6/25/2013
Rugged society
Some of you may recall this familiar term of yore. The younger generation X and Y may not have heard of it. We were once psyched to be a rugged society. Those were the early days of nation building and national service. Goh Keng Swee would chide the Singaporeans for being soft and schools were instructed to introduce more sporting events to toughen the little school boys and girls. Today this term sounds quite alien and unnatural.
Every Singaporean kid is the perfect model of a nerd, wearing spectacles, ear phones and a mobile phone glued to his hand, inseparable. After school many will be stuck to the computers banging away, to exercise the dexterity of their fingers, the strongest muscle of their bodies.
And Indonesia is right to call us childish. Just a little haze and we cannot tahan. It is only 400 on the PSI and all demanding actions, stop work, declaring a state of emergency. Eng Hen is right. What is a little haze, what is PSI 400. On the 24 hour scale it will look at most 200. Come on, get use to it. After a few more days of acclimatization and getting use to, life will go on as normal.
It is time to remind the Singaporean on what a rugged society means. Be strong, take the haze and live with it. Stop whining. The people of Riau are living in the midst of the haze and still alive and kicking. We are so far away. At the most we will have to live with it for a few days now and then. Use the mask if needed, just a little inconvenience.
We will become stronger, our body will develop an immunity to haze, and we will become more rugged. Start complaining only when the PSI hits 700 or when the 24 hour PSI stays at 400. Grow up and be a man, be tough, be rugged. If we can live with a hazardous PSI 400, living with a PSI 700 will be much easier.
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21 comments:
I grew up in Singapore when my family still use wood for cooking. During meal preparation, it would be plenty of smoke.
I never got any asthma or pneumonia. I seldom fall sick even though there is plenty of dog shit cat shit around. I had a big dog.
I swim in big longkang.
Every race mix together. We play marble, soccer...etc.
Today due to PAP and wicked LKY, everyone live in HDB cage. Singaporeans are getting more and more weak each day, so as to fulfill LKY prophesy that Singaporeans has bad genes.
The HDB citizen never get to enjoy what my generation enjoyed. Without contacting bacteria everyday, HDB dweller will be susceptible to all sorts of epidemic and health hazzard shock.
They can only pop modern medicine to make FT doctors rich.
5-6 generations later, they will be Frankenstein.
How about a marathon in the haze? This will prove who is the toughest.
Why not be a rugged and stupid society?
Let's all keep our mouths shut until all the billions in our reserves are turned into losses.
The best solution for haze is not buying mask. We all know Indonesia cities in Sumatra like Pekanbaru, Jambi was smoke like barbecue. No one complain like we do.
People there are use to firewood cooking. When I was backpacking in Indonesia, I got choke during meal time in their mountains, while locals are enjoying the breeze.
Singapore's problem can be solve by de-urbanization.
We need landed property to ensure we have healthy citizen. Citizen need to come in contact with bacteria and swim in ponds.
"We will become stronger, our body will develop an immunity to haze, and we will become more rugged."
RB
I agree. We will develop the immunity if exposed often to haze.
I was told that if you often eat foods unhygienically prepared, you will also develop immunity from the germs and bacteria in the food.
Do you know that some foreigners even got stomach upset after just eating our chicken rice? Because chicken rice sellers often hang the cooked chicken at room temperature for long hours, causing bacteria to multiply. But Sinkies are immuned to these unhygienic ways.
I have to agree with Veritas that those in their mid 60s and 70s already lived through and tasted the kind of adversities that we are facing now, and live through it the stronger.
Heavy dependence on medication and drugs is killing the human bodies natural ability to combat some common diseases. Those diseases that we thought we have more or less eradicated are making a comeback, with a vengence. More resistant strains of dengue and TB, not to mention the fast mutating flu, are what will kill us off generations down the road.
On top of that, the pampering lifestyle - walkways everywhere, airconditioning of any structure and transport vehicles, has led to sniggering remarks that even our NS recruits are soft and lame legged, cannot tolerate a little drizzle and fall sick easily when exposed to the sun.
I cannot help wondering how those Aborigines in the jungles of Malaya can be immuned to mosquitos bites and all kinds of adversities even when they run around half naked 24 hrs a day. Marvellous resistance indeed. Acquired or inborn?
You can never find a government like PAP who are always there to screw people non stop.
PAP is not Chinese style. Its westerno-Hindic style.
Chinese elites in PRC no matter how corrupt they are, hope to do something for people, to make Chinese a strong people.
China have done all the right things. If we continue the PAP way, we will be despise as the most contemptible Chinese tribe.
We would become a rugged society sure. But all will be on chemotherapy and terminal and the Singaporean will be more of an endangered species way before the onslaught of the foreign talents coming in by 2030.
In those good old days, the term "carcinogenic" was not even much mentioned in the dictionary so how can those oldies be so fuzzy as to what they breathe in? Those that survived the bad old days are the fortunate ones, not the more hardy ones. The unfortunate ones called by the grim reaper have all gone to Bidadari or Bukit Brown.
I am very sure that bird flu virus is not a recent discovery. It appears recent because scientists are able to identify it. Would any of those oldies then dare to eat any chicken they caught running around the kampongs if they knew it was infected? Probably not.
Do not take this haze problem lightly. Prolong exposure now will be felt years later when you go for a routine chest xray. When you see grey dots lumping together in the xrays, these are the after effects of the Great Haze of 2013!Make your wills as soon as you can.
Agree with WB. This haze thing cannot be taken lightly. As for the haze immunity, ahem, it is quite different from immunity to a disease.
Pig farmers can get use to the smell of pig farms, but there is no immunity against particles stuck in your lung. Trapping too much of them can cause the lung to dysfunction.
A rugged society yes. But a stupid society? Already our leaders call us daft, Do we want to be suicidal and expose ourselve unnecessary to the harms of haze. Haze is not a discease we can develope immunity against. It bring in foreign particles that we breath in and lodge in our lungs and can shorten our lives.
People here can live easily to their 70s. But people in Riau, with the constant exposure to haze from the nearby burning forest, lead a very much shorter live.
The thing is haze is bad for health and that cannot be denied. Same with cigarette smoke.
But what about vehicle emmisions that we cannot see, but is present in every increasing amounts on our ever congested roads. Have we ever consider whether breathing carbon monoxide fumes day in and day out is harmful or not? Of course the car manufacturers will tell you and the Government will also tell you nothing. But it seems we have taken vehicles emissions just as lightly and a matter of course, for decades. We now have all kinds and varieties of cancer. Think about it. If you think not, I rest my case.
Just treat it as another ghost festival. Unless one decides to move, there is nothing you can do to your neighbor who burns every other day.
Just treat it as another ghost festival. Unless one decides to move, there is nothing you can do to your neighbor who burns every other day.
Complain what? No money no talk. Got money then can kpkb.
Hardly hear people complaining about smoke in the past ,even in the 90s.
This shows that Sinkies are now more pampered, fragile,weak,vulnerable and cannot tolerate over the slightest disturbances ,noise or pollution.
They will disturb our friendly NPC officers over the most trivial matters.
Sinkies are spoilt.More Nerng Kah Peng than ever.
In view of this ,NS should be extended to 4 years instead of 2 years if we want proper protection with stronger defence.
The additional 2 years can train them to be more rugged,put them in smoke house daily,hang them for an hour with red ants on their body,though I do not encourage forcing their head into the water to learn about survival.
BMT should have recruits spending a a week in hazy smoke house.This can surely minimise kpkb in future cases.
i agree with agongkia. sinkies now spineless lah, spoilt brats. i breathed in a lot of smoke last time. cooking got smoke because of firewood, whole kitchen black lah. everybody smoke cigarettes, cheroots, pipes, even 1 or 2 opium. even the old ladies smoke. i remember my grandma smoke consulate brand cigarette. every evening in the kampong they burn all the leaves & rubbish to also keep out the mosquitos. everyday burn joss sticks. hungry ghost festival - 24 hour smoke. sometimes i miss the evening burning leaves smoke smell. that was green smoke. hahahahaah!
anon 7.52
1 month of NS should be more than enough for you.Confirm you are rugged type.No need survival course.
Yes. There's a special technique in burning the swept up leaves and twigs back in the good old kampung days. I remember the leaves are piled up in one corner of the 'garden' where there's no wind. And the leaves just smolder. You could not see the fire. Just smoke coming out from that pile.
Why is MOH keeping quiet all this time? Shouldn't they tell all Singapore the SOP?
Why is MOH keeping quiet all this time? Shouldn't the ministry tell the people the SOP? It is amazing and scary to know that they do not have any plan/strategy facing this Haze?
This whole clownish show is exploding to reveal how unprepared all the parties concerned up. So everyone is keeping quiet and hoping no one notices them.
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