Endoh’s Dungeon

Shock? Yes, I am indeed shocked two folds. I am shocked because illegal haircut activities in Geylang has been labelled as VICE. The second shock was, it was Mediacorp’s MOB-TV who published that descriptive writeup labelling it as VICE.

I had watched this segment last night, hence I decided to search for more information online until I came across MOB-TV website. To summarize the episode, legal barbers who own barbershops in the Geylang vicinity have been complaining about illegal barbers, who are made up of foreign workers. They provide low cost haircut as low as SGD$3 for their fellow foreign workers and has attracted displeasure from these barbershops owners who charged approximately three times higher.

My question: Have Singaporeans become such hypocrites?

It’s a very general question, so it doesn’t applies to you if you are not. To write on this, isn’t easy since I had previously commented on the anti-Odex saga.

As anyone can remember, alot of accusations were thrown at Odex when they commenced legal actions on illegal downloaders whose actions indirectly resulted in a loss of revenues. Among the accusations, were also complaints of how inferior Odex’s products were. Many anime fans adopted this argument as their main reason for turning to illegal downloads. In fact, alot of anime fans still feel that it’s not right of Odex to conduct itself in such a manner for the sake of profiting from the anime community.

In stark comparison, the legal barbers are now turning on these illegal make-shift barbers, who serviced mainly fellow workers. It was claimed that these illegal barbers (often holding working permits for construction sites) have affected the business in the area. It was also mentioned, that the police has been called in several times but arrested only illegal gambling activities.

Now, we have a similar context in two different industries. What stand will Singaporeans take on?

Odex is considered to have acted out of its boundaries despite the fact that the downloaders’ conducts were illegal. In fact, Odex took a bigger hit than the illegal downloaders if anyone could recall how the saga unfolded.

Yet at the same time, to complain against these illegal barbers are accepted as perfectly legitimate moves. It appeared as though Singapore in general has double standards in treating the legality of issues here. If Odex is wrong, then the barbershop owners must be wrong. Both the downloaders and backyard barbers are conducting illegal activities, isn’t it?

On the other hand, if the barbershop owners are right then Odex must be right. Afterall, both businesses have been affected by illegal activities and they should - by law - eradicate these activities.

I’m not here to judge of course but to see both of these issues surfacing within such a short time-frame from one another, the varying treatments and arguments towards each issue is quite fairly - a mockery to the Singaporean mentality in my opinion. Both are affected businesses through illegal deeds, but Odex is wrong and the barbershop owners are right.

The other mockery was, the barbershop owner who was interviewed didn’t wanted his face to be filmed. Instead, the TV crew went close-up with these foreign workers and filmed the interviews straight in their face. Is the barbershop owner doing something illegal too? Are we picking on the weak, the people who doesn’t know their Rights and law well?

A matter of fact, many Singaporeans are also providing some forms of services in their HDB homes without a registered business entity and without permission from HDB. Some are also involved in massage services, which are heavily watched over by the anti-vice unit. Is that not illegal? We - being full fledged Singaporeans - doesn’t quite dissolves us of any illegal deeds.

What’s worst? Whoever was responsible for this description actually labelled it a VICE. Is hair-cutting as harmful as the prostitution that is going around in Geylang? I hope everyone can agree that, to term an activity as a vice is an extremely strong expression. Is that what the producer see hair-cutting as? Or is the producer blowing a grain of sand into a granite rock?

Isn’t it a sad thing that the very same thing we stood up against, we are very equally guilty of the same injustice?

Singapore… double standards? You better believe it!