WHY can't Singaporeans have more sympathy and understanding that the reason foreign workers crowd in parks or void decks is that, unlike Singaporeans, they have no reason to hang out as often as we do in shopping malls?
No but we pay them more than their countries do. They can go back to their own hole if they so wish it. Nobody forced them to come here in the first place, so if they don't agree to stay in "Townships" or a cage as you put it, they can go back to the hole they came from.
you must be a young innocent girl. What do you mean by having a township is equivalent to caging them? Duh!?
A township is not a cage. They can still move out of that town. If you live in DreamWorld Australia, does it mean you are caged there and cannot visit SeaWorld Australia? If you live in Disneyland, does it mean you are caged there and cannot visit Universal Studios?
They can hang out anywhere they want. But please behave themselves like decent people here do. Don't defecate and urinate in public.
Just because they are low wage workers does not mean that they do not have self respect. You think they would want to work here because they really have a choice. How would you think if you have people looking down on you? And some of them have even finished college.
Yes, it's true- we do pay them better than what they would get back in their country. At least they earn it through it hard work. They do not steal, nor rob us. And it's not easy to work away from home and loved ones.
There are valid reasons why foreign workers hang around void decks and parks instead of shopping centres - they have limited budgets, and the things they want to buy or afford are not necessarily found in malls.
Singaporeans who are poor can simply browse books at bookshops or stay at home and watch videos/TV to relax.
Foreign workers are not so fortunate. Their dorms are hardly the place to relax after work or on offdays.
But they too need physical space for R&R, and access to some things and activities within their budget. A township will be able to cater for these things - including food, drinks, movies, music etc., that they are familiar with back home. A place to rest and chat with other fellow nationals.
There is nothing to stop them from going elsewhere if they want to.
But there would be no excuse for them to loiter at void decks of estates where they do not live.
It's what the white South African govt did during apartheid - they divided the native black population into "townships" or ten "homelands". Like the author, I detest the idea of "townships" - it will only make the already many myopic views here even more entrenched. When I read otherwise (I assume) highly intelligent/educated people commenting on these workers having the freedom to choose to go back to their "sh*tholes" - I am saddened by their naivete. Do they really believe that we - who are so used to cheap foreign labor - can truly survive in the international marketplace without such workers, and secondly, that these people truly have a choice? Hobson's choice, huh?
Agree with #5. A township will be great. I really do not know what got into Miss Han. Why did she compare a township to a cage. Even in the West, there are places like Chinatown, where many Chinese gather. It doesn't mean the Chinese in the West can't move out of Chinatown. So silly!
September 11, 2008 Thursday, 09:06 AM
