I'm thinking deeply (or trying to) about this relationship between the generations in Singapore. Martyn, from the way he presented the video and quotes from the politicians, is calling for the government (if not actually blaming them) to do something about the plight of the neglected old.

But I see it as more a social problem, the dissolution of ties between parents and their children. Every generation from the postwar baby boomers (now in their 50s-60s) have often left behind their elders or moved away from their houses. And in turn that generation's children and grandchildren are doing the same to their parents.

It's deeply embedded in the way in which our contemporary, modern, forward-looking society has little regard for old people, including for our own parents. No time, no interest and even no money.

I also find it interesting that the elderly, in their remarkable, humble ways, are able to find work. Some of them are truly destitute. Others are not poor actually but do it to 'pass the time'. It's remarkable that they are able to find a niche in the economy where they can do what they want, looking for cardboard boxes, drink cans and waste paper.

It's really the underbelly of the modern, industrial/post-industrial city. Some critics might call it exploitation or the failure of capitalism but it certainly isn't that way to the elderly themselves. The uneducated working aged are simply doing what they might have done in their younger days, what their peers and elders had done in the past - to 'find a road' (che lor in Hokkien) in the small, dark places of the economy.

In short, it is the past in the present, an image from the Jim Warren coolie days of Singapore, from the kampong days which I am writing about, which still exists today.

The two faces of Singapore society, the two phases of our time - past and present - together. That's what scholars should also look at.