I was going back home from work this evening, and I decided to have my dinner somewhere around Harbour Front. Looking at the shining new building that is Harbour Front Center today brought back memories, to a time when I was still a student, or a couple of years back when I visited some business partners in their old office. The last time that I visited the present grounds, when it was previosuly World Trade Centre, were probably to hop over to Sentosa island for a day, or just to enjoy the breeze with my girlfriend back then.
How times have changed. Or has it? Despite being much older, having a change in career and in marital status, I am just curious if there is really a net change. Let’s see, I am still worrying from day-to-day about making enough money for retirement, checking my bank account to see if it is growing or shrinking, balancing the accounts book so that I do not overspend. I still worry about Life in general. More white hairs have sprouted at the back of my head, less black hairs stay in the front and top.
I read with incredulous belief when the newspapers reported on the recent General Household Survey, citing an increase in household incomes, but the bottom third of our country is seeing their household incomes shrink. People are supposed to be happy with that sort of performance? What about inflation rates, costs of living, rising oil prices, the impending US recession in a year or so? Sadly, it is not the upper income groups we should be focussing on (because that tier belongs to the Ministers working in the Singapore government), but rather the lower-middle to low-income groups that society should really be concerned about. Do we really want a society separated by class, and a large gap in income levels? Do we wish to see involuntary buskers and beggars start sprouting along Orchard Road?
Money aside, what about the intangibles like social values, education (the proper ones, not the mindless mugging type which has been mistakenly and synonymously called Education), general well-being of the spirit?
As I took a look at Harbour Front Center of today, I mused to myself, even with a shiny new look changed by times, it still feels the same inside isn’t it? And I wasn’t thinking about the beautiful shopping mall within the building.
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