Sunday, April 13, 2008

Need a tissue?

One of the little idiosyncrasies of Singapore living is to chiope (reserve) a seat at the food court/hawker centre by placing a packet of tissue paper on it before you go off to get your food.


It was a damn smart agency to put this slogan on giveaway tissue packets as an ad for an online air ticketing/booking site.

In Tokyo, pocket-sized tissue packets like these are practically an advertising medium -- you can't leave or enter a subway station without having them shovelled at you. I used to think that the Japanese never needed to buy tissue paper -- C, my Tokyo friend, certainly never did. He once said that if he felt a cold coming, he'd head to the subway for tissue before he'd head to the pharmacy for cold tablets.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wonder what would happen if someone moved a tissue packet?

Like vanished it? And then pretended that they arrived and nothing was there to chiope the seat?

Have there been any cases of chiope rage?