Everyone knows the current hype about the red Ferrari that crashed into a blue Comfort taxi along Bugis Junction on May 13 during the wee hours.
Ironically & unfortunately – Mothers’ Day. 😦
Now, if you’re a foreigner and reading this; the reason for the hype is not being oh-so-safe-Singapore has a traffic accident.
Traffic accidents in Singapore happen practically all the time! Why do you think our highways are always jammed?
If you tune in to the morning radio shows, they’d always be saying, “Accident on the ECP… PIE….”. Heck, our taxis have been having the knack of catching fire lately even.
The real reason of the hype is because – everyone is angry over the kind of information the media is giving the people.
On a neutral note; everyone shouldn’t be so naive as to think that the media will always give you the 100% truth. C’mon! Even if it wasn’t purposely altered facts; everything is more or less subject to perception as well.
So here’s a run-through of everything that happened. For the sake of everyone, I shall try to use as much neutral descriptions as possible. All info from newspapers and online news sites.
- An accident occurred between a total of 3 parties that day – a Red Ferrari (1 driver, 1 passenger), a blue Comfort taxi (1 driver, 1 passenger) and a motorcyclist (1 rider).
- By the time medias like The Straits Times released the story, other sites like Temasek Times and STOMP also came up with articles that gave more insight to the happenings of the case.
- The Straits Times; as felt by the people, didn’t give an appropriate form of understanding to the readers about the driver, a China national – making him seem more like a victim of an accident, rather than the criminal.
- What angers the people even more is that the other supposedly ‘real’ victims were not given so much attention, instead were just cast aside.
- Those who didn’t survive: driver of Red Ferrari, blue Comfort taxi driver and passenger.
- On the side note, one should also understand that currently Singaporeans are having a relationship filled with a lot of tension with foreigners working in Singapore – particularly the Chinese nationals.
So here’s the article published by The Straits Times –
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| http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_798429.html |
Now at first I just thought it was a tragic accident; what’s more on Mother’s Day. However I also noted the huge amount of attention given to the driver of the red Ferrari. It was like as if the driver of the red Ferrari was the most “undeserved” victim of all to die in the accident.
I credited it to the fact that he is apparently some rich & high-ranked fella whose death would probably cause a change in his company and probably even affect the economy, or something…? So I guess the government would give more of a damn to him.
Then I read other articles (like we all should, actually) to get a better understanding.
And it came across to me that the real criminal in this case was actually the Red Ferrari driver!
Which according to The Straits Times – “The driver of the Ferrari, Mr Ma Chi, a 31-year-old financial investor from Sichuan, China, who came here with his wife and child four years ago, died at the scene. … Speaking at Mr Ma’s wake on Saturday night, his friend Tony Du, 56, said the financial investor travelled often, and was applying for permanent residency here.
He added that Mr Ma and his wife, who have a daughter and are expecting their second child, live in a penthouse in the East Coast.
Mr Du, the president of immigrant group Tian Fu Association, said his friend was generous with donations to the association and to the needy.
Mr Du’s son James, 29, said: ‘His friends who were with him last night before the accident said it was a routine gathering among friends because he had just returned from a business trip in Hong Kong.’
He added that these friends said there was no drinking that night.
The elder Mr Du said: ‘He was a hard-working, righteous and loving father and husband.’ “
Making him look like some wonderful person!
While the other affected parties are left with these descriptions from The Straits Times –
“A passenger in the taxi, a woman in her 20s, died at the Singapore General Hospital. Among the injured are the motorcyclist, a man in his 20s, who has spinal injuries, and the taxi driver, who has head injuries. The third person injured is a woman in her 20s who was in the Ferrari with Mr Ma. His friends who spoke to The Sunday Times do not know who she is.”
Okay, let’s all be honest here… When you see a young woman in a man’s car in the wee hours and his friends claim they don’t know who she is – we all go, “MISTRESS ALERT!!”
So that makes the whole ‘righteous and loving father and husband’ jazz a little questionable. However I shall not comment… After all, it could be just a platonic friend… *still doubts*
And if we look at this article from Temasek Times – “According to eye-witnesses, the red Ferrari was speeding to beat the red lights and somehow knocked into the taxi and motorcycle. The PRC driver reeked of alcohol when his body was evacuated from his wrecked vehicle.”
So I took everything with a pinch of salt – because we all know that sometimes the media can be terribly biased.
However suddenly a video came out and (questionably) not published in The Straits Times till now. View it here!
It is so-blardy-hell obvious that the Red Ferrari fella was actually speeding (though we cannot conclude he was intoxicated), while the taxi was driving at a safe speed.
Just look at the evidence!
It was the red Ferrari’s fault! Why does The Straits Times try to tailor the article to make only his death seem like a loss?
What happened to reporting about the other real victims, huh?
Like the taxi driver who suffered terrible injuries and died eventually; or his Japanese lady passenger in her 20s who has her whole life ahead of her;
or the motorcyclist who is suffering bad injuries too;
or (albeit she’s supposedly on the evil side) the other passenger with the red Ferrari driver?
or the motorcyclist who is suffering bad injuries too;
or (albeit she’s supposedly on the evil side) the other passenger with the red Ferrari driver?
Are they not rich or “important” enough for us to regard as a loss?
Granted, there was one from The Straits Times regarding the taxi driver’s death –
Ferrari crash claims 3rd victim as taxi driver dies
However unlike the description of the red Ferrari driver (who, I emphasize, is the cause of the accident), was extremely minimal.
It is thanks to other sites that we understand the real background of the taxi driver –
Singaporean cabby Cheng Teck Hock whose taxi was rammed by Ferrari has passed away from his injuries
And what angers people even more is that pro-Chinese tabloids are apparently into glorifying the red Ferrari driver as well.
It was evident that The Straits Times was not reporting the full story about the accident. If you read the article from The Straits Times, you’d notice that it wasn’t mentioned at all about the red Ferrari speeding.
It was almost like – Oh, just one of the those terribly unfortunate & tragic accidents that happen in life! Oh well!
Oh SHEESH!!
If The Straits Times mentioned about the speeding of the red Ferrari, then I probably would still take into consideration their nuggets of information – but after seeing that video footage, it is clear the The Straits Times is hiding things.
Which leaves us to much speculation. And one should understand – sometimes speculation is scarier than the truth.
So if you leave the public to speculate, literally expect for the worst.
I have nothing against foreign talent. In fact, I take it as part of globalisation and is all a part of our world evolving.
However why has the media been trying to cover up for them of late?
This technique of “covering up” might still have worked years back. But now with have things like social media, independent news channels (free of the government’s intervention)… Information that come straight from the scene are bound to spread.
I take it as the media and government are trying to lessen the tension between the locals and foreign talents.
So lets ask them now; how is this going for you??
Singaporeans are practically on a rampage about how insignificant they are in the government’s eye. Singaporeans are expressing how they feel like second-class citizens when compared to the foreign talents.
Singaporeans can get hurt by foreigners, but nothing happens – just little nuggets of possible-punishments upon the foreigners, and they expect us to forget about it.
Foreigners get hurt by Singaporeans – all hell breaks loose!
Wow. Maybe this is why Singapore changed the tourism slogan from “Uniquely Singapore” to “Your Singapore” instead, eh? Because after all, it literally belongs to anyone who comes into the country.
Hurt our people, run over them! Why, you can even kill them now, apparently.
You most probably could get away with it! And if you’re lucky, get glorified!
Even though our government is also trying so hard for us to reproduce.
Lets look at the case about the Romanian ambassador who killed and injured Singaporeans – well, the government didn’t really do anything about it.
Or how about that China national boy who came here on scholarship and so ungratefully lashed our nation online, calling our citizens “dogs” – he got away with just a warning too! His university and MOE were playing ping-pong with the ball of responsibility to punish him.
Don’t get me wrong – I love my country.
I’m just really disgusted at how our people are being treated.
I believe more than anything that the people are always the most important.
Singapore needs more workers – true.
Thus, we need to bring in foreign talents – fine.
But being a foreign talent doesn’t make you a saint that can do absolutely no wrong!
You come into my country, you jolly-well live by our rules and respect our people and culture here. Don’t go throwing your weight around, thinking that you own the country and Singaporeans are below you.
However this sort of behaviour from them I deduce is a result of the way the government reacts to cases like the Romanian ambassador and the China national scholarship student.
I used to be Singaporean – and blardy proud of it.
Now?
Sheesh. Why would I be happy to be part of a nation under a government that doesn’t stand up for the people when they’re bullied?
Next time if people ask my nationality, I’d probably go – “Erm… *whispers* Singaporean… *goes into a kowtow position!* Please don’t bully me!!”
If you ask me – the real victims of this accident were everyone except for that red Ferrari driver.
The scarred family of the taxi driver. Lets not forget he was the sole breadwinner of his family.
And of course the Japanese passenger.
And the pregnant wife and young child of the red Ferrari guy. Imagine, it is already a bad enough shock that your husband is dead. But having that speculation that he died while he was with (possibly) his mistress? You can say that men are bound to stray – but she’s pregnant for God’s sake! Can’t he keep his weenie in for lesser than a year? Just for the sake of basic morals?
If you ask me – the real victims of this accident were everyone except for that red Ferrari driver.
The scarred family of the taxi driver. Lets not forget he was the sole breadwinner of his family.
And of course the Japanese passenger.
And the pregnant wife and young child of the red Ferrari guy. Imagine, it is already a bad enough shock that your husband is dead. But having that speculation that he died while he was with (possibly) his mistress? You can say that men are bound to stray – but she’s pregnant for God’s sake! Can’t he keep his weenie in for lesser than a year? Just for the sake of basic morals?
Ah well. Let’s just hope things turn for the better.
I guess nothing much can be done at this point, but to help the families of the victims as much as we can. Because at the rate things are going – I sure as hell don’t think the government would stand in.
I guess nothing much can be done at this point, but to help the families of the victims as much as we can. Because at the rate things are going – I sure as hell don’t think the government would stand in.
X.O.X.O. Love Love.
Gera Shen 