"Do you have a cellphone? mobile phone?" the woman politely repeated, replacing 'handphone' with a 'cellphone' and 'mobile phone'. She knows that foreigners don't use the word 'handphone'.
"Yes ma'am" i replied.
"Can I borrow it? I just want to make a call" she said.
"Sure ma'am." I quickly replied while pulling my mobile phone from my pocket.
"Do you have the number ma'am?" I asked. I was expecting that she will give me a piece of paper that has a number on it but instead she began dictating the numbers. I was stunned so I missed the first two numbers so I asked for it again and began punching the digits.
I waited for a ring before I handed the phone to the old woman. She now talked in plain mandarin apparently informing someone on the other end about her estimated time of arrival.
She handed me back my mobile phone in less than a minute.
She then told me that she tried to borrow phone from several persons, mostly her own kind, Singaporean, but all of them declined. She was very disappointed.
She bid goodbye and was about to leave when I quickly said "Ma'am, can I help you with that?" pointing at the white plastic bag. She declined reasoning that it's not that heavy then asked "from where are you, son?"
"From the Philippines ma'am, I'm a Filipino." I proudly said.
It was Saturday, August 28, 5 days after Rolando Mendoza screwed all the Filipinos around the globe.
(also, days after we realized that once again, the Filipinos failed to choose their leader.)
*here in Singapore, since they are a former British colony, Singaporeans speak with a British accent. Imagine a Chinese speaking English with a British accent, tingnan ko lang kung hindi masira ulo mo sa pagintindi.
*here in Singapore, since they are a former British colony, Singaporeans speak with a British accent. Imagine a Chinese speaking English with a British accent, tingnan ko lang kung hindi masira ulo mo sa pagintindi.
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