THE GIVING SPIRIT OF THE KAMPONGS

We always hear people talking about the return of the good old Kampong spirit of  sharing/giving and wonder why this become a rarity. The answer could be that we stopped the habit of producing our own things. I have a neighbor who seasonally made buns , cakes and dumplings. I found out later that she was well known for her seasonal confectionery work. Whenever she made, she would give some of her wares to the neigbours at no cost at all. Naturally we develop a positive feeling towards her.

When my neighbour makes perishables products, they have an expiry date. It makes sense for her to give away the excess stock rather than dump them into the trash bin. By giving her excess products to others, she receives positive response from the people.  People will remember to order more from her the next time. Her spirit of giving advertised her wares and also brought about good relationships among the people in the community.

In the context of my neighbor, she produces her goods like a that of a cottage industry manner. Only a stove and oven are used. She does not pay rent as she is not using  a commercial kitchen so that makes her production more affordable. She has an economic advantage making 100% profits assuming she sold all of her products and giving some to the people. It would cost more for her to buy something from a shop to give to her neighbours than giving away from an over production.

I remember my friend's mother who worked in the catering department of a hotel. They had economical banquet packages for insurance and property agencies. The catered dinner will offer hand held ice creme at the end of a dinner. However, because these dinner were of low cost, most of the guest would leave mid way of the dinner. That left the catering department with over stocked hand held ice cremes. The head of the department  would then distribute these left over ice creme to the staff to take home as the ice creme were already paid for. My firend's mother, she would ask me to help myself with some of the ice creme in the freezer. Once again, this shows the positive side of giving.

However, Singapore is a nation that relies on heavy imports. Every item that you use or own are made by other countries. These things that are sold by retail shops have to be priced at least 3 times more then their cost to cover the expenditure of rental, running services like air conditioning and staffs.

If we like to give to others so that others develop a positive attitude towards us , we should begin to create new things. These new things we make then have to be profitable so that it can cover cost. The excess stock then becomes your gifts for building good relations with the community..

We should support locally made cottage industry products. When we do that, these small industries will be encouraged to will make more produce to suit the market demand and also will have excess to share with the community.

A person can have a higher ability to give if the things he/she gives are of low cost or no cost to him/her.

I really look forward to see Singaporeans creating their own products.

I would like to thank our Minister Tan Chuan Jin for his encouragment towards the spritit of giving.

He  has inspired this blog entry.

(edited by et & wt)