SSA1201 : SINGAPORE SOCIETY
This is my SSA 1201 : Singapore Society research paper.
This is not a good research,
i spent only 2 days doing it.
However, perhaps u can find some interesting things
about Singaporean here. Hehe... =)
“ Do people who have Singapore citizenship ( ‘ Singaporean ’ ) feel a strong or weak sense of belonging to the nation? ” This seems to be an interesting question, especially to a foreign student like me. In this essay, I will carry out a series of data collection in response to the question and analyse Singaporean’s view towards their nation.
I choose to construct my data collection using qualitative interview. Because of the limited informants, I do not choose to observe a clear trend by setting out two groups to compare because my sample size is too small. Thus, I choose to interview people from the same age range and same academic background. After that, I try to observe the trend and analyze it from the results collected. The interview consisted of questions pertaining to historical knowledge, multiracialism view, deifinition of nation, view of foreign talent, and some hypothetical questions. The interviews were conducted in English and the informants were allowed to speak as long as they like.
A total of eight informants were interviewed; 5 were male and 3 were female. The informants are from the age range of 20-29. Besides, all of them have similar academic background, six of them are currently National University of Singapore ( NUS ) undergraduate students and the other two are diploma holders. Besides, they are all Chinese and have not been overseas for more than one months in one time. This is to ensure that they all grow up here and have less influence by overseas living experience.
According to Harvard Professor Rupert Emerson, nation can be defined as “ A single people, traditionally fixed on a well-defined territory, speaking the same language and preferably a language all its own, possessing a distinctive cultured, and shaped to a common mould by many generations of shared historical experience. ” ( The Straits Time, 6 May 1999 ) However, it is impossible for us to conclude this essay according to this definition because the informants would not have this concept in their minds. In this research, I asked them to define the term “ nation ” as my first question so that I can understand better “ where ” or “ what ” their sense of belonging is to, if they have any. I received a variety of answers such as “ people united as one, comprises of multiracialism and multiculturism ” , “ Don’t have inequality, everyone is the same ” , “ People stand together, have one goal ” and “ Group of people having sense of belongings to their places, willing to stay to contribute to the development of their places, one country, one government ” . From the results, we can see that most of the informants do not have a clear understanding of the term “ nation ” . However, almost all their definitions are related to “ people ” . They believe that people are the most important elements in a nation.
Since “ people ” are the important elements in their minds, how are people related to the nation? I believe racial relationship is one of the major concern in this case since Singapore is a multi-racial society. From the article “ Managing National Development ” , we can see that racial relationship in Singapore is dynamic. Relationship among races will always change in response to government policy. When one race’s interests conflict with others, they will become sensitive and try to made demands on behalf of their respective communities. ( Vasil, R.K 2000 : 103 ) In this research, I will try to analyze racial relationship through several questions.First, I asked them which racial group are their close friends mainly constitute of. All of them answered “ Chinese ” and only two of them have other answers “ three Malay friends ” and “ Indians also, but not that close ” . According to them, cultural background is the main reason behind this. One of them said that he will only communicate with people from other races during work or studies. However, seven of them claimed that it is possible to mix well with friends form other racial group, only one informant thought that it is impossible. Besides, four of them claimed that they don’t have preference in choosing friends. It is clear that people in Singapore still prefer to communicate with their own respective racial group because of cultural and language similarities. Although half of them claimed that they don’t have preference in choosing friends, but their close friends are still mainly Chinese. I believe policies enforced by British colonial have great impact on the multiracial society nowadays. During the British colonial period, different races groups were divided into different areas and have different jobs too. Generally, Malay worked as farmer, Chinese worked as businessman and Indian worked as rubber tapper. After independence for forty years, the consequences of the policy still exist. Perhaps influenced by previous generation, people nowadays still prefer to stick to their own racial groups. However, the situation has become better, they can now work and study with each other together although the mixing of culture is not that obvious.
In this research, I try to examine their sense of belongings toward Singapore by asking them three very basic history question about Singapore. First, I asked them about the main contributor in 19th century that establish a trading post in this island. Eight of them gave me the answer “ Stanford Raffles ” . Besides, seven of them managed to elaborate on how British came and what had happened after the founding of the trading post. For second question, I asked them about the time Japan conquer Singapore, only four informants answered me the actual year of the event “ 1942 ” . For the third question, I asked them about the date Singapore became independent. Only four of them gave me the actual date of the event “ 1965 ” . After I finished asking these three questions, three of the informants gave me feedback that they felt so stressed answering historical questions. The result is out of my expectation as I believe that all of them can answer these three questions easily.
What about Singaporean’s view towards the future of Singapore? My next question was “ If chance ever emerge, do u hope that Singapore rejoin Malaysia ? ” All of them gave me negative answer. Four informants answered so because they didn’t like the pro-Malay policy of Malaysia. Three answered so because they thought that Singapore is stronger than Malaysia, especially in economy. One answered so because of the difference of cultural background. After that, I asked “ If there was a war and Singapore was involved in it, will you stay here to fight or just leave this island? Why? ” . Five of them answered they will stay and fight for Singapore whereas three of them answered they will run away. Those who claimed to run away answered that “ No point waiting for Singapore, or we should wait for United States’s help. Singapore military system is in chaos, I detest SAF bureaucracy ” , “ People are selfish, I will run for sure if I can ” and “ Singapore is too small, we cannot defend. We are doomed even if enemy drop bomb on this island ” . Besides, although one of the informants claimed that he will stay and fight, but he has no confidence at all. He said “ Singapore has very untested army, hard to have faith in it ” . From the result, we can see that although Singaporean do not want their nation to rejoin Malaysia and most of them will choose to stay and fight for Singapore, however, they do not have faith in it, especially the military system of the government. They do not want Singapore to rejoin Malaysia just because Malaysia is relatively weak in economical aspects and has very different political view compared to Singapore. However, when crisis happen, they tend to lose confidence to their nation. In my opinion, the political condition in Singapore is the main cause for this phenomenon. People’s Action Party ( PAP ) is the main political party in Singapore and it has the strongest political power. Thus, PAP has the power to determine the future of this nation. People have to follow whatever policy enforced by PAP. As time passed, Singaporean had become “ pampered ” by their government. If the government perform well, they feel comfortable. However, if it doesn’t perform well, they cannot do much. Thus, they will lose confidence to their government during the outbreak of a crisis.
In my other question, I asked them views of foreign talent. It is a well-known fact that Singapore government took a lot of effort to import foreign talents. About 30,000 foreigners became permanent residents in 1996. Then, in 1998, 50,000 foreign professor and skilled workers out of a total of 560,000 foreign workers or 15 percent of the people in Singapore had been brought in. ( www.singapore-window.org/80301for.htm ) Some Singaporean believe that the import of foreign talent have brought a large impact on Singapore society. For example, many local students cannot get into local University and were forced to further their studies overseas. In the interview, all the informants accept the importance of foreign talent, and agree on the policy of importing foreign talent, especially in the economy field. They believe that foreign talent can help develop Singapore and keeping the economy alive. Some even thought that “ without them, Singapore will not develop ” . However, seven of them worried that foreign talent will compete with local people for job. This is a dilemma situation where on one hand, Singaporean worry about the competition by foreign talents. On the other hand, they think that foreign talent are very important in developing this nation. One of them said that “ This is mutualism relationship. We need them to develop this nation while they need oppurtunity and high pay. ” I believe their answers are related to their background. Six of the informants are currently undergraduate students of NUS. NUS enroll many foreign students and most of them are from China. All the China students have gone through a series of trainings before they enroll into NUS. Besides, they are also top students from their country. Thus, many foreign students especially China students obtain very good results in NUS. Most of the informants, having witnessed this phenomenon, judge foreign talent according to their coursemate’s performance and believe that foreign talent will help much in developing this nation.
It is not easy to conclude the essay with a definite answer. However, some clues can be found from the responses of the informants. It is clear that in their mindset, nation is a place where people have strong bonding with each other and believe in the future of the place. However, the people they refer to are mainly their own racial group. Besides, in this research, almost all the informants mixed up government with nation. Basically, they believe in the future of the nation but the believe is not that strong. They believe the government can carry out policies to maintain the stability of society and provide them comfortable life. However, in order to develop well, this nation need other external factors such as foreign talent. In other aspect, I do not see clear trend of their believes in the future of this nation. Some of them believe in it and some of them do not. As a conclusion, I think that Singaporean do have sense of belonging to their nation. However, this is not a strong sense, but just because they have getting used to this place and they believe this is the place they can live comfortably. Besides, their sense of belongings are based on realism, that is they will have sense of belongings to this nation only if they get benefit from it.
Reference :
1. Dow Jones & Reuters ‘ Will a Singapore tribe emerge ’ ( The Straits Times, 6 May 1999 )
2. Vasil, R.K ( 2000 ) ‘ Managing national development ’ in Governing Singapore : Democracy and National Development. Singapore : Allen & Unwin, p. 84-118
3. www.singapore-window.org/80301for.htm
This is not a good research,
i spent only 2 days doing it.
However, perhaps u can find some interesting things
about Singaporean here. Hehe... =)
“ Do people who have Singapore citizenship ( ‘ Singaporean ’ ) feel a strong or weak sense of belonging to the nation? ” This seems to be an interesting question, especially to a foreign student like me. In this essay, I will carry out a series of data collection in response to the question and analyse Singaporean’s view towards their nation.
I choose to construct my data collection using qualitative interview. Because of the limited informants, I do not choose to observe a clear trend by setting out two groups to compare because my sample size is too small. Thus, I choose to interview people from the same age range and same academic background. After that, I try to observe the trend and analyze it from the results collected. The interview consisted of questions pertaining to historical knowledge, multiracialism view, deifinition of nation, view of foreign talent, and some hypothetical questions. The interviews were conducted in English and the informants were allowed to speak as long as they like.
A total of eight informants were interviewed; 5 were male and 3 were female. The informants are from the age range of 20-29. Besides, all of them have similar academic background, six of them are currently National University of Singapore ( NUS ) undergraduate students and the other two are diploma holders. Besides, they are all Chinese and have not been overseas for more than one months in one time. This is to ensure that they all grow up here and have less influence by overseas living experience.
According to Harvard Professor Rupert Emerson, nation can be defined as “ A single people, traditionally fixed on a well-defined territory, speaking the same language and preferably a language all its own, possessing a distinctive cultured, and shaped to a common mould by many generations of shared historical experience. ” ( The Straits Time, 6 May 1999 ) However, it is impossible for us to conclude this essay according to this definition because the informants would not have this concept in their minds. In this research, I asked them to define the term “ nation ” as my first question so that I can understand better “ where ” or “ what ” their sense of belonging is to, if they have any. I received a variety of answers such as “ people united as one, comprises of multiracialism and multiculturism ” , “ Don’t have inequality, everyone is the same ” , “ People stand together, have one goal ” and “ Group of people having sense of belongings to their places, willing to stay to contribute to the development of their places, one country, one government ” . From the results, we can see that most of the informants do not have a clear understanding of the term “ nation ” . However, almost all their definitions are related to “ people ” . They believe that people are the most important elements in a nation.
Since “ people ” are the important elements in their minds, how are people related to the nation? I believe racial relationship is one of the major concern in this case since Singapore is a multi-racial society. From the article “ Managing National Development ” , we can see that racial relationship in Singapore is dynamic. Relationship among races will always change in response to government policy. When one race’s interests conflict with others, they will become sensitive and try to made demands on behalf of their respective communities. ( Vasil, R.K 2000 : 103 ) In this research, I will try to analyze racial relationship through several questions.First, I asked them which racial group are their close friends mainly constitute of. All of them answered “ Chinese ” and only two of them have other answers “ three Malay friends ” and “ Indians also, but not that close ” . According to them, cultural background is the main reason behind this. One of them said that he will only communicate with people from other races during work or studies. However, seven of them claimed that it is possible to mix well with friends form other racial group, only one informant thought that it is impossible. Besides, four of them claimed that they don’t have preference in choosing friends. It is clear that people in Singapore still prefer to communicate with their own respective racial group because of cultural and language similarities. Although half of them claimed that they don’t have preference in choosing friends, but their close friends are still mainly Chinese. I believe policies enforced by British colonial have great impact on the multiracial society nowadays. During the British colonial period, different races groups were divided into different areas and have different jobs too. Generally, Malay worked as farmer, Chinese worked as businessman and Indian worked as rubber tapper. After independence for forty years, the consequences of the policy still exist. Perhaps influenced by previous generation, people nowadays still prefer to stick to their own racial groups. However, the situation has become better, they can now work and study with each other together although the mixing of culture is not that obvious.
In this research, I try to examine their sense of belongings toward Singapore by asking them three very basic history question about Singapore. First, I asked them about the main contributor in 19th century that establish a trading post in this island. Eight of them gave me the answer “ Stanford Raffles ” . Besides, seven of them managed to elaborate on how British came and what had happened after the founding of the trading post. For second question, I asked them about the time Japan conquer Singapore, only four informants answered me the actual year of the event “ 1942 ” . For the third question, I asked them about the date Singapore became independent. Only four of them gave me the actual date of the event “ 1965 ” . After I finished asking these three questions, three of the informants gave me feedback that they felt so stressed answering historical questions. The result is out of my expectation as I believe that all of them can answer these three questions easily.
What about Singaporean’s view towards the future of Singapore? My next question was “ If chance ever emerge, do u hope that Singapore rejoin Malaysia ? ” All of them gave me negative answer. Four informants answered so because they didn’t like the pro-Malay policy of Malaysia. Three answered so because they thought that Singapore is stronger than Malaysia, especially in economy. One answered so because of the difference of cultural background. After that, I asked “ If there was a war and Singapore was involved in it, will you stay here to fight or just leave this island? Why? ” . Five of them answered they will stay and fight for Singapore whereas three of them answered they will run away. Those who claimed to run away answered that “ No point waiting for Singapore, or we should wait for United States’s help. Singapore military system is in chaos, I detest SAF bureaucracy ” , “ People are selfish, I will run for sure if I can ” and “ Singapore is too small, we cannot defend. We are doomed even if enemy drop bomb on this island ” . Besides, although one of the informants claimed that he will stay and fight, but he has no confidence at all. He said “ Singapore has very untested army, hard to have faith in it ” . From the result, we can see that although Singaporean do not want their nation to rejoin Malaysia and most of them will choose to stay and fight for Singapore, however, they do not have faith in it, especially the military system of the government. They do not want Singapore to rejoin Malaysia just because Malaysia is relatively weak in economical aspects and has very different political view compared to Singapore. However, when crisis happen, they tend to lose confidence to their nation. In my opinion, the political condition in Singapore is the main cause for this phenomenon. People’s Action Party ( PAP ) is the main political party in Singapore and it has the strongest political power. Thus, PAP has the power to determine the future of this nation. People have to follow whatever policy enforced by PAP. As time passed, Singaporean had become “ pampered ” by their government. If the government perform well, they feel comfortable. However, if it doesn’t perform well, they cannot do much. Thus, they will lose confidence to their government during the outbreak of a crisis.
In my other question, I asked them views of foreign talent. It is a well-known fact that Singapore government took a lot of effort to import foreign talents. About 30,000 foreigners became permanent residents in 1996. Then, in 1998, 50,000 foreign professor and skilled workers out of a total of 560,000 foreign workers or 15 percent of the people in Singapore had been brought in. ( www.singapore-window.org/80301for.htm ) Some Singaporean believe that the import of foreign talent have brought a large impact on Singapore society. For example, many local students cannot get into local University and were forced to further their studies overseas. In the interview, all the informants accept the importance of foreign talent, and agree on the policy of importing foreign talent, especially in the economy field. They believe that foreign talent can help develop Singapore and keeping the economy alive. Some even thought that “ without them, Singapore will not develop ” . However, seven of them worried that foreign talent will compete with local people for job. This is a dilemma situation where on one hand, Singaporean worry about the competition by foreign talents. On the other hand, they think that foreign talent are very important in developing this nation. One of them said that “ This is mutualism relationship. We need them to develop this nation while they need oppurtunity and high pay. ” I believe their answers are related to their background. Six of the informants are currently undergraduate students of NUS. NUS enroll many foreign students and most of them are from China. All the China students have gone through a series of trainings before they enroll into NUS. Besides, they are also top students from their country. Thus, many foreign students especially China students obtain very good results in NUS. Most of the informants, having witnessed this phenomenon, judge foreign talent according to their coursemate’s performance and believe that foreign talent will help much in developing this nation.
It is not easy to conclude the essay with a definite answer. However, some clues can be found from the responses of the informants. It is clear that in their mindset, nation is a place where people have strong bonding with each other and believe in the future of the place. However, the people they refer to are mainly their own racial group. Besides, in this research, almost all the informants mixed up government with nation. Basically, they believe in the future of the nation but the believe is not that strong. They believe the government can carry out policies to maintain the stability of society and provide them comfortable life. However, in order to develop well, this nation need other external factors such as foreign talent. In other aspect, I do not see clear trend of their believes in the future of this nation. Some of them believe in it and some of them do not. As a conclusion, I think that Singaporean do have sense of belonging to their nation. However, this is not a strong sense, but just because they have getting used to this place and they believe this is the place they can live comfortably. Besides, their sense of belongings are based on realism, that is they will have sense of belongings to this nation only if they get benefit from it.
Reference :
1. Dow Jones & Reuters ‘ Will a Singapore tribe emerge ’ ( The Straits Times, 6 May 1999 )
2. Vasil, R.K ( 2000 ) ‘ Managing national development ’ in Governing Singapore : Democracy and National Development. Singapore : Allen & Unwin, p. 84-118
3. www.singapore-window.org/80301for.htm
posted by 志鹏 @ 6:27 PM
2 Comments:
At March 29, 2007 at 10:28 AM ,
Anonymous said...
waaaaaaaaaaaa it's so obvious which essays u put more effort into writing and which you didn't.. hahahaha
this one on Singapore society, in my humble opinion, is just average in terms of content. the language is so-so, easily understood but as a result much less powerful in terms of conviction.
and my dear, EIGHT ppl out of a population of 4 million? I don't think that's a very good basis for forming your ideas and clues.
all in all, for 2 days work, it's pretty ok "la". hehehe tell me how u scored on this one! I sincerely hope my amateur views are really amateur. :p
At March 29, 2007 at 1:45 PM ,
志鹏 said...
HAHA ! I actually got B+ !
We have to conduct qualitative research. Thus, i can only interview 8 ppl as what my lecturer suggest. In real research, this is totally unacceptable. But for this assignment, my lecturer allows us to do so. =) In terms of content, i really don't care, just throw out whatever come out in my mind. For the poor language, ur absence ( in MSN ) at the period before the due date of this assignment is the main reason. HEHE...
Thx for ur comment. =)
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