The dumb cane in the garden

Hi guys, I'm back from Belgium and there is an issue that I want to deal with today - many Singaporeans like the fact that Singapore is a very safe country and in comparison, other countries have higher crime rates. Whilst I do not dispute that, I do question why some Singaporeans are so paranoid about being unable to cope with living in a country with a somewhat higher crime rate. In my previous blog piece, I was discussing the options open to a young reader of mine who was thinking about moving to America. One of my readers Abigail tried to discourage him against moving to America because of the higher crime rate there and I quote her (disclaimer: Abigail is a Singaporean who has never lived in America, I doubt she has ever visited America as a tourist):

While there are unsafe neighborhoods everywhere, I think Singapore is different in that there are no ghetto-like communities that you have to avoid. So someone who has always been able to wander around all parts of the city at all hours of the day would have to get used to that. Moving out of Singapore would mean losing that option.

Dumb cane: did you know that this plant is poisonous?

Now, allow me to speak as someone who has lived in the West for nearly 20 years. I don't actually leave my home and start wandering through the city aimlessly, hoping on the first bus or train that comes along, not caring where it takes me with the sole purpose of wandering "around all parts of the city at all hours of the day". Who on earth actually does that? Throughout my time in the West, I have either been in full time education or in full time employment. Even when I was in Brussels this week on holiday, I never once left my hotel wandering around aimlessly: on the contrary, I was armed with a map of the city and a list of places I wanted to see, things I wanted to do, delicious local delicacies I wanted to feast on. I have a meeting next Monday at a location in Richmond I had never actually been to - so I looked up Google Maps to plan my journey, because I did not want to get lost. The bottom line is I always leave my house with a sense of purpose - nobody ever leaves their house to simply "wander around all parts of the city" randomly at all hours of the day and night. I bet even Abigail doesn't do that in Singapore. 

Allow me to share a story from my primary school days back in Sembawang Hills. This was from 1983 - when I was in primary one. There were some dumb cane plants in the school garden and the teacher noticed that some of us were playing around the dumb cane plants, so he decided to warn us not to touch the dumb cane plants as they are toxic. Most of us were more than happy to listen to the teacher's kind advice and we didn't touch the plant. But there was this one dumb kid - let's call him Gong Kia ("dumb kid" in Hokkien). Gong Kia simply couldn't resist the urge to touch the plant, he asked the teacher what would happen if he touched the leaves of the dumb cane. The teacher simply gave some vague reply like, "don't touch it, if you touch it, you will fall sick." Well that answer wasn't good enough for Gong Kia - so he decided to play with some dumb cane leaves to find out: rubbing them over his hands and face. Sure enough, within a short time, he experienced the full effects of dumb cane poisoning and was in agony, crying for help. 

Gong Kia's mother (let's refer to her as Mrs Gong) was furious that her child was exposed to such poisonous plants in the school. I remembered her screaming at the teacher, "why are you growing such dangerous, poisonous plants in the school garden where young children play? This was an accident waiting to happen." The teacher tried to explain that all the children were warned to stay away from the dumb cane - the plant had been there for years and most children will do as they are told, thus there was never any problem with the dumb cane plant being in the garden. Mrs Gong refused to accept that as a reasonable answer: she said that it was the responsibility of the school to protect the children from their own stupidity in case they defied the warnings. She even demanded that the only plants that should be grown in the school garden should be edible fruits, herbs and vegetables, so the children cannot fall sick should they decide to play with the plants and eat them. At no point, did she even acknowledge that her son had done something wrong. No, she placed the blame squarely on the teacher and the school.

So in this story, whose side do you take? Do you agree with Mrs Gong? Should there have been plants like dumb cane in the garden of a primary school? Do you believe that the teacher had done his duty in warning the children not to touch the dumb cane plant? Or do you think that Mrs Gong is right, that children need to be protected from their own stupidity, in case they decide to deliberately defy the teacher's instructions and play with the poisonous dumb cane plant anyway? Should we expect our figures in authority (teachers, the government etc) to protect us from our own stupidity, or can we be trusted to heed warnings in a sensible manner and take responsibility for our personal conduct?

Can we be trusted to take responsibility for our own actions?

Turning back to the issue of crime rates in the West: it is true that crime rates are higher in big cities like Sydney, New York, London and Paris. However, there is a pattern to the occurrence of these crimes: there are bad neighbourhoods where crime rates are a lot higher and good neighbourhoods where crime rates a lot lower. Needless to say, richer folks like myself choose to live and work in respectable neighbourhoods, where we don't have to worry about crime as we walk down the street. Poorer folks live in bad neighbourhoods because they simply cannot afford to live anywhere else, so they have little choice but to put up with the higher rates of crime everyday. Most Singaporeans who live in the West are highly skilled migrants who command a very respectable salary - so they can indeed, like me, afford to live in quite nice neighbourhoods where crime really isn't a problem at all. They say money can't buy you happiness, but believe me, money can make a lot of difference when it comes to being able to buy you a much better quality of housing in a much more pleasant neighbourhood to live in.

The only situation I can envisage where this may be a problem for a Singaporean migrant is if say a Singaporean woman marries a very poor American man - she gains access to America as a spouse, but her American husband is very poor and lives in an undesirable part of town where crime rates are very high. Yeah, in such a situation, this Singaporean woman will probably have to worry about her safety when it comes to crime, because she doesn't have the money to solve her problems by moving to a safer, more desirable part of town. I know they say love is blind, but if you do want to marry someone who is extremely poor, you should be aware of the consequences of living in poverty.

Being poor in the West truly sucks. 

I am also quite perturbed by the fact that my reader who posted this comment hasn't recognized that Singaporeans are unable to adapt to new circumstances: that we are somehow unable to get used to a new set of circumstances. Okay, firstly, let me say that is totally ridiculous. The fact is Singaporeans have to adapt to new circumstances in their lives all the time: the biggest shock to the system I have ever had was the transition from life as a student at VJC to enlisting for NS. Talk about a culture shock. Frankly, moving to the UK or France was nothing when compared to having to give up my civilian life when I enlisted. All Singaporean males have to serve NS and somehow, one way or another, we all manage to get over the shock to the system and adapt to this new environment. Some of us take longer than others, but we all eventually get used to the SAF regime and we all get through NS, eventually. This goes to show that Singaporean men (can't speak about the women, they don't have to serve NS) are actually pretty good when it comes to adapting to a new environment where the rules are totally different from what they are used to.

Every time you go to a new school/university or start a new job, you will encounter a brand new environment, with unfamiliar people and a whole new set of rules. Even if you do spend your entire life in Singapore, you will still have to adapt to new environments like that quite a few times in your life. Another major change that even Singaporean women have to deal with is when they complete their formal education and get their first job - this usually comes as quite a shock to the system as working life is often vastly different from student life. Yet even Singaporean women still somehow manage to get their heads around this transition and adapt to the new environment by learning the new rules at work. What does it take to adapt to a new environment then? I go back to the garden in my primary school - all you have to do is pay attention to the instruction and follow the rules, then you should be okay. And if you intend to be an idiot and break the rules, then tough, you're an adult - don't expect anybody to save you from your own stupidity.

Surely Singaporeans can be trusted to follow the rules?

Is anything I am saying here that surprising? Not really, a lot of it is quite frankly, just common sense, really. And besides, it was not like one can wander around Singapore at all hours of the day without any restrictions. The fact is Singapore is not totally free from crime - there's everything from robberies to assaults to rapes, even murders in Singapore. Here is a long list of some of the most infamous crimes that have taken place in Singapore.  You would remember most of these cases, especially the high profile murders. Here's another nice long list with more gruesome details of ten gruesome crimes committed in Singapore.  So how safe do you feel in Singapore now? Whenever you sense that there could be any potential for trouble, you turn and walk away - you do what you have to do to keep yourself safe. Do you Singaporeans actually believe that you will never ever fall prey to crime in Singapore? Do you actually believe that there is actually no crime at all in Singapore? Get real.

When you are placed in a new environment, it will mean inevitably that you will have to adapt to new conditions. My blog posts about winter wear are actually incredibly popular amongst my Singaporean readers: this goes to show that many Singaporeans are actually pretty good at getting hold of useful information that they need when traveling abroad. Singaporeans who move abroad simply accept that the weather will be quite different in America, Europe or Australia and that they will have to adapt and change their wardrobe. This process is actually incredibly easy: get the information you need about your new environment and follow the new rules accordingly. This reader of mine assumes that Singaporeans are inept that they can't even deal with small changes in their environment: well, perhaps a very small number of Singaporeans are really that inept and stupid - but the vast majority of Singaporeans are thankfully a lot more capable than that and no, they do not need to be protected from their own stupidity. I call it natural selection.

Limpeh in a snowstorm in Poland.

Based on Abigail's rather ridiculous arguments, it is clear that she knows very little about life in America. Yet people like her want to offer an opinion despite knowing nothing about America - such is the problem with social media. Even stupid people get to voice an opinion on topics they know nothing about and they don't care how ignorant they may come across in the process. The problem that this raises in social media is that you don't know when someone is actually offering good advice and when someone is just talking bullshit. Abigail's analysis is actually painfully simplistic: she thinks that life in America is bad and life in Singapore is so wonderful that crime never, ever happens. The truth is that life in the two counties may seem different on the surface, but once you get past the superficial differences, they are actually quite similar in many ways. Abigail chooses to focus on the aspects which are different, whilst ignoring the other aspects which are totally similar.

Now I know my regular readers would be saying to me - why split hairs over Abigail's post? Why attack her personally like that? I don't know who she is, it is nothing personal, but her mentality does reflect a certain type of Singaporean who does think like her. And thus I am trying to attack people who think like her and offer them some common sense since they clearly lack it. I accept that some people have so little common sense that they need the government or some other figure of authority to help protect them from their own stupidity. However, I would also like to point out the other side of the equation - that most of us are actually intelligent enough and do have sufficient common sense to be able to cope with the various challenging circumstances that life may through at us, especially when it comes to adapting to a new environment. We learn the rules quickly and we abide by the rules - it is not really that different from say getting a new kitchen appliance (like a microwave, an ice cream maker or a dishwasher). You read the instruction manual carefully and you learn from the manual how it works - you don't simply "anyhow hantam" by pressing random buttons and hope that it does what you want. Life doesn't work like that but the vast majority of us know that already.

Do you have enough common sense to cope with life?

So there you go, that's it from me on this topic. What do you think? Am I right in assuming that the vast majority of Singaporeans do have sufficient common sense to cope with the challenges of life? Or does Abigail actually have a point - that Singaporeans are generally quite clueless the moment they venture outside Singapore? Should we protect dumb people (like Abigail) from their own stupidity? Do leave a comment below please, many thanks for reading.