31. Your Bus Ticket
I took a week annual leaves from work and headed home for Chinese New Year celebration with my family.
I prefer to spend time with them prior to the New Year’s Day itself as I find there are more things to do; such as house cleaning and tidying up work, house decorations with some red stuff that represents New Year’s vibes and prosperity, shopping with my parent on food we need to buy and stock up to cook during New Year, preparing red packets for the kiddos and so on. So many things to do and they are fun!
On or after the 1st of Chinese New Year, it is pretty much about relative visiting and gathering with friends. So, I would usually get my return bus or coach ticket heading back to Singapore on the evening of 2nd day of Chinese New Year.
Today, we spent a rather long time waiting for our orders as a restaurant is fully booked! Everyone is in celebrating mode and the restaurant is now packed with people. In Chinese culture, we enjoy having everyone sitting around a round table with variety of dishes fully occupying every space of the table. Sometimes, the table is too big that we need a spinner placed in the centre of the table and dishes to be placed on top of the spinner. (Haha…) This way everyone can reach the dishes and has the chance to taste different dishes. Literally, we share all dishes and we don’t usually order one dish and eat it on our own.
By the time, our foods are served; I only have half an hour to catch my bus or coach. I excuse myself from my family members and my dad drives me to the coach pick-up point. Meet with a little traffic when you are in a hurry; that is norm.
My dad even speeds off at the traffic lights. I feel sorry for my dad… We shouldn’t have done that; safety first.
When we reached the pick-up point, I quickly walk to the lady boss of that coach company and tell her that I would be boarding the coach to Singapore.
She was shock and with a ‘this couldn’t be’ look; and says “The bus left already…”
(What? It left without me?) “Huh?” I start to panic and quickly take out my ticket and show her.
She checks it and says “Your bus ticket is… tomorrow.”
My eyes are wide open with ‘What?’ all over my face.
Now only I recall that this year, I actually planned and bought the return ticket on the 3rd New Year’s Day.
Oh my goodness… How clumsy can I be? I laugh and say sorry to the lady boss for my mistake on the departure date.
I walk back to the car, and my dad asks with worry tone “What happens?”
“My bus is tomorrow… haha…” I tell my dad.
“Alamak… you ah…” My dad says ‘Oh goodness’ in Bahasa Melayu, shakes his head and speechless at my forgetfulness.
We laugh and heading back to that restaurant as my family members are still there waiting for him.
They all were so surprised to see me there.
“The bus ticket… is tomorrow…”
“Muahahahaha…” laughter burst into the air. Yeah, they all laugh at me. I don’t mind at all; I find this funny as well. We all had a good laugh; grab some desserts before heading home.
Silly me…
32. They Are Facing The Wall!
In the office where I worked previously, it has spacious office floor with rows of cubical (or work stations) in same colour theme; while pantry and rest rooms are placed at the center of the office floor.
The ladies’ restroom is on the left from where I sit. I have joined this company for quite sometimes now. Pantry and restroom is the most places I would go during working hours besides meeting room.
One day, I went to check some work matters with my colleague. She is from the Business department while I am from the finance department. I walked to her cubicle and we discussed for about 15 minutes. Conclusion achieved. We are good.
I go for ladies’ restroom before heading back to my cubical.
Push the door, I walk in and saw the Indian male janitor mopping the floor. He looks up and smiles at me. I return him with a smile. I usually would carry a smiling face and sometimes I would nod my head sharing a smile with whomever colleague that walk towards me. Same goes for this day, courtesy manner kicks in.
(Hmm? How come the number of individual restrooms becomes lesser? It usually has 5 rooms in a row, here only have 3 rooms.)
(Hmm?!? Why are there people facing the wall?) From my side view angle, I saw two or three people facing the wall on the left side of the restroom space.
(A lightning strikes in my head! This is Gent’s restroom!!! Oh my God!!) I quickly making a U-turn and rushing out.
How silly can I be? When the male janitor smiles at me, I still didn’t realize that I have wrongly entered a Gent’s room. Hahaha… Oh my goodness. The ladies’ restroom is not on the left side from where my colleague is sitting. It has been imprinted in my head that pantry and ladies’ restroom are on the left side of the cubicle.
That’s the danger of having exactly same floor layout and same coloured-cubicles where no one can tell if they are on the left or on the right side of the office floor. It could be worst when having someone as ‘direction idiot’ as me. Literally, I can’t remember road direction very well…
Hope that none of them (i. e. those gentlemen that were using the restroom) saw me; my bad. Else I don’t know how to face them besides laughing at myself.
33. My Earpiece Is Broken
I have a mobile phone earpiece which is fit for sport use – the type that hooks around your ears and won’t drop even when you jog. It is plastic-made and elastic enough for user to put it on and take it off easily. I love it for its Bass-sound too.
But due to my rough actions, the elastic plastic on the left earpiece is broken… I am sad as it is hard to find a good bass-sound featured earpiece.
My crazy creativity kicks in. I take my earpiece and walk to my colleague – the operation supervisor – Mr. Mani.
“Hey, Mani, sorry to disturb you. Any of our worker who is good at welding? Can he put a tiny drop of the welding silver on my earpiece? It is broken at this part.” I show him my broken earpiece.
“Errr… welding is only steel or metal items.” “The welding silver thing might melt your earpiece instead.” He was stunt by my request but still replied to me patiently.
“Oh yeah! Welding is only on metal items. Silly me. Okay, I got it. Haha…” Silly me. I lacked of common sense sometimes.
My other colleagues that overheard our conversation also laugh at me. “Yeah, it will melt your plastic earpiece.” “Should use Super Glue instead.”
“Can Super Glue work?” I’m delighted with that suggestion; immediately I turn and ask Mani. He nods his head and analyzing on my earpiece how best to glue it.
“No rush, take your time.” I say to him.
Later that day, Mani returns me my earpiece – it is now nicely glued and looks as if never broken! I thank him and I am so happy now. Hooray~
34. Exit Number 22 ½?
Today, I take a cab to office. The taxi driver uncle asks me “Where to?”
I tell him the address and briefly give him some idea on its whereabouts.
“You take AYE highway, and then go by Exit number 22 ½ if I’m not mistaken.”
He tries to envisage the direction while driving. He then asks “Exit number 22 ½?”
“Yeah, should be 22 ½.” I said.
“There is no such Exit number with point five.” He says.
“But I saw there is this signboard right after Exit number 22. It is 22 ½” I further explain.
He tries to figure out what I was talking about.
One minute passed, he got it and says “That was the distance signboard 22 ½km that indicates the distance from Changi airport. The actual Exit number to your office should be Exit Number 22 instead. You’ve got it wrongly.”
“Really? That’s referring to distance? I didn’t know that. So sorry about it. My bad. Haha…” Now I know why there is a signboard with point five on it.
We both laugh and continue with some chatting along the journey to office.
I learnt new thing today.
35. Oops… Two Missed Calls From Boss
Due to the requirement set by Singapore government during the Covid-19 outbreak, we are encouraged to work-from-home unless the work can only be carried out at the office, then one is allowed to work-from-office.
When I am on working mode, I don’t usually look at my mobile phone for any incoming messages as most of the time work-related messages, we all use company’s internal messenger apps set on our laptop. I only check on my personal messages during lunch break or after work.
Oops, there was two miscalls from Boss?!? How come my phone didn’t ring? Oh, gosh. I quickly return call to him.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Boss, looking for me? Sorry, my ‘old’ phone didn’t at tall just now when you call.” I greet him when the call is picked up.
“You ah… When are you going to get yourself a new phone?” He asks out of courtesy.
In Singapore and Malaysia, or most of Chinese people, we get use to add some ‘eh… ah… meh.. boh…’ in our conversation. Those were actually more as an adjective to express one emotion to the sentence they are saying in mandarin. So, we bring those practices onto our English, which makes it ‘Singlish’ – the English use by local Singaporean. Don’t you find it cuter that way, from those words, you can catch or gauge the emotion or expression the speaker is conveying.
If you come visit Malaysia or Penang (the state my hometown is), our local language is even more creative. In one sentence, we can have Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantones, Bahasa Melayu, and even English sometimes! Haha… Interesting, right?
For example,
A asks: “Zhou San! (Good morning – in Cantonese), Qi Tok Lok? (Where to – in Hokkien)?”
B replies: “Zhar! (Good morning – in Hokkien), Cei (Ride – in Hokkien) Motor (Motocycle – in English) Ki (To- in Hokkien) Pasar (Market – in Bahasa Melayu) Boey (Buy – in Hokkien) Nasi Lemak (Coconut milk-cooked rice set – in Bahasa Melayu), then (Then – in English) Ki (Go – in Hokkien) Super (Supermarket – in English), Boey (Buy – in Hokkien) Jamban – (Toilet in Bahasa Melayu) Zhua (Paper – in Hokkien). Literally, he is going to buy breakfast from wet market and then toilet rolls from supermarket with his motorcycle.
My goodness, so tiring for me just type and translate just this simple sentence. We, locals, could just blurt it out smoothly. We have no issue in handling such way of communication.
Mandarin is our mother tongue. We learnt Bahasa Melayu and English from school, and the local dialects – Hokkien, Teow Chew (subject to one’s family tribe) and among friends. To Penang people, I would say we all learnt Cantonese through those Hongkong drama series shown on TV. Haha… Not bad, isn’t it. At least we can still communicate a little bit when we are in Hongkong. And if I happen to hear such way of talking in overseas, I would definitely turn my head and look at him or her, as they could be from my hometown. What a unique in our way of communication.
Another strange thing is, in my family and I guess in most of Penang families as well, the language I use is very depending on who I am talking to. For instance, when I talk to my dad who is from Teow Chew dialect tribe, I would auto-tune my base language to Teow Chew and yes, mix in whatever vocabulary in various language as and when needed. When I talk to my mum who is from Hailam dialect tribe, my base language would now tune to Hailamd; and among my siblings, we communicate with Hokkien dialect instead. Sounds complicated? Well, my dad once as us (siblings) why we talk in Hokkien when you’re not from Hokkien tribe? Emm… we already gotten used to it! So, I can easy tune channel depending on who I am talking to. My brain handles the language tuning, smoothly. Beautiful, I am bragging, yes, I am!
Oops… I was distracted far too long. Let’s get back to my boss’ question; he is the n-person who asks me this question. Why? It’s all because I am still stick to my old phone model – Ip5 SE. When now, we already have Ip13 in the market and I am still with Ip 5 SE (first generation). To me, it is still working (well, sometimes, it gave me signals that it is dying soon…). I don’t buy or change mobile phone just because of be on the fashion wave. What is new in the market, must go grab it. No, I am out-of-fashion, that’s for sure. I only use mobile phone for its basis functions and sometimes, browsing internet, play some games and edit my selfie photos. That’s all. I don’t see the need to have the latest model for that. Furthermore, my palms are small, and ‘old’ Ip model fits my palm just fine. I can operate it and type messages with just one hand. Why not using both hands? I find that way more stylish. Haha… It’s just me, don’t bother.
“I am waiting.” I replied.
“Waiting for what? You can get it anytime what…” He states the fact.
“I am waiting for Durian to drop. Haha…” That’s one of the way the locals use to elaborate waiting for unknown timing – no one can gauge when the Durian will drop from its tree brunch. I joke with him.
“You ah… When are you getting it leh?” I guess he is shaking his head and sighing on my behalf.
“Soon! I am saving money now. 1 dollar each day. I’d get it soon! Haha…” I joke further.
“Chiak lat…” (Terrible… in Hokkien) he replied. We both laugh, and then go back to main topic of the call on work matter.
Well, I would get new one, only when my mobile phone really goes K.O. (i. e. it can no longer functioning anymore). I am stubborn, I know.
