Are politeness surveys really relevant?

There's just something wrong with politeness surveys. One survey done recently rated Singaporeans as very polite people. Yet another rated Singapore as fifth from last among other nations for politeness. Well, I personally think that Singaporeans aren't polite. Singaporeans are more like reserved. Or rather, so reserved that they could be mistaken for the dumb until they get Progress Packages.

I think that's the common mistake other countries make when they describe Singaporeans as nice polite people. The reason why they think so is probably because we don't talk much, so people just think we're being nice. I mean who seems more polite, some American telling you to go fly uncle charlie's kite or a Singaporean?

However, Singaporeans aren't just reserved, they're apathetic too. And when a politeness survey uses another set of criteria, Singaporeans will quickly be found lacking. The second survey which rated Singapore poorly used criteria that required Singaporeans to actually step in and do something, like someone dropping a stack of books and waiting for help.

I as a Singaporean will actually tell you that you'd be better off picking up the books yourself. Singaporeans will stop and look, think "should I help?", decide you're not worth the trouble and move on. That's how Singapore is. I'm not surprised we did badly for the second survey.

In fact, Singapore is so bad at this whole social interaction business, including courtesy and politeness, that the government has to step in and launch a campaign like "4 million smiles", which borders on the ridiculous and smacks of desperation.

You can't make Singaporeans more sociable just by starting some stupid campaign and hoping it works. Full marks for trying but a big flat zero for effectiveness. I have no idea why Singapore still uses campaigns when we can see that they don't work. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're lost for other solutions. Think about that.

Social interaction is a culture. The reason why other countries do it better is because it is second nature to them. In Singapore its just not in the national psyche to be anything other than an efficient, emotionless worker drone obsessed about the bottom line and results. Maybe we've forgotten to be people, so much that we need surveys to tell us that we are too robotic.

And don't even get me started on how much we are suckers for anything that quantifies our success, like surveys. It seems that Singapore would go out of the way just to get good ratings for surveys, like its some stupid exam where we need to score 100 marks. Maybe we do well at surveys because others don't care so much that they'd go out of the way to do well at them.

Since we're never going to do well for these surveys using campaigns, I have a solution that works. Get a bunch of "polite" people to shadow the surveyors so that when they drop their books all these "model citizens" would rush in to help. That way we'll score high, we can remain the apathetic citizens we are and we save money on campaigns.

Don't worry about the moral implications of faking surveys. Everyone knows that surveys aren't that reliable anyway. They're just good for conning the ignorant, which is just about anyone overseas when it comes to Singapore. Voila! How come no one ever thought of this?

Frenzied betters play God

Humans on their own are usually insignificant, but they all have one similarity. They all like to play god. Nowhere is this more evident then at a World Cup, an event long on irrational fervour and short on rational logic. For the one thing bigger than the World Cup itself is the World Cup betting frenzy.

Do you seriously think this world cup would be so big if there weren't obscene amounts of money being wagered on the outcomes of every match, on whether certain teams would score a certain amount of goals? Humans all like to think they know better. I see people doing stupid things like putting hundreds on matches, only to tell me after the match that they should have known better. Well, sorry, but I thought you did.

Even thinking that putting money on matches will win you money in the long run is just stupid, Just think about it, if betting were a money-losing business, (I.E. you will always win money so the betting houses would lose theirs), would there be so many betting houses around? Would the government actually want to legalise gambiling even at the cost of their squeaky clean public image? Money has a way of making people give up their moral values. Actually any form of a carrot can do that if you're narrow-minded enough.

You want proof? Live for a week in a certain ISP platoon in a certain signal battalion and watch how people fight for offs and other petty advantages. Morals go out of the window. The devil would be proud.

If I had the money I would start a betting house too. Before I can even open the door of my new shop hundreds of people would be rushing to throw their cash at me, then spend the next few days scrimping and saving just to throw more cash at me. What a life. I won't even be able to enjoy the money you people are throwing at me fast enough before more will be thrown at me again. Then I'll open a few more shops and the number of people throwing cash at me would increase tenfold. Soon I'll start New SingPools and the number would increase to national proportions. I would then pay Gurkhas or African child soldiers to serve in the SAF. They are fitter and more motivated for the same amount of cash. And I wouldn't have to serve reservist, which is just a 10-day or so kopi-drinking exercise.

Yes my dear OC, my attitude may be bad but I'm not here by choice. I would however recommend my Gurkha or African brethen to you. They would really love to take my place, which I would be so willing to give, to essentially do nothing for a living while still being able to enjoy the privilege of reporting sick too! And they even get lots of off days! If only in the signal formation. Its a win-win situation, something I've learnt from my secondary school days which still guides me to this day.

Allow me now to take a 5 minute break to expunge my disgust and suspend my disbelief. Oops!

But not serving in the army is all a conjecture and a fantasy. Till someone gives me enough cash to start my own betting house.

But back to my topic, it is seriously dumb that people still want to place money in bets. I guess humans like to go for the short term high where you feel vindicated for thinking you knew better, while losing money in the long run. Probability shows that you will probably win a few times in placing bets. but probability also shows that you can never win money in the long run from bets. You'd be better sitting on your cash and not touching it. How can people claim to pass A-level maths and not know this? Its just something about humans that still puzzles me.

Travelling

It takes some getting used to living on two sides of an island. In the ancient past when ancient villagers lived on islands, I'm pretty sure they didn't traverse from one end of the island to the other without good reason. For one its a pain getting from one end to the other, unless your island is the "cartoon" island, the one with one coconut tree and one unlucky marooned guy often depicted in cartoons.

Which reminds me, people like to ask others the question of what'd they'd bring if they were suddenly marooned on a deserted island. People tend to say stuff like the most beautiful lady in the world, a book, an mp3 player or whatever. I can tell you these people are either really stupid or just horny. The first thing I'd bring is a working auto-roaming handphone with GPS. The second would probably be a spare battery for that phone. The third would be another spare battery. You get the idea. Only idiots would choose to actually continue staying on that island. You can't eat coconuts forever, nor would you want to.

Back to the topic of travelling cross-island, as much of a pain as it is travelling around in an MRT, I still have to do it to get home from camp. However last friday the trip home on the MRT proved a little different. While I was daydreaming on the MRT this large extended family came in and sat on the row of seats opposite me. Well, it would have been just another family had it not been for this one little girl with two ponytails who just refused to sit still. One moment she would be climbing the metal pole, and the next moment she'd be hanging by her hands on the overhead handles and swinging around. Sometimes she would look at her own reflection in the wall and shake her head while making monkey faces at herself. Otherwise she would be swopping seats with the rest of her family members. If there ever was a tireless ball of energy I think she would be close to it.

I watched her antics with a sense of amusement and a tinge of sadness. The amusement probably stemmed from the fact that I was getting a free circus show from a very enthusiastic performer who never stopped laughing and smiling. The sadness probably came from the realisation that I was once a little kid like this girl who swung round the poles and ran helter-skelter from end to end of the train, laughing and carefree as I did so.

Somewhere along that line I became more reserved till I wouldn't be caught dead doing what this girl was doing, although there was this part of me that really wanted to play along like this little girl. It seems that as one grows up, one gets robbed out of a very basic need to just have fun. Why does it even seem wrong to enjoy one of life's simplest joys, to do what the heart wants? Its as though that as one grows up, one forgets how to have fun, however much we know about time being money and making pots of it.

The thing I noted about this family was, no matter how much of a "disturbance" this girl was, her parents never once stepped in to stop her, only watching from the sides to make sure she didn't get hurt. The amazing thing was, nobody seemed to mind the girl either, despite the fact that she was definitely quite prominent. The family didn't seem to care whether their face would be lost because of their little girl, like the typical chinese family. To them it was more important that their little girl was happy. And surprisingly, it was the same case for the rest of the occupants in the cabin, although people were giving up their peaceful rides for her. Maybe the occupants were just bochap, but I think there was more than that. It gave me a lot to think about.