Singapore Kindness Movement.

Singapore has a "kindness movement"...but does it need one?

Coincidentally, I had a conversation with a group of Koreans living in Singapore, recently. They spontaneously observed...all of them...that Singaporeans are "not kind". This is, of course, from a Korean perspective, which is, rather like the Japanese, in being quite a gentle, polite society. However, what they had to say was instructive. I shall retell one story from the conversation.

One of the Koreans, who speaks English, Korean and Chinese Mandarin quite well was buying food at a hawker stall. She decided to speak English, rather than Chinese, so as to practise her English (her Chinese being a stronger language, for her).

The two Chinese ladies at the hawker stall also replied in English...bad English, but English nevertheless and set about getting her food. However, what they did next was unexpected. They started criticizing the Korean girl's facial appearance and clothing choices, in front of her, in Chinese. The criticisms were quite harsh and the Korean girl found herself being most wounded by their remarks. She said nothing, however, but just listened.

The Korean girl came away from the experience with the impression that Singaporeans are rather unkind about their fellow humans. She had only been in Singapore a few weeks and this was an influential moment.

There are many examples I could give, from their conversation with me, alone...but that one should suffice. The Chinese stallholders felt safe to be unkind about her, because they thought she would not understand. However, I think that they should not have been unkind, even if she could not understand. She would have picked up on the non-verbal language even if she had not understood a single word of their Chinese (all of which she did understand).

April has been designated as Kindness Month. It will be good to see if the Singapore Kindness Movement can actually have an effect on the type of behaviour I am sure we are all familiar with: that which mars someone else's day, for no other reason than a lack of care for one's fellow man.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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