♥ Queen of all Grumpy Old Farts ♥

About the GrumpyQueen

A.K.A Gatekeeper

I love food, don't deprive me of it.

I'm not Princess, I'm Queen

I can be quite grumpy and when I am, I hide here, my dungeon for reflections, ramblings and ranting.

Whatever I write are opinions, and may not be the whole truth. Do not read it like the Gospel.

I hate as vehemently as I love
I already know I'm crazy, be my friend, it's safer

Different is not bad, just not the same as the rest

If you don't like me, it's probably mutual
But I'm nice, really :p

Blog started 21st June 2007, shifted from www.thegatekeeperstory.blogspot.com

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My Thailand trip

The Gatekeeper is back from her Thailand trip. I meant to update a few days back. But my comp caused a power trip and miraculously, it's working fine now.

Besides buying nearly the whole of Thailand home, I gained new insights. I did not waste food there. Simply because of the stuff I saw there. Every 10 steps you find a beggar, so much so that after a while, you become almost numb to that sight. But there is this beggar I'd never forget. He had both legs amputated and was lying on his belly, his bowl in front of him. He'd push the bowl forward with his hands than crawl after it on his belly. He did this all, in a crowded and dirty marketplace with uneven roads where I found it difficult walking on two legs. He could have just remained outside the marketplace and wait for people to throw a few coins into his bowl. But would anyone notice? As my dad said,
"The worst of all humiliation-to make someone crawl like that for a few cents."

The hotel restaurant was facing this building. Dirty and black, I suppose 10 coats of fresh paint cannot revive the building. The roof top's used for drying their clothes I suppose, since there were like so many laundry stands around. The rusty railings of the roof top were used to hang potted plants. I don't know why they bother about plants when they have nothing to eat, but it could be chilli plants or some other plants they can use for cooking. Anyway, the railings look like they're going to give way any moment, raining potted plants on the pedestrians' heads. Either that or the building might just crumble under the weight of the roof, there were just too many things on the roof!

So while I was enjoying my buffet breakfast, I thought about those people in that run-down building, fretting about their next meal. The beggars on the streets who have no shoes to wear while I bought something like 15 pairs of shoes in 5 days.

If it's of any comfort to you, my parents said it reminded them of their kampung days, when they were poor but happy. I only have one thing to say, they were happy because they didn't know what it is like to live so comfortably in a beautiful house, with more than enough to eat and wear. But if I were to pluck them out of their comfort zone and dump them into that slum like place, I don't think they'd be very happy. I guess you'd only feel the loss if you once owned it. If you had nothing to start with, than you won't know what you're missing out. My mum was silent, still enjoying her breakfast. My dad said he'd still be happy but there was this uncertainty in his voice...

It opened my eyes and I'm proud to be born Singaporean. Because although we're one kiasu nation, who's striving to be a gracious society but whose people litter all over the place and have foreigners cleaning up after us, at least most of us have more than enough to eat and wear. Really, never mind if angmohs laugh at the way we rush for free stuff and lack of table manners. Never mind if we speak Singlish and don't stress on the correct syllable. When I was on the plane and they were giving out some embarkment card to fill in, they had to ask who's Singaporean, 'cos only foreigners need to fill in those cards. I was filled with so much pride for my country when the air steward asked, "do you hold a Singapore passport?" I felt like jumping up and proudly declaring my nationality.

Then at the checkpoint, when someone from customs said, "if you hold a Singapore passport, you can use the machines instead of queuing in front of the custom officer." I looked at the long queue in front of the counters and although they were clearing very quickly, who likes queuing right? So I tried out the new machines and cleared customs in less than 1 minute. Muahahaha I think it's cool, am going to use those machines often now!

But I didn't really like the airline. It was not SQ, some foreign airline, a rather well developed country too. When I asked for more chocs 'cos I flew back on X mas day itself, and it was their X mas gift, they gave me this strange look. A polite look that seemed to say, "never had chocs before." I don't think it's nice to take ONE choc when the air steward said "have SOME chocolates." So when they said "some" I presumed you had to take 2 and above right? Ok, I was being greedy but if you wanted me to take only one, say "have A chocolate" instead.

Geez, it's bad enough they confine their customers to a small space that when the person in front of you leans back fully, your tray of food threatens to fall on you. Now they try to redeem themselves with a few miserable chocolates and when people take more than one, they give you that strange look. The family in front of me with an irritating kid took something like 7 chocs and didn't get the strange look. What does that irritating brat know about fine chocs? Hey, I behaved better than that brat! How come I don't get more chocs than her?! If I had my way, I'd have locked her up in the overhead compartment with the hand luggages so that the rest of us could get some peace. No prizes for guessing, the kid belonged to a Singaporean couple with no guts to slap her to shut her up.

But seriously, I'm still happy with Singapore. Even if I breathe the same air with people who get 7 chocs for misbehaving on an airplane...

28.12.06 3:17 PM

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