Next to kiasu-ness, one of the most well-known and self-admitted faults of the Singaporean society is, supposedly, its apathetic, ungracious attitude. Specifically, the attitude that's being attributed to for little social issues such as not giving up seats, cutting queues, impoliteness... stuff along those lines.
Why, ever since that article claiming that Singapore was the "least emotional" society in the world, it's been excessively quoted in numerous thousands of student discursive essays nationwide - including my own, yes, but I insist that was done under duress. Regardless, I think that exhibits that the reasons behind this attitude, on a nationwide basis, have been more than sufficiently discussed. I, instead, want to draw attention to something that surprisingly few people have mentioned or observed: the gaping differences across age groups when examined for this phenomenon.
Let's be frank with ourselves about two things. The first is that society loves to scapegoat the younger generations, particularly the 13-18 group for nearly all of its social problems. Gangsters at 5th Avenue? Must be stupid, brainless youngsters. Increase in drug users? Definitely teenagers. You get the general idea.
The second thing is that, as hard as it is to admit, this assumption is often true.
Whether youngsters contributing to societal issues is done in spite or despite the fact that they're often the scapegoats is arguable. It could be that it's simply our nature to act in a rebellious fashion, hence our love of enforcing first-world anarchy wherever we go. Or it could be that this same nature has made us defiant in face of the constant blame from all sides, and go "Well, if they already see me that way, then I might as well act as such." But, again, this is another issue that has been discussed at length the world over, and I won't dive too deeply into it.
I did mention that this assumption was often true. That is, it's mostly true everywhere...except Singapore.
Some people claim to be able to acutely observe the traits and norms of a society after living in it for several months. I, on the other hand, have lived among people of this nation for nearly two years now, a society that is modeled so closely to my own, yet I dare not claim to be anywhere close to all-knowing about it, simply due to the fact that I've learnt that the little quirks of any society are often more complex than they seem to be on the surface. However, I have disturbingly noticed one trait here often enough to be confident in pointing it out: the youngsters and elders are completely different in terms of "ungraciousness". And this time round, it's not the young 'uns looking bad.
Honestly, the longer I observe, the harder it is to deny the fact that, simply, the older generation(s) of Singaporeans are far worse in their apathy. Sure, they probably wouldn't be the ones doing juvenile things like screaming in the library for no good reasons (it's a sore point of mine, if you couldn't already tell). But not giving way, not giving up seats, not smiling, not graciously bothering to give up a bit of time to help out a poor lost foreign traveler with directions? Check, check, and check.
In contrast, I have found youngsters to be generally helpful and polite whenever interacted with. This isn't a rule, of course - there are asshats in all generations - but other than aforementioned juvenile stuff, I can't find much fault at all with how the young generation behaves here. It may be my own bias, being a teen myself, but I doubt it. Case in point: as of now, the government is trying to encourage people to return food trays by themselves to free up cleaner resources. Sit down at any restaurant, and I guarantee you - not everyone does this, but the ones who do are overwhelmingly youngsters, teens especially. The same generation that often has fingers pointed to them for being lazy, privileged and yes, ungracious. The hypocrisy is painful.
As much as it intrigues me, I can't claim to know precisely why this is the case in Singapore. I do have a carefully-considered guess, however: cliched as it may sound, I believe it all boils down to education. Remember, this generation, especially middle age and up, have been brought up in an environment where winning was not only the ultimate goal, it was the only goal. Everything was structured around doing exceptionally in their studies so that they would "succeed" later on; even minor things on the side, like extra-curricular programs, were still jigsaw pieces complementing the eventual goal. Where does being gracious fit in this environment? You're right, it doesn't fit anywhere. That's the problem.
It's a depressing state of affairs, yes. But not so if you choose to look it from another perspective. If my above theory is correct at all, it also must mean that somehow, the government's education revamp over the last couple of decades has begun to bear fruit. Some of the efforts have been a bit bone-headed - giving out prize money for being empathetic? Really? - but overall, the concerted focus has been laudable. I think it's managed, to a certain extent, to hammer in the heads of the young that acting decently is the noble and right thing to do.
Perhaps I'm being too rosy-eyed in seeing things. And yes, there's still a long way to go before even Singaporeans themselves stop referring to their own as apathetic, ungracious people. That being said, I, speaking as a foreign outsider, can already see a noticeable generational gap. A gap that, for once, is a good thing.
2 comments :
I'm partially agree with your opinion. To your information, besides Singapore, other Western countries,such as Germany are, in fact, having such problems.
Wow, that is indeed interesting to know. Come to think of it, European nations often have this "youngster-scapegoat" thing going on too, as least from where we (Asians) see it.
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