Every morning when school is in session, I hear from my bathroom the voice of a man speaking in a microphone. I can see through the window the Anglo Chinese School (Junior). It is about 7-7:30 in the morning, time for school assembly. Students in uniforms are sitting on the ground in the school yard, in well aligned rows, silent, listening to the amplified teacher's voice. I cannot hear what he says, but it must be some morally uplifting harangue putting these children in the appropriate frame of mind to receive knowledge and wisdom from their teachers during the day, or to salute the flag, hanging flacid on the pole in the absence of a salutory breeze that would distract from the ever present humid heat.
Thus everyday it is drilled in the minds of the children of Singapore that they should respect authority, work hard, keep their heads down and not ask questions.
