Miss??

It has been a month since the closing of Beijing Olympics 2008. Recently, I met up with my coach, who had been to Beijing to witness the majestic event. As she recounts her experience in Beijing, I began to realize that differences do not occur only among different countries, but also within a country itself.

Having relatives in Southern part of China- Shenzhen and Guangzhou, I often travel there for visiting and shopping during school vacations. Whenever we needed assistance in a shop or restaurant, we have a habit of calling the salesgirl or waitress “美女” (měi nǚ, meaning = beautiful girl) or “小姐” (xiáo jiě, meaning = Miss). I guess this goes the same for any situations in Singapore. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, we needed to address them “美女”, in order to enjoy better and more efficient services. Sometimes, even when you address them “小姐”, you may not even get the same high quality service.

However, things seemed to be different in Beijing. According to my coach, when she was in a shop, she reached out to a salesgirl, calling her “小姐”. That salesgirl frowned upon hearing that, but quickly put on a professional smile when she approached my coach. What my coach didn’t know was that her way of addressing a salesgirl was rather offending to them. It was only when she was done with her purchase in the shop; the salesgirl approached her again and politely enlightened her of the way to address in Beijing. To the people in Beijing, “小姐” is used to address girls working as hostess in nightclubs. Calling a salesgirl or waitress “小姐” or “美女” is deemed as an insult to them. Hence, their job title is used when one needs to call for assistance, for example “店员” (diàn yuàn, meaning = salesperson), “侍应生” (shì yìng shēng, meaning = waiter or waitress) etc.

From the above incident, it can be seen that even within a country, there can have totally different cultural backgrounds, leading to different views and understanding towards the same issue or words used. If the salesgirl had not been understanding and professional enough, a conflict may have just occurred as a result.

Cars

Do you own a car? Do you want or intend to own one? Have you ever thought of how much would it cost for one to “rent” the roads in Singapore, especially with the never-ending inflation trend?

Parking fees, coupons, ERPs, petrol, etc. All these consumption and maintenance costs will cause a big hole in the wallet. Aside from the money issue, we must not forget about the health of our Mother Earth. The amount of dust, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted are on its hike, with the merciless increase in global car population. Environmental issues such as climate change, global warming, rising sea level are probably the common topics among the people now. As Singaporean, we are equally concerned about this. The issue now is that how can we balance and put both our want-cars and Mother Earth on the same scale.

Hydrogen fueled car is one of the solutions to the problem. Companies such as Honda, BMW, Chevrolet etc, are now supplying hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars, though not in mass production in the recent few years. The Singapore government had seen a value and market in this area and had invested in five BMW Hydrogen 7 Series cars just this year. Preparations had already started a few years back, where BP Singapore participated and will develop and supply hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Although the number of hydrogen refueling stations is very limited, the effort could be seen.

Definitely, I’m proud that Singapore is tagged as one of the greenest cities in Asia. But there is a burning question in my mind as well- Are Singaporeans willing to accept this change? After all, it is a new technology and the cost incur now is definitely going to be high. However, as more efforts in improvement and innovation are put in, reduction and mass production are just a matter of time. Maybe ten years down the road, hydrogen fuelled cars will be a common sight. However, this gives rise to another issue. Will this be sufficient to save the Earth? Or is that a need to transform all our petrol driven cars to hydrogen fuelled cars? Thus, a research can be done to see the attitude of NUS students towards replacing the usage of petrol-driven cars with hydrogen-fueled ones, in the next ten years. NUS students will be used as samples as they will be largely the ones buying cars in the near future and hence, are more relevant to the research.

Hypothesis: Singaporeans are willing to buy or change their cars to hydrogen fueled ones in the next decade, leading to a reduction in greenhouse gases emitted.

Problem Statement: The objective of the study is to find out whether Singaporeans are willing to replace their existing cars with hydrogen fueled ones if the cost to own one is the same as that to own a petrol-fueled car.

Purpose Statement: The objective of the report is to find out the acceptance level of hydrogen fuelled cars among Singaporeans and how it will affect the companies’ marketing strategies before the actual lunching of the cars in Singapore.