Wednesday 2 May 2007

Top 10 worst habits of Singaporeans

Taken from the front page of Sunday's Chinese paper:


  1. one person taking up 2 seats in bus (eg with handbag etc)
  2. putting snot onto elevator buttons, bus / train seats, etc.
  3. squeezing fruits at fruit stall and taking free tasters
  4. aggressive driving, hogging overtaking lane
  5. sexually harrassing maids
  6. throwing things from windows of high rise buildings
  7. looking down on mainland Chinese
  8. not flushing toilets
  9. drips from wet clothes hung out to dry in a high rise flat
  10. spitting

My list (soon to be published) has little in common with this one, but it got me thinking about what a similar list for English people would contain? This immediately shows what a blind spot we have for ourselves as I struggled to think of anything like 10 decent entries.

Alcohol seemed to account for half my list (noise, violent behavior, rowdy holidays, football violence, etc). Littering? Aggressive driving? Fly tipping? Xenophobia? Inconsiderate talking on mobiles? Using mobiles while driving?

I don't like either list much. Pointing out a few anti-social habits is shallow and getting at the deeper attitudes & issues can't be done with a simple Top-10 list.

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