I have been to several countries as well, and have met with good and bad experiences on many occasions. However, is it bad enough to bash the country as a whole? I don't think so. The usual complaint about Singapore is well-known in many parts of the world, Singapore's own flavour of English, the Singlish that is. The worst is, it saddens me to see Singaporeans complaining about Singapore. There was once an article on TNP which highlights that Singapore's English is bad, and the review is from a Taiwanese. Her comment was that Singaporeans do not speak the entire sentence, like "pls on the light", rather than "pls switch on the light." Seriously, I got half a mind to tell her that I was once at a taiwanese MRT station which part of it is under renovation. The 2 English sentences on it are filled with grammatical errors. But I don’t see the need to broadcast it like she does.

Another significant complaint was about our service standards, especially when Singapore is starting to employ foreigners to fill in the retail sector. Realistically, do you expect them to know everything? Some of the employed foreigners from China are University graduates, who can speak limited English. And worse, they were studying something totally not related to retail, but came to Singapore to work as they think the money here is better. But if you look closely, are these foreigners everyway, in every shop? A big fat NO. These more high-class retail sectors such as shops in Takashimaya hires experience service industry personnel, speaks good English, knows how to please customers. Those shops which hires foreigners see a need to cut cost so that the prices in that shop are lower and more competitive. So what do you expect? Cheap goods with superb service standards? Name me a country whose retail sector can provide that, speaks the thousands of languages in this world, and high service standards, and super cheap goods? Bangkok is one of the world’s favourite shopping place for cheap goods, more notably, the weekend market called Chatuchak. It is my favourite too. However, how many of the stall keepers speak good English? Or even Chinese? And their service standards? I once bought a table lamp for 200 baht, and the same stall keeper quoted a French couple 900 baht from onset, right after doing my business. If I am like the ones on that facebook group, then I will be sure that my few limited sentence of Thai did not help the cause.

My point is, Singapore, like many countries, has her limitations, and her share of bad service that might have anger or create a bad impression to foreigners. But I am sure majority of Singaporeans are kind and devoted to their cause. I was in Orchard Road once, waiting for a friend, and a tourist asked an auntie standing near me for directions. As she was not conversant with English, she walked 5 metres to me, and asked for my help, which I gladly do so. She could have just say she don’t know and get on with what she is doing, but she chose to ensure that the tourist got their help. There are good people in Singapore everywhere. To the Japanese cyclist who encountered some “unapproachable” Singaporeans, I think these Singaporeans are either in a rush, which a large portion of Singaporeans are, or they can’t really understand what you were saying. Please, look at some other possible causes before branding people as “unapproachable”.