Singaporeans are rude.

Singaporeans are socially graceless.

Singaporeans are blah blah blah blah.

We get it already!

But like people who nag too much, these letters eventually become white noise. In one ear and out the other while passing that empty vacuum in between.

One of those letters complaining about Singaporeans’ complete disregard for courtesy and basic social grace and emphasizing how soulless and callous we all are, appeared in the ST forums today.

The full text, unedited and unabridged, is reproduced here:

RECENTLY, my friend from Australia commented that Singaporeans behaved like pigs. I disagreed, saying that at most it’s a small minority who behaved that way.

He challenged me to a test. I accepted his challenge, determined to prove him wrong. I was bitterly disappointed.

Here is an account of what happened.

My friend, my wife, our one-year-old son in a pram and I (wearing a neck brace and with my arm in a sling from injuries sustained in a car accident) went for an MRT ride. My wife and son couldn’t get into the station for some time because other commuters kept using the gate meant for the disabled, ignoring her and the pram.

When the train arrived, people rushed in while alighting passengers rushed out. No one gave way to my wife and the pram. She had to compete with the horde to get onto the train. To make things worse, those standing at the doorway refused to move in, making it even more difficult for her.

Once on board, no one bothered to give up his seat to my wife, who was carrying our son. Those seated were young, able-bodied and educated (executive-type) adults. Finally, it was two Thai workers who gave up their seats to us.

Later, an old woman boarded the train. Again, no one gave up his seat until a man in a neck brace and an arm sling did so.

When we reached our destination, we tried to take the lift from the platform to the ticket concourse. The lift was packed with able-bodied people. My friend asked that my wife and the pram be allowed in but one man turned around and remarked rudely, ‘Why can’t you take the next lift?’. I was shocked beyond words.

We went to a packed food court for lunch. No tables were available. We waited and finally noticed a couple leaving. We inched our way towards their table but, with just 5m to go, a group of office girls ran ahead of us and took the table.

When we finally got a table, it was unbelievably messy. There were chicken bones, spilt sauces and prawn shells all over the table.

I turned red in the face when my friend, who was helping to clear the table, asked, ‘So, do you still think that it’s only a minority of Singaporeans that behave this way? If so, take a look around you. Look real hard at the tables when they leave… You guys eat like pigs.’

Martin Goh Lye Thiam

C’mon, was Mr Goh covering his ears and going “Nanananananana!” everytime our wonderful gahmen stresses that Singapore is a meritocracy? For those who don’t know what meritocracy means, here’s the definition from www.dictionary.com:

mer·i·toc·ra·cy (mr-tkr-s)
n. pl. mer·i·toc·ra·cies

1. A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.
2. 1. A group of leaders or officeholders selected on the basis of individual ability or achievement.
   2. Leadership by such a group.

“A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.”

That’s what we are. We are a meritocracy, where everybody’s place in society is determined by their ability and achievement. If you want anything, then you’re going to have to be willing to work for it and prove how capable you are.

There are no free rides in a meritocracy and you ought to expect none. Singapore is not a welfare state. We do not give free handouts based on disability or injury. We are fair, sometimes to the point of harshness.

As can be clearly seen in his letter, Mr Goh and his wife were unwilling to work for anything. Instead, he preferred hand-outs from other people due to the fact that his arm was in a cast and his wife was pushing a pram. As he repeatedly admitted in his letter,

• He did not work to get into a position where he can use the gate meant for the disabled. He waited and hung around until either an opening came or someone allowed him to pass. No initiative was shown at all by him or any member of his family to get through the gate.

• Again, while waiting to board the train, he waited for someone else to give way for him and his wife. There was no evidence in his letter to indicate that he, at any moment, fought for a position where he can board the train. He also expected those at the doorway to move in for him and his wife.

• In the train, he did not rush for available seats. Instead, he waited for people to give up their seats for him because his arm was in a cast.

• Mr Goh did not work to get into the lift, allowing people to pass through him. From experience, I have discovered that in situations outlined here and above, a plaster cast can be a formidable weapon if wielded properly and would have been advantageous for Mr Goh to employ at this instant. However, it is unclear why Mr Goh did not choose to do this. Instead, he allowed it to happen and complain about it in the papers.

• The man in the lift had a point too. Why couldn’t he wait for the next lift? Was Mr Goh going to die of embarassment in front of his Aussie friend at that point? Did he require medical attention? If he did, he should have called for the ambulance himself. In a meritocracy, you can’t expect the ambulance to come for you if you didn’t call it first, even if you are blushing to death.

• He was slow in approaching the table at the food court. Those office girls, honed by the intricacies of office politics, showed determination in getting to their seats while he and his wife were lagging behind. Early bird catches the worm, they say.

While Mr Goh sees a graceless, discourteous and even “piggy” society, I see meritocracy in action. His letter only indicates that Mr Goh lacks initiative, drive and determination. All of which are important qualities if you wish to advance in a meritocratic society.

Do we really want people like Mr Goh among us? His laidback and indifferent attitude in trying to achieve his goals smacks of rebelliousness, mixed with a hint of dissension, against the Singapore Way.

While Mr Goh might want to live in a welfare state where he can get freebies and handouts based on his injury, I’m sure the rest of us would not want that. A welfare state would mean higher taxes to support the many social programs for people who are too lazy to work for themselves. However, we are not opposed to giving Mr Goh nasty looks, whispered curses and even, the almighty finger.

Also, there’s a touch of that colonial mentality in his letter. Just because his Aussie friend called us pigs, we’re all supposed to cower, shake, shiver, beg for forgiveness and change our ways? Is his Aussie friend supposed to approve of us before we are alright in Mr Goh’s eyes? Do we always have to seek external validation?

I like Aussies and all. The ones that I met when I was doing my undergrad there were really good people. But, to put it simply, why should we give a flying crap what they think of us? We certainly didn’t listen to them when we hanged Nguyen, why should we start now?

And lastly, being called a pig is not a bad thing. If someone insults you with a word, you take that word, mock it until you own it. Just like the way blacks have owned the term “nigger”.

The pig is a great animal. It’s omnivorous, it will eat anything, even shit. It’s a highly efficient food processing platform as well as being extremely low maintenance. Leave a pig alone and it will fend for itself. It isn’t clingy or needy.

This is exactly the kind of image that Singaporeans want to project to the world. We are efficient and low maintenance. We get things done fast, without hiccups, while retaining the ability to work independently and for comparatively low wages. We’re also willing to take shit from people. As a Singaporean, I’m proud to behave like a pig.

We should adopt the pig as the national animal. The lion is sooooo 1965.

Who was that babe playing LTA Adnan’s wife? She’s got that oh-so-rare mixture of hot and sweet.

Me like. Lub her long time. Hubba hubba.

The next thing that went to my head was how much of my kind of officer LTA Adnan was. He worked his way up from a lowly private to a CSM before being commissioned. He knew what being a man feels like and wasn’t just posted in from SAFTI (or the 1930′s equivalent), thinking he knows everything there is to know and expecting the rest of the men to bow down to his uberness.

However, there is no denying LTA Adnan’s and/or the Malay Regiment’s uberness. 18000 Japs, including the elite 18th Crysanthemum Division of the Japanese Imperial Guards, against the 1400 men (no, I didn’t forget a zero) of the 1st and 2nd Battalion, Malay Regiment supported by various Aussie, British and Indian brigades. They held the line for 48 hours, short on ammo and without any artillery or air cover until they were completely overrun.

Noel Barber said of the regiment in his book, Sinister Twilight:

“A regular, locally raised unit, commanded by Malay-speaking British officers, it was a living and dying illustration of the folly of not having raised more such local forces before the war in which men could defend what was their homeland, for, as Percival noted, the Malay Brigade ‘showed what esprit de corps and discipline can achieve. Garrisons of posts held their ground and many of them were wiped out almost to a man.’“

The story of LTA Adnan and the Malay Regiment fascinates me, partly because it’s a heroic tale so close to home and also partly because so much of the story is lost. We don’t know the history of any of the other men. The only one having a human face seems to be LTA Adnan himself, making a comprehensive on-the-ground look of the unit in the vein of Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers impossible. An even then, details and accounts of his early life and death are disputed. A lot of details lost in obscurity because of the poor, and often non-existent, record-keeping in the Federated Malay States at the time.

What we do know is the actual Battle of Pasir Panjang itself, mostly because that battle was part of the larger Battle of Singapore and it was the last line of defence for the Alexandra Military Hospital. The Malay Regiment is just a footnote in that larger story, which really makes their sacrifice even more tragic.

I’m not sure but I think in our secondary school history texts, the Battle of Pasir Panjang didn’t even take up a paragraph. It was just sorta mentioned in passing. I don’t know why they had space for Mongkut and Chulalongkorn and even several chapters on Indonesian history but they didn’t have any for the Malay Regiment. Maybe it’s because these were Malaysian men who died for Singapore and we don’t want Singaporeans thinking well of Malaysians, do we? Better to think of them as the barbarians to the north, I guess.

It saddens me to think that their story will be completely forgotten someday. I have friends who know everything about Easy and the 101st and Bastogne, glorifying their victorious march from Normandy to Berchtesgaden but know nothing about these heroes closer to home. In a way, Pasir Panjang was our Bastogne, or maybe more accurately put, Bastogne was their Pasir Panjang. They commemorate D-Day but know nothing about Remembrance Day. Where are our poppies at Kranji Memorial?

But hey, can’t really blame them. I was like that too till I had the privilege of attending an Anzac Day memorial service last year. Was for an assignment but I had no regrets going. It was such a touching and moving service, especially when you hear “For the Fallen” being solemnly read out. And the thing that gets me most was that there were plenty of young people at the ceremony, honouring the Aussie diggers that fell at Gallipoli, Nazi Europe, Vietnam and every war that Australia was involved in. It wasn’t just for the older folks. Where is our Anzac Day, I asked. SAF Day’s a joke and no one seems to care about Remembrance Day. Felt really guilty and ashamed at that point. I am Singaporean and yet I don’t really know much about my own home. There I was holding up American GIs as heroes but know nothing about our own fallen.

The story of the Malay Regiment is important to the Malay community here, I think. We sorely lack our own heroes. And no one mention Hang Tuah, please. To stay loyal to the man that betrayed you and tried to get you killed because of his own insecurities is beyond moronic. I’m with Jebat on that one. It’s not a story I want to tell people. But LTA Adnan’s a man to look up to. He defines Malay manhood, I think. He is, if you think about it, the first modern Malay male. Taat Setia. Loyal and true, not to mention courageous and humble as well, traits we should emulate. I only score 1 out of 4 there. If I had known about him when I was younger, then maybe there would have been none of that aping of the West, looking for heroes and role models.

And it’s important in the larger context of Singapore too. These heroic stories of struggles against all odds, of the bloody and gruesome last stand, adds to the rhetoric of nation-building. Aussies see Gallipoli as their coming-of-age, as the time when they shook of their colonial shackles and come into their own in the world community. Pasir Panjang should have been Singapore’s coming-of-age story. It was the day when we realised that our colonial masters are not invincible, that they’re only human. The idea of a nation, of a homeland, of independence, of a Malaysia, of a Singapore, was born on that day.

If you’re ever at the Kranji Memorial, look for columns 385 to 404. This is the list of all those in service who died for Singapore in WW2. This list includes the Malay Regiment, Dalforce, Singapore Volunteer Corps (now serving as the PDF formation within the SAF, possibly the only unit in the SAF ORBAT to have seen combat) and many more.

Parting words from Professor Edwin Thumboo’s Adnan & Comrades At Bukit Chandu:

Deep rumbling guns; sharp whistle in the air,
Their shells rip in to churn our earth.
Then attacks propelled by fury. Yet no despair,
No crack in our resolve. Freedom’s worth

Is the blood we shed. Our cause is just;
Our sacrifice will never, ever, be in vain.
Ta’at Setia: we hold our hill, we must.
Come comrades, duty stirs our souls again.

The enemy are many; we are few
At one strategic point they boldly came,
Across a stream, up ravines wet with dew.
We bayonet-drove, we slew; left many lame.
From that clash their hatred grew.

Days and nights are sad with mourning:
Broken houses, those children we can’t find;
And for the dead, the dying and the groaning.
War has no glory, only what’s bitterly unkind.

We may yield the moment, not our inner self:
A soldier’s oath, solemn made is deep
with duty, honour, the fellowship of life itself.
These we cherish and keep,
As companions of our memory;
as guardians of our sleep.