Inconsiderate Couple

I have not been so indignant at a stranger for a long time. Even thinking about it still made me fumed at the lack of chivalry and selfishness of the couple. This disheartened me when it seemed that the more educated Singaporeans had become, our behaviour and ettiquette seemed to regress.

It was a crowded Sunday afternoon at the department store where kiasu Singaporeans (including myself) were hoping to grab some Post-Christmas bargains. As usual, the dearth of fitting rooms and cashiers led to long visible queues. Some of the fitting cubicles were not manned by any shop assistants. Hence, despite the instruction of "Maximum 3 pieces" pasted bold and large at the doors, many customers did not pay heed to it.

I was standing one such unmanned cubicle. The customer inside the cubicle was taking a long time. I waited patiently thinking that it could again be a customer who had tried on more items than the stipulated. However, a lady soon approached the cubicle door with many items on her hands. The door opened with her boyfriend / husband coming out through the door and she going in. I was stunned by what I had witnessed and could not react in time. Soon, it was anger and fustration as the couple's behaviour.

• Getting your companion to queue for you while you search for your items is common. However, getting your companion to hog the fitting room while you are searching for the items is not. If you are really running THAT short of time, you could still allow the next person in queue to go into the fitting room and try first. From the time you go ahead and search for the items and back, the next person in queue can try her items and go off, instead of wasting others' time.
• Getting a MAN to stay in the fitting room meant for ladies is ill-mannered behaviour. I am sure many signs outside ladies fitting room has indicated that it is STRICTLY meant for ladies and male companions should stay OUTSIDE.

After I recovered from my initial shock, my sister and I started complaining about such behaviour in Chinese among ourselves (with no deliberate intention of hiding from the couple who are non-Chinese but more because Chinese has been the daily language that we normally converse in). Throughout our entire dialogue, I stood backfacing him because he had irked me so much that I could not stand the sight of him. When the lady finally emerged from the fitting room, he started speaking angrily at the top of his lungs "It's good you are out. She (meaning me) thinks I don't understand Chinese."

OMG. You are in the wrong and you still want to have the last word. If you behave atrociously, you could not blame others for wagging their fingers at your inconsideration. Again, I was stupendously stunned into a non-reaction. His behaviour drew out the aggression in me. I nearly wanted to rebuke that "Oh well, it is better that you understand Chinese and save me the trouble of translating for you. To think such a well-read and educated person like you should behave in such an uncivilisd manner."

Given that it was a departmental store in town, I wondered what sort of adverse impression this couple would leave for Singapore if I were a tourist instead. Much as Singapore progressed and made a mark globally with our state-of-the-art insfrastructure, the inculcation of a civic behaviour of Singaporeans should not be forgotten especially when Singapore has always seemed to lag behind in terms of service level. Service level would not be restricted to the front-liners but also the general public.