True Social Education in Singapore

Coming from the US and Canada, I was excited to find that Singapore’s nightlife venues surpassed their counterparts in North America, with perhaps only Manhattan and Las Vegas being exceptions.

Many Singaporeans who have never ventured across the Pacific are surprised to hear this.

They didn’t know that alcohol cannot be served in the US past 2am in most cities. Again, Manhattan and Las Vegas are the rare exceptions. Bars hire bouncers to ensure not a single, open container of alcohol remains on their premises after 2am.

Many of Singapore’s bars and clubs are open until sunrise, so Western partygoers love the scene here.

Trendy

What they also don’t know is that Singapore’s significant clubbing population is just as up-to-date on fashion trends as clubbers in US hotspots like Miami and Los Angeles, and the party people wear outfits that are equally sexy and provocative.

Judging by their risque attire and seductive dance moves, Singapore’s under-30 age group is as liberal, fun-loving and open-minded as any group anywhere else in the world .

Another surprise is that the legal drinking age in the US is 21, so most nightclubs have a minimum entry age of 21. This means most Americans are neither permitted to set foot inside exclusive nightlife venues nor allowed to consume alcohol until they have almost finished university.

Jaded at 21

But in Singapore, many youths start frequenting clubs at 18. Some patronise the same venues so often that by the time they turn 21, they are already jaded club regulars with more nightlife experience than the average 25-year-old in the US.

Many conservative Singaporeans, mostly from the older generations, prefer to feign ignorance and cling to their traditionalist illusion that the best strategy is to shelter young people from modern pop culture.

In reality, it’s already too late.

By turning a blind eye, the conservatives fail to warn young people of the pitfalls of the social activities they pursue.

What’s worse is that some older folks, while they mean well, end up undermining the efforts of qualified individuals and groups seeking to educate the youths about the modern social landscape.

We should acknowledge that young people acquire social experience much earlier than their predecessors. So we should focus on educating and training the under-25s about how to deal intelligently and skilfully with modern social realities.

For instance, young people should learn how to navigate the treacherous waters of modern dating.

We ought to teach club-going women how to detect and deal adroitly with men who want only to exploit and hurt them emotionally. We ought to teach young men how best to spot, screen for, connect with and attract prospective future girlfriends.

And we need to train them to rely not on alcohol for courage but on their own self-confidence.

Priorities for young people are the pursuit of happiness, self-fulfilment and personal freedom, along with an emergent sense of social and environmental responsibility.

Many are tolerant and open-minded, accepting diverse views on social issues, including male-female relationships.

The issue of whether to allow youths social freedom leads to the bigger question: Do we give them true democracy or do we want some form of authoritarian, paternalistic society?

Do we work on the premise that people are weak and can’t rule themselves socially, sexually and intellectually?

When we fully understand these social realities, perhaps we will then see greater strides in a social education that is truly appropriate and effective.