Economy Part 4: One Child Policy

Being in a family of 8 members, I cannot really relate well to being the only single child in the family. I have 5 siblings: My oldest brother(20, and going for NS this year), my second and third brother(18),who are identical twins, my older sister(17) and my little brother(6).
There are certainly pros and cons to having many siblings.
I grew up in a house where it is noisy everyday, everyone trying to add their comments into the matter-at-hand. My childhood memories was not really worth reminiscing. My big brother always liked to annoy me by rubbing his palm against my face. My twin brothers always liked to treat me like a maid, ordering me around to get their things for them like getting cup of water. My sister always liked to lock the door to the room and I always had to wait for a few hours till she opened it.
I never got the chance to buy new clothes as I always wore what my sister and my brothers could not fit in, and I was really upset about it for a while. The money in one angbao never exceeded $20 in my entire life, and the total angbao money I receive in one year, is barely one-fifth of what my friends receive in just one angbao. I always hated it when my classmates start sharing about how much they received over the New Year.
I used to admire how many of my friends is the only child in the family. They get to receive everything they want from their parents and they do not have to share anything with anyone. Take the angbao money for example, one of my classmate received $200 in one of her angbao. It is not possible for my uncles and aunties to spend $1200 on just my family alone. So they would have to divide the $200 into 6 shares, each getting around $30.

However, as I grew older, my mindset became more mature and I realised that it is not entirely bad that I have so many siblings. Although the house is never in a peaceful state when all family members are present, but the hyped atmosphere always make my low spirits high again. My parents do not value our academic achievements as much as our character development.(But academics are still important) Whenever I have trouble with my homework, I can always consult my siblings who specialises in different subjects. My third brother always share inspirational talks with us and as I listened to what he says, my view of the world and the things around me changes and I realise how childish I was before. Though we are siblings, our likes and dislikes varies and we can always share our food with one another and try out new things together. My sister has great fashion sense and she always help me to match my clothes to wear out when I am in loss of what to do.(I always borrow her clothes and she sometimes in turn borrows mine) My little brother just brings happiness to me whenever I look at his chubby little face.

When I sit down and think about this matter, I could not help but appreciate the presence of my five siblings. They have brought me happiness and made me grow in character in my entire life journey till now. Without them, I would probably still be an immature little girl who always plays in class, someone who values academics over anything else in the world, someone who is very outgoing, someone who is definitely not who I am today.
Although there are many benefits of being a single child(and many disadvantages too), but I feel that my family right now would be the best for me.

Economy Part 3: Standard of Living

The cost of living refers to the amount of money needed to sustain a certain level of living, including basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes and health care.

Having the highest cost of living in the world, Singapore definitely would have certain consequences to bear. The lower-incomes would find it more difficult to live comfortably. Having a low-income, the breadmaker of the households would already be struggling to support the entire family, feeding full everyone in the family, paying the electrical & water bills, and paying the school fees for the children. Although there are already incentives provided for the government and the Non-Governmental Organisations, but they would still be unable to live a comfortable lifestyle without having to worry about anything. 

Another possible consequence is the decrease in immigration to Singapore. Having a high cost of living, migrants might reconsider living in Singapore as they would have to work longer hours, to earn more money just to live here. However, there is still the pull factor for migrants to decide to migrate to Singapore. With the banning of personal possession weapons(e.g guns and rifles) except for authorised personnel, and the advantage of the small land size that allows stricter and more thorough checks through customs, Singapore's security is safer than many other countries. Thus, it is not definite that the migrants would reject coming to Singapore just because of the high cost of living. 

Although having a high cost of living would have certain possible consequences on Singapore, but there are other contributing factors to the decision-making depending on the different perspectives.

Friends or Foes? WIN-Win Partnership

Lessons learnt from Suzhou Industralised Park 
Originally, I assumed that since we are both Chinese, China's culture and Singapore-Chinese's culture would definitely be similar. However, the Suzhou Industralised Park Project made me think otherwise.
We follow more of the Western mindset which are: Content, Ends, Specificity, Formal Negotiation, Phase and Legal Contract. However, the mindset of China are: Process, Means, Generality, Prenegotiation and Post Negotiation Phases and Trust. The mindsets are somehow completely different. However, Singaporeans made assumptions of their understandings towards China's mindset and led to a poor impression they had on us. Had we put in the effort of getting to know about their mindsets instead of assuming, I am sure things would have been very different from what it is today.
Singapore also failed to cultivate a relationship between the Suzhou officials as they only interacted with the Beijing officials and Suzhou officials were offended.
However, I was glad that Singapore did not give up even though it did not turn out as planned. The government continued to organise more projects between both countries. Singapore also learnt a lesson, getting to know more about the mentality of China and I am sure the same mistakes would not be made in the future/on-going projects between both countries.

Sharing of development experiences
I definitely think that being a small island, Singapore should continue to share her development experiences with other countries. Compared many other countless countries, we are very small in size. We have to maintain good relationships between other countries, whether is it win-win, or WIN-win. If we become complacent and refuse to share our development experiences and advancement, other countries are always ready to replace our position, and we would soon lose a say in the world's matter. This way, we would go back to a third-world country as quickly as how we became a first-world one. Thus, we should maintain this crocodile & bird relationships between other countries so as to maintain our current position in the world.

E and C Week

"Experiencing another's culture may open doors that were previously closed ... but the choice to walk through those doors is entirely up to you."

Before E and C week even started, I thought that it was just another few learning journeys to Little India, Kampong Glam and getting to know more about other cultures. I never really anticipated it. However, the first lesson impacted me throughout the entire journey.

My first lesson was on Batik. When we had the briefing on Thursday, I got the information that I would be having Batik lesson on the following Monday of the E and C week. I was absolutely clueless as to what Batik was but I did not bother to even search it up online. I thought it would just be another boring lesson.
As I listened to the instructor introducing the Batik, I thought it would be very easy to paint out a beautiful design. However, it was not the case. I had a lot of trouble trying to wax the cloth as the hot boiling wax kept on dripping onto the cloth when it was not even part of what I wanted the design to be. At that moment, the instructor said, "Don't be restricted to what you originally planned, just let the wax drip. It will all eventually become a wonderful batik."
His words left a great impact on me. I should not be so restricted to what I already know about other cultures and be complacent with myself. By gaining more new knowledge, I can eventually realise that every culture has its own beauty that other cannot mimic. Although they might not be what I had expected, but it cannot be denied they have their own tastes, origins, history and many more. Every cultures are different from each other.
My attitude towards this entire E and C week activities changed radically. I put in all my efforts in the Batik that I was doing at that time. Looking at my completed work, I still have a great sense of accomplishment till today. My Batik was even chosen as one of the few to be shown to both classes!

My Batik Painting

The attitude that had changed did affect my learning journeys for the next few days. I became more humble towards other cultures and took up courage to interact with the shop owners to get more information on the various aspects of their cultures that we were not sure of. One of the interesting fact that I got from one of the shop owners in Little India was that widows would wear black bangles! Another time when we were at Kampong Glam, a lady shop owner even told us to go away and said that the clothings were not meant for us children. Although I felt a bit dejected, but it did not prevent me from approaching other shop owners.
It is because of the change in my attitude that I got to know much more of the other cultures which I otherwise would not have known if I had maintained my original mindset that others do not matter.

One thing that I feel can be improved about the programme is that we should have more time for each learning journeys. I often find myself being unabme to interacted more with the shop owners and I did not have time to look at all the shops thoroughly in detail. When I was at Little India, my group was so engrossed in examining the clothing stores and talking to one of the shop owners that we did not have time to look at the food stalls on the first floor. We regretted it when we prepared to go to the food stalls but found out that time was already up.
I feel that the time given to us for each place that we went to was not enough for us to know about the other cultures in depth. I believed that if more time was allocated to us, We could have gained much more knowledge about the other cultures. I am definitely willing to spend more time at the various locations, conversing with the people there. Thus, I feel that the programme for each other should be longer.

I believe that the main objective of the E and C week is for us to take our own initiatives to widen our horizon and perspectives towards the various cultures. The teachers are not there to spoonfeed us with the information we need to know. The internet are not able to give us the perspectives and mindsets of the many individuals belonging to the different cultures. We have to be proactive and and step out of our comfort zone to interact with strangers and gain more useful knowledge that can be put to use as we go on in our lives.
Seeing one of my classmates, Chelsea, being so sociable and out-going, always willing to converse with the strangers, motivated me to do the same as well. I believe most of us have achieved the main objective of this E and C week as we are "forced"(in a way) to answer the booklet that was given to us. By interacting with the strangers, I have also gained new knowledge and cleared misunderstandings I had towards the people of the cultures. If I had treated the Malays, or the Indians with the thinking J had before, I would definitely offend them. Thus, I was very relieved to have attended this E and C week's programmes.

All in all, I might have opened new doors and gained new knowledge about other cultures, but I believe that those are just a tiny peak of the iceberg. I would definitely want to walk through those doors, understand more about the other cultures in depth, embrace them all, and open other closed doors in the future.

Economy Map

Map of Economy

Singapore's Economy

As we all know, Singapore grew from a 3rd world country to a 1st world country within a short period of time of just 10 years with the help of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew. However, should we become complacent and relax for just a little bit?
Singapore's government is small, making them very efficient and there is no corruption. We also have a friendly relationship with China for more than 20 years thus boosting our economy. We export mainly "technology knowldge" to China as we are more advanced in technologies. In doing so, they become stronger, and we in turn earn as well. However, does China really need us? If we become complacent, and our relationship with China turns bad, what will happen to us?
In recent years, the outlook of the relationship does not look very good. The various things that we do, the various things that we say, makes the relationship weaker and weaker. China does not necessarily need Singapore as the supplier for their technology advancement. They can always find another country with more advanced technology to work with, and there would be no need for Singapore. When Singapore is useless, our relationship would break off, and Singapore'a economy will definitely go down. Eventually, we will go back to how we were years ago, a 3rd world country. This is why Singapore and China's relationship is very important.
Thus, we cannot afford to be complacent. We have to be careful every moment and our relationship with China have to maintain friendly or even better. If not, our economy would drop rapidly.

4Fs, Culture differences and similarities, and SG's shared values

4 Fs
They say that the most common and easiest working definition of culture is the 4Fs - Food, Festivals, Fashion and Folk. I do agree with this statement. If we want to find out more about one's culture, we can easily research them online and all the information would appear on the screen right in front of us. However, is that all to one's culture? We cannot understand one's culture so easily based on the information online. We have to approach the culture in person, getting to know the people of the culture, and to experience the culture by ourselves. But even then, we still might not be able to understand one's culture fully. Culture is not something that can be understood overnight, over months, or even over years. Thus, we have to open ourselves to other cultures and embrace them, movung from monocultural mindset, to multicultural mindset. Although we might not be able to reach the final stage of integration, but at least, we can strive towards acceptance of different cultures and adaptation to different cultures. And to start off, we can always get to know more about other cultures, by researching online and interacting with people of other cultures.

Similarities and Differences between Singapore and China's Culture

Similarities
• Both cultures are heavily influenced by Confucianism such as, filial piety and nation before family, family before self.
• Both education systems are very competitive.

Differences
• Singapore has many races which results in diverse cultures existing together while China consist of mostly Chinese, so they only have one sole Chinese culture.
• Singapore-Chinese speaks mandarin in a different way China-Chinese do. Furthermore, China has many provinces and people of the different provinces speaks mandarin or dialects in a different accent which makes it easy for them to instantly identify where the people that they are talking to grew up in.

• China supports its people to have as less child as possible while Singapore government encourages its people to have more children.

Singapore's Shared Values

仁，义，礼，智，信。

Humanity, Justice, Ettiquete, Wisdom, Faith.

These are the 五常 of Confucianism. Humanity(Ren), Singapore practise it in two of our shared values - Place nation and family before oneself. To care for others, to think about others and not be selfish.

Ettiquete(Li), is practised in another shared value - Communal support and respect for the individual. Everyone in Singapore should be respected regardless of where they come from, which language they speak, and the customs and tradition they practise.

Wisdom(Zhi), is practised in - Consensus, not conflict. Instead of quarrelling and still not get any positive thing out of it, we should always think of a win-win solution together, so all parties are able to benefit with no/equal loss. 

Faith(Xin), is practised in the last shared value - Racial and Religion harmony. We must have faith in each other, in humanity, and to accept one and another in this small little red dot, instead of tolerating other different races/religion. This way, we would be able to create a harmonious society for each and everyone, and we can all progress as one nation together.