(For context, Facebook user Jerome Heng took a picture of this girl hogging a McDonald’s seat refusing to give it up. He posted it on his wall with the following caption: “That’s our new generation for you . Hogging seats during peak hours at McDonald, and sending an empathic msg to all of us not to disturb her because she don’t gives a shit.”)
Dear Singapore,
You created the McDonald’s girl.
You created her when you put grades, career, money and economics before everything else. You created her when you told her that her right to study trumps all other rights. You created her when you put so much importance on the PSLE, the GCEs and the degrees. You created her when you gave her the idea that anything can be justified because she’s a student and the act of studying is put on a pedestal and worshipped.
You created her when you took it to the internet, instead of stopping it there and then. You’ve created a generation numb to social media shaming. You created her slowly through the years, by demonstrating all the pain she’ll get is a bit of snotty commenting on a Facebook wall. You showed her that passive aggressiveness is all the pain there is, and she can certainly deal with that.
You created self-entitlement when you demanded for every little need to be addressed by “the government”. You made her when you directed your maid to wash her dishes, tie her shoelaces, carry her bags and wipe her snot. You created her when you end your Straits Times letters with “…the authorities must address this problem swiftly”.
You created a brat that demands an undeservingly high salary upon graduation. This whiny one requires trails to be blazed for her such that she may sashay lazily into glory (or rather, after-glory). You created a soul that knows only how to live a template and knows not how to risk.
You created a poor, frightened creature that cannot leave her cage – the cage of studying and employment. Although the doors are open, it is behind these bars that she will find her Coke and McNuggets. You have created a cage-sitter, not a cage-maker.
You have created the Mcdonalds girl and she is paralysed at her seat.
Her only defence is that she asks you to leave her alone to stew in her own entitlement.
Tay.
As much as I think your points are valid and I agree to them, to everything there will always be two sides of a coin. There are much to say about the government’s choice of growing the country, both good and bad. What you have brought up in your post are few of the many bads but that being said, i am sure there are plenty to speak of the good as well. The fact that most of us have the chance to write stuff on the internet right now is one of them. Don’t get me wrong that I for or against you, I just want to give credit where it’s due, both to you and the government. I think one purpose of your post is to remind us that it’s time to bring up solutions or strategies to solve these problems, I thank you for that! Enjoyed your article and looking forward to see more of them :)
Nice comment
Loving the look on the face on the guy in the teal hoodie!