A love-hate relationship with the mobile phone

TODAY VOICES

By Thow Chun Meng

A reader says people are so dependent on the mobile phone that he wonders how much people are enslaved by it. 

28 December, 2017

During this time of the year, we get many phone text messages from people wishing us a good year ahead and such. The mobile phone has changed the way that people interact tremendously.

Instead of calling each other for a chit-chat or to catch up, we simply drop a short message.

We are so dependent on this piece of gadget that I sometimes wonder how much we are enslaved by it.

The day it was raining money at Sentosa...

Feb 7, 2011

MY FAMILY and I were at the Universal Studios at Sentosa around midday last Friday. I was waiting underneath the roller coaster Battlestar Galactica which my overjoyed children were riding as it intermittently opened to the public for test runs.
Imagine my surprise when it suddenly started raining money - mostly Malaysian ringgit. Imagine my greater surprise when the crowd of people around me did not make a rush for it. Instead of filling their pockets and walking away congratulating themselves on their good fortune, strangers belonging to various races and nationalities organised themselves to pick up the money which was lying on the ground.
They found a wallet bulging with cash, a RM1,000 clip of 20 RM50 notes as well as an assortment of other notes - altogether not an insignificant sum. They then located a staff member and handed over the money and wallet to him.
A few minutes later, a family of six tourists emerged from the exit. They were distraught, fully expecting the money to be lost. The mother could be heard loudly berating her son for being so stupid as to drop the family's money packet.
But the family was in for a pleasant surprise. Without any fuss, the staff member approached them, confirmed their identity using the identity card found in the wallet and returned the money.
It was a wonderful display of honesty, integrity and decency by a group of ordinary Singaporeans and visitors that day.
Andrew Ong

[Thank you, Andrew Ong for sharing this.]