In Singapore, every parent wants the best for their children. Hence, kiasuism is practiced. I don’t know how to spell it, it looks better as “kiasu-ism”, it’s pronounced as kya-soo-ee-zum. Kiasu-ism is the culture of Singapore, it’s about being excessively competitive.
So these poor kids, possibly inclusive of me, went to enrich themselves with all sorts of class.
The class that Singapore kids (or rather parents) love:
* Swimming
* Piano
* Violin
* Wu-shu (Chinese martial arts)
* Ballet
* Abacus
* Guitar
* and obviously all the tuition classes.
It’s this I-want-the-best-for-my-child thinking that made kids suffer through their childhood. It has become some sort of a culture in Singapore already. The kids don’t choose what they want, the parents do it for them. Not that this is a bad method or anything. I mean the kids can’t possibly choose these wisely.
My mother did pretty much the same, she threw me into the water and got me to learn swimming. I never really like swimming as a sport though. The reason is simple: In swimming, you basically go one lap, return, go another. Well, at least I can keep afloat if in water.
I have abacus class too, if you don’t know what the hell is that, just stick with your calculator. I find the calculator much useful though.
And tuition class is a must. I can imagine my mother saying, “I second that”. Possibly 95% of the students have at least gone through tuition once. My mother says, “It’s not the best way to study, but it delivers”. [By the way, my mother speaks can't speak English, I translated.]
So perhaps the tuition can be explained, but I don’t think the swimming, piano, ballet or the whatevers can be. Why enrich the child? My aunt says, “It’s to give him an extra route to proceed too if his academic career is performing none too well”. [I translated my aunts words.]
I can’t deny that too, but my cousin went to abacus, guitar, swimming and piano (not forgetting tuition too of course) before. He is one busy man. I’m sure he’s not the only one going through so many enrichment course.
It’s a culture thing I guess. [By the way, if I were to back being a kid, I wish I learn a musical instrument. Something like piano or violin.]
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Tags: children, culture, parenthood, piano, singapore
so I guess you have to ask yourself now: If it was your future, and your kid – would you do anything different?
by pketh (Jun 25, 2004 at 10 AM)pketh: i think i would do something different. right now, some children simply go for too many of these class till they are more busy then the parents themselves. it’s unneccesary stress, i would probably enrol my child into swimming and a musical instrument only.. swimming’s quite important in singapore, hahaa
by Mr. Dew (Jun 25, 2004 at 11 AM)I only had tuition for a term or so during my Primary school days. My mom said it wasn’t improving my studies, and also my family wasn’t exactly very rich…
by Serene (Jun 25, 2004 at 4 PM)I once wanted to learn to the guitar, but the passion wore off pretty quickly ^^ I wanted to go for Manga drawing and Japanese language courses, but they are very expensive…I quit swimming after I got the Bronze certificate.
Serene: I has tuition too, quite a handful in fact. I can’t say it’s helpful, I think it’s not helpful in fact. But my mother forces me to go through tuition due to my bad results. My family isn’t rich too.
by Mr. Dew (Jun 26, 2004 at 12 AM)I thought about learning the piano, I thought it sounded really nice, I never got to learn it in the end. My brother got the piano, and he is not treasuring it. My mother’s very pissed with him practicing very little.