Group 2 Worksheet

Instructions
1. Read the article below and discuss the questions below.
2. Organize your group’s answers clearly in a PowerPoint slide.
3. Elect a representative from your group to present this slide to the rest of the class.

Discussion Questions:
1. Based on this article, what are the differences between Singapore’s older and
younger generation?
2. What are the concerns of Singaporean youth, according to this article?
3. What are the concerns of “older” Singaporeans, according to this article?
4. The last line of the article reads, “Generation Y is steadily losing its Asian
characteristics and even national bond.”
a. What do you think is meant by “Asian characteristics”?
b. What are some reasons why the younger generation in Singapore might be
“losing its Asian characteristics”?

Gen-Y needs to grow up fast

Star, Malaysia
September 12, 2004

Insight: Down South

By SEAH CHIANG NEE

E VERY society worries about how its next

generation will turn out, but few have done more –
in good times or bad – to prepare it for the future
than Singapore.

If a nanny government had flourished in the

republic, nowhere was it more active than among
its youths. For a small country with no natural
resources, they are its top assets, so a lot of work
has been put into them.

Walk through the miles of underground shopping

arcades of Orchard Road on a Saturday afternoon
and you’ll see its result.

Y-generation Singapore can be seen: confident,

Internet-savvy and wearing branded shirts and
shoes, with the latest mobile phones around their
necks.

[…]

In the city centre, teens in school uniforms can be

seen eating in expensive US, Thai or Japanese
outlets, seemingly unbothered by the pricey menus.
It’s not unusual to encounter college students
enjoying an occasional glass of wine. Generation Y
lives in relative style in a cabled city and attends a
school that resembles a small university, sharing a
computer with one or two other classmates.

These youths are beginning to exert a strong

influence on politics and economics. They will
decide what Singapore will become in 10 to15
years’ time.

They are studying under a new education system

that has changed dramatically in the past three
years. There is less cramming for exam.

[…]

In his first, three-hour address to the nation, new

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spent much of it
appealing to the youths to join him in shaping the
country’s future.

He promised them a more open society. After so

many decades of strong control, however, most of
his listeners have reacted to it with healthy
cynicism, preferring to judge Lee’s action.

Their biggest complaint is that the authorities have

an outdated untrusting view of their maturity. An
important barometer: Singapore’s legal age to
define an adult is 21.

The majority of youths find it unacceptable that

they have to serve national service at 18 and to
fight for the nation when they are not allowed to,
among other things, vote or stand as a candidate in
an election, drive a car, watch an R (A) movie, drink
or buy alcohol or be legally employed.

In a straw poll by the New Paper, some 35 out of 50

youths (aged 21 or below) say Singapore’s legal
adult age should be lowered to between 18 and 20.
About three-quarters say it should be 18 years old.

(There are also protections such as lighter

punishment for wrongdoings for juveniles.)

In the same study, the newspaper said that among

older Singaporeans, however, the majority (27 out
of 50) prefer to keep the legal age at 21.

“Teenagers nowadays mature and develop faster

than their parents,” argued one teenager.

If you treat someone like a child, you can’t expect

him to behave like an adult, said another.

Redefining the legal age of adulthood is important

with the invitation for youths to contribute to shape
the nation’s future.

Lowering it – as many observers expect will happen

– may contribute to a nation’s competitiveness. In
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, it stands at 20.

By and large, Singapore youths are not wild,

drunks, drug addicts or criminals, although such
problems exist in scattered numbers.

The problem of Singapore’s Y-generation, like in

other developed countries, is its small number. The
birth rate here is one of lowest in the world.

Another is a rising trend of migration. Surveys show

more of them favour moving to the West.

Weaknesses there are. Spoilt by affluence and lack

of hardship, many youths may be ill prepared to
meet the competition from their peers from leaner,
hungrier countries.

For the older generation, there’s another worry.

Living at the crossroads of East and West and

exposed to the pull of outside influence, Generation
Y is steadily losing its Asian characteristics and
even national bond.

Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and

editor of the information website
littlespeck.com (e-mail: cnseah2000@
littlespeck.com )

Home
Extracted from the article available online at http://www.singapore-
window.org/sw04/040912st.htm