BERNAMA
31/01/2021
SINGAPORE, Jan 31 -- “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. Become like water my friend.”
That is part of the famous quotes on adapting to new situations by the late legendary martial arts actor Bruce Lee that is suitable for Malaysian cargo drivers who travel back and forth to Singapore almost daily.
One of them, S. Sugunthan, 27, who previously worked in Singapore, decided to quit in July last year and chose to become a cargo driver for an electronics factory in Johor.
He is very positive even though he has to go through more stringent immigration and customs clearance on both sides due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is fun for me to be a cargo driver. I’m enjoying my work. We (cargo drivers) are together in any situation regardless of race and religion. We are like siblings,” he told Bernama with a cheerful voice.
He does not see Singapore rolling out a compulsory Antigen Rapid Test (ART) on all cargo drivers and attendants entering the city-state to detect COVID-19 since Jan 22 as a major obstacle for him to continue his daily work.
It was reported that because of some factors, the cargo drivers have to face serious congestion of up to 10 hours on the border at times.
"It does not happen every day. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays may have longer lines of trucks entering Singapore. This is due to the arrival of cargo trucks from the north of the peninsula.
"On these busy days it may take up to 12 hours to return home. On other days the situation is as usual...maybe four hours we can return back to Malaysia,” he said.
Hailing from Ayer Tawar, Perak, Sugunthan also shared his experience on Thaipusam Day (Jan 28), which is a public holiday in Johor, as he still had to work on that day.
He said that he had to queue longer with a cargo load along the route to Tuas, Singapore on that day.
“To fill the long waiting time we did various activities. Who can stand sitting in a truck that does not move for hours. Back pain. The kidneys can also hurt,” he said in jest.
Sugunthan had also downloaded a few videos of him 'happily' driving his machine on the TikTok app.
One of his videos was a posting of other drivers filling their time by playing soccer on the opposite empty side of the Malaysia-Singapore Second Link (Linkedua) route (from Tanjung Kupang in Johor to Tuas, Singapore) with traffic "frozen", has garnered more than 15,000 ‘shares’.
"This is our experience as cargo drivers that others will not enjoy in the COVID-19 era," said Sugunthan before ending the conversation.
