Cherish our human legacy system
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Cherish our human legacy system
By By Justin NgI 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
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