A Replacement to Writing? 2005/2006

National Day Rally - 2005

Finished watching the rally which lasted perhaps 3 hours and ended promptly at 10pm instead of at 11+ every other year before. Really, it is the 1st time I have watched it from beginning to end in ENGLISH although I did try to listen to the chinese version.

PM Lee Hsien Loong did talk about a number of things. Among which include topics on the economy, education, service and healthcare. Or was service under the topic of economy?

Anyway, I could only remember these few points vaguely and want to give my 2-cents-worth on them.

1)Education

I remember PM Lee talked about the polytechnics and ITEs a lot. He mentioned quite a few names from certain poly and ITEs where students have beaten other students worldwide in some software/technical competition and poly/university students in another IBM competition, respectively. It's kind of amazing, isn't it, when you look at these students in the normal social-discriminating way and they beat these "cream-of-the-crop" students. So, these "cream-of-the-crop" aren't really "cream-of-the-crop" afterall! HAHA! *points finger at them* Oops, I'm laughing at myself..

Then there were these films made by the (if i'm not wrong) mass communication students of Ngee Ann Polytechnic that were really not bad, and the slides by Nanyang Polytechnic students. I'm like, "Woah! Fine, I'm feeling stupid now!"

Apparently the government has no intention of changing the polytechnics into universities now, although I thought that the reason PM Lee gave was not really that great. He said that then people will be going in there for that piece of paper (meaning the certificate) and not for the practical skills to be learned when the polys-turned-universities start issuing degrees instead of diplomas. I think he forgot that singaporeans don't forget so easily. We don't forget so easily that these polys-turned-universities were once polys. So I thought that if there could be a place where you could get a degree and get a practical and specialised skill at the same time, wouldn't it be better? Anyway it is true that some people will be there for the paper. But increasing number of A-level students are going to polytechnics anyway, and change of names for ITEs hadn't seem to make a significant difference, so it isn't a big issue.
I was also thinking about how in the world experience count more than your certificate sometimes...

Oh yar, PM Lee also talked about the financial aspects and that I THINK there will be a post-secondary grant given out so that all singaporean kids will be able to get a post-secondary education, something to that effect. Which is really great! (grumble grumble, more competition...) haha...

2)Service

Also in the speech was the service sector in Singapore and how bad it is, blah blah blah. Oh no, he didn't talk about how it was all only the people-behind-the-counter fault. He said that not only those who provide service need to improve (I'll elaborate a bit later), the consumers also have to change their mindsets. At this point he showed that short film (as mentioned above) showing how a woman taking orders at a noodle stall in a hawker centre is rude and has that kiam-pa and yet damn funny look on her face, treats her customer badly, making the customer's request for more "dao gay" seem stupid.

Then he showed another short film with the roles reversed, i.e, the woman is nice and smiley and the customer was rude. Customer's friend turned up and requested her to help him buy another 3 packets. She agreed and asked the woman for another 3 packets, upon which the woman awkwardly shook her head, a man behind told the customer that her friend should queue up, and as the woman hands the customer the packet, the latter stares at her most accusingly and then walks off without the noodles or paying.

Obviously people recognized themselves as the customer in the 2nd short film and PM Lee certainly didn't miss it either when he said that there is more laughter for the 1st film than the 2nd. He attributed it to the fact that it is always easier to blame those providing the service, afterall we always laugh at them. Yay! I'm so happy that he said that! Being in the service sector, I absolutely agree with him.

But then he brought up another point that I previously had no idea of. He said that in other countries, if you enter a store, the person there would greet with "Hello/good morning/g'day!" in their own language. However in Singapore, when you walk into a store and if you are lucky, you get "How can I help you?" or if you are not so lucky then, "What do you want?"

When he mentioned it I nearly couldn't catch the point. It was so interweaved into our culture to say that that we don't find anything wrong with it. Afterall, tons and tons of salespersons in tons of stores across town use that phrase. I always thought it is the tone of that sentence that really matters, but now that I think of it, I guess "Good morning/afternoon/evening!" or "Welcome!" would really be better. After all, how many times have we walked into a store and feel pressurised by salespersons who ask us "How can I help you?". Well, maybe not you, but I do. So I have made up my mind that the next time I do sales again I will NOT use "How can I help you?" as a greeting phrase.

Hmm, I wonder if we walk into stores from tomorrow onwards would the salespersons say "Morning!" now instead of "How can I help you?"
Oh, did you know that Giordano uses "Welcome!" as a greeting towards customers who step into their stores? Well, at least the one at Hougang Mall and Bugis do, I don't know about the others.

3)Healthcare

This is really very brief. There are some changes to the medishield and medisave. For medishield the age will be raised to 85 from 80, although I don't really understand the impact of this as I don't have basic knowledge of medishield. As for medisave, I can't even remember what is the change.

I also remember something about having a HDB grant thingy for the lower income people so that they would be able to buy a HDB flat more easily. It's supposed to reduce the gap between the lower-income and higher-income people. Good! Think it should turn out alright.

That's about what I can recall from the speech. It was actually fairly interesting. I think I shall catch it again next year. Wrote so much, I'm amazed. Had not even blogged about how school was. Ah, well... And I'm giving up tuition coordinating after this month. It sucks like big-time. Get me a proper job, although I'd probably hate it. Ok, get me a proper job which I love.

Dream on.

posted by tstar @ 3:17 PM