Characteristics of SG

1. A Land of Contradictions
This point comes to mind immediately, there are so many instances of this phenomenon.
Singapore is a open economy but not a open society. Case in point: while economy is
thriving and Singaporeans enjoy one of the highest per capita income in the world,
Singapore has been criticised frequently for lack of freedom of expressions (e.g. no strike
or demonstration is allowed). We want a thriving night social life and yet we do it half
heartedly with all the restrictions. We want to encourage more artistic expressions and
activities and yet we do not want to spell out the clear OB markers. Singapore is a first
world economy but the citizens have a third world mindset, just check out the dirty toilets,
rubbish littered all over the HDB flats, aggressive tailgating drivers, hogging of lanes on
the escalators, wastage of food and resources, maid abusing etc. and you will know
what I mean. Singaporeans are rich but not necessary happy, look at the grumpy faces of
the shop attendants and taxi drivers and the numerous anti-establishment websites on
the internet. Enough said!

2. Singlish
It is hard to master one language let alone two languages or more. As Singapore is an
immigrant society with multi racial and dialect groups, many Singaporeans have trouble
mastering English, which is a working language here. As a result a distorted version of
English known as Singlish has evolved over the years which include expression
borrowed from Malay, Chinese and dialects (predominantly Hokkien). Words and
expressions such as makan (eat), mati (die), Kiasu (afraid to lose), Kiasi (afraid to die or
no guts), go where?, how?, leh, lor, shiok, skarly are commonly used (see more
examples here), Some of tenses are clearly borrowed from Chinese language and it has
the unique characteristic of being short,sharp and straight to the point. The government
are clearly not impressed with the development of Singlish but it is widely spoken by the
mass of Singaporeans from all ethnic communities except, perhaps, the high society. By
the way, many Malaysian, Indonesian and Brunei Chinese speak impeccable Singlish
which strictly speaking is not truly unique to Singapore. I must confess.

5. Government Dominance
The government dominance is truly almost everywhere. The Singapore Government has
significant share ownerships in publications (SPH), national carriers (SIA), public utilities,
telecomm companies (Singtel, M1 and Starhub), properties, transport, healthcare and
etc. The government also comes out with numerous incentives and regulations from
encourage citizens to get married, to have children, retirement planning and housing,
everything seems to be taken care of by the government so much so that a clutch
mentality has been developed and it seems that without the government, majority of the

citizens are unable to fend for themselves (see theTwo Men and A Lady joke here).
While it may be a compliment to the government for having done an exceptional job, it is
truly a Unique Singapore social problem that I and some Singaporeans wish less of.

6. Unique Political System

Singapore is a one-party government despite being a democratic country by constitution.
How on earth can a country has a ruling party who has a 67% vote and yet own more
than 95% of the seats? Currently there are only two elected opposition MPs in more than
80+ seats. Other than the obvious reason that the ruling party has done a good job, the
other often cited reasons being litigations against opposition leaders, goodies handed out
and feel-good factors created prior to elections and most of all a truly unique Singapore
system called GRC which stands for Group Representative Constituency. It was originally
conceptualised as a mechanism to ensure the minority and women candidates will be
elected, the GRC originally constitutes 3 candidates was however expanded gradually to
4,5 and 6 candidates within a GRC under the watch of ex-PM Goh Chok Tong to also
provide a backdoor for otherwise reluctant politicians to enter into politics. Not a single
GRC has been won by the opposition parties so far. The single ward constituency was
also drastically reduced over the years to only 8 in the last election in 2006. In the last
election, almost half of the eligible voters did not get to exercise their votes. To give
credit to the government, the current PM Lee Hsien Loong has taken the steps to try to
reverse the trend by introducing more single ward seats and reducing the sizes of GRCs
and we shall see if this will result in more opposition representations in future elections.

7. Meritocracy
Meritocracy is a central political concept in Singapore which places a great emphasis on
identifying and grooming bright young citizens for positions of leadership. The
Singaporean interpretation places overwhelming emphasis on academic credentials as
objective measures of merit. This has created a unique social class of scholars with the
awards of hundreds (if not thousands) of scholarships by the government alone (many
more scholarships are offered by private sectors annually) . It remains to be seen if such
over-emphasis on academic achievement and the long term effect on gifted children and
scholarship holders will cause social issues in the long run if they are not carefully
managed. As it is today, many scholars are expected to have an accelerated career
path planned for them and there are distinctively scholar networking circle amongst
them which is not healthy for the social development of Singapore as a whole. The Wee
Shu Mins incident in 2006 presents an evidence that Singapore was suffering from
increasing signs that political elitism, smarter-than-thou snobbery and class
consciousness anxiety were creeping into its meritocracy model, a widening
social stratification that will cause long-term implications for Singaporean
society
The Singapore version of Meritocracy is not a true meritocracy in my opinion as it will be
much much harder for a late bloomer or non-scholar to achieve the same position as he

is not blessed with a planned career for himself/herself. A real meritocracy should
recognise a persons capability on the job, without any preferential treatment given to
scholar and non-scholar alike. There are also online comments by readers that if
meritocracy is truly working, someone should take responsibility for losing money by
Temasek and GIC, Mas Selamats escape and recent Orchard Roads flooding which are
sadly not the case.

Education & Social Mobility

Positive International Accolades
33 International experts have also analysed our progress and provided a sound basis for
comparisons with other countries.
34 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which conducts the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has constructed an Economic, Social
and Cultural Status (ESCS) index to measure the socio-economic background of students. OECD
found that across the education systems participating in PISA, there was a general positive
relationship the higher the ESCS, the higher the PISA scores. In all countries, Singapore
included, students from better socio-economic backgrounds do better academically.
35 But, they then found that in some education systems, among them Singapore, China, Korea
and Finland, a larger proportion of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds were able to
perform better than predicted. OECD called them resilient students, students who excelled
despite having come from less favourable circumstances. We were ranked 5th out of 65
countries for the proportion of resilient students. Almost one in two of our students were
resilient, compared to one in three in the OECD. The PISA average was 26% or one in four.
Economy - overview:
Singapore has a highly developed and successful free-market econom y. It enj oys a
remarkably open and corruption-free environment, stable prices, and a per capita GDP
higher than that of most developed countries. Unemplo ym ent is very low. The econom y
depends heavily on exports, particularly of consum er electronics, information technolog y
products, medical and optical devices, pharmaceuticals, and on its vibrant transportation,
business, and financial services sectors. The econom y contracted 0.6% in 2009 as a result
of the global financial crisis, but has continued to grow since 2010 on the strength of
renewed exports. Growth in 2014 was slower at 2.9%, largel y a result of soft dem and for
exports amid a sluggish global econom y and weak growth in Singapores manufacturing
sector. The government is attem pting to restructure Singapores econom y by weaning its
dependence on foreign labor, addressing weak productivity, and increasing Singaporean
wages. Singapore has attracted major investments in pharm aceuticals and medical
technolog y production and will continue efforts to strengthen its position as Southeast Asia's
leading financial and high-tech hub. Singapore is a member of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific
Partnership free trade negotiations, the Regional Comprehensive Econom ic Partnership
negotiations with the nine other ASEAN members plus Australia, China, India, Japan, South
Korea and New Zealand, and in 2015, Singapore will form, with the other ASEAN members,
the ASEAN Econom ic Community.

MATERIALISM
Possible stands:
Yes, but (safest and most logical)
Prove that the Singapore dream has largely been founded on these
two principles and that the ultimate GOAL is still to achieve success
and money (even if there are intermediate goals)
Argument:The Singapore dream is based on the notion that equality
and meritocracy will help us to carve out success for everyone. Yet,
success in our society is measured mainly in material terms.
Reasoning + Evaluation: The dream of the average Singaporean is
achieving the 5 Cs career, car, credit cards, condominium and a
country club membership. Education in Singapore is less about the
process of learning and more about getting into a reputable school
and attaining the necessary qualifications to get a job with a good
pay. The ends are always economic in nature. Every year parents
scramble to get their children into good schools. Schools and
students cram knowledge to pass national examinations to arm
themselves with the paper qualifications to get a job in a big
corporation. The dream of having material possessions, a sign that
one has arrived in society translates into a life spent working to
pay off more loans .
Conclusion: With the focus placed primarily on tangible, measurable
achievements further reinforced by the governments drive to push
Singapore onto the global stage, there is no doubt that the
Singaporean dream is based on success and money.
Other possible arguments (dream is based on $ success)
The statement is true to a large extent as Singapore was an
immigrant society. Our ancestors came to seek a better life. They
were here to look for better opportunities and basically to seek
greater wealth. This background of our forefathers has made
Singaporeans very pragmatic, goal-oriented people. To many of us,
happiness is to succeed in our career or business which ultimately
gives us the means to live the life we desire.
can be seen by the little importance that our society places on
ventures with little economic returns
Overwhelming focus on achieving accolades and titles (most
competitive economy, most globalised, aviation. Bio-medical hub,

renaissance city much of it tied to being seen as a significant

member on the global stage.)