woke up 6.30am today ( every school day ) to send my baby to school. adam was up, heard him talking on the phone, must be long distance call to his girlfriend. knocked on his door, said " I'm feeling poor today " , no response, so i was off to send "small" to school. dropped her off and on to "poor man". Its what we called our ( adam and I ) favourite Nasi Kandar stall in this ancient chinese coffee shop housed in a pre-war building. rice and curry for breakfast? most people react with that question, YES, that's until they try " poor man ". poor because that's a stall most could afford to eat at cos they don't sell giant prawn curry and charge a bomb for them...more about the food another time for i'm not writing about that today. there was this old man i shared the table with, he finished his rice, rubbed his stomach satisfactorily and began sipping his cup of coffee. John's dad (tow kay of coffee shop) walked up to our table and handed this old man his change (some notes and a 10sen coin) for his coffee. the old man was fiddling with the 10sen coin then he seem uneasy. i was enjoying my breakfast (back to the food) but the fish wasn't fresh, so i pushed the piece of fish to the top of my plate. immediately Deen's brother (eventhough he was busy serving other customers)noticed, asked me "what's wrong?", i whispered, "not so fresh". before i could utter another word, he placed a plate in front of me with another piece of curry fish. i tasted it, "spot on". the old man's uneasiness grew, then he asked me, "how much is the kopi here? 1 ringgit? or 90sen?", i said i don't know cos i'm having nescafe. then he waved John's dad over and asked him the same question. Tow kay told him "90sen lah!". the old man smiled, making more wrinkles on his warm and friendly face "so this 10sen is mine, wouldn't want to put it in my pocket if it wasn't". i was sad for awhile cos this is so rare, nowadays. WHY?
why should it be? WHAT went wrong with the society? Is it so hard to do the right thing? much easier to conform? sometimes I feel so weird for doing the right thing, " what's wrong with that guy?" "what? he gave you back your wallet with all the money intact?"
do we only read about it or watch a good movie to "feel good"? doesn't it happen around us so we get to feel if first hand? why don't we be the one making it happen? DO the RIGHT thing? it may seem weird sometimes but it always feel good.
now i really have to work on how i feel and react when people around me DON'T do the RIGHT thing. i get so MAD. well, today i feel GOOD. thanks to that old man and Deen's bro, yes, there's still hope. This is the Penang i love. It's going to be a great day.
