With dishes stacked precariously on her tray, she makes her way to the main wash area. Wiping the perspiration off her brow with a towel, she said: 'It's so busy, I have to clear more than one table at a time. If not, customers will get impatient.'

Madam Kannagasundri has been picking up after customers at a foodcourt for the past five years.

That Saturday, it was my turn.

Dressed in new Kopitiam threads and an apron, I set out to discover the good, the bad and the ugly of the local foodcourt scene.

I picked up one trade secret pretty quickly - that every cleaner worth his apron never starts his rounds without wads of tissue paper in his apron pocket.

A pristine white cloth is not the ideal weapon of choice to combat dirty lunch tables, especially when picking up bones.

Madam Kannagasundri spied me attempting to sweep a pile of bak kut teh bones onto my tray, using my towel. Clearly appalled, she said: 'Eh, that's what I gave you tissue for! You're supposed to pick up the bones using the tissue. If not, what are you going to use to wipe the table?'

But, hey, what were those bak kut teh bones doing on the table in the first place? Couldn't they have been nicely stacked up back in the bowl?

She said: 'This is normal. People just spit out the bones on the table after they eat. Pork bones are not the worst, just wait till you have to clean up fish bones.'

She was right.

Picking up fish bones is really icky. Sharp and tiny, you require deft fingers working overtime to pick them up. And they are usually covered in some kind of sauce.

Throughout the afternoon, I had to transform tables that resembled war zones into hygienic eating areas. The worst part of clearing the wreckage was getting rid of the chilli and soya sauce and curry gravy that people left behind. It meant a zillion trips to rinse the towel and get it ready for the next mop-up operation.

Hardly anyone thanked me for cleaning their tables. One woman even tapped me on the shoulder and indicated a table strewn with the remnants of someone else's lunch, saying: 'Clean, clean.'

Mr Lim Teong Boon, 54, who has cleared trays at Kopitiam for three years, believes that most Singaporeans don't say 'please' and 'thank you' because they see it as a service they are entitled to.

He said: 'At foodcourts, they pay a higher price for food, so they have higher expectations and more demands.'

Diners would stand around as he cleaned up the mess with nary a smile or a word of thanks. Later, they created their own mess.

Student Sng Weixiong, 17, actually walked over from a table at the far end of the foodcourt to ask if I would clear the trays from it. When I asked him why he didn't just bring the trays to the tray disposal area, he shrugged and said: 'They're very dirty.'

Those new to the Singapore foodcourt scene are appalled at the sight of leftovers left over by diners - at first.

Mr Dong Eseo, 41, a marine instrument technician from the Philippines, said: 'I usually carry my trays and clean up after myself when I'm back home.'

But after working here for a year, he has joined the crowd. 'I don't do it now though. I guess it's just become a habit for people here not to clear trays.'

Malaysian V. Lim, an assistant manager in her 30s, has lived in Singapore for more than 10 years, but has still not got over the sight of messy tables. 'I tell myself I have to embrace it as part of the local culture. It makes sense for the person eating to dispose of the bones and keep the plate free of food debris. Otherwise, for the people sitting and standing around them, it's quite an eyesore.'

Mr Alden Tan, the managing director of the Kopitiam group, offers a reason for the messy manners of Singaporeans: Local cuisine is, well, messier.

'Singaporeans like having soupy dishes. It's also in our culture to order food and share it in a communal way, and since foodcourts are not equipped with tablecloths, the resulting mess can be quite difficult to clean up,' he said.

In the three hours spent at the foodcourt, which I was asked not to name as Kopitiam did not want to be attacked by angry - besides messy - diners, I spied only three people who bothered to clear their trays.

Administrative assistant Shri Devi, 30, did so 'because it makes it easier for the person who sits down after me'.

'That way, they won't have to face the problem of dirty tables. And it also helps the cleaners, who are so busy.'

Housewife Lee Boey Seng, 44, who was having lunch with her two daughters, did the same.

'These cleaners are actually doing us a favour by cleaning up our mess. We should make things easier for them,' she said.

I wiped her table clean and was rewarded with a 'Thank you very much!'

That bit of graciousness came from her four-year-old daughter.

Additional reporting by Seow Kai Lun