When it comes to driving, Penang is paradise, that’s provided if you drive like Mad Max. Yes, quoting “partially” Chow Yun Fatt from Pirates of the Caribbean, “Welcome to Penang” Driving here is really a test of your skills, many thanks to the driving attitude of the people here. From the moment you step into the road, automatically it turns into a war-zone where you need to avoid cars like avoiding bullets, navigate to you destination like navigating thru a minefield where the mines are as big as lorries, trucks, bus, cars which is “strategically” parked almost anywhere they like. There’s truly something wrong with the picture here. Not only that, driving here can made even a person as nice as an angel turn into a devil instantly as you cannot “tahan” but to swear and yell and shout each time someone misconduct on the road or you thought they misconduct.
For a long time I’ve been wondering why most of us locals has such bad driving attitude on the road but up till now, the reasons seems so many that’s its even hard to pin point a main one. Lets look at some of the major misconduct frequently conducted by our “rally” drivers here. One of the more common phenomenons is queue cutting. Most drivers here have no patience and usually the bigger and more expensive the car they are driving, the worse is their driving attitude. How many times has you swear and curse when someone overcut from the side of you during a turning at the traffic lights? How many times has you say “Char Ben-sii Dai Sai Meh!”? If cursing and swearing gives us bad karma, then driving is a sin and since almost all of us need to drive, no wonder it’s so hard to reach enlightenment :D.
Another thing I observed, not only in Penang is that most of our local drivers like to park or stop their cars “as near as possible” to their destination with disregard to whether they are obstructing traffic or not. They will just simply stop and park, then walk away or sometimes orders Hokkien Char while inside their car. I always wonder why can’t they just park a few meters further and walk a few steps instead of having to block everyone’s path and make people swear and curse again. Maybe like my previous entry, this kind of people lack courtesy or maybe like in Digi’s advert “Aiya, I dun care la, I’m Dai Kor mah!” We all know what happen to him in episode two right? :D
The last habit I wanted to mention, and one of the most dangerous to do is not giving indicator signal at the correct moment. I’m not quite sure whether we are just plain lazy or suffering from carpal turnal syndrome but many of us don’t put the effort of turning on the indicator lights when we want to turn or switch lanes. This is one of the major accidents causing reason and even more so when most of us drive like we are acting in Too Fast Too Furious. Is it really that hard to turn on the indicator light? Maybe we can’t blame ourselves, we are already using one hand to hold the hand-phone, another hand korek hidung, our right leg on the accelerator, left leg on the dashboard, where got hands/legs to turn the indicator huh?
Actually, if we want to blame something on the major causes of our driving attitude, its called selfishness. Everyone wants to be fast, everyone wants to be the first and everyone always thinks they are right and the other driver is wrong. For example, when the front car is going slower a bit, we call them road hogging and maybe starts swearing and honking. If we see the a car behind keep blinking and honking us to go faster, we’ll say “Aiya wanna go so fast for what? Cannot wait to go heaven ah?”. Its human nature to be selfish and its not easy to change but “IF” we can all learn to be a bit tolerant and demonstrate some empathetic skills while we are driving, the road will be a much more safer place to be :D
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Hello, Mr gentlemen
It’s a sad thing, being one of the male population in our country myself to have to say that common courtesy is seriously lacking in our society especially towards the fairer sex. Being a guy here, I have made many observations in many situations before and sadly to say, most of the time I can see a clear lacking of common tactfulness and courtesy shown by men here. Now we know why so many of our local girls are so enamored by foreigners especially the westerners. Could it be because they are better looking? Could be. Could it be because they are generally better build then us? Could be also, or could it be because they know how to show a bit of courtesy and act gentlemen more than the average men here? Definitely. Not to say I’m bias because I’m a guy but I truly believe if we want to compare good looks and good body build, we locals won’t lose so badly to the foreigners but when it comes to charm and being a gentlemen, we lose hands down. Fortunately, there are still locals who are curtiest and know how to act gentlemen but unfortunately, they are so rare and if not they are your typical Casanova Valentino.
Simple courtesy shown to girls actually counts for a lot and I’m sure will earn you many points in the good book of the girl you like. Yes, this is another thing I truly believe, girls do keep points on the men they like or at least have interest in so it will be in your best interest as a guy to keep this in mind instead of the scores and points of your premier league football. Common courtesy isn’t very hard to show, what you need is just to make an effort to do it. Simple actions like opening the car door for the girl, holding the lift door and allowing the girls to enter/exit first, and bringing the seat for the girl in a dining place are all simple gestures of common courtesy that a men should show but locally, you wont see it being practiced very often. Even if you see it, it will be because the girl is his girlfriend. This is another negative point because courtesy should not be bias. If you want to practice it, do it with all your girl friends instead only on the girl you like. This in fact gives you more points. For example, if your girlfriend sees you treating her nice but other girls like junk, what impression are you showing? I leave it for you to tinker on this yourself but unfortunately this kind of situations is very common here also.
Ok, time for some idle talk. To show courtesy, we must also throw away the 3K’s, Kiasu, Kiasee and Kiabor (Ok this last one I’m not too sure :D ). Simple logic here. If you’re Kiasu and always want to be the first in everything, will you hold the lift door and let the girls enter/exit first? Most of the time, you will push your way out and let the lift door “kepit” the poor girls following behind. Same goes if you’re a Kiasee person. When its raining, will you hold your umbrella to the girl while you brave the rain? Most likely you will give the umbrella to the girl and brave the rain yourself because you want to show that you are macho. Ahhh, when talking about this, I also want to point out why guys don’t like to carry umbrellas. Many of us worry that if we are caught dead holding an umbrella, especially when it’s not raining, duhh, it makes us look feminine. This is stupid thinking I say. Actually it’s very good to hold an umbrella. Why? Simple, when it’s raining, obviously you will have something on top of your head and when its not, you can hold that umbrella for your girl friends as sunshade. (Remember courtesy gains you points?).
Ok so fellow guys, before many of you come to me and “cekik” me to death, I hope you can show some courtesy and instead just give me a pat on my back. :P
Simple courtesy shown to girls actually counts for a lot and I’m sure will earn you many points in the good book of the girl you like. Yes, this is another thing I truly believe, girls do keep points on the men they like or at least have interest in so it will be in your best interest as a guy to keep this in mind instead of the scores and points of your premier league football. Common courtesy isn’t very hard to show, what you need is just to make an effort to do it. Simple actions like opening the car door for the girl, holding the lift door and allowing the girls to enter/exit first, and bringing the seat for the girl in a dining place are all simple gestures of common courtesy that a men should show but locally, you wont see it being practiced very often. Even if you see it, it will be because the girl is his girlfriend. This is another negative point because courtesy should not be bias. If you want to practice it, do it with all your girl friends instead only on the girl you like. This in fact gives you more points. For example, if your girlfriend sees you treating her nice but other girls like junk, what impression are you showing? I leave it for you to tinker on this yourself but unfortunately this kind of situations is very common here also.
Ok, time for some idle talk. To show courtesy, we must also throw away the 3K’s, Kiasu, Kiasee and Kiabor (Ok this last one I’m not too sure :D ). Simple logic here. If you’re Kiasu and always want to be the first in everything, will you hold the lift door and let the girls enter/exit first? Most of the time, you will push your way out and let the lift door “kepit” the poor girls following behind. Same goes if you’re a Kiasee person. When its raining, will you hold your umbrella to the girl while you brave the rain? Most likely you will give the umbrella to the girl and brave the rain yourself because you want to show that you are macho. Ahhh, when talking about this, I also want to point out why guys don’t like to carry umbrellas. Many of us worry that if we are caught dead holding an umbrella, especially when it’s not raining, duhh, it makes us look feminine. This is stupid thinking I say. Actually it’s very good to hold an umbrella. Why? Simple, when it’s raining, obviously you will have something on top of your head and when its not, you can hold that umbrella for your girl friends as sunshade. (Remember courtesy gains you points?).
Ok so fellow guys, before many of you come to me and “cekik” me to death, I hope you can show some courtesy and instead just give me a pat on my back. :P
Introduction
Ideal thoughts are only a hypothetical statement. What may seem ideal at once might not become so in another time or day. Take for example King Midas’s story. He first thought that it would be perfect if anything he touches turns into gold but as times goes by, he found out it is not to be so. If your food and drinks turns into gold, will you be able to eat/drink them? If you loved ones turns into gold by your touch, will you be able to hug them, talk with them anymore? The answer is obvious.
As such, it is the title of my second blog. Pillows are things that provide comfort to us and diamonds are one of the most precious materials in the earth. Wouldn’t it be “ideal” if we make a pillow out of diamonds? Hypothetically it would, but then can you gain comfort by sleeping on diamonds, which is as hard as a rock? Another obvious answer. That’s why in this blog, what I express is only as ideal as one thought them to be and only at that specific moment. In other sense, it can be consider just idle chatter :)
As such, it is the title of my second blog. Pillows are things that provide comfort to us and diamonds are one of the most precious materials in the earth. Wouldn’t it be “ideal” if we make a pillow out of diamonds? Hypothetically it would, but then can you gain comfort by sleeping on diamonds, which is as hard as a rock? Another obvious answer. That’s why in this blog, what I express is only as ideal as one thought them to be and only at that specific moment. In other sense, it can be consider just idle chatter :)
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