ESM Goh speaks covertly about illegally parked bicycles and bilateral relations

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has been rather crafty in his Facebook posts as of late, always seeming to end each post with a double entendre. In his most recent quip on social media, the minister made use of an analogy with improperly parked bicycles to illustrate a point about bilateral relations.

The former Prime Minister gave out Edusave awards to students from Marine Parade and Joo Chiat NC1 and 2 over the weekend, and asked the students a difficult question.

He wrote, “I posed them this real issue. If your neighbour decides to park his bicycle outside your gate along the common corridor, what would you do?”

The options he gave: “A. Smash his bicycle. B. Tit for tat. C. Talk nicely to him to remove his bicycle. D. Do nothing.”

According to ESM Goh, “Both students and parents overwhelmingly decided on Option C”.

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At the end of his post, ESM Goh then asked, “But what if talks fail?”

“Refer to the RC, said one student. Call the police, said a parent”.

Mr Goh then said, “Good neighbourliness is not just for residents in HDB or private housing estates. It is also for countries”.

He did not explain any further.

Netizens seemed to understand what the ESM was saying. One suggested that he was referring to Singapore’s bilateral relations with our closest neighbour.