The scene at a public toilet in a park."Tidak perlu bayar! Gunakan tandas sekarang dan boleh bayar besok." ("No need to pay! Use the toilet now and can pay tomorrow") the affable Indian doorman told me and my wife as we approached the counter to pay the 20 sen entrance fee.
"Mengapa?"("Why?") I asked him.
Another surprise awaited me. Flashing what appeared to be a perpetual smile he told me that the toilet has no running water because the contractor has not completed repairing the defective pumps, all the time speaking in very fluent Chinese mandarin. He told me that he has not had a Chinese schooling before but picked up the language when he was living among the Chinese community in Cheras.
I thanked him for his kindness with profuse gratitude. You see at that time I had only RM10 and RM5 notes in my wallet and no small change. I was expecting the doorman to turn me and my wife away as he might not have collected enough coins and RM1 bills so early in the morning to exchange for RM5, the smallest denomination note that I had to pay for the entrance fee. Besides there was only a handful of visitors in the park at that time.
No comments:
Post a Comment