Imagine taking a balloon ride around the world from Singapore's west coast, over the Middle East, over Europe, over the United States, over the Pacific ocean, over the Indonesian islands. You'll eventually reach the east coast of Singapore. That may seem like a very inefficient way of traveling within Singapore, as it will only take 45 minutes of drive to go from the west to the east. But only by doing that you get to see the world and have a deeper appreciation of the place where you got started.
I have gone so far to the west that I found myself back in the east.
Shanghai, 16 November 2011
Taxi ride to Le Meridien Hotel
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
First, take a deep breath.....
I was playing tennis under the scorching Singapore sun with my good friend last weekend. Next to my court was another court, where a couple of western men were being trained by a French coach. As in many cases during tennis lessons, the coach brought with him a basket full of balls, perhaps around a hundred of them.
Throughout my 2 hours of play, my neighboring players often hit straying balls that rolled to my court side. I felt rather annoyed by this, especially that there is no "sorry" being said, or no obvious effort from their side to control the straying ball from disturbing us. At one point, one empty plastic bottle that they brought was blown away by the wind, slowly rolling over from their side to my side. They were chatting away, completely ignorant to the intrusion they have done. Add the frustration for being under the heat and for losing, I raised my hand to express my annoyance. None of them saw me and I decided to carry on playing. I thought to myself "a bunch of stupid, rude westerners!"
The bell rang to indicate that our court booking is now over. We kept on playing as no one seemed to claim our court. Fifteen minutes after, our game ended. As we walked to pick up our bags, I realized the neighboring players were still there, chatting away. As we stepped near to them, one of them said "hi, we actually booked your court, but if you want to carry on playing we can play on another court". At that moment I realized that they were courteous enough not to bother us until the end of our game, despite the fact that it was already their right.
Fortunately I did not react angrily on the stray ball and stray bottle incidents. Otherwise we might have ended up being caught in an unpleasant argument. Ten minutes later I had a better opinion about them: a couple of decent people who are perhaps a little unaware of the rules of tennis.
----------
I am sitting in a plane from Shenzhen to Beijing right now. As I boarded the plane, I was happy to realize that my seat row is completely empty. I am seated by the window, and nobody was in the middle or in the aisle seat. I will be able to stretch, and come in and out as I want, so I thought. Just after the plane took off, a young, skinny Chinese man decided to throw himself to the seat next to me. Before he did that, he managed to open the luggage compartment above me, ruffled things around for no apparent reason. I was watching in dismay as I saw my nicely folded jacket got crumpled as a result.
Half an hour later I asked him to excuse me as I need to go to the toilet. Without saying a thing, and instead of standing up to let me pass, he shifted his lanky legs sideways, as if saying " jump over me". I wriggled myself out of the tight row and made my way. The same thing happened again when I was trying to return to my seat. Annoyed, I thought to myself "inconsiderate, rude Chinese!"
A few minutes later, a stewardess came to us and asked me in Mandarin "which dish do I want, chicken, or fish?" She immediately spoke Chinese to me as I look 100% like a local Chinese. Unfortunately I have a terrible disadvantage: despite my authentic Chinese face, I don't speak a word of Chinese. I am a fifth generation Overseas Chinese, born in Indonesia. It has been a source of many problems whenever I travel in China. The locals talk to me multiple complex sentences as if I understand everything, and most of the time I would be caught with my tongue tied and looking stupidly clueless.
So while I was caught in that moment again, I noticed this skinny lanky young Chinese next to me was staring at me with concern. I could tell from his gesture that he was ready to jump in and translate for me. Luckily the question was simple enough that the stewardess was able to translate in English, "you want fish or chicken?" I said Chicken. The lanky man stopped looking at me, until the stewardess asked me in Mandarin again: "what drink do you want?". Again the skinny man was ready to jump in to translate, if necessary.
So now I have a more favorable view of my lanky chinese neighbor....he is kind hearted, maybe just a little startled when I spoke English to him and too lazy to stand up when I need to go to the toilet.
A lesson learnt from a couple of otherwise pretty trivial chains of events. Prejudice and stereotypes exist in everyone's subconscious. One should always take a good deep breath before making any judgement.
Throughout my 2 hours of play, my neighboring players often hit straying balls that rolled to my court side. I felt rather annoyed by this, especially that there is no "sorry" being said, or no obvious effort from their side to control the straying ball from disturbing us. At one point, one empty plastic bottle that they brought was blown away by the wind, slowly rolling over from their side to my side. They were chatting away, completely ignorant to the intrusion they have done. Add the frustration for being under the heat and for losing, I raised my hand to express my annoyance. None of them saw me and I decided to carry on playing. I thought to myself "a bunch of stupid, rude westerners!"
The bell rang to indicate that our court booking is now over. We kept on playing as no one seemed to claim our court. Fifteen minutes after, our game ended. As we walked to pick up our bags, I realized the neighboring players were still there, chatting away. As we stepped near to them, one of them said "hi, we actually booked your court, but if you want to carry on playing we can play on another court". At that moment I realized that they were courteous enough not to bother us until the end of our game, despite the fact that it was already their right.
Fortunately I did not react angrily on the stray ball and stray bottle incidents. Otherwise we might have ended up being caught in an unpleasant argument. Ten minutes later I had a better opinion about them: a couple of decent people who are perhaps a little unaware of the rules of tennis.
----------
I am sitting in a plane from Shenzhen to Beijing right now. As I boarded the plane, I was happy to realize that my seat row is completely empty. I am seated by the window, and nobody was in the middle or in the aisle seat. I will be able to stretch, and come in and out as I want, so I thought. Just after the plane took off, a young, skinny Chinese man decided to throw himself to the seat next to me. Before he did that, he managed to open the luggage compartment above me, ruffled things around for no apparent reason. I was watching in dismay as I saw my nicely folded jacket got crumpled as a result.
Half an hour later I asked him to excuse me as I need to go to the toilet. Without saying a thing, and instead of standing up to let me pass, he shifted his lanky legs sideways, as if saying " jump over me". I wriggled myself out of the tight row and made my way. The same thing happened again when I was trying to return to my seat. Annoyed, I thought to myself "inconsiderate, rude Chinese!"
A few minutes later, a stewardess came to us and asked me in Mandarin "which dish do I want, chicken, or fish?" She immediately spoke Chinese to me as I look 100% like a local Chinese. Unfortunately I have a terrible disadvantage: despite my authentic Chinese face, I don't speak a word of Chinese. I am a fifth generation Overseas Chinese, born in Indonesia. It has been a source of many problems whenever I travel in China. The locals talk to me multiple complex sentences as if I understand everything, and most of the time I would be caught with my tongue tied and looking stupidly clueless.
So while I was caught in that moment again, I noticed this skinny lanky young Chinese next to me was staring at me with concern. I could tell from his gesture that he was ready to jump in and translate for me. Luckily the question was simple enough that the stewardess was able to translate in English, "you want fish or chicken?" I said Chicken. The lanky man stopped looking at me, until the stewardess asked me in Mandarin again: "what drink do you want?". Again the skinny man was ready to jump in to translate, if necessary.
So now I have a more favorable view of my lanky chinese neighbor....he is kind hearted, maybe just a little startled when I spoke English to him and too lazy to stand up when I need to go to the toilet.
A lesson learnt from a couple of otherwise pretty trivial chains of events. Prejudice and stereotypes exist in everyone's subconscious. One should always take a good deep breath before making any judgement.
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