'Massive compassion deficit' in S'pore?
British writer recounts unpleasant experience on MRT, sparking talk on graciousness here
By Maryam Mokhtar, The Sunday Times, 16 Mar 2014
FREELANCE writer and self-described food lover Charlotte Ashton jumped at the chance to relocate from London to Singapore last year, she says in the biography section of her website.
The Oxford University graduate and former BBC reporter and her husband were happy here until one day, in her 10th week of pregnancy, she felt nauseous while taking the train to work and ended up crouching for 15 minutes because no one offered her a seat.
"For the first time, Singapore had made me feel unhappy. I had been vulnerable - completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. Singaporeans, I felt, had let me down," she wrote.
Recounting the incident in a BBC Viewpoint piece, she concluded that Singapore suffers from a "massive compassion deficit".
One Singaporean friend told her it was because "we measure everything in dollar bills - personal identity, self-respect, happiness, your sense of worth".
Post by Lee Hsien Loong.
Her commentary, published on the News Magazine page of the BBC website, has sparked discussion and prompted two ministers to urge Singaporeans to reflect on what each can do to help build a gracious society.
Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin responded with a similar tale of the time his wife was pregnant and had her arm in a sling after an injury, yet no one offered her a seat on the MRT train."We do hear stories of people being callous, indifferent, unfeeling. And I guess we need to look at ourselves and ask if we too sometimes reflect these ugly traits," he wrote in a Facebook post.
But he has also come across examples of "wonderful kind-hearted Singaporeans who reach out to others".
"Building a gracious society starts with every one of us. When we begin to care for those around us, we would have started building not only a gracious society, but also perhaps a great nation," he added.
Agreeing, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong highlighted the Singapore Kindness Movement's Graciousness Index, which fell sharply last year.
"We are and we can be better than this," he wrote in a Facebook post. He welcomed "ground-up 'mini-kindness' initiatives from young Singaporeans", including the "Stand Up for Singapore" movement by a group that travelled from train to train and encouraged commuters to give up their seats to those who needed them more.
But some MPs The Sunday Times spoke to said the negative experiences of Ms Ashton and her friends were not representative of Singaporeans' behaviour as a whole.
Nee Soon GRC MP Lee Bee Wah said Ms Ashton's conclusions on Singaporeans were "too generalised".
Agreeing, Tampines GRC MP Irene Ng, said it is "all too easy to stereotype a country".
"Singapore is not perfect but it is not the heartless place it is made out to be," she said in an e-mail response.
Singapore Kindness Movement's general secretary William Wan said he felt sorry that Ms Ashton had such an unpleasant experience but added that there were examples galore of gracious behaviour, including those experienced by foreign visitors.
"We can always be kinder and more gracious," he added.
Pharmacist Nashirah Kamal, 24, who regularly commutes to work, said: "I do see people giving up their seats and helping out those in need. It all boils down to the values you were brought up with and I don't think Singaporeans are that selfish."
"And at dinners with our Singaporean friends who did not seem to moan any more than the rest of us - sure they are battling soaring property prices and the tedium of the corporate ladder, but coming from London that was hardly unfamiliar.
We got on with life on the immaculate island, where social housing estates look like spotless toy towns, crime is pretty much non-existent and you can get a delicious bowl of noodles for $3 (£1.50). If we were living in the misery capital of the world it certainly was not affecting our own sense of happiness.
Until I got pregnant."
- Charlotte Ashton
Happy in Singapore, until the day she needed help
The Sunday Times, 16 Mar 2014
The Sunday Times, 16 Mar 2014
In her commentary, Does Singapore deserve its "miserable" tag?, the BBC's Charlotte Ashton said she and her husband were happy here at first and could not understand why Singaporeans had been dubbed the least positive people on Earth in a survey. Then she got pregnant, and her view changed, as she describes in this extract.
One morning, the nausea finally got the better of me just as I had stepped onto a packed train. Worried I was going to faint, I crouched to the floor, holding my head in my hands. And so I remained, completely ignored, for the full 15 minutes it took to reach my station. Nobody offered me a seat or asked me if I was okay.
For the first time Singapore had made me feel unhappy. I had been vulnerable - completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. Singaporeans, I felt, had let me down.
For the first time Singapore had made me feel unhappy. I had been vulnerable - completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. Singaporeans, I felt, had let me down.
As I sat recovering on the platform, I wondered if this was part of the story behind those Gallup poll results. By this time, a follow-up to the original survey had been published and according to the figures, Singapore had apparently cheered up quite a lot. But all I could see was a massive compassion deficit. Or were my fellow passengers that day just unusually uncaring?
"Oh no, I am not surprised at all," said a Singaporean friend later that day. "My sister is seven months pregnant and she fell down a packed escalator the other day and had to crawl to the nearest railing to heave herself up. Nobody helped."
Another Singaporean friend was equally unsurprised. "I slipped down a drain last year and cut my leg," she said. "It was bleeding badly but nobody stopped to help. Perhaps they were all in a rush."
Our friend Marcus offered deeper analysis over brunch in a trendy retro cafe. That is not his real name by the way. "We are programmed to think only about ourselves," he exclaimed. "The only thing that matters is money - helping people is not important."
Marcus is Chinese Singaporean but was educated in Canada. After five years back home, he is desperate to leave again, because, he says, Singapore makes him unhappy too. "In Canada, people were helpful and friendly and they respect each other regardless of whether you are a manager or a bus driver.
"The problem here is that we measure everything in dollar bills - personal identity, self-respect, happiness, your sense of worth - it is all linked to how much money you have. But only the top few per cent earn serious cash - so everyone else feels worthless and apathetic."
...Happily, my morning sickness has passed, but despite becoming visibly pregnant, it is still rare for anyone to offer me a seat on the packed commuter train without my having to ask first.
I do not know if I would have had a better time in London, but in the Singaporean rat race, you are certainly on your own. An unhappy conclusion, I am afraid, from misery city.