10 things I hate about Singapore

[sundaymorningstaple]

I usually say, "can you try speaking it?"

[revhappy]

I find the locals really friendly and courteous. This feeling has become even more pronounced ever since we had our baby. We travel always by public transport and even when the bus is fully packed my wife never had an issue with getting a seat. When we take our baby out on pram on the lift somebody always helps us with holding the 'open' button until we get out or in. Not sure what you guys are on about. Do you guys get any better treatment in your own country?

[poodlek]

I find the locals really friendly and courteous. This feeling has become even more pronounced ever since we had our baby. We travel always by public transport and even when the bus is fully packed my wife never had an issue with getting a seat. When we take our baby out on pram on the lift somebody always helps us with holding the 'open' button until we get out or in. Not sure what you guys are on about. Do you guys get any better treatment in your own country?

LOL It sounds as if you've been extremely lucky! I've found SG'ns "courtesy" to be in approximately last place of all the places I've visited in Asia...for all the reasons you mentioned, the opposite is more often true. But maybe it's just the routes you take? I find people to be more friendly in Little India than in Chinatown, for instance.

[revhappy]

I find the locals really friendly and courteous. This feeling has become even more pronounced ever since we had our baby. We travel always by public transport and even when the bus is fully packed my wife never had an issue with getting a seat. When we take our baby out on pram on the lift somebody always helps us with holding the 'open' button until we get out or in. Not sure what you guys are on about. Do you guys get any better treatment in your own country?

LOL It sounds as if you've been extremely lucky! I've found SG'ns "courtesy" to be in approximately last place of all the places I've visited in Asia...for all the reasons you mentioned, the opposite is more often true. But maybe it's just the routes you take? I find people to be more friendly in Little India than in Chinatown, for instance.

We live in tampines and most of our encounters with locals is in our own block or when we catch the town link bus to get to the tampines central. It's not just once. We have been here with our baby for last 3 months and travel a lot. Can't find anything missing with the local's courteousness. May be I feel that way because I come from India. But still can't imagine how much better US or UK or AU would be.

[JR8]

Check out this page from the Kindness Campaign.
http://kindness.sg/category/public/

First picture at top, I looked at it and thought, does that say:
'I will arrest my neighbour' !?

(as for the 'Reel Pledge' sign, maybe one for the Singlish campaign?)

[the lynx]

Check out this page from the Kindness Campaign.
http://kindness.sg/category/public/

First picture at top, I looked at it and thought, does that say:
'I will arrest my neighbour' !?

(as for the 'Reel Pledge' sign, maybe one for the Singlish campaign?)

Ahem... 'I will greet my neighbour'

[morenangpinay]

Now, i noticed they have a new campaign going. i noticed along bukit timah road posters for "walk to your left" when on the walkway. Must be a new campaign.

[BillyB]

Now, i noticed they have a new campaign going. i noticed along bukit timah road posters for "walk to your left" when on the walkway. Must be a new campaign.

Seriously?!

That's almost like trying to introduce - 'no stopping to use your mobile whilst walking in a busy area'.......

[nakatago]

Now, i noticed they have a new campaign going. i noticed along bukit timah road posters for "walk to your left" when on the walkway. Must be a new campaign.

Happens in one north MRT during the morning/afternoon rush. For some reason, it does not during the lunch hour.

I wish it happens everywhere, all the time. Ditto with people by the doors stepping out so that people can exit the train cars.

Those arrows by the train doors on the platform floors are slowly gaining traction so I guess Singapore is progressing, albeit with baby steps.

[morenangpinay]

haven't had the opportunity to take a pic of the posters though. One poster said: If you can take 10mins to use your phone, you can take 10 mins to walk to your left.

or something like that..

another poster had a large iphone with a photo of a smiling girl with the caption instasmile

so i dont know how it would affect the campaign but im sure they hit 2 birds with one stone on that one. Promoting Instagram and promoting iphone.

[BillyB]

haven't had the opportunity to take a pic of the posters though. One poster said: If you can take 10mins to use your phone, you can take 10 mins to walk to your left.

or something like that..

Trying to kill two birds with one stone - there might be a revolution soon!

[the lynx]

haven't had the opportunity to take a pic of the posters though. One poster said: If you can take 10mins to use your phone, you can take 10 mins to walk to your left.

or something like that..

Or

"If you can take 2 minutes to look for words, you can take 2 seconds to give up your seat" (this is a reference to Scramble With Friends game app on mobile)

"If you can take 10 minutes to touch up your photo, you can take 10 seconds to make someone smile" (this is a reference to Instagram app on mobile)

Disclaimer: These two are based on what I remember seeing on the posters. Some parts may be slightly inaccurate. Please correct me if you do know of the actual ones.

[nakatago]

I saw something like "Flinging birds in space: 20 minutes. (something that involves courtesy) : 20 seconds" on a bus.

[x9200]

I find the locals really friendly and courteous. This feeling has become even more pronounced ever since we had our baby. We travel always by public transport and even when the bus is fully packed my wife never had an issue with getting a seat. When we take our baby out on pram on the lift somebody always helps us with holding the 'open' button until we get out or in. Not sure what you guys are on about. Do you guys get any better treatment in your own country?

LOL It sounds as if you've been extremely lucky! I've found SG'ns "courtesy" to be in approximately last place of all the places I've visited in Asia...for all the reasons you mentioned, the opposite is more often true. But maybe it's just the routes you take? I find people to be more friendly in Little India than in Chinatown, for instance.

We live in tampines and most of our encounters with locals is in our own block or when we catch the town link bus to get to the tampines central. It's not just once. We have been here with our baby for last 3 months and travel a lot. Can't find anything missing with the local's courteousness. May be I feel that way because I come from India. But still can't imagine how much better US or UK or AU would be.

People are generally polite and proactively helpful especially if they see you have or may have a problem with something like a pram so they will give you priority in the lift, on the street, help to remove the pram from bus, give you a non-priority seat. Here they just focused on themselves and it does not matter you are just an average Joe or a pregnant lady with a pram and a number of shopping bags. We used to leave in a condo, far West district, big one, few foreigners only, ca 30% of people entering the lift greeted you. Later we moved to somewhere more downtown, lots of foreigners, almost everybody entering the lift greeted you. Now we live in an EC one, middle size, probably 2 angmoh families in total, and guess what, nobody greets you in the lift, zero. There are courteous local people around and also proactive in the above sense but they are like gems. Majority will not only ignore if you need some help, they will watch you with pleasure having troubles like they watch a tv show. I think I told this story earlier when my motorbike got broken and we (myself and my wife) were just pushing it back home in a pretty heavy rain. Many of the passing cars just slowed down so they could better watch often laughing at us and the only car that stopped and asked whether we need any help was some angmoh in a pickup truck.

[Hidy Ho]

LOL It sounds as if you've been extremely lucky! I've found SG'ns "courtesy" to be in approximately last place of all the places I've visited in Asia...for all the reasons you mentioned, the opposite is more often true.

I haven't been to China but I agree that courtesy here is not that high and I don't know if they are PRC or Singaporean Chinese but it's more of "them" vs. Malay or Indonesians (which I can't seem to tell apart either). I find more smiles from Malays/Indonesian than ethnically Chinese folks.

The lack of "queuing" drives me crazy as well as not knowing whether to walk on left or right side of the sidewalk in a busy street.