Monday, March 28, 2011

Learning the arts of Tai Chi at Mt Wudang.

Yes, you may call me a Tai Chi master right now.
To be specific, I specialize in the "pushing" part of Tai Chi.
Can you believe that it took us about 2 hours to get to the Golden Summit and of it, more than 90 mins of pushing and squeezing. Mr Phua coined the terms "farmer attitude" and "agriculture intellects", literally meaning 农民态度.
Back in Singapore we make the "Tch" sound the moment someone bumps into us and like here, you can scream all you want and everyone else is just gonna go ahead of you. They don't care if you're old or young, boy or girl, fit or handicapped, they just push if it means getting there faster. And if you thought staring or saying, "excuse me aunty" is going to work, be prepared for a cultural shock.
I guess they're as "kiasu" as some Singaporeans are?
(Little wonder why China people are relatively slim; they exercise all the time!)
It's like every time I see those yellow markings on the MRT platform telling you to line up and give way, I find it redundant and some what mocking.
I mean, for a developed country who claims to be courteous, it's ironic that we need markings to remind us to line up and give way? Putting that up does show foreigners that we do lack courtesy to some extent, right? And it's not like a few yellow paintings with arrow signs is gonna encourage one to change his attitude, nor does stepping on it help any much.
I guess such attitude needs to be changed if Singapore, or China for that matter of fact, wants to be as developed as she claims to be. I don't see any pride in such claims of having high growth, so much money in reserve and high technology development if the people are crude and have no manners.
Perhaps it's time to start appreciating those courtesy campaigns I always used to laugh at.
Hmmm...

BK.

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