Civility test

According to an article in The Times, Reader’s Digest magazine recently sent its reporters into the principal city of each of the 35 countries in which it publishes to conduct a survey of local politeness. "Three tests were employed: dropping papers in a busy street to see if anyone would help; checking how often shop assistants said “thank you”; and counting how often someone held a door open."

Try dropping papers on the street in Singapore and you'll only be cursed by passers-by or fined for littering. Eliciting a thank you from a shop assistant is easier with purchases over S$1,000, and opening a door for somebody will only mean you being stuck there for 10 minutes as everybody files through.

Sure enough, the results of the Reader’s Digest survey ranked good old Singapore equal 30th (with Moscow) out of 35 countries; in fact, no Asian country was ranked higher than the bottom ten.

Top Three
New York
Zurich
Toronto

Bottom Ten
Bangkok
Hong Kong
Ljubljana (er, captial of Slovenia?)
Jakarta
Taipei
Moscow
Singapore
Seoul
Kuala Lumpur
Bucharest
Bombay

London also did extremely badly, ranking equal 15th (with Paris!!!) — no great surprise there either.