November 2006
Ya-Ya-Papaya Polite!
It was finally ascertained on Jun 21, ’06 (The Straits Times) that we have lousy manners. In a Reader’s Digest courtesy test, Singapore ranked no.30 in a list of 35 cities. However, two days later, an entertainment story in ST stated that “Singaporeans may have scored an ‘F’ for courtesy in a Reader’s Digest poll, but Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra still finds people here hospitable and well-mannered”. Perhaps now you understand why I always bring up the saying ‘drop on the floor must pick up sand’ when talking about Singapore. Defensive, win-win, self-aggrandizing, shameless… I think you know the score.
Keep up the self-denial, Singapore. Speaks for itself that our country’s ‘Courtesy is our way of life’ campaign is (shh!) perpetually ONGOING! Of course, it says much about the education system too, especially with all the current talk about improving language skills. Still, we happily pick up sand like our lifeline depended on it, completely oblivious to looking like we’ve shot ourselves in the foot. Lord knows, our lifeline does depend on all that self-denial morale boosting. For that’s the secret of Singapore’s success at maintaining national peace. Alfian Sa’at, the poet, let’s hear it one more time – “mouthless fish”! And ‘Home… sick’!
Coming back to the all-important issue of global stats, we also ranked #132 in the Happy Planet Index compiled by the New Economics Foundation (read: Singaporeans are generally quite unhappy). Some retired schoolteacher wrote to Today saying “Singaporeans love to shoot themselves in the foot…The culture of complaining appears to be tattooed in our subconscious” (Jul 17). Let’s not wonder why that subconscious came about. As usual, never mind the cause, listen to what the national press decrees. So much for a thinking retiree voice!
Now that lousy courtesy is way beyond a national ‘cover-up’, even once-dishonored writer Catherine Lim mused in Today: “We grouse about our culture’s stinks/We write in to fume and foam/I confess to a cheerful tolerance/After all, they are the stinks of home” (Jul 5). So, where did she get that ‘cheerful tolerance’? Donch we know. Big Brother can’t afford to be intolerant anymore. The Internet has empowered the people now. Poor thing, conceding to such a lowly thing as tolerance when the mighty hand used to wield nation-building iron blows. Again, donch worry, the happy-hostage press will nail just the right defence for the tactical turnaround. Dying chicken always yanks at the rice-cooker lid. (Apt Cantonese saying, that!)
“Don’t mess with royalty when in Malaysia” was the heading of a letter to the ST Forum on Jun 20. The Singaporean Malay wrote: “I had walked to the carpark (in Malacca) to collect my car and my mother, sister and children were waiting at the resort’s lobby porch when a car sped along the porch and nearly hit two of the children. My mother gestured at the driver to indicate that he should not be speeding. The driver jammed the brakes, got out of the car and shoved my mother, causing her to lose her balance… The driver called my mother uncivilized and said that while in Malaysia, Singaporeans must also respect the royal family, to which he claimed to belong.”
First of all, we shall assume that the letter writer’s kids are exceptionally well behaved. So, are we to assume that the royalty-member mentioned is either a loony or a greater yaya-papaya than most Singaporeans? To me, chances are – the royal member was ticked off by some other Singaporeans’ bad behavior to act so impetuously? In any case, going by Singapore’s favorite perspective – it’s all about the direct provocation stance and not about the cause – isn’t the royal member justified for reprimanding that poor old mother, after all, she did gesticulate! Oh, I see, as Singaporeans, we should always go with the me-all-good-no-bad approach. Of course, dear!
Here’s something else that’s kinda similar. A first year social science student at the Singapore Management University wrote in to Today on Jun 2 to say that while in a bus she spotted “a sight” she is “not likely to forget”. “A sturdy young Singaporean was slamming the head of a foreign worker against the window of the bus. Clearly not able to speak English, the foreign worker could only hold up his hands and shake his head. The Singaporean, further offended by this gesture, kicked him in the face.” The Singaporean and the victim were apparently strangers to each other.
So, once again, we are to assume that the Singaporean was a loony? I can guess what happened. The foreign worker probably scowled at the Singaporean! And we know where he had learned that kind of behavior! I’ve seen it myself. Well, blue-collar low-income workers may not know any better, but we, such divinely educated privileged Singaporeans… we are the REAL perpetrators of bad behavior. But-but…we are all yaya good… (excused) for the good of nation-building morale. Besides, let’s not open that big Pandora’s Box on the entire education system, yah? Ya.
On Aug 13, someone wrote in to The Sunday Times pointing out that a young “Couple acted like gangsters”. The complainant was shopping in a video store when “a young couple – in their late teens or early 20s – walked in and blocked my view. I waited for them to finish. But realizing they were not going to move, I said: ‘Excuse me, I was looking at the shelf and you are blocking me.’ Instead of apologizing or moving aside, I was greeted by hostile stares from them. The young man even walked up to me in a threatening way and said, at least five times: ‘Yah, so what are you gonna do about it?’ I replied: ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ He moved even closer and said: ‘I am trying to be funny, what are you going to do about it?’ Then, the young woman joined in…”
Perhaps now, you understand why my new personal motto is: Don’t get vexed, preserve the infestation of ugly Singapore behavior. I don’t think Big Brother feels the least bit responsible or that we, as a nation, acknowledge bad and hostile behavior as a norm (please remember the above refutation by the national press that we are “hospitable and well-mannered”).
A not-so-siow friend of mine says that the Government must feel very conflicted now, the way it wants to move with the times but is so scared of breaking away from its proven model of authoritarian governance. It helps that this pal is reading A Mandarin & The Making Of Public Policy, Reflections By Ngiam Tong Dau, authored by Simon S.C. Tay; wherein a retired civil servant isn’t quite so afraid to speak his mind, unlike the code-of-ethics–abiding eunuchs of the national press. The latter, like most other public servants, are often operating on a bum-covering and defensive auto-pilot mode while talking about and supposedly affecting this and that way of improving Singapore.
Much good that does, these ya-ya-yah yes-men made eunuchs by their bread-&-butter needs and a social system long gone to pots. As in – rice-cooking pots with dead chicks yanking at the lid, no less. While the rest of us simply look around for the next ‘yah’ (yes) to follow so as not to lose our balls to the all-consuming despot cooking some new economic-survival mash.
Let’s pretend, like the happy-hostage press here, that we’ll never think of it as mess. – X’ Ho
