Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Kind Act Harshly Repaid on the MRT
My daughter just emailed this to me. After watching the clip, I decided to blog about it.
Actually I had seen this story earlier on the front page on TNP. I saw in inside a Caltex station while waiting to pay for petrol this morning. I thought it was very unfair to the kind young lady who had given up her seat to the middle aged woman.
Takes all sorts of people to make the world! Some types you want much less of. Now this ungrateful and unkind woman is getting the brickbats on social media. Perhaps it would even be in ST tomorrow and certainly the Chinese papers.
My gut feel is that our society now have a lot more angry people than before. We have become such an unhappy place. I can feel it driving on our roads. Just yesterday, an old Indian man, stately looking, was walking his dog in the middle of the road. As I drive toward him slowly he refused to move to the side. Of course he can't win against a car, but after I have passed him as I observed him from my rear view mirror he kept turning back and staring at me.
What's the matter with our society these days? All these are the behavior of people on the edge of losing control of themselves. They probably could not constructively obtain redress for whoever they felt have wronged them (PRCs for the middle aged woman above) and perhaps upper caste Indians for me who brought their sense of entitlement from India to Singapore. Probably that old Indian man felt my small car placed me much lower in the social hierarchy than him (he has a Bently in his garage?) and so I need to show him deference? At work, wifey used to have a Brahmin subordinate who refused to take instructions from her. Fortunately the CFO was local or it would be wifey rather than the Brahmin who would have lost the job.
I don't know how we can restore ourselves socially to former times. I can only do my part but political and civic leaders must do something to reverse the trend. After all it is the government who had created this environment.
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I agree with the observation that our society seems to on edge nowadays. People have become less gracious (less willing to give and take). We can easily observe the facial expressions of people, the looks that they give when displeased or the "tsk" sound that they chirped off say when they feel someone is blocking their way or too slow to give way. Could be the pressure cooker lifestyle of Singapore, the overcrowding, the stress from work, or even the NE message that no one owes us a living sinking in. Sigh. Things WILL get worse. More tussles and accostings will occur, over the least excuse. Will not be surprised of more "incidents", especially between different nationalities breaking out and escalating to involve groups, online and offline. It has already started.
ReplyDeleteu are right. pple today are angry about a lot of things. bullying bosses, demanding clients, difficult colleagues. and crowds. crowds everywhere. many pple displaying inconsiderate behaviour, poor manners, impatience. drivers of big name cars behave like utter boors. prices of too many things are too high. salaries are often too small. the hours at work too long. the family argumentative and uncommunicative.
ReplyDeletethe kids just dont seem to be scoring in sch.
there are so many things wrong in this society these days. and the heat does not help...
"After all it is the government who had created this environment."
ReplyDeleteThe growing tendency to blame the government for every atrocious behaviour by an individual is absurd and unhealthy.
When the garden I poorly maintained, the gardener is blamed. When the problems mentioned are linked to the 'ecosystem' of which this government is the gardener, who do people blame? Otherwise the government only takes credit for ever success in the Singapore Story? Oh yes, because this is a government that only manages the economy. It only governs the country but does to build a nation. If the atrocious behaviour of an individual is symptomatic of the society at large, then our society has become absurd and unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteThe rich must live simply so that the poor may simply live-Mahatma Gandhi
ReplyDeleteThe above saying puts the great disconnect that we Singaporeans are facing today succinctly.
I was driving my small under 1.6l car along Cairnhill Road and stopped at the red light. When it turned green, I took my time a bit to move and the big Audi at the back kept horning and forced me to the left lane. Then the middle age big fat lady driver wound down the window and started scolding. I was not so upset and wanted to say sorry until I heard her heavily accented Indian English...I wanted to tell her go home and abuse her own slaves!
ReplyDeleteWahahaha.... talk about this! I was given a good stare, scolded when I was in a near miss head on collision with some big hair lady driving in my lane. Ppl these days has lost all forms of reasoning and self respect.
DeleteWhere is all the Love and Kindness?
ReplyDeletetoo many people in Spore. Everyone hustling and trying to earn a living in this small red dot. This ruling party does not care because they live in big houses, sleep in big beds and drive in big cars where there is lots of space...so they are happy and dont care about those who dont live like them.
ReplyDelete