Three MEN who "ACTed BLUR" !

I was at the Singapore Post Office at the fourth floor of Hougang Mall, exchanging the old ez-link card for the new one that is CEPAS-compliant. While queueing up, I saw three separate incidents involving people who seemed to "Act Blur" which in Singlish (Singaporean English) means "to pretend to be ignorant about what happens".

First of all, a man aged 40+ while standing in another queue waiting to pay his Medisave (must be a self-employed) suddenly saw his friend (with wife) in my queue waiting to exchange the ez-link card. I think they have not met each other for some time and hence started chatting in Hokkien dialect across a distance of about three metres with momentary pauses. It was so loud and I could not help but hear every bit of their conversation. At one point, he just drew out three ez-link cards from his wallet and blatantly asked his friend to exchange them for him pretending not to see the stares from people in my queue. His friend apparently did not feel too comfortable judging from his body language. The wife apparently showed gentle signs of disapproval. But this man just "acted blur" and went straight to pass the three cards over to him. His friend had no choice but reluctantly took over the cards.

Next, when I progressed to the second spot in the queue, a man aged 60+ walked briskly right to the counter when the previous customer had just left. He was immediately served by the counter staff. Someone in the queue murmured, "Wah! Steady la. No need to queue.". When I finished my transaction at the next counter, before I walked off, I gave him a light pat on his right shoulder and said to him gently, "Uncle, please queue up in future." He was so quick to respond, "Is there a queue? I didn't know." and the counter staff added, "Uncle, you did not queue ah?". Another case of "Act Blur".

Thirdly, there was this man aged 50+ carrying some grocery bags and some remnant Kopi-O drinks in a plastic bag all in one hand. While trying to retrieve his ez-link card from his pocket, he lost the grip on the Kopi-O plastic bag strap and the entire bag dropped onto the floor. Good thing, it did not spill. But, as he picked it up, droplets of Kopi-O began to drip onto the floor. While engaged with the counter staff, he used the soles of his black rubber shoes to sweep and wipe off the droplets and pretended that nothing had happened. He "acted blur". But, the dripping got more intense, so his sweeping action got more and more rigorous. Eventually, the whole area where he was standing was so messy and dirty. He just walked away looking straight to the exit when he finished his transaction.

By "acting blur", people do get things done quite efficiently. By "acting blur", people do get away with some mistakes or awkward and embarrassing situations. These are the happy-go-lucky type of people. They usually have "thicker skin" so they don't feel embarrassed easily. But, majority of Singaporeans are still quite conservatively shy, well-mannered and reserved in public.