A nation of cheats

3 checks in 2 days. Twice on the same bus. Bus inspectors are sure getting busy, making sure commuters everywhere pay their dues.

I am actually quite surprised. With an overwhelming majority of passengers using the ezLink card, I would think it’s impossible to cheat the bus companies. Unless someone walk past the scanners without flashing or tap the scanner before their actual stop. This won’t be easy unless people are prepared to lose face.

(For my international readers, lose face does not refer to a debilitating form of facial wastage but rather a soul-wrenching social malaise since the very first Chinese first stepped on this yellow earth. For the average Westerner, you will not be able to adequately understand this concept unless you’re still fighting duels and defending the honor of fair maidens.)

Yet, the bus companies are making frequent checks.

Are we becoming a nation of cheats?

Last year, Flyingchair.net hosted the AsiaBlog Awards. The public was invited to submit their favorite blog. There was a “prolific” amount of cheating. A Singaporean site, Imprezzions, had 6 votes from the same IP address. 3 of these votes feature email addresses that used a variation of the name ‘Phua Hui Ting’.

They must have quite a big family over at 165.21.154.11 .

And not-so-creative parents when it comes to names.

Flyingchair.net found that the majority of cheating came from Singapore and Malaysia.

Elsewhere on the Net, I found 158 students from 28 schools caught cheating in a national office administration exam using software programs.

And thanks to technology, unfaithful Singapore spouses are now more easily exposed. Apparently, 9 out of 10 cases of extra-martial behavior are discovered through “cellular telephone habits”.

Are we cheating more because of technology or has technology made it easier to discover cheating?

Even if we have become a nation of cheats, there is no need to worry. A casual check on the web found a list of nations mentioned in the same breath as “a nation of cheats”.

USA, Great Britain, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, Sweden, India.

We are in good company.

(Note: After I posted this, there was another check on the bus on my way back. Next time, I'll write about winning lotteries and women falling from the sky)