An encounter with a S'porean mom

Selling off old baby stuff or baby-related items which we don’t have any more use for as the kids have outgrew them, has been a recent mission of mine. They may be used, but all were kept in good and still-very-usable conditions.

Following the scare I did myself in when I sold the baby cot last time, I became a little bit more mindful this time offering to meet potential buyers at the nearest BTS station or just making sure that Silver Bullet is home should they want to view the product first.

Most of my buyers seemed like nice and reasonable people. A couple of them sounded weird, a handful was nice and the one who bought my breast pump were the sweetest of them all. But there was one buyer whom I thought was a tad arrogant. Her authoritative tone was a little misplaced, and I thought she bordered on being rude. She inquired about the bouncer and the conversation went like this:

(Me - in my head: What do you effing mean you don't have time? You think I have the whole time in the world?)

I had to take a long, deep breath  when I read that and was wrecking my brains real hard to craft a reply as politely as I could before I replied to her message several hours later...

Then, the next day:

So we dropped off the bouncer at her place. We waited around for more than 5 minutes, and when she finally made her grand entrance, she emanated the feeling that she was “oh-so-busy” and that our presence had more than inconvenienced her.
I shrugged whatever feelings I had aside. Besides, I only wanted to sell off the bouncer and it was not my place to be judgmental. She was cold – there were no smiles, no name re- introductions, no shaking of hands. When I had her on the phone earlier to ask for directions, I thought she sounded sneakily Singaporean. I ignored her unfriendliness and proceeded to explain to her how the bouncer works.  I even made some small talks while she inspected the bouncer, but I guess she wasn’t too keen on making any. With curiosity getting the better of me, I hazard a question of her origins.  I could sense her pride when she confirmed that she is a Singaporean. (hah!)

Satisfied with her inspection, she then handed over the money to me and then said curtly, “Keep the 30 baht”. She then quickly picked up the bouncer and turned away; again exuding the feeling that we really were inconveniencing her.

The mere 30 baht of pittance “delivery fee” thrown at me felt like an insult; a-slap-in-the-face.  I may have misread her or her tone from the text messages, but her demanding and authoritative tone she pulled on me was uncalled for. And, when I met her, I thought her arrogance was a little bit misplaced.  Did she, for one second think that if she would be shopping at a mall, the goods that SHE wanted would have come walking to her with a snap of her fingers?

There and then, I decided that I don't want to have anything to do with her beyond that.

A few days on, Silver Bullet found a small cushion that had come with the bouncer; something which we had accidentally missed out. I was in two-minds to want to contact her again. I guess, I could have just ignored it, but the good in me thought that since I had intended to sell all of it, letting her know was the right thing to do.  Besides, I didn’t really want to write her off as another “one of those” Singaporeans. As soon as she replied, I regretted my decision.

I thought the way replied with “Yes I know that” sounded as if she thought I had deliberately ripped her off.  Again, I may have just misconstrued the SMS message. I dismissed all thoughts and spent an additional 70 baht to get a messenger to deliver it to her at her apartment the next day. I didn’t get as much as an acknowledgement that she received it, let alone a simple “thanks”.

I have since come to a conclusion that *most* expat Singaporeans I met in Bangkok can be quite arrogant and bordering on rude. I don’t encounter many of them, but the few that I have met makes me want to run far, far away from them. They exude the feeling that they are so above you, and you are nothing but an inconvenience to their lives. They behave like the entitled elitist.  They have got their noses high up in the air, and their attitude, supercilious.  It might just be them making a statement of who they are, but those are the very traits I find extremely repulsive.

Just out of fun, I’ll tell a little story of the very few Singaporeans compatriots I encountered in the last few years since I have been living in Bangkok .

Watch this space -  I think it might make for an interesting read!