At the end of last years, the strong wind at night blew the beer bottles left on the table and broke into pieces. Sometimes workers broke the bottle intentionally in the middle of the night.

I ever saw two of our neighbours advised the workers to throw the rubbish in the garbage bin. I was very pleased because they were women and they talked to the workers in a kind manner.

Recently residents met to discuss the matter and later decided to bring the issue to the Resident's Committee (RC). Just a few hours before the meeting, I met the Chairman of the RC Mr. Wee. We talked about the foreign workers' issue. He told me about the action plans carried out by the Police and RC. He wished that I could attend the meeting to get updated.

Mr. Lim from the Police Force chaired the meeting. He briefed us on the situation and the need of getting more foreign workers. He hoped that we could discuss the issue with open-minded. We took turn to voice our views. I said that the workers needed to have a place to go to after work and we had to educate them in keeping our place clean. After the first round for everyone to speak up, I was surprised to hear the different thinking. It seemed that some ignored the need of getting more foreign workers and some forgot the advice of having the open-minded attitude. I was upset when I heard the opposite opinion of mine.

I was unhappy when I saw people blame Mr. Wee on the slow improvement on keeping the place clean by the workers. Mr. Wee is a volunteer worker. He spends time in managing the RC. The RC and the Police have been educating the workers to keep the neighbour clean since year 2006. What did the residents do?

Mr. Wee invited the residents to join the patrol of the Police and RC on Friday evening.

On Friday evening I decided to take part in the patrol.

I knew Mr. Wee for several years. He and his wife used to invite us to take part in the RC's activities when my son was young. Those activities gave my son very good memory of his childhood. I have to thank Mr. Wee for their concern of my son and now I have to support him.

At the patrol, I observed what the Police did. I also observed how the workers reacted. I had a chat with Miss Yap from the Police Force after the patrol. I shared with her my experience in educating the Thai workers in Golden Mile many years ago. It was a difficult task and we took years to make it.

In order to clear the doubt painted on my mind during the residents meeting with RC, I decide to patrol on my own the following night.

It was a Saturday night and there were many people at the reservoir. Majority of them were either making phone calls or chatting. About 15% of them were eating and drinking. I went to those who were eating or drinking and advised them to throw the rubbish in the garbage bin and not to dirty the water.

Some workers did not understand my English. When they saw me pointing at the beer bottles and then pointing at the bin, they understood and answered, "Ok! Ok!"

There was a group of local Chinese and another group of local Indian. I advised them too. Initially, they were surprised. And very soon they said "ok" and "thank you".

I was very happy after the patrol. None of them got angry with me. None of them argued with me. A few of them even thanked me. The doubt was clear.

The next day evening I went for a walk after dinner. I saw a number of workers drinking at the void deck. I went to them and advised them to throw the rubbish in the bin. Every group of them answered me "ok".

In the early morning of Monday, I went to the reservoir for my exercise. I looked into the garbage bins. One of them was half-filled and the other one 80% filled. There were also two heaps of bottles on the ground.

The foreign workers did take advice and they changed their habit. We need to put in effort to educate them to adapt to our society.

I remembered when we started to help the Thai workers to adapt to our way of living; it took times to convey the message to them. There were so many of them.

I remembered the trainer who trained our volunteer workers in teaching English to Thais reminded us to love the Thai workers as God loves us.

During those few years, I visited the Thai patients in various hospitals. Some of them were injured at the work sites. A few of them died in the hospitals and a few passed away after returning home in Thailand. They were working at the construction sites of MRT system and high-rise buildings. Today, we stay in the comfortable apartment and travel with the MRT. Anybody remembered the construction workers?

We love our country. We have to be aware of the need of bringing in the foreign workers. We have to assist the foreign workers to adapt to our way of living. We have to build a harmony community for us and the foreign workers.