A letter of hope to the Singapore press:
From Saturday, Jan 2, 2010 The Straits Times:
Don’t tar all youths with the same brush
I REFER to Thursday’s letter by Mr Seto Hann Hoi, ‘The young lack moral compass’.
I feel he has painted far too bleak a picture of youths in Singapore. While I firmly believe that the issue of youth-related crimes deserves critical attention, I find the categorical dismissal of all youths as lacking in a moral compass discomforting.
I have been involved in youth development work since 2005. Over the years, I have encountered youths from different family and educational backgrounds active in volunteering their time for worthy causes, involving helping their fellow workers, the underprivileged in society, needy children or the elderly.
I have seen youths spending months of their time after work or studies, on weekdays and weekends, rehearsing for a musical, just so people can understand the hardships our forefathers faced in the early days of nation building.
I have seen them spending many precious weekends taking underprivileged children out on learning journeys as their parents were unable to do so due to lack of time or resources.
I have seen them taking time out to recycle computers for redistribution to low-income families, and going even to the extent of arranging their own transport to take the computers to the families.
I have seen many other examples of youths making sacrifices for others. I am certain my peers in various youth organisations would concur with my experiences and observations.
In every society, as certain as death and taxes, there will be shining examples and not-so-shining ones. To close a mine just because a flawed diamond is unearthed is daft, especially since every diamond, flawed or otherwise, can become a priceless piece in the hands of the right craftsman.
Thus to lose hope in the young people of Singapore categorically is unnecessary and almost certainly overstating the case.
In the course of my own lifetime of 36 years, I have heard youths called many things – apathetic, ungrateful, soft and now, lacking a moral compass.
We can continue to invent new adjectives for youths in Singapore. Or we can reach out to them in a more significant manner by showcasing the positive real-life examples we see around us.
I choose the latter, as all of us were once youths, if not now.
Steve Tan
Mighty fine of Mr Tan to rebut and stand up for the youths in Singapore, when most of whom I see only hang about and loiter in Cineleisure. Granted, I never have a bright view of youths in the first place. But who am I to censure when the relevant censors don’t.
EDIT (or should it be a WISHB?): Further clarifications are in my second comment to Laremy, here.
In the morning…
After you have rushing a 4,000 words essay through the night, don’t you find your fingers getting numbed when the morning comes? You aim for the letter A but you struck S instead. Another S.
Damn.
And right after you handed in the essay, you no longer feel so sleepy anymore. It’s as if you have slept the entire night.
…a thought from my university days
Photo: Ferch
Softly curled
F
a
l
l
i
n
g
gently
Piled around her shoulders,
sensously
An Eden beyond my reckoning,
Beckoning
(poems written on paper serviettes)
Photo: Eduardo Kobra
I like
scuba diving, green apples, red apples, all sorts of fruit except starfruits, running forward while letting my rationality stay behind, sometimes hitting the gym, the smell of freshly baked bread, good bread (but not breadtalk), stars flickering in the sky but not being blocked by HDB flats, an azure Singaporean skyline without hideous HDB flats, a Singapore with less people, an island that’s really an island – sandy beaches and coconut trees with a gorgeous sea, good tunes with discernible beats, all sorts of music but not jazz please, L’Arc~en~Ciel and X-Japan, a lot of manga and anime, Japanese culture, daifuku, Japanese red bean should rule the world, an ordinary but fulfilling life, happiness, universal love, Volkswagen Kombi, manual cars, never-ending roads with no cars, empty streets, empty HDB flats, empty Singapore, my friends, my colleagues, my colleagues who are also friends, categories, dichotomies, typologies, Lacan and Freud, pseudo-intellectuals, random bits of knowledge, instant noodles with an egg and luncheon meat, espresso, English breakfast tea, 24-hour breakfasts, places that serve 24-hour breakfasts, quiet cafes, That CD shop in front of Pacific Plaza, that 24-hour Starbucks in front of That CD shop in front of Pacific Plaza, double chocolate chip cookies from Subway, Breakfast King from Burger King, sometimes fries and double cheeseburger from Macs, Late Night Alumni’s Empty Streets (Original Mix), Love Generation, intense talks with friends, liking nobody and everybody at once, liking women.
I like
the smell of paper, the smell of Monocle, that English paper, the smell of freshly shampooed hair, the look of that damp hair hanging, touching the shirt ever so gently and leaving a patch of their existence behind. I like French and Japanese languages, French and Japanese people, travelling to unknown places alone, savouring cuisines, driving, the alienated feel of cars, the ridiculousness of this society.
Because I like so many things
I think I like
having no favourite colours, having no favourites, having nothing fixed about what I like and liking your smile when I look at you.
I like these small little things in my life.
What do you like?
Such shameless Bards we have; and yet ’tis true,
There are as mad, abandon’d Criticks too.
The Bookful Blockhead, ignorantly read,
With Loads of Learned Lumber in his Head,
With his own Tongue still edifies his Ears,
And always List’ning to Himself appears.
All Books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden’s Fables down to Durfey’s Tales.
With him, most Authors steal their Works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.
Name a new Play, and he’s the Poet’s Friend,
Nay show’d his Faults – but when wou’d Poets mend?
No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr’d,
Nor is Paul’s Church more safe than Paul’s Church-yard:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they’ll talk you dead;
For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.Alexander Pope, An essay in criticism, 1709
To rush or to seize the day, that is the question.
I move my Queen and win a piece – but a move’s lost regardless.
Unfortunate be that we only have one life to leave.
Photo: 射手座の新★
Their hair turned white, in that single ray of light
they stood together, gazing, as others remember
how love was back then when all was that simple.
