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It all started with the escalator etiquette, which many Singaporeans seem oblivious to; I had a local question me why it has to be the left side when I walked up the right of the escalator behind him, & said “excuse me.”

Interestingly, shortly after that, this issue was mentioned in one of the speeches by our PM. After that, the proper escalator etiquette seemed more noticeable, especially at Raffles Place & Tanjong Pagar MRT stations.

Based on Hofstede, our culture is characterized by a reluctance to speak up (high PDI), but I believe that would actually perpetuate the bad habits even if we do not do it ourselves.

A huge gap in this effort to improve ourselves, was the almost ubiquitous lack of recognition & encouragement of good service and etiquette.

Thus, I started Sabisu http://sabisu.wordpress.com, with both types of experiences… though I guess with more entries on positive experiences, which isn’t too common.

Here’s an excerpt from my own experience with Singapore’s service standards:

Eating at Newton used to be quite an adventure in the past, when touting was prevalent, and fights as common as seafood there. This was especially true past midnight, with the main mix of post-party clubbers of varying soberness and bar/club staff going for supper after work. The government has since ‘cleaned up’ the place, even physically (a major renovation took place in 2007).

Just recently, I was there for dinner, and looked for my regular store and friendly guy to order from. Incidentally, we order from store No. 53, Guan Kee Seafood, and our friendly Din is pictured here. His service is prompt and sincere, and he’s quite hard-working (runs around like woody woodpecker). He actually remembers how you prefer some of your favourite dishes done after you’ve ordered from him a couple of times.

While we waited a short while for our dishes, we were observing all the tension and competition as different networks of seafood stores lurked around like vultures waiting for the tables to be vacated, while at the same time securing their new customers by ‘helping’ them find seats, whereby the latter could look at the former’s menu while they waited. Of course, you’re told you that can order from any store, but through their non-verbal body language for instance when they’re surrounding you. They seem especially excited about Caucasian customers, I wonder why…

Another funny thing to share about our Newton friend Din – he actually gave us some coins once when we didn’t have any and wanted to go to the washroom. And at our dinner recently, he helped us make up for a few cents in the bill so that we don’t have to bother with waiting for change if we used a $50 bill. If you’re looking for him, it shouldn’t be too hard. Just don’t hunt him down like a hawk!

Damian Sim is a 33 year old Project Manager at Swedish MICE & interior architecture firm, Space Production, with additional roles of branding, creative direction and business development. (www.SpaceProduction.SE)  (E: Damian.Sim@SpaceProduction.SE )

This festive season, I took some time off from eating and drinking to write this down and pay attention to the many things that make Chinese New year enjoyable for the whole of Singapore, and not just the Chinese, by the way. This is an amalgamation of sorts, but really these are the most important things that separate Chinese New Year from most other occasions and holidays. It’s time we took note, because the next time you think you hate Chinese New year and all the festivities, remember:

The 10 things I actually like about Chinese New Year.

1)The reunion dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve.  Delicious home cooked food, the chance to see cousins, uncles, aunties and grandparents together under one roof, and the opportunity to gorge myself, no-holds-barred.

2)When I go house visiting, often times my close friends/ relatives often own gaming consoles, beer, pool tables or tonnes and tonnes of Chinese New Year snacks.

3)Receiving Red Packets from relatives, friends, and sometimes even from very distant relatives you never knew existed! Either way it’s more pocket money.

4)Now there’s an excuse to go out and buy some expensive new clothes while making new fashion statements here and there. Never mind that there are clothes in my wardrobe that are so old, they’ve already gone in and out of fashion several times.

5)During and after the festive season, there will be a ton of Chinese New Year goodies left lying around the house including melon seeds, kueh bangkit, Bakkwa, among others, and it’s up to me to polish them.

6)I receive tonnes of mandarin oranges during Chinese New Year, they are easier to peel than oranges, they taste good, they are addictive, and the numbers of mandarin oranges I will probably consume throughout the entire festive season collectively pack enough Vitamin C to kill a small pony.

7)Cable TV enables all channels free of charge for the first 3 days of the festive season.

8)A bonanza of Chinese variety shows on Channel 8 and Channel U, and blockbuster movies on Channel 5.

9)It’s a public holiday that everyone enjoys because of us, the people who celebrate New Year in the middle of February.

10) Every Chinese New Year leaves enough pineapple tarts, biscuits, pastries and confectionaries to last 3 more Chinese New Years…

Have a happy Chinese New Year, friends and family!

Simon Lew Wei Qi is a 19 year old film student who is anabashedly proud of being Chinese and actually gets excited about CNY every year. Never mind that his friends find it super uncool. His favourite CNY party icebreaker joke? Revealing his real name: Simon Shingz Boomz Lew.

10 things I hate about CNY

1. Steamboat: Reunion dinners are all about steamboat and I personally hate steamboats. Steaming hot bowl of soup really makes me steam with with hatred towards this dish.

2. Nosey Relatives: Relatives, aunties, cousins really have to ask the dumbest of questions during this period. ‘ When are you getting married?’ , ‘Have girlfriend/boyfriend’ , ‘ Your not getting any younger’ . Well, honestly, it’s really none of their business.

3. Chinatown: Hey, most people have to go to Chinatown for non-cny reasons. So, cny period makes it almost near impossible to go Chinatown.

4. Giving Red-Packets: Hey, unfortunately some of us have to get married and its an absolute pain to give red packets to irritating kids running around giving everyone a headache.

5. Queing up to buy Bak Kwa: Hey, can we all just pre-order earlier. Whats with all the queues man?

6. Delivering CNY Goodies: Hey, its a real pain carrying a basket of oranges around TOWN. How cool can anyone look with a red basket walking around the central business district. ‘Applicable to sales people’

7. Having to diet after CNY: Hey, what better time to pig out on all the CNY goodies and yes, the after CNY diet.

8: Over-dosing on Mandarin Oranges: Hey, the oranges are all over and everyone just cant help to shove them down our throats. Well, prepare the lomotil.

9. Having a girlfriend who works in Mediacorp: The roads in the night are absolutely jam near to Mediacorp due to the flower gardens around. Once again, can pre-order or not?

10. Wearing the colour red: Well, honestly, red is not the most flattering colour ever so, some people just dont look good in it. So, enough said, these are the 10 things I hate about CNY. Best soloution, go on a holiday but remember to book early!! :>

Shaun Lim is a 28 year old sales manager who has been trying to skip family reunion dinners, but to no avail. To date , he estimates that he has spent over $10,000 on CNY food and decorations that his mum made him buy over the years. He hopes to marry a girl of another race and use that as an excuse to not celebrate CNY.

Tags: Gwendolyn Chen

My hubby and I got married on 8th November 2008. Ours was an arranged marriage, decided by both our parents. Then, it was a fairytale come true when love blossomed between us.

Whoever said that arranged marriages don’t give us the space & time to get to know each other better than love marriages did wasn’t right. We both knew each right back at school overseas, where he was studying at the guy’s campus and me at the girl’s campus. I only knew him as a schoolmate, and we rarely met except on certain school occasions.

I didn’t have a clue that I was going to share my life with this person till one day, my dad told me that he had asked for my hand in marriage. I was quite taken aback since I didn’t really expect it.

So my dad arranged for the both of us to meet each other on a date. I must say, that wasn’t something that many dads would be open about, but he gave me the freedom to decide. It was the most important decision that I had to take. My family personally had a very good opinion of my hubby and that was definitely a plus. So I decided to give it go and met him.

We shared many things between us and found out that we had many in common. Many have the opinion that arranged marriages don’t leave you with any choice but to agree with the parent’s decision, but our parents gave us the freedom to decide if we wanted to spend our lifetimes with each other. Though eight years apart, there was much I could learn from living with him.

Before deciding to get married, the “looking- forward” factor is very important. It is then when you plan out how you decide to live together.

In our religion, it is the custom for the bride to leave her home & family to stay with the husband and the in- laws. After we got engaged, it was our “dating” period where I got to know more about him and his family. It was very interesting and we both share many joyful, countless memories.  The “dating” period really helped as I didn’t feel so awkward & out of place when I got married and moved in. My in- laws are really nice & friendly people. I felt very comfortable with them.

Day by day the love between us grew more and more as learnt about each other. Not only between me and my husband, but also with his family.  That was when I realized how true it was when they said that, a man is very much pleased when the woman he marries accommodates and is very comfortable with the family he loves.

Of course there are times when we have little disagreements between us, but that only teaches the both of us to love each other for the way that both of us are. Learning to love a person is true love.

It grew more when I was pregnant with my son. My husband & in-laws took good care of me. It was during my most difficult times when I really appreciated my husband. The little, little things that he did for me showed me how much he cared for me. He was there for me, through thick and thin.

The really special thing about our marriage is that, though both of us have a busy working & teaching schedule, we always set aside some time for the both of us just to talk. Even if it was a couple of minutes, to talk about everything and anything. Verbal communication for us is indeed very important.

We’re both happy to be learning to take care of junior together. He is our greatest joy and binds the two of us even closer. He gives us both another reason to stay on and strong.

We often tell each other the three most important words just to give that extra boost for the day and assure each other that, “Yes,  I still love you.” The object of love is not getting something that you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.

It is a fact, however that when we receive affirming words we are far more likely to be motivated to reciprocate. What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. I’m so happy with my decision that I took to include him in my life. I thank God for him and junior.

Rasheedha Majeed is a 22-year-old legal secretary. Her husband Abdul Aziz is 8 years older and a court officer. They count the greatest blessing in their lives as their 3-month-old son, Muhammad Haroon Yahya, whom they call their lovely “prince”.

Life is a journey that we all take, and Love is the one thing that all of us are eager to find… we meet someone, and we fall in love; but most of the time, we fall out of love too. The search for “the one” is a lifetime adventure, some of us search our whole lives for love, but for some, love finds us.

I never had much luck in love when I was younger; I probably didn’t even fully fathom love’s true meaning back then. But as we grow older, we start to understand that love is a lot more than just a feeling.

Some people find love easy, but some, like myself, go through years of heart-wrenching breakups before finding someone to lean on for life.

My boyfriend, Ben, is a DJ.

We met in June 2008 at a random meeting of DJs which I was practically dragged to against my will.

When I met Ben, I was anything but impressed. It definitely was not love at first sight. I never liked the idea of being around smokers, cause it makes me feel sick, and he smoked; like a smoke machine.

There was no way I would end up with someone like that, at least, that’s what I thought back then. Moreover, I was fresh out of a relationship gone wrong and didn’t see myself getting involved with anyone new anytime soon.

Like all new acquaintances, we started talking online. The next time I saw Ben was at Zouk where he was spinning for a friend’s event that they persuaded me to go for. I wasn’t an avid clubber, and night life just wasn’t quite my idea of fun anyway.

I started keeping late nights more than I ever did, and my parents started getting jumpy. All I told them was that I was out with friends. A friend, that’s what I convinced myself Ben was.

Barely a month after getting acquainted, Ben flew to Shanghai for an overseas gig, and returned with a stuffed panda for me. Soon after, I found myself asking questions like “Could I be falling in love, again?”

My parents never really approved of me clubbing, so I knew that dating a DJ would be one of the worse things to do. They would kill me. Really, they would. True enough, when my dad caught wind of the situation, he went berserk. For days all I got were lectures and constant naggings about how people who go to clubs are “bad people”. Drugs, alcohol, trouble. I never felt more confused than I did at that point. I was practically at war with myself, mentally and emotionally, to the point of breaking down.

Honestly, I didn’t particularly like what Ben does for a living, and yet, he was beginning to be the one person who seemed to truly understand me and showed me he could and wanted to love me for who I really am. For days, I cried in sheer frustration.

And then, together, we decided. We connected on such a deep level that we weren’t just going to give it up without a fight, literally. I hated myself, I really did. I knew it would hurt my parents, but I’ve had my heart broken too many times in the past, I wouldn’t give up a possibility of having it mended. I wasn’t ready to let happiness slip through my fingers just like that.

Parents are always concerned for their children’s well-being, they may know what’s good and bad for us, but, they might not always be right.

Until today, I’m glad Ben and I made the decision to stick together. We fought for this relationship, which makes us treasure our love more than anything else. No relationship is perfect, every mistake is a lesson learnt, and we just get stronger with every fall.

People ask me how we stay so strong after being together for a year and a half, and I always tell them the same thing.

“Remember how and why you fell in love with the person you’re with, and fall in love all over again, every single day.”

Love is so much more than just a feeling of butterflies in your tummy, love, is a decision.

Jeanine Gabrielle Goh is a jewellery and accessories designer who also models occasionally. She blogs about her journey with Ben at: http://www.bamboopandalove.wordpress.com