By By Justin Ng
I WAS once an engineer handling machines during the first four
years of my working life, but soon found life turning monotonous
and mechanical - just like the equipment I was handling.
I seemed to have lost touch with the human world, and I started
asking myself what the point of it all was.
It was during these reflective moments that I found myself thinking
about the elderly I met in my childhood, those who lived at an old
folks' home in Aljunied.
I remembered the lantern festivals they enjoyed with the rest of
the neigbourhood, their childlike demeanour, and their mischievous
sense of humour.
From them, I learnt that life is not just about oneself. Most of
them told me then that they once lived to work, just so they could
feed their children and provide them with an education.
It was this memory that led me to seek a new job. And, last
October, I began working at the old folks' home in Aljunied, the
very one from my childhood.
Some of the elderly living there were abandoned, poor or suffering
from illness. Most of them have been living in the home for more
than 10 years.
It saddens me to realise that so many of the elderly in Singapore
have become what I describe as "the forgotten generation".
In a way, I associate them with our dying dialects.
Sometimes, when I visit my own family members, I find most of the
younger generation unable to converse with their elders, since they
do not speak the same language. The young do not speak dialect,
while the elderly do not speak English.
While the young move on, the seniors are resigned to a quiet and
lonely old age, whether at home or in an old folks' home.
Their knowledge is forgotten, the things they have done lost to the
ravages of time.
We will never, in this way, know their stories, which are
constantly being forgotten as they age.
It is so different where the elderly in Australia are
concerned.
During my university days in Perth, I observed the lifestyles of
the elderly in a retirement village (which is different from the
old folks' homes here) and saw them coming together in groups to
enjoy activities like knitting.
They were psychologically and emotionally well-adjusted, and
independent enough to take trips - sometimes on mobility scooters -
out to the supermarket to buy groceries.
Instead of being consigned to small, lonely lives, it was as though
they enjoyed a second wind in their dotage.
I dream of the same for the elderly in Singapore one day, and it is
this that motivates me.
In engineering school, I was taught the term "legacy system",
defined as an old system or technology that continues to be used,
typically because it still serves an important function for
users.
I see the elderly as our "human legacy system": They were there at
the start, planning and building everything we have and enjoy
today.
They have stories and experiences to share in their own tongues,
and are a rich part of our lives, our roots.
Let them not be forgotten
.