We could take offence at anything — if we want to. Or we can choose to respond to an offence with the best insult of all: by ignoring it.

I FEEL insulted – often.

When I’m rushing to get to an appointment in the afternoon, I have to drive past a school. As is the case all around the Klang Valley, with no provision for parking or pick-up, most centrally located urban schools are a road hazard. Parents/uncles/drivers/grandmas triple- or quadruple-park on a main thoroughfare to pick up their precious princes and princesses.

Even worse, some drivers think nothing of slowing down, almost to a standstill, in the middle of the road, while looking for a space to pull into. Never mind the long, irritated queue behind them. Or the honk that only elicits dirty looks from all directions. Sure, security these days is a major concern but, as a road-tax payer, I feel insulted that I’m not able to drive along a public road smoothly.

Similar feelings of frustration arose last Monday when I watched the US Top Chef Season 7, shot in Singapore. As the four finalists arrived in the city-state they were given a food court tour by Singapore’s “street food guru”, Chef K.F. Seetoh. He showcased his city’s street food delights, waxing lyrical over their char kuay teow, chillie crabs and chicken rice.

Daily irritant: Yes, it is irritating that, as road-tax-paying citizens, we have to put up with crazy traffic. But there’s no need to respond with ire; take the Zen route and rise above daily insults.

It was all about the food that feeds Singapore’s soul. Err... naturally, there was no mention of the origins of the dishes, and, naturally, I felt quite offended.

To the chefs’ credit, when asked to re-interpret the country’s staples, they admirably did so, dishing up the likes of Chillie Frog Legs, Seafood Stew and Rice Porridge With Poached Egg. In my opinion, these inventive chefs should inspire Singaporeans to come up with their own versions, so we can stop arguing about which country chicken rice really belongs to.

The above two examples are simple daily irritants that could work up into a frenzy of insults in our minds, if we want them to. So you shouldn’t be surprised if I wage a sit-in, parking my car in the middle of the thoroughfare in front of a school or refusing to budge on a highway in the middle of rush hour after I’ve paid the toll.

Or I might suddenly decide that enough is enough; it’s the right time to end this nonsense. I’d write placards, gather some friends to vehemently demonstrate in front of the Singapore High Commission.

But I wouldn’t. Because insults are everywhere – if you are looking for them. An army of people is always waiting on the sidelines, picking up on these actual or perceived insults at the slightest provocation and running with them for maximum mileage.

Take Ikea. In the news for the wrong reasons. The company was forced to apologise for their controversial catalogue in response to a public reprimand. Their offence? Airbrushing women out of their Saudi Arabian furniture catalogue. In an effort to reach their customers in that Middle Eastern country, this particular catalogue – which is usually identical in every country – featured pictures with the women models airbrushed out. One lifestyle picture even seemed to show a woman morphed into a man after avid touch-up.

Sweden’s Minister of Trade stated that this was a sad example of the prolonged inequality between men and women in Saudi Arabia, and that the country would lose half of its intellectual capital if it did not allow women to appear in public or work.

But the country in question is Saudi Arabia, and that is how it operates. To a certain extent, although we may not approve of their methods, we still need to respect their culture and their ways of doing things, if we want to be part of their economy or want them to buy our products. Taking offence just takes the controversy onto another level.

We seem to have become ever so sensitive about what is really newsworthy. To cater to lascivious audiences always on the look-out for the next scandal or transgression, stories are dredged up and stirred to make headlines and spark debates.

When you look carefully at the flurry of insults, unintended or real, you will probably feel that many of them are brought on by the desire for publicity, for making money and – most often – for creating mischief.

I dare bet that anyone who watched the clips of the recent film that sparked protests across the world, claiming lives and damaging property, would agree that this was not a worthy response to the appallingly-scripted and atrociously-shot film trailer. It’s the director who should be vilified for daring to insult our intelligence.

Or maybe we should deliver the ultimate insult – just ignore it.

Similarly, if you feel insulted by anything I write in this column, you have the choice not to read it.

Delighting in dead ends, Jacqueline Pereira seeks unexpected encounters to counter the outmoded. Find her on Facebook at Jacqueline-Pereira-Writing-on.

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