Just finished my Chinese O'Level paper today--almost
Backstory:
Yes, after like two weeks of torture, all the kids in my school are finally free (for maybe afew days or so before we go back to practising for our Oral Examinations in July plus the rest of the O'Levels). We were dismissed at around 1 in the afternoon, after a half-hour delay as the invigilators were doing something (either checking the papers or carrying on their conversations), then just about all of us headed off to Orchard Road, the local shopping district. The bus was really crowded.
Yes, so we headed off to the shopping district after which my sister and I went to a bookstore (Kinokuniya at Takashimaya)--after an unremarkable lunch, which isn't really the point of this post. After a few hours of browsing (two?), I saw this old, perhaps middle-aged, guy who was quite big and grey, sitting in the corner near where i was standing. He was reading a--car?--magazine and...picking his nose...and rubbing his dirty old grey hair, rubbing his dirty old grey feet, and rubbing the magazine, and picking his dirty old grey nose. Yep, yep, it's all true, every word of it, I swear. So I was standing by there, browsing and giving him disapproving looks and making funny old-ladyish noises in my mouth until I finally couldn't stand it anymore.
--------------------------------------The Show-down------------------------------------------
Not quite, which is really what has been happening all my life.
Me: Uh, mm, excuse me...you're picking your nose and flipping that magazine...you shouldn't do that...
guy: AHh...why cannot? (acting D-U-M-B, I could n't really hear him)
Me: Umm (now beginning to lose my nerve), because it's like umm wrong...
Then I giggle, my voice was growing softer and softer from the beginning. Not the way to tell someone off. He doesn't respond, but it really isn't my fault. I move off. I think I'm afraid of him really (I was, then), he's quite big, looks heavy and might be a rapist. No, not really, it's just my own imagination, but really, I'm far too timid to go at him again, nevermind. I hate dirty people.
This is how it usually ends when I try to be socially responsible and protect my rights/public property/other people's business/other people's rights/public health in general. My mother has always told me to be assertive, I've always told her that I can't. Well, that's over and done with. Whatever it is, i just hope that guy bought the magazine and isn't really like that with other people's property, or else, it's just a big All the best/Take care/Bless you/Wash your hands, always to the unlucky soul who actually touched or bought the magazine after he was done with it--if he even bothered to put it back in it's proper place and not just leave it lying around to be trampled to bits.
Well, when my sister and I were lining up to get a cab to get home, there was this other middle-aged man with grey hair (here we go again) who was skulking around the taxi queue rather suspiciously. I guess he was doing it so as to make us people who were queueing up wonder: Is he, or isn't he? And then, as our cab came in, he actually walked up next to it...skulking...suspiciously...again. Is he or isn't he? And then...
Me:Excuse me, there's a queue here. (Snippishly, loudly)
guy:--
lets us get in, shuffles off
next cab...
guy: tries to go for next cab
people behind + good Samaritan Sister: Hey, hey! Excuse me, excuse me!
Then G. S.G. gets in with me. Cab drives off. I'm not sure if the folks behind get their cab...no...they're still yelling for his notice.
Good luck, people.
These are the folks with no shame and no respect for other people and themselves. I was really pretty thrown on both counts here (the two incidents), I didn't expect anyone to behave in that way--it's just so outrageous and totally incredible. It's totally overblown how they could have been so brazen. I'm surprised at them, not young children but grown-ups--and old ones at that. I suppose what I saw today pretty much speaks for our modern Singapore society (and I've seen other examples too, so many other times), it's evident that people simply lack good breeding and simple consideration for others. It's not something that will bring on the apocalypse, not something that will bring civillisation to it's knees, it's what you would call "a small thing" and then advise me not to bother about, and yes it's a small thing, in a little big way. It's not just the physical action but the quality of their thoughts, their lack of consideration for other people, their selfishness, their small-mindedness.
A message for these pests (on the small scale, yes, but still a nuisance):
Yes, after all, why cannot, it's not going to kill anyone now is it? No, honestly no. But take a look at yourself, take a look at yourselves, anyone who has ever done something of this sort. The world does not operate on the X-Men scale, it's really all the little things, which are big things deep down. Please change yourselves, make yourselves people whom you can be proud of, who can provide a good role model for young people.
And the rest of you:
Stand up to these pests if you will. Please.
Note: Most of the people I know think that I'm peculiarly concerned and fussy over these things, but I think that one should care, at least to some extent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a happier note: I bought a volume of Dante's Purgatory, translated by Jean and Robert Hollander. Looks good.
P.S.: The dialogue is as accurate as possible only, my memory for speech is not too good.
P.P.S.: The two men today looked pretty similar...funny, huh?
Yes, after like two weeks of torture, all the kids in my school are finally free (for maybe afew days or so before we go back to practising for our Oral Examinations in July plus the rest of the O'Levels). We were dismissed at around 1 in the afternoon, after a half-hour delay as the invigilators were doing something (either checking the papers or carrying on their conversations), then just about all of us headed off to Orchard Road, the local shopping district. The bus was really crowded.
Yes, so we headed off to the shopping district after which my sister and I went to a bookstore (Kinokuniya at Takashimaya)--after an unremarkable lunch, which isn't really the point of this post. After a few hours of browsing (two?), I saw this old, perhaps middle-aged, guy who was quite big and grey, sitting in the corner near where i was standing. He was reading a--car?--magazine and...picking his nose...and rubbing his dirty old grey hair, rubbing his dirty old grey feet, and rubbing the magazine, and picking his dirty old grey nose. Yep, yep, it's all true, every word of it, I swear. So I was standing by there, browsing and giving him disapproving looks and making funny old-ladyish noises in my mouth until I finally couldn't stand it anymore.
--------------------------------------The Show-down------------------------------------------
Not quite, which is really what has been happening all my life.
Me: Uh, mm, excuse me...you're picking your nose and flipping that magazine...you shouldn't do that...
guy: AHh...why cannot? (acting D-U-M-B, I could n't really hear him)
Me: Umm (now beginning to lose my nerve), because it's like umm wrong...
Then I giggle, my voice was growing softer and softer from the beginning. Not the way to tell someone off. He doesn't respond, but it really isn't my fault. I move off. I think I'm afraid of him really (I was, then), he's quite big, looks heavy and might be a rapist. No, not really, it's just my own imagination, but really, I'm far too timid to go at him again, nevermind. I hate dirty people.
This is how it usually ends when I try to be socially responsible and protect my rights/public property/other people's business/other people's rights/public health in general. My mother has always told me to be assertive, I've always told her that I can't. Well, that's over and done with. Whatever it is, i just hope that guy bought the magazine and isn't really like that with other people's property, or else, it's just a big All the best/Take care/Bless you/Wash your hands, always to the unlucky soul who actually touched or bought the magazine after he was done with it--if he even bothered to put it back in it's proper place and not just leave it lying around to be trampled to bits.
Well, when my sister and I were lining up to get a cab to get home, there was this other middle-aged man with grey hair (here we go again) who was skulking around the taxi queue rather suspiciously. I guess he was doing it so as to make us people who were queueing up wonder: Is he, or isn't he? And then, as our cab came in, he actually walked up next to it...skulking...suspiciously...again. Is he or isn't he? And then...
Me:Excuse me, there's a queue here. (Snippishly, loudly)
guy:--
lets us get in, shuffles off
next cab...
guy: tries to go for next cab
people behind + good Samaritan Sister: Hey, hey! Excuse me, excuse me!
Then G. S.G. gets in with me. Cab drives off. I'm not sure if the folks behind get their cab...no...they're still yelling for his notice.
Good luck, people.
These are the folks with no shame and no respect for other people and themselves. I was really pretty thrown on both counts here (the two incidents), I didn't expect anyone to behave in that way--it's just so outrageous and totally incredible. It's totally overblown how they could have been so brazen. I'm surprised at them, not young children but grown-ups--and old ones at that. I suppose what I saw today pretty much speaks for our modern Singapore society (and I've seen other examples too, so many other times), it's evident that people simply lack good breeding and simple consideration for others. It's not something that will bring on the apocalypse, not something that will bring civillisation to it's knees, it's what you would call "a small thing" and then advise me not to bother about, and yes it's a small thing, in a little big way. It's not just the physical action but the quality of their thoughts, their lack of consideration for other people, their selfishness, their small-mindedness.
A message for these pests (on the small scale, yes, but still a nuisance):
Yes, after all, why cannot, it's not going to kill anyone now is it? No, honestly no. But take a look at yourself, take a look at yourselves, anyone who has ever done something of this sort. The world does not operate on the X-Men scale, it's really all the little things, which are big things deep down. Please change yourselves, make yourselves people whom you can be proud of, who can provide a good role model for young people.
And the rest of you:
Stand up to these pests if you will. Please.
Note: Most of the people I know think that I'm peculiarly concerned and fussy over these things, but I think that one should care, at least to some extent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a happier note: I bought a volume of Dante's Purgatory, translated by Jean and Robert Hollander. Looks good.
P.S.: The dialogue is as accurate as possible only, my memory for speech is not too good.
P.P.S.: The two men today looked pretty similar...funny, huh?
posted by fairypenguin at 4:09 AM
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