When I Was Young

I SAY

Are we missing the point about graciousness?

Jeremiah Boon

I refer to "Nothing wrong with Victorians" (April 22) and "What's wrong with today's kids?" (April 20).

The explanation provided by Mr Zaveed Husref is a good one; to label a school over such a minor act is exaggerated. But it has made me look at the bigger picture.

For the past couple of years or so, ever since Singapore started its campaign towards becoming a "gracious" society, have the population's social graces actually improved or become worse?

One cannot help but notice the amount of letters to newspapers about how a citizen found the action of another "ungracious".

In addition, it has become almost a fad to capture anything "ungracious" on one's camera phone and submit it to a local citizen reporter website.

Are we missing the point here? The word "gracious" is so severely overused today that it is losing its meaning.

I believe the society Singapore is trying to head for is when an individual like Ms Trina Tan Ker Wei (the writer of the second letter) would actually help the student diners clear the trays if the fast food restaurant did not have sufficient manpower at that time to do so.

While that sounds too good to be true in the society we live in, it's also the "gracious" spark we are looking for.

I question the effectiveness of nitpicking anything out of the ordinary and showing it to the world through the media.

Not to mention that this course of action only turns society into a place where one is forced to help, or otherwise risk being ridiculed, rather than wanting to help out of goodwill and consideration.

While citizens do their part towards forging a "gracious" society by submitting pictures of ungracious acts through various media, we are also opening ourselves up to being misconstrued by the rest of the world.

From TODAY, Voices – Thursday, 30-April-2009