Uncommon courtesy

On July 25, 2007 · 30 Comments · In Living


Esca­la­tor — by Mr Wabu

This evening, Naomi and I went to the air­port with her Mum so that we could dine at the only Popeye’s Chicken & Bis­cuits Famous Fried Chicken Restau­rant in Sin­ga­pore. Oh, and for Naomi’s Mum to catch a flight.

On the way up the esca­la­tor to the restau­rant and obser­va­tion level in Ter­mi­nal One, Naomi and Mum were stand­ing side by side, talk­ing about how many pieces of chicken we should eat with­out being too full for com­fort. Out of the cor­ner of her eye, Naomi’s Mum saw that there was a woman one step below them, so she looked apolo­get­i­cally at the woman and moved one step up and in front of Naomi so that the woman could have a clear lane to over­take if she so intended to.

“Wow, that’s really con­sid­er­ate of you”, said Naomi to her Mum, who nod­ded and said, “You’re sup­posed to do that. I do that all the time in Tai­wan (where she’s from)”.

“Well, it doesn’t hap­pen very often here”, said Naomi.

The woman who was behind them didn’t intend to be in that much of a hurry, and was sur­prised enough to say, “Oh yes, that’s true. It doesn’t hap­pen very often here, but other cities, yes”, and when she com­posed her­self fur­ther, said, “I didn’t expect that, you gave me a bit of a shock, actually”.

Remem­ber the old cam­paign in the 70s and 80s exhort­ing the cit­i­zenry to “make cour­tesy a way of life”, com­plete with stick­ers for kids that kids ended up stick­ing all over HDB void-decks and lamp posts? Looks like it’s cul­mi­nated in this level of expec­ta­tion, as well as a revamped cam­paign called the Kind­ness Move­ment, still headed by Singa the Cour­tesy Lion.

I think it’s time for that cat to put some pants on and do some­thing about this. Bet­ter still, retire the lion and intro­duce Kelly the Kay­poh Krocodile or some­thing?

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  • http://ahtiong73.blogspot.com/ ahtiong73

    Talk about Singa the LIon~!!

    I remem­bered that we had to prac­tise that Cour­tesy song dur­ing our music lessons in pri­mary school…

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me
    …

  • http://ahtiong73.blogspot.com/ ahtiong73

    Talk about Singa the LIon~!!

    I remem­bered that we had to prac­tise that Cour­tesy song dur­ing our music lessons in pri­mary school…

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me
    …

  • Wil­son

    I beg to dif­fer that this sce­nario is an uncom­mon sight. I per­son­ally give my way at such sit­u­a­tion not because I did it out of “cour­tesy” but rather because I didn’t want to incon­ve­nient others.

  • Wil­son

    I beg to dif­fer that this sce­nario is an uncom­mon sight. I per­son­ally give my way at such sit­u­a­tion not because I did it out of “cour­tesy” but rather because I didn’t want to incon­ve­nient others.

  • Lia

    pre­cisely, i don’t under­stand how peo­ple can be so “bochap” and incon­sid­er­ate, jam­ming the traf­fic, really frus­trat­ing when one is in a hurry. fur­ther­more there is no obvi­ous sig­nage edu­cat­ing, inform­ing and remind­ing peo­ple of that. (mrt sta­tions are the best example).

    to all resid­ing in sin­ga­pore, our escalator’s rule is “stand on your left, let the peo­ple pass on the right” not the other way round…

  • Lia

    pre­cisely, i don’t under­stand how peo­ple can be so “bochap” and incon­sid­er­ate, jam­ming the traf­fic, really frus­trat­ing when one is in a hurry. fur­ther­more there is no obvi­ous sig­nage edu­cat­ing, inform­ing and remind­ing peo­ple of that. (mrt sta­tions are the best example).

    to all resid­ing in sin­ga­pore, our escalator’s rule is “stand on your left, let the peo­ple pass on the right” not the other way round…

  • http://nadnut.liquidblade.com nad­nut

    i juz came back from tai­wan. was amused by every­one keep­ing to their right on the esca­la­tors at the train sta­tions. till i noticed a sign… if one does not keep to their right, they’ll be fined. lol!

  • http://nadnut.liquidblade.com nad­nut

    i juz came back from tai­wan. was amused by every­one keep­ing to their right on the esca­la­tors at the train sta­tions. till i noticed a sign… if one does not keep to their right, they’ll be fined. lol!

  • http://www.ozlady.com ozlady

    Unfor­tu­nately this is true.

    I always thought that the main rea­son that peo­ple don’t keep to one side or another was that most of the pop­u­la­tion doesn’t drive. If you’re a dri­ver, you are used to keep­ing to one side of the road. If it works on the road, where we have to keep to one side to avoid run­ning into oncom­ing cars, and we keep out of the speed­ing lane so that faster cars can overtake.

    In Sin­ga­pore, I’ve learned not to make eye con­tact with oncom­ing pedes­tri­ans — the sec­ond you do, the other expects you to get out of their way!

  • http://www.ozlady.com ozlady

    Unfor­tu­nately this is true.

    I always thought that the main rea­son that peo­ple don’t keep to one side or another was that most of the pop­u­la­tion doesn’t drive. If you’re a dri­ver, you are used to keep­ing to one side of the road. If it works on the road, where we have to keep to one side to avoid run­ning into oncom­ing cars, and we keep out of the speed­ing lane so that faster cars can overtake.

    In Sin­ga­pore, I’ve learned not to make eye con­tact with oncom­ing pedes­tri­ans — the sec­ond you do, the other expects you to get out of their way!

  • http://singaporekindness.org.sg SKM

    Thank you for your entry!

    Let’s make “Cour­tesy, Our Way of Life”

    =)

  • http://singaporekindness.org.sg SKM

    Thank you for your entry!

    Let’s make “Cour­tesy, Our Way of Life”

    =)

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  • Joan

    Ques­tion about some Asian cul­tures.
    I was attend­ing a five day con­fer­ence in Toronto, Canada where we waited in a cafe­te­ria line for meals with atten­dees from all over the world. Each meal, sev­eral groups of Asians would inch up the line, pass­ing oth­ers, when every­one stepped for­ward, until they were get­ting their food ahead of thirty of more peo­ple who were still patiently wait­ing their turn. It would have been more hon­est for them to just go straight to the buf­fet rather than to pre­tend to wait their turn.

    Sorry, I don’t know what coun­try they are from, but they were not from India.

    I have always won­dered how any cul­ture can func­tion with this behav­ior. They would not get far doing this where I come from! Are there soci­eties who do not even attempt to live by the golden rule? How can they function?

  • Joan

    Ques­tion about some Asian cul­tures.
    I was attend­ing a five day con­fer­ence in Toronto, Canada where we waited in a cafe­te­ria line for meals with atten­dees from all over the world. Each meal, sev­eral groups of Asians would inch up the line, pass­ing oth­ers, when every­one stepped for­ward, until they were get­ting their food ahead of thirty of more peo­ple who were still patiently wait­ing their turn. It would have been more hon­est for them to just go straight to the buf­fet rather than to pre­tend to wait their turn.

    Sorry, I don’t know what coun­try they are from, but they were not from India.

    I have always won­dered how any cul­ture can func­tion with this behav­ior. They would not get far doing this where I come from! Are there soci­eties who do not even attempt to live by the golden rule? How can they function?

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Yes, it bog­gles the mind. In their cul­ture, groups of peo­ple keep inch­ing up lines and pass each other ad infini­tum. No one gets to the food. Quite a spec­ta­cle. Buf­fets have been banned as a result.

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Yes, it bog­gles the mind. In their cul­ture, groups of peo­ple keep inch­ing up lines and pass each other ad infini­tum. No one gets to the food. Quite a spec­ta­cle. Buf­fets have been banned as a result.

  • Quee­nie

    Hi there,
    Does any­one have lyrics for the cour­tesy song?
    Ta muchly.

  • Quee­nie

    Do you still have the lyrics for this song? Would appre­ci­ate if you could email it to me:
    engsookhoe@hotmail.com
    Ta muchly.

  • http://www.miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me…

    Lalalalalalalalalalalalala.… dammit. I don’t got it.

  • Quee­nie

    Mmmm.….That’s not very help­ful. Any kind souls out there who can do better?

  • http://www.miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    They should have national cam­paign songs on ‘Don’t For­get The Lyrics’, don­cha think?

  • dejiki

    Isn’t there another Popeye’s at The Sin­ga­pore Flyer? Heheh.

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  • jlo

    … it makes for gra­cious liv­ing and harmony

  • http://www.miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Really? Those are the words?

  • Angelia

    Here’s the lyrics to the song..

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    Giv­ing a friendly smile
    Help­ing out where we can
    Try­ing hard to be polite all the time

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    Liv­ing could be a treat
    If peo­ple are awfully sweet
    Cour­tesy could be our way of life

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    It is rude to be abu­sive
    Just to prove we’re right
    Instead we could be nice about it if we tried

    Make cour­tesy our way of life.

    Name of Artist : J.J de Souza
    Title : Make Cour­tesy Our Way of Life

  • http://www.miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Really? Those are the words?

  • Angelia

    Here’s the lyrics to the song..

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    Giv­ing a friendly smile
    Help­ing out where we can
    Try­ing hard to be polite all the time

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    Liv­ing could be a treat
    If peo­ple are awfully sweet
    Cour­tesy could be our way of life

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.
    It makes for gra­cious liv­ing and har­mony
    It is rude to be abu­sive
    Just to prove we’re right
    Instead we could be nice about it if we tried

    Make cour­tesy our way of life.

    Name of Artist : J.J de Souza
    Title : Make Cour­tesy Our Way of Life

  • kalline

    I’m also look­ing out for the last two verses, please help, I am try­ing to teach my 3 yr old our old time favourites…

    Cour­tesy is for free
    Cour­tesy is for you and me.……

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