The National Courtesy Campaign was a campaign launched in June 1979 by the Ministry of Culture of Singapore as a means of encouraging Singaporeans to be kinder and more considerate to each other, so as to create a pleasant social environment. The courtesy campaign was to be an annual effort by the government to encourage the people to adopt a more courteous attitude and lifestyle. It was seen as a means of ensuring a smooth transition to a new Singapore which would be densely populated, where people lived and worked in high rise towns, offices and factories, while travelling in crowded buses and lifts. In 1997, the campaign was subsumed by the Singapore Kindness Movement. Origins The National Courtesy Campaign was not actually the first of its kind to instill values of courtesy to Singaporeans, though earlier campaigns were not conducted on as large a scale as the National Courtesy Campaign over such a long period. More than 10 years prior to the introduction of the National Courtesy Campaign, there was already a Bus Safety and Courtesy Campaign, which was held in 1968, as well as the National Safety First Council Road Courtesy Campaigns and the Safety and Courtesy Campaign Week, which were held between 1972 and 1973, among others. The forerunner of the National Courtesy Campaign is usually recognised as the courtesy campaign that was conducted by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB). The courtesy campaign conducted by the STPB was meant to teach Singaporeans to be polite only to tourists for the benefit of the tourist industry. Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had followed the courtesy campaigns by the STPB with "interest and amusement: interest because most people were responsive to the campaign; amusement because no one protested that it was absurd to teach Singaporeans to be polite to tourists". In his speech, he stressed the importance of being courteous in one's everyday life as it would make life better for everyone. It was a desirable attribute which could be found in all cultivated societies, and something which Singaporeans should practice for Singapore's own self-esteem. If tourists did find Singapore a courteous nation, it was because it was "incidental". This "prodding" by Lee Kuan Yew resulted in the birth of the National Courtesy Campaign, which became a recurrent, annual campaign that was a long-term project to imbue values of courtesy into Singaporeans within a period of 10