Pesante

I’m nearly reaching the end of the stage where I get sheltered by society – or at least my parents and the various ministries that take a quick interest in people because, anyway, humans are our only resources, hence the need for Human Resource departments in every company.

Now I’m about to be thrown to the demon. At least if I stay in Singapore. The government can’t blame us for being quitters if we want to. If there are greener pastures out there, why stay back in Singapore and try to create a green patch? We can be patriotic to a certain extent, but if our patriotism is to compromise on our living, what’s the worth? Even if there are opportunities in Laos or Afghanistan or Africa why not just go than stay here and play the waiting game?

We are controlled by the Dark Force that looms over us from the day we were born. At least in Singapore. Being a Singapore baby means “welcome to hell”. Yes, parents get the benefits, like the baby bonus, but what is it to the child? He’s going through a labyrinth and god knows if he’s going to meet the Minotaur. As in the myth, there’s no string to bring him back to safety. And the Minotaur is invincible. He can’t get out of the maze in any way.

That’s the route every Singaporean student takes. Either they walk past the beast, or they get chomped down. Those who make it go to the next level and they face the same thing again, only much fiercer and stronger. If they quit they’d probably relieve themselves, but face intense pressure from the Game Master who’s angry that they didn’t finish the game to the end. The end of the game is marked by an appearance of the Mount Vernon Crematorium or the Chua Chu Kang cemetery.

Our society has a very bad habit of branding people – i.e. in the case of the labyrinth, eating people up. We swallow and digest people – because people who get eaten – or those who fail – are “shit” and they come out as shit itself. There are two paths, which are very commonly stereotyped (digressions not included). No offence to anyone, but this is really how many Singaporeans think:

PATH A
Streaming  EM 1  SAP, autonomous school (at least a darn good Secondary School – usually one whose name does not even include “Secondary School” but some chim word like “Institution”, “High School”, “Boys’/Girls’ School”)  Top 5 Junior College (usually Top 4 – the fifth is like “for those who cannot make it to the top)  Prestigious scholarship (government-based, with bonds – but powerful ministries, not small measly ones)  Ivy League University  Top-paying job  Happy family  5Cs  (optional) meet them on Shenton Way and they snob and sneer at you

PATH B
Streaming  EM 3  Normal (Academic/Tech)  ITE  Polytechnic  Work
*Can be successful but in early life looked down upon by most people.

The following are subjects that are either revered or frowned upon. They’re not in order of strength:

REVERED
Economics
Law
Business/Accountancy/Management
Engineering – includes all the various types of engineering
Medicine
Bioengineering
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Journalism
Computer science

FROWNED
History
Literature/Language
Music
Visual arts
Theatre
Dance

*Geography lies somewhere in-between

As one can tell from the Junior College intakes: the arts – and I mean pure arts – are often outnumbered at least three to four times to the science classes. Often curious adults (not the parents in any sense) often think about the art student in the following ways:

1. Why do you choose Arts courses? (I.e. you mad is it?)
2. You cannot make it into Science course (I.e. you’re not good enough)
3. What are you going to do in future? (I.e. you want to spend your whole life teaching is it? Arts cannot make money, cannot feed family one)

When I hear such statements it really pisses me off. Can’t we ever have a choice to do what we like? We only go to the arts because we like doing those subjects! We will not force ourselves into something that offers prestige and more security for our future but we suffer and moan and complain every time we go for a lecture or tutorial. And furthermore there’s nothing to look down upon in the arts either. One develops skills that Science people might not acquire. I’m not boasting but really, for those alien to the arts courses, teaching methods are very different from those of science. We are given avenues of exploration, and constantly encouraged to provide our own opinions and develop our own arguments to substantiate the point we make about something. Because whatever we study is constantly disputable – there is no right or wrong answer. Even for history: it’s not about regurgitation as people would commonly do in Secondary Two – it’s all the curriculum planners’ faults for all the stereotyping. Rather, we try to form ideas on how change and continuity takes place; who is at fault for major human disasters; who is in the right and who is in the wrong. We develop acute human-relation skills – we are able to study other people and deduce an opinion about them. And we would be more sensitive to feelings, judging from other’s method of speech and facial expression. It’s the kind of beauty that is often underappreciated.

Singaporeans must be one of the best stereotypers in the world. They’re quick to point fingers and seldom change their opinion about something. Say someone goes to jail. Quickly people say, “He/she’s bad.” Even if the person turns over a new leaf, it’s still “He/she’s bad”. Similarly, students are also branded in the same way. One who constantly scores A grades tend to looked upon – and bootlicked by his peers and the government. Those that don’t are tossed aside and ignored. Still the A graders get their taste of pressure as well. They are expected to perform and keep standards. Otherwise they’ll be tossed aside and ignored too. An eye for an eye.

Besides the competition, there’s the crazy syllabus that’s constantly changing, as if the curriculum planners did some bad miscalculation and always overlooked one thing or the other. Yes, thank you, there’s the phrase “keep up with time”, but with the syllabus constantly changing every few years or so within the span of a decade, the poor teachers and students are fighting to keep up. For God’s sake spare some thought for them. The pace is such that as soon as a teacher gets the hang of one topic, he or she realises that they have to throw away whatever they have learnt and gear up for the new one. And students are having their brains fattened from a very early age. Whatever my generation learnt in the late primary school years, the young kids are already bombarded with these from the day they sign in to official school life in Primary One. Who knows, the next time the government will pass a law decreeing that kindergarten is compulsory. And they will change “Play schools” into “Prep schools”, or even better, “Mini Cramp Schools”.

Lastly, very sadly we only tend of think of results. In fact the whole idea of education is to prepare for a better and secure life, and to achieve that you must be academically well-off before you can be financially well-off. Even if you’re the worst slut or bastard but you’ve got terrific A’s for all your exams, you are guaranteed for success. I think that moral education has been forgotten in the race for the results. There are people I have seen in college who use backhand tactics and will not stop at anything until they get their desires. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese Foreign Minister takes another swipe at Singaporeans.

To round it off, perhaps there should be an international survey on the happiness of people. But Singaporeans would definitely lie, and their ratings false, because the top gainers would obviously tell the surveyors that yes, I’m very happy with my life in Singapore because I MADE IT. And the others who didn’t would probably keep quiet because if they spoke the truth, the government might label them as potential quitters.  ¶ 2/09/2004 12:43:00 am