Green Envy

The Classifieds Uncle impressively outraged this morning by the operator here “sucking the blood” of the young foreign workers. Wow! Really! Hats off to you Uncle. Nevermore any complaints about the man while there is breath in this body. Well-to-do chappie with handsome flatcap and bright baju turning up his nose at the layabouts and ne’er-do-wells. Best behaviour somehow managed putting up with the old codger. He was more than welcome to that section of the newspaper; it was better than recycling. A daughter trading in handbags and accessories making a pile was regularly treating mum and dad to outings across the globe—Paris and London to see the Queen (the common joke among the generation that had been brought up saluting the flag and singing the anthem); Japan where the people were so friendly, the cities as clean if not more so than Sing; Bangkok times without number and KL of course. A tendency to sneer at some of his fellow Malays; many at the tables in G. Serai fell short. Lazy: the Chinese prejudice was well-founded (Mahathir’s recent suggestion of the same needed proper acknowledgement according to Unc.). This man standing up for the foreign workforce against the local biz operators came as rather a surprise. One of the young Malaysian employees had answered Uncle’s question that he did not know what he would be paid. Working a week already and not knowing. How can he not know?!... Twelve hours on your feet for $700 – 800 commonly. Blood-sucking. Giving them a thousand would be approaching fairness. Over at Mr T. T. where it was a Chinese affair they all earned $1,200, Uncle had discovered. Impressive energy and ethics; genuine fellow-feeling. Well, congratulations on that humanity Mr. Nuisance Uncle, wouldn’t have thought you had it in you. No more resentment at the morning pestering, you can pull up a pew anytime…. There you are. Another reminder against rash conclusions. What the man wanted with the Classifieds he couldn’t rightly say, something mumbled and jumbled. The paper itself was the easy part; it was the taking of the seat immediately opposite that caused the nuisance. Why? was the question. The man was usually quiet the whole while, or else bad-mouthing someone or other and when he found no encouragement clamming up again. You could hardly deny, never mind there were fifty free chairs from which to choose every morning. Impossible too not to clear a few inches of table-top in order to accommodate the Bugger. True, that time of day one could be short of pals; the riff-raff not to one’s liking and sitting alone none of this kampung folk enjoyed. Well, perhaps. Still, the manoeuvre was rather odd. Another possible explanation for the behaviour, the reason why the man sidled up like that for a perch that would see him through till lunch, was perhaps suggested the next evening. Rather strange and difficult to credit…. An EPL game that had been heavily promoted in the paper and raised a bit of excitement among the local fans. In fact the info earlier in the day had been wrong: the top match would not come on until midnight; it was a lesser that was starting at 8pm. Nevertheless, joining the crowd every once in a while for a little football with the tea cups across the tables was worth something. A brief pause had arrived in the work. Short sit among the chaps enjoying the youthful ballet over the green, twenty minutes would suffice. Close under the screen at the edge of a table on the passageway was OK, chaps at the table welcoming. Shortly the man at ninety degrees started up. This and that. Which team did you follow? Australia huh? Opinion sought on the local food…. Middle-aged chaps in a group coming together regularly for the big games, Oooing and Ahhing in chorus. Some goreng pisang was OK once in a while. These guys would stay on for the second match too, yessiree!… Some of the lads further along the row bought into the conversation at the end of the table with lame comments and weak jokes. Rather inept, unable to sustain conversation. The fattie on the end, at ninety degrees, had been met previously. There was a vague memory of the fellow’s good English, bullish size and typical amicability. Interruptions in English and Malay from further along were a distraction to the man’s focus on the game and his near companion. They’re jealous, the man commented at one point when he was again forced to field remarks from the side. “Jealous” the operative word. The boys further along the table missing out on the contact at the end of the row would be jealous. As if you were a pretty leggy babe flicking back her hair and giving seductive smiles! Aduh! Raising jealousy…. This was not entirely unfamiliar territory either. No indeed; not by any means. A white personage read as some kind of professional, a fixture who had planted himself squarely in that particular community, was no mean prize. Plenty of jealousy for the lucky one who had been able to draw near, able to claim the attention of such a one. Colonialism and Post-. Enforcement of English. (How many apologies from yellow, brown and black here for poor English over the seven years!) Windsor Castle visiting regularly and given the red carpet treatment. Hollywood. The jets tearing up the sky coming into land at the nearby military airport too. Small wonder.