Deconstruct or not

What should we do about Mr Lee Kuan Yew's house? Should we keep it or destroy it. Well for me I think that we should destroy it because that was what Mr lee himself wanted. We have to respect Mr lee's last wishes as he have done so much for Singapore and I think that this is one of the things I can do to pay my own respect towards him, which is to follow his instructions and wishes. Secondly, we are also not part of his family to choose whether we get to keep it or destroy it as at the end of the day, what his family say is more important than what the public wants. According to the family, they also wanted to destroy as it is Mr lee's wish to destroy it instead of leaving it there for the things to start and rot. Mr lee wanted to destroy his house in order to construct more useful buildings like HDB flats or Office buildings there for economic purposes. I cannot deny that the house can also attract tourist as it has a lot of things related to mr lee himself and we can learn quite a lot of history from his house. The tourism board also can turn the house into a tourist site to attract more visitors and earn money for the country. But we should destroy as it satisfies both conditions of economic purpose and being able to follow mr lees last wish.

$ or Lives?

Dilemma between the blind pursuit of higher economic growth and protecting our environment.

I would like to think of this at the governments point of view. In the governments point of view it is true that they will sacrifice the environment to earn money but it is all for the better of the country and us the citizens. It will only be wrong if the government is trying to earn money for themselves and not benefit the country and that's the wrong way to waste the environment. If the specified species is endangered we should at the very least keep it safe to ensure its continuation and the clear that area for our economic things. We the government don't care about the environment as it does not bring us any profit but we should at least care about it as our citizens want to take care of it. The economic growth is also needed as most of the countries are growing at incredible rate like China and if the government do not focus on the economic growth, we will start falling behind a lot of countries and all the efforts will be wasted. In conclusion I think that focusing in growth in economy is more important the environment but that does not mean that we can trash the environment so we must take care of it if it is being used and if the place is needed to be cleared for economic purposes we should limit our clearing area and be resourceful at the same time.

High cost of living :(

  What are the possible consequence of high cost of living in Singapore?

The possible consequences are that people will start migrating to other countries cause their cost of living are a lot lower that ours. When Fast and Furious 7 came out, Vin diesel and the crew came to Singapore for an interview, us the Singaporeans asked him to guess the price of cars in Singapore. We told them it was $100,000 for a car and we still have not add the COE and they're were like " WHAT THE HELL, that can easily get you a sports car or lambo back in the states or 2 of the same car!" 

Judging by their response even I will migrate to other countries if I could, the price of our 3 room flats can also easily buy a terrace in their country.

The other possible consequence can be that Singapore still can continue robbing more money under broad daylight because Singaporeans know that it will be difficult to migrate and the things we have now is very fortunate and we will continue staying here and paying more money even though we know we are at a loss.

Enc Week Blog

  'Experiencing another's culture may open doors that were previous closed ... but the choice to walk through those doors is entirely up to you.' Looking at this quote made me think firstly, what exactly is culture. Well, research tells me that culture is an art or cultivation that manifested overtime. It is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

 Objectives of EnC week:

I think that the whole objectives of this Week is to make us embrace and enjoy the other cultures and welcome them with open arms into our own culture. Because in River Valley Highschool, we have mostly only Chinese students so we cannot experience the other rich cultures that frequently. So this week is to let us understand and learn the other cultures instead of "forcefully" accepting them into our multi racial society.

 During EnC week the school brought us on an interesting learning journey to kampong glam and little india where many people visit for the richness in different cultures. On the first day of EnC Week, the school invited malay dance instructors to come teach my class malay dance and other classes other types of cultural activities like Indian dance and Music. The malay dance was really enjoyable and knowledgful, the dance instructor told us that in Malay dance they incoorperate part of the chinese martial arts, their own and the whole dance tells a beautiful story. The malay dance as a culture, just like Singapore itself, incoorperate different culture which compliments each other and make the dance all the more better. This really fulfilled the objectives as i had learnt that when we learn to accept and embrace each other, we compliments each other's strength and make a better community.

Day 2-5:

On day 2 to 4 we went on a trip to kampong glam and little india. We were told to research different things during the 4 days we were there and my group chose food. Malay and india food are awfully similar as they both revolve around the fragrant spices.

These are two of the few spices we found, the mustard seeds and dried chillies. There are also spices like Coconuts and corriander seeds. Malay uses the coconut to make food like nasi lemak and the indians uses the coconut food to make curry. Malay also included what us, the chinese always use, the soy sauce to enrice their flavour in the food.

this is a picture of a mosque we visited in Kampong Glam. "Masjid Sultan Mosque"

When we entered this mosque, it looked really big unlike other mosque. Interesting fact is that the reason why the interior of the mosque is big is because, it was planned and constructed by an Irish Architect which made the interior like a catholic church which increases the size. It really surprised me because an Irish man constructed a muslim mosque even though they are 2 different religion. 

Second fact is that under the golden glass dome which represents luck and prosperity is actually glass bottles. Because in the past, people who were poorer and could not afford to contribute to the cost of the construction, they contributed glass bottles instead and now it is on the mosque itself. This was a very heartwarming fact because even thoughs the muslim people who started this project, accepted the poorer with open arm and take any contribution they could take and still put it on to the mosque. This shows how much the muslims are bonded as a religion and it really touched all our hearts.

   Because we only spend 1 day at little india there was'nt enough time to explore everything but we had alot of fun. We went into a hawker centre which sold alot of different food from the range of chicken rice to chicken briyani. I chose to try the prata there as it was part of the indian culture, in the curry i could taste the spices and it was not that spicy as they had to serve people from other races too.

We also took turns to explore the Indian street arcade in Little India and there were alot of shops that was selling hanna tattoos but sadly i did not have the time to get it. The hennas represented good luck and it looked really nice. But i wish we had more time to explore the little india and the streets especially with out groups as there were too much to explore.

The most Impactful Lesson:

It is definitely the culture of the muslims. What drives their culture and religion is their integrity. The muslims have to fast for 1 month, have ablution done before entering the mosque and they have to do 5 prayers a day. They do not just skip any of this as they have a strong sense of integrity. If they accidentally miss a prayer or accidentally eat during the fasting period they will just find another time to do it and they will complete it all the time. Ablution, an act to cleanse themselves before they enter the mosque, muslims have intergrity to not do the wrong and scold vulgarities as these make their whole body dirty, muslims try their best to restrict themselves from this through integrity and cleanse themselves everytime during ablution.

Conclusion:

During this whole trip, my group and i faced the whole 5 days with positivity and humbleness to fully experience the other cultures. It definitely released our religious barriers and we could enjoy ourselves alot and at the same time enjoy ourselves. I wish that we had more time to explore places like the masjid sultan mosque by ourselves to find out more about the places itself as we had not enough time to do so.

As my school only consist of mostly chinese, i do forget about the other races sometimes but after this trip, i learnt to be more sensitive towards the other cultures and try our best to embrace each other as much as we can.

Even though there were times that the trip was really boring, EnC week has been really fruitful and we could learn alot of different new things as we approached it with open mindedness.

Cid Blog

I do not think that Singapore should continue to share her development experiences with other countries. By sharing our information with china we do get our benefits but it benefits them alot more. Over the pass few years according to the article i read in class, it says that china is developing alot and at a much faster rate than singapore up till that it has reached our level and it is still developing. Singapore is still stuck at one slow rate od progression as there are now one who helps us with information other than resource wise. By helping other countries, the countries will have the information and knowledge that us, a small and tiny country only acquire, and thats our only value that out worth. Without that, we got nothing else to offer to the world and thus we will be sooner or later be deemed useless as other countries do not need our knowledge as they are already way more developed than us.

CiD Blog 

What can we learn from suzhou industrial Park? Well we can learn alot about their culture and how much it has improved over the short amount of time spent on the park. We can learn that any country can just be like us if they had the idea and knowledge and we can be easily replaced by other countries whenever. Suzhou industrial park showed dedication and hardwork to change the park to such a beautiful and efficiently well built park. In the video that was showed , there was alot of industries in the area which means that they are slowly gaining and increasing their money earned. There was also a section where many flags were put together which china in the middle and that tells us that china is maintaining a healthy relationship with other countries to acquire maximum peace and prosperity for themselves.

Singapore

Why singapore should'nt be complacent and why relationship with China is important. In my opinion with supporting evidence, singapore is a very small country and have very little resources for us to sell and earn money. So we need to depend with China. We import oil from china to refine and sell it again to make more money and China help us with a lot of other things. Thats why we need to maintain a good relationship so that the trade continues to allow our economy ti constantly grow and advance. Maintaining a good relationship with china help us to prevent war. If a war occur both countries will lose alot and it will be a lose lose situation.

Singapores and chinas culture

Chingay reflection:

Experience of Chingay:
The chingay performance was truly fantastic. Along with the planning of the whole programme itself, the volunteers were uncountable and they were very helpful. Dancers, back-up dancers, ushers, cleaners and other volunteers fulfilled their job and i could see their smiles when they know they have done their jobs perfectly. I believed that some performers and ushers was unclear of their moves or their on role in the whole chingay itself, but they still tried their hardest and make it a fulfilling event for us students and fulfilled their jobs perfectly which they perserveared through. Just in the opening act itself, it displayed different types of values they wanted us to learn from chingay. Teamwork: there were about 600 performers spreaded out 400m of walking space standing on crescent shaped platforms attached with 5 stars which represented the singapore flag, dancing in complete Unity and perfect Synchronization. Care and perseverance : Caring for one another is very important and it was displayed not on purpose but it happened accidentally. In the opening act there were different men and women standing on high wooden sticks and one of them accidentally fell down. Not surprised by the accident, the volunteers and performer when to help him up and he continued to Persevere through the rest of the lane.

picture of the first act

Chingay was also indeed heartwarming. Before the show even started it already started raining and the rain got worse just when the performances started. Even though there was a heavy rain, the volunteers did not had a thought of giving up, did not care about getting sick but only care about continuing the show wore a tiny sheet of poncho to cover themselves from the rain and continue the show. In the first act itself, they stood under the rain for almost 20minutes just to wait for the performance to start. It was really unfortunate as it dampened the mood of the audience including me as we forced to a lot of inconvenience but just thinking about it, the performers would have more difficulties than us, so i decided to not care and just enjoy the beautiful performances and songs. Most of the students expressed their feelings with enthusiasm which cheered the performers on and we decided to shout and respond to the emcees.

The Purpose of Chingay:

Before we even went to chingay, they sent representatives to our school to hype us up for chingay and explain to us how chingay came about. It was to cover up the banning of fire crackers back in the olden days where firecrackers were used to celebrate chinese new year but it causes injuries and even deaths.However, the ban caused unhappiness among the chinese and reduced public enthusiasm, and then Chingay, originally featuring aspects of Chinese culture by the Chinese only, came about as a kind of compensation. However, after some performances in Singapore, it included other races like malays,indians and slowly Japan and Australia joined in Chingay and the values of Chingay evolved around multiracialism, unity, inclusive and caring in Singapore.

Did Chingay fulfill its purpose?

Foreigners may think that we Singaporeans treat racial harmony as racial tolerance as we truly do not understand other race's culture but we are being forced to tolerate with one another and celebrate each other's festivities. Racial harmony means that we truly understand and trust each other and we have no disagreement with the culture of other races. This was what chingay wanted to teach singaporeans and i think they did their job perfectly as they had many performance of each individual cultures and dances of respective race group but they dancers of other races to perform and understand each other's culture with their heart. This shows that even though you are not part of the race, it does not stop you from helping or even joining and learning the dance like a chinese learning indian dance and vice versa.

this is a picture of the volunteers dancing for the malay cuktural contigent and it has some chinese dancers in it. This shows inclusiveness and racial harmoy as it takes time for people to understand and learn what they are foreign with.

Representing singapore

Cultural forces

how reflecting on cultural forces help us understand China cultures?

By understand the forces, we can understand what is the cause of the different traditions and cultures of China and Chinese. The actions of the people who shaped the culture along with the words and trends that people have in China which decides the culture. There are many variables that we can count in the list of things that shapes the culture and we have to take all of the into consideration to help us infer the culture and understand with ease.

Self introduction

self introduction

I am Nicholas from class 2D'17 and my cca is basketball. Since becoming the captain of my batch basketball has become my hobby. I always watch videos like anime during my free time as it can relieve stress and can an enjoyable thing to do. I am very big and tall so people may think that i am a bully at first but i am a scaredy cat at heart so please do not bully me. OELP will be the 4th time i travel with a school or classmates and i will be looking forward to it very much. i was from chua chu kang primary school. my CCA was robotics and i represented my school in russia to compete in the world robot olympiad. But sadly, robotics has become too boring so i decided to change to basketball for cca in secondary school. robotics was a much leisure cca without any struggles or pain but basketball is the complete opposite, it is way more tiring and stressful as i need to compete with my batch mates and juniors to join the 12 and start the game as one of the starting fives.

this is what i think about singapore and china