Sunday, May 10, 2009

Singapore Kindness Movement Lions

I spotted these lovely lions beside the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA). These lions are the mascots of the Singapore Kindness Movement and they are there, and also in many parts of Singapore with important messages to Singaporeans.

The gang of Singapore Kindess Movement Lions near MICA

These Singapore Kindesss Movement Lions are unique creatures in their own rights. Instead of meats, their diet consist of acts of kindess and courtesy from Singaporeans and Singaporeans are strongly encouraged to feed these cute lions with these.

This lion must be the leader, wearing a red shirt. Red is the one of the colours of Singapore's national flag. A smile was inscripted on the shirt, I believe the message this lion tries to convey is for every Singaporean to smile and be cheerful (amidst the economic gloom, this message comes quite appropriate too). The rest of the kindness lions are:







I am surprised that out of the 6 lions with special messages, half of them have messages related to kindness and courtesy behaviours related to transport: this may be the area that much kindness is needed, else why have 3 out of 6 lions carrying these messsages?
My Dear and I particularly love the last message: "Please apologise when in the wrong." My Dear and I do that, but not many others will want to acknowledge that they are wrong and apologise. Many Singaporeans have quite high ego, I observe.
I think one message the authorites could consider adding is:
"Please do not take more than what should be given." (it is common that Singaporeans always grab more than their shares, when it comes to freebies).
Actually the lion is from the yester-year courtesy campaign, Singa.. now it becomes Singapore Kindess Movement and hence the lion also undergos some UPGRADING (think of HDB upgrading) to become the new lion.
Last time it was courtesy, now it is kindness movement. In my opinion, the authorities should just stick to using the word "courtesy" as this word is a behaviour. "Kindness" is more to do with man's nature..... it is easier to change one's behaviour than nature.
And by the way, how can we know one is really kind? If someone opens a door for you, he is just showing acts of kindness, but he may not be a kind man. Thus for the Singapore Kindness Movement to be sucessful, I believe the authorities should stress that the main gist of the movement is for Singaporeans to SHOW ACTS of Kindness and not to become kind. Not many Singaporeans will know the subtle differences. Messages of the movement will fall on deaf ears if many thought the goal of the movement is for Singaporeans to be kind, which for some people like Mas Selamat is a hard nut to crack.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

i feel sorry for singaporeans who need to be taught by their government to say 'thank you' after somebody does something nice to them, or 'sorry' when they are in the wrong. their parents should teach them that, not the government.

low, low morale..

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