A Bizarre Encounter
June 7, 2007
An old man sitting adjacent to me in the breakfast room suddenly piped a “good morning” – a greeting that I returned rather hesitantly. A few minutes later he turned to me once again, shooting a rather wizened look in my direction.
“Excuse me, may I ask you a question?” He spoke slowly, enunciating each word as best as he could through a thick beard, as though fearing I wouldn’t understand a word of English.
I acquiesced once again.
“Is this your first time in London?”
“Yes.”
He nodded his thanks, and turned back to his half-eaten breakfast and me back to nursing my cup of camomile tea. A few minutes elapsed once more before he turned back.
“Are you from England?”
“Where are you from?” He hurriedly continued after I told him, and said that he was working with a group dealing with climate change.
“Could I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Could I ask if climate change is a big thing in Singapore?”
“It slowly is. There’re talks at the governmental level.”
“It slowly is?”
“Yeah.”
You must pardon my curt replies.
“If there were to be some kind of implementation, would it be top-down, or…you know, would it come from the citizens’ level?” He gestured with some brisk horizontal movement as though any citizen-initiated movement was to be either hallowed or disregarded.
“Top-down. It will always be from top-down.” I could not resist that cynical and immediate reply.
“Ah.”
He went back to his drink and I to mine. A few minutes later the all-to-familiar gestured of turning around and back to me happened again.
“Excuse me, could I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“You know the Singapore Airport is world-famous. Do you foresee the government ever closing the airport to improve the climate?”
That was the most bizarre question I’ve ever heard concerning the airport – considering that T3 will soon open.
“That will never happen.”
“Singapore has an airline of its own. Is it profitable?”
“Extremely.”
“That is bad news for all of us then,” He ended his questioning session rather gravely.
What a bizarre way to start the morning.
On a more normal plane, some varied pictures of London here:
