Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

Generalisation (generalization), is usually regarded with complete negativity - especially by well-educated, sophisticated and politically correct individuals. To them, the person who generalises jumps to conclusions based on limited experience. He is also simplistic and immature. When these generalisations apply to certain cultures or peoples, he may even be branded a racist or sexist.

The Chinese have a saying that discourages generalisation too. It translates as knocking everyone overboard with the same bamboo pole.

The dictionary says that to generalise is:

1. to form (general principles or conclusions) from (detailed facts, experience, etc.); infer
2. to think or speak in generalities, esp in a prejudiced way

I suspect that even the politically correct people who condemn others for generalising are themselves guilty of it at one time or another. Is it pure coincidence that all departmental stores have their cosmetics department right at the front entrance? Or is there some unsavoury sexist generalisation involved?

“Hello sir. Congratulations, sir. You’ve just won a free ticket to the Maldives and we would like to invite you to collect your ticket at our office….”

Wow, you’ve just won a prize. But wait a minute. There’s no such thing as a free lunch (a very popular generalisation). Would you need to attend a 30-minute presentation before they give you the ticket? No harm listening, but what if they use hardsell tactics to pressure you to take up some timeshare scheme? It’s an old scam and calling it an old scam is actually another act of generalisation. You haven’t met the smooth-talking, sincere-sounding guy at the other end. You are actually jumping to conclusions if you hang up the phone or tell him to keep the ticket for himself. Would you fear being condemned for generalisation and attend the presentation? Would you give every free lunch offer a fair hearing before deciding that it isn’t a free lunch?

Not being as sophisticated and politicaly correct as some people, I’m not so averse to generalising. Life is unpredictable. But there are certain patterns of behaviour which we observe as we gain more experience. Every time we apply our instincts and experience to a new situation, we are generalizing. And the success that so many experienced people in every field of art, science and business enjoy only goes to show that the trouble with generalisations, is that they are generally true.

Another reason for generalisation has to do with age. At an age when people lament: “If only I knew…”, you know that time is not on their side. I doubt I would have another 46 years to make the same mistakes I made in the last 46 years. At this age, I find it easier and easier to understand why so many older fogies are so quick to judge. Listen to the more successful ones and you’ll find them not just very confident but also very prejudiced. I had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of them in Thailand during my younger days. At that time, my politically correct mind went diametrically against their swift, prejudiced judgement and conclusions. Fortunately for me, it didn’t take me too long to admit defeat and acknowledge their distasteful, prejudiced wisdom.

It’s a bit harsh to say that a leopard never changes its spots (another popular generalisation). It’s even harsher not to give a person a second chance, but then again, life is short. What do you lose by not giving a person with a “history” (of betrayal, dishonesty etc) a chance when the world is full of people without that “history”? Does it really benefit you to be so forgiving? Does it really benefit you to be so politically correct and non-judgemental? I may want to experiment if I have many more years to squander. Not when life is so short. Time to move on and trust my instincts and experience in dealing with new, unfamiliar things.

“I’m sorry, Mr Ang Luck Kee, but no amount of dentistry will restore your masticatory function. Be prepared to eat porridge and tofu for the rest of your life.”

How would Mr Ang Luck Kee feel? Fortunately, I’ve never needed to tell anyone that. Most of the time, patients can be helped as long as there are no serious health or financial issues. Even if the patient is somehow really beyond help, I would try my best to sound optimistic and reassuring. Telling the patient that he/she must accept his/her misfortune is demoralising. Hope keeps us going.

Flooding is not something new to Orchard Road. It happens every year. It’s just that such incidents never made the news because they were not serious enough to make shopkeepers cry. Finally, things got serious last month. Goods were destroyed. Shops were damaged. Shopkeepers cried. Singapore was shocked.

Orchard Road is the last place in Singapore that should be flooded. In a land of glitzy malls, 2 integrated resorts and extravagant, state of the art NDP displays, submerged cars in a prime shopping district is an utter embarrassment. Still, we were told that we had to accept it. Just once. Never mind.

When flooding hit the basement of Lucky Plaza again last Saturday, I didn’t hear anyone cursing or swearing. Many of the victims must have thought that aggressive action would soon be taken. It may not be worthwhile to improve the drainage system if flooding at Orchard Road happens only when the rainfall is extraordinary. But what if the extraordinary happens several times over these couple of months?

The last word is out. Everyone’s heart sank. We were told that no amount of engineering will stop some places in Singapore (that includes Orchard Road) from flooding and when there’s an extraordinary amount of rain, we’ve got to be prepared.

Prepared for what? Prepared with what? Prepared for a cheap sale of soaked goods? Prepared to cry? Prepared to flee from creditors? Prepared with sandbags issued by the army? Prepared to build our own dykes? Prepared to dig our own drains? We can’t even plant a tree without permission from the relevant authorities. If the relevant authorities are not doing anything about the flooding problem even when Orchard Road (not Pulau Ubin) is affected, what does it mean for the average, powerless Singaporean?

Last week, almost every taxi driver I met asked me where I placed my money. Spain or Holland? Just to keep the conversation going, I told them i placed my money on Holland. Almost every one of them agreed with me. That’s where they placed their money. I didn’t tell them that not only did i not place a single peanut … oops, I mean cent betting on World Cup results, I didn’t even watch a single match of the World Cup. It doesn’t take too much to guess how I know which teams were in the final. Everyone was talking about it and it’s impossible not to know.

The results are out. Those taxi uncles must be driving really hard to recoup their losses now. Almost everyone I know bet on Holland winning the World Cup. Why? I have no idea as I still haven’t figured out what the game is all about. I’m sure these guys came to a rational decision after comparing the relative strengths of the two teams. Using the same principles, our local experts predicted that Germany would win the World Cup not so long ago. As usual, they were wrong. And some people really deserve it for listening to the experts.

I’m not sure if Paul the octopus watched the World Cup, but this slimy creature predicted that Spain would win and it did. Nobody would consider Paul an expert on the game and when it comes to soccer bets, people still trusted their own intelligence over that of a slimy eight-limbed creature.

Holland. Holland. Holland.

Turned out to be Spain, Spain, Spain.

Paul the octopus was right! So what did people do? Did they blame it on their poor judgement and admit defeat? No. They all wanted to “take revenge” (as if it’s the octopus’ fault) by eating octopus.

So much for human rationality. Wouldn’t it make more sense to beat up the Spaniards or Dutch?

We are a Medisave accredited day surgery centre.

Everybody wants to announce that after going through all that paperwork, briefings, training etc to become a Medisave accredited day surgery centre. Why do we go through all that trouble? Well, being able to draw from the patient’s Medisave to pay for surgical treatment is really cool. The patient is happy to tap into frozen savings, not having to pay cash and day surgery centres offering these services can look forward to better business from patients who may find it difficult to pay hundreds of dollars in cash. It’s a win-win situation.

Sure, the number of surgical cases rose after we became Medisave accredited. But along with those minority of genuine surgical cases, came a majority of irritating enquiries.

“Wa, your clinic accepts Medisave payment ah? Good wor. Ei, I do scaling can use Medisave or not?”

“For surgery only. Here is the list http://luckyplazadental.com/medisave/”>

“Scaling cannot ah? The filling can or not?”

“Please check the list of surgical procedures that are covered.”

“Filling also cannot ah? Then braces leh?”

“…………”

It happens on the phone, it happens at the reception counter and it happens especially in email enquiries. Certainly, these people must either have seen the We are a Medisave accredited day surgery centre. sign at our clinic or saw our webpage with a list of claimable surgical procedures. So why do they still ask us these questions?

“Crown can or not huh?”

“Root canal can or not huh?”

As we receive more and more of these emails, we become more and more convinced that Singaporeans are becoming functionally illiterate. Is the word “surgery” such a piece of proprietary jargon that laymen can be excused for not knowing what it means? That’s obviously not true. Whenever we mention surgery to someone with an impacted wisdom tooth, he/she runs for the door. So why don’t people understand what surgery means when they see the word Medisave? Does seeing the word Medisave diminish one’s ability to read?

Perhaps it’s a little like the Hokkien pengs of yester-years who didn’t understand any orders in English except “book out”. Or could all these irritating enquiries come from spies acting on behalf of competitors who just want to see us wasting our time explaining to fake patients who pretend not to know? We may never know the source of the problem, but literacy aside, anyone not willing to pay for something not claimable is obviously not a very good patient to begin with.