3 Cultural Things From "Welcome To Beijing"

Stereotypes: Singapore vs China

Does Tourism Add Value Or De-value A Heritage Spot Or Icon?

Does Tourism Add Value Or De-value A Heritage Spot Or Icon? Personally, I think it's both. I'm sure all of us know that tourism can help to increase a country's economy and reputation. Tourists often visit a heritage site of a country, and as well as the tourists' attractions, which are usually the popular places or representative of the country. At the heritage site, tourists will get to learn about that country's culture, history, and the icon of the country. The Icon of a country helps to increase its reputation as it attracts tourists all around the world to visit the country to learn more about the country and add more value to the icon. 

However, to satisfy the tourists' needs, especially food, there will be western restaurants and eateries either near or in the heritage sites as people living in this century love to eat western food. One example will be MacDonald's, which I believe it exists in many countries. Let's take The Forbidden City of China as an example, isn't it weird to find a Western restaurant instead of a Chinese restaurant at the heritage site, where people are supposed to learn about China's culture and not the Western's? If so, what is the point of visiting China? Would you eat pizza or chicken rice in Italy?

One way the government can solve this issue is that they can try combining both Western and Chinese cuisines. This way, not only the tourists can have a meal that satisfies them, they can also try out and have an experience of eating Chinese cuisine, to know what kind of food the Chinese eat, to know China's culture better.

Should We Demolish Mr Lee Kuan Yew's House?

In my opinion, I think we should demolish Mr Lee Kuan Yew's house. After the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, he left a will that stated he wanted his house to be demolished after his passing. It is the minimal respect to follow his will after his passing. If his house is demolished, the plot of land could be used for other purposes, for example, residential.

I understand that Mr Lee Kuan Yew had done a lot of things for Singapore, bringing her from a first world to a third world country, and because of this, many people respected him and missed him dearly after his passing. However, should Mr Lee Kuan Yew's house become a heritage site? If you were to ask me, my answer is no. Why not? We could preserve this building and make it a place where future generations can learn about Mr Lee Kuan Yew. We could preserve this building to remember him. There are many reasons why we should preserve Mr Lee Kuan Yew's house but think about it, is it really necessary? Must we need this building in order to remember him? Must we use this building to educate the future generations? No. This is just a building with no heritage values. I believe that we can remember Mr Lee Kuan Yew even if this building is demolished and we can teach the future generations about Mr Lee Kuan Yew. How? We can keep his love for him in our heart. We can tell our children stories about Mr Lee Kuan Yew, even if we are not sure of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's contributions to Singapore, we could look up to google, youtube, I'm sure there will be plenty of stories and videos about him. 

We should use this plot of land for better purposes, we should look forward and not look back, we should continue the spirit that Mr Lee Kuan Yew gave, the Singapore Spirit. We should work hard together as one and make Singapore better.

Dilemma between the blind pursuit of higher economic growth and protecting our environment

Good environment or good economy? In other words, health or wealth? Which is more important? Which is more valuable? Can money buy us health? Sadly, the answer is no. 

If a country builds a large number of factories, what would happen? Well, air pollution might be one of the answers to the question. If there is air pollution, people in that country would be breathing in harmful air that would lead to poor health. If the people in that country is all sick because of the air pollution, who would work in the factories? Who would produce goods that are to be sold away for profits? Yes, there might still be a few people out there who are willing to sacrifice their health for money, however, the economy of that country will surely drop as lesser people working means lesser goods produced and lesser goods produced means lesser profits. In addition, is it worth it to sacrifice our health, our lives just for the money? Absolutely not.

Now, let's think about it another way, a country with good environment. Will this country do better than the country with "good economy" in terms of economy? Well, my answer is yes. A country with good environment will have more people with good health as compared to the country with "good economy" and that would mean there would be more people working and increase the country's economy.

Thus, a good environment will protect the economic growth of a country in a long run.

Cost Of Living (Singapore)

Cost of a standard 4/5 room HDB flat (90-100 square metre) In Punggol	$428000
Cost of a brand new Toyota Vios	From $105988
Cheapest 10 kg packet rice	$13.70
Cheapest one litre drinking mineral/distilled water	$1.30
Cheapest fresh whole chicken (refrigerated not frozen)	$5.35
Do we provide plastic bags and how are they used?	Yes. The products that we purchased will be placed into the plastic bag for us to carry them home.
Who are the cashiers (age, nationality) and what kind of service will they provide?	Cashiers are of various ages and races, they help us to calculate the total cost of the products that we buy and place them into the plastic bags.
Cheapest one litre of cooking oil	$4.75
Cost of school fee	$28 (per month)
Cost of one litre of petrol (95 unleaded)	$2
Cost of one movie ticket on a weekend	$13
Average salary of a Singaporean	$4998 (per month)
Unit price of water and electricity	Water: $1.17/Cu M Electricity: $1.54/kWh

Consequences Of High Cost Of Living

What is cost of living? Well, it is the amount of money needed to sustain a certain level of living, including basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes and health care. What will happen if the cost of living is high? If the cost of living is high, that will mean that the prices of things will increase and our daily expenses will be higher. Consequences of high cost of living can be positive and negative. Below are some examples.

Negative consequences of high cost of living

When the cost of living is high, things will get more expensive and it will be harder for people to purchase. In order to purchase the thing that one wants, one will have to wait for a longer time to save up enough money for that particular thing. If people were to live in a place with a high cost of living, they might feel more stress and unhappy as they need to work harder to achieve what they want.

Positive consequences of high cost of living

Living in a place with a high cost of living can teach people how to spend their money wisely and manage their money carefully. This can also help people to save up more money for future uses. Besides that, spending money wisely means that we do not buy unnecessary things and by doing so, we can help to reduce wastage.

Hence, we can see that there are positive and negative consequences of high cost of living and that there are more positive consequences that will benefit both the people and the country.