My dear Singaporean friends, please excuse this rant but I am royally pissed this evening.
It is not usual for me to use expletives on Facebook but today I really do feel the urge with two particular reasons.
Firstly, I was clearing out some of my stuff from the old house in SG and the boys were watching some Mediacorp drivel that they produce pretending it to be “Entertainment” I believe it was not a quiz show per se with real contestants, rather a pseudo quiz staffed with people who imagine themselves to be celebrities.
About the final question was “What makes you happy to be Singaporean?” One of them replied “That we are not Malaysian”. The expletive that I am avoiding in this case would refer to the aforementioned person as an arrogant player of the pink trombone. Seriously? Singapore that great country whose citizens venture into neighbouring countries and have sex with their cars in order to get more cheap fuel into them? Where Mediacorp “entertainment” is anything but?
The second was the way the Singaporean side of the causeway is being run. After 9.30 p.m. there are two feeds onto the causeway for cars, over the viaduct from the BKE or up the ramp from Woodlands road / Woodland Central. Each of these is funnelled into a specific lane and they are usually manned pretty much equally.
Tonight, I joined the queue over the viaduct at about 3.00 a.m. It was SLOW. The sign said HEAVY TRAFFIC INTO JB. I reached passport control at 4.45 a.m. The reason? The channel that the viaduct feeds into had TWO booths open while the other channel had about eight open. There wasn’t really much traffic – it was simply poor load balancing. All kudos to the officer in charge of handling the manning of the booths, he was obviously busy handling him own interests instead. SO I finally get home to loved ones around 5.15. Thanks a lot. (See the cheeky reference I slipped in there?)
Both annoy me – but the thing that annoys me far more is that there was an almost stationary jam in the bike lane.
I find it odd that Middle Eastern countries are criticised for their treatment of foreign workers but everybody keeps mum on Singapore’s attitude.
Without the tens of thousands of Malaysians who come in by bike and bus every day the Singapore economy would be screwed. How do they reward these brave people who ride through hot sun and torrential rain to power the Singapore economy? My putting in place such a inefficient system that the jam for bikes can be up to two hours EVERY DAY. Rain or shine. And today it was still jammed at 4.45 p.m. when I left.It is getting worse.
Shame on you for this Singapore. I really feel that you can do better. You don’t pay enough for Singaporeans to be able to survive doing these jobs, but you treat the heroes who have a similar enterprising spirit to those who built your country, the construction workers, the domestic helpers, the shipyard hands – you treat them all like dirt, while you sit in a nice air-conditioned office feeling smug.
Source: Dave Appleton
