#1. Today was the first time anyone had ever offered me the reserved seat on the SMRT train. LOL.
What happened was that I was standing right in front of the lady, who was asleep, seated in the reserved seat (for the unintiated to SMRT rites, there are reserved seats for four categories of people, as represented by four figures: a stick figure with a walking stick, a stick figure with one smaller stick figure on its lap, a stick figure with a clutch and a bandaged leg and finally, a stick figure with a bulging stomach. The last presumably taken to be a pregnant lady. Presumably. Ahem. Anyway--), and when I realised someone behind me wanted to exit, I accidentally swung my numerous carriers at the sleeping lady. She woke up and gave me a startled look, and I put my right hand up in a bid to apologise for hitting her by accident and waking her up. But she took my apology to mean a request for the seat and she in turn, gestured to the seat in a questioning manner to ask if I wanted to sit down! My first reaction was to stare down at my tummy HAAHAHAHA and the second one was to decline her kind offer. I sent my mom a text saying, "Mommy jialat someone offer me the reserved seat. Jialat my tummy got that big ah." Hahahahahhaah. #2. An incident that occurred last month: Of all the times that I've seen the train station police approach people to check their belongings or to check with them whatever they're checking, the persons have been:
1. Men 2. Dark skinned men, who looked to be of either Malay or Indian descent OR 3. Heavily tattooed and/or pierced men
Why can't they stop stereotyping? I just saw a poor harmless Malay uncle get stopped while rushing for the train. As someone who constantly has to sprint for trains so as to not be late for work, I feel a sense of solidarity with the uncle. But more than that, I cannot imagine how any innocent person could stand such an act of humiliation. Yes, the police are just doing their jobs and keeping vigilant. This is why we have very few instances of terrorism in Singapore (at least, that's what the mainstream media in Singapore tells us). And yes I know that it's also true that many acts of mischief or crime have been stopped through this method. However, this is discrimination. It is unhealthy. It may be precautionary, but who's to say other people (who look a certain way) wouldn't commit crimes? If you continuously and systematically think that way, it is highly possible that you would stop questioning your assumptions. The connections made in your schema that "dark-skinned/tattoos/male --- someone who will do something bad" will eventually become truths in your mind, but they are unfounded ones.
I am a very unhappy lady this morning. ): Sometimes misplaced authority gets to me. #3. I love not wearing pants. Or bras.
One night last week, I'd just showered and exited the bathroom clad in just my towel and I went downstairs to get my facial product. My elder brother asked me what I was doing as I fiddled with aloe vera in the toilet, and he went "你的towel掉了不是好笑（what if your towel drops)." He continued, "还有你每次都穿着底裤而已走来走去（And you always like to walk around in only your underwear, without pants). 你是女孩子你懂吗？我们是男孩子才可以这样（You're a girl, you know? Your younger brother and I are males, that's why we can do it)." I retorted: "男孩子和女孩子的身体有什么不同 (what's the difference between a man's body and a woman's) [on hindsight, I realise that this question is flawed, because obviously there are physical differences between a male's body and a female's body, however, my question was more of a "what different significance do they have]？”
And his reply was, "不是说男孩子和女孩子的身体有不同。。可是－－ (no, it's not that I mean to say that they signify different things, but---)”
At this point I cut in and went “我不喜欢穿裤子就是想舒服。如果在我自己的家里都不能舒服，你要我在家外不穿裤子吗？ （I don't like wearing pants because they're uncomfortable. If I can't be comfortable even in my own home, where else do you want me to be like this?)" !!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you know me personally and have heard me talk about how I came to realise girls and boys, men and women are treated differently in this world, I'd probably have told you about how as a young kid, my parents once scolded me on one occasion to sit properly. "你是女孩子，不是男孩子，坐好好，不要脚开开！ （You are a girl, not a boy. Sit properly, don't spread your legs!)" At that point, even at that tender age, it was a DING DING DING moment for me, and I always used to ponder the reason why my brothers could sit any old way they wanted, whereas I couldn't. I think that really made me more sensitive and more perceptive to how things are carried out around me. Why can't I wear just panties and walk around in my house? It isn't as if it's indecent. I'm not wearing a G-string and shoving my ass in my brother's face. And most of the time, the school tees that I wear to sleep are huge, so they cover my ass anyway. I can't see how my ass is offending my elder brother, to be honest. Just a few days later after this particular exchange, as I was cleansing my face in the common washroom, my elder brother asked if I was going to shower after cleansing my face. To which I answered no, and he just rushed into the open toilet and pulled down his pants and took a poop. Might I point out that he wasn't wearing a top in the first place hence he was naked and pooping next to me? You might think that that's such an imposition on me, considering I had the space first. But I just continued cleansing my face and exited after I was done. Also, not wearing a top is not even something I can do freely in the house; c'mon, just let me not wear my pants, for a gentle breeze's sake. Contemplating this issue of being naked or semi-naked around the house, I realised that my younger brother always saunters into my room with just a towel around his waist and he'd flex his muscles and admire (nope sorry, I meant, MIRIN) his physique, attained after gruelling hours and days, no months, no years of training at the gym. The reason being that I have a huge mirror on my wardrobe door and another smaller one at my dressing table, hence it makes for good mirin angles. If we'd really want to talk about privacy and spaces, my younger brother is definitely intruding my personal space with his nakedness. But I honestly don't really care, because my younger brother doesn't really care when I walk around the house in a tee and panties, either. He's not that fussy about gender rules (I HOPE). I only care when he keeps bugging me to admire his triceps too. -_-" This might sound like complaints about my brothers, but I genuinely love them both from the bottom of my heart. It's just that they really gotta chill about butts, seriously. Okay I have ta scoot. Hollerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I write about my everyday experiences & pen down my thoughts in this lil' space.
I read, listen to music, have a passion in language, love makeup and most of all, I observe. I really like learning.
I love making a difference.
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