Rich people having no sense of noblesse oblige

Posted on April 17, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Guard against rising materialism’, 17 April 2013, ST Forum

(Anuradha Singh): I WAS disgusted to read the description of real estate developer K.P. Singh’s birthday celebrations in India (“India: Get Shakira to perform or fly in snow for birthday party”; Monday), as well as the descriptions of the excesses in China and Indonesia (“China: Showing off a sport for the wealthy” and “Indonesia: Enjoy party and go home with iPad gift”; both published on Monday).

It is a sad fact that there is no sense of decorum or noblesse oblige among today’s rich, since most of them do not have the inherent – and inherited – sense of responsibility that comes from being well-bred. People who display their wealth so lavishly used to be sneered at as being arrivistes and social climbers, but they are sadly becoming the norm today.

Their excesses are disgusting, given the dire poverty of their countries. How can anyone living in a country like India, where children are pressed into construction work, live with themselves if they flaunt their wealth like this?

Unfortunately, the same is happening in Singapore as it, too, is an aspirational society – a father dropping off his son in a Ferrari convertible at my daughter’s school; secretaries who spend more than they earn on designer bags; and tai-tais who seem to think their only social responsibility is to single-handedly support the Louis Vuitton empire.

I wonder if Ms Singh has heard of the Jewel of Pangaea cocktail worth a whopping $32,000, or Perm Sec Tan Yong Soon’s $42,000 cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. Or that Facebook billionaire Eduardo Saverin has made Singapore his home, an ‘aspirational’ country where there are 17 millionaire households out of 100 who live in $1 million HDB flats and $300 million bungalows, drive $3 million Pagani Huayra Italian supercars, or eat lobster mee pok for over $200 a bowl. If Phua Chu Kang can own a Lamborghini Gallardo worth $800,000, so can you!

What else but extravagant displays of ‘disgusting excesses’ can you expect from a country that prides itself as a shopping paradise, promotes a casino as a national icon and ranks among the most affluent nations in the world? Obscenely rich people exist whether we like it or not. Some choose to flaunt and brag about it, while others wear rags and hug big bags of gold bars to sleep with one eye open. If a rich man wants to fly in an international superstar to entertain his guests and hire naked supermodels so people can eat expensive sushi off their torsos, if a father wants to fetch his daughter in a Ferrari to a $500 K-pop concert, even if there are children dying of starvation in the streets, what can we do about it short of hiring Robin Hood, or summoning the Ghosts of Christmas Past,Present and Future to scare some ‘noblesse oblige’ into rich folks?

We tend to blame the media for promulgating dreams of easy riches. Movies like The Social Network exalt the self-made below 30′s billionaire. We are entertained by opulent grandeur, decadent travelogues, 3 star Michelin dining and vicarious lavish living through local shows like The Finer Side (starring Dick Lee and Denise Keller), which drew similar complaints for being ‘self-indulging’ and ‘obscene’. We also hear of MPs who flash their Coach bags, CEOs of charities installing gold taps in their bathrooms, and millionaire singing pastors who live in Hollywood. We’re constantly bombarded by updates of our friends ‘living it up’ through Facebook postings of fine dining and luxury possessions that we’ve all become rather numb to their ‘excesses’ by now. Having caviar and champagne by MBS Infinity Pool? Meh. Bought a new Chanel bag for your anniversary? Hallelujah. Bean sprouts, sardines and rice for lunch? OMG YOU POOR THING YOU!

‘Materialism’, like ‘noblesse oblige’, seems like such an outdated concept for a nation where almost everyone owns a smartphone, has broadband internet at home, and some take leave just to queue overnight for the latest iPad. Wanting, lusting after the best stuff that money can buy isn’t a lack of social responsibility (unless you’re a collector of rare leather made from baby seals) but a sense of transient wish fulfilment and personal entitlement, a natural reward response to long hours of slogging at the office. We use words depicting gluttony like ‘binge’, ‘splurge’ and ‘retail therapy’ as easily as we use ‘broke’. In fact, what’s deemed as ‘materialistic’ in the past has become today’s necessity. In 2001, a Today contributor branded the handphone as nothing but an empty ‘status symbol’. There were even times in the past when you may be condemned as an ‘arriviste’ and show-off if you owned a Discman, karaoke laser disc player or even a colour TV. The audacity to sing karaoke when you should be helping the poor! Shame on you!

So perhaps one day anyone can invite Shakira to their party to perform Waka Waka, or drink the Jewel of Pangaea when toasting your bride instead of cheap champagne. But until then, no one can agree on what living ‘modestly’ means. Buy a Merc and you’re materialistic, go to a barber instead of a salon and you’re called a cheapskate. So go ahead, join that queue for the next Samsung phone. Go for a spa holiday in the Maldives. Because you’re worth it.

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Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Money | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Grow up, Ugly Affluent Westernised Singaporeans

Posted on April 12, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Time for the Ugly Singaporean to grow up’, 9 April 2013, ST Forum

(Dr George Wong Seow Hoon): IN VIEW of the increasing incidents of abusive behaviour towards health-care workers…it is time to examine why economic progress has brought with it the emergence of the “Ugly Singaporean”. Part of the reason is that many of our children are now brought up by maids, and they lack the strong cultural milieu to cultivate codes of good conduct.

Once they grow up, they treat nurses the way they treat their maids – because they know of no other way. When I was growing up, I was immersed in the culture and traditions of my grandparents, who made me read San Zhi Jing (Three-Character Classic), which taught Confucian morality.

My uncles and aunts told me stories from the Chinese classics of great men and heroes with outstanding conduct. These have influenced my thinking and conduct in later life. Now, some affluent, Westernised Singaporeans throw litter, abuse nurses and are road bullies.

…It is time for Singaporeans to grow up.

It’s been a while since I’ve heard anyone espouse ‘Asian values’, which typically encompasses concepts of hard work, compassion, humility and filial piety, though such forms of social behaviour are certainly not unique to the Asian society. China, in particular, the birthplace of San Zhi Jing, is among the worst culprits of pollution and global warming in the world, and the inconsiderate act of littering and destroying the planet has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a Confucian scholar, a ‘Westernised’ tycoon, or a homeless bum who poops on the streets.

Blaming the West as the Devil was regular rhetoric for MPs. In 1971, Inche Ghazali urged men to ‘point out gently and tactfully how ridiculous’ their womenfolk look wearing ‘indecent’ fashions of the West. The appearance of ‘Centrepoint kids’ in the 80s prompted Tang Guan Seng to blame ‘decadent Western fads’ for the erosion of our G-rated, homely values. He was also strongly against the ‘Western’ practice of addressing parents by their names, dumping the aged in retirement homes, and probably thinks the ‘Western’ tie as office attire is like wearing Satan’s noose around your neck.

Some male chauvinist pigs also like their partners to be like Samsui women, subservient, meek and not complaining and nagging too much which is a result of being ‘contaminated’ by the decadent West. Thanks to ‘Western influences’, our women have become opinionated, assertive and don’t ever want to treat us guys to a hot home-cooked meal and foot scrub after work anymore. Besides, I’m not sure if ancient China was the ideal pinnacle of Confucian ethics and selfless, epic heroics as it’s lauded to be. At least that’s not what Sex and Zen tells me.

There’s nothing morally superior about ‘Asian values’ as it’s a fallacy to blame Western affluence for all our ‘social ills’, be it teen pregnancy, homosexuality, premarital sex, Playboy magazine or Glee. There are, in fact, downsides to exaggerating your Confucian values, like ‘presentee-ism’, the loss of productivity that results when you’re obliged to report for work even when you’re sick.  The complainant telling Singaporeans to ‘GROW UP’ reeks of the stifling authoritarian hectoring of the stern, party-pooping patriarch who shuns Gangnam Style, skimpy bikinis and shrinking hemlines because he thinks these have all the ‘decadent’ hallmarks of cult-like Western glamour and spiralling moral decay.

You don’t have to be rich and English-speaking to be a total bastard of a customer, nor do you need to mediate under a bamboo tree and be handy with a calligraphy brush to be a responsible, civilised human being, regardless of which side of the globe you’re from. So here’s an adorable clip of an ang mo kid reciting San Zhi Jing. To a ‘Western-influenced’ bloke like me, it’s as impressive, yet meaningless, as memorising pi to 100 decimal places.

Filed under: 1980s, 2013, Environment, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

LTA should not try to be cool

Posted on December 24, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘LTA stickers a safety hazard’, 24 Dec 2012, ST Forum

(Albert Tye): THE Land Transport Authority (LTA) should not put up stickers in buses to remind commuters to move in (“LTA wants ‘move to back of bus’ message to stick”; last Tuesday).

First, the stickers pasted on the glass windows pose a safety hazard as they block the view, preventing passengers from being able to see danger approaching and reacting in time.

Second, cheeky commuters may twist the words, making light of the serious message it is supposed to transmit. The LTA should not try to be cool. Serious messages must be conveyed seriously and as directly as possible.

LTA wants you to wiggle in

LTA wants you to wiggle in

One of the stickers reads: ‘You’re such a DARLING. WIGGLE IN A TEENSIE WEENSIE BIT MORE OK?’ It’s one thing to praise a passenger before the desired action is even attained, it’s another to tease with gratuitous innuendo that sounds like it was written by the songwriter of the smash hit ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ (who’s probably already dead). It may be even harder to squeeze your way to the back because of the goosebumps afflicting everyone on the bus after reading this. Another sticker tells the moving passenger that ‘this trip ROCKS because of you!’ I’m on public transport, not a psychedelic MAGIC BUS. This is also 2012, not Wayne’s World.

Public service campaigns that rely on nerve-cringing politeness may be standard tactic of the Singapore Kindness Movement, but having the LTA dousing passengers with syrupy praise normally reserved for children or puppies is like a prison warden high-fiving his inmates for not trying to break out of their cells. We are spammed day and night by advertisers telling us we’ve WON! or it’s our LUCKY DAY!, which explains why most of us will turn a blind eye to such hollow ‘feel-good’ messaging. All the nice and cuddly words and fonts crafted by self-proclaimed marketing experts are nothing compared to the warmth of a smile or a thank you coming from a living, breathing person who has benefited from your random act of kindness, with or without stickers glaring in your face already telling you how ‘cool’ you are before you’ve done anything remotely useful for the human race.

It’s not the first time that we’ve been all sweet and funky about imbuing people with some basic manners. Phua Chu Kang once took a shot at it using rap as a medium, busting rhymes about a ‘happy journey’ in one moment then threatening with lines like ‘don’t you dare’ and  ‘excuse me while I give you a kick!’. Using a character like PCK to knock some sense into people who refuse to move is like throwing plush toys at a gatekeeper troll. Also, I don’t know how much damage you can incur kicking people while wearing yellow construction boots.

If PCK going ‘Hey you over there’ doesn’t work, you may try a softer cabaret approach, as the Dim Sum Dollies did in 2010 to get people to ‘move it, move it, move it inside’, with the hope that the use of multiple languages like Mandarin, Hokkien and Malay would get the message to sink into seniors’ heads. A Today writer in 2006 proposed a more practical design solution of having the exits at the back of the bus instead of the middle, but that would mean more people pushing against ‘traffic’ to alight from the front instead. In the 1980s, people were already suggesting taped messages to irritate people into moving in, the audio equivalent of a sheepdog. Some weary bus drivers have come up with more creative excuses for passengers, that ‘lai bin woo gui’ (Behind got ghost!). You could also apply the same saying to empty seats, beds, sofas or any unused space as consolation when no one really wants to be close to you.

The ghost won't let me move to the back

The ghost won’t let me move to the back

I think getting an assertive driver with the authority to drill his passengers into moving their butts and earn the awe, fear and respect of everyone else would be a more effective way of controlling behavior through embarrassment than some mildly chastising song-and-dance routine. Caretakers in museums, toilet cleaners, even some char kuay teow hawkers these days have become fiercer than most bus drivers I’ve met when it comes to controlling their customers. Bus CAPTAINS should start acting like one rather than letting office-dwelling campaigners waste everyone’s time and money on useless, unsustainable ‘gentle reminder’ campaigns. Otherwise they’re just workers driving a bus dropping people on and off quietly. That is until they gather illegally and stop work for days as part of some ‘industrial action’.

You don’t need big fancy stickers, come-hither slogans or an out-of-job Phua Chu Kang to make people behave on public transport. Simple, stern notices and a badass driver with a microphone would do just fine.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Campaigns/Elections, SBS Buses | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

K pop fans queuing for a week before SM Town

Posted on November 25, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Fans who queued overnight for SMTown concert usurped by latecomers’, 23 Oct 2012,  article by Rachel Boon, ST.

Unhappiness ensued among tired fans going for K-pop extravaganza SMTown Live World Tour III in Singapore, which is happening tonight (Nov 23) at The Float @ Marina Bay. Fans out to get the best positions in the moshpit had started queueing in the area as early as last Friday (Nov 16), despite the concert organisers’ advice not to do so.

But some of these fans lost the lead of their days-old queue to other fans who started arriving at around 5am this morning to join the official moshpit queue, which the organisers had scheduled to start at 9am. Although the early birds were upset to have been usurped by the latecomers, their unhappiness was subdued. Some of them looked too tired to protest at the apparent unfairness of the situation.

The fans who had started queuing in the vicinity long before today did not know where the entrance for the moshpit queue was. The organisers did not tell them in order to discourage them from queuing overnight. When the location of the official moshpit queue was finally announced after 8.30am, there was a rush towards it among all fans, whether or not they had queued overnight.

Super Junior fan Vanessa Lee, 18, managed to get good spots in the official queue this morning after queuing since yesterday. She said: “There wasn’t a big fight, and they tried to reason with one another. Those who have been queuing for long or overnight told the newcomers that it was unfair, while the newcomers returned the look with glares.”

Eunhyuk and whose army?

SM Town is like the ‘We Are the World’ of K-pop. A 14 year old queued for 100 hours only to lose out to those who came in the morning. A 17 year old stopped school to pursue her obsessive K-fascination. Fan club members threaten bloodshed by tweeting about how they’re bringing their ARMY to cut overnight queues. Some risk FAINTING in line before even seeing their Gods in the flesh. For $5 an hour you could hire a ‘queuer’ to chope your place on your behalf. Some would be desperate enough to buy $398 moshpit tickets from online touts. That’s more than TWICE the amount you pay for a top dollar Kenny Rogers concert ticket! Kenny Rogers!

All this in addition to the thousands some would spend on tickets, merchandise, rad clothes, light sticks and maybe even Korean language courses, even if they can’t order kimchi to save their lives in South Korea. I think a legion of K-pop crazy fans can beat down a platoon of BMT recruits anytime. If we were ever threatened by urban terrorists, don’t send in the boys in green. Deploy a troop of K-pop groupies and tell them Super Junior Eunhyuk gave the order to KILL. You can put the non-kamikaze ones on nightwatch sentry duty with a Big Bang CD on repeat mode.

Some local businesses would be thankful for the K-pop frenzy nonetheless; 7-11, fast food joints, sellers of portable fans and portable phone chargers and outdoor adventure stores. Yes, you see more TENTS, mats and lamps being set up in overnight queues than in East Coast Park. According to this infographic, 240 cans of RED BULL and 192 CUP NOODLES were expended.  If you place the start of an SMTown queue at the end of a 100m dash you’re likely to see some diehards giving Usain Bolt a run for the money. You could also start an agency (THNXQ?) of professional queuing services, except that instead of calling your employees ‘queuers’, the position could be ‘Line Acquisition and Maintenance Executive’. Or LAMEs. Parents would be so grateful, that is, parents who aren’t the ones securing queues on the behalf of their kids to show how much they love them. Or those without maids.

Some people just never learn; last year the same ‘unfair’ system of ignoring kiasu early birds was already in force when GG/SNSD performed here. It’s ironic that the organisers for K-pop extravganzas call themselves Running Into the Sun, because that’s what happens when fans who wait for 100 hours rush into ‘official’ queues; they get burnt. K-pop fandom being compared to CULT worship is nothing new; in return for their rain-soaked loyalty, pocket money and undying patience, supporters get accepted into social circles, treatment for broken hearts and the life-changing gratification of a Super Junior responding to their Tweet. You could turn blind idolatry into a force to be reckoned with. Some MPs, for example, are already taking pains to learn Gangnam style dancing. I’m sure many others are considering secretly tweaking their Favourite Bands on their Facebook pages to f(x) or EXO. Well, anything to help our kids appreciate differential equations then.

To see how HUGE K-pop has become, you’d just need to Google search the following (.sg domain):

- Boa (first search tag). No it’s not Boa the Snake

- Lucifer, SHINee single (second). Not the devil.

- EXO (first). Not a prefix used in physics

- Big Bang (first). Yes, a Korean boy band has overtaken the origin of the UNIVERSE on Google.

- f(x) (first). How am I going to finish my Maths homework like this?

- Beast (first). X-men Beast comes in second. Beauty and the Beast somewhere midway on the second page.

At this rate, you’re never going to know whether RAEKWON is a Wu-Tang clan member or a K-pop megastar.There’s even a K-pop band dedicated to their fans in Singapore. They’re called SG Wannabe.

The closing song of the SM Town concert was ‘HOPE’. I think that describes the K-pop product to a T. Or should I say to a K. I foresee a SMTown Xmas 2012 CD ready to be launched as we speak. Somewhere in the world during Xmas, I can guarantee you  there will be a man dressed as Santa Claus going ‘Opp, opp, opp, Oppa Santa Style’, and you will hear the collective Groan of Disdain echoed throughout the planet.

Filed under: 2012, Kids, Long Queues | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Daniel Ong calling neighbour Sivalin-ganam style

Posted on October 26, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘He made fun of my name’, 26 Oct 2012, article by Foo Jie Ying, TNP

A dispute between neighbours over renovation noise led to one of them making a police report against the other, claiming that the latter had made fun of his name. In the report made on Oct 16, he said: “By making fun and changing my family surname, he is insulting and degrading the Indian culture.”

In an interview with The New Paper On Tuesday evening, Mr Sivalingam Narayanasamy, 55, said: “What he has done is to change my surname.” The other party in the dispute is former radio deejay Daniel Ong, 36, who is now known as a celebrity cupcake-shop owner with his wife, Miss Singapore-Universe 2001 Jaime Teo.

Mr Sivalingam showed TNP a letter purportedly written by Mr Ong to him, in which Mr Ong allegedly made fun of his name. In the letter, Mr Ong referred to Mr Sivalingam as “Sivalin-ganamstyle” and added, “That’s my new nickname for you… cool, huh?”

Mr Ong addressed this on his Facebook page, saying: “He claims I insulted him coz I addressed him as Sivalingam num-style in my last letter… but I told him that I didn’t mean that and it’s the coolest thing around now.”

If you read the contents of Daniel Ong’s letter for yourself, you’ll find it full of sarcastic insults, spite, fake LOLS and general meanness. From the way how this neighbourly spat has been overblown, it’s obvious that Sivalingam’s racist accusation is a pretext for filing against Ong’s nastiness and intolerance over a baby-tormenting and ‘old-lady murdering’ renovation project. As with his grudge against SPH, the ex-DJ has made his Facebook page his personal diary and broadcaster now that he’s gone from radio. Regardless of who’s at fault here,  this is really an exaggerated episode of neighbours thrashing it out over one ugly incident after another, culminating in a sensational turf war with a typical but ultimately futile standoff involving the police. I wonder what will become of these two once it’s Christmas.

It’s like two boys fighting in the playground and one threatening with his daddy because the other called him names and he had no comeback. The natural tendency in such testosterone-charged scuffles is for the one picked on to retort with a creative insult of his own, until both get tired of this one-upping nonsense and walk away. At least these two grown ups are civil enough not to bring their Mamas into it or roll around in the mud throwing punches. Conflicts of this sort are inevitable, no matter how we try to inculcate a ‘give and take’ culture, when in fact we’re mostly looking after our own interests and ‘community’ means running into that comfort zone and pacifier called Facebook where your ‘friends’ are obliged to support you all the way even if you’re acting like a child who just got his rattle nicked by a bully.

When it comes to a war of words, it’s unlikely that Sivalingam would get the upper hand over a cupcake king with the gift of the gab (Daniel even refers to himself as ‘FUNNY GUY” on his Twitter page), hence to counter his weakness in petty insult-trading, the big guns have to be summoned on a hot-potato issue (racism) just to show that he means business. I’m not even sure if this guy knows what Gangnam Style is, which may explain why he would consider the name-mashing a childish insult, maybe the equivalent of the Chinese ‘Tan Ah Kow’.  He does cut an imposing figure however, like a superintendent in the force, or someone who runs a butchery franchise and boxes hunks of meat in his spare time.  Daniel Ong (who once played ‘Mr Kiasee’ in the Mr Kiasu sitcom) will get his cupcakes SQUASHED if put in a ring with this bull of a man.

Don’t call him Gangnam

What’s worrying, and yet strangely assuring at the same time, is why our police EVEN BOTHER with such things (Assuring because it means our cops have nothing much to do). Well I suppose if they’re forced to investigate teachers who cut the hair of students without permission, this fight between an angry celebrity and his angry neighbour must seem as exciting as taking down rival triads in comparison. Gangs of Mei Hwan Drive perhaps. Still, this is what happens if you have public endorsement of the over-the-top censuring of anything mocking a minority race. You give people excuses to point fingers at the one thing that will get your enemies in trouble, when you’re really pissed off with them because they embarrassed you, not because they humiliated your race, your family, your ancestry and your gods.

Siva claims discrimination when Daniel Ong mashes up his surname with Gangnam style, while the latter explains the pun away as a reference to his ‘threatening’ stance with arms akimbo. Neither argument makes sense. I can’t imagine an aggressor doing this in a mano-a-mano confrontation, unless he’s trying to subdue you with laughter.

Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything

I suspect it’s harmless wordplay more than anything else, though these days dropping sly racial references is like tossing firecrackers on a minefield. Siva doesn’t have a case because Gangnam itself has already taken Indians by storm, and just about anyone with an Internet connection and doesn’t understand a single word of Korean.

Filed under: 2012, Bloggers, Local radio DJs, Noise, Police officers, Racism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Hawker centre tray return racks too smelly

Posted on September 16, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Why it’s difficult to return trays at hawker centres’ and ‘Tray clearing didn’t work previously because of poor facilities’, 15 Sept 2012, ST Forum

(Tan Ying San): THERE is a reason why patrons at fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s or Burger King willingly return their trays while those at the hawker centres do not (“Tray-return campaign set for a comeback”; Wednesday).

In fact, patrons avoid seats near the tray-return racks at hawker centres. The reason is simple: Food at fast-food restaurants is dry while the food at hawker centres is a mish-mash of soup, fried vegetables, dark sauce and oily fish. Just look at the mess in the plastic basin where the used bowls and dishes are placed. Not only is it an ugly sight but it also smells sometimes.

If operators of hawker centres and foodcourts want patrons to return the trays, a big effort to clean up the collection centre will go some way in encouraging a change in behaviour.

(Tony Lee): PREVIOUS campaigns to encourage self-clearing of trays failed not only because of a lack of graciousness but also proper facilitation (“Tray-return campaign set for a comeback”; Wednesday).

Hawker centres are cramped with an average of 200 tables, with narrow passages in between. Thus it is already quite an effort to weave in and out of the crowds safely without spilling when carrying a tray of food and drinks to reach one’s selected table. Self-clearing of trays will also lead to congestion.

Even if most patrons were to clear the tables by returning their trays of empty plates and bowls to the shelves placed at various corners in the hawker centre, the cleaners will still be needed to sort them out and return them to the different stalls for washing. Patrons must also walk around to find empty tray shelves if those placed near popular food stalls are full.

What Will and Kate missed

While it is generally true that hawker food tends to be messier than fast food, if you take into account spillage or remnants like bones or leftover sauces, you could make the work easier for everyone by not WASTING food and taking less condiments than you need in the first place. You may also stack your bowls, plates and debris in a neat, compact manner instead of spitting bones onto the table. For whatever reason that makes it difficult for someone to return a tray, be it the stink of the collection centre, ‘congestion’, or ‘feeling bad’ for cleaners who need the job, the least you can do as a gracious human being is to leave your table in a state that wouldn’t require the next patron or worker to don rubber gloves and a decontamination suit to render it less hazardous to one’s health. Or at least not leave behind a sumptuous buffet for mynahs, crows and rats which will not only transfer the waste from tray to table to floor and chair, but poop in your unfinished wanton soup as well.

An exception to the above would be the Ikea cafe culture, where the food is equally messy but the collection centre is centrally located and accessible with a couple of cleaners on hand sorting things out. Maybe it’s not so ‘simple’ as just facilities or the kind of food you eat that determines one’s willingness to return a tray, but rather the psychology and habits of diners. I could just eat a piece of goreng pisang and leave the wrapper behind on the table even if there’s a empty, odourless trash can right next to me if I’m the sort of lazy bastard with a ‘maid mentality’. Also, hawker centre patrons are generally office workers in a rush, and if one had to queue for a longer time just to return trays compared to ordering ‘economical mixed rice’, then you may add another excuse to the list: My boss will kill me if I return back to office a minute late.

Even at Macs not everyone cleans up after themselves, and sometimes even the adults, including teachers of ‘brand name’ schools,  fail to set an example. I personally witnessed a mother telling her daughter to ‘leave it, wait you get your hands dirty’ and walked out of Macs without clearing their trays. Whether out of absent-mindedness, fear of contamination or just plain laziness, the greatest contagion here is not the spread of disease and vermin from uncleared trays, but the attitudes of parents and other ‘role models’ infecting our children.

There have been filthy tables as long as there were hawker centres, and amazingly in the eighties our communal sense of self-consciousness was not as developed as it is today (or maybe we just ran out of cleaners), with fingers being pointed at everything else (hawkers and cleaners included) than at ourselves. Popular spots like Newton Circus greeted patrons with a ‘pong of stewing offal and rotting swill’. People also asked the government to deploy ‘efficient ladies’ to clear tables immediately after anyone leaves.  Those who were part of that generation of sanitation expectation, including myself, are now flag bearers for the younger generation today. And if we don’t snap out of this dependence, how else will the kids learn?

So what can we do to drill tray-clearing into Singaporeans without resorting to toilet-training? Gentle reminders in ads and campaigns such as putting ‘Goodness Gracious’ stickers on tables are inadequate and a waste of time and money in my opinion. Fining failure to return trays under the same legislation as one penalises littering is too harsh. Instead of instilling fear, I think you’d need to create a herd mentality and exploit the Singaporean trait of ‘following the crowd’. If I’m at McDonalds and everyone around me suddenly walks off without clearing their trays, I’m less likely to clear mine, because EVERYONE else is not doing it. Likewise, if I’m at a hawker centre and I see Jenga stacks of dirty plates around me, my brain would register it as the ‘norm’ and I wouldn’t want to ‘stand out’ being the lone ranger clearing his tray.

I would suggest to NEA to recruit not tray ‘ambassadors’ or comedians in starched officer uniform to tell people off, but ‘actors’ instead to dish out some serious guerilla-tactic mind games. This is how I imagine it would work: Target families tucking into dinner in a hawker centre, making sure they are kids in the group. Deploy an ‘actor’ family (with kids as well) next to your target and make sure you finish your food before them. Make the kid actor walk off without the tray while the rest have already started carrying theirs. Make the adult actors admonish the kid ‘Boy boy, what are you supposed to do after you finish your food?’. As the kid does so grudgingly, have the adults deal a little life lesson on being compassionate to fellow human beings and give direction to tray collection areas. Make sure all this is seen and heard without sounding like you’re in Jack Neo film. Chances are your target and those around them will follow suit in a chain reaction of tray clearing. Better still, secretly film the entire scene and upload on Youtube. Like the mini fly haven of a landfill that is the hawker centre tray collection centre, it will go VIRAL.

Hello, NEA are you listening, I’m trying to have CONVERSATION here.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Bureaucrats, Campaigns/Elections, Environment, Hawkers, Local food | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

CCTVs catching cigarette-butt tossing litterbugs

Posted on August 30, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Anti-littering surveillance cameras to be set up at 100 locations’, 30 Aug 2012, Today online

Surveillance cameras will be set up at 100 locations in the next three months to catch culprits who throw items from high-rise housing blocks. The National Environment Agency (NEA) said it is first targeting at the housing estates in Bukit Panjang, Pasir Ris, West Coast, Hong Kah and Sembawang.

These housing estates have more serious littering issues, involving faeces, urine or food waste, and have also registered a high number of feedback cases from residents. NEA said those caught littering on camera will be charged in court and have their cases publicised.

NEA said the surveillance cameras, together with video analytic software, have proven effective in trials conducted to nab high-rise litterbugs. The equipment can pick up items as small as cigarette butts being thrown from windows, even in low light conditions at night.

NEA cited an earlier pilot run in Bukit Batok where two offenders were caught on camera throwing cigarette butts out from their windows at night. They were charged in court and fined S$800 and S$1,000. Under the law, such offenders are liable to be fined a maximum of S$1,000 and/or be given a Corrective Work Order (CWO) not exceeding 12 hours.

It’s surprising that Punggol was not included in the list to be spied on, considering that it was home to a serial shit-thrower as reported in May this year, which spurred the authorities into launching an ambush via CCTV. Though such ‘faeces-bombing’ culprits may be mentally unstable to begin with, other weird, disgusting, lethal objects being tossed out of windows in recent history include:

A dropped cigarette butt, unless you’ve used too much hair oil, is rather harmless compared to the kinds of weapons and projectiles being hurled from litterbugs. Since nobody trusts STOMP to take litterbugs to task anymore since the MRT door fiasco, CCTV installation is a last resort deterrent to murderously inconsiderate behaviour, and a loss of privacy is perhaps a small price to pay just to make sure you can walk below your flat in peace without being impaled by blades, drenched in menses discharge, have a HIV-tainted needle puncture your head, or crushed by some gym-rat’s toy. Catching litterbugs on film, though, is an idea that’s almost 30 years old. In 1984, a concerned resident was willing to donate 100 rolls of film, calling upon residents to catch litterbugs in the act themselves. We had so much more time on our hands then.

(Warning: graphic death scene below)

The CCTV is the classic icon of ‘Big Brother’ oppression and you could argue all day about what having the authorities scrutinising your every move says about a paranoid nanny state with a fixation on security infringing our much precious ‘rights to privacy’. Initially employed in HDB lifts in a bid to ward off vandalism, robbery and sexual assault in 1978, it’s not just our busybody authorities who’re interested in these toys anymore. Employers install CCTVs in homes to check on their MAIDs or straying husbands. You could blackmail your colleague by catching him having sex with an employee in your clinic. If you’re harrassed by loan sharks you could install one outside your house, though your town council may ask you to remove it because you’re ‘intruding on others’ privacy’. In an instance of ‘CCTV-ception’, some schools install CCTVs outside toilets to catch perverts installing their own mini CCTVs INSIDE toilets. That’s like filming a ‘Making Of’ of a porno film.

Any form of public misdemeanor, not necessarily illegal but ugly enough to be interesting, has been leaked in some form regardless of CCTVs through social media channels, where bystanders and social media vigilantes are more likely to be camera-phone-ready. No one stands by their house window ready to capture images of people throwing stuff out of their windows unless you’re a cripple with a pair of binoculars and have an unhealthy fascination with your neighbours. So you hire some NEA stiffs on shift duty to zoom in on litter from flying cigarette butts right down to the finest forensic details of nose hair, dandruff and boogers. I suppose having voyeuristic tendencies is an advantage in the job considering the depressing monotony of void deck, window ledge and corridor surveillance, with the occasional perk of a nude flasher or people making out on the staircase. But hell, you could even be a life-saver if you prevent maids from falling to their deaths cleaning windows.

Talk about double standards; those who cry foul over privacy infringement when NEA spies through their windows lap up STOMP photos with relish, stalk their maids, peep at their frollicking neighbours, download celebrity sex videos, or watch reality-TV shows literally titled ‘BIG BROTHER’. Those with the power and authority to monitor suspicious activity tell residents to take them down for the sake of others’ ‘privacy’. Why are we so hung up on something that we’ve long lost, not realising how naturally curious and voyeuristic we already are as human beings? Facebook, Google, e-mail, bank accounts, credit cards, IP addresses, and smartphones have barricaded us in barcode and made us so easy to tag and uncover and we hardly complain, only because we enjoy these things in spite of voluntarily bugging ourselves. We don’t see the presumed benefit of a reduced crime-rate when the personal cost of being caught with your finger up your nose outweighs everything else. ANYONE can peek into your inner sanctum whether you like it or not, if you allow them to. Just keep the shades down and the pants up. I want the needle-tossing addict brought to justice. That is all.

If our PM Lee refers to Singaporeans as ‘one-eyed dragons’, then well, you guys up there, watching us like characters in the Truman show, are the 4-eyed owls.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Bureaucrats, Justice system/Lawsuits, Public works, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Toddlers in ‘preparatory’ classes

Posted on April 29, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘First to prep classes, then to Pri 1′, 29 April 2012, article by Jane Ng, Sunday Times

For some parents, kindergarten is not enough to get their children ready for primary school. They are enrolling their six-year-olds in special ‘preparatory classes’ that claim to give children a head start for going to Primary 1.

So on top of attending kindergarten classes five days a week, the six-year-olds attend English, mathematics and mother tongue classes once or twice a week. Parents are forking out $100 to $275 a month for these so-called enrichment classes provided by private centres.

Popular centres like Berries, Learning Lab and Learning Point have waiting lists of up to a year for these weekend classes. Given the growing demand, other schools, like Young Champs Eduland, have jumped on the bandwagon. Another, Enfant Educare, has nine of these programmes for everything from phonics to abacus and hanyu pinyin.

‘Enfants’, not infants

Prep class is basically TUITION for toddlers, and ‘giving a head start’ is being KIASU. It’s OK, we’re Singaporeans, no need to pussyfoot around terms like ‘enrichment’, when all this is really an arms race among parents pitting their kids against each other to the death, sometimes literally.  Tuition for pre-schoolers is almost a half-century old practice, or rather RITUAL. In other societies kids have to endure genital mutilation without anaesthetic or engage in bloody combat with the neighbours to earn their place. Here, parents chuck them into pre-school and pre-pre schools, supplementing with weekend/holiday tuition or cram school under the benevolent guise of ‘enrichment’. It also helps if you have a French name (Petite Papillon), sound like a fashion brand (Julia Gabriel) an Italian restaurant (Montesorri), or a haunted house (House on a Hill).    These are no longer ‘nurseries’; one centre even calls itself ‘Little Uni’ , making no pretense at all that they’re really gearing up children for the long and winding educational superhighway. The greatest trick these businesses have pulled  is convincing parents that children actually enjoy attending these things, rather than, you know, SLEEPING or playing with/eating sand at the beach.

Some centres, like Del Care Edu Centre, even provide lessons for 2 to 18 MONTH old BABIES. Which means we have children among us who recognise flashcards before their own uncles’ faces. Did I say ‘children’? I meant zombies brain-harvested to battle it out in primary school who can speak Japanese and French before crafting a proper Knock-Knock joke, or even walk. Before you know it, our kids would have evolved with brains bigger than their gastrointestinal systems and instead of ‘playing’ with them you are compelled to engage in a lively dialogue about phonics. No more trading goos and ga’s, funny faces or catching ball anymore. ‘Play’ has to be ‘purposeful’, ‘sensorial’ and ‘exploratory’ and they have to ‘self-discover’ or ‘self-actualise’ while at it. They no longer just read or write or doodle, but must nurture ‘creative thinking’. Nothing so useless as a tickle should deter a child from ‘achieving their fullest potential’. It’s politically incorrect to call your boy a ‘little monster’, he’s just ‘over-expressing his self-worth’. What these centres have successfully done is turn the wild manic beast that is childhood into a lab rat with electrodes and meters strapped to its brain. Which explains The Learning ‘Lab’, though another has the audacity to call itself the ‘Playground Preschool’, both an insult  to actual playgrounds and an oxymoron too. You probably have to do mental sums while going down the slide, or discuss Newton’s Law of Motion on the see-saws. In the Little Gym, parent-bonding physical activities are outsourced to the professionals, where you have pay a fee just to let your baby ‘tumble’.

Thank god we still have pets for what’s left of the fun things in life. With all the spatial skills and street smarts sapped in exchange for preparatory ‘knowledge’ and ‘grooming’, I’ll be amazed if our kids today can even pass a marble through a hoop, or even tell their parents apart from PRC kidnappers for that matter. I wonder just how ‘prepared’ these kids are for the REAL world, where you have this thing called PEOPLE to deal with; bullies, bosses, customers, friends, family, strangers etc, not just caged up kids grilled in the latest scientific educational methods. Just browsing through the various ‘philosophies’ of these centres reveals an unsettling trend, the premature quest to turn our kids into tiny, confident adults, all this in the constraints of a controlled facility which purveyors of patented techniques and ‘programs’ like to call a ‘creative environment’. Mandarin educators Berries refer to kids as ‘the most important people in the world’. Young Champs Eduland submits their clients to ‘leadership training, complete with character building skills to create individuals with a difference’. You see the same objectives for adult business courses. Why are these parents in such a hurry to see their babies turn into typical rat-racers, and why are these tuition centres inflating the child’s ego to the moon, fostering a sense of bloated entitlement that they are natural born champions, leaders or abacus wizards? Our kids want to be astronauts, pilots and ninjas, not business negotiators or politicians. Let them live already, just for once.

Filed under: 1960s, 2012, Babies, Kids, Money, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Alamak!Jaywalking is a taboo action

Posted on November 8, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Survey reveals S’poreans most common taboo action’, 8 Nov 2011, article by Faris Mokhtar in sg yahoo news.

A recent survey by the Singapore unit of multinational U.S. toy company Hasbro found that 63 per cent of Singaporean respondents said jaywalking is a taboo action they are most guilty of. Other top taboo actions include littering, cutting a queue, smoking in non-designated areas and faking illness for a medical certificate.

In the survey, 734 Singaporeans aged 16 to 50 were given 19 taboo actions and asked to pick one that they were most guilty of committing. They were also asked to pick their favourite local expression used in everyday conversation from among 21 choices. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the top choice for nearly half of the respondents was “Alamak”, which is a Malay expression of dismay or surprise.

Coming in second with 40 per cent of the votes is “Kiasu”, a Singaporean term to describe someone who is overly competitive and afraid to lose. This was followed by expressions such as “Act blur”, “Siam” which means “get out of the way” in Hokkien and “Gila”, the Malay definition for crazy.

According to Dictionary.com, a taboo is ‘proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable’. Jaywalking, littering and smoking in non-designated areas are ‘illegal’. ‘Cutting a queue’ and ‘faking illness’, while socially unacceptable, are also universal forms of anti-social and lazy ‘behaviour’ respectively that are hardly unique to any particular enclave of society. These are things that we are constantly ‘guilty of’ but generally shouldn’t be ‘ashamed’ of committing (especially jaywalking, probably because more than 60% of us do it).

We try not to break taboos too often because of the social consequences; you’re likely to be more embarrassed dropping an urn in front of your relatives than caught running the red man at a pedestrian crossing.  Incurring the wrath of a matriarch makes you look stupid,  but nobody bats an eyelid when you jaywalk. It’s a taboo to use non-Muslim stall utensils for halal food, to step into a temple when you’re having your period, or to talk about death at a wedding. Taboos are codes of conduct handed down over generations encompassing old wives’ tales, religious customs and general superstition. They defy rational explanation, serve no purpose other than to maintain a strict code of flock-keeping conduct and people try to avoid breaching them as far as possible. The difference between jaywalking and eating with your left hand is that jaywalking is something you SHOULDN’T do, but the latter is what you MUSTN’T do in front of your hosts. The penalty of jaywalking is a fine. If you insult your Muslim friends’ elders you may be banned from all future Hari Raya parties or allowed anywhere within the vicinity of a ketupat.

Alamak is probably one of the first Singlish words ever uttered (since the 1950′s), though technically it’s a Malay ‘corruption’ of ‘Allahummak’, or Allahumma – which probably means ‘O Allah’, like how Westerners use ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘For the love of God’, or the Chinese going ‘我的天阿!’ as a term of general exasperation summoning some kind of divinity (Which makes it sort of a ‘taboo’ word if you think about it). Usually accompanied by a slap to the forehead, or in modern parlance ‘face-palm’, I’m surprised it still endears today after at least half a century of usage, in light of more expressive, four-letter, monosyllabic profanities like ‘Shit’ and ‘Damn’ becoming more widely accepted. ‘Alamak’, to me, is really a linguistic training wheel for kids before they master the essential four-letter words, though its religious association may take some of the ‘cuteness’ out of it.

In the 80′s, well known humorist and Singlish pioneer Sylvia Toh Paik Choo popularised ‘Alamak’ among other  terms in the seminal guide to Singlish, Eh Goondu! ‘Alamak’ was also heavily used in ST headlines as well, to the point of meaninglessness at times:

  • Alamak! It’s so insulting, LAH (12 Jan 1975) – Overdoing it
  • Alamak! Cantonese comic capers a delight (19, June 1995) – Awkward use as surprise
  • Alamak, someone just asked us to star in a $1.2 m movie (10 May 1997) – Awkward use as surprise
  • Alamak! Simply must buy (11 Oct 1991) – Nonsensical
  • Alamak, but what’s in a Khmer amok? (24 Oct 1999) – Just corny

Alamak! was the catchphrase which made Henry Thia, once bumbling supporting cast of Jack Neo’s entourage, a full fledged serious actor on his own (He even calls himself Henry Thia Alamak on Facebook). There’s an Alamak.com (a chat website), an Alamak Satay House (restaurant) in Sydney, an Alamak Biosciences company (probably unintentional, and unfortunate) and even an Alamak! awards by AWARE, ‘celebrating’ the most sexist people of 2011. So, the delicious irony of Alamak is that it continues to exist today not just because it’s ridiculously catchy or well-loved, but that it’s also over-used to the point of  everyman banality. It’s also more ‘acceptable’ compared to the likes of ‘cannot make it’ and ‘double confirm‘ because it’s essentially Malay and not ‘broken English’. I personally refrain from Alamaks, belonging more to the ‘Wah Lau‘ school of exclamations. Incidentally, ‘alamak’ has recently evolved to the progressively angry-sounding ‘alamaak’, ‘alamaaak’, alamaaaak’, ad nauseum (it goes up to 13 a’s). A Twitter search of these elongated mutants will show you what I mean.

Filed under: 1950s, 1980s, 2011, Justice system/Lawsuits, Local actors, Religion, Singlish/Broken english, Superstitions | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Singaporeans suffering from litter campaign fatigue

Posted on October 30, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Add garbage bins, chuck banners’, 30 Oct 2011, article by Grace Chua, Sunday Times

…The ‘dustbin test’ carried out at four town centres was part of a sociological study conducted by the National Environment Agency, with experts from the National University of Singapore led by sociologist Paulin Straughan.

…Its key findings: 62.6 per cent of the 4,500 people surveyed say they never litter; 1.2 per cent are hardcore litterbugs who admit to dropping their trash most of the time; and 36.2 per cent do it out of convenience.

Smokers insisted that it was culturally acceptable to flick their cigarette butts away after smoking, and students and young people were more likely to litter. To cut down littering, the researchers tested four different litter-control methods at four town centres: more bins; banners encouraging binning; having more uniformed NEA officers around; and stationing volunteers to spread environmental messages.

They found that having more bins cut littering most at Tampines while using volunteers cut littering in Bedok by about 30 per cent. Banners, generally, failed to have an effect. ‘Singaporeans may be suffering from campaign fatigue, being tired of being told what they should do as good citizens,’ the study suggested.

Paradoxically, having enforcement officers around reinforced the idea that littering was okay. Singaporeans do tend to litter and the presence of enforcement officers only serves to remind them that this is the fact, the study suggested.

According to the report, the researchers used a ‘drop-off pick-up methodology for data collection’ to ‘alleviate the effects of social desirability’. Even if this meant that the subjects were anonymous, I have my doubts about the high rate of ‘obedient’ results i.e I NEVER Litter because i) it’s socially unacceptable to litter and subjects may be pressured into lying ii) The results do not reflect the state of cleanliness today (otherwise there’s no need for this survey in the first place), and iii) Nobody wants to admit that they are ‘hardcore litterbugs’ (aside from the 1.2%). It’s like asking people if they watch bestiality porn on the Internet. A similar question was posed to subjects in a Kindness survey some months back, whereby 88% self-proclaimed graciousness. It would be interesting to combine these indicators to see how many ‘kind’ people actually litter.

But what’s troubling is the list of lazy excuses people cite for littering, which include ‘lack of litter bins’, ‘acceptable to litter in places that are already dirty’ and the absurdly ironic ‘lack of REMINDERS’, especially since results show that campaigning had absolutely no impact on cleanliness. Everybody KNOWS it’s wrong to litter, and the campaigns, no matter how creatively one pitches the disincentives for littering (CWO, fines etc),  somehow lack the necessary nudge to get our act together. Having more bins and volunteers improving the state of litter, i.e SPOILING Singaporeans, also doesn’t do anything about improving our ‘civic consciousness’. It’s the same rate of people throwing stuff away, just an increased rate of ‘clearance’ (and more work for cleaners) giving the illusion that there’s ‘less littering”.

Maybe the problem lies in the ‘everyone is doing it and they don’t get caught’ mentality, exemplified by the statistic that ’52.1%’ of subjects felt that ‘leaving an empty Coke bottle by the side of a full bin‘ is NOT considered littering.  It exposes our ‘maid mentality’ and over-reliance on not just bins, but people to pick up after us. Singaporeans also don’t have a ‘bring your trash home’ mentality, which could be the result of a certain expectation of dustbins being available wherever we go, which, ironically is a product of our ‘clean and green’ campaigning being ‘too successful’; a case of the law of unintended consequences at work. One should also look at how much FOOD we allow to go to waste (or what I would term ‘preventable’ trash), a symptom of ‘affluenza’ and over-consumption which is much harder to treat or enforce.

Somehow the oft-used analogy of treating our public spaces as we would our ‘homes’ doesn’t work, simply because everyone else doesn’t feel the same way and we see other people’s trash as ‘their problem’.  Which is perfectly normal; there’s simply no pay-off for a thankless sacrifice which few would care to emulate. It’s easy to put this to the test:  Plant a relatively sterile piece of litter, a flyer perhaps, on the floor of a busy MRT station. See how long it takes before someone picks it up. Chances are that person is a SMRT staff. If we suffer from the ‘bystander effect’ every time a human being lays sprawled motionless on the floor, what more a piece of paper?

We could say the social cost of littering is insufficient to overcome the ‘convenience’ of littering. People make quick risk  calculations everytime they decide to drop a load, especially for ‘less obvious’ forms of litter like dog pee or faeces, pocket lint, dried mucus, pastry crumbs, parking coupon debris etc, and we give ourselves excuses for our act (It will fertilise the plants, it will decompose, the birds will eat it etc). A certain degree of inconsideration has somehow become a norm, and probability theory tells us that the more people subscribing to a ‘norm’, the less likely you’ll get penalised for it. You can teach a Singaporean how to step on a foot lever to dump his trash, but you can never change his habits or teach EMPATHY, which to me, is what’s really missing here. Littering wouldn’t happen if people simply CARED enough. Increasing the number of bins is simplistic, and we would do well to study relatively ‘bin-less’ societies like Japan before implementing this ‘solution’ lock, stock and barrel.

If campaigns, enforcement, habitual changes and population control  are useless and placing bins all over the place is impractical (maybe even counter-productive), what then can we do to curb littering? I would propose for the sake of argument , ignoring all the ethical difficulties involved,  a combination of public shaming and ‘mercenary’ active citizenry as a drastic measure, which is like plainclothes officers and CCTVs except cheaper and with greater reach. Which means dumping the various ‘soft approaches’, and acknowledging that a filthy Singapore is a serious problem that justifies a slight breach of human rights.  Catch someone in the act via photo or video, post it uncensored online anonymously and get paid for it (In case you’re thinking we already have ‘citizen journalism’, most littering isn’t sensational enough to warrant a Stomp publication). It’s like the reward in a Wanted poster, graded according to the heinousness of the crime . Such clandestine ‘hired spying’ would serve as a much better deterrent to the litterbug (knowing there are greedy eyes out there watching him), while serving as a incentive to those desperate for a quick buck. Think of it as a contest with a draconian twist. So instead of installing dustbins for lazy people every 50 metres and paying cleaners for overtime, which merely treats the SYMPTOM of littering, put a price on the litterbug’s head instead and play with simple incentives  (avoidance of humiliation, greed, ‘busybody-ness’) which any Singaporean would respond to. Only then will the 62% of civic-minded citizens be taken seriously.

Filed under: 2011, Campaigns/Elections, Environment, Fines | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

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