We need to be careful of those damn Singaporeans

I found it very strange initially that the Americans like to leave their stuff around. A bag full of books here, a wallet there, an ipod on the table, shoes lying around in the locker room, student ID and room keys hanging from a closed door - I mean aren't they afraid that their stuff will get stolen. Whenever I leave stuff around, all the worst possible scenarios will come flooding into my head, things going missing, identity theft, what if someone deletes all my data when I leave my computer logged on in the computar lab, what if someone steals my clothes when I go swimming.

The other day while we were driving around, I noticed a lot of portable BBQ pits outside people's houses and I thought to myself: if this were any Asian country those BBQ pits would probably be gone but in an Asian country no sensible Asian would leave his portable BBQ pit in the middle of no where. (Of course I know I'm making a sweeping statement here, but let me go on for a bit.) And then it dawned on me that the very people who I'm afraid of doing all these evil things to me are Asians or perhaps more specifically Chinese (or even more specifically Singaporeans). We are a very careful race, perhaps a little too frightened. Kiasuism is the more precise word I believe. Damn, so this is how it all fits together.

On a related note, the other day when I was at a reception for graduating international students, this senior from India (I believe) comes up to give a speech (which I paraphrase), "I came here wanting to study economics hoping to get a nice high paying job in NY. But in the end I became a COL (College of Letters) major and I'll be spending the next few months writing." WOW! That's perhaps the most inspiring thing I've heard in a while (other than the now classic: If you get straight As all the time, you're not challenging yourself). Many of us are afraid of deviating from the set conventional path, afraid that we might not be able to get back on once we wander off. That's why we want to do economics, that's why we want to get that nice finance job, earn money and be 'successful'. What a skewed image of success we have! No right minded Asian would want to go away after graduation to some strange, obscure place, find an odd job and live there for a year or two just to see what it's like. We go straight for the 'right' jobs, rushing to find that financial security, rushing to find success. But life is filled with so many other rewarding experiences not found within the cubicle of an office. Yet we choose to confine our choices, we are really quite a frightened bunch of people.

I hope I have the courage to wander off when the choice comes.