Digital Divide?

Conventional definitions of the phrase 'Digital Divide' refer to the socio-economic or knowledge gap caused by disparity in access to technology between rich and poor countries, or between rich and poor segments of society.

Singapore, being fairly small and homogeneous, as well as on the cutting edge of modern ICT trends has no use for such definitions. There is a different digital divide here, that between the old and the young. Between those who pay their bills over the Internet, and those who queue up at the post office on Saturday mornings clutching a stack of bills in one hand, and a roll of cash in the other. Between the youngsters who can navigate their way through crowds and across busy streets while furiously typing away at their phone keypads, and adults who can barely send a single SMS message correctly.

There are, of course, exceptions. I was at dinner last night with Sa, and over my bowl of chicken curry I chanced to overhear three older ladies (probably in their 50s) discussing and complaining about their respective bosses. One of them (the oldest looking) sounded very similar to my boss's secretary and she caught my attention, so I listened on. Presently their conversations changed to their mobile phones. To my surprise (and some delight too), the lady who had attracted my attention started describing the features on her latest phone. It was amazing to hear her talk about T9 and Bluetooth and megapixels, and I was absolutely flabbergasted when she started explaining 3G to her colleagues.

And then there are exceptions. A fairly young colleague of mine (whom I will call Del) recently bought a new phone - an NEC something-or-the-other. This is a 3G phone that a relative of hers got at a special price and sold to her. She knew this was a 3G phone, and for that reason had requested to buy it off her relative. The first question she asked me when I got into work that morning was, "What's 3G?". Ok no big deal, not everyone is familiar with 3G, so I explained it to her, and said she'd need to get a new SIM card to activate the 3G features. I honsetly didn't anticipate the next question - "What's a SIM card?".

And this is the same person who, at another colleague's birthday celebration at office, excitedly got up to film her cutting the cake, using her new phone's camera. Once she did that, she had no idea what to do with the clip, since she didn't know how to connect to her laptop, nor did she know anything about MMS. And I couldn't help her because the phone's UI sucked and I lost patience.

And she works as a Technology Project Manager.

Anusol?

Anusol?
Originally uploaded by katongking.

Walking round one of the pharmacies in JB (we had time to kill, and the wife was looking at the cosmetics - "come come cheap cheap"), I chanced upon this.

At first I thought it was just unfortunately named, and then I read the by-line - "Ubat-sapu buasir (Hemoroid)" - quite unmistakable.

And then I saw the helpful picture.

Drinking Tea at Johor Bahru City Square

Drinking Tea at Johor Bahru City Square
Originally uploaded by katongking.

Over the weekend, Sa and I went to JB (which is just a short hop from here). Stepped into a 170, and a nap later we were at the Woodlands checkpoint. Between entering and leaving the checkpoint, the weather turned ugly, and it was pouring when we climbed back onto the 170 to proceed to JB. Again there, we had to run from the bus to the immigration hall, and once out of there, had to run (in the driving rain) to the Train Station.

Our purpose for going to JB that day was to buy train tickets to Kuala Lumpur, which we're visiting a couple of weeks from now. Unluckily the train station was just across the road from JB City Square (a large mall), which beckoned to Sa ("Come come, cheap cheap"). But it was lucky as well; we managed to get in and get some respite from the rain, as well as some coffee and tea, and some children singing along a Chinese song.

After a heap of window shopping, we discovered the rain had stopped, so we walked over to the station, and bought the tickets. We also bought one way tickets back from JB to Singapore for ourselves (just to experience it). Amazingly the tickets were cheaper than travelling by bus, and with far less hassle.

No food and drinks allowed!

Sunday – Race Day!

We woke up around 7, and after a quick shower, packed up and had a sumptuous breakfast at the Coffee House (again). This was the standard hotel buffet breakfast that I’ve seen in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and now, Malaysia. The highlight of the morning was that I broke a plate. This happened when I was trying to slice a loaf of bread, and knocked the plate off the table.

Breakfast done, we paid the bills and climbed into the bus. Thankfully, the bus driver didn’t have trouble finding the circuit, and at 9:30, we arrived at the circuit again. We had tickets for section C2 (covered hill-stand) and I had already picked out the exact location that I wanted to sit; this location would give us the best possible view of much of the track. So, in an attempt to beat the other thousands of people who would also want to sit there, we started hurrying towards C2.

In our hurry, and partly due to my misreading the map, we missed the turn-off to C2, and ended up at the main entranceway to the complex. Not too unfortunate, as there were quite a few things there to occupy our attention for the next few minutes. We has been asked to buy a Ferrari flag for a friend of ours, so we walked into the Ferrari outlet and bought the biggest flag they had. It was surprisingly not as expensive as I had expected, only 40 Euros (I had expected twice that, but didn’t really care actually…). Their other stuff, like caps and t-shirts were ridiculously priced so, though temptation called, we found it easy to resist.

(photo)

Resumed our hurry scurry towards C2. The walk was longer than we expected. As we walked we were passed by three security guards on motorbikes, one female and two male. They were driving very slowly, so I (in a moment of uncharacteristic thick-skinnedness) jogged up to them and asked them for a lift. They looked at each other and said “No” in a tone that suggested they wouldn’t have a problem personally, but when in uniform it wouldn’t be professional. Not wanting to push the matter with large people on large bikes with guns, I didn’t. However, ten yards later they stopped, had a quick discussion and motioned us over. With big smiles on our lips, we ran over and climbed onto the bikes, and got a comfortable ride (and lots of envious looks from other walkers) to the C2 gate.

A big source of imcome for the Sepang track (aside from the reasonably priced tickets) is the sale of food and beverages inside the gates. These are normally atrociously priced – in this case, RM 10 (S$ 4.50) for a bottle of water and RM 15 for a sandwich. We had packed plenty of food and drinks for the race, but were told to empty our bags at the gate. So I pulled out a bottle of water (one of three) ostentatiously from the bag, held it up to the guard, and tossed it into the pile of bottles lying at the side. He then waved us in through the turnstile, and I thought, “Hm, that was too easy.” Didn’t realise that there was another guard inside opening and checking all bags. This chap opened my backpack, peered inside, noted two bottles of water and three apples, had a brief conversation with the first guard, both of them looked at me and smiled, and waved us on! I love Malaysia :)

Sorry for the Interruption...

I discovered that other people have blogged about Singlish, much in the same vein as my post here. Check out calm one's (very funny) take at http://lifeatngeeann.blogspot.com/2005/04/speak-good-singlish.html, and mr brown's (somewhat dissertative) at http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2005/04/mr_browns_meani.html#more.

Adventures in Sepang will return shortly.