the Wild Hamster

This morning on the way to work I found myself, as usual, standing in a crowd of people at the traffic light.

The light was going to turn green soon ( which meant we could proceed to the other side)

There was this woman who started inching out. She walked a few steps (out onto the road) and stopped. After a few seconds, a few followed, then a few more, then .. the WHOLE CROWD followed.

Then the woman walked forward again and stopped again. She could do this because the traffic wasn't passing directly in front of the traffic light due to road works. Let me explain:

Original situation:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
-------------- Pedestrians ---------------
Pavement----------------------------------

So.. frame by frame.. this is what happened:



Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
--------------------X (Woman) ------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
-------------- Pedestrians ---------------
Pavement----------------------------------

Then:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
---------- Some Pedestrians - X(Woman)----
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
-------------- Pedestrians ---------------
Pavement----------------------------------

Then:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
---------- Pedestrians - X(Woman)---------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
Pavement----------------------------------

Then:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
-----------------X (Woman)----------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
---------------- Pedestrians -------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
Pavement----------------------------------


Then:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
-----Some Pedestrians --X(Woman)----------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
--------------- Pedestrians --------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
Pavement----------------------------------

Then:

Pavement----------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
Road->
------------------------------------------
<-Road
--------- Pedestrians --X(Woman)----------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
<-Blocked-off Road Lane
------------------------------------------
Pavement----------------------------------



After this, the light turned green and everyone crossed to the other side.

There you have it. Herd mentality 101! And I was witness to this marvellous spectacle.. yeah.

There is a food shortage around the world. Many people are starving. Many more will soon follow as a result of the financial turmoil as it will mean dwindling donations.

According to my University professor, the Earth's carrying capacity has been exceeded many times over. There's simply not enough food for everyone.

There's no easy way out to this problem.

We can look at producing less children vis-a-vis China's one child policy. Of course, such a thing can be hard to enforce. But nevertheless, it may be attempted via public education. The key is to slow population growth rates until we can find the technology to provide more food per acre of land.

The next solution is better. WE MUST STOP WASTAGE. We must BAN buffets. Don't get me wrong. I love buffets. I love the concept of eating without limits (one look at my tubby midsection can confirm that). But I also know that buffets are places where obnoxious amounts of food wastage takes place.

As a diner, its fine if you completely consume the food you take. But I have visited many buffets and have always found at least one table with unfinished food. Sometimes, its a LOT of unfinished food.

Restaurants too are guilty parties. How much food do they throw away at the end of everyday? I'm not just talking about buffets either. I have seen restaurants emptying loads of cooked, perfectly edible food into rubbish bins.

What about groceries? Bread especially is regularly thrown away, along with other consumables like milk and eggs.

I think many restaurants order excessively because they don't want to run out of food at crucial moments in their operation. The same goes for Supermarkets and other shops or stalls in the food industry. Often, this leads to over-estimation, and food that can't be kept is thrown away as a result.

As a community, we need to see how we can optimise our food consumption so as to reduce wastage. The benefits are widespread. Food costs will be lower as demand drops, making it accessible to more people - especially those living in poverty. Businesses will benefit from lower prices as well. More food will also be available for everyone.

As individuals, what we can do is to ensure we do not waste food. At food courts, order only what you can eat. At buffets, take only what you can consume.

And this applies to non-food items as well.

The other day I bought a drink from 7-Eleven. When I had finished the drink, I took a look at the bottle that had contained it. It was a perfectly solid item. If I had kept it, I could probably use it 10 billion times more. But usually people just throw them away after consuming the liquids within. That's a terrific waste of resources.

We really should step up our recycling efforts. Think about how many thousands of plastic bottles are wasted a day. Think about how the materials used for those bottles can be put to better, long-term use. We should re-look our consumption habits not only for the good of our greater society but also for the benefit of our future generations. What's going to happen when we've used up everything on Earth?

We have to change our mindset. In the past, things were expensive. But they were also solidly built. One of the TVs in my house which my parents bought in the 1980s still works fine. People used to save up to buy these things. However, they are now a dime a dozen, and this has lead to a 'buy now and change later' mentality, which means people don't really think too much about their purchases. They just buy it and use it and if its spoilt, its okay. Because its so cheap, let's go buy another one tomorrow!

This also counts as wastage, because much material goes into making even simple products. We need to refocus our attention on quality. To see how we can make products that last as long as possible without breaking down. This applies to any industry. Look at the fashion realm for example. There's a reason why some people insist on buying branded goods. Yes, they buy it because of the name. But sometimes, its more than just that. The brand represents quality. Some high-cost Italian shoes can last for many years for example as they are hand-made, with careful attention paid to their construction.

I'm not advocating the purchase of branded goods. Don't get me wrong. What I AM suggesting is for us to see how we can invest in quality instead of always looking at the price tag.

There is of course one ultimate solution for wastage. And that is to build a spaceship and go colonise other planets. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. So until that does, there is an urgent need for us to change our lifestyles so that we can last the distance.

When thinking about what to type for my heading.. just thought of this line from one of Ro Keating's songs. Recently.. life has indeed been like a riding on a carriage going up and down the hills of an amusement park ride.

CNY has come and gone. I had expected it to whizz past though as there were just too many things that were happening on those two days. It's a chance to meet up with relatives and just have fun.

I've learnt one thing that you shouldn't do on CNY, which is try venturing into Sentosa. Don't say I didn't warn you. I was there over the entire CNY period and the island was SWARMING with people. Most of the visitors were foreign workers, and a number of them pitched tents everywhere on the beach. I had originally planned to relax on the beach when I got there, but after seeing how the beach was crowded to the max with all sorts of people doing all sorts of things, I decided not to anymore. Sigh.. somehow my plans to let off some steam always seem to be derailed. Maybe I'm doomed to feel stressed for my entire life.

Anyway, trying to get into Sentosa was another headache on its own. There were queues at all the points of embarkation for transport into Singapore. The queue for the Monorail was most horrendous, creeping all over the top floor of Vivocity. So I headed to the Cable Car queue and found that there was a queue there as well. That's not the end. After reaching Sentosa, I found queues stretching for hundreds of metres for the local buses as well. Frustrated, I decided to just hike back to my beach chalet through the Imbiah jungle. Thankfully, it wasn't as arduous as I'd thought it be. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. All in all, it took nearly an hour and a half for me to get to my chalet on Sentosa from Vivocity. If I had waited for the Monorail, it would have probably taken longer.

Another thing which peeved me was the fact that Sentosa took the beach trams off the paths for the two days we were there. This meant that anyone who had beachside accomodation (i.e. Costa Sands Resort or Siloso Beach Resort) had to walk a hell lot just to get a ride off the island or a bite to eat. Thanks Sentosa, for making us feel like valued customers. The reason that they gave for taking the trams offline were pretty illogical as well - it was something along the line of, we took them off because we want people to enjoy the Sentosa Flowers Display.

Huh?

Tram operation on the beach path = people cannot enjoy the Sentosa Flowers Display?

Honestly, they could have just said: "We foresaw the billion and a half people flooding our quaint little island and so as to prevent our trams from becoming MRT trains at peak hours we decided not to run them."

Inevitably, many people had a lot of things to say about the FTs crowding Sentosa on those two days. I don't have a problem with that really. After all, many of them work hard 7 days a week, for almost all of the year and they deserve their rest. Besides, they're as human as any of us, and so should be accorded the same basic rights that we do.

I think it makes sense for many of them to go to Sentosa, because really, its one of the most cost-effective places to go for a day of fun. Apart from the entrance fee + monorail fee, which adds up to around $3, there's nothing else to pay for aside from food and drinks. I mean, that's if all you're looking for is a place to relax and you don't want to slide down the hill on a plank with wheels, or watch a 3-D fish that's dancing on a screen, or touch some dolphins.

But some (read: SOME, not ALL) of the workers were quite unruly and were displaying quite ungracious behavior. Like there was this one guy who just came out of the sea and walked straight to the Luge attraction. I was standing there trying to get a shot of someone and he stood next to me and I could feel all the seawater dripping off him and splashing on me! I admit that I wanted to touch seawater that day, but that wasn't the way I planned to do it.

Probably the most irksome thing that I saw was rampant littering. Of course, not all the foreign workers could be blamed for this. Singaporeans have also been pretty notorious for littering when there is a large crowd around. This is something we really need to be conscious of.