Singapore recently ranked as the world's sixth most expensive city according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, and its property market is among the top 10, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. However, this also means that there is quite a lot of people living in poverty, in Singapore.
During our last lesson, we watched a video where we saw the living conditions of foreign workers living in Orchard Road, one of the richest and most luxurious parts of Singapore. When we saw what their conditions were like, we were all very shocked. It turned out that their dormitories are all very dirty, hot and smelly. The quarters were extremely cramped and they didn't even have proper and clean toilets. Everything was so not the way I imagined living at Orchard Road, the central of Singapore.
Although we don't see many beggars in Singapore, there are still many families, in fact, more than 100,000 families are struggling in poverty, right here in Singapore.
In another lesson, we watched a video of a family with a single mother. Life was very difficult for her family as her family members all had to depend on only her salary to get by. They couldn't afford luxurious items or lavishly spend their money on things that they wanted. However, the mother was still strong and worked very hard for her children, taking up several jobs and even working into the wee hours of the morning. Her children also opened up blogshops selling squishies and other small and cute toys which they can get for very cheap prices at the nearby one dollar shop. They were also very cheerful and did not give up on life just like that. Instead, they worked hard and were not selfish, giving part of their money to their mother for housekeeping. They also earned their own pocket money to relieve stress of their mother.
This really touched me, and I feel that we are genuinely very lucky, being able to live in spacious homes, being able to buy what we liked, but yet many of us still complain. There are many poor kids who would love to switch places with us, and yet we take many things for granted.
We should learn from this lesson that we should not take our comfort for granted and always think for less unfortunate people.
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