It's Monday night. As usual, I went to the pasar malam at SS2 (within walking distance from my office) to do my marketing for some fresh vegetable, fish and some cooking ingredients.
It's normally getting more and more crowded as the night gets later, and the human traffic flow would be super slow, which is something that I am quite impatient with. I would normally go early, sometimes as early as around 5pm, dash to certain stalls to do my purchase and dash my way out before it's too crowded.
I was a bit late today as I had some work to complete in the office. Walked there around 7pm. I Sped to certain stalls to grab some fresh vege, fish, some shallots, my favorite chicken wing (almost a weekly affair, haha), and fried loh bak ko for dinner.
Bought a piece of kurau fish from a lady fishmonger, who is nice enough to sell me 1 piece (yes 1 piece) of the fish out of a plate of 4 pieces that are normally grouped together for selling as an UNIT. I overpaid the lady fishmonger by 20 cents and she returned the money to me. With the 20 cent coin in my left hand, in terms of movement, I was having a little bit of difficulty to put it back to my purse which was in my handbag as my right hand's fingers were fully loaded with bags containing choy sum, lady's fingers, tomato, fried lo bak ko, and chicken wing respectively.
When I was attempting to unzip my handbag, all of a sudden, a tupperware-like plastic container conveniently appeared right in front of me, in the perfect position to 'fetch' my 20 cents coin. It happened so suddenly that it took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening. The plastic container was handed by an old lady who was begging for money. From the physical appearance, the old lady begger is in her 60-70s, probably. She is just a normal old lady in 1 fine piece, without any physical disablement. Out of convenince plus some mercy, I gave the 20 cents coin to her without much thought to save me the trouble of putting it back into my purse. After getting the money, off she went and I continued my way.
Yes, I do give money to beggers sometimes, but only selectively and to those who deserve my sympathy. There are too many of beggers out there. How much can you give? How are you going to differenciate which are the 'real' ones and which are from syndicates?
After a while, I bumped into her again after 1-2 minutes and guess what? She handed the container right in front of me AGAIN, 'asking' for money. I was a little bit annoyed and I told her, 'Ah poh, I had just given you money a while ago!' and I walked off with a mixed feeling.
Was that greed? Did she seriously not remember that I had given her money a moment ago or was she too old to remember the too many faces that she had begged money from at the pasar malam? I didn't want to furhter ask myself too many questions on her or guess there might be saddening reasaons behind her begging, as I don't have the actual answers. After all, she's old already and I wasn't really that angry with her.
While driving my way back, I gazed at the sky while waiting for traffic to move. The sky linked my thought to the GREAT act of our dearest country of wasting millions of RM of the tax payers' money to send a so-called 'astronaut' (some called it space flight participant) to the space with the second 'astronaut' on the way soon. It really really pissed me off! There are so many social problems out there not taken care off and millions of money is being thrown into the space! Kanasai! Ok, let's not talk about this sickening topic. Really 'HORSE HEAD PIG BRAIN'!
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5 comments:
Don't say. I think some of the old people are being used by the syndicate to collect money. But I always sympathized with them because you might not know if they are genuine. I only give money to old people. People who hold babies to beg, I think they are fake.
I guess she would not have remembered, too many faces passing. Perhaps her initial joy was too great on receiving some money, that she blanked out all else in the momentary act of charity? :P
Seriously though, I think most of us are not doing enough for charity, be it in the form of cash, or time spent. Christmas is coming, perhaps we could make this a time of giving to old folks home, orphanages, etc?
u have the charitable face look la...yes yes
datin
haha...give it benefit of doubt, the old ah poh most probably cant recognize your face lar...
But dont u feel good after your acts of mercy? I always feel great after helping someone...
ky - ya, sometimes it's kinda difficult to differenciate if they are genuine. anyway, those beggers that i would normally give money to are old beggers who really look very kasihan.
zing - maybe she was overjoyed or too busy 'yau sat chor, mou fong guo' (rather kill wrongly than miss). haha.. :D actually, she's one very healthy, normal, and energetic begger who can move very swiftly. mmm... we don't really have to wait for festive seasons to do charity. :)
datin - haha, i'm not that charitable as u think, i only give money to beggers selectively. sometimes, i am not sure if the act of giving money to beggers is a good thing or a bad thing, to think deeper...
sharlydia - maybe she really couldn't recognize my face. :) well, it always feels good to help others but i don't feel entirely good in the case of giving money to old beggers. i feel sad instead to see old people begging at their old age.
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