mum met up wth her secondary school classmates today. i thought it was pretty amazing they're still in touch with each other even after approximately 30 years.
it's all rather surprising, really. they do not have the advanced communication technologies people boast of today and yet, they've managed to keep up with one another's happenings and embarrassing gossips as well.
mum can still remember how her gal pal who's chinese name was really hard to write - in those times chinese words were written in the old taiwanese style which has more strokes and are naturally, harder to write - and gal pal couldn't really write chinese really well. you can't blame her, i never thought Cedar Girls to be anything but stellar in the chinese language.
so they quite laughed themselves silly recalling the way aforementioned gal pal wrote her chinese name. i guess when you're in the company of those women in their late 40s, their laughter kinda rubs off you and you find yourself chuckling along.
you'd think things were different then, but it's not. they laugh and giggle over the silliest things; fuss over clothes and hair; reminisce about the ole days and even compliment each other's homemade achar and pineapple tarts.
well i expect we'd be like that too when we hit the golden four-oh.
will we still be hanging out, watching movies, enjoying cheesecake at marriott hotel with husbands and 2 point 3 kids in tow?
i sure hope so. i've never seen mum so happy. it's like time's stood still and rewound for that couple of hours and they're back in their secondary school heyday.
one can be envious looking at them.
* * * * *
you know how singaporeans love to queue? we queue for everything, hello kitties, free return of the king posters, lottery tickets, national day parade tickets... if you ever see a queue anywhere, chances are 95% of those people are singaporean.
today while queuing (hey, i'm singaporean too) for dinner at Lau Pa Sat i chanced upon this obviously from china lady cutting our queue because she wanted to ask about the type of chicken served (what to do? bird flu mah).
singaporean hate people who cut their queue as much as they hate the GST hike.
the hawker lady, who's singaporean, did not answer her question as the first words out of her mouth was, "xiao jie, pai na bian hor." (miss, the queue's that way). she apparently knew about the ignorant who incurred the singaporean's wrath by cutting his queue.
so the china lady couldn't get the answer to her question and was forced to the back of the damn queue.
and as i watched her scurry to the back i caught the guy behind me glancing at her surreptitiously and his eyes spoke,
"walau, better watch her, wait she cut my queue again. as if i not waiting long enough oready, ta ma de she still want to cut my queue. kan ni na. next time she dare come in front lim peh will bloody well hoot her."
alas, such is the standard of the singaporean's english. we really cannot blame anyone. our primary school teachers spoke like that, our secondary school teachers spoke like that,
come to JC or poly our teachers spoke worse. how can one expect singaporeans to speak the queen's english at this rate?
it's all rather surprising, really. they do not have the advanced communication technologies people boast of today and yet, they've managed to keep up with one another's happenings and embarrassing gossips as well.
mum can still remember how her gal pal who's chinese name was really hard to write - in those times chinese words were written in the old taiwanese style which has more strokes and are naturally, harder to write - and gal pal couldn't really write chinese really well. you can't blame her, i never thought Cedar Girls to be anything but stellar in the chinese language.
so they quite laughed themselves silly recalling the way aforementioned gal pal wrote her chinese name. i guess when you're in the company of those women in their late 40s, their laughter kinda rubs off you and you find yourself chuckling along.
you'd think things were different then, but it's not. they laugh and giggle over the silliest things; fuss over clothes and hair; reminisce about the ole days and even compliment each other's homemade achar and pineapple tarts.
well i expect we'd be like that too when we hit the golden four-oh.
will we still be hanging out, watching movies, enjoying cheesecake at marriott hotel with husbands and 2 point 3 kids in tow?
i sure hope so. i've never seen mum so happy. it's like time's stood still and rewound for that couple of hours and they're back in their secondary school heyday.
one can be envious looking at them.
* * * * *
you know how singaporeans love to queue? we queue for everything, hello kitties, free return of the king posters, lottery tickets, national day parade tickets... if you ever see a queue anywhere, chances are 95% of those people are singaporean.
today while queuing (hey, i'm singaporean too) for dinner at Lau Pa Sat i chanced upon this obviously from china lady cutting our queue because she wanted to ask about the type of chicken served (what to do? bird flu mah).
singaporean hate people who cut their queue as much as they hate the GST hike.
the hawker lady, who's singaporean, did not answer her question as the first words out of her mouth was, "xiao jie, pai na bian hor." (miss, the queue's that way). she apparently knew about the ignorant who incurred the singaporean's wrath by cutting his queue.
so the china lady couldn't get the answer to her question and was forced to the back of the damn queue.
and as i watched her scurry to the back i caught the guy behind me glancing at her surreptitiously and his eyes spoke,
"walau, better watch her, wait she cut my queue again. as if i not waiting long enough oready, ta ma de she still want to cut my queue. kan ni na. next time she dare come in front lim peh will bloody well hoot her."
alas, such is the standard of the singaporean's english. we really cannot blame anyone. our primary school teachers spoke like that, our secondary school teachers spoke like that,
come to JC or poly our teachers spoke worse. how can one expect singaporeans to speak the queen's english at this rate?
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