Greed motivates Singaporeans
Every year there is a contest where people motivated by greed come together and waste days of their time hoping to win a brand new ah beng car. This is the Subaru Challenge, and the prize is an Impreza TS. The idea is to keep their hand on the car for as long as possible. They are given 4 5-minute breaks daily at 6 hour intervals, and the rest of the time they are standing in the blazing sun or pouring rain. The event is like a zoo where the participants, or victims of their own greed, are on display.
Some have expressions of determination.
Others look like they are going to wilt any moment.
The crowd is not limited to young musclemen. Even aunties want to drive the latest ah beng Subaru Impreza.
All kinds of patterns emerge to beat the exhaustion. Some squat, but there is no bowl below to complete the effect.
Others bring family members.
And yet others take off their shoes.
The whole event is a spectacle for many people. Some camp there to watch the victims and this is a show in itself.
Some spectators don't know why they are there.
It is now 25 hours since the event started. 52 teams of 2 are left. It rained at 6 am this morning. Now the blazing sun is hitting half the cars, and the rest are in the shade. They really want the car!
After 25 hours, all kinds of patterns really start to emerge.
I like to go to these events to see the faces of the victims. These are the faces of self-inflicted suffering.
The organizers don't want anyone to die during these events, so they thoughtfully provide water sprays on the face every hour.
Not everyone is interested in the event. I don't know why they come either.
But I know why I come. To see cute babes like these among the spectators.
posted by Sausage at 11:51 PM
15 Comments:
That's a "stolen" idea by Subaru :P
Vauxhall (European Car Manufac.) sponsored my Local Radio station a Vaxhall Astra for the winner, about 2 months ago - but instead of "keeping hands on car", contestants had to Kiss the car, non-stop (apart from 2 toilet breaks a day and meal times, which is stupidly short). The contest is call "Kiss My Astra", unsurprisingly.
Well it's probably not greed for common people to take a bid for that fortune that may land in his bank account. Unless these people are all born in ivory tower then that's, conspicuously greed.
Don't be surprised, there are fellow citizens signing up for ADF with their life as stake. Anyway, I love this blog and you never fail to amaze me.
Hey man, haven't check back into your site for a while, glad to see you have added RSS to your site. (It wasn't there before right? ) Now I can easily check for Haro updates everyday.
Anyway, keep up the good work, I really enjoy visiting your site! Thanx for the great insight! ;-)
Lol...I guess that's what we call 'perserverance'?
To moozila: It cannot be a stolen idea. The subaru challenge started 4 years ago.
If the same competition was held in San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Cape Town, London, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Sao Paolo, or anywhere else in the world, there would still be many eager participants.
So who won the car??
It happens every year in Singapore...
That singapore life i guess...
just wondering.how long were u there @ ngee ann city itself to witness the whole thing?haha..u seem to have captured all the excitements! i esp love the aunty sitting around "not knowing what she's doing there"...=)
my friend kena fouled out??
dunno how come also..
I find your blog interesting that I linked you.
When all the fossil fuel in the world dries up (at the rate we're consuming it, I've no doubt that I'll see this happen within my lifetime), all the beautifully gleaming cars that you see in the pic will become rusting pieces of junk.
Love your blog. You put time and energy on it. Most important you observe and report what you see.
Has it ever occurred to you that many are there for the challenge? Bet you haven't even thought of all that this challenge encompasses! I'm not writing this because I was ever a participant, or even that I follow this event closely, but I admire those people who are able to persevere and hang on there, not just for the car, but to stretch their own mental and physical limits, conquering physiological and mental fatigue, striving on for themselves, for the friends who support them.
For some, it's a social event in itself, people hanging out together overnight just to support their friends, chit-chat, for a change of the normal mundane weekend activities.
If any party in this challenge is stupid enough to waste their time, apologies, but I have to say that fella is YOU. YOU, wasting your time taking pictures of people for a purpose you don't even understand, stating your cynical views without considering the true spirit of the event, and stupidly indulging in the self-deception that you are the smart one, the one having pity for the people whom you THINK ARE suffering, when you are actually the one wasting your own time critiquing something you can't fathom, can't appreciate and pathetically refuse to acknowledge.
Wake up, dude!!
oh my...those pics! You really think you're at the zoo ah...!
I think these guys really deserve our respect for that amount of guts and humility of admitting "I want a car, and I would do anything for it!"...I rather not have a car than to put myself through such torture...
Fine blog. I found your site suitable for another
visit! And when I'm able to surf the web, I look for
blogs as great as your work.
Click on my cash advance indianapolis blog before its to late.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home