In Continuum.

Anyway, so they start bright and early every single morning, how smart! The same goes for those hidden curriculums in schools, the ones that want you to be nice to people, to help the old people cross the road and stuff like that. You know, such things begin young, because they tend to stay with you longer if you start young. I mean, they even have a subject in school called "Civics and Moral Education" to teach you about your morals and have you be civilized citizens. Cartoon pictures of you helping an old lady across the road, to give up a seat in the train, basically just be nice to the needy. They always do that, and I agree that is what we should be doing. But how often do we not see people letting the old people cross the roads themselves, or people not giving up seats anyway. They pretend to go blind at road junctions or they just fall asleep on trains. Somehow, all those cartoon pictures in the textbooks translated to being completely ignorant to those in need of our kindness, what's up with that? I hate old people on public transports, not because they smell funny but because I can never sit there and watch the old people fight against gravity with their own two feet on buses. I always have to give up my seat, and I hate it when I have to give in to my moral values.

But what can I say, I suppose I am a nice guy. Every once in a while, people do nice things, not because schools taught them to do it but, because it is the right thing to do. We try to be nice to the unfortunate people in our societies, we try to give in to them because we have some things that they don't. Let's talk about the handicapped people in our society for a while, which is really why I started this entry in the first place. It doesn't matter if you were born without legs or if they were blown of by some mine in Vietnam. As long as your legs are not in their rightful places, you qualify for certain benefits in our society. You can request for that young punk to push you across the street or, to have people give way to you in MRT stations. That is the reality of things, you lose some privileges and you gain some privileges, that's how it works in our society. Because the government feel bad about not giving you that extra benefit, so they want you to feel equal by giving you benefits that we, as normal people, don't have. I am OK with that, in fact I support that cause all the way. But, the problem is, are they really being nice to these people or are they just being pseudo-nice? 

So, the Olympic games ended for around a month now, and some people in Singapore are still raving over that silver medal they won at the table tennis games. Sure, they lost out only to a Chinese player, and their names are probably going to appear in a couple of records somewhere, which is always nice. Also, you have to take into account that this is the first medal in over forty years for this tiny little country that we call Singapore, of course people were hysterical when they won the silver medal. Why wouldn't you be hysterical, if you've been waiting for a few of your countrymen to win a few pieces of metal things for your country. Oh, wait a minute, they actually aren't Singaporeans at all, just players that they bought from China. I have no problems with you sending players to China to train for table tennis, they are the top table tennis country after all. All five of the top five players in the world are from that country, what other evidences do you need? Japan sent their players to China to train under a Chinese coach, so did Korea. Singapore, however, decided to buy them over and play for Singapore, when they are really from some province in China who cannot afford a table tennis table in the first place. But the main reason to come here is for money anyway, because they pay better than China if you win over here. It's all about the money, glory comes in at a close second. But still, it's money. 

Here is how it works. If you are a gold medalist in China, you get about twenty-five thousand dollars, and I have already translated that to local currency. That's not a lot in Singapore's context but, this is China we are talking about. However, if you win just a silver medal, you get seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars here. Here's the catch, though. If you win it yourself, you get to keep all the money to yourself, fair enough. However, if you win it with a bunch of people, you'd have to share it with this bunch of people. A few table tennis players won the silver medal this year, I think three of them, and they'd have to share the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars amongst themselves. That is about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each, and now the prize money for gold in China just feels like the nickel you found underneath your bed while you were doing spring cleaning. It is a lot of money if you win a medal here, which is why the players were willing to come on over to play for another country. It makes sense, although there isn't exactly a lot of honor involved, from my perspective. To me, the only real deserving Singaporean winner of a medal was that first man who won the weightlifting medal back in the sixties - that's it. I mean, think about it. Given enough money, you can even buy Michael Phelps to swim for your country, what's the point in that? 

So, let's get back onto the main topic: handicapped people. The Special Olympics just ended, and I think Singaporeans did a whole lot better there. People don't care about the Special Olympics though, there isn't as much money involved in watching a bunch of handicapped people compete against one another. It's interesting, but only for some time. People don't run as fast, swim as fast, things are just not very exciting, and it certainly doesn't help the ratings on television very much. But, like I said, Singaporeans did very well in the Special Olympics, grabbing a whole bunch of silvers and golds in various events. I am not familiar with the events but, I saw an article in the papers a few mornings ago and was pleasantly surprised. Here we have a whole bunch of people with obvious physical disabilities, winning international sporting events for their country, and doing very well! These are homegrown, homebred, homemade Singaporeans we are talking about, and the nation should be really proud of them. Well, the newspaper certainly is very proud of them, since they gave a whole page to them that morning, not to mention the fancy graphic designs in the background to celebrate their wins. However, try to make a guess at the amount of money they are getting. Really, make a guess. The answer? Zilch - nothing. 

That's right, they are not getting any money for their efforts or their achievements, whatsoever. Which is strange, because I think they need it way more than those hired athletes from China, truth be told. Some of them probably pay an obscene amount for their medical bills, and they probably need more care than an ordinary person would need. More medical bills also translate to more money, so I am not sure why their achievements are not rewarded with the same amount of cash money. Sure, you can always argue that it shouldn't be about money in the first place, but shouldn't the hired players not get any prize money if that is indeed the case. I mean, these people aren't even getting half the prize money, they are getting zero for all their efforts - why? I thought sending a team to any international sporting event is supposed to be a glorious thing, to represent, right? I mean, you don't encourage people to reach out to their goals, to be something that they weren't born into, then not reward them in any way once they've reached there, right? I am sure they didn't exactly start out for the money, but still. It's just incredibly unfair and disgusting - yes, disgusting - to treat these people like that. 

Similarly, you don't teach the young children in school to treat old people nice, to be thoughtful towards the less fortunate, when you cannot give two shits about whether or not they put the name of their country on an international scoreboard. Maybe that's why people pretend to fall asleep on buses and trains, maybe that's why old people have to fend for themselves when they are crossing the road. Because they know that whatever the textbooks said in the past are just fluff, they are just empty words brought to you by the government, things that they preach about when they can't even execute. They are rich enough, they are very rich. So this is what you do to these people. You take their pictures, you make a few articles about them, you put them collectively in a newspaper, and then that's the end of it. The rest of their lives on this planet, they still have to fend for themselves because they haven't got enough money to, I don't know, do things. Great work, Singaporean government, great work. 

So the next time you wake up at six in the morning to watch those fake music videos, remember also that with every smiling old man and every laughing young child throwing paper airplanes, there is a crippled athlete somewhere who won a gold medal and cannot be taken care for by the government because they cannot be bothered. Oh, the rousing drums and the choir in the music video, all the inspiring images of people being happy and contented with the country. Every country is flawed, you have to admit that. It doesn't make you perfect just because you have the best airport, the best airline, and supposedly the longest tunnel in Asia. It really doesn't work that way, because I have been to old folks' home and places like that, people there are obviously not being taken care of. You always talk about, being nice and caring towards the less fortunate. Well, you are not very nice yourself, so that's that. Yeah well, things are unfair around here but, you are not making it nicer anyway. I just think that these people are truly the ones who deserve the recognition. At least they were born here, and not bought from some other country for your own selfish purposes. Apparently, you only need to function properly as an ordinary human being, and it doesn't matter if you are Singaporean or not. It's just sad, it really is. And, disgusting.