Is swindling common in countries that tend to promote a culture of bargaining?

This idea came to my attention after watching an episode of Amazing Race where two of my favourite Running Man members, Kwang soo and Jong kook were amongst its participants. They filmed in Thailand and missions were tuned to activities relating to the local culture there.

One particular scene that made me quite angry was when the two arrived really late at their 2nd pit stop. Initially they had hailed a tuk-tuk to take them to the address they indicated, but were instead dropped off at a location far from their destination. They hailed a taxi and was again dropped off in the middle of nowhere. In their last ditch attempt of desperation, they got into a taxi the 3rd time and were finally directed to the right place, but I could sense their frustration from Jk's comment inside the cab. "Amazing Race really is amazing", which quite obviously is hinting sarcasm rather than admiration.

While the show captioned it as simply the driver's mistake and that Bangkok roads were confusing, it seemed to me that this case of getting lost isn't as superficial as it seems. My friend who recently came back from a short trip to Bangkok ranted to me a first hand experience of being swindled. In Bangkok, hailing a taxi isn't as simple as waving your hand out at one. One must go through a middle-man (or woman in most cases) who then will set a price that is usually much higher than normal and he will then hail the taxi for you, asking you to pay up beforehand. Well, my friend went to the middle man and was disappointed at the rates offered, and so he went to a more secluded street to hail a taxi personally. At first, he thought he got lucky when one stopped for him, entered and was offered a rate that was lower than before. However, within minutes, the taxi passed by the street with the middle-men, exchanged glances and immediately asked him and his family to get off.

This brings me back to Jong kook and Kwang soo's case. Could the tuk tuk driver have intentionally brought them to the wrong place, earned his buck and allow more people to profit from them? There seems to be a large network of underground black market activities where large gangs run the taxi business, etc and try to profit from tourists. Now, similarly why is bargaining also so rampant in tourist night markets in Bangkok? While I have no evidence to back my claims, this is what I feel. In Bangkok, goods are dirt cheap when such stalls buy them from wholesalers or the "black market" as I presume. By setting them at higher but still attractive prices, it is up to the customer to either be extremely gullible or to bargain the price a little. These storekeepers are usually great actors who express some forms of discontent but are willing to slash the prices as they still earn a giant profit. The only way goods can be way cheaper than the counterparts sold in shopping malls or retail outlets are that they are managed by the illegal black markets who either steal, imitate the products or escape taxes.

I felt sorry for the two Koreans. For having been to Korea myself, the culture of night markets is different from that of Bangkok. To speak of a personal experience, I had once been scolded at and chased away when I tried to bargain at some stalls at the night market. And while the experience certainly wasn't pleasant and you don't get as much kick as you do when successfully bargaining, the culture is one to be respected. It only means that these stall owners place a lot of pride in their stalls and the products they sell. They may seem nice at first when you ask about the product, but their respect for you as a customer diminishes as soon as you start slashing the prices.

At this point, I can affirm that most businesses in Korea are legitimate ones, and stall owners don't resort to underhand methods to get their goods at dirt cheap prices. So when visiting a country of Korea, what's most important is to maintain a level of respect for the stall owner, and if it is too expensive

don't wanna do this anymore.

I just think being a supposed leader is such a tiring thing to do, something that requires so much commitment that many of the times I just choose to avoid responsibility.

I probably won't try for a leadership position in my next part of education.

still no progress. and more mind-boggling thoughts.

there was a US university/scholarship fair today. it made me question: what exactly do I want to be in life.

there hasn't been an answer, and it should be quite a worrying matter by this time of the year, but what's filled my mind these days have been absolutely unconcerning of these. I did try to find a direction, at least one where I still had love for, but then again it was crushed by the fact that what I have been studying was not eligible for this field.

And so comes the question. What was I doing all these while? Did I simply make the easy decisions that gave me less stress, and not the ones that truly set my future?

Just a great rush of feelings, emotions and reflections these days

This past weeks have been quite agonizing. I haven't talked to my close friends for a very long time, I've distanced myself from my friends and I even find it difficult to make eye contact with acquaintances. They said JC life was the time where one would form the closest friendships, yet why am I becoming more socially awkward as time passes?

I guess this feeling arose from 2 events that happened in the recent past. One was from a teacher who observed how I was kinda different from the rest. That I was a rather eccentric kid. I was initially in disbelief, but in the past few weeks, as I pondered about it more, it seemed rather appropriate. I found my ways of thinking to be different from normal people. Where normal people could sympathize and engage in feelings with others, which is essentially what makes a friendship last, I found myself to not possess these feelings. The more I think about it, it seemed that most of my friendships were more "official" than personal, in other words, a friendship that blossomed due to circumstances or coincidence. I never made the effort to really confide in people, nor understand their feelings, and that's where I feel extremely regretful and undesirable.

That fateful night when everyone was confessing, a few people thanked others for being a listening ear to them, and being a good confiding partner. It was that feeling of "how come I never experienced that" that really sparked off this intense struggle of how incapable and uncaring person I am.

The second event was when I flipped through the various diaries of the fellow companions that went to Cambodia for OCIP with me. It was through the readings that I realized I never matured, even with the vast experiences that I have gone through. A famous quote that my secondary school CCA used had the meaning of "going through motion" and not maturing from each given experience. As I read through the reflections, I found out more about the internal struggles that each individual faced, but it was apparent in their writing how they showed consistent improvement and reflection in their character development after each experience. This is the anti-parallel to "going through motion".

For me, I went through Dance Night, I was given multiple opportunities in FOs, fac events and POP to realise my flaws. But I never did. I guess it was true, I was living my life retarded. In utmost disgrace, I was happily being oblivious to each experience. What the fuck.

And that has hit me now. It seems I have never changed, I have never matured, and worst of it all, was that I was still back in my old ways in secondary school. Being completely dao and ignorant. I always have that motivation/intention to change, but I just don't know how to do it. It seems like impenetrable barrier which I'll never have the courage to break.

I saw this quote "Deriving happiness from the simplest moments in life" while flipping through those diaries, and it hit me again, what exactly is true happiness. In my selfish nature, was it the materialistic benefits that I received? Because if it was, right now I have come to realise that by doing so, I have neglected the more important aspects of life.

Just what is wrong with me. I want to see a psychiatrist, but then again how is this even a mental problem. It's a fundamental problem with my nature that I have no clue how to solve. I really want to change, and show others that I truly cherish every single friendship, even if I don't show it. I also want people to know that while I really do want to get to understand people more, there's these weird reluctancies that are stopping me from doing so.

In response to my actions to people, I have also developed that feeling that I am close to no one. Or rather no one would actually want to be a friend with me. That level of inadequacy is beyond comprehension. It's all just a vicious cycle "my appearing to be nonchalant about others will also cause others to be nonchalant towards me"

Just how will I become a better person? I really need to start treasuring my experiences and think deeply about them from now on. And if I want to regain those friendships, I better put in effort to change my character first.

haiz.

p.s. i really want to go back to church. but it's these reluctancies thats keeping me from doing so again.

Jabba Ngo

Havent updated this in months, but shall start off with a themed post.

So it all started out when jay invited all the dance ics to do a combined performance for amplify, that i fell in love with this song. It was initially jay and xinde's choreo and i think they did a really good job for this choreo, so then I started to like it.

I've got a few videos here that somehow tells the story of how we practiced for amplify through this song alone. I remember one of the dance pracs, it was an all guys meet up, so we did a lot of crazy stuff. Like this:

But things just kept getting better, and everyone just looked more and more awesome doing this choreo

And so, after weeks of practice, it was finally the day of the concert and all our hard work paid off.

Haha, i know its a short post, but enjoy those videos!

what do i do at home

A lot of people don't think that I have a lot of interests, so they wonder what kind of stuff do I do at home. Especially during the december holidays, I didn't really go out much, and even if I did, it wasn't the type of stuff u would spend your entire day doing. So here's a breakdown on the different types of activities I do, and lemme mention first, all of it are classified as leisure activities. I didn't study a single bit, well, unless you consider elementary Korean something.

I've been telling a few people that I've been following kpop closely, but you may wonder, what the hell is there to do in following Kpop?? You mean like those no life jerks who spend time stalking kpop idol lives, and watching them perform on music stages?? Well, I do do that, but only for 10 minutes at most. For most of the time, I have been watching those english subbed Korean variety shows that do invite kpop idols on it. These shows are really entertaining and I have absolutely no regret in watching them, nor do I ever feel tired from them.

A few such shows include - Running Man, 1N2D, WGM, Muhan Jojeon, and other random shows that aren't as famous. These shows make you laugh really hard, and for a few times, I thought I was going to grow some abs just by laughing too much.

For other times, I spend time on my iPhone exploring various games and playing quite frequently a few such as Jetpack Joyride.

When I'm feeling really bored, I take out the guitar and start to look for tabs to learn and strum and sing along.

Also, I do ride my bike every now and then around the neighborhood, but that's mostly it on how I spent my time.

unit chalet 12

I still remember exactly a year ago, when I was the organising chairman for the previous Unit Chalet, it was during this period (just before the chalet date), where we were so busy tying up loose ends and making sure everything was going to be alright. We were wrecking our brains out but we did not regret a single moment of it, why? One simple reason - we wanted the cadets to have fun. And show them that hcinpcc was a fun cca. (author's note: don't comment about the cliche-ness please)

And a year later, I had fun. Free from the worries and troubles of finding logistics at the last minute, and confirming orders with the chalet and BBQ caterers, this time it was really my turn to sit back, relax and enjoy what had been planned for all of us.

Well, how should I describe this year's chalet experience?.
I'll say, it was a really good reunion, not only with the unit as a whole, but more importantly with the groups that I treasure most - my squadmates of Batch 42, and of course my forever young squad Sec 1s of 2011. I didn't waste the entire time emoing in the chalet or indulging myself in card games with the same old few groups for long hours, this time, we really had the chance to mingle with a whole lot of people.

So lemme start recounting the good times of this chalet (note: the fact that this is the first post on my blog after a  damn long time shows how much I want to share this experience & I'll start posting in a more informal Singlish tone)

Anyways, the chalet didn't come off to a very good start. The moment I read the email about the invitation to this chalet, one detail immediately caught my eye. I was like wtf, meeting point at mrt station, gotta be kidding me unless the attendance numbers are low. We did a recce last year, and the only place that seemed possible to hold such a large group of over a hundred people was the empty space at the ends of the bus interchange, not in the middle of a busy crossroads.. ahem, MRT station.

To make matters worse, I soon got notice that we would not be able to gain entry to the chalet until 3 hours later, which means spending 3 frking hours at a ulu ulu shopping mall (not e!hub) with only a library and an arcade. OK... never mind about that, things were only gonna be better I thought..

We took our lunch at the food court, and went straight to the arcade, and played a variety of games. It was my first time actually on Midnight 3, and surprisingly I mastered the technique of making sharp turns and accelerating quick.Same for initial D. For the basketball arcade though, it was quite embarrassing though cause even after like 5 tries doing a duet with me and Guan Xiong, cannot even get past the 300 mark until the last attempt. Then Darren and Shawn suddenly came beside us and zoomed their points up to 353. My face was white as pepper. I literally felt like fainting cuz it was so damn tiring. Aloy Loh started trying out Jubeat and got the hang of it, while I stuck to the other FPS and racing games.

Then HORROR! You see, I brought my guitar from home cuz I was intending to play at night and let Aloy Loh and I sing along to the different tunes, but just then as I was holding the guitar, it suddenly SNAPPED into 2 pieces. I was Horrified, omg! Damn it, no more singing, I lost like half the excitement I had when I first arrived.

Finally it was 3pm or something, we took the bus to Aloha Loyang Downtown east only to realise it was the wrong one, leading us the opposite direction. So in the end.. we arrived later than all the other squads (We refering to squadmates) But after carrying our heavy bulky bags for so long, finally we could deposit them and go hands free to E!Hub where the real fun begins.

Guan Xiong, Aloy and I set off to e!hub, and we tried to jio the other squadmates out but they had already engaged themselves in some random boardgame, so the 3 lonely chaps walked to the place ourselves. At first, we entered the LAN shop and played 2 full hours of hardcore L4D2, GuanXiong no offense but you were the black sheep, and we never could reach the finish point. Everytime each of us died one by one, Aloy Loh was letting out all of the rage faces. But it was funny and fun, I LOLed the whole time. Especially when I would suddenly startle a witch, and ask everyone to shoot, but in the end, I still get killed, that was hilarious!

We then decided to head for the arcade, and Aloy wanted to play his Jubeat again, cuz he was addicted liao~ so we let him, then Guan Xiong and I went to some other random shooting game with moving seats, like a motion simulator, and everytime the seats suddenly moved, I would feel like I just got banged. But the HD screen and moving seats made the experience memorable. We 3 then went to another game, where all 3 of us could participate together at the same time. It was something like throwing balls at targets on the screen, except with a few twists and turns here and there. So we broke a few records I think, and got tickets - something I havent seen a while since the arcade in Genting.

Having enough of all the gaming, we wanted to try something different, and since all 3 of us loved to sing, why not? KBOX. IT WAS CLOSED, the whole top floor had been sealed off for renovation works. Damn, wrong place wrong time. But then we realised it was already 6pm, so it was time for GX to go home and so Aloy and I went back to the chalet cuz it was dinner time.

The BBQ Dinner was awesome! Way better than my year, even though it was the same catering service. There was that chocolate fountain which I instantly fell in love with. The satay was cooked to perfection and they had clams too. The pasta was tasty, but nothing could beat marshmallows with chocolate. I took my plate to a table by the pool, and sat with a few other squadmates, then suddenly Kai Siang told me the Sec 1'11s were going to e!hub for bowling. I was like wtf, I havent even started my dinner! So they went ahead first, but during this time, Mr Yong emerged from the pool and came to our table to chat with us. We had a pretty lengthy chat talking about a whole lot of stuff, but then he suddenly decided to take off his wet shirt. The funny thing was it was really windy the whole night cuz the chalet was right beside the sea, so I found it quite amusing when he took his shirt off, like wouldnt it be freezing?! but then, he lectured me on the physics I learnt and almost forgot that you actually become hotter faster without ur shirt than with it on.

So we continued the chat talking about last year's chalet and this year's, JC life, juniors, his experience our experience, so on.. Then Aloy and I finally decided to take our leave and walk back to e!hub. We met the sec 1s and kaisiang, zhucheng, donovan, yongkiat at the bowling alley and decided to have a few games. Aloy was really having a good day, scoring almost 6 strikes in a row and achieving a new high score for himself, while I started out pretty lousy, but improved tremendously thereafter, scoring my first strike soon after.

Then.. I grew tired of it while the Sec1s were still in their game, so Kaisiang Aloy and me went to Coffee Bean for a midnight chat. Talked about stuff, that I shan't mention and KS suddenly suggested watching a movie, so some sec 1s were interested and they met us at coffee bean. We talked a bit more, actually at this point, I really didnt feel like talking (dunno why), shy or something??, so I decided to catch up on a bit of my Youtube watching videos that I have missed.

It was soon 11 something, and we went to the 2nd top floor to purchase movie tickets for Sherlock Holmes. I was pretty skeptical of the movie at first, cuz it was just gonna be another Warner Bros feature, but it turned out better than I expected with smooth slick action scenes and mysteries at certain points that kept me awake throughout the movie. I'm not gonna discuss the movie here cuz I'm no expert at it. But it was getting pretty cold at the theatre, and wearing slippers, I had to wrap my legs around Kai Siang for some warmth.

Finally the movie ended, and I enjoyed it actually, so we went back to the chalet, where I decided to catch some rest. Played a bit of Sims on iPhone before that. But it wasn't easy sleeping, and I woke up quite a few times, one time was when Kai Siang entered our room to join Marcus on his bed (no sick please). They started talking about JC, teachers and girls, what they call man to man talk.. I remember hearing some of the convos, so if anyone's interested, PM me.

Before I actually slept, I took a trip to the bathroom to clean my body, but this will probably not interest you.

The night passed, and at 9am I woke up ready to start the next day. I found out that my other squadmates had went night cycling, so I was sort of regretful cuz I was looking forward to cycling in a chalet. But they were dead beat at 9am so I was also kinda glad I didn't go with them.

I started off the 2nd day, being the first one to wake up and boy was the room full of snores, especially Kai Siang with a signature loud snore. Oh, and did I mention Marcus's self mumbling during his sleep, kinda freaky. When I got up, I played Sims again and then Dickson suddenly came up in and said we gotta check out. Damn, missed time for breakfast. So we got all our luggage and exited the chalet. Got to do a bit of cycling when someone told me to return the bike for him, the shop was far away.

After returning the bikes and heading to E!hub, we stopped by KFC for brunch and went LAN gaming again. L4D2 wasn't as fun anymore after all the playing the previous day. Anyway it was time to go and I was sort of sad to leave but all good things come to an end, so I look forward to the next unit chalet or event  if we're invited of course.

As I type this story now, I start to reminiscent the good ol times of organising events in npcc. Even though my guitar is broken, the whole time together had been a fun one. Anyways, I got a new guitar today, first hand somemore, so not bad la.

Kbye.

It's been a long time

A hectic year has passed since I last blogged on this very close, personal site that I've once patronised with much love and dedication. Now, it seems that everything else has overruled and pulled my life away from such leisure activity.

School, as one suggests, is the most busy period on one's life. To become someone spectacular, it all boils down to whether he has a good background, which is judged by his own education. I've been working really hard lately - doing math consistently, and studying sciences and humanities till little strands of white hair appear. Nah, I'm just sayin', THAT isn't true. (I'm not ready to be old)

There's been a lot of change recently. Justin Bieber has made way for newbies, or should I say, noobies such as Rebecca Blank. oops, I'm not used to typing Black. I'm not going to make a big fuss about her, because it's just going to create more attention for her. So, here's just 1 last word to end off my impression of her - Bitch.

Yeah, I'm a vulgar person. But I don't go f***ing everyone around by blurting out that as and when I want to.

Anyway, onto the more solemn and important piece of news that happened recently, was the major 9.0 magnitude Japan earthquake which literally shook the world - psychologically and physically. The violent trembles every now and then serves as timely reminders for us not to take our Earth for granted as it will not always give us the best. We have abused it, now it is time to take revenge. The nuclear fallout of the Fukushima nuclear reactors have also posed the worst threats of all time - radiation poisoning. It is lethal and immediate - 1 small dose causes an instant death. And what's happening now, it is infecting all our fish and marine life in our oceans, as well as dry creatures on land. We will die - by a natural cause. I don't mean natural as in old age, but literally, natural as nature conquering us hands-down.

Another piece of news I bring to you is that I'm finally typing from a Windows 7 computer. I've been using Vista and XP for ages, and I think it is safe for me to say that the overall performance of 7 is really the best of the rest. I tried Mac a few times, but they are no better than the apps themselves. So if you really want a customisable computer, Windows can provide you with more. But unless you're a arts enthusiast like me, Mac is better, sad for me then.

I've been really active on YouTube, currently owning 2 channels that hav 200000 video views + 5000 views respectively. One was just what I did as a hobby - subtitling good videos and the other, my own video blog channel.

Nothing to say now, bye.

Drama: My Girlfriend is a Gumiho

I really love that drama because of mainly the female lead. I cried in the end too, because it was just too touching. I wish I could have been the male lead, who would do anything once he had fallen in love.

So, I went to watch the Strong Heart Kang Shim Jang, with the cast as the guests, and here are the links.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Fukuoka Memories: Day 8

Today was the last day in Fukuoka before home sweet home. We had to wake up especially early to get ready to go to the airport. The breakfast at the dorm on that day was especially memorable, not because the food was nice, but because we all knew that this was going to be the last meal we're ever going to eat for this Japan trip (excl. lunch on the plane).

I still remember the taste of the dense miso soup, the sticky Japanese rice and the main dish of chicken and beef. It sounds like lunch in Singapore, but that's what they eat in Japan - big servings. So immediately after we finished, the school bus fetched us to the airport, which I expected to be near the coast, but instead it was in the middle of the city area.

So the airport was rather big even though it only had one terminal. There was a long queue to check in at the airline counters, because baggage screening was held there instead of after checking in. So finally we checked in and I bought a lot of 白色恋人chocolate from the duty-free shops inside. Then, we went to board our plane and it took us back to Singapore.

On the way, I watched Avatar, Grown Ups and the Flight Status. I was sitting beside my teacher so I couldn't watched any adult-rated movies. Just kidding. The plane made a smooth landing and before we knew it, we had to exit the plane and I could already feel the humid hot air of Singapore. Aish.. even the airplane's air-conditioner was blowing out white vapor lol.

My father was waiting outside the "inside zone" so once I exited, I took the car home, along with handfuls of foods, toys and miscellaneous items. It was a good trip. Thanks AEP and Fukuoka!