Is the YOG really a shambles?

The recent World Cup can be the bench­mark for a suc­cess­ful event man­age­ment at such a mam­moth scale… [if it has really been suc­cess­ful, lah] did they get enough hints / lessons / tips from there?

i was at the YOG com­bined rehearsal and omg, it was ter­ri­ble. peo­ple started walk­ing out 20% into the cer­e­mony and by the time the cer­e­mony was about 70% through, the exits were com­pletely swarmed.

the cam­era work was shoddy, the video screens weren’t func­tion­ing well, the chore­og­ra­phy was pretty bad, the emcees were hardly inspir­ing, and there were way too many peo­ple on a parade floor that was too small for them. the only plus was the mixed mul­ti­me­dia — the com­bi­na­tion of ani­ma­tions, dances, live music etc was pretty ingenious.

yet, all i could think of through­out the whole rehearsal was this: i hope they dras­ti­cally improve or the cer­e­mony is going to be a huge embar­rass­ment of Sin­ga­pore to the world.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=426192…

I guess we have seen lots of com­plaints about the YOG every­where. Be it on blogs, news­pa­pers, ST forum, etc. What’s the big deal about YOG? Why is Sin­ga­pore spend­ing so much on it? Do we really care about it? Is it just another big wayang? Why must we give way to the YOG buses? And what’s with the Olympic lane? Aren’t our roads not con­gested enough?

Frankly, from the day Sin­ga­pore showed it’s bid for the YOG, I was a cynic. What’s the big deal? It is some­thing for us to feel good about, since we can never be an Olympic host city? Hype? What hype?

Over the past month, I was proven wrong slowly.

For the past month, I’ve been attached to a sec­ondary school. And it was then I begin to realise what YOG is doing to our youths. Many of them, I wish you could be there to see it for yourself.

I wish you could be there to see how sports seem to have a greater rel­e­vance to the stu­dents now. Each school is twinned with a coun­try for a few years already, and they have been hav­ing exchanges. My school, for exam­ple, hosted stu­dents from their twin coun­try last year, and had a friendly match. With­out this exchange, I doubt many of them will even know this coun­try existed, and thought that the coun­try is just “African”.

I wish you could be there to see the pride the stu­dents have, when it is made known that 2 of the stu­dents are selected to be torch bear­ers of the Olympic flame. I do not know the torch bear­ers, nor have I met them. But when this news was announced to my stu­dents, I can’t describe the amount of pride they felt that their peers are hold­ing such a respon­si­bil­ity, even though many of them don’t know the torch bear­ers personally.

I wish you could be there when the stu­dents were told that there are free tick­ets to the YOG games. Even though it is held on week­ends, even though it wouldn’t be an excuse to miss school, I wish you could be there to see the excite­ment they have and how much they want to go for the event when given the oppor­tu­nity to watch this events. This was even before they were told that they will receive a free com­mem­o­ra­tive EZ-link card to cover the trans­port cost for the day. How I wish there could be more tick­ets for them, as a total of around 100 tick­ets is given over 4–5 events for a school of 1400.

Now you might think that YOG may have hyped up the sports, but what about the other stu­dents who are not inter­ested or involved in sports? What about them, other than the cul­tural exchanges?

I wish you could be there to see my stu­dents who are part of the Mil­i­tary Band. They have been selected to per­form for the YOG open­ing cer­e­mony. They pride the hold, the com­mit­ment they give to the long hours of prac­tices and com­mute to the float­ing plat­form, the week­ends burnt — you have to see it for your­self to know what I mean.

I wish you could be there to see some of the FB exchanges, of my ex-students and kids, who are involved in the per­for­mances for the open­ing cer­e­mony or YOG related events. Some of the things they love, such as cos­play, break-dancing, have been demonised and mar­gin­alised by their par­ents and other adults. Finally, they have a plat­form to show them that there is noth­ing wrong with it, and hope­fully, let them have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what their pas­sion is about.

I wish I could tell you more, and I’m sure you’ve heard of such non-sports expo­sure related to the YOG.

But if it aren’t clear to you, YOG is a plat­form and a cat­a­lyst for many aspects of devel­op­ment for our youths. It gives them not just a plat­form to dis­play, but a plat­form to learn, to show, to bench­mark, and a plat­form to be proud of. And as I’ve shown, it’s not just for the sports peo­ple or the sports super-stars.

I may be exag­ger­at­ing, but this can very well be a mon­u­men­tal event for many of our youths in Sin­ga­pore, regard­less if they are involved directly, indi­rectly, or not at all. It could very well be the com­mon mem­ory of their generation.

I guess some­times, we adults use the acronym in YOG so much that we for­got what it stands for. YOG starts with the word YOUTH. How come we’ve for­got­ten that it is all about the YOUTH. If we adults don’t feel it, or feel the rel­e­vance of it, why should it be a sur­prise, since that it is mainly for our youths? And I’m not even talk­ing about the cliché ben­e­fits, such as the Olympic val­ues or those who are com­pet­ing for from our youth vol­un­teers inter­act­ing with dif­fer­ent cul­tures around the world etc.

And since it is for our youths, is it still ask­ing for too much, to give way for the 2 weeks, in exchange of a cat­a­lyst, a plat­form, and a life­time mem­ory for our future generation?

I know, cause my year-end hol­i­days has been cut short by 2 weeks, and my school term has been pushed back by 1 month to host the YOG. As much as I grum­ble some­times, I’m heart­ened by what I’m exchang­ing these for.

erm do read the post care­fully. The games is on week­ends, where got bring them jalan jalan?

Unfor­tu­nately I have to agree some­what with you. Went to the final rehearsal on 7th Aug. My friend and I were flab­ber­gasted with the muf­fled audio qual­ity when it started. When the hosts walked out with their cue cards, we were some­what all right though a lit­tle taken back because it was the final rehearsal but noth­ing pre­pared us until the female host started read­ing from her card from the start. We were mor­ti­fied. She was clearly not as “pre­pared” com­pared to her three male co-hosts. While the video visu­als were top notch, my friend and I almost walked out after see­ing half-inspired per­form­ers, Chap­ter 6: Mon­ster aka Ben10 inspired part came and finally Chap­ter 8: Don’t Play With Fire aka dragon head & tail came. Every­thing was dis­jointed and audi­ence were stumped. Some walked out actu­ally because they couldn’t get the ide­ol­ogy behind it, it’s too abstract and really dis­con­nect­ing. Makes one really con­cerned with the actual show.

It’s not the final rehearsal. Don’t worry. =]

Oh well, they still have 6 days to go. Maybe can improve the whole sys­tem. Teo Chee Hean was there remark­ing with his hands ges­tur­ing. The cam­era zoomed in on him. Otherwise .….

sorry. pressed the wrong but­ton. As in the tick­ets given to the school is in the week­end lah. Read care­fully
“Even though it is held on week­ends, even though it wouldn’t be an excuse to miss school,”

where got miss les­son to go jalan jalan?