我的老同学兼好友，著名光学物理科学家黄文秀教授(Prof. B.S. Ooi)寄来一封电邮。那是他读了李宝珠老师的文章后的感想，也是关于礼貌。我觉得很有意思，也很有力道，所以在没有得到他的允许下（我知道他不会在意的，我们从小玩到大了的。）就把他写给我的电邮公开在这里跟大家分享。
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Thanks Gim Kooi,
Read your blog regarding an article about 'manners' written by Ms. Lee. I commented on something similar and sent it as a Thanksgiving (24th November 2011) message to my students. Below goes the short article. Read it when you have time:
Hi All,
Yesterday was the Thanksgiving Day in the States. It was a big holiday in the US - everyone busy saying thanks to each others, families busy with reunion dinner, etc. And, I was reading an interesting article in my hotel room in Hamilton, Glasgow.
It was a research article (well, social science - easy stuff.) published in the New Statesmen magazine (about current affairs and politics). One of the statistic in an article analyzing behavior of current young generation strikes me a little bit. It stated that 70% of kids (elementary and high school) in the UK do not say ‘thank you’ when doing them a favor, and ‘sorry’ when they did something wrong.
This number was not analyzed and elaborated in length in the article, but I think we can easily help the author to draw to the following conclusions, i.e., our macro environment is nurturing a young generation that:
(i) Take things for granted - As I deserve to have it. Well ….., I don’t care how much I have contributed. I just think that I do not receive enough. I do not need to justify for anything. I JUST DESERVE IT!
(ii) Self-centered and self-important - My ego and esteem should not be challenged, as I am always right, and I am always the best
(iii) Irresponsible - It is always someone else’s fault. Not me. If, indeed, I had done something irresponsible, it is always someone (my mum, for example) asked me to do so.
By the way, the author of the article is a professor from the King’s College (London).
Well, maybe this research should not be performed by anyone older than 30. After all, kids these days often use modern phases such as ‘cheers’, ‘ta’, ‘nice mates’, ‘cool dudes’, ‘merci’, ………… etc, in lieu of a simple ‘thank’. And old folks like the author and I would never be able to comprehend and appreciate.
Anyway, in an American's way, in this special occasion, a belated thank to all.
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