Some of the tourists bought the "Singapore is a Fine City" T-shirt as a souvenir.
It was printed on the T-shirt many prohibited rules, such as
"No smoking", "No chewing gum", "No littering", "No urinating",
"No flower-picking", "No flushing", "No bird-feeding", "No water wasting",
and "No spitting". One T-shirt printed that if you did it, you would be
fined $1000, and the other T-shirt printed "fine $500".
I bought two of this kind of T-shirts. I liked the
word "Fine".
The meaning of "Fine" is
"sum of money paid as penalty for offence".
"Fine" also means excellent and
good.
I like Singapore. It is really a good place to stay.
Other than the hot weather that makes me uncomfortable,
it is a fine city in other aspects. I need to have only
the summer clothing all year round. There are different
varieties of foods, Chinese foods, Malay foods, Indian foods
and Western foods. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat
I stay is clean. There are Buses, MRT systems and taxi available.
On the other hand, I do not like the "Fine City".
It is good for us not to urine in the lift, not to spit wherever you like,
not to throw rubbish everywhere, not to throw the gum on the floor or
stick it in the key-hole of other's door after chewing. But we have to
educate people to pick up good behaviour and be a good citizen.
We should remind people to maintain a clean living environment and
keep reminding them until they make it a habit. People should be
cultivated and not just be punished.
When we were in Tokyo for a trip ten years ago, we saw the way a Japanese
mother brought up her daughter. We were in a fast-food restaurant,
a little Japanese girl dropped a piece of her food on the floor. Her mother
gave her a piece of napkin and trained her to pick up the food and throw it
in the rubbish bin. Besides, the little girl also learned from her mother cleaning
the floor after throwing the piece of food. My son was three years
old then, I thought the little girl is younger than my son.
I told my son that that was the way of life we should live. We
should not do something just because of the fine.
My son and I went to the West Coast Park to take pictures a year ago.
He saw much rubbish in the park. Some of the rubbish just threw at the
place where there was a rubbish bin nearby. He said that it was a failure
of the Fine System. I agreed.
We should start teaching our children the responsibilities as a citizen when they are
young, and continue to teach them until they make it the way of their life.
Starting from the nursery and kindergarten, teach the children about
our responsibility with short and sample word. Observe and train them
during their daily life.
Do not stop there, continue to remind the children when they are at
Primary and Secondary schools. At the same time, make them feel pride
to be a good citizen, make them feel good to live in a fine city.
Don't just fine, fine, and fine. Explain the reasons that we should
be responsible to keep our life comfortable.
We can make it.
