Serious Stuff

Hi guys, what follows may seem like an emo post but it's something that has disturbed me for a very long time, on and off and it's about time that I talk about it. Bear in mind also that I'm typing this with full clearness of head. I'm not angry or anything, I'm happy even, with the endorphins that come from cooking and eating har cheong gai.

This morning, I was talking to Chieh and Joo and they were talking about summer holiday trip plans. As always, I said that I wasn't going to free in June and July because of my attachment and as usual, you guys didn't seem to register that I wasn't going to skip a few days of short job attachment at an organization that I'll be working for till 2016 at the very least. And as might be expected, you guys take the mickey out of the job. I don't blame you guys, I'd probably have done the same in that position, especially if Joo had decided to go MLMing during a possible holiday period.

I wasn't very pissed today about the whole thing but I was irritated and this isn't the first time. There are just two main things:
1) Excessive suaning. Yes there's no malice (99% of the time) but everyone has their limits. Chieh seems immune, I'm not, especially if it's the same stale punch line repeated ad infinitum ad nauseam. I was talking to Chieh once about how I thought it was cruel to laugh at girls (e.g. Rita and yes I used to do it and may very well do it again in the future) and he said that jokes are always at someone's expense. I don't actually agree with that since I find Chieh flirting with aunties funny but that's besides the point. My point is that there is always a threshold up to which it's harmless but beyond that, it gets irritating and worse. For example, there's a youtube video about some Chinese guy asking a Muslim hawker repeatedly for curry pork, pork murtabat etc repeatedly until he gets so riled up and goes crazy. There's some humor in it but it is also deeply offensive. Don't be the Chinese guy in that clip.

2) Songyong. I let myself get songyonged a lot but I do it because you guys are my friends and nobody likes to disappoint their friends. I also songyong people a lot. I'm sure some of you have been songyonged (with suaning) till it gets on your nerve, especially when it's something you really don't want to do. Nigel usually says no and leaves. I try to reason it out but apparently that doesn't work sometimes. So I'm just asking that you guys try to realize sometimes that no really means no.

I realize that I've been guilty of the above before and it'll probably happen again (to me and other people) and it's ok, because we are really good friends. But just try to empathize once in a while as well. You wouldn't do this to one of your new friends, at least not to the same degree. Sometimes, it's good to extend the same courtesies to your older friends.

I hope everyone has a good week ahead. We'll talk soon enough.