Now pause a while and make a guess. If the letter "A" is Yang, what is Yin?
No clue? Here's a tip- Yang is open whilst Yin is hidden.
Well, if "A" is Yang, all the other 25 alphabets are Yin. Standing alone "A" has no meaning whatsoever. It has to be stringed with other alphabets to help form words, sentences, paragraphs and meaning. On its own it is powerless but together with Yin all possibilities are there, almost infinite.
When I read about the demise of Literature as a school subject in Singapore and all the comments and lamentations in the Forum pages, I can't help connecting it to the Yin and Yang concept. To me Maths, Sciences and Geography are Yang in essence whilst humanitarian subjects like Literature and History are more Yin like. Without an appreciation of literature, one is somewhat deficient, not being able to unfold the essence behind how people live, how people feel and why they behave the way they do. As per ST's editorial: "Literature may not train students for a specific job, but it rounds out their education.... It reflects, interprets and presents life artistically in quest of fundamental and universal truths".
Incidentally if you don't already know the reasons behind why only 3000 'O' Level students took literature last year (17,000 in 1992), it is because of the difficulty to score for this subject. This pathetic pragmatism is also evident during my discussion with the charitable organisation I have been vying to offer my service. Yes, it responded finally. Whilst recognising the critical need for emotional healing amongst its residents, the supervisor is striving to find suitable time slots because the children are burdened with heavy school work, tuition and other programs.
Clearly more need to be done to make us see in perspective that "everything exists together in a delicate balance"
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