MP Wee Siew Kim’s Apology for Wee Shu Min
Category : Self Development, Women Career, Women Diary, Women Education, Women Personality
Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Wee Siew Kim reported apologized Thursday in The Straits Times (24 Oct 2006) for remarks his daughter made on her Internet journal and his own comments about Singaporeans worried over jobs. “We both apologize to the people whom we have offended,” said Wee Siew Kim in his statement. Both Wee Siew Kim and her daughter, the principal of RJC, told The Straits Times yesterday that she had been counselled for using insensitive language. In his statement, Wee Siew Kim stood by her “basic point” that the well-educated should get on with challenges in life rather than complain to the government about them. “As a parent, I may not have inculcated the appropriate level of sensitivity, but she has learnt a lesson,” he added.
Wee Siew Kim said he was sorry his remarks offended some readers and said that his daughter “is fully aware and remorseful over her tone, insensitivity and lack of empathy.”
Mr Wee, 35, a Singaporean who works for a multinational corporation, had written in his blog on Oct 12 that he was concerned about competition from foreign talent and the lack of job opportunities for older workers here, therefore he asked the government should try to be more understanding of such employment woes.
Wee Shu Min, a second-year student on RJC’s Humanities Scholarship Programme, shares the same surname as Derek on commenting Mr Derek Wee’s blog. She has found herself in the soup after comments she made in her online journal were criticised by many Internet users for being insensitive and elitist. It has sparked a heated debate on the Internet when she derided and called Mr Derek Wee, “old” and “under-motivated” for his views on the anxieties of Singapore workers. She concluded by telling Mr Wee to “get out of my elite uncaring face.”
Wee Shu Min, a second-year student on RJC’s Humanities Scholarship Programme, has an impressive academic achievements. She won the Prime Minister???s Book Prize for purportedly being effectively bilingual in Chinese and English (even though she often expresses her disdain for the Chinese language).
She was from the elite gifted program at RGS who went on to top Singapore in the GCE ???O???-levels in 2004. And she is fluent in French. Her dad, Wee Siew Kim, is one of the men-in-white. Naturally, hers is a highly affluent and privileged background. And without doubt too, hers is the perfect pedigree for joining the ranks of the highest echelons of the government.
In his statement, RJC principal Winston Hodge said, “We are disappointed with Wee Shu Min’s comments on Mr Derek Wee’s posting on the Web. We have counselled Shu Min and have conveyed to her the importance of sensitivity and empathy, qualities that she should have exercised in her response to Mr Wee.
Wee Shu Min has since shut down her blog and apologised for her comments, though not directly to Mr Derek Wee.
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