A crack at the Singapore Education system back in the 1990s.

One day, the king sat down and thought hard about a possible business venture. He had just received a recipe from his parents for frying eggs . A recipe for royalty. A recipe for the perfect egg.

"I will pass down this recipe and share it with all," announced the king.

So, he passed down the recipe.

"Now, listen everybody," instructed the head chef. "You must follow the recipe carefully. If the recipe says two tablespoons of salt, do that exactly, alright?"

"Okay," said all the other chefs, nodding their heads.

However, there were problems. Some chefs thought one tablespoon meant a slightly oval shape formed by the salt in the spoon. Other thought that the salt should be levelled and have a flat shape when scooped. All in all, it was a great headache for everyone.

"I know," exclaimed the head chef finally, "we'll come up with a 'Ten Winning Formula' instructional cooking book!"

So the book was written, and all the chefs started cooking. Everything was exactly standardized. It was perfect.

All the chefs started memorizing the book. There was no deviation from the cooking method. Everything was nice and perfect.

The perfect eggs started coming out, and a mark of "A1" was placed on the top of each egg. Customers started flocking in.

The sales went on, until it hit a waterloo.

"Why do your eggs always taste the same?" enquired the customers. "Can't you come up with some variation?"

"But... don't the eggs taste perfect? asked a chef.

"After awhile, some of us do want a change and a choice, you know.Why must every single egg taste the same?" replied a customer.

The head chef heard, and experimented with the frying method. However, all the chefs under him had already memorized the model cooking method, and they declined to learn any other method. All this in spite of the head chef trying to persuade them to try other ways of their own to fry the egg.

The shop selling the perfect egg still remained open. However, day by day, the sales plummeted. Customers were few. Until the day came when the head chef finally had no choice but to close down the business.

And all the chefs were puzzled, and asked,"Are the eggs not perfect enough?"

-To be continued-