recently,
i found out that good
communication between
humans is very important.

without proper dialogues
between people,
misunderstandings will often occur,
which i discovered during
the past few days.

1) venue: school canteen
victims: two students from thailand,
probably in PHS for some exchange program.
comment: i was at waiting for eugene
to buy food from the first stall when these
two guys came up to me.
they are really courteous,
and asked me a few questions
about the mrt station opposite PHS.

in the beginning,
i kept asking them to repeat
again and again,
cause i don't know a damn thing
what they are talking about.

(i've got a wierd problem;
i can't understand foreign
languages with thick accent.

that's why i hate
watching american sitcoms
with friends.
we will always laugh
at irregular intervals;
they will laugh first,
and i will take ages to understand
what's the joke about
before laughing.)

anyway,
i was fortunate that the
two boys are really patient
and kept repeating the
questions for me.

when they got their answers
they wanted,
one of them even bowed.

wow.

talk about the courtesy
campaign in Singapore.
we can certainly learn
a thing or two from the thais.

2)venue: bus-stop near my home
victim: the bus uncle
comment: when i got up the bus
and tapped on the ex-link reader,
i found out that my cash value
was already negative.

hence,
i quickly dug out a few loose change
from my pocket and threw it
into the box.

the uncle then stared at me,
as if i did not pay the exact amount.
i took out my wallet,
fished out a 20 cents coin,
and threw it in.

he looked at me again,
and told me a long phrase
in a thick beijing accent.

i 'huh-ed?' and put in a 5 cent coin
- my very last coin.

exasperatedly,
he spoke again and
i was there,
looking at him,
trying to figure out
what the hell
was he talking about.

and in the end,
i realised that he was
saying,
"jiu mao, jiu mao",
which meant 90 cents
(2 times).

i looked into my wallet,
then looked at him,
then told him,
"bu gou."
(not enough).

disgruntled,
he pressed down the button
and churned out a
ticket for me.

i sighed in relief.

later,
my sister told me that
i needed to flash
my pass to show him
that i'm am a student
and only needs to pay
55 cents.

i told her i couldn't be bothered;
i was just glad that
the whole episode was over.