A Singaporean In Australia

It started not long ago when the dearest neighbour asked me for help to write her complain letter to the hospital that subjected her grandfather to agony. Up till then I avoided doing anything of that sort because I hated it.  I hated that because I used to get abysmal grades for any effort of that nature during school. Be it the complain letter, an ordinary memo, a job request, an advertisement, an announcement or a warning letter, anything, I was usually scored 5/10 and no more than 6/10 at best. Of course, that left me wondering what the hell was wrong with myself. Wouldn't you?

Unfortunately, dearest neighbour insisted I should help her because "my English was better than hers." Hmm. Poor thing, she must have gotten the 4/10s in school. So I gave it a go. She didn't get back to me about how it went. It didn't turn out that bad I assume, unless she couldn't bring herself to telling me, "Your letter couldn't do shit-all." A year later, Maggie Mag asked me to do a similar thing. To write a formal letter informing HDB that they discovered an unwanted present embedded in their wall by their contractors. That too, received some attention that we hoped for.

I thought I was alright, until I read some of those done by Gintai, realised why I was the 5/10 shit. I've much to learn from. The reason why I volunteered doing the latest one was because I couldn't stand the injustice that I thought they suffered in their house building adventure. For one, I admitted I wouldn't go along if he asked me to go down to site to pia jui. He definitely make a much more convincing case doing that himself. But writing letter, why not? Especially taking on a guai lan cocky Ang Mo. So I shoved the cock back into his mouth. Yes they would act, they better. Sometimes I wondered if I did more harm than good helping these folks writing 5/10 stuff. Hopefully, things would turn out better for them.

Having said that, I do not believe the pen is mightier than the sword. If the pen is mightier than sword, why then, are actions louder than words? The problem with Singapore is that we talk too much, shoot too much "black and white", blog too much and do nothing, unless you considered having a cheerleading picnic as Hong Lim Park as something. Words can only do so much if the sword is not used in tandem. I don't literally mean take up arms and create violence. That doesn't solve any problems. It could be as simple as throwing a piece of coded litter in the right bin. Until then, the pen will write on and on till it dries.