Tuesday, 29 November 2011

A Mischief


The news is out. This time, "The Straits Times" had the audacity to report it. TV host, Quan Yifeng, 37, happily pleaded guilty yesterday to a lame charge of mischief, stemming from an altercation she had with a taxi driver in June last year. Mischief  is a conduct that playfully cause petty annoyance, like a gentle pinch on the ear. In comparison, it seem that throwing a cigarette butt on the road is more serious than her kicking the taxi driver's groin and thrashing the interiors of his cab. A litter bug gets a fine and/or jail, whereas she will gets only a written warning.

Since she is "mischievous child", the court imposed only a probation report on her. This is the first time the court called for a probation report for an offender over 20 years old. This is done only under exceptional circumstances. Previously, only a juvenile delinquent below 20 years old are allowed to go free on probation but she is 37 years old. She is an over grown celebrity child in the eyes of our court and qualified for exceptional consideration.

Surprisingly, the prosecution accepted the judge's decision in acquiescence - without a word of protest.. Indeed, it's a rare decision from all the court officers. If she completes the probation successfully, she will not have a conviction, i.e. it will be considered as no offence. She will go scot-free and laughing to the warm embraces of MediCorp, her very supporting boss.

Like I said in my earlier post, courts sentencing and decision are often like the unpredictability of the final result of a soccer match. Sometime, "kelong" is involved. For the benefits of my overseas readers, "kelong" is a modern Singlish usage. The word kelong is now used as a suggestion of match fixing by referees, in particular in the context of soccer.

Undoubtedly, her smart and influential lawyer, Mr. Subhas, had done a great job for her. With his stature as President of Singapore Association of Criminal Lawyers and a medical report from a paid psychiatrist, he got all court officers to innocently believe that Quan had a history of longstanding depression and anxiety. She had serious metal disorder, oh poor crazy girl!!. Mr. Subhas eloquently pleaded with the judge that when Quan committed the mischeif, she was sick with depression and should be excused on account of her mental disorder. Oh! please forgive my poor mad girl!!

But the fact is, Quan, had previously been fined twice for getting into a fight with a bowling alley attendant and driving without a licence and causing an accident. She was also on anti-anxiety, anti-depressant and sleep medication right up to the time the latest incident happened. If a sick person is on medication, the condition is supposed to be under control. I think she is a incorrigible aggressive trouble maker and bully of people with lower social status than her, like hawkers, taxi driver and cleaners. Ask her to kick her boss when she is infuriated and I bet to my last dollar, she won't dare. If she dare to do it, than she is really crazy.

Another thing that intrigues me is, why her boss, MediaCorp, still keeps her to host prime time shows when they knew she had serious mental disorder and criminal convictions. She is a role model to many young and innocent audience. Quan was recruited from Taiwan. Maybe she has very rare talent that Singaporean hosts don't have or she had "tricks" in her working place that nobody knows. We, Singaporean needs her rare talent to make this place a better place to live in. 

Quan is rich and intelligent. She hired the President of Singapore Criminal Lawyers to fight her case. So, it's not surprising that she got a lame charge only. In Singapore, like in many other countries, if you are rich, you can hire prominent lawyers to get you off the hook from the law. These celebrity lawyers have good connections with court officers and obviously its helps in resolving the cases in your favour. Needless to say, judges and prosecutors are fallible human begins like us, not God. They have temptation and human tendencies too, like treating your own blood or close friends with more love and care than complete strangers. I've no confidence in our judiciary. Only in God, I trust!

I hope the court will give her a sentence that commensurate with her "mischief" and shows that justice is fair to both the rich and poor. Anyway, its only a mischief she committed. If I were Quan, I'll skip taking the sleeping pills tonight and have a sound sleep, knowing that I will keep my job and become more popular soon. I've a good boss looking after me, why worry? Maybe my boss had already prepared more prime TV shows for me to host and a few year end popularity rewards for me.   Thanks, MediaCorp!!

In conclusion, I hope we don't have a kangaroo court here because that's the last thing we want in Singapore. A kangaroo court is a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted. The outcome of a trial by a kangaroo court is essentially pre-determined. Lets wait and see what happens on Dec 29, when the judge pass a sentence after her probation period. "Quan, you are free to go but don't get into trouble again. Be a good girl, ok?"


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Saturday, 26 November 2011

A Kissing Couple




If you don't like to meet people, don't ever be a taxi driver, because you are going to meet a lot of them. I, for one like to meet people and it's one of the benefit I get for being a taxi driver. I get to meet the good, the bad and the ugliest of the lot. In the process, I sharpen my social skills and broaden my perspective of life. At the heart of this propensity of mine is, I suspect, a desire for experience with different people.

Now, I believe most cabbies probably don't remember the first fare they picked, but I do. I did a posting in August of my first few passengers on my first day as a cabby. I keep notes of interesting encounters and post them here when I've the time.

I notice that for some strange reason, when a passenger or couples or groups get into a cab they become very un-selfconscious. They talk and behave like they're in the privacy of their bed room, oblivious that a total stranger who is just two feet infront. Office gossips, business meetings, love talk and marriage proposals all take place in taxi cabs. They do things in the cab that they would otherwise never do in public.

Once, I had a white man in business suit at the airport, making a love talk to a local Chinese girl, expressing in pretentious Singlish, his desperate desire to bed her right away and how he loves her small tits. Such lucid sexual remarks would normally be for nobody ears. But he spoke like nobody was around. He only cut short his love talk, when a call came in from his wife and then he spoke scornfully, and in loveless American lingo with her. I got to witness a contrast of two different characters from the same man, a rapacious lover and a cheating husband. On another occasion, I can't help eavedropping on two young men's plan on how to cheat a third party on the mahjong table.

The most interesting drama I witnessed was how a couples break up, fall in love, and even make love in the back of my cab. I had all three happen during the same cab ride. I was a rookie and was not familiar with many roads. I picked up this Chinese young couple at Clark Quay. They tumbled into the back set laughing and giggling and gave me an address near Steven Road that still confuses me. I hadn't driven more than a kilometer, when the mood in the back suddenly changed.

"You, horrible, just now," said the girl angrily in Singlish.

"Yah, meh?" slurred the boyfriend.

"You talked to other girls like no see me..., no "hue" me at all'."

"You look ok, mah."

"What ok? I very angry, want to cry."

"Hey, don't like that, lah."

"Really. I hate you."

"You say what?"

"I don't love you,  liao."

"You drink a lot, I think" says the boyfriend with a heavy sigh, "that's why you talk cock."

"No, I really want to break up"

"Okay, whatever."

This, I thought to myself, was going to be a long ride for these two young punk. We still had about 10 or 15 minutes to go. There was nothing but silence from the back seat.

Then, from the back, I heard bodies shifting in the seat, the sounds of murmuring and kissing, of clothes being pulled at and unbuttoned. I glanced up at my rear view mirror, but couldn't see anything. They were clearly taking advantage of the hidden view.

"Say" she whispered.

"Huh?"

"Say," she repeated, followed by the sounds of more kissing and some slurping noises.

"Say," she plead. "Never leave me."

The goings-on in the back were becoming a serious distraction. And I didn't know where I was going. I've no intention of stopping or interfering with what they were doing but I was totally lost.

"Excuse me," I interrupted them at a traffic light. "Can you tell me which way to go?"

The two stopped what they were doing, pulled themselves together, and checked where they were.

"Sorry, uncle, go straight, turn left and stop" said the boyfreind.

In less than 5 kilometers, these two had broken up, found each other again and made love. The fair was $8.75. The boyfriend handed me a ten and told me to keep the change. Not a bad tip, either.
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Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Humor - Trolling

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Sunday, 20 November 2011

Read Lips?


                                       Angelina Jolie's Big Lip

Last night, at about 10pm, a booking came in to pick someone at E3 taxi stand at China Square. I headed straight there to honour my appointment with my promised lead time of 5 minutes. As usual, to ensure that I do not end up with a "No Show", I called my potential customer but there was no answer. Nonetheless, I continued driving to the pick up point and arrived punctually.  

A Chinese lady with a brief case was waiting alone at the taxi stand. She opened my front door and sat beside me. She was dressed in something that looks like an office attire, dark blue jacket over a white shirt and a black blouse, like a lawyer. She was quite nice looking in her late twenties. I was surprised that she chose to sit beside me because apart from China National, most locals would prefer to sit at the back. She told me in perfect English to drop her at Amber Park Condominium and then said something that sent me into bewilderment. She told me she was deaf and if I wanted to say anything to her, I should look at her so she could see and read my lips. Wow. it was something that really caught me by surprise!. And made me realized why she chose to sit beside me.

Although she was deaf, she spoke in a normal-sounding voice with a slight American accent. She probably acquired the accent from an overseas university education. I haven't had a lot of experience with the deaf, though I've a friends who is both deaf and dump. My friend use sign language when he speaks to people with similar handicap and he had a noticeable speech impediment. But this lady spoke in excellent English and therefore, I was curious to find out more about her peculiar condition. I decided to give it a test.

I looked away from her and asked in a loud voice, "How was your day?" There was no response. So I knew that she was deaf like a door nail because there was no way she wouldn't have heard me.

I've seem documentaries and read articles of people who could read lips but I've never met anyone in my life who has this ability. It was indeed a rare opportunity to have her as my passenger.  So I decided to start a conversation with her to see how well she could read my lips. She was amazingly skillful and this was what I found out about her.

She was not born deaf but only been losing her hearing gradually over the last few years, which is why she can speak in a normal voice. Her condition is not genetic because her siblings are normal. Doctor says her condition is probably due to a damaged nerve in her ear and there is no cure. She said she may have injured her ear from a sports injury or from exposure to loud music, but no one knows for sure.

Her amazing lip reading ability is a skill she picked up out of necessity. She never attend lip reading or sign language classes but intends to do so soon. Nobody would know she is deaf if she chose not to reveal it. She is just a nice looking lady going home after work.
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Thursday, 17 November 2011

Cheapskate



As a longtime taxi driver, I met a lot of cheapskates. People who are rich, living in big bungalow but asks for a 10 cents change back at the end of a trip. I always wonder what these people gonna do with that 10 cents, make a phone call at a public booth or throw it into their private wishing pool?  No ordinary working people would be so petty as to ask for a 10 cents change back. If they do ask back for the change, its understandable because they are NOT RICH. Wealthy people probably don't remember what a 10 cents looks like and I purposely give them change in lots of 10 cents coins as a way of reminding them.

I would like to share with you two of the worst cheapskates I met in my driving history.

The first one happen on a evening many months ago. A fashionably dressed Indian woman hailed my cab outside the gate of her huge bungalow at Napier Road and asked to be taken to the Victoria Theater Opera. She emphasised the word "Opera" to impress me that she was a high society socialite. Meekly, I asked her what opera she was going to see, and she began a lively explanation of the beauty of opera. It sounded greek to me. This well-heeled passenger asked me whether I've ever attended an opera. I told her that I never been to one because I've no interest and the tickets are too pricey on a taxi driver's salary, anyway. She replied: "Well, I agree with you about how expensive the tickets have become. Even though I can afford it, I am very discerning about which performances I attend. My box seat is costing me around $500"

When we arrived at the theater, she told me how much she enjoyed the ride and that I was a great cabdriver. The meter read $7.80 and she handed me $8. I thanked her profusely, thinking she intended for me to keep the change of 20 cents.

She then said, "I'd like the 20 cents back, please."

As I drove away, I wondered if that 20 cents was going to help pay for that $500 opera ticket!

The second horrible cheapskates happens to be a China National woman. She was dressed to the nines, with a diamond studded "Rolex" watch, gold bracelets, broaches, "Prada" handbag, high heel shoes and black laced stocking. Without any doubt, she looked rich like a socialite. She boarded my cab at IBP (International Business Park) in Jurong during the evening peak hour. I had been in the slow moving rank for almost half an hour and was hoping that my next customer would head to city on a long trip.

"IMM, please." she asked snobbishly. On hearing it, my heart sunk because IMM was just half a kilometer away. My hope of a $15 trip towards the city melt away. The fair meter showed $4 when we arrived at IMM. "Master, please give me a discount on the $4 fare?" she asked without shame.
"What?". I replied looking straight into her eyes and holding back my shock and frustration.
"No, please pay $4". I wanted to offload a barrack of sarcastic remarks at her but restrained. She paid and left fuming.

I admire people who choose to have a frugal lifestyle. I'm one of them. The less you spend, the less you need to earn. One can choose not to commute by taxi instead take the train, bus, bike or walk. Drink water not alcohol, no smoking or eating out, stay at home, no credit card or subscriptions, do things yourself and save energy. There are countless ways to live frugally but don't bitch on a ten cents tip for a taxi driver, please!.






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Monday, 14 November 2011

London Cab.


SMRT's London Cab.
SMRT Corporation, a government linked transport company will discontinue its fleets of 15 London cab when their eight year licenses expire by next year. They are the only operator that runs the London cab here. The firm said that buying and maintaining them would not make good business sense given the high price of COE -$57,000 at present. They are not a charitable corporation but a business enterprise answerable to shareholders.

As a taxi driver, I empathize with the segment of wheelchair bound commuters who depend solely on London cabs for their transport needs. These cabs has higher ceiling allowing all types of wheelchairs to be wheeled in, whereas other cabs, like MaxiCabs, fits only normal size wheelchairs. Without London cabs, these wheelchair bounded commuters have few alternatives. Other transport options are not suitable, having limited operating hours or are severely overbooked.

Recently, a group of affected wheelchair bound commuters met up with representatives of government agencies, like LTA , MCD, Youth and Sports and NCSS. At the end of the 1.5 hours meeting, these commuters were totally stupefied and devastated.

For example:

- a government representative spent at least 20 minutes asking why the London cab was their preferred mode of transport and if they would like to be involved in a trial to test other vehicles. An irritated commuter rebuked, saying " You don't need to waste your energy testing other vehicles. The fact is, we know London cab works for us. As a regulator, you need to ensure these vehicles are available for us - after all, we pay taxes too".

- then tension rose when the topic of using the Handicaps Welfare Association's van as an alternative was discussed. "You shouldn't be pushing this to the association, This is not a welfare issue but one about universal access" shouted one commuter.

- another commuter brought up the LTA's reply to a letter in "The Straits Times" forum, in which LTA listed five alternatives to London cabs. She said that when members of the public read the LTA's reply and see these options, they will just think that the wheelchair bound commuters are making a big deal out of nothing. The fact is that these options do not exit. LTA didn't take the trouble to check if those options exited.

Generally speaking, these are the sort of attitude our civil servant in Singapore has. They are not keen to take a proactive approach, especially when an issue straddles more than one government agencies. They tend the pass the bucks around.

Miss Maria Almenoar - a transport correspondent with Strait Times suggested the following solutions:

- the Singapore government should give money to operators to sustain a fleet of London cabs by making up the difference in the new rental prices.
- LTA can mandate that a certain percentage of each operator's fleet must be able to fit passengers in any type of wheelchairs. If the ratio is a mere 0.1% of the 26,000 taxi here, that's 26 cabs, more than the 15 London cabs on the roads now.
- MCD can fund welfare organizations to run a wheelchair accessible transport service.

Meanwhile, its heartening to note that LTA had extended the London cab operator's license by another year. After all, the PAP government has often pledged to keep the public's needs at heart of every decision it makes. And to keep its promise, the PAP government must come out with a long term solution to the transport needs of the wheelchairs bounded citizens. It must also make a dramatic turnaround from the LKY's anti-welfare era. Presently, a mere 0.3% of GNP is allocated to help the poor and handicapped people of Singapore. More should and could be done!. 



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Wednesday, 9 November 2011

A Fat Man & A Fabulous Lady

                                  Moses Lim - Gourmet Club.

As a night shift taxi driver, I get to meet a wide variety of people with different happening. Most of the time, it's nothing to write about. Only occasionally do something out of the ordinary happens and I rush to get the story quickly on to my blog, least I forget.

The first story took place at about 10pm on one busy Friday night. I went to a house at Sixth Avenue, through a call booking. Surprisingly, our call-center sweetie called me to say specifically that it was an emergency. I was expecting some drunk guy stumbling out to the cab bleeding from several gashes, or a pregnant woman with a water bag about to burst, needing to get to the nearest hospital quickly. Instead, what I got was a Chinese guy hiding behind a bush in just his underwear and socks!! He was fat and in his late fifties, wearing only a white underwear with a red "LOVE" prints on the front, and black socks.

He got into the cab and looked jittery like a spooked rabbit who had just outrun a hungry wolf.  He said anxiously, "Uncle, go quickly. Tell you where later.". And in the same breath, he said "Her husband came home early!". With those last words, I knew right away what kind of predicament he was in. I just stared at him and wondered what kind of lady would want to risk "everything" for a fat guy like him. His looks wasn't anywhere close to Edison Chen, more like our local comedian Moses Lim. Perhaps, he was wealthy and successful.

On the way to his place at Steven Road, he revealed to me that he is a bachelor and she was her old flame during university days. They were in the middle of "something" when the husband walked through the front door. He panicked, grabbed his cel phone and jumped out the bedroom window!!. His pants, shirts, shoe and wallets were abandoned at the lady's home. He had no money with him but returned from his unlighted bungalow with a $50 note for me, with no change required. He asked me not to reveal his secret rendezvous to anyone. With that amount of tip, I saw no evil and heard no sin.
                                    A Fabulous Lady in Red

The second story took place in this inclement weather of November, which was miserable for night driving. With heavy rain and gusty wind, most roads were covered with puddles of streaming water and were unbelievably slippery. At around 7pm, I pulled into this long, sloping driveway into a huge white colonial bungalow at  Goodwood Park Road, on a call booking. I manged to get half way up the driveway, in heavy rain and with gushing water at both sides of the driveway.

Soon, the side door opened up and a Caucasian lady dressed to the nines stepped out. She held an umbrella and was wearing a red dress with slits that went mid thigh, light nylons and a pair of red high-heel shoes. Her blonde hair was immaculate and she looked like she had spent all day getting ready. As she slowly stepped down the stairs to the driveway, she incredibly stepped on "something" at the driveway! Both her feet slipped out from under her and she went flying into the air, screaming and landed flat on her back right in the beams of my headlights.

I realized that under that beautiful red dress, she was wearing nothing else! I pretended I saw nothing and picked my jaw up off the steering wheel! Just then her husband came running out of the house to give her a hand. Both were soaked to the skin in the rain. Surprisingly, they both wanted to continue with their outing and got into the cab. The lady was crying because her hair was a total mess and her nylons were torn. Along the way, the lady phoned her friend and asked her to bring some nylons and a pair of panties with her!.

Now, what can I say about these two out-of-the-ordinary encounters. Well, it certainly provided me with rich materials for my blog and were also a source of entertainment to help me pass the tedious driving time.Those were the "perks" of my job. 
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Sunday, 6 November 2011

A Dead Man in My Cab!

                                         A Dead Man

Last Monday was an appalling quiet night. It was like the worst night of the year. Since it was the last night of October, perhaps everybody decided to stay at home to wait for the pay check to arrive. Or perhaps it was because of the frequent heavy monsoon thunder storms. Whatever it was, I decided to call it an early night after collecting enough to cover my rental, fuel, cigarette, meals and drinks.

At 1am, I headed to my regular coffee shop in Jurong Central to meet my buddies. All were there, ready to create a ruckus through the night. It was fine though, as the surrounding buildings were all empty shop houses and shopping malls. The nearest residential apartments were almost a kilometer away.

"Hey buddy, sit here, have a drink. I've a shocking story to tell", my closest Indian buddy - "Roy" - beckoned me to sit beside him at a table with five other taxi buddies.

"What is the story this time"?. I asked jokingly.

This was his real life story that happened a few hours earlier:

At around 11pm, Roy picked two sixty something Chinese men at Geyland Road. They smelt of liquor and were soon fast asleep after giving their destinations. He dropped the first at nearby Upper Aljunied Road and proceeded towards Lionie Road to drop the second in Jurong.

The remaining man was still fast asleep like a child as Roy cruised along Braddell Road towards Jurong. He was breathing heavily but not snoring. Suddenly, Roy heard a few loud sound of the man gaping for air, like someone about to drown in a pool. He turned around and saw him slumped across the back seat, then motionless without a sound. Thinking that he had just passed out due to intoxication, Roy gave a hard slap on the man's thigh that was near the driver's seat. No response! He gave another harder slap, coupled with a loud scream at the man to wake up. Still no response. "Oh, shit. This is serious", Roy thought to himself.

He immediately stopped his cab and got out to have a close look at him. To his horror, Roy found him dead like log. As Mount Alvernia Hospital was near by, Roy had the presence of mind to quickly drive there, hoping that staffs at the hospital might resuscitate him. But it was too late. He was already dead while in Roy's cab. He must have died of a massive heart attack.

What happened in Roy's cab that night was something extra-ordinarary. We regularly read stories of babies begin born and cabbies dying inside a cab. But seldom do we read about a passenger dying inside a cab. Though Roy claimed that he is not a superstitious man, the next day he went to a Hindu temple to pray and cleans himself in holy water. He also made an appointment to see his cardiologist as he had stents inside his heart arteries.

A few days later, the dead man's relatives, in accordance with Chinese custom, gave Ray a Ang Pow ( small red envelope stuff with cash). This is to exorcize whatever bad luck that might falls on him and also bestows him with good fortune. Roy is still waiting for his million dollars from Singapore Big Sweep.
                              Elvis's Funeral Music Video






 
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Friday, 4 November 2011

Who She Think She Is!


                                         Quan Yifeng

I'm very happy today. Why?. I read in Yahoo News that Quan Yifeng, a MediaCorp television host, recruited from Taiwan, intends to plead guilty to having abused a taxi driver in Singapore in June last year. I had waited nearly 2 years for this good news and I want the world to know that she will face the music soon. Most Singaporean know why she landed in this hot soup but for my overseas readers, please let explain briefly the background of her charges.

In June last year, she was angry that the taxi driver did not help her with loading her luggage onto the taxi and throwing her forward while making a sharp turn. She supposedly alighted, kicked the car door and then kicked the taxi driver in the groin. She subsequently lock herself in the taxi for 15 minutes to thrash the interiors of the taxi, causing damages to taxi meter and radio, among other things.

She had hired Mr. Subhas Anandan, a prominent criminal lawyer here to represent her after the incident, hoping that Mr. Subhas could get her off the hook due to his close relationship with court officers. The next court session, which marks the start of the actual trial, is set for 28 November. If convicted, she could be jailed or fined or both. However, I won't be surprised if she is let off lightly and become even more popular here. Sophisticated maneuver behind the scene often gets the culprit a ridiculous sentence that makes a mockery of justice here. And the unpredictability of court sentence is like the final result of soccer matches.

Now, in spite of her many controversies, like fighting with bowling alley assistance and the boss of a car repair shop and also driving without a license, her boss (MediaCorp) gave her more prime time shows to host and she became more popular in Singapore. She was previously sacked from her job but got easily rehired under a management revamp. The whole arrangement of her re-hiring was like changing her last name in paper but remain with the same family. This is how things sometimes get done in Singapore. You got to know the right people in the government. It happens everywhere in the world . Singapore is no exception. At the same time, I think Singaporean do not have her kind of rare talent. We need her kind to make this place a better place to live in.

The Government controlled main stream paper-"The Straits Times" blank out all news about her case. They are worried that her case would embarrass her boss -"MediaCorp", which is also government controlled. It's detractor call "Straits Times" a mouthpiece of our PAP government. Everybody knows that it's senior editors are, to put it euphemistically, on the same wavelength as our PAP government. Some say they're on the same telephone line. While others say that they were all hand-picked by the PAP government and trained for years to tow the party line. In fact, editors often receive calls from overzealous ministers who were anxious to ensure that a story comes out in a particular way or do not see the daylight at all. However, recently Wikileaks revealed that a large number of Singapore journalists were getting frustrated by press controls imposed by the PAP government. Only the fearless Yahoo Singapore reported her case. The latest news is Yahoo is sued by the owner of Straits Times for "copy right" infringement. In case you forget,  "We are a First World Country, with a First World PAP Government"


Below are some readers' comment on reading the same Yahoo News today. Nearly 600 had commented, almost all had harsh words for her. Hope she is sentenced in a way that show justice still prevails in Singapore, not otherwise.

If you wish to know what happens on 28th. Nov, the date of her trail in court, please read my posting of 29th. Nov. My prediction was quite accurate.


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