Surprisingly impressed with Orange

So last night I had an encounter that brougt me back to the UK and it made me think perhaps going back there won't be such a bad thing and instead of dreading the day I actually have to get on that plane to England, I can happily sit in on a 12 hour journey and look forward to be back in my home comforts, thank you John@Orange, he completely de-stressed me from my troubles yesterday and made my day with his tongue in cheek type of humour.

To read more click on the post title.



So, I was browsing on the Orange website (a UK phone operating network) looking at phones until a random pop up asks me if I needed any help and that I could speak to an advisor, 'click to chat with an advisor'. I thought "cool let's see what this is" and clicked on the pop up window (after all I remembered my Prof, Michael Netzley, telling us not to be afraid to click around on the internet and explore). After about 30 seconds, John@Orange enters the chat and in a predictable manner asks how he could help me. It starts off kind of slow and mundane as I ask about features of the Sony Erricsson W705 such as HDPSA and EDGE because I had never heard of them before. Coming across as a complete girly girl who knows nothing about technology I probably asked some of the most stupid questions but he dealt with them in a professional manner and with great "patience and forebearance" (as he said in his own words when i asked him how he handles annoying customers).

I could imagine him thinking I'm just really stupid, so I tried to humour him back with sarcastic jabs at his selling techniques. He did recommend some pretty decent phones though and respect to him for putting up with my stupid questions about transmitters and internet connections. He soon took me seriously though after he suggested the LG Renoir to me and I said it's not a good phone because it focuses too much on the camera and video function so compromises on the main function of the phone, which is to talk to people (battery talk time is only around 3 hours). Then his whole tone changed and he was surprised at my comment, then he suggested the HTC Touch HD =). See, all you have to do with Sales people is know enough about the product to surprise them.

All in all, it was a rather amusing conversation, not only was he honest but I have a habit of psycho analaysing the way people behave and he made me wonder if he would have said half the things he said to me if it was face to face sales? He definitely lightened up my day though and apparently I made his day too haha. It's weird how you can sense other people's personalities through text, and I guess John@Orange is pretty good at what he does if he's able to project a personlity behind the screen and still manage to keep the customer happy and remain professional.

Orange has been using online chat services since June last year, it's definitely a great way to communicate with your customers by using today's technology. This was one of those moments where I actually understood how the things I've been learning in Digital Media apply to real life, and it's very rare that I make connections between theory and practice, which is worrying, but the point is I noticed the connection here haha =)

I still haven't chosen a phone that I want though, but John@Orange (who was actually in Scotland) did let me know that there's a new Samsung Ultra Touch S8300 that'll be on the shelves soon and the specs don't look too bad.

Hopefully when I ring up Orange about my current situation with my contract, they'll be just as nice.

My accent's going meh? It's still British what?!

Walau!

I've realised that my British accent is becoming less obvious to Singaporeans... no, to other people. Maybe it's the fact that I've been surrounded with American or similar accents at home (as in my home in Singapore) and at SMU. I know that I often have a tendency to slowly pick up accents or my accent begins to change ever so slightly when I'm in a different country/place for a period of time.

Yesterday I was walking with a local friend of mine and we were just talking normally, until he paused and said "Either I'm getting used to your accent, or what you said just now sounded really Singaporean." Then I frantically tried to replay what I said. I couldn't figure out what might have sounded so Singaporean? Did I unknowingly say 'lah', 'neh', 'meh', 'what', or did I miss out a connecting word somewhere in my sentence?

Then my friend pointed out that it was the tone I said a particular word was flatter and the way I said the word was dragged out longer than I normally would have said it.

Then yesterday during a group meeting, a group mate of mine asked me where I'm actually from because she thought I was from the UK but she didn't think I sounded English, but she couldn't tell from my accent where I was actually from.

Don't get me wrong, I do like the Singaporean accent, I remember the first time I went away for a few days and when I came back, the first time I heard a distinct Singaporean accent put a smile on my face.

But for me, my accent helps define who I am over here and I kind of like the fact that people always think I'm local until I open my mouth.

Hmmm... perhaps I have potential to be moulded into a Singaporean? =)

Udderly Good Ice-cream

In Udders with fellow Gourmet-ers

Last week I attended an ice-cream buffet at Udders, which was an event offered by SMU's Gourmet Club and no regrets about the amount of ice cream I consumed or the pounds I might have piled on in that one visit to the cool, cute, little ice cream store located next to United Square Shopping Mall.

Udders is known to create their own flavours and are always experimenting with new tastes. You walk in and there's a long chalk board filled with different ideas for new ice cream flavours suggested by customers and others can add their own ideas on there too and vote for the ones they like. A simple, yet very cool way of consumer participation and feedback... I'll probably use the word 'cool' more than a few times because it's the only word that I think describes it's atmosphere, it's look and concept, and ironically also relates to ice-cream. In my mind, anything that allows your customers to express their creativity is a cool idea, so not only can you put up ur ideas for ice cream flavours, but there's a black plastic board on the opposite wall for you to scribble on, with neon pens provided for you. This board was completely filled with messages, birthday shout outs,'xyz was here 08' and other random ramblings. It all adds to the rather young, hip and cool decor and atmosphere. They're ice-cream flavours also reflect this with best sellers such as Lychee Martini, Rum and Raisan and Baileys and Bourbon (one of my favourites), Orange Choc Bitter (with Triple Sec Vodka) and Amaretto Black (all of which were stronger than expected). Of course they have classic flavours such as vanilla and strawberry (although I don't recall chocolate as a flavour being offered), and they also offer distincly Singaporean flavours, like Durian (two types of durian flavours available! Who would have guessed?).

Not only is the ice cream popular there but they're drinks are a hit too, with ice cream floats (in what looks to me like a vase for fake flowers - pictured left) and their hot chocolate are favourites among their customers.

One of the best ice-cream places I've been to in Singapore.If I had to give a rating, I would give 8 out of 10 =)

Are Singaporeans really that nice?

So something interesting (or at least I think so) happened on my way back home:

It's Friday night and I'm heading back home, catch the MRT like usual, get off at my station, head to the bus stop and wait for my bus to come. So I sit down on the benches looking towards the traffic keeping an eye out. Even though it's past midnight and there isn't a lot of traffic it's still pretty hard to identify the right bus you want at night.

Whilst I'm waiting, a car pulls in and stops, the window winds down and a guy probably in his late 30s or early 40s looks my way and starts talking. Couldn't hear what he was saying so thought maybe he wanted directions or something so I go up to the window. The guy asks me if I need any help.

"Oh no, I'm just waiting for a bus" I reply.
"Where you go I can take you" He offers,
"Oh no it's ok thank you"
"I can take you where you need to go, just say"
"Oh I live nearby and there's a bus that comes very soon so I'll just wait"
"You're not Singaporean?"
"No I'm not"
"Where you from?"
"England"
"you speak Mandarin?"
"No, sorry I can't speak Mandarin"
"I friend you, can take where you need to go"
"No, it's o.k. thank you, there should be a bus that's arriving soon"
"really can take, you will wait for long time now"
"I think a bus should be coming in the next few minutes, I normally wait for this bus anyway, but thankyou very much!"
"Sure?"
"Yes, thank you, I really appreciate the offer. Thank you"
Then he drives away.

O.k. so the conversation wasn't word for word, but the content is more or less the same. The weird thing is I did consider at one point to get into the car, but common sense said no of course, and in these circumstances it's important that I listen to it, even if I don't normally. But this situation got me thinking; Singaporeans are generally nice people, but are they that nice to offer a random stranger a lift to their choice of destination? Of course there's two ways that it could have played out if I had got into the car. Chances are he was being genuine and just wanted to help, and then there was a chance it could have gone terribly wrong.

After he drove away, I thought "This is Singapore, people are gerneally quite nice and I think it's safe to trust Singaporeans... He didn't seem to be too weird or dodgy... I'm one girl waiting at a bus stop late at night... maybe he did genuinely just want to help?... If I was a guy I think I would have definitely taken up the offer... if the driver was female... I think I would have taken up the offer too, but would still be a bit wary to begin with." Weird how gender roles play a huge impact on this type of situation. Also, even though Singapore has low crime, it doesn't mean no crime.

I messaged my local friends to ask if this kind of behaviour is normal, they all said no and hoped that I didn't take up the offer. But I do wonder how it would have played out if I did get in the car? Some of the most interesting things happen if you take risks right?

Then my bus arrived and I got home safely.

So are Singaporeans really that nice and can they be trusted completely?

Lets Talk About Love Bay-Be

Happy Valentine's Day!

So in line of the occasion, I thought it was best to post something relevant to this day dedicated to celebrating L-O-V-E love! Or if you choose to believe, a day that is a load of crap where businesses have an excuse to jack up their prices for love related consumer goods and disguise them as V-Day "promotions". Which ever version you choose to believe, this time of year always get people thinking about relationships and the idea of this weird emotion 'love'.

So on Friday I attended an event organised by my friend's church. There was a buffet, a mini drama and a discussion on the subject of love. The drama gave three perspectives on this human emotion we call love: the advocate of love who thinks love is just a wonderful thing, the cynical view where love is something that is created by society to help the economy grow because if there was no love, there's no marriage, there's no babies, there's no people! And the final view was the more scientific view which included explanations about why the body thinks we feel the emotion of love with mentions of serotonin, dopamine... sounds like pretty heavy stuff right? But it was actually rather light hearted.

Now, the serious stuff. There was a guest speaker, a lawyer, and she shared with us what she had found out about love. This included what love should be, such as "love suffers long, it does not envy, it does not rejoice in iniquity, love thinks no evil and love never fails" etc etc etc. She told us that there was scientific evidence conducted about love from the University of Denver where researchers found that the factors of love were the same as what the Bible says about love, and the researchers weren't even Christians themselves. Of course it had to relate back to Christianity somehow.

She did bring up an interesting point later though, one which I could see the light on, so to speak. She said that pride gets in the way of love. Why? Because if we have too much pride in ourselves, we fail to see our own faults, we think that everything we do is right even when we're wrong. So you can see how that can be a recipe for disaster when it comes to relationships! Then the next bit was, for me, a no surprise moment...If we don't open our hearts we don't open ourselves to God which is why sometimes we may feel that we start questioning the existence of God. To be able to feel that God exists you must open yourself up to him. I couldn't help but think "isn't that the same with everything though?" She then shared with us when she was ready to walk out on her church because she didn't believe that God existed, she wanted him to show himself to her in some way or form. Her experience was somewhat interesting. She told us of what she thought was going to be her last service when she was 19, and she was saying her last prayer she felt a drip of water on her forehead. She looked up, there was nothing. So she carried on praying and said for God to show his existence, she wasn't sure of it anymore and she was going to walk out and then she felt another drip of cold water on her forhead again. Again she looked up and around and couldn't see anything but the ceiling (at this point I was thinking air coniditioning problems in the church maybe, or a leak somewhere in the ceiling?). Again she carried on but a little frightened until she felt a whole bucket of water had been thrown over her and then she heard an audible voice saying "I love you" and that was when she knew it was Jesus... I thought 'huh, interesting, why Jesus?

I'm not saying I don't believe her, I do believe that she did feel the bucket of water and I believe that she heard that voice, but whether it was Jesus... I'm not too sure. This is where people will say to me that I think this because I'm not opening myself up to God haha.


So what did I take away from the event yesterday?
The thoughts of love are universal.
The thoughts of God depend on the individual.

Religion will forever be a tricky subject to discuss amongst others that may not all share the same view and you can go round and round in circles debating the facts and other view points, so I think it's best that I leave it here for now.

I did find out a bit more about Christianity in Singapore though. I think churches follow more of an American type of service where people will belong to one church, and this church will have around 2000 members of something. The event I went to yesterday was held by the Cornerstone Church and organised by four different 'cells' within that church. Cells are just smaller groups that are formed to allow people to integrate with each other more and build their own smaller group within the church. Overall I think it was put together rather nicely.

So I guess I have to thank my friend who invited me and honestly, it opened my eyes up a bit to a few things, and thank you to Cornerstone church for holding this event.

It's a Rave Dave!

Not just any Rave, the World Wide Rave. This is also the title of viral marketing strategist David Meerman Scott and he invites people to take part in his "rave". He states that:

"A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. Whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík, it’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web."

All you have to do to take part is take a picture of the World Wide Rave poster in a unique place. Many people all over the world have taken part as you can see on the website. This has opened my eyes to how internet and viral marketing can be effective, because if you think about it, it's also a tool to promote his new book. Here's my breakdown:

One book.
One computer.
One poster....
hundreds maybe thousands of submissions...
all over the world!
Very cost effective!

Here are my submissions to the rave taken at the Esplanade:

The first photo is the Esplanade Rooftop. In the background is Singapore's central business district (CBD) skyline with the Fullerton Hotel facing the harbour and sitting proudly opposite and into the harbour is the Merlion (although you probably can't see it properly on here). The lights at night just create an array of colours that adds life to the atmosphere of the CBD. This just shows how fast Singapore has grown and how quickly it can build itself to success. To me, Singapore is a prime representation of a world wide rave in itself because there are so many different ethnicities from all over the globe in one place. Singapore is raving!

The second picture is taken at the Huayi Chinese Arts Festival, also held at the Esplanade and lasted over the course of Chinese New Year celebrations. Just an example of one of many events that are held in Singapore to celebrate one of their many cultures.

My friends who helped me take these photos and also took part of the rave themselves:


(From left to right: Me, Xiao Le, Youqian, Xi Xi )

Coincidentally, on the surface we're Chinese, but we're from different places around the globe. Xiao Le is from China studying full time at SMU, Xi Xi is from Germany, Youqian and myself are from England but she was born in China, and I have a Hong Kong background. What I'm getting at is that we're all of Chinese ethnicity but we all have different stories and live in completely different countries. We've been brought together from different parts of the world to Singapore. I believe that this itself is a World Wide Rave.


Thanks to my professor in Digital Media Across Asia Michael Netzley for introducing this to the class and opening my eyes up to the power of viral marketing. Also congratulations to my class mates (Ephraim Loy, Dorothy Poon, Jonathan Huang, Raj, Apurva, Tina, Michelle, Anirban Datta Gupta and Terri and Cheryl) having made such unique contributions and grabbing the attention of David Meerman Scott himself
*Applause*

Singapore in a nutshell

Apologies for not updating sooner, you would have thought that I would have so much to say about the past five or six months! Which is true, I do, but to condense it all is difficult. I guess the best way to do this is to write about the important elements of my exchange in Singapore; that is the country itself (obviously), the culture, the people and the university. When I was back home in England, Singapore seemed like one of those countries that people just nodded and smiled at when you mentioned it. To me that meant that they didn’t really know what it's about but it sounds like a cool place to be (because it's not in England), and they wouldn't ask that many questions in the fear of sounding stupid or ignorant or both. And to be honest, I was like that a few years back, even though I visited Singapore 2 years ago for a holiday, I never did see what Singapore was really about, but now, I think I’m beginning to understand.

The Country

Anyway, Singapore is a country in it's own right (independency since 1965), it's a small island beneath Malaysia (to put things in perspective, London is double the size of Singapore). All year round temperatures are around 25-30°C which means no seasons, it's constantly summer. Despite having a Chinese population of around 75%, it's still very multicultural, next in line are Malays (13%) and then Indians (8%), and the rest of the population is made up of people from all over the world! You can find more about the history and stats on the country here. There are many languages spoken here; English, Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but I've heard Cantonese too and other dialects are spoken such as Hakka and Hokkien), Malay, Tamil, Punjabi and then you get other Indian dialects which I'm not too familiar with the names, and of course, Singlish... O.k. so it's not a "real" language as such, it's just the way to describe how Singaporeans speak. Due to their history and diversity, they throw different words from different languages together, it's not unusual to hear them speak English and then all of a sudden there's "makan" or "shiok" or "walau".

Singapore is actually a really modern and cosmopolitan place to be, for me, there was very little culture shock when I arrived, and there was nothing distinctly out of the ordinary. To be honest, at times it felt as though I was back in England, but the only difference was that I’m part of the ethnic majority rather than the minority.

The University

The university I’m attending is Singapore Management University (SMU). It’s in the city so quite convenient to get around to all the main spots of Singapore, it’s pretty hard to get lost, as long as you can find your way to an MRT station, you’re fine! SMU is quite new and the buildings reflect the modernity that Singapore has built itself up to be. The method of teaching is different to Manchester University though. They use the American learning system, so instead of sitting in a lecture hall for an hour or two filled with around 200 or so students and one lecturer, we have a small class size of around 45 and a professor teaching and encouraging discussion from the students. This took me a while to get used to, not the small class sizes, but rather the participation part (we’re graded on how well we participate), the weekly meetings with your project group for 3 hours non-stop, mid terms, make up classes and the constant assignments. They say that SMU has a very competitive culture, with all the work they do, it’s no wonder they find it stressful, I’m normally a very laid back person with what I consider lower than average stress levels and even I’m starting to feel it here haha.

The Culture

The culture here is interesting (I’m saying that in a good way). You could say it’s typically Chinese because it’s predominately dominated by Chinese Singaporeans but that doesn’t mean that they take over the other cultures and traditions that exist here. They celebrate a lot of festivals and significant calendar events for different cultures such as Chinese New Year which has just passed, Hari Raya, Divali (Deepavali as it’s known here), Christmas, and one that I’ve only just heard of as it happened yesterday, Thaipusam, and many others.

I remember in one of my classes the professor said that Singapore could be seen as lacking culture because there isn’t one specific ‘culture’ that it follows but adopts all the practices from the major ethnic groups. I understand why that could be the case, but why can’t the diversity factor be a ‘culture’ for Singapore. It’s not easy to find a country that has so many different cultures in one place, the multicultural aspect is what makes Singapore unique in a sense. One thing that I have noticed here and has probably brought all the different groups together is the love for food. Food is a pass time for Singaporeans (hurray! Something I can relate to). Majority of Singaporeans, if not all, love their food. They will be more than happy to travel to the other side of the island for some good Chinese/Indian/Malay/Peranakan/Indonesian/Japanese/Thai/Western food, you get the idea. Where are the best foods? I find that it’s in the hawker centres. Good, cheap, local dishes. You’re spoilt for choice in Singapore when it comes to food! That's one of the main reasons why I love it here!