Perhaps Singaporeans really aren't that miserable?

Hello again everyone! I totally love it when one of my blog posts generates a huge discussion and such was the case with my response to the BBC article on Singaporeans being miserable. Allow me to synthesize some of the thoughts that have been raised as part of this discussion - as I have lived away from Singapore since 1997, I am glad my readers have filled me in and I would like to do a follow up on the issue of this 'compassion deficit' in Singapore.

I think the key point that I got from a number of my readers is that Singaporeans are not miserable or unkind - but rather, that kindness tends to be reserved for people they know, even if that may be a friend or a friend or some equally tenuous connection. As for helping total strangers, Singaporeans tend to be a lot more hesitant about either approaching a stranger for help or accepting help from a stranger. Why is this the case? 

Would you gladly help a stranger in distress?

Firstly, the older generation are quite used to defaulting to the government - people like my parents spent most of their lives trusting the PAP, they believed that the PAP would make all the best decisions on their behalf. This can be quite extreme - back in the 1990s, there was a scheme whereby civil servants could make a small monthly contribution to a charity of their choice through their pay system. This donation would be deducted directly from their pay packet and it was designed to be a simple way for civil servants who wish to donate to charity.  

My father couldn't understand the concept of charity, he didn't want to participate in the scheme. He questioned the scheme, "if there needs to be a hospital to be built, the ministry of health would have built it. If there are poor who need help, the government would help them. If there is a school that needs something, then there's the ministry of education to deal with it. The government have so many departments to take care of all aspects of life here in Singapore, why do people want to kaypoh (be a busybody) and do charity? They only get in the way of the government's good plans! The government know what they are doing, do these charities know what they are doing? How do I know they are going to spend my donation wisely? Why doesn't the government just take over these charities and run them?" 

My father doesn't believe in the concept of 'charity'.

Is my father a selfish man? I don't think so - he is kind and generous with the people in his life. He is extremely patient with his disabled grandson and has done so much for my nephew's education. Nonetheless, his justification for not giving to charity is based on the presumption that the government can do a much better job that these charities. In short, like so many Singaporeans of his generation, he is totally brainwashed by the PAP. The way he defaults to authorities is indicative of the way he has been socially conditioned to do so after decades in Singapore. Let me give you an example from the year 1985 - when I was a young child in primary school, about to go on a holiday. 

I love the way Changi airport is so full of beautiful plants. My family were going on holiday and whilst we were waiting in the departure lounge, I noticed that a pot of orchids had fallen over. Instinctively, I walked over to the pot and wanted to put it back upright. My father stopped me, slapped my hand to stop me from picking up the pot and he told me off. "Don't kaypoh (be a busybody)! You kaypoh for what? What if people thought you knocked over that pot of orchids? Wait they make you pay for that pot of orchids if it is damaged - these big pots of orchids are expensive! Only the people working at Changi airport can pick up that pot of orchids, you can tell them that it has fallen over but you cannot go and pick it up yourself. Nobody asked you to pick up that pot of orchids, you mind your own business." 

That Changi airport orchid incident demonstrated two very Singaporean traits: firstly, there is the fear of getting into trouble or being blamed for something. Perhaps it is somewhat irrational at times, but bear in mind the fact that Singaporeans are threatened with fines and punishments for all manners of crime from graffiti to street art to what we say on the internet. Is it any wonder why Singaporeans have this fear of getting into trouble? Secondly, there is that expectation that there is always somebody paid by the government to do whatever needs to be done (and if there is nobody paid by the government to do it, then it doesn't need to be done), so there isn't a need to get involved. When you combine these two traits, you get inaction, you get people who simply look the other way when they see a pot of orchids which have been knocked over when it would have taken anyone a matter of seconds to put that pot of orchids back upright. Perhaps that's why everyone else around me chose to ignore those that pot of orchids? 

So was my father motivated by selfishness? Not really, I think he was motivated by a desire to protect his son from any kind of trouble. He didn't see any incentive for me to have stepped in to help and he was afraid I would be accused of being the naughty boy who knocked over that pot of orchids. (Oh and how would that reflect on him as a parent?) Within that context, his behaviour does make sense - at least to other Singaporeans who understand this very Singaporean mindset. But what happens when you replicate this mindset over a population of over 5 million people?

My cat Zing in Changi Airport, summer 2011.

This mindset doesn't however, prevent my father from behaving in a kind and generous way towards people he does know, it simply prevents him from engaging with strangers. This perhaps reflects an aspect of Chinese culture - Chinese people tend to seek help from within their community, from people they do know: be it friends or relatives, friends of friends or even someone they may not even know but feel that they have some notion of kinship with. I experienced this first hand when I was working in Prague in the Czech Republic, where I met this Chinese immigrant 'Wang' who assumed that I was going to help him just because of our shared Chinese heritage. (Heck, I'm Eurasian, I'm mixed, I'm not even completely Chinese, but I digress.) Even when Chinese immigrants first came to Singapore, many of them sought help from their respective clan associations (such as the Hokkien Huay Kwan) and they often received a lot of help on this basis of kinship ("I'm Hokkien, you're Hokkien too, so please help a fellow Hokkien brother.)

Hence as Chinese people, we have been conditioned for generations to seek help from within our own community, using our own networks, solving our problems through our own means rather than ask strangers for help, this creates a double-edged sword. On one hand, it does breed a certain kind of resilience when it comes to facing the tough challenges of life. On the other hand, it does mean that it creates people like my father who will gladly look the other way and say, "it is not my problem, don't kaypoh, mind your own business, s/he can solve his own problems" if he witnesses someone else in trouble on the assumption that this person will either seek help from his/her own community or that the government will take care of this person. That's just the way many Singaporeans are programmed.

Who would you be happy to seek help from?

Let me give you another example - when I am in the UK, I would always help strangers if I spot them struggling with heavy bags up and down the stairs. This happens a lot in train stations where there are often many stairs and a lift is not always available. This kind gesture is always graciously accepted by the person struggling with the heavy bags and it is pretty much the norm here in the UK. When I tried to do the same thing when I was back in Singapore, the Singaporean auntie glared at me and said, "no it's okay, I don't need your help, it's fine," despite the fact that she had obviously been struggling with two very heavy bags. The tone of her voice and her body language told me to back right off rather than insist on helping her - clearly, she didn't trust me and didn't want me anywhere near her bags.

I am guessing that her reaction is down to the fact that my actions were unusual in the context of Singapore, hence her combination of surprise and suspicion. That was why she didn't want to accept my help and from my point of view, if this was the reaction I got every time I tried to be nice and help a stranger, it is very discouraging indeed. I would become less and less inclined to want to intervene if people are going to react like that to my acts of kindness. Hence this is a vicious cycle that reinforces itself and creates a society where people simply look the other way all the time.

Do Singaporeans react in a hostile manners to strangers?

So that's my theory to try to explain the Singaporean mindset and the first person I put this to was a British person who knew Singapore very well and had been there many times.He smirked and was cynical - he thought I was simply trying to write a counter argument for the sake of it, as this is a part 2 of a two part series on my blog. His response is quite telling and I have to admit, he does have a point and I do agree with him!

"When I was last in Singapore, the family hosting me was so nice to me. They put me up in their home, they fed me well, they took me to all the lovely sights in Singapore - I had a fantastic time and enjoyed Singapore a lot. It is a beautiful, exciting, vibrant city - the only thing ugly about the whole experience was witnessing the way my host family treated their maid. This poor, thin Indonesian woman never had a moment to herself, they barked their orders at her like she was a dog - her English wasn't fluent, so sometimes they resorted to this baby-talk pidgin English with her and it was just painful to watch. They could have spoken more slowly and clearly with her, but this baby-talk English was just condescending to say the least! Once she was a bit slow in serving dinner and they scolded her like she was nothing - they just shouted at her, venting their anger. They kept threatening to not let her have her day off - is that legal?

Most visitors do enjoy their time in Singapore.

I was the white, British guest and treated with so much kindness - yet they couldn't even have the basic courtesy to speak nicely to the maid. It seems that I was the only person who ever said 'thank you' to her when she brought me a cup of tea or cleared the table. And my host even told me, "you don't need to thank her, she is just doing her job." Even the kids in their family treat the maid like crap. I think this kind of Singaporean selective kindness just isn't sufficient, when you choose to be nice to some people and not others. By that token, you can take any figure from history like Hitler or Stalin and find some example of kindness that they have done and try to justify that they had been kind. We should judge people not by their deeds of kindness, but by their most unkind actions."

I shall end on that note - perhaps we are just scratching the surface here with these superficial things like holding the door open for strangers or giving up the seat on the train for a pregnant lady. Perhaps we really should be looking at far more fundamental aspects of life in Singapore - such as the way foreign workers are treated and the impact of this huge inequality in our society. What are your thoughts on the issue? Is the Singaporean mindset simply misunderstood by our friends in Britain? Or are the British actually correct that there is something quite fundamentally wrong with Singaporean society? Is there really a compassion deficit in Singapore today? Let me know your thoughts, let's continue this interesting discussion. Please do leave a comment below, thank you very much for reading.