Sad SG

After our reunion dinner on eve of CNY, our family met with something interesting on our way home :) Sparks up some interesting discussion after that as well.......but a rather thought provoking and sad ones.

CNY eve is the day for most chinese to have our reunion dinner where the whole family will try their very best to crowd around the steamboat for a very cosy dinner :) But we met a guy about late 20s trying to get some $ from other passenges. His excuse initially was to get $10 for transport fare but of course I turned him down reason being why you need $10 unless you want to take a cab.

Then after several rejections, he called up a friend talking about wanting to lend $100 to spend the CNY with his mum thats hungry at home. After his friend agreed, he asked us for some coins to make his way there. And we just pooled our coins together.

Interesting part is during his "begging" process, some people was in fact shunning him, being sarcastic and hurling remarks at him. And later after we alight, found from my 2 brothers (Ex police force NS) that he might have just been released from prison!

Everyone goes through rough patch before and we all want help from someone at times. But no one on the bus gave him any on our family are the only one that pooled some coins at the end for his trip.

Now where is compassion? He's action was non-abusive, rather polite and not at all persistent. And we can all feel sadness in him. He even wants our contact to return us next time. Some might say giving him is unwise as he might be a cheat. But I suppose our world has been filled with well attired cheats. Our economic system was crush just recently by institutional cheats.

It is rather saddening not because of this poor man but what has people grown to become? Being cold or rather so full of pride, not sparing a thought for the under-privilege. We are well praised for our education system but how about our basic humanity and kinship?

If indeed he was so poor, just hope he could just quickly reach home to give his mum a nice and warm reunion dinner :)