Ho Khua, Bo Ho Ciak!!!

It has been a seriously long day.

Today's SL has been exceptionally bad when there was a non-stop barrage of calls coming in one after another. Call after call, my patience was wearing thin. And to add salt to the wound, a customer rated me poor after I've given her a $10 waiver off her bill!!

Then finally, when it was time for me to leave....my manager came to me...."Do you want to stay back for OT today?" This is how it went.......

My mouth said, "Ummm, I'm really sorry. I have an appointment later. (which I really did)"
My heart said, " OVER MY DEAD BODY!!! I WOULDN'T STAY EVEN IF I DIDN'T HAVE AN APPOINTMENT!!!"

Anyway, as I was on my way home, I was pretty excited as I was going to meet up with an old friend of mine...Cheah Sin. He was on a business trip to Singapore and is staying at the Hilton. I must admit, even so he works like a dog, he's doing quite well for himself. Motorola has set him up at a executive suite at the Hilton, and has issued him an AMEX card with a USD 15k credit limit. Cool, huh? Sigh,.....I should have studied Engineering.

Still, I really happy to see all my friends made it. Me and Cheah Sin go wAaAAAAaAAaAaaaAAay back. I've known him for almost 15 to 18 years now.We practically grew up together. And I'm glad the friendship has never waivered over the years.

However, what made my day today was actually the taxi ride home. After taking Cheah Sin out for supper and sight-seeing around Singapore; I dropped him back at the hotel and proceeded home. On my way back, the taxi driver noticed earlier that I spoke in a perculiar Hokkien slang and immediately knew I was from Penang.

I didn't know why, but somehow I felt had an affinity with this cab driver and started talking to him alot. We chatted in hokkien and generally we poked fun at the Singaporean community.

He joked that from the way things are going, very soon Singaporeans will be going over to Malaysia to work instead! He says that Malaysia is a much better country, and standards of living there are cheaper. Then, he moved on to talk about Singapore's spoilt brats. He mention that, they are very "how lian" - arrogant-, and sometimes look down on his cab and only wanted to flag down a Merce cab.

Then later, he said this phrase that made me burst into laughter......"Singapore lang, ho khua, bo ho ciak!!"

Which just literally means, "Singapore people, nice to look at, but not nice to eat!"

It was really funny to hear him say that. Cos, I felt to a certain extent...it was true. Many young Singaporeans are really obsessed with pride and no matter how poor they are; they will wanna spend luxuriously and buy a nice car. But at the end of the day, they have to tighten their stomachs on other neccessaties in life. And according to the Taxi Uncle, he always notice that when these young pretencious guys goes to the petrol kiosk, they have to use credit cards....never cash. At the end of the day, they are stuck with loads of debts.

No doubt that the conversation was in Hokkien and we were practically talking cock, but I felt really relax and amused when chatting with the cab driver. I guess what he says is true.....in Singapore....alot of things are nothing but a facade.

People might seem rich and well-off; but you'll never know how much are they struggling....in more ways than one.