i started my intership at ________ today, and the very nice lawyer i ended up being attached to and i were walking out from a client meeting to catch a cab back to the office when she said,"it's really good being at (insert name of law firm here). you get to see what goes on behind the scenes with all these multi-million dollar transactions ... quite exciting right. but then you realise, that the people behind these transactions, they're just - people."
we all are, really.
***
because the very nice lawyer was so very nice, i offered to help her go down after work to psa building to check some documents, and she told me to take a cab - because it was rush hour, it cost an amazing TEN DOLLARS AND TWENTY CENTS to get there from raffles place. absolutely amazing, seeing as the journey would have taken about 7-10 minutes if there hadn't been rush hour traffic.
despite the fact that the cab fare's going to be charged to the company account, the amount is still amazing. i was replying jon's sms on the way to psa, telling him i'd call him later because i was talking to the cab driver. he told me later on that the moment i said that, he knew i was doing some work thing - how can anyone bear to spend so much money on cab fare?? and this is why people say lawyers earn too much money. if i'm not wrong all cab fare gets billed to the clients. it beats taking the bus, but, surely... i have no right to complain anyhow. and it DOES save a lot of time. still, i feel vaguely uneasy about it, almost as if it's rather unethical.
but i did have a rather interesting conversation with the taxi driver. he told me that he thinks the boys of today aren't growing up to be "da4 nan2 ren2," or, literally translated, "big men" - i.e. what we would today (rightly or wrongly) call male chauvinist pigs. in further off times this simply meant that the men took the role of breadwinners on themselves.
big men are those who tell their wives to stay at home and look after the house and the children, and they work like mad to keep the family going. instill the right values - thriftiness, enough family time when the kids are not in school - and everything will be good. he went on for a good ten minutes, past vivocity, about how boys (well, the men of today rather), have forgotten what it's like to make sacrifices for their families, for their wives - he said (in chinese), "maybe my wife can't go shopping everyday if she doesn't work. if she stays at home, wakes up and makes me breakfast, then sends the kids to school and keeps the household running. but the peace and comfort she gets in her heart from not being stressed at work is worth more than anything money can buy." when i told my mother this over dinner, it was she who said,"so would you say that's very male chauvinist?"
the answer i gave, obviously, was no.
i tried valiantly to defend the men of today, but my chinese wasn't good enough. i said something along the lines of my generation (therefore including girls) is just spoilt, we don't know the meaning of eating salt and hard work and chi1 ku3. and that parents are the ones to blame because they get maids etc. but i don't think that's what he was trying to say, really. and that wasn't what i really wanted to say either. i wanted to say something along the lines of "women just want more rights now," that whole "we deserve equal opportunities as females because anything men can do we can do just as well, if not better" thing. it's true, i think that's why the men of today are becoming increasingly emasculated.
it's a pity, really. quite a travesty. not that women should be meek, or that we shouldn't stand up for ourselves - i daresay we're superior to men in some, but not all ways, and we should stand up for what we know is right, especially when we know the men just don't get it.
also, the bible says that wives should submit to their husbands, but it definitely doesn't mean women should be dominated by men. it just means that women should feel like women lor. you get what i'm trying to say? the most awful thing about it all is that we're to blame for feeling unfeminine. in these times, particularly with the cost of living in singapore, i think marriage, and setting up a home's a partnership thing - a joint venture. but it shouldn't get to the point where husbands let their wives work longer hours than they do, and/or earn bigger bucks. it's just not quite right, somehow.
all that being said, i do know some extremely nice boys who would willingly work their asses off if it came down to it. i was tempted to tell the taxi driver that i thought my boyfriend was a "da nan ren" but i figured that'd have been too nauseating.
yesterday, i gave quentin a job recommendation. and he had the nerve to tell me that admin work was not of a "value-adding" nature.
!!!!!
oh well. i hope aunty patsy will cook me dinner again soon.
***
i went for a run just now, and this lady approached me as i was nearing sixth avenue, anxiously asking if i'd seen her dog. he's small and black and looks a bit like a cat. you came from coronation plaza, right? i wanted to tell her that i saw him, because i saw tears starting to form in her eyes and they were reflecting the lights at the bus stop. but i hadn't seen him, and i had to say no. all the best looking for him, i said.
which encounter made me think of something a very nice girl i spoke to at jaime's party said, about how she wanted to have a dog instead of a child. because you might bring a child up well until he's twenty and then he might flip for no reason. imagine the hurt, she said. if you can cry for a lost dog, what more for a child?
and i also saw the garbage collectors - there were two of them, and they stopped at every single dustbin along bukit timah road. i'm not kidding. i saw them as i was leaving the nie track, and they drove on into the night as i crossed the overhead bridge into my estate.
these things we should be thankful for, things we don't even know about until some chance encounter, out running late at night - and it was late, around 2340.
really, we're all just people.
we all are, really.
***
because the very nice lawyer was so very nice, i offered to help her go down after work to psa building to check some documents, and she told me to take a cab - because it was rush hour, it cost an amazing TEN DOLLARS AND TWENTY CENTS to get there from raffles place. absolutely amazing, seeing as the journey would have taken about 7-10 minutes if there hadn't been rush hour traffic.
despite the fact that the cab fare's going to be charged to the company account, the amount is still amazing. i was replying jon's sms on the way to psa, telling him i'd call him later because i was talking to the cab driver. he told me later on that the moment i said that, he knew i was doing some work thing - how can anyone bear to spend so much money on cab fare?? and this is why people say lawyers earn too much money. if i'm not wrong all cab fare gets billed to the clients. it beats taking the bus, but, surely... i have no right to complain anyhow. and it DOES save a lot of time. still, i feel vaguely uneasy about it, almost as if it's rather unethical.
but i did have a rather interesting conversation with the taxi driver. he told me that he thinks the boys of today aren't growing up to be "da4 nan2 ren2," or, literally translated, "big men" - i.e. what we would today (rightly or wrongly) call male chauvinist pigs. in further off times this simply meant that the men took the role of breadwinners on themselves.
big men are those who tell their wives to stay at home and look after the house and the children, and they work like mad to keep the family going. instill the right values - thriftiness, enough family time when the kids are not in school - and everything will be good. he went on for a good ten minutes, past vivocity, about how boys (well, the men of today rather), have forgotten what it's like to make sacrifices for their families, for their wives - he said (in chinese), "maybe my wife can't go shopping everyday if she doesn't work. if she stays at home, wakes up and makes me breakfast, then sends the kids to school and keeps the household running. but the peace and comfort she gets in her heart from not being stressed at work is worth more than anything money can buy." when i told my mother this over dinner, it was she who said,"so would you say that's very male chauvinist?"
the answer i gave, obviously, was no.
i tried valiantly to defend the men of today, but my chinese wasn't good enough. i said something along the lines of my generation (therefore including girls) is just spoilt, we don't know the meaning of eating salt and hard work and chi1 ku3. and that parents are the ones to blame because they get maids etc. but i don't think that's what he was trying to say, really. and that wasn't what i really wanted to say either. i wanted to say something along the lines of "women just want more rights now," that whole "we deserve equal opportunities as females because anything men can do we can do just as well, if not better" thing. it's true, i think that's why the men of today are becoming increasingly emasculated.
it's a pity, really. quite a travesty. not that women should be meek, or that we shouldn't stand up for ourselves - i daresay we're superior to men in some, but not all ways, and we should stand up for what we know is right, especially when we know the men just don't get it.
also, the bible says that wives should submit to their husbands, but it definitely doesn't mean women should be dominated by men. it just means that women should feel like women lor. you get what i'm trying to say? the most awful thing about it all is that we're to blame for feeling unfeminine. in these times, particularly with the cost of living in singapore, i think marriage, and setting up a home's a partnership thing - a joint venture. but it shouldn't get to the point where husbands let their wives work longer hours than they do, and/or earn bigger bucks. it's just not quite right, somehow.
all that being said, i do know some extremely nice boys who would willingly work their asses off if it came down to it. i was tempted to tell the taxi driver that i thought my boyfriend was a "da nan ren" but i figured that'd have been too nauseating.
yesterday, i gave quentin a job recommendation. and he had the nerve to tell me that admin work was not of a "value-adding" nature.
!!!!!
oh well. i hope aunty patsy will cook me dinner again soon.
***
i went for a run just now, and this lady approached me as i was nearing sixth avenue, anxiously asking if i'd seen her dog. he's small and black and looks a bit like a cat. you came from coronation plaza, right? i wanted to tell her that i saw him, because i saw tears starting to form in her eyes and they were reflecting the lights at the bus stop. but i hadn't seen him, and i had to say no. all the best looking for him, i said.
which encounter made me think of something a very nice girl i spoke to at jaime's party said, about how she wanted to have a dog instead of a child. because you might bring a child up well until he's twenty and then he might flip for no reason. imagine the hurt, she said. if you can cry for a lost dog, what more for a child?
and i also saw the garbage collectors - there were two of them, and they stopped at every single dustbin along bukit timah road. i'm not kidding. i saw them as i was leaving the nie track, and they drove on into the night as i crossed the overhead bridge into my estate.
these things we should be thankful for, things we don't even know about until some chance encounter, out running late at night - and it was late, around 2340.
really, we're all just people.
