This strikes me when recently, it somehow becomes a 'pattern' I see while at public places here, in Singapore... or perhaps this aspect has drawn my attention as see more of the positive practice (behaviour) when I was overseas.
Within 6 months, have been to Taiwan, London and Japan - so, it's not just in particular to Asian society! As a traveller, though such local behaviour normally does not draw my attention, but probably because in these trips, I have the opportunity to move around in public transport, hence creating a closer encounter with the local people.
One thing common in all cities, where I draw comparison, is the public transport. Yes, the train - be it MRT, Underground, etc. Well, there are 'lines' on the ground to guide people. Indeed, in Tokyo, it's really just a line, without any arrows or regions, as we have here in Singapore. And mind you, the cities I am comparing are much more populated than Singapore. Certainly, the crowd in the stations are far worse. However, no matter how hurried they are, they queue! More importantly, they don't plant themselves right in front of the door, which is what we always see in Singapore! It looks like Singaporeans have no sense of 'directions'. We don't understand that fact that if there's 'outflow', there's no space for external entities to flow in! Such a simple logic yet we don't seem to understand. How embarassing!
Of course, another very different observation was keeping to the 'left/right' rule. It's so automatic... that the locals by default will make an immediate decision which side to take... what happens in Singapore? Well, just go to the MRT station and take a look... It seems like we've yet figure out where's our left or right! Another embarassing thing to sigh...
