Encounter With Singapore's Sacrified Generation

Meeting a taxi driver on my way to Indonesia

A man looking deadly serious was the last thing I wanted to see after a three-hour flight from Manila to Changi, Singapore. He grabbed my heavy suitcase without word, opened the trunk with one arm and slid it in with the other. At once, I felt I was in the presence of the Hulk. Yet, everything seemed to lighten when he gestured me amiably into the cab.

I still did not know what to say when he began a conversation. He rambled on about nearly everything in sight: the unpredictable weather to seafood at the Marina, Singapore's sea-side strip. I was not really excited after recalling some memories of the country.

I listened to him while quietly admiring the colorful flowers on the way to the Water Front. The bougainvilleas were all blossoming. The glaring sun was sinking in the West right before our eyes. The combination of the blurred arrows of light and small canopies of colors made the sallow afternoon a most restful moment.

I tried to attract his attention to the beautiful scenery outside. But he pressed on in his hoarse voice with his stories. I noticed they were becoming more personal. He has two children, both already married. They were better off than him, he told me.

"At least they can buy some pleasure and know how to enjoy themselves, not like me."

I was curious to know about their relationship but hesitated to ask sensing the repressed bitterness in his eyes. Younger Singaporeans were making much more money today than people of their era, he went on. On the contrary, the taxi driver's parents were very poor and had to labor hard.

"We couldn't afford going to college," he told me. Money was difficult to come by.

I spotted many new little gardens since the last time I came to Singapore. Especially under the bridge, the brilliant red and yellow buds make for a stark contrast to Singapore's gray cityscape.

"You Singaporeans know how to treasure flowers. You seem to be a romantic people," I teased.

He sighed a bit but nodded in faint agreement. "We know how to romanticize our environment that is for sure." He stepped on the brake so suddenly it jolted me. Lucky me with the seatbelt, I whispered. "I am so sorry," he sounded very guilty.

"It was that little pothole," he explained.

Yet I knew there was no pothole at all. I was very familiar with the street. Singapore has no rough surfaces. Safety is its obsession. Order is the No. 1 issue. Everything is designed to fall into place. I still remember my wife's joke the last time we were there together. "I am sure we're already in Singapore," she quipped. "People are lining up."

In that taxi, on that day, I had some personal revelations. Here is a generation of a few decades ago which is at the point of vanishing. Singapore has secured its honorable place in the pantheon of the affluent. The driver's generation was part of the painful era when the city-state was then a struggling infant. They built the country with utmost dedication. They put an absolute trust in the nation's leadership under Lee Kwan Yew and his party colleagues in the 1970s to an ultimate result.

Singapore has been a merit-based country ever since. Everywhere we can find the slogan: to excel or excellence.

The people who founded the elements for the grandiose dreams are now in their retirement or -- like the driver --in their 50s. They were poor, unable to pay for their college tuition and have stayed poor ever since (as far as the Singaporean standard goes).

"But we excel in terms of political willingness for a better future. We have always worked hard to achieve the common goals. We have accomplished our generation's mission. Only some of us cannot keep up with the pace and left behind." he added.

The Harbor Front where I was to take a 50-minute ferry ride to Batam Island, Indonesia was in sight.

I did not pity this man. There was no need. I could see the sincere dignity in his eyes and voice. I knew he was only sharing some feeling of being dragged by the fast-paced wealthy Singaporeans of today; the generation who has everything but who possibly has little memory of the poor generation that has enriched and served Singapore with their bare hands.

At least, that was what I took from his stories.