Cold-heartedness? Singaporean?

Sometimes I wonder to myself whether or not the public has a life or not...
I mean, seriously consider it, how many of us had suffered the brunt of a complaint letter that had been directed to your school/college/group/organisations? I am sure that many of us had to go through all this sort of things and treat it as a "learning process", as quite a lot of people had been saying to me...

But suddenly, I realised and figured out something that I had been wondering for some time. The exact reason why people say that we, Singaporeans are cold and heartless, unwilling to stop for a moment and help other people who might be in trouble and are unable to laugh at any jokes, no matter how good... and the entire list of "cold-heartedness" will go on and on and on...
That is because there is always new revelations of cold-heartedness in Singapore...

Lets begin by looking at the people of other countries. Maybe we'll start with Australia. When we were at Australia some time back, we had stayed in a B&B (Bed & Breakfast). It is a form of accomodation where a person rents part of his house to you to stay for a short period of time and also provides you with breakfast in the morning before you, presumably, leave the accomodation for the next part of your journey.

While I was staying there, I was touched by the hospitality of the owners. We stayed there for Christmas and I'll never forget that day where we survived on canned food and instant noodles. No shops are opened in Australia during the days proceeding to Christmas. The owners kindly allowed us to use their kitchen to cook our dinner and had continuously offered us some of their dinner lest we starve. Their hospitality was excellent and I never forgot how their food had contributed to our "survival" over christmas in a foreign country.

The people we met in that country was also quite ok with jokes and blunders. They do not flinch at the sight of a joke that might have been played on them, but instead take it in their strides and continue doing their business...

Here, in sunny Singapore, however, things are not the same. For one thing, jokes are not tolerated. I heard stories about a "candid camera" in Singapore that collapsed because people "attacked" the producers of the show for commiting the joke on them... Unable to handle a joke, that sounds possible...

Secondly, I also realised that somehow, the older aged people in Singapore do not have any childhood memories, or even teenage memories. All of us have been children and teenagers before, why start writing complain letters to organisations that we may represent, criticising the actions that we have taken that may have affected you in the most minor and slightest way? Here comes the gist of why, we, are heartless and cold:
We are unable and are unwilling to tolerate any actions that infringe upon our own space...

No wonder people are so cold. Someone sits down on the table that you are seating and attempt to strike a conversation with you so that the eating time won't be so boring. A common Singaporean would snub the person, thinking the person is a "busybody" and ask him to mind his own business. It seems as though everyone in this place is wrapped in their own cocoon of thoughts and are unwilling to show any signs of warmth to people around them...

What has contributed to all this? Is it the high standard of living, of trying to maintain your life in Singapore? It seems highly likely, especially when you are god-damn familiar with the phrase "You can die, but you can't get sick". All of us are wrapped up in our own cocoon of problems and in the end, we forget the idea of being young and having fun. Our society is cold as everyone is working and working and working... Busy as bees would be good expression, but do we need to also take up the feelings of being protective of our own "hives"? Just like the bees?

We, as teenagers, have bits of fun once in a while. Sure, the public who has already lost their childhood can continue writing in things about our "bad" behaviour that reflects the bad name of the group we may belong to. But what good does it do? I feel that in the end, it just makes the society we are in even more colder and more heartless.

As young people, we are conditioned not to have fun, not to act as teenagers, but to act as cold, heartless Singaporean, who finds joy in giving a happy face on the surface, and then proceed to write complain letters after complain letters on the smallest thing that affects your very life...

At the rate things are going in Singapore, we will never ever fulfill what the Government is going on about creating a more caring society. If the public is unable to take a joke, to remember their childhood and their "fun" during the days and, instead, spend half their life writing letters to organisations complaining about their youths behaviour in public which we will assume, for discussion sake here and also for clarity sake, is a minor problem, I doubt the younger generation will ever, in their whole life, understand what is meant by a more "caring society" thanks to the example set by what is so-called the "general public". Which result in the continuation of the "heartless Singaporean"...

Of course, not all the public have forgotten about their childhood and are quite tolerant of our actions. There are also warm-hearted people in Singapore, the group of people who helped the people around them in the smallest way...
Then again, this people are considered by the rest of the people out there as people who are made use of...

Why live life like that, harbouring this sort of protectionist point of view, when life is hard enough...?
Go spread the seeds of happiness, as what choco love told us when he first appeared in the shaman king anime...

Discmon