unknown histories about Singapore

Watched a documentary that talks about some unknown history Singapore.

When Singapore was expelled from Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew was crying after hearing the news from radio. He was sad because he did not have a clear direction for his 'child', which is Singapore to go for. Nobody looked good on Singapore at that time as it was only a third world country port without any natural resources. Back then, it was really a tough job for Lee Kuan Yew.

At that time there were 3 isolated countries in the world: Israel, Republic of China(Taiwan) & South Africa. Therefore Lee Kuan Yew seeked for help from the RoC as he was a strong anti-communist politician. His relationship with the then President of RoC 'Jiang Jing Guo' was close. The good relationship started even before Jiang Jing Guo took over the president seat. Lee Kuan Yew visited RoC very frequently then. The rate was about once or more than once per year. Each time Jiang Jing Guo treated him as special guest.

Lee Kuan Yew's visit to Taiwan was not of no intention. Political system wise he adopted a lot of RoC's ideas as RoC is one of the Repulic in Asia then. RoC even helped build Singapore military system by sending a few good officers who later became important military officers in Singapore. Of course the help was not without any reward. Singapore helped RoC to purchase weapons and did a number of kind of sensitive things. It also became the 'international representative' of RoC as RoC's diplomacy was defeated badly by People's Republic of China then. RoC would always get Singapore's help to transmit messages to the worldwide.

Singapore's idea of welcoming talented people from worldwide are actually originated from RoC as well. In year 1985 Singapore was facing serious economic growth problem. The world's economic turned bad, the atmosphere was very much like the one right now. Singapore's economic growth percentage of that year was 0%! It was a big blow to Lee Kuan Yew. While his good friend the RoC managed to achieve a 6%! Lee Kuan Yew asked Jiang Jing Guo why his country was able to do that. jiang jing Guo said it's due to the policy of encouraging talented people to come to Taiwan and also due to the government's policy of encouraging creative and innovation in technology. Lee Kuan Yew was impressed and he quickly went to RoC for a toru of obversation. He spent a few days in the technology park! His earnest attitude impressed a lot of RoC officers. He brought back all the ideas to Singapore and immediately applied them and nowadays it is even doing much better than the RoC now.

I never expect Lee Kuan Yew believe in Feng Shui. The story is: Back into year 1997, the economic downturn came like a strong wind and defeated a lot of countries in Asia. Singapore was hit as well. Then the Feng Shui consultant of Singapore suggested that each Singaporean had to carry a 'Ba Gua' (Chinese ancient 'Eight Trigram'). The problem was: how to get every Singapore to carry that kind of awkward thing? Hence the government came out with an idea, which is to put the 'Ba Gua' in the 1 dollar coin! If you notice, the 'Ba Gua' was actually put into all 1 dollar coins that were published after year 1997!

Lee Kuan Yew strongly believes that dictatorship would help growing a country by ensuring a stable political environment. He objected jiang Jing Guo's idea of allowing 'democracy' to his country. However Jiang Jing Guo did not listen to him and now RoC's democracy was quite a role of model for the Asia countries.

Well, i am glad to be able to know this history.