National Day Celebrations
the 2 main celebratory events in schedule:
1.National Day Speech
Touched on economic, social, and mentions major events in the future (youth olympics, integrated resorts). Also mentioned in the speech was also some interesting bits.
Quote:
"What then is the Singapore Spirit? The “Singapore Spirit” is a common identity we share that arises from our heritage and way of life. In Singapore, we celebrate our different cultures, but we never let that divide us. While we are a small country, we are a strong society because we stand united, as one people, ready to defend our country and to work together for the common good. We value and maintain our ‘common space’ - institutions such as our schools, National Service and even our hawker centres, where people of different races and religions interact, share common experiences and strengthen our bonds as one people."
The "Singapore Spirit" - common identity, way of life. Singlish, Food, and HDB flats. But also complaining, 'kiasu', high stress levels. Our culture is uniquely diverse, and diversely unique. Still, the theme "Singapore Spirit" - seems to depict nationalism and loyalty to country, which I'm not sure all Singaporeans have. I agree with the importance of places of interactions between races. History books remind us of racial riots in the 1960s, which is possibly still due to the different enclaves. The last part coincidentally ties in with what our movie 'portrays', sepet, a Malaysian movie to celebrate National Day. More to that in later paragraphs.
Quote:
"We believe in hard work, and treasure the fact that all of us, regardless of background, have the chance to improve our lives based on our own efforts. At the same time, we are a just and compassionate society, where the more successful reach out to help the less fortunate and where we seek to create opportunities and hope for all Singaporeans."
Emphasises on justice and meritocracy, which is thrives in Singapore. However, "compassion", i.e. fraternity is hard to find in an ever-increasingly competitive society, where selfishness and craftiness prevail. "the more successful reach out to help the less fortunate". This kind of reminds me about the NKF saga and the recent Ren Ci scandal. Not very successful isn't it? I guess our 'compassion', coming in the form of money, may not be reaching the right sources.
2. Movie - Sepet
From wikipedia: Sepet is a 2004 Malaysian romantic comedy drama film set in Ipoh, Malaysia. Directed by Yasmin Ahmad, it tells a tale of a love that blooms between a Chinese boy and a Malay girl. Sepet is a Malay word which, in this context, refers to the 'slit eyes' of the Chinese.
This movie really had a 'local' feel to it, unlike the blockbuster action movies and the Japanese anime that I watch. The comedy involves dialects, mixes of english, chinese, malay, which is quite common in Singapore too. It shows, like every romantic show, the things the couple are willing to go through and the obstacles that they overcome; the emotions that they experience, the audience also experiences, a connection between the actors and the audience. IMHO, I think that racial and social pressures are an obstacle, and are NOT what the scriptwriter particularly had in mind. I don't think teachers that watch the film go "Hey, this is a really good movie to teach the students about racial issues". Rather, I think this is what happened:
Teacher: "Hey, we need a movie to educate our students about local racial issues on national day."
*After much searching, finally decides on sepet*
The GP panel was criticizing us about not thinking about these social and racial pressures, but this movie being a romcom do not have the intent to stir those questions. At that time, we were audiences, not gp students asked to critically analyze and observe racial themes, in a mindset of relaxation.
Also, the tutors brought up a question "What do you think will happen if Singapore followed an education system favouring a certain race?" Oh please, of all hypothetically possible situations, this is a bad one. One can understand that you have to link it back to Singapore, but this is lame. Singapore, on a system of meritocracy, will not implement such policies in 300 years. Singaporean history has already illustrated ill effects of racial discrimination, I don't think human intelligence will degrade to that extent in the near future...
Human nature will become the undoing of us. Greediness, discrimination, stereotyping; as our society becomes more 'civilised', the greater these problems show. Shouldn't there be a point where we should stop all our environment-polluting and money-grubbing activities, and look back at the past where such problems don't exist?
what's wrong with the world anyway; Why do we want to live to a hundred years old? Afraid of death? Progress just pulls us deeper into the quicksand.
Oh well, that's how the way the world works. Happy National Day and enjoy the Olympics too.
1.National Day Speech
Touched on economic, social, and mentions major events in the future (youth olympics, integrated resorts). Also mentioned in the speech was also some interesting bits.
Quote:
"What then is the Singapore Spirit? The “Singapore Spirit” is a common identity we share that arises from our heritage and way of life. In Singapore, we celebrate our different cultures, but we never let that divide us. While we are a small country, we are a strong society because we stand united, as one people, ready to defend our country and to work together for the common good. We value and maintain our ‘common space’ - institutions such as our schools, National Service and even our hawker centres, where people of different races and religions interact, share common experiences and strengthen our bonds as one people."
The "Singapore Spirit" - common identity, way of life. Singlish, Food, and HDB flats. But also complaining, 'kiasu', high stress levels. Our culture is uniquely diverse, and diversely unique. Still, the theme "Singapore Spirit" - seems to depict nationalism and loyalty to country, which I'm not sure all Singaporeans have. I agree with the importance of places of interactions between races. History books remind us of racial riots in the 1960s, which is possibly still due to the different enclaves. The last part coincidentally ties in with what our movie 'portrays', sepet, a Malaysian movie to celebrate National Day. More to that in later paragraphs.
Quote:
"We believe in hard work, and treasure the fact that all of us, regardless of background, have the chance to improve our lives based on our own efforts. At the same time, we are a just and compassionate society, where the more successful reach out to help the less fortunate and where we seek to create opportunities and hope for all Singaporeans."
Emphasises on justice and meritocracy, which is thrives in Singapore. However, "compassion", i.e. fraternity is hard to find in an ever-increasingly competitive society, where selfishness and craftiness prevail. "the more successful reach out to help the less fortunate". This kind of reminds me about the NKF saga and the recent Ren Ci scandal. Not very successful isn't it? I guess our 'compassion', coming in the form of money, may not be reaching the right sources.
2. Movie - Sepet
From wikipedia: Sepet is a 2004 Malaysian romantic comedy drama film set in Ipoh, Malaysia. Directed by Yasmin Ahmad, it tells a tale of a love that blooms between a Chinese boy and a Malay girl. Sepet is a Malay word which, in this context, refers to the 'slit eyes' of the Chinese.
This movie really had a 'local' feel to it, unlike the blockbuster action movies and the Japanese anime that I watch. The comedy involves dialects, mixes of english, chinese, malay, which is quite common in Singapore too. It shows, like every romantic show, the things the couple are willing to go through and the obstacles that they overcome; the emotions that they experience, the audience also experiences, a connection between the actors and the audience. IMHO, I think that racial and social pressures are an obstacle, and are NOT what the scriptwriter particularly had in mind. I don't think teachers that watch the film go "Hey, this is a really good movie to teach the students about racial issues". Rather, I think this is what happened:
Teacher: "Hey, we need a movie to educate our students about local racial issues on national day."
*After much searching, finally decides on sepet*
The GP panel was criticizing us about not thinking about these social and racial pressures, but this movie being a romcom do not have the intent to stir those questions. At that time, we were audiences, not gp students asked to critically analyze and observe racial themes, in a mindset of relaxation.
Also, the tutors brought up a question "What do you think will happen if Singapore followed an education system favouring a certain race?" Oh please, of all hypothetically possible situations, this is a bad one. One can understand that you have to link it back to Singapore, but this is lame. Singapore, on a system of meritocracy, will not implement such policies in 300 years. Singaporean history has already illustrated ill effects of racial discrimination, I don't think human intelligence will degrade to that extent in the near future...
Human nature will become the undoing of us. Greediness, discrimination, stereotyping; as our society becomes more 'civilised', the greater these problems show. Shouldn't there be a point where we should stop all our environment-polluting and money-grubbing activities, and look back at the past where such problems don't exist?
what's wrong with the world anyway; Why do we want to live to a hundred years old? Afraid of death? Progress just pulls us deeper into the quicksand.
Oh well, that's how the way the world works. Happy National Day and enjoy the Olympics too.
posted by MagicMadness at
10:53 PM
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