Wednesday, July 29, 2009

1st Reflection

In my point of view, the concept of graciousness
is for one to be polite and considerate.
In Singapore, there are many examples of ungracious behavior daily,
which turns off tourists and even local Singaporeans.
Examples are spitting on to the ground,
talking loudly unnecessarily in quiet places, etc.
As discussed in class, I think that Singaporeans really
do need to be taught how to be gracious.
However, I am sure that the job would not be so easy.
People say that those whom are well-educated
are gracious but just look at the people here.
Sure, they may go to a top school but their behavior is totally ungracious!
Even Hitler is disgusted by the ungracious behavior of us Singaporeans.
Being gracious not only affects us but it also affects
the country as us, people who live in Singapore, represent our country.
By being ungracious, we are only tainting the name of Singapore.
Thus, proper mannerisms, politeness and being considerate for people
must be inculcated from young so as to have the best effect of a gracious Singaporean when these young children grow older.

by: Sze Yin

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Are Singaporeans gracious enough?
My answer is no but, i believe that there are many others
who would have their own thoughts and opinions about it.
Now, the first video that was shown was about
how we should act in the MRT Station and in the train itself.
In the video, we are told that we should always
give up our seats to people who need them more than us.
It is also shown that as Singaporeans
do not want to give up their seats,
they would either pretend to sleep or
do something else to make themselves seem busy.
As for the second video, it talks about a man
who gave up a high paying job to start a non-profitable organisation
to promote graciousness in Singapore.
I feel that it is not worth it as it would be hard
to change Singaporeans' mindset as they are used to being ungracious.
There is also a probability that they were being brought up in this manner.
To me, by making this video and starting
this organisation would be a waste of time and effort.
This is because if Singapore wanted to be a gracious society,
it would have become one long time ago.
We would not need promotional videos and organisations to keep reiterating the importance of graciousness.
Thus, I feel that it would be hard to change Singaporeans and
having these contributions would not help our country at
becoming more gracious at all.

by: Gabrielle

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I think that the video regarding the graciousness was quite useful.
As it help singaporean who are ungracious to realize that they had to be gracious towards people.
Singaporeans behave ungraciously in a number of ways.
This includes not giving up seats to those who needs it more,
not saying sorry when they are in rush and they hit the other person,
not moving away when they are blocking people behind them when they need to go out from the lift,
and also by not bringing the plates back when they are in the food courts.
The video is good because it shows most of the ungracious behavior showed by singaporeans.
This gracious behavior is such as giving seats to those who needs it more,
and to give way to people who are coming out from the mrt.
The good example that i want to point out is that when singaporeans are pretending
t sleep when they completely aware that there is someone that needs the chair that they are sitting on more than they do.
By showing these examples it would hopefully give singaporeans a better idea about how to be gracious.

by: Stanly

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My concept of graciousness is simply for people to think of the welfare of others by behaving consideratly.
As we all know, Singaporeans are not really gracious by nature.
They always put themselves before any other person.
A good example would be on the MRTs where the prority seat would always be occupied by someone who is not in need of the seat,
while someone, example an old man or a pregnant woman, is left standing.
This shows that Singaporeans are just not gracious enough.
Based on the videos we have seen in class, I think that the man who started
a non-profitable organisation to promote graciousness in Singapore is a very good way of improving graciousness among Singaporeans.
This is because he has already shown the importance of graciousness as he has given up a high paying job for it.
To me it is well worth it, as the level of graciousness improves in Singapore,
people will have a better impression of our country and we would live a
happier life with considerate and polite people all around us.

by: Tiffanie

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I personally feel that it is fair to say that Singaporeans are not gracious enough, but there are a minority of Singaporeans who do practice graciousness.
The government is doing its part on educating people on graciousness and
they do so by funding a number of campaigns which promote graciousness and this can be seen from the rap video by PCK which teaches Singaporeans on how to behave graciously.
It is known to many that Singaporeans are not gracious and I have had my fair share of experiences as well.
However, no matter how hard we try to influence citizens and get them to practice graciousness,
at the end of the day, it is their own individual responsibility on how they choose to behave.
We cannot force Singaporeans to change but only educate them and
hope that it will have a good outcome.
The most desired result hoped for, would be that Singaporeans would learn and practice ways to be gracious to each other.

by: Bertrand