At this juncture, I believe youth is not wasted on the youth, since it provides the rest of us with so much entertainment and schadenfreude.
In a post surprising no one but entertaining quite a lot of people, a 19-year-old Singaporean girl named Andrea Chong has taken to the Youth.SG or YouthSG page on Facebook to air her views on being a young person in today’s digital age–and that includes beinga nnoyed at how punctual the trains are in Japan (among other things).
Take a look at her post below:
Her post says:
“I thought planning a holiday with my friends would be all rainbows and sparkles, but the execution was a lot tougher than I expected.
I faced all sorts of problems, from convincing worried parents and gathering enough money to finding friends who will not bail out before the trip. Even on the holiday, things like Google Maps messing up and us having to share one portable Wi-Fi router while on separate routes only led to more arguments.
But the most challenging thing for a non-early riser like me was being on-time. In a country like Japan, where a bus that comes at 5.01pm is gone by 5.02pm, being just a minute late would require us to change a whole day of plans.
So, if someone asks about going on a grad trip, I’d advise them against it. Because no staycation in Singapore will ever prepare you for a trip in a foreign country.”
According to her post above, she’s had to deal with numerous “troubles” and “inconveniences” just to get what she wanted which was a graduation trip. A common practice for newly-minted singaorean graduats, parents usually sponsor these trips for their children before the said children enter the workforce.
She was surprise at how difficult it was to actually plan and budget a trip abroad, since she was probably used to someone arranging all the details for her before.
But what actually made her life difficult was that she had to wake up on time to catch a train in Japan. Just being one minute late was unacceotable for the train system.
Was she asking for it?
Predictably, Singaporeans had a lot to say about her statement. I mean, who could blame them?
Others pointed out how different their graduation trips were from Audrey’s.
Some questioned the conclusions she had drawn from her experience and the advice she would give other youths in Singapore. Why indeed would she discourage other people from doing something that turned out bad only because of her own doing?
While others said taht they need to spak to her parents. Whatever for, since she’s already nineteen years old?
Some pointed out that her attitude may not be a good towards work, but we would never know since people are different on how they treat work and leisure.
This commenter, on the other hand, voiced his concern about the youth in Singapore, and I think that this is the appropriate platform to do so.
This person had some harsh truth bombs to drop on poor Audrey. Harsh, but true.
While other comments were simply unhelpful.
Youth.SG appeals to the public
As some of the comments had begun to be impassioned and even downright insulting, the Facebook page that featured Audrey had this to say:
Did you go on a graduation trip when you were nineteen years old? How did it go? Let us know in the comments!
Header image from Shutterstock, Japan train line September 2017.
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