Some quirks in life that I have observed from idling on the mrts or just anywhere in the world.
Just an add on to my previous post Press the Hot Button.
The passenger thinks he’s riding on the bus and he needs to press the button to alight?!
Smrt should do more to educate the public to reduce down time for such silly incidents!!!
That button is for EMERGENCIES!! Not to be pressed for fun!! Sigh….
It’s only today that I realized how frequently the emergency button has been abused on the mrt. The button is big and undoubtedly attractively red. That may explain why.
The “hot” button was pressed for several reasons.
1. Unwell passenger. Ok fine. Sounds pretty valid to me.
2. For no reason. Several times the Smrt was unable to locate the source of the problem. I suspect it lies with certain “itchy fingers” of the passengers. I wonder if there’s an illness called itchyfingerholic.
3. UFO. Unidentified bag left in the cabin. Well, ok. There’s the risk of a bomb. One can never be too careful. I still remember my fateful incident in a London tube station. We saw a bunch of officers running towards a solitary bag left in a tube station. Dear Seow said,”oh my goodness! It may be a bomb!”. We ran for dear lives. With a backpack full of 1 month’s *barang on our backs. We were pretty darn fit then. It’d kill me to perform the same feat now!!
4. Someone’s bag/hand/some part of the body was caught in the door. It’s happened to me before!! No one pressed the emergency button for me. T.T
5. But today’s the one that really cracked me up. Check this out.
Someone pressed the emergency button because he was upset by his neighbour’s loud music. He must have mistaken the button for the player’s stop button?? He stopped the whole train just so that all the rest of the passengers could be trapped in the train together with him and enjoy the loud music.
Wahahaha. I marvel truly at his ingenuity. I wonder who he is!! C’mon stompers!! You are not doing your job!! You should have *stomped him!!! He can then enjoy his moment of fame.
Next time if someone plays gangnam music I can press the hot button?!?!
*barang = stuff
*stomp = an online tabloid where people snap photos of unsuspecting strangers in various compromising positions and upload them. Link here.
Hahaha. This must be the best joke I’ve read in a really loooong while that I MUST share it with everyone.
The author of the article is obviously trying to make up his mind whether he’s trying to compliment or discredit Singapore. I dare say that he’s probably still 2 minds about it while he’s writing it.
It’s an honor to know that our little “Pacific Isle” warranted such attention. I hope he isn’t mixing us up with one of the Pacific Islands. He should have brushed up on his geography. This brings me back to people I’ve come across during my backpacking trips. Many Americans and Europeans I’ve met thought Singapore was either 1. Part of China 2. Part of Malaysia. They were speaking with a knowing, patronizing air. Well, Singapore is an island in the Pacific Ocean. Let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt. After all he’s a tabloid writer and not a geography teacher!!
But critics say the sparkling lights and glass facades mask a reality of government control and social suppression
Gosh! You’ve no idea how suppressed I’m feeling, writing this blog. Pssst… I’m writing this under my blanket on my bed! Don’t tell anyone!! So are the rest of the contributors to “The Temasek Review”, “the online citizen” and the whathaveyous.. Oh wait! They may be writing in the privacies of their toilet cubicles!!
Male homosexuality is illegal, a gathering of five or more people requires an official permit and outstaying a visa can result in three strokes of the cane
Hmmm… I wonder how the pink dot movement became so open when male homosexuality is illegal?? I wonder if the author has any concrete number on the number of male homosexuals who have been found guilty and punished in Singapore?! Ahhh his maths must be hovering around the same standard as his geography.
Every time we hold a karaoke session with more than 5 people we had to apply for a permit from the government. :). Just kidding. No wonder our favourite pastime is playing mahjong!!
And does the UK welcome people with open arms when they overstay their visas? Maybe they do, giving them 3 kisses instead of 3 strokes of caning. I need to read up on the uk immigration law. Thank goodness I’m not a professional journalist!!
Pornography and littering both carry hefty fines while the unauthorised use of a wifi internet connection is considered hacking and can end in jail
And what’s wrong with fining these people? You litter you pay or you jolly well eat up your rubbish?? Besides how are we going to pay for the cleaners?? Sigh. I guess if he doesn’t quote the most serious term of any crime the news is not sensational enough. Of course go to jail lah!!! Most serious one Mah!!!! Aiyo don’t they send people to jail in other parts of the world for ANYTHING?!
I, for one, welcome the chewing gum ban. I’ve remembered countless times when chewing gums had ruined my favourite dresses or shoes. And seriously does anyone die from not being able to chew gum?! Duh! Get a life!! And I can’t understand why everyone is so fixated on this ban?! Do they own shares in Wrigley’s??
But I kind of like the photos. Good enough for the Singapore Tourism Board. Nice photography there!! And of course check out the comments. There are so many comments contradicting the views of the writer that they have to close the thread. Sigh. Talk about the “freedom of speech and expression”. Double standard rule here.
If you are feeling bored on a Sunday afternoon and are dying for a joke, it makes a good read.
Suntec city, convention hall 40something. Smart Property Exhibition 2012. Saturday afternoon.
When an arrow sharp and straight hit me, I knew I had to burn my beautiful Saturday afternoon, working at Suntec City. It’s during this time that I heard an awesome Fengshui analysis for the property outlook for 2012.
Grandmaster Tan : The wealth positions of Singapore lie in the north-east position and (north or south, he was speaking in mandarin and I didn’t quite catch it. But that covers all grounds. :p) north/south-west.
Punggol lies in the north-west position of Singapore. Therefore for this year, the property there will BOOM!!!
Audience : ooooohhhhhh!!
Grandmaster Tan : (with a wise nod) but it’s too late for now. 4 years ago, I predicted this here at the smart exhibition. Ahhh but many people didn’t believe in it. Now all the houses there prices going up very fast!!
Audience : hmmmm… (with regrets)
Earth shaking prediction!!! (or more of the on-the-hindsight) Anyone who’s bought a property in any part of Singapore 4 years back would have made a tidy profit now. Man! I should have gone into this Fengshui business!!!! *rolls eyes*
Ok before Fengshui enthusiasts haul stones at me, I was in a foul mood because I had to work. Zzz
Being can packed in the MRT like a sardine had already soured my mood! AND standing right behind a long haired girl certainly didn’t brighten up my day.
Well, if I were a guy, I might have been fantasizing about washing my face with the lass’ hair, except for the fact that her hair wasn’t that of the quality seen in shampoo advertisements and that applied to her face as well. (Now now, that’s really a meanie thing to say. As you can see, I’m not my sweet self now.) And yes, I believe I have ever written about the strange fetish men (especially my good friend, Mr. Kong) have about long hair. I told him that he should date Sadako (the victimised long haired lass from “The Ring”), the date would surely be a memorable one.
On with the story… Yes, I was standing behind this long haired girl who strangely had this super duper absolutely irriating habit of turning her head to flick her hair around! For WHAT?! The train was simply too packed to allow her the space to do that (and she’s eating into my personal air space. That alone, has already offended me lots!) and every eligible bachelor was probably nose deep in his iphone. (I have observed that 8 out of 10 passengers were cross eyed at peering into their iphones.) All she had achieved was to irritate me as her long strands or prickly hair kept entering my nostrils!
My first horrified thought was,”Eeks!! When had she last washed her hair?!” The consolation thought was, I had not cleaned my nose that day, so maybe that might have helped clean up my ample supply of dried mucus, otherwise known as “pi sai”. I had not really come to a conclusion on which was more unhygenic? I bravely endured the thought and ticklish feeling until it was getting pretty unbearable. (I was referring to the ticklish feeling. I was secretly relishing the thought of my many pieces of “pi sais” sticking to her hair. Evil eh??)
I could feel my hand creeping up (against my will, of course!), to tug at her hair to stop the swishing! As my disobedient limb almost reached her hair, she decided to alight. Sigh… I could have given her some aid in hair lengthening…and I could almost envision myself looking really apologetic to her and pointing behind me, mouthing, “sorry! he pushed me!!”
What an anticlimax!!
I visited Naples some donkey years back. The Italian government decorated the streets with ornaments that flashed green and red. At first we thought that they were traffic lights! After observing the locals and the drivers (the traffic continued unaffected whether the lights flashed red or green), we realised that they were just decorative street lamps! Trust me, crossing the streets in Naples had never been more exciting.
Orchard road was decorated with huge structured and bright lightings during Christmas; Chinatown during Chinese New Year etc
At Pasir Ris park, the National Parks have erected “No Kiteflying Allowed” signs in the park. Nice ornaments.
Come to think of it, maybe people mistook the sign for “No Stingray Fishing Allowed”. It does look like a stingray right???
Have you seen the “Phit Phit Shoes” that toddlers wear? The squeaking ones that go “phit phit” when they run in them, similar to the bells which farmers hang around the necks of their cows to keep track of them. Well, I haven’t thought much about them, except that they were probably the most primitive “GPS” system used to track babies down.
TODAY! I discovered how absolutely IRRITATING they can be!! The occasional “phit phit” can be a comic relief, but if you were to hear constant “phitting” for like 20 mins, you can really be driven mad by it! I was totally absorbed in my book, while waiting for my turn at the hospital when a family of 3 turned up and occupied the seats in my seating cluster. The toddler (he’s the culprit wearing the shoes), at first sight, was really adorable. He must have just learnt how to walk and it must have been a novelty to him. His father put him down on the floor and he happily ran around the place. The “phit phit” sound from his shoes was bearable at first, until his father treated the waiting area like his personal playground. He was chasing his son (yes, the FATHER) around the whole area in the hospital, shouting at the top of his voice, “come here, come here!” It’s no wonder, the kid ran around madly on his “phit phit phitting” shoes! Meanwhile, his mother was clapping her hands enthusiastically and shouting ” phit phit” along with his shoes. An adult imitating a pair of shoes. GREAT! So this went on for 20 mins… (yes, that’s considered a short wait at a public hospital). I was nearly driven mad by the constant high pitched sound. Standing up, I was edging towards the happily clapping, “phit phitting” mother, to remind her that they were at a hospital where there were ill people around and peace and quiet would be much appreciated and the place was not their private playground, when my number flashed across the screen. Lucky for them and for me as well!
I dodged into the scanning room for my scan, very much relieved that there would be some quiet moments in there. As usual, I was directed to yet another section of the hospital (which was rather far from the previous scanning section) for doctor’s consultation after the scanning. I made myself comfortable outside the doctor’s room, as I anticipated another long wait, with my book. I was at my 3rd page, when from the corner of my eyes, three familiar figures were seen and an all too-close-to-heart sound was heard. Phit “>Phit Phit Phit!
I simply couldn’t believe my good fortune of the day…. the Phit family has just migrated from the scanning section to the very same consultation section as mine. Why ME?!
Picture this – a maid feeding a boy who was playing his PSP (Playstation Portable – If you don’t know what this is, you are seriously “passe”). He parted his lips and food was scooped into his mouth. Make a guess at his age? 2 years old? Well, add another 10 years to that. Yesss!! Even a 2-year-old can feed himself!
I have seen this all too often in various parts of our small little country. Is it because of the “maid culture” that is so rampant here? Blame the maids? I hardly think that it’s attributed to them. Because I have seen even parents do this.
“Water! Evita!” screeched a parent with an outstretched hand. Magically, a glass of water materialised in her grasp. Hey! This is even more convenient than making a wish to the genie! Even Aladdin had to do some work for his wish to be granted, well, he had to rub the genie’s lamp, remember?
“Feed Ah Boy!” (In case you are misinformed, Ah Boy is not the name of a dog.)
“Diana! Ah Boy doesn’t want his dinner! Bring the bean curd jelly to him!” (Ah Boy happens to have 2 strong legs, which for reasons I can’t fathom, simply can’t walk himself to the dining table, which was less than 1m away.)
It was all too convenient. At the command of a voice, the poor maid scampered around to perform the most trivial task. Children, being children, imitated their parents, became leg-less, hand-less, spine-less, with the maids at the beck of their calls. I find this phenomenon very disturbing indeed. What was wrong with feeding yourself? What was so difficult to walk to the kitchen to get yourself a drink of water? (HDB flats in Singapore are infamously tiny. It probably took about 7 steps to get from the living room to the kitchen.)
With the influx of domestic help in Singapore, every family has a maid. Parents simply glued their butts to the sofas and ordered their maids around, so do the children. Children are little duplicates of parents. Now you wonder why more children are becoming obese in Singapore. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons, besides the gorging of fast food. I cringe at the thought of teenagers who needed their maids to carry their bags for them or even tie their shoelaces for them.
Domestic help, well, are meant to be “helps”! Helping with the cleaning of the houses, they are not there to turn the present and next generation in armless, legless, spineless sloths. Unfortunately, this is what is happening over here. It has created a superiority misconception in children that they are masters or mistresses to the maids and they can be simply ordered around.
I really wonder how we used to get by without domestic help? Starve to death or die of thirst, just because we didn’t have a maid to bring food to our mouths or water to our lips? Parents, if your children do grow up to be worthless creatures, don’t blame the educational system, don’t criticise the society, look to yourselves, what kind of values have you imparted to them?!
If you stay on the little island of Singapore, you will not be surprised to see a mosque, a temple and a church being built next to one another. Therefore, it’s not surprising to have a Christian wake (or funeral) being set up on the ground floor of a block of flats and the next day a Taoist wake. However, this is not the main point of my blog, which I admit that I’m digressing from.
Anyway, back to the Taoist wake which is being held at the ground floor (or affectionately known as the void deck) of my block. It is a rather grand affair with colourful flags and numerous blankets lining the entire driveway from the road, all the way to my block of flats. If you have been to my place, you’d know that it’s a LOOONNNGGG drive. So put your imagination to work and you will marvel and the sheer number of blankets. Not only that, you can’t even begin to imagine the NUMBER of cars parked on one side of the narrow road, leaving only a width of 1/2 car space for other cars to maneouver. Great estimation of space.
Now you realise the scale of this particular wake!! Being a Taoist wake, it entails a 24 hour (I hope not, but it really seems like 24 hours to me) of “singing” and chanting (I dearly wish that they have given the “singers” proper singing instructions, which is sorely lacking in this group). I hope I haven’t insulted them by thinking that it sounds more like high pitched screeching to me. Til now, I have not figured out why the “singing” has to be so high pitched, why can’t they get mellow tenors to belt out the songs instead of poorly trained sops. SIgh… Not only that, the well chosen instruments include cymbals (very generously used), gongs and other attention seeking ones.
They have certainly gained MY attention and my neighbours. Alas, it’s not enough for them. They just have to share their musical talents with my neighbouring… town. Huge AMPLIFIERS (yes! Really huge ones! Exactly like the ones you find at a pop star’s concert) have been brought in to maximise the effect!!! The marvel (or woes) of technology is now penetrating through my very walls, reverberating around my room.
I truly share the pain of the deceased and the people around them. At least I can muffle the sounds by closing all my windows. But, I simply pity the ones who have to be at the site for a prolonged period. However, the music may grow on them. Who knows??!!
Recently (ok, not so recently. I coined this posting in my mind but have only got around to ACTUALLY posting it today) I attended a team building workshop with my colleagues to set the you-know mission statement, vision thingy.
The trainer brought up a point about harnassing today’s technology to expand the business network and contacts, to bring the products closer to the marketplace. He mentioned marketing on twitter and facebook. Therefore, the facebook profile photo should be a well-taken one in formal business attire (Mine shows me eating seaweed soup in Korea – Failed the 1st criterion). And SINCE it’s supposed to project you in an utterly professional image, you are not supposed to put any “xia suay” (it means humiliating in the Hokkien Dialect) photo albums. (My photo albums have photos of me in various compromising actions, no nude ones though… – another big X.) The facebook page is meant for you to market the latest project and updates about your business. (My facebook page contains various snide remarks about my friends’ comments, photos, what-have-yous. – F9 there.)
Therefore, I have concluded that my facebook page is totally unfit for the business aspect. Therefore, he suggested creating another profile for business purposes. Hmm.. So I asked him, “what about you? Don’t you have your friends on facebook?” He replied, “My business self and personal self are coherent, therefore I need not create another one.” HAH! He must be quite a boring person.
Anyway, with that wise bit of advice, I have decided that if I were to create another facebook account, simply for business purposes, it will end up to be so UN-me. I will be passing comments like,”Wow! That’s a thoughtful action!” instead of “Don’t you have better things to do?!!” or “That photo is so wonderfully YOU!” instead of “Oh my goodness! Did you dig out that piece of drapery from your GREAT grandmother’s wardrobe?!”
I will become so utterly hypocritcal and boring. That would probably have severe repercussions on my mental health, maybe even resulting in schizophrenic (SEOW! Is this how it’s spelt??!!) behaviour. My dear friends, you wouldn’t want that to happen to me right? Because I’m the light of your lives.
Therefore, I have decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and give up the money making opportunities through my facebook profile so that I can continue to post ugly photos of myself and pass insulting but liberating remarks on all your entries! REJOICE!!