Wei Kiat's Blog

Life will kick you in the balls.


Tissue Paper Peddler in Ang Mole Kio


Daughter of Ang Mole Kio MP in US


Certainly, the wheel chaired tissue paper peddler is "not good enough" to be the daughter of an MP, or the daughter of any other elites with similar family teachings, and therefore had her "life kicked her in her balls"(if she has any).

To put things right, I am not against elites. And admit it or not, wanting to be an elite is what motivates and drives many Singaporeans.

The crux of the issue here is, once you are an elite, what should you do? How should you pay back to society? How should carry yourself in public and understand others? How should you teach and educate your own children?

Everyone in this society has a role to play, be it insignificant or significant. People with higher intelligence and leadership helps civilisation by leading people towards progress, and bringing peace to chaos. People with passion in information technology helps civilisation by setting up our IT infrastructure, without which many things will not work, and this blog won't even be here. The old and the uneducated plays a part by becoming security guards, cleaners and roadsweepers, an often look down upon job, but something that certainly benefits civilisation drastically. Imagine a world without cleaners.

Who is to define who is "good enough" or not? Certainly not an 18 year old student studying in a elitist school, ranting with high and almighty attitude betraying her complete lack of understanding of how this world works.

Civilization don't work based on something so artificial as examination results or what school you are in. Civilization don't work by condemning citizens you are gloomed as a leader to look after.

Yet, the idea of academic achievements and the importance of it had already been implanted into the mindset of Singaporeans over the years, perhaps by hidden messages in TV shows we watch on Mediacorp, perhaps as a result of unique combination of ethnic groups in Singapore.

Either way, the end result was that under the clean, green and glorious image that Singaporeans had of themselves and thought foreigns had of ourselves, the "brutal truth" under all that self-delusion was much more alarming.

Kiasu-ism, where people are afraid of losing out had been hard wired into every single Singaporeans. Perhaps the government's move of bringing more and more foreign was a right one - a painful process to Singaporeans which will ultimately dilute various negative cultures and ideas and strengthen our cultures with good ones from the Western countries.

However, as far as I see, Kiasu-ism had infiltrated our educational system, undermining the noble concept of education, changing the mindset of our youth for the worst, and at the same time producing high educational wastage.

Parents preach their child on the importance of certificates, and how academic results are important for their future. Parents tell their children to work hard now, so that they can get high paying jobs and enjoy life later on. What grounds does all these assumptions stand on?

Yet, as a result of all these, education in Singapore became highly competitive, with students being stressed out and many of them committing suicide. Some say competition is good, and lead to higher standard of students. But at what expense?

Education is a pursue for knowledge, yet in Singapore education is a pursue for admission into a University. As a result of parents preaching about getting into university to ensure high paying jobs, and parents forcing their children into Junior Colleges, we have in fact created a bunch of useless elites, who were (because of their education level) at one or two rung higher than poly and ITE students, but in actual fact more useless than a piece of leaf lying on the floor.

I see some schoolmates and classmates putting University as their goal, and not knowing what subject to take when they got there. Isn't University a tool for which passionate learners use to realise their interest? Yet what we have here is a huge bunch of aimless clueless Singapore JC kids who thought they are so great, but were totally aimless. A goal in life should be specific, and University can be a tool to achieve that goal for some groups of people. University should not be viewed as a goal by itself.

The same thing with scholarships. Scholarships were supposed to help students pursue their interest. I've seen cases where desperate people forgo the subject they were interested in because no scholarship was available for that subject, and instead, for the sake of scholarship, chose a faculty where scholarships were available for. Students are supposed to shape their life using scholarship, not let scholarships shape it for them.

What can we say about these supposed elites who do well in examinations, get pretty scholarships, serve community for the sake of university admission, and despises other fellow Singaporeans from Polys and ITEs?

Lost, clueless, useless souls who will get kicked in their balls by their own lack of insight, free will and reason.

NB: Not all JC students are like that, but most are.