lessons learned - about ourselves

i reflected quite a lot about the lessons i learned from the south asians in my earlier post. and when i looked at ourselves, i realised how ugly we can be/ have been. these were some of the things i was reminded about in contrast - and i wanna qualify here - not all singaporeans are like this, in fact i choose to hope and believe that it is the minority. but regrettably, it was these minority's behaviour that was amplified through the media to give that impression that singaporeans are xenophobic. similarly, i choose to believe not all foreign workers behave badly but for the few who made it to the headlines, they regrettably amplify the perception that all foreign workers misbehave and do so terribly. but yeah, here are some points that i felt regretful about some of the things i have observed of singaporeans in general...

singaporeans have become self-centric

and this phenomenon has resulted in singaporeans who do not band nor play together unless they are required to. it is so contrasting compared to the years passed where we are more communalistic. a generation ago, we were poor, we survived by being frugal, by having the gotong royong, communalistic-, kampong-spirit attitude. we support one another, regardless of language, religion or race. we respect one another. when i was a toddler, it was already the post-racial riots periods and we had learnt the hard lessons about not respecting our differences. so, coming together was natural for us. not anymore. and i think our design of our houses and public space contributed to this. let me share further.

• privacy vs interactions. in our attempts to make our homes safe, we have actively promoted designs that favours privacy instead of promoting interactions. added to this, we screw ourselves up by planning for common spaces at places where people don't interact naturally. just look at void decks. when we started, void decks were void of homes so that people can interact, but we realised that void decks are totally void of anything and we now use it for facilities like old age homes, rehabilitation centers, etc.  

• pressure of needs. to cater to convenience and in the name of upgrading, we built lifts for people on all floors. while this was also a natural thing given the aging populations, etc, this compounded to the challenges of getting people to interact! and over time, we have people who no longer identify with the people living around them. instead, many of the people we interact with when we are home now exists in cyberspace and not our neighbours.  

singaporeans have become greedy

associated with the above is greed. many singaporeans have this "i, me, myself" thinking these days. many have this self-above-community attitude. as a result, the "me" and "this is mine" attitude brings out the worst in a person. and this is made worst by the fact that singaporeans are, in general, "kiasu" (afraid to lose out to others). personally, i think being kiasu can be a virtue, such as when we are kiasu as a team but at the individual-level, accommodating and supportive. that was perhaps what we were years ago and that was perhaps what made us progress as one people, and one nation. but today, we are kiasu in a self-centred manner. yup, self-above-community as i stated above. i can go on about this topic and i can cover things like how egoistic we are, how we are so conscious about status, etc. but i shan't. it is too loaded a topic to go into.

well, don't you agree with what i wrote? sounds bad right? i am sure every single singaporean can see parts of themselves in what i wrote above. i also believe many would openly deny it but secretly admit to it. 

no? 

:-)