Saturday, August 26, 2006

Our image?

What is it that we want our tourists go home with? Other than the souveniers they can buy? what kind of experience do we want them to well.........experience? that is THE question that Singapore has been tryin to answer for some time. We ourselves cannot find the one thing that we want visitors to experience...i am from the tourism industry and yet i question...Being a Singaporean it is easy for us to say that Singapore is boring....but are we? Many of the tour guides i have spoken too said that "Singapore is not boring....YOU are!!"...and it is true. How can we the citizens of Singapore sell our country if we can't sell it to ourselves? Singapore has many things to do and places we can go. But how much of it has changed since 5 yrs ago? Many of the attractions start big but die off within 2 to 10 yrs coz 'its too boring'. How many attractions can be named? Fantasy Island, Haw Par Villa and right now Wild Wild Wet. These attractions can be and could have pulled in many visitors, both local and foreign.
Look at Dubai and Hong Kong, they keep re-inventing themselves. With new rides, new attractions, MODIFYED attractions, new slogans and many more. How many time have we seen Fantasy Island modifyed with new rides and new attractions? Look at Disney Land all over the world...they build new rides and add in many things as the years pass. So visitors can look forward to something new every time they go there. Why can't Singapore (since we do have so many good models to copy) do the same? We start OH SO BIG and within a few years it goes down the drain! Since there have been so many so-called 'faliures' why and how will the IR survive? Yes, i hope it will coz my future depends on the IR, but is the hype all too much? The casino seemed to me to be the MAIN attraction, and not the parks and rides and entertainment thats gonna be there.
Does this all mean that we bask in our excellence too juch that we seem not to realise the mistakes that we are commiting?
The many old buildings that are being demolished to make way for new and technoligically advanced buildings. Will we lose the lusture of our heritage and who we are? Will more technology and new buildings draw visitors to Singapore? NO! They can get that in their own countries! We need to show our heritage, our past and draw the visitors in. Dangle the carrot that no one else is dangling. Sell what others do not have, what we can call our own. What do we have to call our own?
1)The pre-war shop houses
2)Boat Quay/Clark Quay
3)The old national library (which was demolished brutally!!!)
4)The unknown temples and places of worship
5)OLD OLD houses
the list will go on....(no time now to continue thinking!) but you get my point!! There are many more things to sell in Singapore, other than the Merlion, Sentosa, food,Zoo,Bird Park and Night Safari. We can sell our not-so-made-up-heritage, THE REAL DEAL!!, the night life (which can be improved upon), the true Chinese, Malay and Indian way of life and many many more....
i truly hope that i can make changes to the future of tourism! i mean thats y i studied in TP, Tourism Mgt right? hahaha...

posted by ponga @ 7:50 AM 0 comments

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Being Indian and Being who we are

Many people connect being Indian as with being a Hindu. No. Being Indian means that one has a linage to India. It does not mean that one is Hindu. There are Muslim Indians, Christian Indians, Jewish Indians, Parsi Indians, Sikhs and so on and so forth. There are too many religions in India to count. So it is a stereotypical thing to say that being Indian is to be a Hindu. Don't get me wrong. I am an Indian, Hindu. And i strongly believe in my religion. But i also belive that everyone has a right to be what they want and who they want. How can people be so one-track minded when it comes to matters such as religion and race?

Indians are not a superiour race....no particular race is. Hinduism did not start out as a religion. It was a way of life, a set of rules for people to follow so that they can become better people. When there was a following to this way of life it became a religion. A transiton that was inevitable. So many of the traditions and things that are now associated with Hinduism was not long time ago. So Barathanatyam is not or does not have strong religiouis ties. Christians and muslims can learn this dance and still maintain their religion. I've talked to people who've told me that they were not allowd to learn Barathanatym because 'you have to pray to an Indian God before you dance'. That is not praying, sorry as i don not know the exact term for this as i am not a dancer. This is respecting the floor that you are going to dance on.

To me being an Indian means that i have a linage that i can trace back. Means that i belong no matter what the religion or the state. Means that i am someone. But i will accept someone who is 1/2 or 3/4 indians too. Ive got friends who have Chinese mothers or malay fathers.They are part indian too, to me that is. But there are INDIANS who call themsleves Hindustani and maintain that they are not Indians. WHAT? Hindustani means people of the counrty called Hindustan (India). So they are Indians. I asked this girl i know, "What are you? as in which part of north India?" and she said "no im Hindustani." and i said "ok....but which part of north india?" and again she said that she was Hindustani and so i tried to explain to her that Hindustani means that she is Indian and that i knew she was indian. But to her and many others, Hindustani means North Indian. Its a North Indian term but it means Indian. I am Hindustani. I am Indian. And when i said this to her, her face changed as if ive said the most vile thing in the universe.

Indians have a problem of "You are south indian, i am north indian, you are tamil, you are punjabi, you are malayalee....." and this can go on till thy kingdom comes. North Indians and South Indians cannot get along for some wired reason. Indians of different states cannot get along too......WHY? They are all indians. It is sad coz it is the way we have been brought up. We've been taught at a young age that 'other' indians are not the same, but this is changing slowly and this is a good change.

The same must be of Singapore. Yes im Indian and you are chinese or malay or eurasian or any others who i have left out or have mix parentage but we are all Singaporean. There is still a strong division btw the races here in Singapore. It is always thoes Indians or thoes chinese or thoes malays. Our ancestors all came to SIngapore to make a better living. Most of us were brought to Singapore. We were no from here. So we all have a similar hold to this land. And for the media to portray us as different people is misleading. Yes we are different but we are where we are now BECAUSE of our difference. We are united coz we know how we are different. If we continue to highlight our differences from now on, we might not be as peaceful as we are now. The media and the government must now try to emphasise that we are similar underneath it all. We believe in the same thing and so on. And this will be continuned in another post. But this is something that we must all think about. Are we like this coz we are different or that we similar?

posted by ponga @ 9:25 PM 0 comments

Munshi Abdullah

Think about it...you might not be who you think you really are. You might be indian but later find out that you are by decent Jewish. So does that make you Jewish now? or are u still an Indian? I was doing a research on Munshi Abdullah. The company was tryin to Indianise him as he was already absorbed into the Malay society. His mother was South Indian (Tamil) his fater was an Arab. He was born in Melacca and was brought up reading, writing and speaking Tamil, Malay, Arab and Hindi. From Melacca he moved to Penang and then he came to Singapore with Raffles. During this period of time he also went to India, but no one knows when he went, where he went and for how long (if anyone knows pls tell me). When he came to Singapore, he was a translator for the Brits. He translated Malay to the Brits and English to the bumiputras. Malay was his working language. He wrote books in Arab, he translated Indian epics to Malay and he is known as the Father of Malay Literature in Singapore. Yes! He was. It was through him that Malay Literature in Singapore is what it is today. But.....he was not Malay. But im not saying he was Indian either or Arab. He was what we call a multi-culturalised man. He had different linage, so the Indian community can claim him, the Arab community can also claim him, the Malay community can also claim him. Well if you look like that Singapore has the strongest claim of him. Because he wrote down the adnimistrative details, the way of life back then. He recorded Singapore's early history. His contributions to Singapore was great and inumerable. So to ask what he did for the Malay society or what he did for Indian society is secondary. The whole notion of idnetity at that period of time was very pourous. As long as you were part Indian, you were accepted into the Indian community. So to ask right now was he or was he not Indian is not right as the idea of identity then did not have a definitve line.


My mom said, its easy just call him Singaporean. But you can't. This was way before Singapore was formed. This was in the 1800's when the British first found this fishing village. So none of the pioneers of Singapore can be known as Singaporean but as people who came to Singapore to make a living and then contributed to this country. The same can be said of Munshi Abdullah. He was Indian and Arab but he became known as the Father of Malay Literature in Singapore. Does that make him less of an Indian or an Arab or does that make him more of a Malay? You tell me!

posted by ponga @ 9:03 PM 2 comments