Day 3 - City Scrapers

Doctor Camera
Trip Leader, Mr Loh, was the center of attraction in the middle of one of the most crowded shopping malls in China!


Grand Ocean Shopping Mall
A standard-sized shopping mall in China is even larger than Vivo City! Look at the abundance of land they have here, its astonishing! Like a lot of my friends from the previous OIP batch said, their food is extremely oily. This is no camera edit or special effects. I have seen how they cooked at the roadside, dumping oil into the frying wok directly from a large bottle of oil can. What amazes me the most is that I have not yet seen an obese person from China. Perhaps oil does not make a person obese, but definitely shoots his cholesterol levels up.

I tried a plate of fried rice in the night market, and swore never to order another one again! Although the portion is small, I only managed to down half a plate because the oil content made me feel "full and vomitty". Take a look around in America and you can find many people who are very obese weighing at least 250 pounds. This is mainly due to the food portion that they eat, nearly twice of ours, containing lots of red meat and pasta. Here in China, their citizens barely have much proper food to eat, and mainly make up of white rice and lean meat, although their cooking style uses a lot of vegetable oil.


Maple Tree
Standing below an artificial tree with golden leaves! Looks kind of real though. It's a pleasant way of decorating the surroundings of the shopping mall.



Extreme Makeover
Quite fair bit of products in the shopping mall was value for money. One of which was the services offered by a hair saloon called "YES! I DO!". There was a high customer turn over rate which left us at peace because it meant that the hair saloon was good. China's birth rate is expected to be 1,330,044,544 people. An average person's hair growth is 6 inches per year. This means that there are 200,000km of hair to cut annually, what a lucrative business!

5 of us went to the saloon, 3 for hair cuts + wash, and 2 for hair wash only. A total of $230yuan (S$48) was spent. This is a very reasonable price to pay as the saloon was very fancy and well-decorated. I noticed that they had many staffs, e.g. cashier, hair stylist, and hair washer. They can afford that many staffs perhaps because they are lowly educated and are paid low wages. However, I can see one important factor, and that is they are very passionate about their work. They take pride in what they do, and are proud about it. Even the manager herself, running the show will take a wet cloth to wipe the stains off the glass door.


Satay Man
Exiting from the shopping mall, I was attracted by the fragrance of barbecued meat! The satay cart was only located meters away from the shopping mall. It does not seem like it bothered any of the shop owners as none of them complained or chased him away. However, in Singapore, shop owners are very particular about the stench caused by the smell of the smoke as it may stay on their product such as clothes or bags. Perhaps, the sight of such stalls will tarnish or put away customers of the shopping mall. In China, everyone mind their own business, and give each other a chance to make a living.


Bus Chasers


Bus Stop
Most of the bus stops in China are designed in such a way that there are only a few seats, maybe four seats. This is to increase the holding area to contain the over population. People are all squeezing in that narrow shelter waiting for their buses to arrive. In China, their citizens can smoke freely, and at times in crowded or confined places, which causes non-smokers to inhale second-hand smoke, and is very unhealthy for the lungs. Singapore has already overcome that problem by creating "Yellow Boxes" or smoking zones for smokers. Even in confined placed like shopping outlets, air-conditioned buses, there are people who light up their cigarette. Do they have guilty conscious and ignore the health of others or are they completely oblivious about it?


Temporary Warehouse


House Man


House Cleaning

This is like another episode of "Dirty Jobs with Roy Tan". I have survived through the condition of our room for the past two days, and it has taken a toll on me. My roommates and I decided that if we were going to spend the next 42 days sleeping, living, and working in this room, we have to at least keep it clean and neat. We started by shifting all our belongings to a temporary holding area just outside our door. While my roommates were cleaning the toilet and basin area, I used a $20yuan mop from the nearby mall to mop, mop, and re-mop the floor until it is dust-free!

REFLECTIONS

I finally got a taste of what my household servant experience when she is doing the housework. I am only going through a small portion as compared to her, and I am having signs of stress such as back ache. It is like I've been thrown into the center of the Amazon jungle and left there to survive and do everything by myself. This is when I can truly exploit my potential in looking out for myself and others. I learn that if one works for money, he will not excel. However if he does what he enjoys most, he will be far ahead of the rest as money is not a driving factor. This could be the reason why many Singapore employers are looking for China nationals to carry out their daily operations. They are value for money, passionate in their jobs, hard-working, and do not complain. But the only drawback is that they don't speak our language, English, and thus have problems communicating with Singapore locals.


A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.
-Latin Proverb