Different talents needed for different jobs

SINGAPORE needs people with a sense of the aesthetics and not just people who get straight As in school, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

He made the point to illustrate that different jobs require different talents, citing landscape architecture as one job that requires an aesthetic sense.

Recalling Singapore's early years, he said he was struck by what he saw in Japan, where every little plot of land was beautifully manicured.

In Singapore then, 'we had lots of traffic circles and triangles that could not be used because all we had was wild grass', he said last night at Singapore Botanic Gardens' 150th anniversary celebration.

So he asked Japan for two landscape architects to help 'make every corner where there is a piece of land, unused, make it a Japanese-style garden with tropical plants'.

After two years, the duo returned home and the gardens became unkempt and unsightly. They were called back and asked why it happened.

The architects explained that training alone was not enough, the Singaporeans also needed an aesthetic sense.

'In Japan, to say you are a landscape architect, you have to have an aesthetic sense.'

The aesthetic sense is identified from a young age in Japan, he said. 'From the first day in school, you set out to discover what is your talent.

'They see how good you are with drawing, sculpture, playing with clay. If you're very good, when you grow up, you become an artist, sculptor, painter...If you're not so good you become an interior decorator, you dress up windows.'

So for Japanese garden experts, 'it's not that you plant a tree here and there, he has a conception and a vision of what will make the place beautiful'.

In comparison, 'we hired people on the basis of their O- and A-level results', Mr Lee said to loud laughter.

'So you've got symmetrical minds, and the same thing happened with HDB flats, I looked at them, all the same shape and size.'

But Mr Lee takes heart from what he saw during a recent visit to Nanyang Polytechnic.

A design student's drawing caught his eye. Her graphics, he said, stood out from the other students' 'because she had an artistic sense of shape, form, colours'.