Leading An Astray Person To The Right Path

I do not usually write about relationship or social problems. I also do not like to dish out advice to others because I am no trained counsellor. However, I like to write about personal experiences, especially amusing ones. And like what Chun See did here, here and here, I also like to give misleading titles to my posts. So this post is still about an amusing personal experience.

Today, my colleague was scheduled to service his car at Leng Kee. He requested a favour from me - to follow him in my car during lunchtime so that he could leave his car at the workshop and then hitch a ride back to the office after we had lunch together. After work, he would hitch a ride to the workshop to collect his car. After he reminded me that I might need his help in return someday As I am always glad to help someone, especially since he is also a good friend of mine, I agreed without hesitation. As a gesture of thanks, he insisted on buying me lunch which I accepted to avoid arguing with him in public.

After work, we proceeded to collect his car. On the way there, he was worried that after collecting his car, he was not too sure of the way to get to PIE as that was the only way he knew how to get home. So I offered to lead him to Orange Grove Road where he should make a left turn into the road. As I would be going straight into Orchard Road, I told him that I would signal left near that junction but I would not be turning into that road. He said "Okay" and followed me in his car.

When we reached the Tanglin Road and Napier Road junction, I saw that he wanted to make a wrong left turn into Napier Road. I hand-signalled to him that it was the wrong road. He corrected his mistake in time and continued to follow my car. When we were in front of Tudor Court, I signalled right to overtake a long queue of slow moving traffic. Alas, he misinterpreted it as a signal for him to turn left, so turn left he did into Nassim Hill, just before Orange Grove Road. I called him immediately to tell him that he went into the wrong road. He asked me not to worry as he would find his way.

About 5 minutes later, he smsed me and said "I saw PIE".

I smsed my reply, "Good. Just don't end up in Tuas Jurong. Wahaha. I've to blog abt this."

A while later, his 1st reply came: "U still dare to mock me. Gave me wrong signal. U said u signal right but won't turn wat. I saw e signal so I turned lor. But same way. Ended up in Steven road."

Realising his mistake, he sent a 2nd reply: "I meant u said u signal left but won't turn. And I know where's Jurong and Changi Airport, ok?"

Sigh 这个人真的是死要面子.

I will not be very wrong to say that this colleague has little road sense - he got lost right in the smack of town! I wonder how he managed to topo his way out of the jungle in his army daze days. Don't tell me he is not familiar with Tanglin/Orchard Road area? Hello, that is the main shopping belt for tourists and locals alike okay? You mean his wife never asked him to fetch her to Orchard Road for shopping ah? If she did, she most certainly must have directed him there all the way.

To avoid any miscommunication when I am leading the way in future, I will switch on my hazard lights instead for signalling a turn to the following driver.

You could have guessed it by now - that colleague was Chris.

The Invasion Of The Kims, Lees And Parks

This post is titled as such because about 40 percent of Koreans have Kim, Lee or Park as their surnames. Make no mistake - I am not against attracting foreign talents to our country. Neither am I xenophobic. I am just relating a fact that only dawned on me recently.

There is no doubt that South Korea is an emerging economic superpower. South Korea has several dozens chaebols. (Note: Not chabor or women, although I am sure she has them as well and many pretty ones too.) A chaebol is a large, family-controlled Korean corporate group, assisted by government financing. Chaebols have played a major role in the South Korean economy since the 1960s. Some have become well-known international brand names, such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG. But let's look back in history to see how the Koreans managed to slowly garner a share of the Singapore market in almost every product.

Hyundai's debut in the Singapore car market began when its first Pony galloped onto our shores a quarter of a century ago:

It was then a horse with no name. I have not ridden driven a Pony before but I have heard enough horror stories about it. As Mr Christopher Tan, Straits Times' Senior Correspondent put it in a recent article, the only other car that could rival it in terms of notoriety "was the Lada Samara, a thinly-disguised Russian loaf machine that arrived a decade later".

Today, Hyundai cars are the third best-selling in Singapore, according to LTA's 2005 figures, losing out only to Toyota and Nissan:


Hyundai even beat Honda and Mitsubishi to fourth and fifth places respectively. And the best-selling mini-MPV was the Hyundai Matrix:


The confidence that Singapore consumers have in Korean products is evident to me when Chris recently bought two Korean products:
The reasons why more Singaporeans are now accepting Korean products must be as follows:

a. Korean products' designs, quality, durability and reliability have all improved through the years. Many people now prefer Korean-made products to China-made ones even though they have to pay a bit more.

b. The products are competitively priced. Their prices are at least 20% lower than similar products that are made in Japan. (However, I have also heard many people complaining that Korean cars consume at least 20% more petrol than their Japanese counterparts.)

In terms of TV entertainment, I remember in the early 80s, Singaporeans were crazy over Hong Kong serials. The first popular one was "The Man In The Net" starring Chow Yun Fatt:


Mr Ong, my primary school classmate whom I met recently, told me that his wife watches Korean drama serials almost every night till early next morning. She then catches up on her sleep in the day. What an exciting life! Only blogging seems to be more exciting. The shows that she watches must have stars such as these:

Now I know why the handsome lad in the last photo is also called "the aunties' heartthrob" by people like Chun See. There is even a Wikipedia entry on, not Chun See, but Bae Yong Joon. My wife got my alarm bells ringing when she recently told me that she found the show Da Chang Jin "quite nice".

Would you believe it? Korean snacks are also invading our supermarket shelves:


But this was the last straw that broke my back prompted me to write this post:

Korean ice cream!

They even teach you how to pronounce it (the Korean way, I suppose):


It is not pronounced the way it is in "preferred bra" but "pray-fair-ray".

So "pray-fair-ray", I've had a wonderful time too writing this post.

Singapore: The Encyclopedia

The above tomb tome (a large heavy book) is the first comprehensive encyclopedia written about Singapore. (More details about the encyclopedia are available in the National Heritage Board's (NHB's) press release here. At 3.2 kg, the encyclopedia is heavy as a tombstone.

The encyclopedia was launched on 11 September 2006. Why they chose this date, I do not know. Maybe it is because it was a memorable date. I read somewhere that the launch was timed to coincide with the IMF/World Bank meetings. It was hoped that every delegate could bring buy one home as a souvenir to remember Singapore by. However, there might not be enough copies to go around since the first printing only consisted of 8,000 copies. Moreover, one selfish individual, i.e. yours truly, had already reserved 5 copies through my NHB contacts via yesterday.sg. At 50% off the normal price of $75, it was an offer many found hard to resist. (Chris obviously could not resist either as he had placed his order through me.)

I heard that the encyclopedia was sold out at several bookshops only a few days after the launch. Indeed, when I checked with Popular Books in Eastpoint this morning, they had run out of stocks. This evening, I popped into MPH at Parkway Parade. They still had some stocks, but not much:

Moreover MPH offered only a 20% discount.

You may be wondering why I am so interested in this encyclopedia. The answer is in Pg 119 of the book:

The encyclopedia is proof that our society has opened up quite a lot over the years. We are no longer so "conservative or even close to Victorian", as BG George Yeo claimed us to be. Besides showcasing Singapore's many achievements of being first in many areas, we are also not shameful to show the warts as well. The fact that Annabel Chong, Adrian Lim and Michael Fay earned separate entries in the encyclopedia showed that the documentation of the facts is balanced. That, I feel, is certainly a good thing.