A few weeks ago, just as i was warming up to the idea of having the car over the weekends and started to think that all Singaporean are well off, i saw this old lady eating something from a worn wrapper in the middle of a large pile of cardboard. . To top off the shock for the complacent me, i was in CBD then and it was only 8 am on a busy weekday. Mrs Chongky and i just had breakfast and were on the way to 7-eleven to get mochi. Talking about good life, eh.
Something weird stuck me when i saw the old lady. I wanted to shake it off, but i wasn’t successful. I could have drove off straight away to sleep or to slack. But something made me went back to the food centre to get a simple fish congee for her. A simple fish congee to her is something that she is so glad to have.
In her own words, “ni mai zhe yang hao gay wo chi wo you chi”. Translating it, since you bought so good food for me i would eat it.
She told me she was eating biscuit already, as she looked at me with appreciation and bits of biscuit all over her face.
Just as we pull our hair out over our options to dine in when we were in town, did it ever occur to us that the amount we would spend in Crystal Jade would be able to buy that old lady food for more than one whole day?
No. I am so spoilt that i do not realise that less better off people are right in the midst of us. Yes it does occur to me how expensive things are and how i don’t mind spending my money. But i simply ignore the implications of my actions.
Just because we are on land, it doesn’t make us any less vulnerable. Putting ourselves in the open sea in a single kayak, yes we feel the stress. We feel how small we are in the cradle of Mother Nature. How about on land then? Are we any less vulnerable? Ain’t we all tiny compared to the size of the land? Out in the open sea, being in a group can make us feel complacent about the danger that we face in the wild, are we fucking complacent now that we are on land in the middle of the large ass crowd on a tiny island?
I wanted to go back to look for that old lady again, to buy her breakfast or coffee, and listen to her story. She seem alone and vulnerable. Don’t we all feel especially vulnerable when we are alone?
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