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Singapore’s dirty little sense of entitlement
Singaporeans treat public cleanliness as someone else’s job. If civic pride won’t come willingly, then only tough love can break the habit.
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The writer, who moved back into her apartment in Tiong Bahru in April, was shocked to see how the neighbourhood had become something of a dump.
ST PHOTO: TAN DAWN WEI
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Whenever someone in China asks me where I am from and hears “Singapore”, the immediate reaction is almost always one or a combination of these three: “it’s very clean”; “it’s very rich”; or Singaporeans “hen you suzhi (are very refined, well-mannered or civic-minded)”.
Of these three responses, I can comfortably agree with the only one that is grounded in fact – we are, indeed, pretty flush. Up until I returned home in April this year, after nearly seven years in Beijing, I was also inclined to concur that for the most part, our public hygiene standards aren’t too shabby either for a global city.
