Culture, what exactly is it? Does it actually shape the way we think and influence the way we behave? Well, according to Daniel Klophf, culture is "that part of the environment made by humans", including tangible objects such as possesstions, and intangible objects such as customs and values that bind a group together, giving them a sense of commonality. Culture tells us who we are, what groups we belong to and how we live our lives. Thus, in short, we can say that cultures are templates for living.
Instead of discussing about other cultures, I have decided to touch on our Singapore culture on a different perspective. When asked, "What do you think is our Singapore culture?", many of our responses would contain things like "Singlish, multi racialism, kiasu-ism, fines, and even ERP gantries." For me, the recent "Goodness Gracious Me!" campaign organized by The Straits Times, caught my interest and it somehow made me feel that such campaigns are becoming more and more like a part of our culture. The 'Goodness Gracious Me!' is a project by The Straits Times to get Singaporeans to think about others, starting with clearing their food trays after eating. Posters and stickers will be displayed in foodcourts, eateries, and coffeeshops to encourage Singaporeans to return their trays and clear up their mess after eating.
Instead of discussing about other cultures, I have decided to touch on our Singapore culture on a different perspective. When asked, "What do you think is our Singapore culture?", many of our responses would contain things like "Singlish, multi racialism, kiasu-ism, fines, and even ERP gantries." For me, the recent "Goodness Gracious Me!" campaign organized by The Straits Times, caught my interest and it somehow made me feel that such campaigns are becoming more and more like a part of our culture. The 'Goodness Gracious Me!' is a project by The Straits Times to get Singaporeans to think about others, starting with clearing their food trays after eating. Posters and stickers will be displayed in foodcourts, eateries, and coffeeshops to encourage Singaporeans to return their trays and clear up their mess after eating.
In Singapore, it has become increasingly common to see foodcourt aunties going around to help clear the dirty tables after our meals. Even in fastfood restaurants like McDonalds and KFC, the service staff there will help us to clear up after we leave. Thus, many of us conveniently leave our trays uncleared. This "culture" is definitely foreign in other countries, where people immediately clear up and return their trays after finishing their meals. As such, this "Goodness Gracious Me" campaign was organized to encourage Singaporeans to be more considerate and gracious. So, how successful has this project been? Recent reports have shown that this campaign has been successful in several foodcourts and people have started to become more civic-minded (http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/sp/sg_gracious/story-moremaking.html). This shows that Singapore is actually more of a collectivist country, whereby people are highly interdependent and we are willing to conform to cultural norms. Besides that, we are readily influenced by others and there is a great tendency for us to "follow the masses" For example, if we realize that every table around us clears their tray after eating, we tend to do the same thing too.
(Speak Good English Movement, launched in 2000 and Speak Mandarin Campaign, launched in 1979)
Besides this tray-return campaign, Singapore also organized campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to be billingual and good speakers. With Chinese making up a major portion of our population, it is essential that as Chinese, we are able to speak our language correctly and properly in order to converse with others. Not forgetting our first languange, English. The Speak Good English Movement is a nationwide movement to encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood. Although Singlish has been constantly been part of our culture, it is still imperative for us to be able to grasp the English language properly and at least be able to converse in proper English, instead of Singlish.
Next, we also have the "Clean Public Toilets Campaign". Many of us may have seen the poster (on the left, Source : http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=336) in most of our public toilets. But, how many of us actually know that it is actually a campaign launched since 1983 to motivate users and public toilets providers to act collectively make clean public toilets possible? Some of us may find is absurd that the goverment has to launch such campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to be a considerate bunch of people and adopt good toilet habits.
Be it comic strips, cartoon caricatures, or even not-so-appealing posters, the campaigns launched here as in one way or another managed to influence us and the way we behave. Yet another campaign that was widely debated would be the National Anti-Smoking Campaign organized last year. With media and print advertisements of graphic health warnings depicting some smoking related diseases and conditions such as stained teeth, mouth cancer and black lungs, these posters were aimed at creating a reverse psychological effect on smokers. (Picture Source: www.getformesingapore.com/teenyboppers.htm)
Not forgetting our familiar gold lion mascot, Singa. Singa is actually a character created inconjunction with the Singapore Courtesy Campaign in 1979, encouraging Singaporeans to be more kind and considerate to each other, so as to create a pleasant social environment.
Having talked about a few of the many campaigns that we have in Singapore, I feel that campaigns are beginning to become a part of our culture. As defined by Trenholm, culture is learned, shared, dynamic and multifaceted. These campaigns teach us to act in a certain manner, and we soon become so well programmed that we seldom stop to think that out culture is learned. Cultures are also group understandings whereby belonging to a culture means according to the group norms. This can be clearly illustrated with the returning of trays after we finish our meals. Culture is multifaceted, where is affects every aspects of our lives, even the way we communicate and our perception of others. In foreign countries such as the United States, it is a norm to see people returning their trays in McDonalds. However, when Americans come to Singapore and find that we do not have the culture of returning the trays, they may have a different perception of us. Probably a negative perception of self-fishness and lack of consideration. Thus, in order to prevent misunderstandings and misperceptions, we all should be open communicators who are comfortable with co-cultural and cross-cultural diversity. 
(Picture Source: http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/library/media/Image/id/634 )
Besides the countless campaigns that we have, what other factors do you think are a part of our culture? Is the "campaign culture" a new form of communication here in singapore?
12 comments:
hey, come to think of it, if you didnt point this out, i may not have realized that campaigns actually are a part of living in singapore! haha. i can still remember when we were in primary school, many of us were encouraged to get the Friend of the Singa award by being courteous to our classmates and our teachers. i think culture is something that we have become used to, and accustomed to. initially, many of us may be foreign when campaigns were introduced and some of us may be reluctant to join. however, as the number of campaigns increase and as many of us are beginning to see the advantages of taking part in them, we have no qualms in taking part in order to help improve our personal self. i personally feel that the speak mandarin campaign was extremely useful to me, especially since i grew up in an english speaking family.
besides campaigns, i think another thing that is becoming a culture in singapore is to avoid/shun people who approach you to fill in a survey form or introduce a new product to. these are actually quite common sights in mrt stations were people conducting surveys are often being brushed away. just a personal observation anyway, haha. all in all, i think the most prominent factor in our culture would be Singlish!
Singapore culture, of course you can’t actually go without “kia-si” and “kia-su”! Where you can see the MRT doors are closing, yet there are people recklessly risking their life rushing into the train and end up getting sandwiched by the door. That I find it pretty stupid, if you happen to miss this train, just wait for the other one which will only take around the most 5-6 minutes. Indeed that our culture tells us who we are, what we are. If you would to observe closely comparing our country with the other country, Singapore can be say to be one of the top ranking with lots of templates lying around telling the people what to do and what not to do. Even the example given utterly depicts that most of us just do not have a sense of awareness.
One of the worst cases now in Singapore is that there are Singaporeans that actually despise about their own culture like being a Chinese but not willing to learn or speak Chinese mainly because that they felt it is degrading themselves. Having the government to start a campaign to encourage people to learn and speak their mother tongue language. English is our first language but we can’t actually forget about our mother tongue, because it truly represent and tell others about our very own culture that we really are as a multi-racial country in Singapore!
i think singapore also has a very distinct culture in terms of our food. tourists are attracted to our country because we are like a food paradise. and i think this is also how we communicate our culture to others. take for example the traditional hainanese chicken rice. its distinctive flavor allows tourists to be exposed to yet another different culture, the hainanese culture. despite language barriers or whatsoever, i think culture breeds communication. we can communicate just by having common likes in terms of food. another example would be indian food. we often associate "spicy" with indian food and that is also another form of culture. i think food is really a effective way to allow cultures to be communicated and spread out to other people who are totally foreign to a particular culture.
i think "long queues" is also a part of our culture. from hello kitty queues to iphone queues, queuing up is becoming a very common sight in singapore. even in coffee shops, we are often drawn to stalls with long queues. this is very different in other countries where people go for stalls with shorter queues to save time. i think it is us, the people, who create our own culture and make us who we are. intercultural communication is definitely essential for us to communicate with people across borders, esp those who are not used to our cultures at all. great analysis!
wow. i think that most of the campaigns that you've mentioned have been quite successful so far. at least i have abit of impression of them. the most controversial one would be the anti smoking one i guess. the use of very awful pictures depicting the diseases that smoking causes really turns people off. campaigns have really become so common that i think singaporeans are appreciating the fact that the govt actually makes the effort to organize such campaigns. so i guess it is appropriate to say that they have become a prt of our culture.
i agree with you that it is essential for us to be open communicators in order to be able to live harmoniously. considering the fact that singapore is a multi racial country, i think the people here are at an advantage because they are exposed to more than one other culture. in america, for example, it is difficult for people to know how the chinese culture is like, and vice versa. all in all, in order to work well or live well with someone, we 1st need to get used to their culture because their culture determine who they are and how they live (as you have mentioned).
Singlish is defintely one of the culture in Singapore. You can never mistake a singaporean no matter where he/she is.
Campaigns are important and highly effective because it serves as a reminder. Everyday you see adverts, posters etc saying stuff like, "Save life..donate blood", "Be kind" and such. This constant "bombarding" helps to remind the people that yes, they should be kind, yes they should not be smoking and therefore campaigns are important.
Singapore is a small country. By using campaigns to reach out and to educate the public can allow the government to reach out to every single one.
culture is definitely something that makes us who we are. singapore has a very distinct and unique culture which many of us fail to appreciate. campaigns have been increasing here, and we seem to grow up with them. i guess it is also a tool of communication whereby the govt makes use of campaigns to help encourage people to improve our lives and so on. instead of instilling rules or restrictions, campaigns are a better way of influencing people.
cultural communication is absolutely important in singapore considering that we are an increasingly globalised country. besides being able to communicate internally as a country with different races, we need to make use of this advantage to learn how to communicate with others from other country.
the goodness gracious me campaign is definitely a good way to kick start the habit of returning trays and clearing up their place for many singaporeans. in places like mcdonalds and kfc, we are all so used to leaving the place after finishing our meals without even bothering to clear up the mess we made with our food wrappers and chilli sauce spillages. unlike in other cultures such as in the US, people automatically clear their tray and keep their places clean for the next customer to use. this is definitely a typical example of the difference in cultures. thus, i do agree that we need to be open communicators and learn to adapt to different cultures when we go to different countries. for example, when we go to mac's at US, we could probably follow suit and clear our trays too.
campaigns are quite a way of communicating here in singapore. through campaigns, we learn to communicate with each other using proper english and mandarin. besides that, we get to improve ourselves with our courtesy campaign and the recent tray returning campaigns. all these campaigns help us to cultivate good habits that are beneficial to us. instead of constantly advertising or propagating the importance of speaking well, campaigns are definitely a better and more useful way in reaching to the public and encouraging them to take part in these campaigns.
yup yup. campaigns are effective and useful because they are constantly there, reminding us to kick certain habits and cultivate other good habits. they serve more as a gentle reminder, like what nygel said, rather than an enforced rule. thus, people are more willing to adapt and get used to it rather than repel or reject the introduction of such campaigns.
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