 Recently been hanging around Orchard area quite often these few weeks. I used to say that Orchard is a dumb place to shop at cos of the huge crowds and over-the-moon exzublulent prices of everyday items just because they have a stupid tiny horse or singular alphabet stuck onto the bottom corner of it. And I'm still keeping my view unchanged. The only thing I like about Orchard is not the fancy brands or mob-able shopping malls, but the cute little unique things that you can't find anywhere else in Singapore. Take for example my uniquely me sling bag, which I will be collecting at the end of this week, with a personal design printed on the front of the bag. Another thing is the strange buskers you see on the Orchard road stretch during the evenings. I remember I once saw a 6 year old kid bashing the drums like a pro drummer with 60 years of experience [Oh how I envyed him]. Or the silver statue couple currently trying to earn some Sing dollars this few weeks. I will post the photo up when I have the time. But one thing I noticed about buskers, there have always been an internal war between 2 types of buskers. And I have always stood firmly on the Professionals' side. For those people with half a brain, let me enlighten you. The Professtionals are those who come from all over the globe to perform a skilled art in hopes of getting some form of monetary appriciation for their performances. The beggers on the other hand, are mostly low/no-income locals, who mostly have a missing limb or 2, who sit by the side and ask for kind-hearted charity. Personally, I will never patronise a begger. Why u ask? Because their marketing concept is totally unworkable. They sit at the side of the road with the most pitiful face they can conjure and play on people's sympathy in order to get some $$$. But what do you get in return for helping these beggers? In India, you would get 999,999 more beggers crawling towards you after u gave 1 of them 10cents. Even within beggers, there are 2 types: the seller-begger & the pure-begger. Recently there have been more and more beggers entering the selling market. But sellers without a concept still won't get any spare change from me. Take tissue sellers for example. You can find tissue sellers at almost every semi-mordernised estate / shopping mall / Coffee shop in Singapore. But I have never bought a single piece of tissue from them. On the other hand, I have patronised our very own '1-dollar Auntie' on more than 1 occassion. The difference? She provides some value to her customers: Entertainment value, even if its in the lowest form, is still value. Now on to the Pure-Beggers. These are the people who I loathe and turn my head away from. They just side by the side of the road, not selling or doing anything, with a stupid tin can in front of them, begging you to give them some sympathy change. If you ask me, I don't believe that they cannot do ANYTHING other than sitting there helplessly. Is even turning a musical jukebox with 1 hand an effort too big for them? I even saw a couple of fully-bodied pure beggers just sitting on their arses expecting money to drop from the sky into their tin cans. Dream on. Next, on to the Professionals. These are the people who in my opinion deserve to be awarded for thier efforts. They entertain you at their own expense but at the same time do not expect everybody to appreciate them. Most of the time they could be getting 200% or more the amount they earn by getting an 8 to 5 office job, but they don't. Why? Because the want to entertain people. And I respect that. Hence most of my money will willingly be donated to the Professionals who impress me with their unique skills rather than those who beg at my feet. Next comes the bad experience of the Orchard. After shopping, we decided to have our meal at the Food Court in Taka. As one can expect, we had some difficulty finding a seat but that was just teh start of it. When I went to order my food, I had the intention of buying Laksa from the Malay stall. And as I was queueing up, I spotted an almost full tray of Mee Goreng displayed for all to see. And it did look quite good. So I decided to change my order to a plate of Mee Goreng + 1 chicken wing, thinking that the price would be cheaper or almost the same as the Laksa, which was $4. But when the cashier punched in the numbers, my jaw dropped. $5.50 please. WHAT! $3.50 for the fuking Mee Goreng and $2 for the fuking chicken wing. So what if the chicken was fed 24K gold corn when it was alive? I'm eating a dead bird! $2 for a fuking small piece of chicken wing! And the fuking cashier still asked me, "Do you want to reheat the Mee Goreng?" And that's not all... Her fuking collegue still had the cheek to reply : "Aiya, the noodles is already very hot. No need to reheat." When in actual fact, it was as cold as a cold turkey!! I'm never patronising another Muslim stall in a well-known shopping mall again! And to end off my extremely long post, I'd just like to pose a question to all of you. I happened to glance at the Durex condom boxes while waiting to make payment at Watsons and I discovered a very amazing fact. On every box of Durex, irregardless of the type, it stated "100% Electronically Tested". What the fuk does that mean? How can condoms be "Electronically Tested"? Anybody who can enlighten me please give me the answer to this question... Anyhow written on Nov 15, 2006 at 11:34 AM
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