All posts by Kow-Cheong Yan

About Kow-Cheong Yan

Mathematics Consultant & Author

The Mask of Math

Humor, Math Publishing, Problem Solving, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, Theomatics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mask Art as Therapy. Original un-memed photo from Hunny & Lummy’s “Masks of Singapore” (2021).

What mathematical or nonmathematical crisis are you presently facing or undergoing? Mid-life crisis? Existential crisis? Financial crisis? Relational crisis? Post-pandemic crisis?

Have you forgotten what it means to enjoy math? If you’re a school teacher or university lecturer, are you planning to leave the [Singapore’s or US’s or XYZ’s ] rigid educational system to pursue your mathematical dream?

If you’re an editor, are you longing for the day when you don’t have to handle those quasi-uneditable manuscripts once you’ve paid up your mortgage or send your children to college?

And if you’re a writer, do you long (or pray?) for those pseudo-math editors to get promoted to their next level of incompetency, where they’re less likely to adulterate your manuscript?

Math & Mask

Beyond the mask that we wear to function in our daily lives as math educators (lecturers, teachers, tutors, editors, writers, consultants, managing editors, publishing managers, …), who are we?

Do you see yourself enjoying the mathematical journey while you’re building your career or struggling to pay the bill? When you take off your daily masks, when you don’t feel the pressure to pretend, when you’d simply be yourself, what does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What does it sound like?

A Commandment to Deal with the Mask of Pride

Mathematical Synesthesia

Can you visualize the color of infinity? Taste the number zero? Smell the fragrance of pi? Or you think these synesthetic experiences are only reserved for autistics or idiot savants?

We all came into this world with zero, and we’ll also leave it with zero but the [mathematical] spirit of life we’ve lived in our lifetime. Are you always waiting for permission to write that math book? Or hoping that when you retire, you’d have the time (and space) to explore and pursue that math pet project?

Are you petrified that others might witness that you’ve been a victim of the imposter syndrome, as you get promoted and being tagged with bigger flowery job titles? Still struggling to fake it until you make it?

Unmask Your Math

To make a mark in math or math education in the local, regional, or international community, you need to strip your mask away. People want to see and work with vulnerable or fallible folks, who’re prepared to make a fool of themselves, to be a laughable stock or mathematical clown, and not to take themselves seriously.

What are you waiting for? Not some other time when you’ve accumulated enough zeros in your bank account, or next semester (or pandemic?), but today. Because when you’re financially free, you’re unlikely to have the energy to do that math thing you so desire.

Don’t die with a book inside you! Or miss tithing one or two years of your life to volunteer as a math teacher in some low-GDP countries to help raise the numeracy level of the locals. Or fail to resurrect that off-atrophied “math & art” project for a solo exhibition. It’s better to fail or experience the journey than regret on your deathbed.

Remember: Let not pride, insecurity, or failure prevent you from fulfilling your God-given purpose on this side of eternity, as you embark on your mathematical journey.

You needn’t do it alone: Seek Him and His wisdom for your mathematical needs and wants. Be fearless and free.

Fearlessly & faithfully yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, July 23, 2023.

A Question on Inequality

Humor, Mathematical Humor, Problem Solving, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Fr: Ralph McConahy on Facebook

Many years ago, I read about the co-authors of a handbook for mathematics teachers in primary schools warning readers not to use the sign “<” or “>” (because the symbols were removed from the primary school syllabus); instead, they suggested using phrases like “more than” and “less than.”

For example, teachers were to avoid setting questions in these formats:

34 is 6 > ☐
8 > 43 is ☐

Instead, they’d rephrase them as “34 is 6 more than ☐.” and “8 more than 43 is ☐.”

Similarly, they’d refrain from posing inequalities questions such as the following:

7 < ☐ is 15.
9 < 25 is ☐.

And also avoid problem sums like the one below:

What is the largest (or greatest) whole number that can be placed in the box to make the statement true? 8 + ☐ < 40

Why the Ban (with or without a Fine)?

Based on teachers’ feedback that young (or even older) schoolchildren are often confused about the similarity of the two symbols < and >, that’s likely a key why that prompted local curriculum math specialists in the “fine” city to ban these “unequal symbols” in primary school mathematics moons ago.

Inequality Metaphors from the Sunshine State

Over the years, to reduce the confusion between < and >, some elementary math authors have come up with some witty ways to help schoolchildren remember which is which.

For instance, students are often taught to see the symbols as hungry alligators or crocodiles with gaping mouths—these reptiles always want to eat the larger numbers, so the open mouth will always face this.

Observe that the < looks somewhat like a lopsided L, which reminds us that it denotes less than. Or, in any true statement, the large open mouth of the symbol is on the side of the greater quantity, and the small point is on the side of the lesser quantity.

No More Ban

Like last year’s repeal of Section 377A in pseudo-puritan Singapore, based on the CPDD’s Primary Mathematics Textbook 2A (2022), the inequality signs too are now free to roam the pages of any MOE-approved primary 2–6 textbooks and workbooks.

In the aftermath of zero ban on inequality signs, questions that involve comparing and ordering numbers would no longer be symbolically penalized or criminalized for using the “>” and “<” signs (until further notice).

Below are a sample of three “uninhibited” Singapore math primary two inequality questions:

Which sign will you use, > or <?
(a) 45 ☐ 42
(b) 81 ☐ 71
(c) 317 ☐ 407
(d) 734 ☐ 724

Fill in the boxes with ‘<’ or ‘>’.
(a) 35 ☐ 53
(b) 65 ☐ 62
(c) 79 ☐ 68

It’s not uncommon to see once-banned open-ended questions now gracing the pages of primary math textbooks, such as the following:

In 38 > 33 + ☐, what could the missing number be?

It looks like we’ve come some way in restoring the inequality signs in the (lower) primary school syllabus. Now that the mathematical resurrection of these symbols has taken place, does their confusion among schoolchildren still remain a concern for both teachers and parents?

An Inequality Quiz

Let’s end with a math quiz that tests our basic knowledge of inequalities.

1. How many types of inequalities in elementary school math are there?

2. Which metaphor(s) would you use to help children who are prone to mistake one inequality sign for another?

3. Name half a dozen math inequalities in real life that schoolchildren could relate to.

4. “An inequality is an equation that forbids the use of an equal sign.” True or False.

Symbolically yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, July 9, 2023.

Singapore’s PSLE Math Paper

Mathematical Humor, Problem Solving, Singapore Math, Theomatics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is an educational (or psychological or emotional) price a country has to pay if it wants its students to continually rank among the top three in international comparative studies like TIMSS and PISA, or in regional or international math contests and competitions.

An irreverent definition of Singapore’s most dreaded school exam paper

Understandably, parents in Singapore are unhappy about the difficult PSLE (grade 6) math questions that are used to assess their children, before they’d graduate from primary (grades 1–6) school to secondary (middle) school.

And the oft-politically correct or modeled answers from the city-state’s Ministry of Education (MOE) hardly ever pacify or satisfy teachers, parents, and caregivers; in most cases, the canned suggestions or quasi-laughable solutions only make them angrier or more cynical.

PC Slogans for Kiasu Parents

Be it the mantra that “every (local) school is a good school,” or that parents need to help or educate their children believe that “their self-worth or value isn’t dependent on their exam grades” is easier preached than practiced.

When politicians or MOE officials preach to parents that they needn’t be paranoid about their children’s PSLE exam or math score, because it’s not the end of the world, it’s like ex-loansharks-turned-philanthropists or ethically challenged ex-CEOs- or ex-bankers-turned-preachers now telling the financially struggling public that money isn’t everything, or that they’d not make money their god. For the haves to tell the have-nots, it’s utter hypocrisy, to say the least.

Answers and oft-ill-edited half-baked solutions are usually from tutors or teachers-moonlighters.

Tuition: A Necessary Evil for the Nation

Without compulsory tuition or heavy parental involvement, the majority of elementary math students in local schools would likely struggle to score a decent grade in their PSLE math paper.

Singapore’s PSLE math paper with its quota of brain-unfriendly questions looks like a necessary evil that would help define or maintain the “fine” city’s high standard of mathematics regionally and internationally.

From Mid-Year to Mock Exams

This year, Primary 6 students didn’t have to sit for mid-year exams at school, because last year, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing had said that the move would allow them to “focus more on their learning and less on marks.”

In the aftermath of the MOE’s move to do away with all mid-year exams for primary and secondary schools, tuition centers saw a golden opportunity to lure kiasu parents with their mock mid-year exams, whose questions are generally harder (not better) than those set in the PSLE math paper.

Other than parental or peer pressure to excel, most students’ undue stress could be traced to the difficulty of math questions set by neighborhood schools (driven by school rankings) and tuition centers (powered by profits), which are generally harder than those that appear in the PSLE math paper. Yes, they’re the two big culprits that set an unhealthy number of nonroutine questions that often demoralize the kids, by making them feel like they still “aren’t that good in math.”

A Promised Land for Geeks—and Tax Fugitives

Singapore is a “promised land” for those who’re born or blessed with the “mathematical gene” or for those who’d afford a private tutor. However, for the majority of average or math-anxious school children, we can only pray that PSLE math wouldn’t become their bête noire, and that God would keep them motivated and focused as they go through this oft-stressful rite of passage of their schooling years.

I might sound like a mathocrite (short for “mathematical hypocrite”) in giving mathematical or parental advice; nevertheless, let me end with this educational slogan that is worth reiterating, because I believe that the sooner we put it into practice, the less stressful (or peaceful) our life will be: Our math scores or grades don’t define us—in or out of school, and certainly not in life.

Grade-consciouslessly yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 18, 2023.

Make a Ten

Problem Solving, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On June 4, 2023, @PicturesFoIder tweeted the following grade one question:

If you were a dad or mum who’s not familiar with teaching and learning math that focuses on relational understanding, not just on instructional understanding, most teachers and homeschoolers would sympathize with you. You’re not alone!

Make a ten is a simple but not simplistic strategy, commonly used by Singapore math and Common Core math elementary school teachers to teach the operations of addition and subtraction meaningfully rather than procedurally through rote learning.

Angry parents would say, “Why make math more complicated? Wouldn’t that (noble?) way of teaching frighten kids rather than motivate them to do math?” They do have a point, don’t they?

Summary page from CPDD’s “Primary Mathematics Textbook 1A” (2021)

Of course, it’s easier said than done, because given a choice, most of us, teachers, tutors, and parents, would find it more convenient or faster to getting children learn math by rote, by rationalizing that they’d naturally know why the procedure works in later years. For now, just teach them the hows—don’t bother about the whys.

Summary page from CPDD’s “Primary Mathematics Textbook 1A” (2021)

In most parts of the world, teaching math the algorithmic way is the default mode of teaching. A common reply or complaint is “Who’s the time and patience to ensure that 30-odd students in a class have really understood why the procedures for adding and subtracting whole numbers make sense to them?”

The Hows and the Whys

What percentage of grades 1–2 teachers worldwide teach both the hows and whys of addition and subtraction? Do they consciously tell children why they need to learn the algorithms rather than using their fingers to count? Or why is it to their benefit that they learn multiplication and division as a shortcut of addition and division, respectively, not to say, the algorithms to perform these operations?

Just because the majority of us didn’t learn school math relationally or meaningfully in our formative years doesn’t mean we’d also subject schoolchildren to the same boring or uncreative pedagogical ritual due to limited time, or to mimimize conceptual overload or potential confusion.

Teach Not the Way You Learned!

School teachers and parents of yesteryear most likely didn’t know or learn about concepts like “make a ten” and “draw a model,” but our present generation of math educators do know. So there’s no excuse not to introduce them to schoolchildren.

We often underestimate young children thinking that they’d not understand or appreciate the whys, because most are already trying or struggling to make sense of the hows. Valid as this argument may be, patiently (and painfully) providing a good mathematical foundation in the early years would bear much fruit in later years, because understanding trumps rote learning any time.

Relationally and meaningfully yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 11, 2023.

The Pseudo-Proportional Problem

Problem Solving, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , ,

On May 23, 2023, @OrwellNGoode tweeted the rate question below, with the “teacher” marking the student’s answer of 20 minutes wrong, and showing why it’d be 15 minutes instead.

Who the heck takes 10 minutes to saw a board?

I’ve no idea what grade level this math question was being assigned to. Although questions on ratios and rates are formally introduced in grades 5–6 in most parts of the world, however, it’s not uncommon to spot these types of mathematical quickies in grades 1–4 Singapore math olympiad papers to trap the unwary.

Assuming that the word problem didn’t come from a bot or from ChatGPT, the teacher’s intuitive reasoning may be said to be ratio-nally sound but rationally incorrect in solving this pseudo-proportional math question.

Logically or mathematically speaking, few math teachers would disagree that the student was right and the teacher was wrong.

This arguably “badly worded” or “ill-posed” math question provides a fertile ground for a number of possible (valid or creative?) answers, probably much to the annoyance of most math teachers and editors, who often feel uncomfortable or jittery about questions with more than one possible answer.

Indeed, there is no shortage of supporters to defend a “15 minutes” answer. For example, since there is zero mention that the length of each board is of equal length (and we can’t assume it to be so), or as each sawing might take place in a different direction, the “logical” answer of 20 minutes can’t be taken as mathematical gospel truth.

That three pieces need two cuts or sawings is unanimous among problem solvers. The bone of contention is the assumed length of the second cut. Say, if the second cut was half as long as the first one, then it’d take half the time of the first cut, in which case the answer of 15 minutes would be practically plausible.

A creative solution from @A_MGregory

It looks like we’re only limited by our imagination or creativity to rationalize why the answer can’t in practice be 15 minutes or any other duration, by using a different (creative) reasoning from the flawed one provided by the “teacher.”

Like most artificial or impractical word problems in school math, this rate question debatably falls short of design thinking and is thus open to different interpretations or assumptions, which might also weaponize some “anti-woke” math educators to ban or censor these types of “confusing or tricky” math questions.

Ironically, this is why injecting a dose of realism or creativity to these oft-ill-posed or contrived math questions would help open up the minds of uncritical or unquestioning math educators.

Don’t just answer the questions, question the questions.

© Yan Kow Cheong, May 29, 2023.

Right Answer, Wrong Method

Problem Solving, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
A grade 3 question with right answer marked wrong.

A grade 3 Singapore math question made some waves among netizens in yesterday’s local paper. https://bit.ly/3VOzpHP

Debatably, the root of the discussion centers around the “right” way to do multiplication.

Process v. Product

In Singapore, it’s not uncommon for elementary school teachers and tutors to witness a student’s incorrect method of solution to a word problem that produces the correct answer. This frustrating situation arises far too often than what many of them would want to admit.

Due to a shortage of time, most school teachers pay lip service to the method of solution, pretending not to see that the students’ workings fall short of what is expected of them. These time-starved civil servants would simply look at the children’s answers and conveniently mark them “correct.”

In some cases or circles, it’d not be surprising too that some teachers or tutors themselves are oblivious of the correct method or procedure to solve a (routine or nonroutine) math question.

Personally, I’d want to give these school teachers the benefit of the doubt that they’re merely “lazy” rather than because they’re conceptually blind to the mathematical stain on their students’ worksheets.

Getting students to master a math concept with understanding requires time and effort (and also patience and pain), and most stressed teachers can’t afford either one in the name of having to “rush to complete the syllabus.”

For example, students’ or parents’ parroting that “multiplication is repeated addition” gives teachers and tutors quasi-zero clues whether they’ve understood the multiplication concept or not.

With regard to this grade three routine question that made the headlines, writing the correct procedure, without the teacher explaining to the student why he or she went wrong, only solves half the problem.

Understandably, some parents would argue that teachers shouldn’t be too rigid or radical about their children’s half-baked solutions to avoid dampening their self-esteem. For mathematically puritan math educators, the process is more important than the product.

Procedural proficiency with little understanding of math concepts would only produce elementary school drill-and-kill math graduates—the whys are as important as the hows.

An early penalty is better than a later one when it comes to a child’s learning of basic mathematical concepts in their formative years, which must be accompanied by a teacher’s or tutor’s explanation of the incorrect solution.

And in this grade three routine multiplication question, order matters.

© Yan Kow Cheong, May 11, 2023.

TikTok Math

Humor, Problem Solving, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Long before the TikTok saga, when the quid-pro-quo ex-president and his gang were entertaining the idea how they’d extract any financial or political gain from the mainland Chinese company on the pretext of security concerns, I was thinking how local math teachers (who’re dissuaded from using social media to share their personal or professional views on math or math education) could leverage on this fast-growing platform to popularize the gospel of mathematics to billions of people.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I’d christened “TikTok Math” as follows:

Is “TokTok Math” a four-letter word for MAGA patriots?

The TikTok Factor

Last month, following TikTok’s CEO’s four-odd hours meeting with US lawmakers, I tweeted the following:

TikTok’s “theoretical threat”: Blessing or curse? Unlike Singapore that welcomes (or sometimes reluctantly allows) foreign competition as its people mostly benefit from their presence, the US—and the yes-nations—would rather use politics or paranoia than creative power to be a leader.

TikTok “Theoretical Threat”

Does it pay to be a technology leader if for decades your competitor has dominated the industry?

The TikTok saga is an eye-opener to the outside world, as it shows that even the United States, when technologically challenged or militarily threatened, would abandon its own playbook of business ethics, or concoct some theoretical or imaginary security threats, to neutralize the competition or enemy.

Today, the world’s policeman, which has caused more pain than inciting peace, has lost its moral compass on the global stage. A divided polarized nation that doesn’t walk its talk, with promises often turning into pains, or where perks and profits trump people and principles.

The democracy deliverer has inflicted more human pain and suffering than any other country since the last world war. Think of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to name a few nations they “delivered” against communism, totalitarianism, or terrorism.

You’d easily parrot your list of nations whose peoples’ lives have gotten worse in the name of democracy, political freedom, rule of law, or religion. All these universal human ideals have been traded for poverty and pain.

Even with quality or selective immigration, the US is struggling to maintain its superpower status, much less commanding respect from the world. Its gospel of justice, equality, equity, opportunity, morality, or democracy falls short when we see that the lives of half of its [mostly nonwhite] population have gotten worse in the last three or four decades, when their incomes haven’t kept up with the standard of living.

For those in the Chinese diaspora, communist China or the CCP is arguably autocratic, anticompetitive, and antidemocratic, but these marxists-capitalists aren’t that stupid to ask TikTok or ByteDance to hand over the personal of millions of Americans just because they can.

Hearing the shallow or oft-laughable arguments of some of the technologically challenged US lawmakers or politicians questioning TikTok’s CEO, it’s crystal clear that they’ve quasi-zero idea how the mainland Chinese or Asian or African psyche operates in business settings.

On March 20, 2023, @MathPlus asked the following question:

Yes-states & Yes-nations

A few days earlier, I’d hypothesized that

It looks like President Biden & Co. are a second-rate team that can’t think creatively to contain China, by banning their app and the sale of chips, instead of outsmarting them with better products. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64973156 #US #politics #TikTok #ban #China #competition #5G #fear

TikTokers v. Trumpists

Way back in 2020, before the last US presidential election, when Microsoft hinted that they’d be keen to buying TikTok, to poke fun at Trump, I’d posted the following:

Survival Odds: Which group would see their wish come true: TikTokers or Trumpists? Which hashtag would triumph: #SaveTikTok or #SaveTrump? Who would have the last laugh on 11/3: Xi or Trump? #ban #TokTok #Trumpism #US #politics #technology #China #Microsoft #math #odds #Covid-19

On 2/8/20, @Zero_Math tweeted the following:

Political Math: Should President Trump ban TikTok for “security reasons,” guesstimate how many millions of young and old voters he’d lose on 11/3, as he diverts attention on his failure to contain the pandemic crisis. #math #Covid-19 #US #politics #TikTok

Waco: A Tale of Two Faux Messiahs

Comparing David Koresh, 33, a “prophet” of the Branch Davidians cult in 1993 to Donald Trump, 76, Trumpublicans’ “anointed one” and “political messiah” of rural America, before the ex-president’s lies-plagued rally in Waco, under “Political Math,” I’d tweeted:

Guesstimate how many TikTokers would be reserving seats for Trump’s campaign rally in Waco, Texas, without showing up—a prank proposed by his niece, who’s suing him for lying and cheating. cnn.com/2023/03/25/politics/texas-trump-2024-rally/index.html

A cartoon by John McNamee

TikTok & Math

TikTok’s global popularity or notoriety provides math educators a fertile ground for creative mathematical problem posing and problem solving in the midst of polarized politicians’ and puritan parents’ oft-paranoiac security or mental health concerns.

Let not politics, paranoia, or phobia hijack math and math education, because the double-edged TikTok could be a mathematical blessing rather than a curse, thanks to the creativity of tens of thousands of math educators worldwide.

√–1 TikTok Math, ∴ √–1 am.

© Yan Kow Cheong, April 16, 2023.

What’s Your Life PhD?

Humor, Mathematical Humor, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, Theomatics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

For the majority of people around the world without a PhD, the academic title is often creatively or cynically assigned a different meaning. Talking of poking fun at those who make a living in an ivory tower—the image of an “ivory tower” is used in the Bible in the Song of Songs (7:4) to describe a woman’s purity—the lay public’s general impression or perception of most PhDs is often anything but positive. Could this be due to some subconscious “intellectual envy”?

Maybe because when they think of academics becoming politicians or of them serving as consultants or advisors for an oft-inept or corrupt government (or of an educational consultant for a publishing house hoping to boost their school adoption rate), many have mixed feelings about these exam-smart folks, who are mostly “un-street-smart,” when it comes to solving everyday life or real-world problems for their fellow citizens—their oft-halfwitted decisions often serve as a living proof of their (practical) unintelligence rather than their intelligence.

PhDs to Save the Planet from Covid-19

Below are three entries I submitted during the lockdown two-odd years ago.

Trump’s Covid-19 Con-sultant
Was Cummings, ex-PM Johnson’s “corona jerk”?
One rule for the Cummings and
one for the common people.

Be it the canned “Permanent Head Damage” or “Post Holiday Depression,” new meanings associated with the acronym are only limited by our imagination.

Boosted Jabs at PhDs

A few years ago, I started relooking at new meanings of a PhD. Two such revised definitions were:

Cheat PhD on the Cheap
God’s Doctorate Disciples

What’s your life’s PhD, especially when you respectfully compare yourself with those with big titles, most of whom often have infinitesimally positive or quasi-zero impact on those around them?

Meanwhile, why not pray, help, and do rather than just preach, hope, and delay?

© Yan Kow Cheong, March 25, 2023.

A North Korea without the Kims

Humor, Mathematical Humor, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
North Korea and the Kim Dynasty

Way back in 2017, when ISIS or radical Islamist ideologies were making inroads in a number of developing or war-torn countries, and North Korea then looked like the safest place on the planet from green terrorism, I coined North Korea as follows:

North Korea: Where jihadists daren’t go in trying to Islamize infidels unless they don’t mind going to hell sooner than later to meet up with ex-dictators Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.

ISIS or the Taliban is no match for Dictator Kim Jong Un’s trained killers, if these Mohammedan jihadists dream of going to North Korea to set up their Caliphate.

by MathPlus May 31, 2017

The Kim Dynasty

The Kim dynasty is “like grandfather, like father, like son.” Would the world witness a gender change at the top, if a sister (and subsequently a daughter, legitimate or not) were to be reluctantly appointed, thus breaking the decades-long patriarchal political order? A modern-day Jezebel in waiting!

North Korea & Math Education

Imagine if North Korean students were to take part in TIMSS and PISA, what are the chances that they would outrank or outwit their Singaporean or mainland Chinese counterparts in both math and science?

Or, if you needed a part-time or freelance value-for-money coder (or licenced hacker), would you choose one from Singapore, India, or North Korea? The choice is pretty clear, isn’t it?

Dark Political Math

From Reel Trump to Real Kim

After Comrade Kim’s last heartbeat, what are the odds that the two Koreas might be reunited as one? Or would this reunification happen earlier, say, if the hermit nation was forced to surrender following a series of bombings on Pyongyang or on its nuclear sites by the Allies?

Broken Bromance Blossomed

Imagine that Donald J. Trump is miraculously re-elected in 2024, and the Trump-Kim lukewarm bromance is rekindled with a flurry of more “love letters.”

Reel Leaders Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

What are the odds that they’d eventually have a tête-à-tête at the White House? A post-pandemic reunion between two vainglorious rogues that could help raise their chances of being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the nth time, as their actions (or inactions) arguably prevented a WW3!

The Peacefakers Sans Clothes

What if fearing that he’d end up on the wrong side of eternity, and also be remembered as a modern-day Hitler or Stalin, comrade Putin decided to return the annexed lands, including Crimea, to Ukraine? Would the world witness a peace prize being shared by the unholy Kim-Putin-Trump trio? Or would all three be re-nominated for the Ignoble Peace Prize instead?

The Leadershit Series for Rogue Leaders

Fake Missile for Anti-NATO*

Would the US and allies (yes-nations) only stop playing the more-sanctions game when Kim Jong-un’s patience ran out—when he decided to launch a “fake” missile targeting one of its neighbours, which would force them to take the rogue nation seriously or to treat the Kim dynasty with respect or reverence?

Peacefully & prayerfully yours

* NATO = No Action, Talk Only

© Yan Kow Cheong, March 3, 2023.

Is a Kim Jong-un one too many?

Humor, Recreational Math, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Based on newspaper headlines over the years, how would you characterize or describe North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un? Or how would you compare him vis-à-vis other rogue heads of state in terms of IQ and EQ?

With recent or renewed interest into the warped mind of the North Korean dictator, especially with pictures of him and his (“overfed” or “overweight”) daughter, I wanted to use Kim Jong-un as “Word of the Day.”

My recent irreverent description of the über-fat soul in a land of millions of undernourished fellow citizens is the following:

A potential Nobel Prize winner

The Unholy Trinity

A less-than soothing decision: Is North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a wolf in wolf’s clothing?

Erdogan or Modi or Xi: “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” Putin: “a wolf in wolf’s clothing”
Kim: “a wolf in sheep’s/wolf’s clothing”?

A blasphemous political question to ask is: “What are the odds that Kim Jong-un might be “a sheep in wolf’s clothing”?

Kim & Twitter

Does the “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un have a Twitter account? The Pope and the Dalai Lama have one. Shouldn’t the dictator-murderer have one, too?

Kim’s fake Twitter account

Of course, there are fake Twitter accounts of Kim, mostly demonizing rather than deifying him, but it’d be interesting that he makes a digital presence on Elon Musk’s platform to spice up the Twittersphere, while ex-comrade Trump is itching to tweet again, if not because of the financial penalty he’d face if he deserted Truth Social.

The Anointed One

If ex-president Trump was the “Chosen One,” aren’t rogue leaders like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Xi Jinping also God’s “political appointees” to rule or misrule their nations? Are they the modern-day Babylonians or forerunners of the Beast?

A Health Hub for Dictators

[Fake] Math News: Singapore took in rogue leaders like Thein Sein, Robert Mugabe, Hun Sen, Kim Jong-un, and Rajapaksa despite their manifold crimes. What are the odds that Donald J. Trump would likely add the “fine” city as his sanctuary of choice should he be imprisoned and become a fugitive for his Jan. 6 coup?

To Bomb or Not to Bomb

Political Calculus: How long would the US & allies ignore Dictator-Murderer Kim Jong-un & gang? Would they be forced to bomb Pyongyang to prevent the “little rocket man” from accidentally hitting his neighbors?

Kim & Trump as Putin’s Special Guests

What are the odds that Donald J. Trump could be the only ex-President from the U.S. (or the West) who is still welcome in Moscow besides pro-Putin dictators Alexander Lukashenko & Kim Jong Un—and Xi Jinping if he’d compromise to supply weapons to Russia?

Who’s the Baddest of All?

Faux Leadership: Does comparing Abraham Lincoln’s leadership with Donald Trump’s leadershit sound like contrasting Lee Kuan Yew’s wisdom with Kim Jong Un’s wisdoom?

Kim’s Covert Salespeople

An “unlucky” North Korean caught for shipping luxury goods to his comrades at home was given a symbolic one-month jail sentence in the “fine” city. Estimate how many dozens of Kim Jong Un’s salesmen and saleswomen are currently in Singapore, and thousands of them in the region.

© Yan Kow Cheong, February 25, 2023.