Thoughts on… Singaporeans being the most emotionless among the human population

Really?

When I heard that Singapore has come up tops as the most emotionless society in a survey conducted by Gallup, my first reaction was to agree. Thoughts like these marched into my head.

“Hey! Are you Singaporean or not, how can you agree?”

“But it’s true, most bosses of mine very emotionless. Except when they are scolding.”

“In fact, most people I see on the streets seemed emotionless. They looked like zombies. Even zombies emote more.”

“But hor, how this Gallup conduct the survey? What kind of KNS questions they ask?”

“How in the world do they judge whether someone is emotionless or not?”

Apologies for the Singlish. They are my thoughts and I just cannot form thoughts in good English. In fact, not all my thoughts are in English/Singlish. Some are in Cantonese, some in Chinese, when I am thinking angry thoughts, Hokkien comes up.

But I digress. So, here are my thoughts on the Gallup survey.

1)      I am not happy about it. Generally I think that people, or a whole society for that matter, do not liked to be termed ‘emotionless’.

2)      I expect there will be a lot of emotionlessly unhappy Singaporeans who will be posting their ‘emotionless’ responses on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, 9gag, what-have-you. Just to show the world how emotional we Singaporeans can get. I am actually a little late in jumping onto the retort-and-response-to-the-survey bandwagon.

3)      I actually do believe that Singaporeans have emotions. Just that we Singaporeans also work the longest hours at 46 hours per week (source: http://sbr.com.sg/residential-property/news/singaporeans-work-longest-hours-among-top-cities) therefore our faces are probably too tired and numb to reveal much emotions. In fact, because of the long work hours, we would really like some rest and relaxation during our time-off and could not be assed to properly answer useless global surveys that give us inaccurate BS results. It is all very subjective.

4)      But having made point 3, I must also say that Singaporeans are also quite a bo-chup (Hokkien for ‘couldn’t be bothered’) bunch. We have that cool laidback attitude and nothing much can sway our boats (except for the occasional flash floods and ponding which invites more emotions than necessary).

5)      I wonder what is the point of knowing that we are the most emotionless. So that a committee (Show Your Emotions Can or Not or SYECoN) can be formed to work on us?  So that MOE can include emotionally enriched Emoting Your Emotions (EYE) subject into the moral and civics syllabus? So that Singaporeans can work on their facial muscles and make money out of creams/lotions/face masks that revitalizes and strengthens your atrophied facial muscles? Really? WHAT IS THE POINT?

6)      Moving on, what to eat for dinner? I just gotten my bonus and would really like to treat my family to a great enjoyable dinner.

7)      I should be knocking off soon in a few minutes. I cannot wait! Also, Christmas is coming in a few days’ time. Holiday!

8)      I wonder what my friends got me for the gift exchange. I hope it is something useful.

Anyway, no matter what Gallup has discovered about Singapore (and pretending like it is some big important life truth), life goes on for us.

We bo-chup.