

"The climate in Singapore is beginning to relax," agrees Suresh. "Singaporeans are loosening up."

The Kuppies now would like to see their characters come to life in an animated film, but they complain that everyone involved in the process is being Kiasu. For instance, the creative business unit at the Economic Development Board of Singapore, with a mandate to help turn Singapore into a regional arts and cinema hub, gave the Kuppies a thick set of forms to fill out, and asked for their five-year business plan. An animated film would cost $50,000 to $70,000, but so far there aren't any supporters within Singapore, although the U.S. entertainment company Home Box Office (HBO), which has opened an office in the republic, has shown some interest.

The "K" word also has gained international academic attention: The Ohio University Press defined it in A Dictionary of Political Terms in Singapore. But the question some Singaporeans are grappling with is stereotyping. Sociologist Chua Beng Huat is particularly bothered: "One way to look at Mr. Kiasu is to view him as a pathetic, laughable character. That's fine. But it is disastrous to valorize the idea. The term Kiasu is disparaging in Hokkien. If it is seen as something positive, we are in deep trouble." Misreading of Kiasu is frightening, he says, because it isn't someone concerned about losing out and therefore willing to try harder, but someone who is risk-averse.
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Kiasu in Singapore : by Michael Backman
Age, Melbourne
31 May 2006


Kiasu is the term Singaporeans use to describe the unpleasant side of their culture. Acting in a kiasu manner means being greedy, unwilling to share and insensitive to others. Many Singaporeans feel this is a good description of the Government and its approach to power. The winner-take-all attitude is out of step with other nations.

No one can deny that Singapore is an easy place (although not necessarily a good place) to do business, compared with its neighbours.

Singapore scores highly on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index: it is ranked No. 5 of 158 countries. The Global Competitiveness Report ranks Singapore No. 6 of 117 economies.

The Government likes to broadcast these figures. But it doesn't broadcast that it executes more people per head a year than almost anywhere else. Reporters Without Borders has Singapore No. 140 of 167 countries for media freedom.

It is as if Singapore is more a ruthless corporation than a country with a civil society, its people more employees than citizens, and its broadsheet, the Straits Times, more like a staff bulletin than a newspaper. As a Singaporean diplomat once told me, "We don't have journalists in Singapore; only propagandists."

Increasingly, people around the world are beginning to laugh at Singapore; they laugh at its Government's petty and self-serving restrictions on what people can and cannot do. But in Singapore, many people are unaware of this because the Government-controlled media feed them a diet of only good news stories.

Race relations are often used as an excuse for restrictions. But Singapore has one of the most homogeneous race profiles in the world: 77 per cent are Chinese, the rest comprise Malays and Indians.

Singapore does not have the racial complexities of many countries.

The Maria Hertogh case is cited as an example of how Singapore is on the edge racially, and used to justify various restrictions. Rioting erupted among Malays after a court allowed a Dutch girl who was raised as a Muslim to be returned to her Catholic parents. This was 56 years ago.

No viable opposition has been allowed to form, and without robust national debate Singaporeans are becoming politically de-skilled.

Accordingly, the Government comprises plenty of ministers but few politicians, and there is little elegance to their art. They know only how to clobber: too often alternative viewpoints are responded to with public humiliation, threats, defamation writs and detention. Business should consider these aspects and not just competitiveness when assessing Singapore as a place for investment.

The Singapore Government hates people like me commenting on what it regards as its internal affairs. It hates it because foreigners cannot be controlled. But that does not stop the Singapore Government from intruding in the internal affairs of other countries.

Eddie Teo, Singapore's new high commissioner to Australia, has written letters to the Age critical of my recent columns. This is the first time Mr Teo has lived outside Singapore in 35 years and no doubt he finds a free media refreshing.

In one letter, Mr Teo claimed Singapore's defamation laws follow the English model. He is wrong. The British government does not sue opposition politicians so they are bankrupted and cannot run for parliament. If the British are to be blamed for Singapore's laws, then they can be blamed for Singapore's economic success. It was they who established Singapore as a free-trade port, which has made Singapore rich.

He says Singapore has a good legal system. That is true, but only compared with Indonesia, the Philippines, China and Thailand. Laws that have not had the benefit of open public debate and passage through a robust parliament are not really laws but decrees.

Rule of law becomes rule by law and many things are possible. Execution without a jury trial is one; torture is another.

Geoffrey Robertson, QC, writing last month for the Open Democracy Foundation, describes how torture was used in Singapore in the 1980s. A group of young lawyers, Catholic aid workers and women playwrights were rounded up by Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD) and detained without trial because they were suspects in an alleged Marxist conspiracy. They were not terrorists, they were political activists. The worst they seemed to have done was distribute Marxist literature.

They were deprived of sleep, doused with cold water and blasted with refrigerated air. The torture was not physical and left little evidence, which was its point. Instead, it was psychological and left what Robertson terms the Singapore scar.

The minister then responsible for the ISD was Lee Hsien Loong. He is now Singapore's Prime Minister.

And who headed the ISD and Defence Ministry's Security and Intelligence Division for much of the 1980s? Eddie Teo, Singapore's high commissioner to Australia, the man who now enjoys our media freedoms, but who has spent much of his career denying Singaporeans similar freedoms. Some might regard that as kiasu.

Chua may have a point -- at least in the eyes of some government officials. They are pushing Singaporean businessmen to venture abroad and chiding them to be less Kiasu and not be afraid to lose. But Suresh says only a small group of people are worried about the Kiasu character. The Kuppies emphasize their good intentions, adding that they consistently oppose bad behavior. They make fun of the nerd who hides library books so that others can't access them for important exams, but slam Mr. Kiasu if he breaks the law by tearing off relevant sheets from a library book. Says Lau: "There is a difference between trying hard and acting unethically. We whack him in our comics if he oversteps the limits."