The passing of Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore rarely appears in the world news. It is quite unfortunate that it has to take a death of one of the greatest Singaporean leaders in the world to make that happen. Yesterday marks the death of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, forefather of our nation. Whether people liked his authoritarian ways or not, nobody can doubt that without him there would be no Singapore that we have today. Singaporeans now walk around with their heads down, slightly worried for the future (for he did give some of the input that politicians today carry around like gold). The government has made a this week a week of mourning, and unlike countries that usual have a holiday, we only walk around with our national flags at half mast to remember him. I'm not complaining. I do have a two week holiday next week, although having no day of mourning does seem to reflect the hard working nature of Asians
However much the elderly are crying over his death, many of the younger generation have already moved on (although there are days where we are made to feel sad again after being reminded with another national video replay in school), and there is no doubt as to the reason why. He lives on a completely different world from us. A world where Singapore was a kampong and where the older generation were still children. Many of the younger generation today know little about the people who we honor today. So, considering my nature, I decided to ask around. And what better way to ask people who acted to be grieving the most? If someone was to look quiet and sad over his death I would go straight to them and ask "why are you sad?". No matter what the what the consequent answer would be the follow up question would always be "what did Mr Lee Kuan Yew do for your country?" and I would be met with a blank stare.
This is the same idea of one of the policies that I had for donating to charity. If there was a person asking for donations, I would always ask them "what am I paying for?" and it's nice to know that Singaporeans tend to be more aware of this than people in Jakarta. It's all to question social norms, where the government tells us to grieve on the assumption that every knows what Lee Kuan Yew did for the country or in the example above how we are always told to give to charity with no questions asked.
I always wanted to go and find out what Lee Kuan Yew did for our country, but the books that he wrote are just too thick to hold any interest in the short term. I shall wait till I can learn to appreciate what he did a little more before looking at it. Right now my main focus should be my studies.
What about you readers? Read up a little before you do what society expects you to do, if anything just to justify your actions when I asked you >:)
This was the book that I have at home. I will read it in due time.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
However much the elderly are crying over his death, many of the younger generation have already moved on (although there are days where we are made to feel sad again after being reminded with another national video replay in school), and there is no doubt as to the reason why. He lives on a completely different world from us. A world where Singapore was a kampong and where the older generation were still children. Many of the younger generation today know little about the people who we honor today. So, considering my nature, I decided to ask around. And what better way to ask people who acted to be grieving the most? If someone was to look quiet and sad over his death I would go straight to them and ask "why are you sad?". No matter what the what the consequent answer would be the follow up question would always be "what did Mr Lee Kuan Yew do for your country?" and I would be met with a blank stare.
This is the same idea of one of the policies that I had for donating to charity. If there was a person asking for donations, I would always ask them "what am I paying for?" and it's nice to know that Singaporeans tend to be more aware of this than people in Jakarta. It's all to question social norms, where the government tells us to grieve on the assumption that every knows what Lee Kuan Yew did for the country or in the example above how we are always told to give to charity with no questions asked.
I always wanted to go and find out what Lee Kuan Yew did for our country, but the books that he wrote are just too thick to hold any interest in the short term. I shall wait till I can learn to appreciate what he did a little more before looking at it. Right now my main focus should be my studies.
What about you readers? Read up a little before you do what society expects you to do, if anything just to justify your actions when I asked you >:)
This was the book that I have at home. I will read it in due time.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
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