People chope queue spots with items at Bishan East food rescue event
On Friday (23 Aug), the Facebook page for the Bishan community group, Bishan East Zone 1 Residents’ Network (RN), posted about an incident of people chope-ing queue spots with items at a food rescue event instead of physically queueing. The event took place at the Bishan East Zone 1 Green Hub, located at Block 112 Bishan Street 12. Food rescues are community events where unwanted food collected by volunteers is redistributed to residents. This serves to both reduce food wastage and give food to those who need it.
According to their Facebook page, the Bishan East Zone 1 RN food rescue events are bring-your-own-bag and first-come-first-served. No reservations were allowed. The 23 Aug food rescue event had been a success, with “overwhelming support” from residents, many of whom got up early to queue for the event. “We appreciate the early bird zeal in queuing up for restocks in good orderliness & neighbourliness,” the Facebook post said. However, in the same Facebook post, the Bishan East Zone 1 Green Hub Food Rescue Team also noted that people were chope-ing spaces in the queue like they were at a hawker centre.
To illustrate what had happened, they posted two photos. The first one showed a line of people queuing physically; this post was accompanied by a smiley face emoji sticker. On the other hand, second photo showed a queue of inanimate objects, mostly plastic bags, held down by stones from the nearby community garden. This one featured a shocked emoji sticker instead. The team acknowledged that the chope-ing was creative but prohibited. “All items found lying on the floor will be deemed as litter and cleared or confiscated,” the post warned. Coincidentally, the queue also started right next to a pillar with a “no littering” sign plastered on it.
'Human tissue paper': Chope parking lot by standing in it
If a vehicle was reversing towards you, would you dodge or stand your ground? This woman decided the cost outweighed the risks and stood firm in a parking lot, 'chope-ing' it as a car tried to reverse into the lot, as seen in a video uploaded to Roads.sg yesterday (July 10).
The video, which was filmed outside Hotel 81 at Jiak Chuan Road, Chinatown, shows a woman dressed in black standing in a parking lot, eyeing cars around. A black multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) can then be seen backing up towards the lot.
As it becomes apparent that the MPV was trying to take up the lot she was standing in, the woman goes towards the moving vehicle instead of avoiding it. She then boldly raps her knuckles against the rear of the vehicle, warning the driver.
Putting Packets of Tissue to “Chope” Seats
Chope is to reserve a place, such as a seat in a fast food restaurant, sometimes by placing a packet of tissue paper on it
I have witnessed overly-cultured and genteel visitors from strange lands descend onto our popular hawker centre (where they serve flavors that define the country’s culinary culture), at mad peak hour moments and wonder, “Ahem, so is someone going to show us to a table for 4?” Not going to happen ma’am.
The technique of securing seats at those feeding frenzy hours had long ago been reduced and translated to a fine art form called “chope.” The first thing chope master artists do is to hone in on an empty table and mark their turf — by putting the cheapest or most useless personal item they have on them, usually a half used tissue pack, a cheap ball point pen or even a worthless bargain stall umbrella on the seat. That, in mod-Singapore street food speak, means “lay off, she’s taken,” or in local vernacular called Singlish “Chope, this seat mine” (a local English slang, sans the polite grammar and attitude the British left us with).
These are the 10 immutable laws of using Singapore’s hawker centres:
- Firstly, scour the hawker centre for empty tables or chairs
- Chope also an extra seat for your bags
- Say your order in slow but clear broken English (loose all the polite grammar) for best effect
- If you are wearing white tops that need to stay clean, stay away from curries, thick soups and dark sauces
- Choose who you want to share a table with
- Ordering drinks from the beverage auntie or uncle
- When seated, wipe the edge of table directly in front of you with wet tissues
- If it’s not a self-service stall and they offer to bring the food to your table, sit close to them
- Transfer the leftover crockery of your vacated table to another, so the cleaner will attend to your table faster
- If you are clueless as to what to order, just follow the queues
Chope: To reserve a seat by placing a packet of tissue paper on it
The Origin of the Word “Chope”
The Singlish phrase ‘chope’ needs a dedicated post. Although everyone goes on about tissue paper packets in food courts and coffee shops, the word ‘chope’ has an interesting history.
What Does it Mean? The Singlish word ‘chope’ (Slang for reserving a seat) was derived from chop; to leave a mark. The word ‘chop’ was originally from the Malay word cap, which is from the Hindi word छाप ćhāp (stamp). ‘Chop’ and ‘chope’ are sometimes sounded the same because of the blending of the vowel sounds. Normally when a silent ‘e’ occurs at the end of a word, it converts a vowel to is ‘long’ equivalent:
- chop = “chop”
- chope = “chohp”
- In Singapore, these two sounds are blended into one sound, and the diphthong is kept short for ‘oh’.
Chope parking lots with dustbins
Can they do that? Drivers use cones, bins and clothes rack to 'chope' parking spaces
Two Stompers alerted Stomp to incidents of drivers using physical items to 'chope' parking lots at two locations in Singapore. Firstly, a Stomper sent a photo showing an orange cone placed in front of an empty parking lot at Ubi Avenue 1.
He came across the sight at 8.30am this morning (Jan 18) and said that he has been seeing this for more than three months. In a telephone interview and WhatApp message, the Stomper said that the lot was reserved by a BMW driver who owned a shop nearby. The parking lot was demarcated by white markers, meaning that it was meant for public use. The driver however claimed that the lot is allocated for him and will park his vehicle there from 8am to 4.30pm, according to the Stomper.
Stomper Chan also witnessed a similar occurrence yesterday (Jan 17) at around 1pm along Cheow Keng Road. In a video he sent, dustbins were used to 'chope' spaces in between several parked cars along the road. Towards the end of the video, there was even a clothes hanger that was used to reserve a parking space.
Couple in "Chope" table incident arrested
Chow Chuin Yee (2nd from left) and Tay Puay Leng were charged for causing a public nuisance
The couple who got into an ugly spat with an elderly man at a hawker centre in Toa Payoh was handed a S$2,700 fine on Friday (Aug 11).
Chow Chuin Yee, 46, was fined S$1,500 for using criminal force on 76-yr-old Ng Ai Hua, by using his upper body to forcefully barge into Mr Ng.
Chow’s partner, Tay Puay Leng, 39, was fined S$1,200 for using abusive words on Mr Ng with the intent to cause alarm.
Bickering over a Reserved MRT seat
Woman on Reserved Seat tells auntie: 'You pay, I pay ... you earn my respect!"
A video of a woman and an auntie engaged in an altercation over an MRT reserved seat has been circulating on Facebook.
The video, shared on Sure Boh Singapore’s Facebook page, shows a woman sitting on the reserved seat on board a MRT train. An auntie in turquoise can be seen standing in front of her. The woman then told the auntie:
- “You pay, I pay.
- “I don’t think you deserve it (the seat).”
Singapore’s ‘Kiasu’ culture 惊 输
Singaporeans commonly use personal articles such as tissue packets to reserve tables in the city’s crowded food courts before purchasing a meal. The practice is considered quintessential “kiasu.”
Long before Americans discovered FOMO — the fear of missing out —Singaporeans were fixated with its more excessive forebear, kiasu.
Taken from the Chinese dialect Hokkien, kiasu translates to a fear of losing out, but encompasses any sort of competitive, stingy or selfish behavior commonly witnessed in this highflying city-state:
- If you stand in line for hours just because there’s a gift at the end, then you’re kiasu.
- If you claim a spot at a table at a busy food court with a packet of tissues while you wander off in search of grub, you’re kiasu.
- If you’re a parent who volunteers hours of your free time at a school just so your offspring has a better chance of enrolling there one day, then you’re most definitely kiasu.
It’s a survival instinct born out of Singapore’s dominant Chinese culture and deep-rooted insecurity as a blip on the map, one that’s only slightly bigger than the San Fernando Valley. Letting opportunity pass is tantamount to failure, the thinking goes. And if you do, you have no one to blame but yourself.
