I was at the National Day Preview and during the event, the voice-over appealed for the audience to make a contribution to Community Chest by filling up the angpow that came with the NDP Fun Pack. For a couple of hours before the start of the programme, volunteers from the Community Chest went around the gallery stands with large collectiom boxes to be passed through the audience from one end of each row to the other end.
As I was filling up the angpow, I was thinking to myself that this year’s collection must be bad since the economy hasn’t been doing well, and everyone is tightening up their purse strings. There’s already so much to worry about – where got time to think about charity?
To my pleasant surprise, the box took a long while to reach me. All around, I could see individuals and families dipping into their wallets to pull out the familiar red coloured note and inserting into the angpow. I thought I would be one of a few people, but as it turns out, I’m but one of the many who put an angpow into the passing box. And the best part of it all – I didn’t sense that there was a social pressure, or a “face factor”, or that the commentator did a good job in soliciting (in fact – the voice over sounded very bland, amateurish, and was not polished). People gave because they wanted to.
It reminded me about a remark a friend made about Thai people several years ago, about how even the poorest of them all would make a special trip to the temple and give generously to charitable causes (such as giving the poor a proper burial). I remember smiling in silence and lamenting to myself – if only I could say the same about Singaporeans.
I’m not sure just how much Community Chest raised that National Day Preview weekend, but I was moved by what I saw that day. What I saw that day gave me a sense that we are a people who may be preoccupied with advancing ourselves, but even in difficult times, we will still look out for others.
I look forward to meeting that same friend again so I can share what I saw.
Terence Quek is director of a strategic creative think tank who can’t stop creating possibilities. He loves travelling and adventure and believes he was a nomad in his past life. While he sets out to obtain the cliché five C’s like some, he would rather not have them than to live without camaraderie, contributing to worthwhile causes, meaningful conversations, challenges that stretches his limits, and decent cups of black Nanyang coffee – the last being of paramount importance to his sanity. A romantic idealist saddled with a practical mind, Terence has been accused of thinking too much about the future and too little about the past. Little do they know that he’s favourite time, really, is now.