So yesterday I was going home from work, and was walking past a covered amphitheatre to get to the shopping mall when I was accosted by a pretty young thing in a black two-piece business suit with a skirt. Naturally, I was not too enthused at that time because it was late (nearly 2000hrs) and I wanted to get some errands done, so I just walked on, with no change in my velocity vector.
Usually that would spell the end of things, and there wouldn't be a post.
What happened was simultaneously the most silly and disturbing thing that occurred. No, she did not flash at me, but rather, she made a very snarky comment.
``Oh, the sun is very bright hor?''
Eight o'clock at night, and the sun being bright? Surely you jest? To put things into a better perspective, I was listening to my music player which was integrated with my sunglasses [so that I don't have to waste time using my eyes to tell people to leave me alone]. The sunglasses help too even though it is fairly dark because it helps to reduce the glare and halo from those point sources of light.
And so, because of the said sunglasses, I was greeted with such a snarky comment. I mean, in the bid to be ``friendlier'' so that she could get what she wanted (which was very likely some survey of some sort, or even some credit application thing), she decided to make what she thought was a witty and interesting comment, without realising that not all comments that one thinks are witty are indeed so. Heck, she probably had a better chance of catching my attention by flashing at me.
All she did now was to make me chagrined enough to write an entry on how people now are not using their brains correctly to obtain what they want.
It is true though, the overall scheme of things. People these days have become so individualistic that they sort of forgot that if they have want help from others, they will need to ``prostrate themselves'' in order to get the said help, and of course I do not mean this literally. It is a fact of life that one tries to at least appear sincere or serious when one is seeking another's help. So imagine my confusion and anger when I am greeted by such a snarky comment. What if I had a true medical condition that demanded that I wear sunglasses (conjunctivitis comes to mind)? What would happen then?
I suppose this ties in with the whole ``I will try to put you down as much as I can'' situation that is common in Singapore. Ever since I was young with all the rather obvious skin allergies and rashes, I've sort of known this fact. In a bid to be friendly, people become too forward, and very quickly create an odious aura about them. The veneer of civility seems to be grossly misinterpreted by a lot of people here.
How can we be world class if we don't even know when to be friendly?
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