Our Singaporean Lifestyle

A day at work would describe the typical Singaporean. Every morning as you enter the train station, you make a mental note that the daily tussle begins just after you scan your ez-link card and walkthrough those battlegates.

You scuttle past everyone and come to the escalator which bears an unmistakable sign saying "Keep Left". Few Singaporeans fail to notice the sign but countless more simply ignore it.

You then come to the platform, almost numbed by the lack of feeling and consideration for others that your fellow Singaporeans can have. "Well, maybe they just didn't realise they were blocking everyone else," you think. On the platform are lines that indicate the angle at which you should wait in order to let people getting off the train to dismount with ease as well to ensure that you get in as fast as possible. You wait in line behind the yellow line and your train finally arrives. You then realise that in the few seconds before the doors of the train open, tens of fellow Singaporeans simply push their way through, disregarding the yellow arrows that were painstakingly drawn and reducing the decent respect that all human beings should have for each other to an absolute zero. It appears that all that matters to your fellow Singaporeans is that they get into the train.

Well you finally get into the train all sticky and sweaty and filled with disgust. The door closes as you compress your body into the packed train that seems like it wouldn't fit even one more mouse into the cabin. You breathe a sigh of relief that the train is on the move again and that the cabin has accepted you in it. Then you take a glimpse into what lies deeper into the cabin: pockets of empty space that at least 10 people could fill but for some strange reason is left as it is. It seems that someone's got a bad case of body odour somewhere around there. Or does it?

As some people get off the train and more people get on, it only seems like the natural thing to do is to move into the empty spaces inside the cabin. This, you realise, rarely happens. So you wait patiently for your stop, while fending off the "tsk" and "hai" of your fellow Singaporean commuters who seem to think that the accidental brushing of an elbow is an indecent display of affection, even in a crowded train.

You finally arrive at your stop and you anticipate your ultimate liberation from this hell-hole they call the MRT. The train stops. You use your body to indicate that you wish to make your way to the door. nothing. You say "excuse me" in a loud voice. nothing. Finally, you realise that the only way your fellow Singaporeans would make way for you to get to the door is to violently push your way through, preferably while making remarks like "haiyoh". Most of the time though, the age old "tsk" works rather well.

Liberation at last! Or so you thought. You see that about 30 people exit from each door at the same time. But that doesn't really bother you. But no words would be able to describe the scene before you as you stand in awe right beside the closing cabin door. Working adults dressed in the best office clothes you thought possible rush out of each cabin door practically lunging themselves in the direction of the escalators. Your mind suddenly gets jolted back to your primary school canteen where everyone would rush to buy the 'limited-for-the-recess' country flag erasers for 10 cents. Never in your life did you imagine that the working world would bring you back to view an image even remotely similar to that, but now it did. Grown, working-class men and women dressed in their best attire rushing for... erasers worth 10 cents?

As you resign yourself to the fact that you have indeed returned to Primary School once again after all those years of slogging at various tertiary institutions, you can't help but stick those earphones in there to drown out the sound of the Great Singapore Rush that has, by now, grown rather repulsive.