Singapore to welcome IMF with smiles, not Singlish
By Fayen Wong
SINGAPORE, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Singapore, ever mindful of its image abroad, is about to face its toughest public relations test as foreign finance ministers, central bankers and company bigwigs fly in for the International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings.
With some 16,000 delegates scheduled to descend on the city-state next month for the annual event, Singapore's government is urging citizens to smile, be polite, and speak proper English to its foreign guests.
"Singapore culture unfortunately has been made very utilitarian and very task-oriented as opposed to people-oriented. Many Singaporeans are not able to give weight to soft issues like graciousness, courtesy and politeness," Alex Au, a social commentator, told Reuters.
Singapore's government has a long history of micro-managing its population; in the past, its national campaigns have exhorted citizens to learn Mandarin, refrain from piling too much food on their plates at buffets, and to have more babies.
Now, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wants Singaporeans to show their best side to the international financial community.
In June, he launched a "Four Million Smiles" campaign, urging Singaporeans to smile more during the IMF-World Bank meeting -- though only a month later, a Friends of the Earth survey showed that Singaporeans ranked as the unhappiest people in Asia.
Since the start of the year, more than 10,000 taxi drivers have attended a three-hour training course on how to provide better service for passengers during the meetings.
An accompanying handbook instructs taxi drivers to keep their hair neat, avoid fidgeting, ensure they don't have body odour, and not clutter their taxi with too many accessories.
"They also told us not to talk about sensitive issues like criticising the government and racial issues," taxi driver Choy Kok Wai, 49, told Reuters.
Singapore's government leaders have sued many opposition politicians for defamation in the past. The affluent city-state has been criticised by the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International for curbing political expression.
A state-owned newspaper in July suspended the column of a popular blogger whose satirical comments irked the government.
In Singapore, public gatherings of more than four people require a police permit and public protests are rare. The police said last month that activist groups would be assigned an area indoors to "gather and engage" with delegates during the IMF-World Bank meetings.
The IMF-World Bank conference, from Sept. 11-20, will be the largest international conference the city-state has ever hosted.
As Singapore loses manufacturing jobs to low-cost rivals such as China and Malaysia, it is trying to develop its services sector and attract tourists and business visitors.
Last year, Lee used his National Day address to tell Singaporeans to improve their service culture after the World Economic Forum's 2005 Competitiveness Report ranked Singapore's customer orientation at 17th, compared with eighth in 1998.
The Workforce Development Agency has been training shop assistants in Singapore's prime shopping districts, teaching sales staff to greet customers with a "Welcome" or "How may I help you today", and telling them to encourage overseas visitors to explore the island and wish them a good stay.
The Singapore Retailers Association also provided retailers with pamphlets encouraging them to use proper English, rather than "Singlish" -- a local slang that whittles sentences down to their bare bones, as in "Can fit or not?" or "This one no more."
"So far, hardly any of the national campaigns has ever worked. The government needs to understand these top-down and instructive approach of getting people to change will not succeed because they are not dealing with machines," Au said. (Additional reporting by Mia Shanley)
- Reuters
All I can say is, Oh My Gawd...
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