Intercultural Differences

Not too long ago, my family and I took a trip to Hong Kong in a tour group. It was my first time there and Hong Kong is a really nice place, with great food, shopping and friendly people in general. After touching down, the tour guide took us to the hotel to check in and to take a short rest as we were early for lunch. As it was June, the weather was scorching hot and I was feeling uncomfortable and sweaty all over. Hence, I decided to take a quick shower and change into my bermudas and slippers before heading out again.

As we were walking along the streets of Hong Kong, I started to notice that there were some people who were staring at my brother and I who were in slippers. As Chinese Singaporeans, we looked almost like the locals but we were unsure why people were staring and after a while we started to feel a little uncomfortable. I was starting to question whether I had something on my face or if I had worn my shirt in-side-out. After getting on the bus, the tour guide could sense our discomfort and he explained to us the reason for the glares and we finally understood why.

In Singapore, people wear slippers everywhere they go. Even along Orchard road where you would think that people should be well dressed, you would find a larger number of people in slippers than in shoes or any other footwear. However, according to the tour guide, people do not wear slippers to move around in Hong Kong as wearing it would mean that you are poor. Apparently, your appearance from head to toe is very important in Hong Kong and after the tour guide made this point, I did notice that people there really do make an effort to dress up.

The next day, my brother and I were in bermudas and shoes to avoid the stares.

Our Final Research Topic

Have you ever experienced coming to school early in the morning for 8 am lectures, then having to wait for 6 hours for your next lecture at 4 pm? Based on this observation and problem that some students face, our group has proposed to research on having a 'Powernap House' on campus.

The 'Powernap House' is an air-conditioned lounge where students can visit between lectures/tutorials for a short nap to recharge their batteries. There will be chairs (as shown in the survey) where students can sleep on in 2 rooms one for males and one for females. We believe that by doing so, students would be able to concentrate better in classes and hence absorb the new knowledge more efficiently.

However, although we feel that this concept house may benefit students in general, we would like to limit this project to NUS at the moment. Also, to enhance the development of this concept house, our group would like to conduct a survey and research to find out if this idea is generally welcomed by NUS students, and what ideas/suggestions others could give us to improve on the concept. Lastly, we would like to obtain answers to our queries on certain issues through the survey.

Proposed Title
A Powernap House within NUS

Research Question
What are NUS student's response to a proposed Powernap House? Do they think it is feasible and benificial to them?

Hypothesis
NUS students welcome this idea of a Powernap House and it will provide students a place for rejuvenation, hence helping them concentrate better in class.

Problem Statement
The objective of this study is to determine if NUS students welcome the idea of a Powernap House and whether they are able to concentrate better in class after taking a power nap.

Audience/readers
Mr Joseph Mullnix (Deputy President, Administration), The Dean of various Faculties, NUSSU, any other student welfare societies.

Tentative Purpose statement
One of the objective of this report is to inform relavent management and welfare committes of the student's views of having a Powernap house. The second objective is to convince these targeted readers that having such a concept house enhances student's productivity in class and the final objective is to encourage the implementation of this service.

Methodology

A survey would be conducted to obtain student's opinion on this idea. We would like to obtain a target of 100 surveys. Apart from the surveys, our group would conduct research through the internet on the benefits of having power naps.

The tentative survey

Click here to take the survey


RSJ

The effectiveness of ERP.

Just this Monday, I had to travel from school to Yio Chu Kang sports stadium for my badminton tournament. My doubles partner who drove, decided to take AYE and then CTE, the most direct route using the expressways. While we were driving up North along CTE, we were shocked to find that we had to drive past 2 ERP gantries, one before the Bradell road exit (ERP 31) and one between Bradell road exit and Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 (ERP 35). These gantries I believe are separated not more than 3 km apart and my friend had to pay a total of $2.50 to get through them. I did feel that the traffic was moving rather smoothly at an average speed of about 60 km/h, however i feel that 2 gantries situated so close to each other is unnecessary.

In 1998 when the ERP gantries were first introduced, the traffic conditions was improved with smoother traffic flow along the major expressways. However the population of cars on the roads grew over the years and the problem of congestion resurfaced. To solve this problem, the government has not only increased the number of gantries (a total of about 55 to this date and 6 more by November 2008), they have also raised the charges and extended the operating hours of these gantries.

Quoting the Home section of Saturday's (6/9/08) Straits Times page B6, "before ERP came to the ECP in 1998, vehicles there were crawling at 36 km/h between 8.30am and 9am. Today, the average speed is above 50 km/h during that half hour." From this report, I start to question whether this 15km/h increase in average speed over 10 years is justified.

Like many other things in life, having too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. Similarily, I feel that the ERP in singapore is only effective up to a certain point. Although traffic flow has gotten better, my question is whether having additional ERP gantries would help with the congestion at present and in the future. Being a driver myself, I would like to find out if increasing the number of ERP could still effectively solve this problem. Also, I would like to find out if there are other Singaporeans who share similar views of ERP and what their views are on alternative solutions to the problem of congestion in singapore.

In the future, I believe that most NUS graduates would own their own cars, hence being aware of this situation does benifit the students. In addition, from the planned survey and report, not only will myself, but fellow students, professors, parents etc would also have a better feel on this issue.

Just for Laughs

Since we are on the topic of communication, hope this brightens up you day=)

Miscommunication:
A co-worker got a pen stuck inside our printer. He started to try and remove the pen, but I told him we don't have time for that now, just put a note on the printer telling folks not to use it and then report it to the Help Desk. So he grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it. I left before he finished the note.
About 20 minutes later, one of my techs comes in laughing and says he was just in the lobby, saw a piece of paper on a printer and went to investigate.
Attached is what he found. Sometimes things don't always come out the way you want them to.......