Travelling during rush hour is a unique skill for Singaporeans. How to navigate an almost unpleasant ordeal, to use time and space most efficiently, and not end up seeing everyone else as a Hunger Games competitor is arguably a national characteristic honed in almost every Singaporean. Don't get me wrong. I like public transport--most of the time--since I love people-watching and independence; you always get the first, and sometimes you're aware of the latter.
One of my pet tips for travelling during rush hour is to shadow someone for as long as they are going my way. Normally, being slender and quick on my feet I do a good job of weaving through the crowd with minor holdups; but whenever I'm laden with bulky bags or in a particular rush I end up shadowing to get through the crowd as easily as possible. Caucasians would be the best, being so tall and big--if I keep close behind them people hardly notice me as they move aside, or at least when they do it's too late as I've already snatched that opening, barely visible but breathless and smiling in the shadow of those massive shoulders. Except they seldom are in a hurry. There is no point shadowing someone who is going at a slower pace than you. Tall schoolboys late for class are the best, then, especially if they have a big bagpack. I manage to snitch in after them on the escalators or trains within the first moments when people giving way think I'm an extension of the bagpack.
They don't know I exist, but we work as a team all the same, threading through the crowds and cutting into train doors with beautifully syncrhonized speed and efficiency; so that sometimes, after a particularly tricky maneouver, I have to resist giving them a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.
The worst people to shadow are elderly people, who move slowly and sometimes unpredictably--fatal in this high precision art. Or office ladies. They are either acutely conscious of their personal space, and will keep you at a distance with nervous irritable glances; or completely dopey watching Korean dramas on their phone, moving like zombies through the crowd at maddening degrees of slowness till you trip over them.