Singaporeans are pretty bad at being neighborly and keeping public places clean: Survey

Well, as it seems, there’s a slight problem within us all: We need to work on our graciousness. At least, that’s according to this year’s graciousness survey conducted by the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM), published on Wednesday (27 June).

The findings seem to point to the fact that we have less free time on our hands, resulting in a lack of interest in upholding our kampung spirit. Essentially, most of us are just not neighborly folks, SKM general secretary William Wan said.

“Surveys have shown that Singaporeans have longer working hours than others in the world…. by the time they go home, they have dinner, watch the news for a while, then it’s time to go to bed. They’re tired after a long day at work.”

“…people are quite content with superficial relationships and have not considered the advantages of stronger bonds with neighbours”.

The nature of the fast-paced (nah, lightning-paced, more like) environment here seems to have taken its toll on our empathy, as you can see from yesterday’s major train service disruption:

Another problem noted in the survey is how Singapore’s cleanliness in public places is not being self-maintained — we received a score of 5.52 for “cleaning up after meals in public spaces” and 5.88 for “keeping public toilets clean and dry after use”, down from last year’s 5.83 and 6.17, respectively. It’s quite ironic, really, with Singapore being pretty well-known in the world for our clean streets in the eyes of other nations. Sure, we have clean streets, but it’s not because we’re altruistically inclined to upkeep our environment. 

Unsurprised by the findings, Public Hygiene Council chairman Edward D’Silva blamed the sense of self-entitlement among Singaporeans for the lack of public hygiene, according to a report on The New Paper. 

“Singaporeans have a sense of self-entitlement and it is getting worse. There are parents who tell their kids to let the maids or cleaners do the cleaning,” he said.

“But there have been recent efforts to get children to clean their schools. Hopefully, the results of that would be seen in the next 10 years and beyond.”

Eh, we hope so too, but we’re not expecting society to change anytime soon.