Monday, January 12, 2009

Never Say Die

Last weekend, a certain middle-aged male stranger at a certain mall event caught my attention. Not because of his good looks or anything of the sort. I have never come across any Pierce Brosnan look-alike middle-aged man yet for that matter. Mere mortals like you and me hardly age as well as Tinseltown folks. Anyhow, this mall was organizing some Crime Prevention Campaign and was offering free packet drinks to passer-bys who could answer the questions they were throwing to the floor.


I was watching the event from one floor up and at first, I was surprised when the MC refused to accept answers to his questions from this ‘Uncle’. Then only I realized that this uncle had already answered a few questions before and was carrying a plastic bag of free packet drinks he got earlier. The greedy fella wanted more!

I hang around for a bit and was amused when uncle raised his hands to answer EVERY single question. Goodness, give other people some chance. The MC was annoyed and he kept uncle waiting at the sidelines with repeated retorts such as the below:

“Mei tou leh ar, uncle” (Not your turn yet, uncle)

“Lei mm hor yee seng yat kei hai tou geh” (You can’t just stand here all the time)

I mean, this uncle had no shame. I was cringing in embarrassment on his behalf even though I was watching from one floor away. I would have been red like a tomato in the face if I was him. He would raise his hands to answer a question and sheepishly cup his face at the side when the MC rejected him but in another 30 seconds or so his hand would be up in the air again waving in the MC’s face.

This went on for a good 10 minutes or so. I didn’t know how long he actually tried his luck in securing more free packet drinks as my movie was about to start and I reluctantly went away to the cinema to watch Ip Man. A terrific movie by the way and when this comes from one who hardly watches any Cantonese movie, it means the movie is real good.

Anyhow, back to the uncle, embarrassing and cringe-worthy as he was, I actually salute him for his persistence!

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