Sunday, May 22, 2005

More whine, sir?

I feel somewhat determined to make up for previous posts that have been pretty full of nothing much in particular, but having said that I have this feeling that this post is not going to reach the kind of standard that I'm hoping for. Add that to the fact that the lower half is composed of fun surveys from other people's blogs, and this is most probably going to a silly post masquerading as a serious post and failing miserably. Drat.

I'm quite amused by last Sunday's news article about A*Star chairman Philip Yeo's comments against "whining Singapore boys" and supporting statements from an A*Star scholar Ms Chng Zhenzhi who subsequently got flamed for criticising Singapore men for whining about little things and who appeared in the papers today to clarify the meaning of her statements and how they were taken completely out of context. For me the first response to the article last week was some self-defending outrage at being a part of the group of people being pointed at and accused of whining and thinking ourselves entitled to scholarships. Many friends also expressed outrage at their comments, and I would nod my head sympathetically.

After a moment of thought, though, I was thinking along the lines of, Hey, maybe they're right. Maybe we do whine a lot. At least, I know I do. I'm not here to destroy the case for young men everywhere in Singapore who have been called whiners, but I think I need to be frank and admit that I am myself a gigantic whiner, at least. Just look through this blog's nearly two-year-long history and you'll find me whining about friends not joining me for lunch, cyclists who shouldn't cycle on pavements, advertisements in MRT stations that get on my nerves, and even now I'm whining about patients who ignore me when I talk to them, or start scolding me, and doctors who are rude to me on the phone when I'm just trying to do my job. I whine. And I think to myself, what's so bad about whining?

For starters, maybe it's just the word itself. Whine. It makes you think of spoilt, petulant children making awful noises that get on your nerves and make you want to slap them to shut them up. Goodness knows I've felt that way about some children and perhaps not want to have children for fear of having such irritating things around me, but that's not the point here. It has this connotation of making a big fuss over something small and insignificant. I think, self-deprecatingly, I would call my complaints "whining", but I don't think I'm being overtly irritating or making a mountain out of a molehill when I whine, or maybe I am and I'm not seeing it.

Face it, Singaporeans complain. It's what we do. Government wants to set up IR, complain. Oh no, what kind of message are we sending out children? Oh no, what if Singaporeans get addicted to gambling? Aiyoh, why do they want to charge us fifty dollars to enter the casino? Transport companies want to raise charges, complain. Philip Yeo calling Singaporean guys whiners, complain. Poor service in retail and dining, complain. Even in Medicine we do that. Change of name to Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, complain. We're never done complaining, because we're so molly-coddled by our government that we want everything to be perfect and wholesome and comfortable that we complain about anything that disrupts that sphere of protection against all things unpleasant and unwholesome.

I don't think complaining is a bad thing. At the very least it's a way of expressing one's own opinions. Better a person that complains than a person that meekly follows everything a higher authority tells him or her to do. Of course a person who will do something about a perceived flaw in the system shows initiative and the will to provoke change, but are all of us able to do that? I'm concerned that patients who have health problems need to stay in the hospital for 3 days because of the Vesak Day holiday before they can get a scan on Tuesday, but can I do anything to change that? Can even the senior doctors change that? What can we do, besides complaining about it and hoping it reaches some form of administration which probably won't do anything about it? It's the same with everything else. If you've seen the sheer inefficiency of how the military is run, you would complain too.

Basically we don't have to take things lying down when we aren't happy with it. It's a sign of having an opinion when we can raise our views about an issue and debate about it, and at the very least we have arguments to support our point and aren't just screaming irrationally. Even small things deserve debate, because small errors lead to big mistakes. It's ironic how people can vehemently reject the comments made by A*Star scholar Ms Chng and go on to rip information off her Friendster profile and quote essays she has written, and beseech other people to flame her and do other bad things. Isn't that being a little bit too petty for people who insist that they are not whiners? Why don't you stand up and prove that you're not a whiner, or in my case stand up and say I'm a whiner and support whining? Maybe I've been talking about the wrong thing all day and what the A*Star chairman means by whining is this immature slamming of people without rationally debating a point. Which I am myself guilty of quite often, and it's not pretty, definitely. Immaturity is very unbecoming.

One other point to note in this entire saga is how poor Ms Chng seems to have had her comments totally taken out of context after a phone interview with a Straits Times reporter. According to her clarification, she was quite clear and logical in the things she told the reporter, but the quote that was printed in last Sunday's Straits Times was quite the contrary. It was harsh, critical, inflammatory, all distilled from one short phone interview, and it's a good show of how some clever paraphrasing can evoke the worst reactions from people. It also makes me wonder when the Straits Times started publishing news like this to get people stirred up and even set up interviews to milk as much controversy from the issue as possible. I thought only The New Paper did that.

A lot of times I'm very hesitant about posting things like this on my blog, because basically I don't set up good arguments to support my point, and usually I'm very weak when it comes to arguing about anything, which is why I did awfully in GP. I tend to be a very subjective person who lets his emotions get the better of him, and when you strip all those emotions away, like I tried to do today, all you get is a very boring brain-dead me. So apologies if this essay was filled with loopholes as big as continents and jumped from point to point without much coherence or expansion of relevant points. I'm just writing for the fun of it, and for practice.

On to some surveys from plhu's blog:

Your Birthdate: October 2

Your birth on the 2nd day of the month adds a degree of emotion, sensitivity, and intuition to your life. The 2 is a very social number allowing you to make friends easily and quickly. Yet you are apt to have a rather nervous air in the company of a large group. You have a warmhearted nature and emotional understanding that constantly seeks affection. You are more prone than most to become depressed and moody, as emotions can turn inward and cause anxiety and mental turmoil. It can be hard for you to bounce back to reality when depression sets in.

This one is really accurate which is why I decided I had to post it. Except the part on making friends easily and quickly, which is total rubbish, I am very nervous when it I am in a large group, and the depression part is spot on.

Star Wars Horoscope for Libra

You are on a lifelong pursuit of justice and determined to succeed. You convey the art of persuasion through force. You always display your supreme intelligence. You have a great talent in obtaining balance between yourself and your surroundings. Star wars character you are most like: Obi Wan Kenobi

I'm Obi-Wan! The rest is all rubbish. Lifelong pursuit of justice? What, big purple robot with jet-pack? But Obi-Wan!

And ARGH, this is the reason why I suddenly want to play The Sims 2. Just click on the links, it should be quite entertaining. Harry Potter readers will appreciate it more, though.

Avaris / 5/22/2005 02:41:00 PM

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