Better a flake than Ms Perfect

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

My friends call me flakey. That’s because they say I tend to change my mind a lot and that I can be disorganised.

Often, they claim that where I say I want to go may not be where I end up going and what I say I want to do may not be what I end up doing.

I don’t mind being called a flake. In fact, I think it’s a good thing because it relieves me of the burden of having to live up to expectations. You see, when you are deemed a flake, it’s almost like being handed a licence to “flake” around.

And so when you actually do something you said you’d do, everyone’s thrilled because you’ve exceeded expectations.
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On the other hand, people who are deemed organised and detailed, i.e. Ms Perfect, have a lot to live up to.

They constantly have to ensure they are decisive, stick to those decisions, have lots of Ziploc bags in their suitcases so they can organise their loose change, keys, currency notes, etc and carry tissues on their person to share with “flakes” like me.

Heaven help them should they slip – then everyone takes a jibe at them and say, hey, you are losing it, and they never live down such moments.

This came to mind when I was stuck in a massive traffic jam this week – the worst I’ve ever been in Singapore. I was trying to head downtown to the Fullerton and ended up going nowhere.

The highway was crammed with cars crawling painful inch by inch – which you have to admit is an irony because the whole reason for the gridlock is so we can allow the fastest cars in the world to go zooming round our streets – and the road to the Fullerton was closed, and the taxi driver had to take a detour which brought us back to where we began.

In the end, I gave up and went home.

And I realised the reason I was so mad was because this was Singapore, a place that prides itself on being super efficient and hyper organised. The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment.

If it had been Bangkok – and I have been caught in worse jams many times – I would have laughed it off and sniggered, “TIT” (This is Thailand) or if it had been Kuala Lumpur, I would have sat back and had a conversation with the taxi driver who would probably tell me all that’s wrong with Malaysian politics today, which would easily fill up an hour of time.

But even knowing that Formula 1 was in town – and we had been warned to expect jams – you still expect Singapore to work somehow, probably because they keep telling you it will. Failure is not an option, I hear them say.

The expectations visitors have of destinations colour their experience while there. When I go to India, I know I will get chaos and I expect chaos and I actually love it.

When I am in Chiang Mai, I know I will get service that’s not so efficient but it will be warm and friendly.

When people come to Singapore, they expect it to work which is why they complain extra loudly when they can’t get taxis, get ripped off or are served by rude, inefficient waiters. And they forget that Ms Perfect is only human after all.

Anyway, that same night, wiser and calmer, I dared to venture to Chinatown. My taxi dropped me off next to a sleek, white Ferrari.

As I was getting out, along came a stream of the fanciest cars I had ever seen but never had a chance to ride in – here, a yellow Lamborghini, there, a silver Porsche, over there, a black Ferrari … all headed to a party at one of the bars in Club Street.

For one moment, the thought that I should gatecrash this party and not head to where I was meeting friends for dinner popped into my mind. See, being a flake, I would have gotten away with that.

Yeoh Siew Hoon is producer of WIT-Web in Travel – being held at Suntec in Singapore, October 20-23, alongside ITB Asia