Are Singaporeans gracious? How gracious are we when compared to other countries?

In Singapore, there are quite a number of both gracious and ungracious people. Being gracious meaning courteous, polite and kind towards other people. On the other hand, being ungracious means being unpolite and uncouth or acting like a hooligan. Some people say that Singaporeans are ungracious. I, however, think that it is unfair to say that in general. There are indeed a number of singaporeans who are gracious towards other people and it is very unfair for them to be classified under the category of “ungracious”.

I have personally witnessed some gracious acts demonstrated by some singaporeans. For example, once I got onto a bus together with another old lady who was carrying a small trolley filled with groceries. Some people was totally ignoring the old lady and I, some were busy ‘sleeping’ and some were engrossed in reading. Nobody bothered about the old lady. At that time, the bus travelled quite fast and was shaky. The old lady almost lost her balance. Immediately, a young man immediately stood up and gave up his seat to the old lady.

There are also some ungracious acts demonstrated by singaporeans. One example that I saw was two young students, both female. When they boarded the bus, they sat on the seats which were reserved for needy people like old people or pregnant women. They totally ignored the sign above the seats and chatted loudly. That is definitely an ungracious act. Another example, on the bus, some people choose to seat on the outer seat and place their belongings like bags etc on the inner seat, thinking that they can occupy both seats at once, which was why there were insufficent seats for all commuters.

The government has also encouraged people to be gracious singaporeans so that they would not leave a bad impression on the tourists coming to visit singapore. They do not want singapore’s reputation to go bad because of these acts. To encourage people to be more gracious, the government has filmed and broadcasted a video showing some gracious acts. The short video can now be watched on youtube and it shows phua chu kang telling people to be gracious on public transport such as buses or MRTs. To some people, they may feel shameful because this means singaporeans can only be gracious when the government asks them to.

Hygiene is also another problem in Singapore. People just litter and spit anywhere they like it. Liter can be found in most of the places despite the fact that dustbins can be found almost everywhere. There have been reports that after huge performances like National Day, there are huge amounts of litter found left behind. How are we going to uphold our reputation as the “Clean and Green Singapore”?