In which I admit two interesting things...
So.
Other than hard-to-charm and grumpy ole uncles on the island, there are, of course, young men. And I am "in charge" of the time sheets and daily attendance of, uhm, at least 30 of these young men. Heh-heh.
These young men are mostly construction workers - yes, those who wake up at the unearthly hour of 5am each day so they can reach the island at 7, go on site and work and sweat all day, and then have to wait in a queue til all the Shell employees and the ladies on the island get onto the ferry, and then only are entitled to get onto the crowded ferry, just so they can go home and sleep at 9pm so they can get up at 5am the next day again.. okie, you get the picture.
There are two things to admit here.
Firstly - that up til last week, when I started working on Bukom island, I never really thought of these workers as people. Yes, they were people, all right, living human beings, blah blah blah.. but to me, sadly, they were just not individuals. Mostly when I saw them, if I saw 'em at all, they were the "illegal ones who live next door and cook curry" (yesh, trust me, there have been instances whereby the police had to come and arrest some illegal workers living in our vicinity..hoho. Made for a night of above-average excitement.), or those masses of.. uhm.. tan colours, who congregate in Little India or Farrer Park and walk hand in hand on Sundays.. or at the very most, those who pass by our cars, sitted on the backs of trucks and looking woodenly at the city called Singapore...
Well. I'm so glad I got this chance to work on the island and interact with some of these workers. Now they're no longer "those people" - they have names - and believe me, some of those names return to haunt me at night in my nightmares. I'm not kidding - yesterday, I had some nightmare about missing out the name of Ramalingan (who is a real person) on the daily attendance sheet. They have genuine smiles and grins which they flash shyly at me, when I greet them. They take coffee breaks and catch the chicken pox, just like I did. They are real human beings - with all the bad handwriting, spelling mistakes, chilli-eatin' tendencies, and desires to take naps during lunch hours, that I possess.
I've been interacting more and more with more of them, and each and every day I catch myself wondering - just how many of them are Christians? Or have even heard of Christ? It just brings to my mind the urgency and actual purpose of evangelism - which isn't to propel oneself into a "superior" position and loftily proclaim that no one else is as exalted unless he/she/it believes in God - it's really, actually, just to tell the world, tell those who too are humans and suffer and have weaknesses that Christians too are weak - but that we have the best news in the world.
Still. I wonder if I have the courage to evangelise to any one of the workers. Hmm.. I could try Sukumar, maybe.
Oh, right. The next thing to admit is - hmm. I catch myself having teeny weeny crushes on the workers. Hehe. And out of them, I've isolated two nice and cute ones. Sukumar is this young-looking, cute, short Bangladeshi with curly hair and big sparkling black eyes, and a ready smile. He is friendly and looks like he likes to tease.
The other - now. Hehe... He is Chinai, from Myanmar. He's tall, thin, has long flowing hair that he ties back into a ponytail when he plays soccer (yesh, mm, da Bandit has a video clip of him playing soccer! Hiakz. AND he was the striker. AND the best player from his side.), and a gentle, sensitive demeanor. And best of all, he has this mystery about him. My oh my. Makes my sister and I kinda wonder what just lies behind that strong and silent facade. Like she msn-ed me today during work, in the office (yesh, that is our main mode of communication in the office, other than shouting "HEY you idiot" across cubicles) - He looks like he has got a past. A mysterious past. Yummy. Just kinda is fun to conjure up a family torn by war, a lover who betrayed him, and all kinds of things that might have made up his mysterious past. Wait. Maybe Chinai was/still is a peace fighter under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, and his erstwhile capture and torture in jail by the Burmese military dictatorship left him weathered and weary; crushed, but not beaten. Heh.
He doesn't work at the site; instead, cos of some injury (poooooor thing!!!), he gets to carry out the manly, masculine job of... uhm.. cleaning out the office every morning. We don't see him at all in the afternoon, so we sorta suspect he takes the time off to nap. But in anycase, Chinai has it easy.
Man. I wanna be on the road the Mandalay. *laughs*
All righty. But these are just teeny weeny crushes, mind you. I am not about to go all gaga over them, "Mmkay" <---- as my sister says. SOOoooO. Nobody "soooo" me, please. Haha.
Oh wait. My dad just came into my room and told me this totally funny little episode about this afternoon. Which makes me admire this Indian dude in our office even more. Said Indian dude's name is VL, but da Bandit has managed to confuse herself and, for the past three months ever since he joined the company, call him by the entirely different moniker of VJ. All the time. She managed to confuse me too. It wasn't until yesterday (YES!) when we both realised, through different means, that his name was VL. He's always answered, though, to the wrong label, sometimes with a smile, sometimes not.. but we wonder why. Another thing he answers to is the infuriatingly patronising moniker of ah neh. I really think his patience is limitless.
Today's episode showed me how much smarts he has. Da Bandit and I had gone to the canteen for a quickie teabreak. The phone proceeded to ring for da Bandit.
VL: (with a polite and smiley voice) Hello, good afternoon.
Voice on phone: Hi, Xinning please.
VL: Oh.. Xinning is in the meeting room.
Voice: Oh.. then, Kailuo please.
VL: Uh...Kailuo is also in the meeting room.
Voice: OH! Well, could I leave a message? This is their father -
VL: OH! Well, they're actually in the canteen...
Ha! VL is sooo funny and cute. And cooperative, as my dad says. *smirks*
Other than hard-to-charm and grumpy ole uncles on the island, there are, of course, young men. And I am "in charge" of the time sheets and daily attendance of, uhm, at least 30 of these young men. Heh-heh.
These young men are mostly construction workers - yes, those who wake up at the unearthly hour of 5am each day so they can reach the island at 7, go on site and work and sweat all day, and then have to wait in a queue til all the Shell employees and the ladies on the island get onto the ferry, and then only are entitled to get onto the crowded ferry, just so they can go home and sleep at 9pm so they can get up at 5am the next day again.. okie, you get the picture.
There are two things to admit here.
Firstly - that up til last week, when I started working on Bukom island, I never really thought of these workers as people. Yes, they were people, all right, living human beings, blah blah blah.. but to me, sadly, they were just not individuals. Mostly when I saw them, if I saw 'em at all, they were the "illegal ones who live next door and cook curry" (yesh, trust me, there have been instances whereby the police had to come and arrest some illegal workers living in our vicinity..hoho. Made for a night of above-average excitement.), or those masses of.. uhm.. tan colours, who congregate in Little India or Farrer Park and walk hand in hand on Sundays.. or at the very most, those who pass by our cars, sitted on the backs of trucks and looking woodenly at the city called Singapore...
Well. I'm so glad I got this chance to work on the island and interact with some of these workers. Now they're no longer "those people" - they have names - and believe me, some of those names return to haunt me at night in my nightmares. I'm not kidding - yesterday, I had some nightmare about missing out the name of Ramalingan (who is a real person) on the daily attendance sheet. They have genuine smiles and grins which they flash shyly at me, when I greet them. They take coffee breaks and catch the chicken pox, just like I did. They are real human beings - with all the bad handwriting, spelling mistakes, chilli-eatin' tendencies, and desires to take naps during lunch hours, that I possess.
I've been interacting more and more with more of them, and each and every day I catch myself wondering - just how many of them are Christians? Or have even heard of Christ? It just brings to my mind the urgency and actual purpose of evangelism - which isn't to propel oneself into a "superior" position and loftily proclaim that no one else is as exalted unless he/she/it believes in God - it's really, actually, just to tell the world, tell those who too are humans and suffer and have weaknesses that Christians too are weak - but that we have the best news in the world.
Still. I wonder if I have the courage to evangelise to any one of the workers. Hmm.. I could try Sukumar, maybe.
Oh, right. The next thing to admit is - hmm. I catch myself having teeny weeny crushes on the workers. Hehe. And out of them, I've isolated two nice and cute ones. Sukumar is this young-looking, cute, short Bangladeshi with curly hair and big sparkling black eyes, and a ready smile. He is friendly and looks like he likes to tease.
The other - now. Hehe... He is Chinai, from Myanmar. He's tall, thin, has long flowing hair that he ties back into a ponytail when he plays soccer (yesh, mm, da Bandit has a video clip of him playing soccer! Hiakz. AND he was the striker. AND the best player from his side.), and a gentle, sensitive demeanor. And best of all, he has this mystery about him. My oh my. Makes my sister and I kinda wonder what just lies behind that strong and silent facade. Like she msn-ed me today during work, in the office (yesh, that is our main mode of communication in the office, other than shouting "HEY you idiot" across cubicles) - He looks like he has got a past. A mysterious past. Yummy. Just kinda is fun to conjure up a family torn by war, a lover who betrayed him, and all kinds of things that might have made up his mysterious past. Wait. Maybe Chinai was/still is a peace fighter under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, and his erstwhile capture and torture in jail by the Burmese military dictatorship left him weathered and weary; crushed, but not beaten. Heh.
He doesn't work at the site; instead, cos of some injury (poooooor thing!!!), he gets to carry out the manly, masculine job of... uhm.. cleaning out the office every morning. We don't see him at all in the afternoon, so we sorta suspect he takes the time off to nap. But in anycase, Chinai has it easy.
Man. I wanna be on the road the Mandalay. *laughs*
All righty. But these are just teeny weeny crushes, mind you. I am not about to go all gaga over them, "Mmkay" <---- as my sister says. SOOoooO. Nobody "soooo" me, please. Haha.
Oh wait. My dad just came into my room and told me this totally funny little episode about this afternoon. Which makes me admire this Indian dude in our office even more. Said Indian dude's name is VL, but da Bandit has managed to confuse herself and, for the past three months ever since he joined the company, call him by the entirely different moniker of VJ. All the time. She managed to confuse me too. It wasn't until yesterday (YES!) when we both realised, through different means, that his name was VL. He's always answered, though, to the wrong label, sometimes with a smile, sometimes not.. but we wonder why. Another thing he answers to is the infuriatingly patronising moniker of ah neh. I really think his patience is limitless.
Today's episode showed me how much smarts he has. Da Bandit and I had gone to the canteen for a quickie teabreak. The phone proceeded to ring for da Bandit.
VL: (with a polite and smiley voice) Hello, good afternoon.
Voice on phone: Hi, Xinning please.
VL: Oh.. Xinning is in the meeting room.
Voice: Oh.. then, Kailuo please.
VL: Uh...Kailuo is also in the meeting room.
Voice: OH! Well, could I leave a message? This is their father -
VL: OH! Well, they're actually in the canteen...
Ha! VL is sooo funny and cute. And cooperative, as my dad says. *smirks*
posted by Yellow Garfield at 7:40 PM
3 Comments:
Chinai runs like a girl. and he has a GROIN injury. and HE will not be able to treat me like a royal princess, which I am. ~hyakz~
Main Entry: 3tan
Function: noun
Etymology: French, tanbark, from Old French, from Medieval Latin tanum
1 : a tanning material or its active agent (as tannin)
2 : a brown color imparted to the skin by exposure to the sun or wind
3 : a light yellowish brown
4 plural : tan-colored articles of clothing
From the merriam webster.
Yikes. You're mean.
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