Sometimes you read something so incredibly epic and brilliant that you just have to repost it, share it and tell everyone you know to read it: please read this:
http://milomel.blogspot.sg/2013/05/today-i-am-ashamed-of-being-singaporean.html She has summed up the story better than I can in a way that only she can - I love you Melissa Low, you're fucking brilliant. Read it, comment on it, share it, talk about it.
 |
| Clarke Quay, where the incident took place. |
This is stupid and pathetic. Reminds me of the incident at the bank you posted about earlier. I have noticed this apathy set in early since childhood and as the years go by, it gets firmly ingrained into our psyche and finally manifests itself as a culture. I believe this begins the moment we send our kids to school and how everyone is brought up. Asking for your opinion here - What do you think CAN actually be done about this terrible attitude on a societal level?
ReplyDeleteHi there. I'm sorry you weren't very clear = can I get you to clarify on a few points please?
ReplyDelete1. What is stupid and pathetic? Are you saying that Melissa's post/attitude is or were you referring to the woman who got molested or that of the people around her who refused to help her?
2. Which incident at the bank I posted? Was it some queue jumping incident? (I can't recall...)
3. I think that apathy can set in when people just get a bit too comfortable and with the influx of PRCs (as your population rises towards 6.9 or 10 million) - Singaporeans will be jolted/forced into action. It is a sink or swim situation. Apathy = si lu yi tiao as we say. (si lu yi tiao, dead road only one = if you do this you will die).
Hi there.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the vagary. I'm taking Melissa's POV and frankly surprised at the asinine comments left by those who refused to help and those who advocating refusing to help from the desktops.
Yes, it was the queue jumping incident you brought up. I have lived and worked in Scandinavia and recently some 4th world ASEAN states, this has to be the most damn pathetic showing from any country. I can't think of anyone I met in those states taking this lying down (unless you have a pistol pointed to your head in some countries in a club) and even then someone would have tried to do something about it before backing off vs. slinking away and passing stupid snide comments from behind a computer screen.
Well, I like Melissa's style and you do realize, she is deliberately being provocative with her rather in-your-face style, spoiling for a fight and there are people like myself who enjoy reading that. When I see lame-ass comments like that on Facebook, I take a deep breath, close the browser window and avoid getting into a flamewar with the idiots who have left the idiotic comments.
DeleteI now remember the queue jumping incident (oh that was ages ago) - but let's see lah. I think back in the 1980s and 1990s, Singapore was a place where you could rely on people to queue up, behave themselves and follow the rules; but these new arrivals from China have other ideas and we'll just have to see how much Singaporeans can put up with before they get jolted out of their apathy.
Hi Limpeh,
ReplyDeleteI do not subscribe to your high opinion of the lady blogger's style. The style is overly provocative... way too loud. Too confrontational that it makes the point of view unpersuasive. You write much better and I enjoy your style. Really hope that you do not descent to that style since you are liking it. You do not need to artificially over-react to put a point across or to get more readers. It's quite a turn off style actually and judging from comments there it is not well received.
Now to the matter. I go to Boat Quay and Clark Quay more times than I can count. In Boat Quay the drinks are great but when I go there with friends we are always aware that it could be a rowdy place, especially in the late night. You see your fare share of drunken men and women and also of gangs hanging out on their motor bikes. Fights were often than police later had to install CCTV over the place. The right thing to do is to walk away if you see anything amiss. One of my friends was bashed up over a small quarrel that he cannot even remember over what in his drunken state with another party group in a club and it’s just not worth it. We go there, and bring our girls there to have fun, not get into fights.
So when I see a clueless angmo girl with another angmo man having some altercation in such a place and at such a time, it is definitely not a wise thing to assume anything. There could be cultural differences that you do not understand. On top of it you have foreign male drunkenness and possible foreign sleaze (lone girl out in such a place and time) you may get into a situation that you do not know how to control. Now this is not cowardice on my part I assure you, but just wisdom borne of years of clubbing. I have stepped in to defend the honor of stranger ladys for lesser crimes. I once combed a university library, with security guard on tow to try to nap a peeping tom who was spotted - using a mirror under the table. I also followed chase of a lift molester in a HDB void deck whose victim shouted for help. So I am no coward but I am also no dumb hero.
About cultural differences. When I was in Korea we could not read anything. All the signs were in Korean and there were no English used anywhere. It was miserable moving around. In the subway we saw a local man beat his wife (or girl friend) on the platform. No locals came to help, just walked past. To us as a tourist it was appalling how Korean men treat their women folk in public. But then years later you see the same Korean women in popular Korean movies shown on Singapore TV and you realize from the movies that culturally the status of women in Korea sucks. It's like the Japanese, maybe worse. Beating a wife in Korea is no big deal to them. It's like a parent beating or disciplining his/her child on the MRT platform in Ang Mo Kio. It doesn't warrant any heroics from anybody.
Hi there, thanks for your comment. Allow me to respond to your points.
Delete1. I have done the Melissa Low thing once over the Rohingya refugees issue as I totally blew my top - I got so unspeakably angry that I did it. It drew a lot of traffic to my blog because it did express a notion that was felt by many. Would I do it again? No. Why? There are so many stupid people in the world, am I going to attack them one by one? No, that is not going to happen - there is just so many lame-ass stupid comments on Facebook all the time. I have learnt to ignore them rather than get into flame wars. There are stupid people in the world, leave them alone....
2. I do not have a problem with Melissa writing like that for I agree with her POV - the only thing if I don't know if I see the point in attacking these people in a naming & shaming manner for they outnumber her to the point where she is just going to make herself so incredibly frustrated when she realizes that she change any of them and she is stuck in a place where people are indeed like that. Now that's a depressing thought - her only option is to leave Singapore ... ?
3. I live in the West End of London, surrounded by bars & clubs and I always see a lot of drunk people acting stupid and I give them a wide berth. But let me give you an example - my friend Matteo and I were leaving work when we saw a woman and a man shouting at each other and he grabbed her, she pushed him away and it looked like he was about to hit her. So Matteo and I walked up to her and said, "is this man bothering you?" And she said, "Yes... but he is my boyfriend, just tell him to fuck off and leave me alone for a while please." We just looked at him and he said, "OK... OK..." and he walked away. She then told us that they have had a heated quarrel and she just needed some space and she was grateful for our intervention. But yeah I would always intervene if I see a damsel in distress - that's just me.
4. Yes I know enough about Korean culture to know that they suck when it comes to treating their women with respect.
5. But back to Mel Low, she has the right to write in whatever style she wants - being this undiplomatic wins her fans like me who admire her guts to tell it like it is - she has balls. But I do question the point in attacking these assholes, yes they are assholes and there will always be assholes in Singapore, what can you do? Invent a cure for stupidity?
Hi Limpeh,
ReplyDeleteLike B Tiger, I was also very surprised that you thought Melissa's blog was epic and brilliant. Frankly I disagree because she was too one-sided. In her post she mentioned only the comments which she deemed xenophobic and stupid to rant about.
If she looked closely at all the comments in the original page, she would also notice that there were rational and helpful comments. But I suppose her point WAS to go into a rage and rant about the xenophobic Singaporeans and be purposefully controversial to boost readership? Perhaps, any publicity is good publicity? But doing so in such a completely irrational manner makes her lose credibility as a writer, so... no, I don't think that can be described as 'brilliant'.
I would expect her level of rant to be in response to more epic wtf level of social issues, such as how the Delphi rape case brought to light how many men in Indian society seem condone rape. I'm not saying molest is less of a wrong than rape, but Melissa is really overreacting to the morons online. Like you said, I totally agree that there will always be morons online who comment without any thought... Engaging them is truly a waste of time!
Hi NR, I think you guys blog with a lot more purpose and write in a serious manner and so do I because that is the way I naturally express myself, but I accept that different people have different ways of making their point and expressing themselves. I like Melissa for her frankness and bluntness which I do find refreshing and that's the person she is and I don't think she gives a damn about her 'credibility' in your eyes - she can't please everyone as a blogger (important lesson, you should note this). Whilst you please one section of the readership, you piss off another - what can you do? You can't please everyone, so you may as well please yourself and write in the way you feel suits you best.
Delete