POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Effective Driving

Mon, 26 Nov 2012
2 min read
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Vroom vroom.

My latest article on POSKOD.SG.

Ten Steps to Effective Driving.
A guide to burning up the road. (Mostly burning.)

In addition to having good communication skills, Singaporeans have extremely awesome motoring habits.

That’s hardly surprising: 12% of Singapore’s land area is made up of roads, so getting around speedily means that you’re gonna need to get your Ma Chi on faster than a traffic light turns green.

Before you do so, however, here are ten steps to effective driving, the get-out-of-my-Singaporean way.

  1. Communicate effectively.
    In keeping with our culture of communicative excellence, don’t use your signal lights.

    Who invented them, and what are they for, other than to overwhelm drivers with useless information?

    Alternatively, communicate in a betterer fashion by signalling a right turn but making a left turn instead.

    Routine breeds complacency, and you’ve got to keep people on their toes – even if it means them keeping their toes on their brake pedal all the time.

    Here’s a quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:

      • You are approaching a junction. You plan to make a left turn into the filter lane.
      • There is a driver at the opposite end of the junction waiting to make a right turn.
      • Do you signal your intention so that he doesn’t have to wait in vain?

      Answer:
      No! Don’t demean him by assuming that he doesn’t want to wait for you.

  2. Be flexible.
    Jam on the brakes when other motorists least expect you to. Better yet – make abrupt U-turns.

    Inject a little spontaneity into what would otherwise be a mundane and boring drive.

    Here’s another quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:
      While driving, you realise you need to make a U-turn. What do you do?

      Answer:

      • Stay in the left-most lane.
      • Jam on the brakes.
      • Turn your steering wheel sharply to your right.
      • Make the U-turn.
      • Bonus points if you signalled a left turn before doing so (in keeping with Step 1).
  3. Keep a safe following distance.
    One bumper width is fine, especially in land-scarce Singapore.

    In fact, the closer you can get, the better – Singapore is all about motor-racial harmony.

    Furthermore, personal space is an alien concept introduced by corrupt Westerners, and has no place in a society built on solid Asian values like filial piety, meritocracy and ERP gantries.

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POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Effective Online Commentary.

Tue, 20 Sep 2011
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"People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening"

My latest article on POSKOD.SG.

Ten Steps to Effective Online Commentary.
A guide to online criticism and debate. (Mostly criticism.)

So, you’ve got an Internet connection, an opinion and some spare time on your hands.

Congratulations! Like everyone else and their blogs, you are now a media hub.

Before you commence e-hurling your iNtellectualism @ the rest of the world, here are ten steps to effective online commentary, the cyber-Singaporean way.

  1. Increase your Internet presence.Set up a website on socio-political issues in Singapore and give it a cerebral, subtle and unique moniker, something like Socially Political SG: Thinking About Socially Political in Singapore.What you have to say is, after all, very ‘niche’, and no one thinks about critical issues affecting our nation in as classy or as astute a manner as you do.
  2. Read widely.Turn to Google and Wikipedia for all your edificatory needs.Besides being the only scholarly sources that can be found on the face of the earth, they are also the most reliable, according to teenage students who take a great deal of pride in referencing “en.wikipedia.org” and “ehow.com” in their homework submissions.
  3. Participate in community discussions on a consistent basis.Trawl other websites and forums every hour and leave comments on other posts, regardless of whether or not your advice is sound and/or logical.Bear in mind that we are a democracy, and democracy, as translated from the Greek, means ‘many people shouting loudly at each other in a self-important fashion’.

    Moreover, your counsel serves to affirm and validate the existence of ‘netizens’.

    Never underestimate the value of this, even if netizens do not seem to mention their appreciation of your beneficence, or worse, if they seem to respond negatively to what you say.

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POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Communicating Effectively.

Thu, 26 May 2011
2 min read
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No -

My latest article on POSKOD.SG, the latest big thing to hit our shores.

Ten Steps to Communicating Effectively.
A guide to winning over friends and contacts in Singapore. (Mostly contacts.)

Besides playing good football and making babies, there is nothing else that we on the Little Red Dot are better at than communicating effectively.

And for good reason too: what in the world could be more Merlion-esque than saying something that one means?

In any case, here are ten steps to effective communication, the Singaporean way.

  1. When conversing, the first thing you want to do is to include people in the conversation. Hence, name-drop or insert as many obscure allusions as you can into your speech:

      “Yes, Delia said the same thing about the Blue Paper. In fact, she said it was similar to the Green Grass Policy implemented back in ’08.”
  2. If people don’t get it, show amusement. The is best displayed through subtle upward spasms of the muscles between the upper lip and the cheek:

      “You… don’t know Delia?” *twitch* “Oh, right – you weren’t on the Remaking WLB committee with us.”
  3. Use acronyms. They are the PIE to life in the fast lane during AM rush-hour traffic, just before SUVs go past the ERP gantry:

      “WLB, WLB! What part of WLB do you not understand?”

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