The Amazing Race

Hey Guys,

I just came back from Singapore's first ever F1 night race!

Above is a preview of what the night race would look like, and it woud be a waste not to see this!

ANYWAYS....
While we all know that Fernando Alonso of the Renault team won tonight, the disappointment and poor showing team Ferrari has given the fans (yes I bet 90% of the crowd were supporting Marlboro, oops i meant Ferrari), and not to mention that it was argubly the most exciting race of the season, I would like to touch upon the GOOD, BAD and the Ugly of the night race, and they are all about us: Humans.

Yikes!

So what has humans got to do with communication? Let's find out.

The GOOD

This was a video I took, of a (probably drunk) Caucasian rousing the crowd to sing "ole, ole, ole" with him. While he was not successful (thank you, dour Singaporean fans there..), he managed to keep the bored crowd amused and the frequent chuckles my friends and I shared. This was something positive that I could take from whenever I recall the race. If only the crowd shared his enthusiasm (no, not for Finland), then probably that would make my F1 experience all the better.

The BAD

Now this video may not make much sense, but if we consider that the Singapore Grand Prix consists of 61 mind-numbing laps, could you imagine standing and sitting 61 TIMES? It would be ridiculous!

Absurd.

That I was around 4-5 storeys high at the bay grandstand, one will assume he has a fairly comfortable view...

BUT NO.

Thanks to the "vertically-challenged" people (i'm assuming they are extremely short and Singaporean) in the front, people like me at the back get compromised.

Hello... I paid S$248 for a ticket to a seat, so why should I think that those in front paid more?



THE UGLY

Unfortunately I have neither videos nor pictures to show the ugly side of humans because my camera apparently had a "virus" and wiped out my evidence! Nevertheless, here's what happened.

"Je pense, donc je suis" (I think, therefore I am)

This philosophical statement was coined by influential French philosopher René Descartes, which simple meaning that "if someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist".

"Wa si kiasu lang, bey sai su" (I am kiasu, therefore you lose)

Alright this is not the exact translation but you get the idea. That Singaporeans must be first to everything and that includes going to their designated seats. The crowd at the Grand Prix was pretty unbelievable, but it was their behaviour that disgusts me. To get to the bay grandstand one has to walk a small path from the entrance, ditto for exit. So while I was squeezing myself through (with thousands of others too), the people behind started pushing and shouting. There were policemen at the both ends of the path and I overheard one irate Caucasian complaining to our men in blue: "This is ridiculous, it's (thousands sharing entrance and exit) disgraceful. Can't (sic) you guys do something instead of standing?!"

I barely made it the other side, sweating and confused. A 200-metre long path that took me 30 minutes to complete. Thankfully there was no violence, but it could easily have been that way.

And there wasn't a thing the poor policeman could do.

My friend summed it up best :
"we live in a conformist society today."