Foreigners, mainly from western country, they feel it is so weird that Singaporean like to put a tissue pack on a seat to reserve the seat. The most bad things is that the people never come back to the seat they reserved, a lot of time they found another seat nearer to the stall they ordered the food. So the "reserved" seat remains empty while a lot of people are look around for seats, just no one dare to chuck away the tissue pack…
Actually, this practice has been ongoing since about 15 years back. It can only get worse with the increase in our population & limited number of food courts, hawker centers & coffee shops. This practice also shows that Singaporean are very “ Kia Su” , Singaporean are too much self protected.
In my view why Singaporean like to reserve seat while they are ordering food, because they scare can not find a seat, they don’t like to carry the food plate move around, mainly also a lot of Singaporean don’t like to sit together with strangers. I often see one person or two persons occupied a four seats table in a crowed food center, they put their bag on the empty seat, they won’t remove their bag even they see you carrying a food plate looking for a place to sit down, especially those ladies. :) Especially if you are a guy, you ask a lady: “May I see here? ” , she will raise up her eyebrows and look at you for a while, then only removes her bag very unwillingly. :) She thinks you are looking for a chance to talk to her. Haha. Lol.
Singaporean take this hobbit as a common practice while foreigners will feel it is very weird. What should I say?
1 comment:
A close friend of mine who is currently taking his PhD degree in NUS - National University of Singapore - have some colorful stories about some of his Singaporean classmates and how this "kiasu" thing manifests in certain situations
I though, based on his stories, kiasu meant competitiveness and pride. Now, I see that it can also mean self-preservation.
Thanks for writing about this. I hope I can visit Singapore one day. :D
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