Two Sides of a Coin

Group 6-012Team Members:

Lim Jerome

Ng Jia Neng

Colin Ng Siong Haur

Guo Zili

Why Two Sides of a Coin?

• Coin - Singapore• Two Sides

– Reasons why foreigners want too stay and take up citizenship or become permanent residences

– Reasons why foreigners want to leave Singapore and go back to their own country

Made up mainly of Singaporeans and foreigners, some becoming citizens and

PRs

The difference in perceptions of Singapore by Singaporeans and

foreigners

Objectives

To find out:• Singapore – truly multi-cultural?• Singapore – embraced people from

different walks of life/culture?

Methodology

Interview Data analysis Web report

Novella

Rationale

• Singaporeans – proud of having such a country that accepts people regardless of race, language or religion

• To determine Singapore’s success in accepting different kinds of people who have come here to work and decided to stay in Singapore

Timeline

Semi Finals

• Done interview, webpage and start novella

Finals

• Distribute completed novella and collect feedbacks

Grand

Finals

• Make changes and publish novella

Interview

• Participants (40):Local SingaporeansNon Singaporeans in Singapore

Target Audience [interview]• Local participants (4 each)

• Chinese/Caucasians/Malays/Indians/Filipinos

• Non Singaporean participants (4 each)• PRCs/Caucasians/Malays/Indians/Filipinos

Foreigners Questions• Which country are you from? • Why did you come to Singapore? • What were your impressions about Singapore before you

came? • What were your impressions of Singapore after living in

Singapore? Any changes? • Is it easy to live in Singapore for the first few months? • Are there any differences between your home country

and Singapore? Please state 3 bad and good points. • Have you decided on being a Singapore PR/citizen?

Why or why not? • Do you believe that Singapore is a truly multi-racial

country? • Is Singapore really able to accept and embrace you?

Singaporean Questions

• What were your impressions of these PRs and foreigners before they came?

• What were your impressions about the foreigners and PR after they came? Any changes?

• Are you really able to accept these people? Explain.

• If you have a choice, will you want to work and live with them? If not, what will you do?

• Do you think there is any difference in culture between Singaporeans and PRs and foreigners?

Interview• Indication on changes in mindset• Based on the responses, is Singapore

truly multi-cultural?

The Response

Singapore is an advanced country which is very clean and safe. Things

are very expensive.

Response

Novella

“He learnt that Singapore was a systematic and advanced country where high-rise buildings could be seen

anywhere. Being a popular tourist spot, Singapore was also very clean and safe. However, he was told that the

cost of living in Singapore was very high and people were also not as friendly as people in India. With this

information, he started to hesitate as he might meet with problems in Singapore.”

- Chapter One

Response

Singaporeans are friendly

and the pay is very high.

Novella

“Beaming, she sang praises of Singapore, “Singaporeans are friendly and the bosses are

kind. Also, the pay as a domestic helper in Singapore is very high. Most of us are even

allowed to have a day off on Sundays!””- Chapter One

Response

Singapore is a well developed country.

Can earn more money. Don’t like the

communism in China.

Novella

“Singapore was well-developed and she was confident

that her husband would be able to earn more in Singapore than in China. Also, she could not endure the communism in China. She was happy to be living in a democratic state. She felt that going to Singapore was going to be the path to her happiness even though they were poor now. She was confident they would be rich in

no time.”- Chapter Two

Responses

Better living conditions. Very

safe. Everyone is treated equally.

Good education.

Novella

“Anwar imagined himself living in luxurious bungalow, eating

delicious food and with a flick of a finger, a servant would attend to him. In school, the teacher teaches all of the students patiently with a happy smile and everyone is treated fairly. By the roadside,

police can be seen patrolling around to ensure that everyone is safe. In offices and factories, the employers treat each and every employee with respect and award employees with high salaries for their hard work. Travelling from place to place seems quick and the walking distance is not long due to excellent transport

system.”- Chapter One

Response

Chewing gums and vandalism are banned.

Offenders will be punished by the law.

Novella

“The only things he knew about it was that it was a ‘fine’ country where eating gum and vandalism

such as graffiti were all banned and any offenders would be fined or even punished

heavily. This made Mike exceptionally fearful as he had the habit of chewing gum every time to

make sure he could flex his muscles fully.”

- Chapter One

Data Analysis (Non-Locals)

• Do you believe that Singapore is a truly multi-cultural country?/ Is Singapore willing to accept and embrace you?

YesNo

70%

30%

Data Analysis (Locals)• Are you really able to accept the

foreigners?/ If you have a choice, would you want to work and live with them?

YesNoSometimes

20%

20%

60%

Novella

• Written using the feedback of the people from the interviews– the positive and negative experiences of

the foreigners

Novella• 5 people from 5 different cultural

backgrounds or countries coming to Singapore and their lives thereafter

• 50 pages with a compilation of the negative and positive experiences faced in Singapore

• Each chapter does not only contains the storyline but also is like an ‘answer sheet’ for the interview questions

Novella

• Shows: – the area that Singapore is lacking in truly

embracing the diversity of culture resulting from an influx of foreigners in Singapore

– whether the foreigners are willing to give up current citizenship for Singapore citizenship

Webpage

Click Here

Reflections• Through this project, I have learnt the factors that

contribute to whether Singapore is multi-cultural or not by hearing others’ responses and thoughts on that matter. Are we able to embrace people from different cultures and races and understand them? Most Singaporeans may blindly believe Singapore is multi-cultural but actually there are still people from other cultures who are not adapted or dislike the way of life in Singapore. Therefore we know that Singapore has such a loophole and Singaporeans can work on it. In our project, we are creating awareness from our novella to change people’s mindset on whether Singapore is multi-cultural or not.

• Lim Jerome(2O2)

Reflections• Singapore may say that it is a multi-racial country,

however, its what people thinks that affects this. Singaporeans may think that the foreigners are extra in Singapore and only serves as a competitor in finding good jobs and social standards, and this may cause discrimination and unfriendliness towards certain foreigners, and there are also people who thinks that foreigners are mainly labourers and helps to improve Singapore. Not a lot of people have a deeper understanding of how important foreigners are in terms of helping build a better Singapore.

• Guo Zi Li (2O2)

Reflections• I personally feel that our project can enable us to really

find out whether Singapore is a truly multi cultural and whether the foreigners can be accepted by the society. Through our interview, we found out that many foreigners feel that they are accepted by Singaporeans but on the other hand, many Singaporeans do not really want to live and work with these foreigners. There are many misunderstandings and misconception between the foreigners and Singaporeans. We can also know more about the positive and negative experiences faced by these foreigners to allow us to understand these foreigners better.

• Ng Jia Neng(2O2)

Reflections• For this part of the project, i start to feel that it is even more

meaningful. In the process of this project, we actually did things such as surveys and also writing of a novella which are things that we did not do much normally but this project gave us the chance to do it all. Starting from the survey, while we are doing it, we learnt a lot of things. We received different answers from different people and these answers from different perspective had indeed changed our opinions some of the foreigners and also what kind of people we are ourselves. I feel that improvements is needed and Singaporeans like ourselves really needed to change the misconceptions we have. I believe we can use this project and try, using our limited abilities, to try and change the people' wrong view of each other (The Singaporeans having the wrong opinions of foreigners and foreigners having the wrong opinions of Singaporeans).

• Colin Ng Siong Haur(2O2)