Complaining: our way of life

Cover via AmazonIs complaining an indicator of our graciousness and courtesy level? We're driving at that, you know!
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A complaint about complainers

by Tabitha Wang

Okay, I want to know who took American author Dan Buettner around when he visited Singapore. Whoever it was, the Singapore Tourism Board should hunt them and offer them a job.

They must have done one heck of a great job selling the Lion City to Buettner for him to conclude that it is the happiest place in Asia in his new book, Thrive, Finding Happiness The Blue Zones Way.

Yes, Singapore. Not even Bhutan, famously known for its Gross National Happiness index.

Buettner says Singapore has all it takes for happiness: Tolerance, status equality, security, trust, access to recreation and financial security.

He based his findings on interviews with Singaporeans from all walks of life - from Community Chest chairman Jennie Chua to housewife Noridah Yusoh.

I don't doubt that his interviewees told him they were happy. But are Singaporeans really happy people?

Just look at all those letters of complaint in the newspapers. Just take a peek at the posts in blogs and responses to online news. These are not exactly all sweetness and light, are they?

I remember once complimenting a store manager about how well her shop was run. She said: "Can you put it down in writing in our feedback slip?"

Apparently, if people were satisfied, they never bothered to fill the slip. But if something annoying were to happen, no matter how infinitely minor, you can be sure those feedback forms would be filled, even posted if necessary.

I think Singaporeans are never happy unless we have something to be unhappy about. Our slogan should be: We moan, therefore we bond.

Try asking a Singaporean: "So how's business/your children/your work/your family?"

The answer is invariably: "Okay lah, can be better."

Coffeeshop talk is never about how wonderful life is. It's always about how badly a chosen English Premiership team is doing, how much money one has lost playing 4D, how the "gahmen" should be doing this, that or the other ...

Nothing can make us happy. If property prices are low, we fret about going into negative equity and how we may never have enough money to retire on. If property price are high, we complain we can't buy a roof over our heads or can't afford that investment home.

If we have a job, we complain about how we're overworked and underpaid. But lose our jobs and we moan even louder.

We have security in the form of low crime rates but still whine that the police can do more. We have access to recreation but grumble that the facilities are not up to scratch.

Maybe it's because there's some superstitious Asian bit of us that never likes to admit how well things are going in case some malevolent spirits take notice and decide to cause mischief.

Or perhaps we, like Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, are worried about being too happy because, as he told Buettner: "Then I would be complacent, flabby, and walk into the sunset."

Looking at the blurb for Thrive in Amazon.com, though, I think I have found why Singapore is considered the happiest place in Asia.

It states: "According to Buettner's advisory team, the average person can control about 40 per cent of his or her individual happiness by optimising life choices. They fall into three categories that make up the way we live our lives: The food we eat, the way we exercise, and the social networks we foster."

So simple. It's food.

I'm not sure about the exercise and social network bit but we've always enjoyed our food. For sure, finding the ultimate char kway teow or chicken rice puts me in a good mood for days.

Maybe life's happiness can really be as simple as that.

Tabitha Wang will see you at the kopitiam. You can complain about anything all you like as long as you buy her a fluffy prata telur bawang.


Taken from TODAYONline.com, Voices; source article is below:
A complaint about complainers

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Punctuality in place of friendly service?

Image by Ex-Smith via FlickrThis is the reply from one reader.

Now, the thing to note here is that I have moved to a place where it is a very short distance from the train station. But the bus servicing our area goes on a loop. And it takes about 20-25mins coming out of our place.

And while the frequency is 5mins, there is nothing to compensate for the long travel time just to come out into the faster train service. Should I say, more predictable train service?

But that is nothing at all. I am frequently showing up late for work these couple of weeks, but my wife would tell me otherwise. Your own personal benefit of getting in late can't be the reason for the ignoring of the greater good's welfare.

Bus driver can't simply speed up and leave others waiting for their ride.

Train service can't simply not stop to make time for the train service turning about to ferry a full load of passengers.

And so, what's the solution to my problem? Just wake up earlier, and get a ride earlier. Sometimes the solution doesn't come from the government, but from the people.

Think so?
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Punctuality in place of friendly service?

Letter from Dawn Lee

I REFER to the commentary "Hold bus services to higher standards" (Dec 3).

Sometimes living in super-efficient Singapore can cause us to lose some perspective. Buses are subjected to traffic conditions, accidents and roadwork that all motorists have to deal with. You can stand at a bus stop with a watch and a clipboard and audit your bus arrival times all you want but what does that tell you? That the traffic situation was okay.

I have lived in cities where buses were on time and strict adherence to a schedule can actually compromise service standards. If you stress your drivers out by insisting they have to be on time no matter what, they will have less emotional capacity for kindness.

As for those schedules? Where I lived in Germany, there was only one service I could take to work. It left the interchange every 20 minutes at peak hour and every 40 minutes on weekends. I have many memories of being only 10 seconds late, running alongside the bus, waving frantically and yelling and being completely ignored as it zoomed away.

I have lived in Melbourne, where tram drivers have shut the doors in my face and gone off down the road. Schedules, you see.

I love the buses here at home. I do not even care if they are not on time. It is not like we have to wait more than 20 minutes for a bus anyway or that we do not have alternative routes and connections.

In a city like Singapore, where people are not naturally friendly, it is so nice to have bus drivers who look in the rear-view mirror and wait for that old lady or the schoolboy lumbering along with his heavy schoolbag.

My experience is that most drivers are polite, friendly and patient.

It was such a joy to come back to this.

Strike a balance and do not insist on strict punctuality at the expense of people skills and flexibility and judgement to respond in different sets of circumstances.


Taken from TODAYOnline.com; source article is below:
Punctuality in place of friendly service?

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Hold bus services to higher standards

I am putting up this article, since it is the basis of another noteworthy reply from a reader. Read this one first, then the other one next.
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Hold bus services to higher standards

Let's also employ more technology, set up high-level task force to effect real improvement

by Richard Hartung

Everything seems fine with the buses here, according to the Public Transport Council (PTC). SBS Transit "complied with all the standards," the PTC said in October, while SMRT has only "been fined for three failures" for late departures in the six months until May.

Tell that to commuters, though, and you may hear far different accounts as their stories come gushing out.

One commuter I know taking Service 75 during peak hours in mid-October, for example, waited for 20 minutes one day and then had two buses arrive together as soon as he reached the bus stop the next morning. It is an experience commonly echoed by many.

Another commuter I spoke to compares bus drivers' stop-and-go driving techniques to the rides hurtling people around at Universal Studios. More stories like these abound.

With over three million passenger-trips on buses every day, the impact of small delays or other problems is huge. Not unexpectedly, the Singapore Management University's 2010 Q2 Customer Satisfaction Index found that "customer satisfaction scores for both the Mass Rapid Transit Systems and the public buses sub-sectors have been declining since 2007".

So what can be done? Several steps could make commuting by bus better.

For one, Singapore could start using best practices. Research last year by Imperial College's Mark Trompet, for example, showed that New York set a standard where buses must arrive within three minutes after their scheduled arrival time and buses in Paris must arrive within two minutes. Where schedules in Singapore do exist, he said, buses are supposed to arrive within five minutes before or after their scheduled time.

That 10-minute window can cause dissatisfaction, or worse. As research by University of Arizona Professor Ryan Johnson mentions, a "bus-bunching phenomenon has frustrated passengers in cities around the world". Other research cited by Mr Trompet showed that bus arrival irregularity "discourages commuters' use of public transit".

If we're going to get people to ride the bus and like it, moving to the levels of New York or Paris could help. While the PTC does measure 11 standards, tracking others like "regularity" or "customer satisfaction" as is done in Sydney and setting higher targets such as arriving within three minutes of the scheduled time - rather than "at least 80 per cent of bus services to operate at headway (frequencies) of not more than 10 minutes during weekday (excluding public holidays) peak periods" - could lead to higher service levels.



THE TECH IS OUT THERE

Another step would be to leverage leading-edge technology fully. In the United States, University of California Professor Alex Bayen's research group is merging radar, lidar, detectors embedded in roads and video with input from GPS devices to "detect patterns and build a prediction engine".

One initiative in Sydney, according to the New South Wales Auditor-General, is a real time bus monitoring system that "can also provide traffic light priority for late running buses". While technology is used here, too, bus companies still have staff standing at bus stops monitoring bus arrivals with a watch and paper!

Steps like changing bus priority real-time, using better prediction models for scheduling and using technology to help enforce bus priority in bus lanes could result in higher service levels. While usage of some of this technology may already be in the pipeline here, employing more of it and communicating the results could also be beneficial.

Improving bus transport is important for reducing commute times, raising productivity and increasing usage of public transportation, among other reasons. Despite efforts to do better, Land Transport Authority data until 2008 showed that bus commuting times had remained static at about 42 minutes for a decade. Even though it turns out that SMRT is a member of the International Bus Benchmarking Group that shares global best bus practices, data still indicates that arrival times and other results lag best-in-class standards.

Actually solving the problems may take more focus than what has been the case so far. For example, the situation in Singapore may be serious enough to warrant an independent and high-level task force to develop and implement strategies that lead to real improvement. Setting and achieving higher standards as well as taking steps to leverage technology even better could also make a big difference. There are a multitude of other opportunities.

Public transport here has the potential to be world-class and improvements will benefit productivity as well as commuter satisfaction levels. The critical next step is to make the change happen.


The writer is a consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992.



Taken from TODAYOnline.com; source article is below:
Hold bus services to higher standards

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Pesticides and dementia

And hopefully this findings won't be easily forgotten...
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Working with pesticides linked to dementia

PARIS: Long-term exposure to pesticides may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, according to a study released Thursday.

Workers "directly exposed" to bug and weed killers while toiling in the prestigious vineyards of Bordeaux, France were five times more likely to score less well on a battery of neurological tests than those with minimal or no exposure, the study found.

As revealing, this high-exposure group was twice as likely to register a significantly sharp drop in a key test -- frequently used to diagnose dementia -- repeated four years after the initial examination.

The drop "is particularly striking in view of the short duration of follow up and the relatively young age of the participants," mostly in their late 40s or 50s, the authors said.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that chronic use of pesticides in agriculture boosts the risk of neurological disorders.

France has the highest use of insecticides and herbicides in Europe, and the fourth highest worldwide after the United States, Japan and Brazil.

More than 800,000 people in France are exposed in the agriculture sector, as were another 800,000 who are now retired.

Worldwide the number of labourers who work regularly with pesticides is counted in the tens, if not the hundreds, of millions.

In the Bordeaux study, led by Isabelle Baldi of The French Institute for Public Health, Epidemiology and Development, 614 workers were enrolled in 1997 and 1998 and re-evaluated four or five years later.

On both occasions they completed a detailed questionnaire on their work history, along with nine tests designed to measure memory and recall, language retrieval, verbal skills and reaction times.

The subjects were divided into four groups depending on their level of exposure to pesticides over the previous 20 years or longer, ranging from "directly exposed" to "not exposed".

"The mild impairment we observed raises the question of the potentially higher risks of injury in this exposed population, and also of the possible evolution toward neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or other dementias," the researchers concluded.

The same cohort is undergoing a third evaluation, 12 years after the baseline examination. Results will be published in 2012 or 2013.

"This time lag should enable us to better understand cognitive impairment and its evolution, and observe the first cases of Alzheimer's disease among a population close to 65 years of age," the researchers said in a companion briefing paper.

-AFP/ac


Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:Working with pesticides linked to dementia

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Hello, where is my privacy?

I saw this article, and at times, this telemarketers come right at the time you need them... Honestly, that would be about 1/100. So most of the time, you don't need them, and they call you!
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BUDGET TAI TAI
Tabitha Wang

It’s scary how much telemarketers know about us

I am all alone at home. Suddenly the phone rings. The voice at the other end of the line is more frightening than the one talking to Drew Barrymore in Scream.

"Hello, can I take a minute of your time to tell you about this wonderful offer I have for a time-share/credit card/insurance policy/home loan?"

The first few times I was cold-called, I listened to their spiel then turned them down. The next few times, I answered politely: "No, thank you. I'm afraid I'm busy at the moment."

Then it became: "No, sorry." Then a curt "no". These days, I just hang up.

I wonder why they bother.

I've been a target of telemarketers ever since I started working (and appeared on their radar as someone with disposable income). But in the decade or so of getting their calls, I have agreed to sign up for only one thing - a credit card.

And that was only because I had already planned to do it and all the caller did was save me the hassle of filling up the form.

Usually, they're quite harmless, even those who claim I have won something but can claim my prize only when I sign up. But what concerns me are the ones who seem to know a lot about my habits.

I recently had one who offered me a store card for a certain mall because I shopped there a lot. How did the caller know that?

Has someone been secretly spying on me on my shopping expeditions?

Even more worrying was my colleague's experience. She had been maxing out her one credit card for a few months. Suddenly, she started getting calls offering her overdrafts at favourable rates. They were from different banks and insurance companies.

So how did they know about her debt? Her card was with a reputable bank, surely they couldn't have told anyone about her embarrassing secret?

These are legal touts.

I haven't even started on those scammers who call you about great investment opportunities usually involving exchange rates or money transfer to the banks of a certain country.

So I shed no tears when I read about how Hong Kong call centres and businesses cut staff recently because of new privacy protection guidelines.

About 200 direct marketing workers lost their jobs in the recent cull. There are an estimated 100,000 telemarketers in Hong Kong. The guidelines came into effect because of an uproar over the sale of personal data by Octopus a couple of months ago.

Octopus cards are like a combination of an ez-link card and a CashCard. You can use them for commuting, buying items and - this is what started it all - sign up with your name and contacts for points, which you can use to redeem rewards.

It later transpired that the company had been selling the data of about 2 million customers who had signed up for the scheme to merchants since 2002, earning it HK$57.9 million ($9.7 million).

Since then, there have been more scary revelations. The privacy commission is investigating complaints that three telecommunications operators had given customers' personal data to other companies.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has also said that some banks had sold customers' data to insurance firms (which might explain the calls my colleague had been receiving).

In a bid for understanding, Direct Marketing Association chairman Eugene Raitt told the South China Morning Post: "Consider also the tens or even hundreds of thousands of consumers who received benefits, including millions of dollars in insurance benefits they would not have received were it not for the marketing-partner relationships. Have they been harmed? We don't think so."

Harmed? Well, maybe not. But I feel a teensy bit unclean, a bit like knowing somebody has been rummaging in my underwear drawer.

I don't like to hear of people losing their jobs, though, so I have a suggestion: Employ them to man help lines.
So I don't have to wait an hour - constantly being reassured that "all our operators are busy at the moment. We will attend to you shortly" - only to get a heavily-accented voice at the other line barely speaking English.

Surely now that is one industry that won't need outsourcing.


Tabitha Wang can't talk right now but she will attend to you shortly. Your feedback is important to her.


From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 29-Oct-2010
Hello, where is my privacy?
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Showing signs of stress

Image via WikipediaFor one, I myself will agree to some inconsistency in the MRT line: authorities do say that they have increased the frequency of trains, resulting in shorter waiting time: 5mins to  2/3mins. My experience indicates a repugnance: when the waiting time is short, say 2/3mins, train usually stop in the middle of the track from that station to the next. And even when the interval lengthens to 5/6mins, train still stops in the middle of the track.

Why?

1. Short interval means previous train haven't cleared out of the next station, so next train has to wait, unfortunately, in the middle of the track. In my experience, that will be at least 1 stop, to as many as 3 stops, resulting to about 3/4mins. Total: 3mins + 4mins = 7mins.

2. Long interval means a train has terminated at the next station, and is reverted to travel back. So to give time for the other train to make the switch, your train has to stop mid-track. give it 3mins, and your total time becomes 8mins (6mins + 3mins = 9mins).

Then you say, which one is the lesser evil?
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BUDGET TAI-TAI
Tabitha Wong

The public transport system needs to improve


Friends from Singapore always complain about how crowded Hong Kong is compared to back home. Put them in an MTR station during rush hour and they look like deer caught in the headlights as people jostle them left, right and centre.

Crowded? As I type now, I am looking over the sea to the mountains and there is no one in sight. In the town, only one stray dog has braved the afternoon heat to venture out.

Former Housing and Development Board and Urban Redevelopment Authority chief executive Liu Thai Ker recently said Singapore could easily support up to 7.5 million people.

He joked that, if needed, there were still the islands of Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong.

Well, he must certainly be joking.

Consider the figures: Hong Kong is already considered one of the most densely-populated areas in the world, with 7 million people squeezed into about 1,100 km of land. The population density as at the middle of last year was 6,480 persons per sq km.

Everyone talks about how crowded Hong Kong is but, believe it or not, there are more people fighting for elbow space in Singapore.

The Lion City, with a land area of 710.3 sq km, now has a population of 5.08 million. Last year's Government statistics show that Singapore has a population density of 7,022 people per sq km.

And already the transportation system is showing signs of strain.

The last time I was in Singapore, I noticed there were signs proudly displayed saying that the frequency of MRT trains during peak periods was 3.5 minutes.

Three-and-a-half minutes? That's three-and-a-half times less frequent than MTR trains in Hong Kong.

Here, trains arrive every minute during peak hour - you don't have to rush to squeeze into the doors because you know there's one coming soon. Sometimes, one train has to wait at one station because the one in front hasn't even had time to leave the other station.

The trains are longer too: Trains on the MTR Island Line all have eight compartments, compared to only six on MRT's East-West and North-South lines.

No wonder the MTR trains can move an average 3.7 million passengers daily.

Singapore's Land Transport Authority has stated that, by 2012, there will be 22 new trains plying the North-South and East-West line. So in two years' time, it announced, waiting time will be reduced to between 2 and 3 minutes, from the current 2.5 and 4.5 minutes.

Good news, but even so, that is still twice as slow as the MTR train system.

For Singapore to house up to 7.5 million comfortably, people must spread out - and maybe repopulate Pulau Ubin.
Not everyone can work from home. In order to get people to move out of the city centre, there has to be great public transport.

This is where Hong Kong is one up on Singapore. Not only does it have faster trains, it also has a wide-variety of public transport: Train, bus, taxi, tram, ferry, even helicopter.

My daily commute, for example, involves a bus, a ferry and a train. The greater variety of choices enables me to live far from the madding crowd but still get to work on time.

The ferries don't have to contend with rush-hour traffic so there's no need to make allowance for traffic jams or road repairs.

The MRT may be running to capacity but a lot more can be done to improve Singapore's transportation system.
River taxis may be a solution.

The Singapore River goes from the Central Business District up to River Valley, offering an alternative route for after-hours drinks.

The Kallang River has an even better course, from the CBD all the way to the heartlands of Toa Payoh, Bishan and Ang Mo Kio - almost duplicating the route of the frequently jammed CTE.

So if there were a river taxi service, people might be able to step off a pier at, say, Ang Mo Kio Ave 2, and get to their office in One Marina Boulevard without the stress of rush-hour traffic or overcrowded trains.

The boats will have to be fast and air-conditioned, of course. So those lovely designer suits do not get creased.


Tabitha Wang wonders if it will be possible to take a river taxi down Orchard Road during the monsoon season.



From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 17-Sep-2010:
Showing signs of stress
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Books, glorious books

BUDGET TAI-TAI
Tabitha Wang

Hardcover or on an iPad, I devour them all — and I hope you do, too


This column almost didn’t get written. That’s because, despite my initial scepticism, I have become hooked on the Twilight series of teenage vampire novels.

I started on the first book on Sunday and, since then, have slept fewer than five hours a day, staying up late to finish all four books.

There are still 100 pages to go for Breaking Dawn, the last in the series, and I foresee I will be staying up till dawn to finish that up before work tomorrow.

As you’ve no doubt realised, I am a bookworm. I love the printed page and would even read the Yellow Pages if I had nothing else to peruse.

My mum started me reading from the age of three. Family lore has it that I amazed a bookstore assistant so much he kept throwing book after book at me to read until he exhausted his stock of children’s books.

Growing up, we didn’t have much money to buy books but there was always the library. I read anything I could lay my hands on — including my uncles’ silverfish- ridden spy novels (with naughty sex scenes that I didn’t understand then).

Now that I can afford to buy my own novels, there’s always one in my bag for those tedious waiting times. And heaven forbid if I forget one for my daily commute. Though it’s only a 20-minute train ride, I’d be bored out of my skull.

Thank goodness I married someone who is as much of a bookworm as I am, if not more so. Our flat is lined with bookshelves. We’re moving house and had to give our movers a list of things to pack. It read: One daybed, one mattress, 20 bookshelves and 100 boxes of books.

People have asked me: “How can you read so much?”

I ask in reply: “How can you not?”

I can’t understand people who say smugly: “I don’t read”, as if they’re too important for such childish pursuits. A guy once told me that on our first date. We never went on a second one.

It’s sad but I have noticed that many Singaporeans seem to have lost the joy of reading. Just walk into any of those expensively-decorated apartments and you’ll notice something: No books.

There may be a few magazines, possibly a coffee-table book or two, but where are those loved-till-the-spinefalls-off books? Can it be that Singaporeans are just too busy with the reality of earning a living to dream a little?

I was shocked when I met a teacher friend in Singapore who said: “I have no time to read.” And she taught English.

This cult of the unread is probably what is causing our dearth of creative talent. If you’ve never taken flights of fancy, how can you think outside the box?

A friend’s daughter, a bright, well-read seven-year-old, once ended her English composition with “Fancy that!” The unimaginative teacher crossed it out and wrote: “Irrelevant.”

The girl was being creative and applying what she had read in her beloved Rainbow Magic books but, instead of encouragement, she was told to go back to the same dull stuff as everyone else.

My friend was later told her daughter was “too imaginative” and “not following instructions” in her composition — the implication being she should not read anything but textbooks.

Is this how we want our children to grow up? With only the knowledge they can get from textbooks and nowhere else? With no encouragement as children, no wonder there are fewer adults reading.

Thankfully, devices like Kindle and the iPad and book series like Twilight and Harry Potter are getting people reading again. They may not be Shakespeare but it’s a start.

As my friend’s daughter would say: “Fancy that!”


Tabitha Wang can’t think of a witty one-liner here because she is dying to get back to Breaking Dawn.


From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 03-Sep-2010
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Afraid of rats, or the rat race?

This is one column that I would always look forward to. Presents the other side of life, the other view, a different perception - and usually, the insight is quite different from the rest of us - a standout, for the uncommon truth and fact of life, in Singapore.

It could be true in other countries as well. So, read on...
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BUDGET TAI TAI

Encounters of the rodent kind

by Tabitha Wang

The emails from my Singaporean friends were incredulous: "Really ah? Hong Kong got rat in Central? As long as 30 centimetres?"

Apparently the story of a tourist being bitten by a rat in the middle of this modern metropolis had spread far and wide. For those wondering what I am talking about, a British tourist was bitten on her heel by a rat outside a shoe-repair shop in Pedder Street last week.

Pedder Street is right smack in the middle of Central, in the heart of Hong Kong's business district. Though nothing more than a small lane lined with shoe-repair and key-cutting stalls, it is surrounded by banks and high-fashion shops. The site of the grievous bodily harm offence, so to speak, is just outside the wrought-iron gates of high-end boutique Shanghai Tang.

It also happens to be the MTR exit that I take on my way to and from work. The day after the story came out, I was assailed by the smell of heavy-duty disinfectant and bleach the minute I turned into the lane. Usually, you can hardly see one road sweeper in the area but on that day, I counted five sanitary workers pushing out huge rubbish bins and scrubbing down the entire lane.

As the old joke goes, dog bites man is not news but man bites dog is. Besides, the Food and Hygiene Department says last year's rodent infestation rate in Central was a low 4.7 per cent compared to 12.3 per cent in districts such as Kwun Tong.

So why did the rat-bite story create such an uproar?

Mostly because it happened right smack in the most modern part of this modern city. But also because the rat picked the wrong person to test its incisors on - a tourist. If it had happened to a local, I doubt there would have been much hoo-ha. In a place where old tong laus (walk-ups) jostle for space with mirrored skyscrapers, you come to expect some close encounters of the rodent kind.

After all, look what happened to the rat in question. After the tourist cried and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance, the shoe-repair stall owner simply stepped up to it and killed it with a broom. Without fuss.

At dai pai tongs (street stalls) in Central, I've seen locals lift their legs to let a rat scurry through without even pausing to lay their chopsticks down.

When my brother and sister-in-law were visiting, I took them to an upmarket burger joint in the area. As we were unwrapping our pork-chop burgers, a rat as big as a cat (no wonder the cats here don't dare to tackle them) scurried over our feet.

My sister-in-law screamed. The rest of the diners glanced down at the rat and then continued eating - and so did my sister-in-law after she calmed down.

Admittedly, coming from spanking clean Singapore where miniscule cockroaches cause major rubbish-chute fumigation, my equanimity has been hard-won. But I have learnt to take such unexpected meetings in my stride.

I've actually even come to accept that it is part of the charm of this city. In the same way that food eaten next to a drain always tastes better, cities that are a little grubby always seem to have more character.

That is why I can understand when some people tell me they think Singapore is soulless. It's because they, like me, secretly prefer a scruffy but enchanting ragamuffin who gets into scrapes over a well-behaved, over-polite child without a single spot on his outfit.

I like that the graffiti on walls are allowed to stay there for a bit instead of being whitewashed immediately. In fact, one graffiti artist, dubbed the King of Kowloon, has even had his manic scribblings dubbed works of art.

I like that I have to pick my way carefully through a wet market when I do visit one. It makes the whole experience more real.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe deep down inside, I think a lot of enjoyable things in life are a little messy. Trekking, paint-balling, going on a Jurassic Parks Rapid Adventure, eating chilli crabs ... and, of course, visiting Hong Kong.

But if you're still worried, then do what the locals do - wear boots.


Tabitha Wang is more afraid of the rat race than real rats.



From TODAY, Voices - Friday, 04-June-2010
Encounters of the rodent kind
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Oh, those stupid tourists

A voice that is becoming louder as the column is gaining readership... no, I won't take away from the excitement of reading it first, so...

Read on!
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BUDGET TAI TAI

Oh, those stupid tourists

They think things in Bangkok are just as they are back home ...

by Tabitha Wang

It's 2pm on a weekday and I'm chatting online with an old schoolmate, M. Suddenly, a message pops up: "Got to go, more clashes expected near my office."

Having worked in Bangkok for over three years now, M, a Malaysian, is no stranger to political protests in the city.

In November 2008, when the Yellow Shirts laid siege to the Suvarnabhumi Airport, she still went to work every day. It wasn't so bad, she recalled, because the protesters largely left the city alone.

This has not been the case with the recent protests. The main skirmishes took part just two train stations from her office so, more often than not, she would get ready for work, only to be turned back because they had closed the station. She has to take the bus instead - no cabbie would enter the area.

A single woman alone in a foreign country is always vulnerable, even at the best of times. What more when the country is in the midst of a bloody power struggle.

It sounds commendable that her company is not giving in. But her boss, whom you would expect might protect her, has run off to Perth with his family to wait out the skirmishes. He has refused to return until Thailand has a stable government again - which could be years.

Yet, he has insisted that she travel into the centre of the city to open the office every day since the protests began.

No, there will be no increase in insurance coverage. When she asked for a helmet or bulletproof vest, he just laughed. He wouldn't even let her have the company car, insisting that she make her own way to work every day.

Her local colleagues have not stepped into the office since the Red Shirts set up their camp in mid-March. So she mans the office alone, staying away from the windows and making do with cup noodles for lunch.

When the government threatened to cut the water and power supply, she had to fill buckets of water in the toilet just in case.

M has been watching her back for more than two months and now, she is fed up. She just wants to go home.

It is emotionally exhausting. She hasn't had a good night's sleep for weeks. Every little sound sends her sitting bolt upright in bed, convinced that another round of gunfire has started.

She comforts herself by saying the protesters have dispersed - but understandably, she is still afraid, especially when she can see barricades burning from her bedroom window.

It is lonely. She doesn't speak Thai so has not befriended anyone in her apartment block. Thankfully, the Internet is still up, so she can stay connected with her friends and family back home.

But the last straw was not being able to shop and eat because the protests are being held in the city's main shopping area.

"What's the point of being in Bangkok and not shopping or eating?" she lamented. "I moved here, putting up with the traffic and chaos, for the cheap food and clothes."

"There must be some places," I replied, pointing out that some Singaporeans, despite the Government's travel advisory, were still pouring into the city in search of imitation watches and fake antiques.

"The stupid tourists, you mean," she noted darkly.

Ah yes, the stupid tourists. The idiots who hear "protests" and think "perfect for a holiday". The ones who go to trouble spots, thinking: "It's nothing to do with me because they're fighting each other."

They forget that bullets and Molotov cocktails don't check passports. A lot of people who have been killed or injured so far were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything happens, they scream at their government and demand that they be airlifted home/rescued from prison/given compensation.

Many Red Shirts thought they were invincible because they had amulets to protect them. But, according to M, many tourists from Asean countries, including Singapore, are acting that way too.

"Their amulet is their sheer stupidity. They think things in Bangkok are just as they are back home."

M is pretty gloomy about the future of Thailand. She's told her boss she's had enough and is leaving Bangkok. For good. Tomorrow, she's taking advantage of the recent clampdown to make a dash for the airport, and head back home.

Where she can shop again. She said: "I know everything is cheap in Bangkok but so is life. I'm not about to die for a 50-baht shirt."


Even Tabitha Wang is not tempted by the thought of a to-die-for 50-baht shirt.



Taken from TODAY, Voices - Friday, 21-May-2010
Oh, those stupid tourists
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Like Apollo's Failure to Launch?

Cover via Amazon

At first glance on the title, I'm immediately reminded of space shuttles that, after all the preparation and hardships, the rigorous trainings and special suits - everything - it is a fiasco! Instead of applause and shouts of joy and congratulatory cries, what we hear is the opposite, all summed up in the words, "failure to launch."


Not to take out the excitement from the written article itself, do read on...

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Failure to launch

How do singles who live with their parents do it and mature at the same time?

by Tabitha Wang

My parents have come to Hong Kong for a fortnight. They've been here only two days and I've regressed by as many decades.

At this rate, I'd be babbling like a Teletubby by the weekend.

That is because, despite the fact that I haven't lived with them for 20-odd years, they still treat me as if I've never left home.

"Have you taken your cough mixture?"

"Are you going out with your hair wet like that?"

"Stop watching TV and eat your meal."

And that's only in the first hour they've been at my place.

I half-expect them to trot out curfew times and ask whom I've been going out with.

On the plus side, it means hot meals the moment I get home, not having to feed the cat before I go to work and putting the plates into the sink knowing that they will be washed by the next morning.

It's great having everyday decisions taken away from me - like what to have for dinner, whether to run the washing machine, when to go grocery shopping …

Leaving me free to make the important decisions - like what channel to watch on television.

"I could get used to this," I told my husband yesterday.

"I don't think it's healthy. Look how childish you have become," he said, drawing my attention to what I was wearing.

He was right. Without realising it, I had dressed in anticipation of the "what do you think you're wearing, young woman" question: A grotty big T-shirt instead of my usual skimpy nightgowns.

And mentally, I had gone back to my old ways of delegating responsibility to my parents. Somehow, being a kid again and settling the bills just didn't seem to go together.

Ah well, it's only for two weeks. Then I'd go back to being a lean, mean fully-functioning adult again.

This is just a hiatus.

But this started me thinking about my single friends who were still living with their parents and wonder how they do it without it stunting their maturity in some way or other.

Imagine being a high-flying boss whom everyone fears in the office, then going home to Mum telling you: "I've washed your underpants and packed your lunch in your favourite Hello Kitty container." Surely, that does cramp your style?

I once visited a 40-something single friend who lived with her parents.

Her Mum kept nagging her to get married but, at the same time, told her she had to be home by 10pm while her Dad vetoed her clothes if they were too revealing.

So my friend goes around in long-sleeved shirts and ankle-skimming skirts and without makeup all the time.

She could have done a lot more with herself if only she could get past the style dragons at the gate.

Many singles say they live with their parents not out of choice but necessity. They can't move out until they're 35 and can afford their own HDB flat.

Maybe they should be allowed out earlier. We make housing allowances for the elderly so why not the singles?

Some may say growing old is not a matter of choice but being single is. But really, when you're living at home with your parents, with a curfew (even unspoken), what chances do you have to go out, meet people and make your choice?

The number of singles in Singapore is increasing.

The census showed that more people aged 30 to 34 were single in 2008 (40.8 per cent for men and 29.4 per cent for women) compared to 1998 (33.3 per cent and 21.6 per cent).

The proportion of singles aged 45 to 49 also rose (13.6 per cent and 12.8 per cent in 2008 compared to 9.5 per cent and 12.5 per cent in 1998).

To cater to the rising numbers, maybe the HDB should convert flats in unpopular areas into studios and turn them into a singles block - much like a hostel for working singles instead of students.

At my university hostel, many hooked up - boosted by the huge concentration of singles in one place and the lack of parental supervision.

I think that magic formula could work in the singles block too.

As long as parents are banned from visiting.



Tabitha Wang gets her own back when her parents treat her like a child, by treating her husband like a baby.



Taken from TODAY, Voices - Budget Tai tai column; source article is below
Failure to Launch
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