記者來鴻：新加坡真是「悲慘世界」？

choi

夏洛特•阿什頓, 記者來鴻：新加坡真是「悲慘世界」？  BBC Chinese, Mar 17, 2014
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/trad/fooc ... ore_miserable.shtml

, which is translated from

Charlotte Ashton, Viewpoint: Does Singapore Deserve Its 'Miserable' Tag?  BBC, Mar 17, 2014
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26546169

Quote:

(a) "If we were living in the misery capital of the world [in Singapore] it certainly was not affecting our own sense of happiness.

"Until I got pregnant.

"Ten weeks of morning sickness ensued, turning my daily commute into a 45-minute gauntlet.

"One morning the nausea finally got the better of me just as I had stepped on to a packed train. Worried I was going to faint, I crouched to the floor, holding my head in my hands.

"And so I remained, completely ignored, for the full 15 minutes it took to reach my station. Nobody offered me seat or asked me if I was OK.

"For the first time Singapore had made me feel unhappy. I had been vulnerable - completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. Singaporeans, I felt, had let me down.

(b) "But all I could see [around Singapore] was a massive compassion deficit. Or were my fellow passengers that day just unusually uncaring?

"'Oh no, I am not surprised at all,' said a Singaporean friend later that day. 'My sister is seven months pregnant and she fell down a packed escalator the other day and had to crawl to the nearest railing to heave herself up. Nobody helped.'

"Another Singaporean friend was equally unsurprised. 'I slipped down a drain last year and cut my leg," she said. "It was bleeding badly but nobody stopped to help. Perhaps they were all in a rush.'

My comment:
(a) The report cites (but does not provide a DIRECT link to)

Press release: John Clifton, Latin Americans Most Positive in the World; Singaporeans are the least positive worldwide. Gallup Poll, Dec 19, 2012.
www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positive-world.aspx
(i) "For complete data sets or custom research from the more than 150 countries Gallup continually surveys, please contact us."  So the press release--which did not hae China, Taiwan or United States--did not have the "complete data set."
(ii) Yet clicking the link "Read about negative emotions around the world" in this press release, will lead to

Press release: John Clifton, Middle East Leads World in Negative Emotions; Iraqis the most negative worldwide. Gallup Poll, June 6, 2012
www.gallup.com/poll/155045/Middl ... ative-Emotions.aspx
(US not shown, people in Taiwan and China were among those who reported "lowest negative experience")

(b) I do not know about Taiwan, where I left three decades ago. Yet I am constantly amzed about Americans: they invariably intervene, usually by calling 911 (if they are in a car and can not stop, or not want to get personally involved).
(c) A summer two years ago I passed by a homeless man (white, with a white, unkempt beard) I had known for two decades lied motionless on a bench in Boston Common (a public park)--a foot in front of him was a pool of blood and a broken glass bottle, his stretched left arm showed blood clot on the wrist. I asked him if he was all right. He was not dead but remained motionless. I did not have a cellphone so I walked the closest payphone 400 yards away, spent 50 cents to call 911, whose dispatcher, apparently her computer informing her whether others had reported the same incident over the same location, told me someone had called. I then recalled that when I walked away from that man, I did see a white young lady was making a cellphone call twenty yards from the man, looking at him while talking over the phone. The next day, I learned paramedics did arrive but the homeless man declined assistance and was left alone.
(d) Sure over the decades I have encountered a few (American) passers-by who do not want to be bothered. But those are rare.
(e) I frequently wonder why Americans are different in this aspect. Because they are Christians? And so on. But I can not quite figure it out.