Singapore Dreaming : )

There have been discussions of introducing the club to a Singaporean movie. And Daniel successful got a friend coming for a visit to bring "Singapore Dreaming" over. Manh told us that he heard that it is an award winning movie and I am glad that they expressed interests in it. : 0

I felt that Singapore Dreaming is a good movie to show as it will allow our friends to see a realistic portrayal of our society, that not everything is so pretty and good in Singapore. That they are economic problems too etc. And of course the Singaporean lifestyle: living in flats, eating in coffee shops, going aroud by cars for most people, having maids to take care of our house, and of course our language that is "not really English", as they commented.

Most was surprised with the gender discrimination in the show, especially by how the father favored the son over the daughter. They must have not thought that it would exist, but after giving deeper thoughts, they decided that we are still Eastern societies after all, so gender discrimination is of course still present to a certain extent. Of course it is improving just like in Vietnam..

and I hope so too, cos being a girl myself, it would have been terrible to be less valued by parents. I hope that everyone are cherished by their parents course they are ultimately their children too! >.<
shi lei

showed Singapore Dreaming today , a show which I feel deeply reflects upon the many aspects of Singapore Society, some of which includes

1) Family love and values
2) Having dreams

I showed the show because I wanted them to understand the difference in culture between Singapore and Vietnam. One of which is that because Singapore is a developed country, we focus alot on our education system, something that is very important in the minds of many Singaporean families. There was a scene in which a mother scolded her child for not getting 100 marks when she only got 90. In the main story, the youngest son also had a hard time getting a job as he did not have a recognized degree or educational qualification. Something many companies emphasize on. In Vietnam , however, I feel that the focus is not so much on education, as education is not compulsory in Vietnam.

I did notice that some children would help their parents at roadside stalls and not have an education. In Sapa, an area north of Vietnam where I visited, there is a similar scenario where children do not go to school sometimes in order to help their parents work. This is a very subjective topic, something that Vietnam faces, on the value of education. I also noticed that in Vietnam, there are many private schools and one of the key entity for entry to these schools is if you had money, you could go in ahead of the consideration of results. I got to know this from the Vietnamese students , and that in some cases, it is the poor students who are more of the hardworking ones rather than the rich ones, as told of the contrast in learning interest in different schools, a private one which hosts students who are quite well off, in that they are quite rowdy in class, as told by my Taiwanese friend, who is a Chinese teacher there, and could not understand why some of the students are not focused in learning, one of the reasons she thought of upon discussion with other Vietnamese students is that these students come form a rich family background, and therefore could get into these schools easily and take for granted what they have, the school being focused on preparing these students for studies abroad,as most of their family background provides them with the financial capability to do so, which is why they are learning Chinese.

This can be contrasted with other Vietnamese youths who don't have a chance to study at all. She still has to work hard as a teacher despite this because there are students in the class who really are focused and are serious in studying, but they make up the minority. There is a growing disparity between the rich and the poor in Vietnam and this has affected how the education system is implemented, which I feel more measures could be done by the government to change this disparity.

Overall, the film was quite well received, and students could understand it as most of the conversations were in English, a learning point for them as well. They also got to know about the nature of spoken languages in Singapore, where some Singaporeans speak in a mixture of languages. It was a real eye opener into the differences in culture for them , though a popular medium such as film

Here's a clip of the movie trailer


Cheers,
Daniel Foo