It means that, if you put ten 12-year-old Singaporean kids in the same room, chances are that six or seven of them wear spectacles! But peek into a similar room with Aussie kids, and you'll find only one of them wearing glasses.
Talk about Singapore's spectacular achievements! I was a "specky" kid, having to start wearing glasses in primary school.
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This next set of numbers provides a glimpse into how rich are rich folk. ST carried a story today (16 Nov, "Socialite settles divorce suit", page B2) in which certain details were revealed.
The socialite in question, in the divorce hearings, had sought $450,000 a month in maintenance from her estranged husband because that was "the standard of living she enjoyed" in her married life. The husband "had been known to spend some $303,000 a month for more than 27 months", the court heard.
The court had earlier frozen $93 million in assets that the husband has. We are told he has cash in the bank and trading accounts, together worth $15.4 million. His other assets include a house in Sentosa Cove and another in Hong Kong, together worth $14.6 million. Another $79.2 million was tagged to his shares in a private company, his wine collection and three cars -- a Lamborghini, a Porsche and a Ferrari.
[So, while economists have been measuring wealth disparities using the Gini Coefficient, maybe someone should come up with the Lamborghini Coefficient to measure the spending propensity of a country's top one per cent!]
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This last one is a just a single figure -- but one that makes no sense to me. It shows how, as consumers, we must always be alert to marketing gimmickry:
What does "Contains 45% California Raisins" mean???
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Some musings about yesterday's posting:
* I should have tried to offer an alternative to the Singlish phrasing in the Peranakan Museum's ad -- "Man accompanying a woman will get 50% discount". I suppose such an attempt would be along these lines: "Male companions get a 50% discount on the admission price." Hmmm, will someone come up with better wording? Singlish also can!
* I found that Googling "Orchids" uncovered a host of interesting material about this plant (but caveat emptor, whenever we look up anything online!). Here's one extract:
The orchid flowers are one of the largest families of plants in the world. In fact, there are more than 25,000 species in the world that occur naturally, plus many more which have been developed by orchid growers.
The name orchid comes from the Greek word orchis, which means testicle. They’re named this because of the shape of their bulbous roots. The largest orchid in the world can grow up to 20 metres tall.
The website I took these "fun facts" from is:
http://www.avivadirectory.com/trivia/232-facts-about-orchids/
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