kopi jargon

I was at a foodcourt one day queuing up to buy drinks when someone ahead of me ordered "kopi-si gosong gao".

That rather amused me. Sometimes I wonder how the kopi uncles and aunties are able to operate like clockwork and dish out your coffee in 5 seconds flat. Don't they have to pause for a moment to think about which concoction it is every time a customer mutters a mouthful like that? Or maybe they would be really nice to acknowledge your order but still make your coffee the same way as the hundred other cups they've done that day?

I mean, do these uncles and aunties at your neighbourhood kopitiam really give a freaking toss how precise you want your 90-cent gourmet coffee done?

If it were me doing your coffee on a busy day, you'll be lucky if I don't give you tea when you order coffee. In fact, I'll operate like a binary switch. There will be no such thing as siu dao. No such thing as more sugar, or less, or anything in between. It's either got sugar, or no sugar. OK?

Next time, maybe we should try something like "kopi-o gao siu dai, teh-si gosong peng, yuan yang". I bet that'll make the kopi auntie stop in her tracks.

Ha!

apples to apples

The GST announcement really came as quite a shocker, non? These days, I read our papers with a double dose of skepticism and after going through four full pages on the issue, I couldn't find a single speck of disagreement on the policy anywhere. Surely everything has its good and bad?

It drew plenty of ire from the online comments I've read so far though. But I'm not going to repeat all these "robbing the poor to feed the poor" rhetoric because I'm sure the government must have already considered most of the obvious factors. Or maybe they simply know too well that Singaporeans will complain even more if income tax is raised instead.

I also notice from reading the reports that they like to say things like, "Oh, we shouldn't compare with other countries because we are different/unique" when rejecting suggestions for social welfare, old-age pension, minimum wage, etc. The same has been said for non-economic issues like democracy and freedom of expression. Which is fine, really.

Except that in the same breath they continue to utter things like, "Look, their VAT is more than 20% while our GST is just 7%", or "Our income tax is amongst the lowest in the world!" to justify or support the policy changes they are pushing for.

What's with that? If you say don't compare, then don't compare anything at all. Don't conveniently compare the aspects in your favour and write off those against you as "can't be compared", heh!