Monday, May 14, 2012

I spent almost half of my day in the train yesterday. At one point of time, there were only 4 Chinese in the cabin, namely 2 PRCs, my mother and I. The rest of the passengers were either Indians or Bangladeshi (i cant really tell the difference) and Filipinos in the 80% full cabin. The train was neither in Little India nor Orchard MRT station. I stretch my neck and look at the other cabins. It seemed to be the same as well. Then i started to feel very uneasy. I was actually the minority in my own country.

A few stops later, a visually handicapped person  and his lady friend (normal) entered the cabin.  Most of the seats, including the reserved ones, were occupied by the Indians or Bangladeshi, but nobody actually gave up their seat to the man. Upon seeing that nobody was willing to offer a seat, my mom gave up her seat. We then had a small conversation with the lady. She commented that it had been always the case that the foreigners weren't the gracious ones to give up their seats. Of course, there were kind foreign worker who offered their seats, but such cases were very very rare. As we were talking, the young Indian chap on the reserved seat kept on stealing glances at us. Was he guilty conscious?

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