Small Stuff Singaporeans In Trains

If you've lived here long enough, you'd come to realise Singaporeans tend to focus on the small stuff, both positive and negative. This is a rant on how we handle or not handle the small things that happen on the train journeys we take to/from the city.

A plus side example - There are well-meaning announcements asking travellers to move in to the centre of the car, we comply somewhat and assume the job is done. One piece of small stuff taken care of. Easy peasy.

Having squeezed into our tiny personal spaces, we however forget very quickly what it means to be in close proximity to other humans. Some people will attempt to read their free morning papers without really thinking about the space left to fully extend the sheets. In response, affected commuters give nasty glances and make comments under breath. More small things we do to piss each other off.

Then there's the accidental touching. Some people are very affected by the occassional accidental nudge/scrape/touch that happens between passengers on a crowded train. Cursory glances they throw about, an occassional tsk tsk thrown in for good measure. We're in a sardine packed train, for heaven's sake. Grow up.

Space is a premium on such a ride to work. So when a seat opens up, take it. It's not about being greedy or kiasu when a passengers chooses to sit down. I'm more interested in the standing room created when someone decides to take up a vacated seat, giving more room to those around and passengers entering the carriage. So please sit down and be less noble.

Somehow the moving in to the centre only happens in the heartlands. When the train passes underground we lose our good intentions. Case in point - passengers transferring from NEL to the South line towards Raffles Place face a barrier of communters in their way as they try to enter the trains. No one seems to want to move in anymore. Job done once, that's the quota? I don't geddit.

Maybe we're all just really nervous people. Small stuff makes us content. Forget the grand scheme of the universe and mankind. Relax folks. Just think about the right, perhaps even smart, thing to do. It makes us better people.