Pre-Trip Preparation [Economy Task]

This is the list of things that can be used to take note of the different standard and cost of living in Singapore and China,thus, allowing me to have an easier time to spot the similarities and differences between these two countries.

In Singapore's context:

E and C Week Reflection

Before the trip, I had little problem defining what Singapore's culture means. My answer, based on the CID lessons that i had attended, would be a generic "Singapore's culture is based on the unique food, fashion, festival and folks". Never would i have thought that the school would arrange such a cultural trip to broaden our perspective towards the different races and ethnic groups living on the same island as me. Thus, upon hearing news of the places that i would visit, I was rather shocked but was excited at the same time and could not help but think, why is there a need to arrange such a trip and more specifically, why these three places in Singapore? Could it be because i am studying in a Chinese school? Can i really learn and change my perspective of Singapore's culture entirely just from going to Little India, Kampong Glam and Madrasah Aljunied? From the pre-briefing, I had no idea that there were existence of Malay schools but more specifically, 6 madrasahs which were private Islamic institution located all around Singapore. I, with an open mind, a positive spirit and a humble heart, was ready to have a hands on experience and embrace the Malay and Indian cultures to clear any of my doubts and misconceptions towards them. 

On the very first day of the E and C week, my class, together with 1I, was assigned to do wayang kulit as our aesthetics programme. The vendors introduced and explained to us kindly about wayang kulit, how 'wayang' means 'puppets' while 'kulit' means 'skin' and so wayang kulit basically means puppets that are made out of leather. While the vendor displayed to us the different types of puppets made by different countries due to the different cultures there, I noticed that wayang kulit was very similar to the Chinese's shadow puppetry. Both were shadow puppets and made out of leather. To me, this suggested how arts are passed down not only from generations to generations but also introduced and exposed to different cultures as well. However, I was quite disappointed. Why was there a need to do wayang kulit when i was already doing the Chinese shadow puppetry in the RV literature programme. With that, i expected less from the forklores that wayang kulit had to offer but to my surprise, the Ramayana story, the story that we had to act out, was very interesting and was super different from the stories that i had expected. Nonetheless, I had fun discussing with my friends and coming out with an agreed plot despite the presence of contrasting ideas within the team. Though it might seem mundane, it was my first step to opening the doors of the Malay culture, my very first step in being exposed to the different cultures so in depth. 

Following up to that were the trips to Little India, Kampong Glam and Madrasah Aljunied.

On the second and third day, we visited Little India and Kampong Glam. In terms of food, what i saw were the common cuisines like nasi lemak, briyani, kueh lapis and dried gulab jamun. However, i noticed that what i had in mind was just the tip of the ice berg but what was really underneath it was the racial harmony present at Tekka centre in Little India and the Arab street in Kampong Glam. At Tekka Centre, I thought that there would be a lot of Indian stalls but to my astonishment, there were Chinese, Malay and even Western food sold there. I questioned myself, why are there a range of different kinds of cuisines sold there? Is Little India not filled with Indians? At Arab Street, as I walked past the narrow walkways between the stalls there, I saw non-Muslims working at the different textile stalls and were selling traditional and infusion of Malay attires. It dawned on me how diverse the culture are here in Singapore and we can get along with one another well, thus, not much tension between the different ethnic groups living here. Reminiscing it, I am really thankful for having such peace and harmony here because the world is now full of wars, terrorist attacks and riots, very unstable yet, we are still able to make peace with one another and are sensitive of what we say about our thoughts and stereotypical mindsets of each and every races here. 

 On the third day, we visited the Sultan Mosque and Madrasah Aljunied. At the mosque, pillars of Islam and articles of faith, mosque etiquettes, ablution of Wudu and the 5 obligatory of prayers were some of the things taught to us. Other than learning that the Malays have to cleanse themselves and go through the 8 steps of Ablution 5 times per day, I realised that there were certain protocols that they have to follow and that the Malay culture had some fusion of Christianity as well. This was very surprising and shocking to me. How did the fusions occur in history and how has such fusions impacted customs and beliefs in the Malay community? Moving on from the Sultan Mosque, I visited Madrasah Aljunied, 2nd oldest madrasah living in Singapore, celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. Conversing with them through our questions and their educational power points introducing the Malay culture and their school, I was astonished by the fact that they studied an average of 14 subjects and how they were still able to cope with this myriad amount of subjects. However, other than the difference in the number of subjects that they needed to take up, their co-curriculum's duration were much much shorter than ours. Throughout the three outdoor activities, I spotted many cultural differences- for the Malay, one unique difference is islamic arts like Khat which is having a sharp point at the end of each words, thus, preventing enemies in the olden days to change the meaning of the message when sending from empire to empire; for the Indians are the garlands like the lime garland is used to potentially ward off any evil spirits around them.       


After embarking the exciting cultural journey in Singapore during E and C week, I have found myself questioning why i did not have the urge to learn more of the races here and my knowledge towards the diverse cultures here.  As i look back at the amount of time planned for this programme, I feel that the main objective is that culture is very complex and multi-dimensional. Only if we spend time living and being with people can we truly understand a culture and see what is underneath the tip of an ice berg. The experience has indeed made me achieve the goal of this programme. I have deepened my understanding of Singapore's culture and realised that there was more than meets the eye. I discovered that what my mindset of Singapore before the trip was insufficient to truly understand and embrace the cultural differences among every Singaporeans. This was very much impactful because I would have never thought of going to these cultural places and having brief conversations with strangers on the streets to understand what was beneath the surface which in this context, my idea of Singapore's culture in an iceberg. In spite of the smooth flow of events throughout the E and C week, the time allocated for each location was a bit too short and so there were many points that i noted were lacking content and sufficient explanation. Also, the app we were told to download in our phones did not really come in handy because most of the time, my group was just using our data to locate places through google maps and the password for access to map for Little India did not work so we were spending most of our time on out instincts or google map. 

As the saying goes, "Experiencing another's culture may open the doors that were previously closed...but the choice to walk through those doors is entirely up to you." It is only if we take the initiative to understand another culture well, understand the different practices ranging from different races, can we open these doors that are already in front of us, available for us to open anywhere and anytime. It is only when we are accepting to other cultures, optimistic towards everything and be humble, can we be able to be more aware of culture and practices of the Indian and Malay community and learn to be pro-active in building a multi-racial Singapore. If I can have such an attitude, why can't you?

Thank you for reading this blog. :D

Lesson 6: Friends or Foes?

From the previous post, I mentioned about the lessons that the Singapore government learnt and experienced from the collaboration with the China government of Suzhou Industrial Park. The venturing to China to attract foreign investments to Singapore by building the $30 billion industrial park led to heavy debt and this forced Singapore to cut its interest in the original project, resulting in Singapore's share to reduce to 35% from 65%. However, does that mean that Singapore should not continue to share her development experiences with other countries?

Well, it depends. Taking in consideration that Singapore is in a fragile and vulnerable position in this fast changing world so we cannot afford to lag behind in terms of our economic developments. We have to constantly move forward despite the obstacles and challenges along the way to improve and maintain our edge in this world. Singapore is also a small country so being irrelevant or ignored by other bigger countries will happen, thus, what keeps Singapore strong is the approaches our government has taken to keep the symbiotic relationship occur between us and the other countries. 

I feel that Singapore should continue to share because only from failures can we better improve our investments in other foreign countries. Although collaborations sometimes may not turn out as planned, we should still pursue our own interests but reflect from the failures and continue to try again. Other than gaining valuable business skills, we can also earn revenue from the attractions of foreign investments into our plot of land. This can also attract the attention of those bigger countries and make our relevance obvious to them, making them more willing to invest in Singapore. These can contribute to Singapore's economy and allow us to keep on flourishing in this quick and changing world. 

i also feel that Singapore should not share too much development experiences with other countries as well because the managements, techniques of governing, environment, cultures and the policies differ from countries to countries so we should have a good understanding of the culture, mentality and business practices of the countries that we have plans of investing in. If not, we will be in very heavy debt and we might strain the relations between Singapore and other countries which would affect our development progress and revenue. This would also pull down our economy and would make Singapore unattractive to foreign trades and investments.

All in all, as a small country, Singapore should consider the pros and cons and the problems that will pop up from the different collaborations with various countries. This would allow us to be rational, benefit and learn from the different collaborations made. Thus, Singapore has the choice to choice to share her development experiences with other countries. 

Lesson 6: Win-Win Partnership

What represents Singapore? Is it our famous HDB flats? Or the the community centres built near our area to promote unity and harmony among every Singaporeans? What if you can find such facilities in other places in the world, other than Singapore?

That's right! Through the collaborations between the Singapore and China governments, the Suzhou Industrial Park was therefore built in 1994. The idea of HDB flats, community centre and the trees along the expressways in Singapore were brought over there. However, along the years of this partnership, there were many ups and downs, many challenges that the park faced over the years. And so, Singapore has learnt many valuable lessons when investing in China. From the looks of the situation, I have noticed that in Singapore, Singaporeans practise 法,理,感, which means that they obey closely to the policies and take note of the laws and orders here, followed by rational thinking and then relationships between ourselves. As a contrast, the people living in China practises 感,理,法, which means that they pay the most attention to the relationships before rationality and laws present there in mainland China. Through the building of the Suzhou Industrial Park, Singapore government has lost a lot of money and has learnt the ways to do business on a foreign piece of land in a hard and painful way. However, this has helped us improve and maintain our position in this ever fast changing world, making us relevant to the symbiotic relationships necessities in this almost globalised era