A Broken Toilet and A Pregnant Wife

I had lunch at this Korean restaurant near Raffles Place last week with the people from the office. This was our despedida lunch for one of our colleagues who's moving to Taipei. I was the only one in the group who didn't speak Chinese and so I spent that time in limbo waiting for the food to be served by looking around the place for something of interest.

And boy did I find it. Our table had this cardboard piece hocking wine from Korea. Here's how a clever sonafabitch pitched this wild raspberry wine called Bokbunja:

Bokbunja has a meaning that a man becomes to be powerful enough to throw the toilet by his urine. This meaning has originated from a story as follows: Long ago, an old couple went to a mountain to collect some herbs but they were hungry there and ate some Bokbunja. That night back at home, the old guy peed and the toilet was fallen down by his urine that had become to be powerful since he ate Bokbunja, and the old girl got pregnant. Bokbunja wine is a fruit wine that gives you the pleasure to enjoys its wild taste and fragrance.

Right.

I shit you not. Whatever's written above is exactly what's written on the advert. I took it home so I could tell you all about Bokbunja wine in the only way God meant the good news to be spread -- through the clever syntax of a Korean copywriter.

So I go to the office pantry for my first cup of Joe of the day. While on my way, I actually think about the cleaning lady and wonder what advice she'll impart for my benefit this morning.

I was a bit disappointed to see that there was no one in the pantry. I take a styro cup and was doing battle with a packet of creamer when who would walk in and position herself next to me but the cleaning lady.

I say hi to her and see that she's opened the cupboards. She takes out this container, opens it and shows me that it contains prawn crackers.

"Like?" she asks me while starting to take an empty styro cup.

"No, thanks," I say but I see that she already has the empty cup to put in the prawn crackers she's offering. I continue, "Yes, thanks."

Cleaning lady fills it to the brim.

I move to put hot water on my cup and she calls my attention to the cup of prawn crackers worried perhaps that I'd forget about it.

Cleaning lady says, "Eat," while pointing at it.

I say, "Yes, thanks."

Then, as unceremoniously as she walked in and after sharing something of herself with me the second day in a row, she walks out of the pantry.

So I go to the office's pantry to throw away an empty styro cup and make my second dose of caffeine -- coming off from a three-day weekend, I needed all the help I could get to last through this Monday. The lady who's responsible for cleaning our floor is there alone at the table eating a sandwhich. I give her a half-baked smile but do not direct it straight at her. Hell, this woman never bothers to say hi to me or smile back when I pass her on the hallway. So I turn my back on her and stir my coffee.

"Water."

I turn to her and say, "Sorry?"

The old Chinese woman says rather curtly, "Do not drink."

"What?" I ask.

"Do not drink. Water. Bad for you."

"Um, coffee. I'm drinking coffee."

I thought she was telling me not to drink the water. Her local accent's so thick, she sounds like she's speaking Mandarin eventhough it's English.

"Coffee bad! Tea bad! No! Water!"

I tell her, "Yup, I have water in my coffee. See? That's why I'm stirring it -- to mix everything together." I stare directly at her now, showing my cup. I realize that she's shaved her eyebrows and has to draw new ones on her face everyday.

"No! Second coffee bad! Second tea also bad! Drink water!"

I then realize that she's telling me that drinking a second cup of coffee or tea is bad for me and that I should drink water.

For good measure, she repeats her medical advice, "Too much coffee bad! Too much tea bad! Drink water!"

"Yeah, I know. This is my last cup of coffee of the day. I only drink two cups a day. " I say and then add, "I promise."

Cleaning Lady M.D. nods her head and appreciates that I understand.

"Um, thanks," I say and get back to work.

Allow me to talk freely about my life here in Singapore so far. I live right smack in the middle of the city in a private condominium development. I have to qualify that the development is privately owned because they pretty much make a big deal here about private and public housing. One of the hallmarks of Singapore's success as a nation is being able to provide public housing to all of its citizens who need it. There are no squatters or homeless people here. Public housing developments are known as, simply and because of the locals' penchant for providing an acronym for everything under the sun, HDBs. This stands for Housing Development Board and is the statutory board of the ominous and Orwellian sounding Ministry of National Development which is responsible for Singapore's public housing programme. Public housing has become a very big success here. There are whole towns on all points of the compass which were founded because the government decided to build shitload of buildings there for public housing. As you would expect, all the development is on a vertical basis as this country is just way too small to accomodate houses. Yes, houses on the standalone variety - like the one I grew up in. If you live on a landed property here -- meaning in a typical house with a typical lawn and not in a unit in a tall building -- then you are millionaire. An aside at this point, I don't know if it's true but someone told me that the Philippine ambassador is renting a house here which Filipino taxpayers are paying SGD40,000 a month for.

Living in the city affords me the luxury of getting to the office just right on time eventhough I get my lazy ass out of bed at eight in the morning. I used to wake up earlier so I could prepare breakfast but it's just not fucking worth it. I stay up late every night to enjoy my 42" plasma TV and home theatre speaker system. I watch a lot of DVDs after becoming a member of this online DVD rental company. There are only two local channels worth a damn and that's because they show the latest popular shows from the US and UK. Ricky Gervais has this new show called Extras which I think is the funniest thing on earth. I also love My Name is Earl and, of course, Arrested Development. Arrested Development used to be the funniest thing on earth but the second season's over and now the local channel is showing Extras instead. But my favorite show though is Lost. God, I love this show. I thought that the writers couldn't think of anything else to make the second season more exciting but they actually did -- and in spades at that.

I ride the bus going to and from the office. Public buses here work the same way as they do in Europe and in the States, that is, they just can't stop anywhere to pick up or drop off passengers but rather at designated bus stops. Speaking of this, I was on a bus one morning and it made a regular stop at the Raffles Hotel. There are two bus stops there separated by a distance of about 20 meters and only certain buses are allowed to pick-up and drop-off passengers at each of these. My bus made a stop at the first one and then we were on our way. At that point, I saw these two Indian guys in office wear trying to flag down the bus I was on. The thing is, my bus was not allowed to go anywhere near the second stop. To my surprise, however, the Indian bus driver stopped the bus and opened the door. He then started shouting at the guys where I think he was saying that they can't flag him down because they were at the wrong bus stop.

The Indian guys just started to shake their heads and then after taking what they could of the abuse, the two walked away from the bus. The bus driver then closed the doors. Next, I see him sitting still and doing absolutely nothing. What the fuck, I thought. I'm late for work. What's he doing there staring into space? After thinking things through, the driver then decided to open the doors again and looked at the direction of the two. I think he was trying to lull the two nitwits into a false sense of security so they'd go on the bus and then he'd fuck with them again. Nothing happens though. The two Indian guys dare not get on. We collectively wait for about a minute. Seconds and then minutes pass -- still nothing.

What the bus driver did next totally surprised me.

He put the bus in park, got up, got off the bus, and went to where the two Indian guys had walked off to. He's apparently not yet done with opening the can of whoop ass he’s brought for the day. At this point, my fellow passengers can't believe what was happening either. We all watch through the windows as the driver talked his mouth off berating the two guys who made the unforgivable transgression of flagging the bus at the wrong stop. To their credit, the two Indian guys took whatever the driver is dishing out in silence. I think they cut him some slack because the driver's an old Indian guy. Or maybe they did because the driver is fucking nuts. I think they both understood that trying to argue with him would be about as useless as trying to explain quantum physics to Keanna Reeves.

After making sure his point was made, the driver got back on the bus, put it in gear and, finally, drove away.

And you thought that Manila bus drivers were freaking nuts.