Sawadee Ka... Welcome to Thai... oops, I mean Singapore, the land of 4 MILLION SMILES :D You know that Singapore ain't a friendly place when you have the prime minister, in today's Straits Times article - Singapore prepares four-million smiles welcome for IMF, encouraging the citizens to tilt the corners of their lips when foreign visitors flood our shore come the September World Bank and International Monetary Fund Meetings. Cynicism aside, most of my friends, true blue Singaporeans all of them, are people whom have a ready smile for me. By extrapolation, that'd make most Singaporeans nice. Sad truth is that at the private personal level, everyone is likely to be nice to each other. But faced with a strange face, we are likely to see a "Mr Jekyll and My Hyde" pandemic amongst our citizens. Nice to friends, but horrible to the public. I am sure all of us have a brush with the nice Singaporean counter staff who brushes us aside to tend to the ang mohs. 'Whether it is the taxi driver who shares his wealth of knowledge about our global city, or the sales assistant in the department store whose smile and service gives a warm human face to the hurried shopper, or the service staff in the restaurants and hotels who go the extra mile to provide quality service for the delegates after a long day of meetings, or simply the ordinary Singaporean who pauses to give local tips and directions - every contribution counts, every contribution is important.' - extract from the article. I have seen a lot of human faces in malls and shops in my 20-odd years of shopping. Very few of the faces are 'warm'. Physically warm they are, but that's about it. I guess the best service staff that ever attended to me were the ladies at the Takashimaya lingerie section. Actually, they tended to my wife, not me. But they provided a 5-star service. It was an experience that has left a deep impression on me. Perhaps PM Lee should track down these girls to be the ambassadors of the smile campaign. The actual name of the campaign is the Four Million Smiles campaign. Actually it should be Three Million Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Thousand and Nine hundred Ninety Smiles Campaign, since I will be participating in it, cos I don't smile for everyone. Only those dear to me. For those who would like to take part, the website for it is www.smileS2006.com. You can even send your toothy grin in to be included in a huge mural to welcome the guests. Imagine 4 million, make that 3,999,999, photos of faces with teeth baring at your while stepping off your plane at Changi. What a welcome! Let me sign off with a smile for my dear readers here. :) Sawadee ka!
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