September 2, 2006
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Lectures are littered by students chattering in foreign tongues, quite a foreign experience in Singapore. School feels like the University of Jakarta, instead of the Singapore Institute of Management since Singaporeans constitute less than twenty percent of my course cohort and the bulk comprises of Indonesians. The only explanation for the dearth of local students I can think of is that all of us have neither a diploma nor full “A” level certificate. In addition, the programme managers conduct admission interviews, which was unexpected. I guess they wanted to weed out potential dropouts, maybe SIM is not all about money after all. Then again, those who are turned away from the University of London course are referred to a course run by SIM itself. Maybe SIM really is all about money after all.
Anyway, after much observation, I have come to the conclusion that kiasuism is not confined to Singaporeans. It is possible that kiasuism is limited to Singapore, but it certainly afflicts other nationalities. The attendance register is passed around during lectures and we are to mark our attendance by leaving our signature on it. If the lecturer remembers it only during the intermission, hordes of students would surge forward in the direction of the blue plastic file. On one occasion, it ended up on the floor in the fracas and students ended up kneeling on the floor to indicate their attendance before someone with a level head placed it on the table. It was reminiscent of football played by primary school kids, where everyone chases the ball around, hoping for a kick. It would be a miracle if it survived the month, I commented. True enough, part of it was ripped out by some inconsiderate bastard and both halves made their way separately around the lecture theatre last Friday. All this while, most of us bemused local students could not understand the commotion, since the attendance register certainly did not possess wings or legs, there was no prize for being the first few to sign the register, no free gifts of limited stock, no huge discounts as it was free to begin with and it would not self-destruct after certain period of time.
What next? Foreign students picking up Singlish or cursing like ah bengs and ah lians? Now that would be interesting, it certainly would not be easy to deliver them with the oomph that local ah bengs and ah lians can.
