In my I-centric world, more than often, nothing seems more important that the things that has happened to me. It's like this: Sometimes, I get so engrossed in my own bubble (aka Jo's world) that I forget the bigger universe.
Why do I say that? Just this morning, I woke up with a jolt. Perhaps the images from last night's charity show have more than etched in my mind, but I found myself suddenly wondering about the 4 Sze-chuan natives Mel and I met on our 6-hour river cruise along Lijiang in Guangxi province in the winter of 2006. And it's ironically paltry for I don't even know their names! But I do remember very vividly the little episode we had on the boat. Let me recount...
It was our last day in Guilin and we decided to go on the much-acclaimed river cruise from Guilin to Yangshou. But fate has it that Mel and I had run out of RMB (we had only 17 Yuan with us but needed 20 for the buggy ride at the village) and lapsed into a state of panic in the midst of second-hand smoke. Perhaps overwhelmed by the fear of being stranded in an unknown town several thousand kilometers from home in Hong Kong, we related our plight to the four we were seated with and without hesitation, they shoved us some local currency - 3 Yuan to be exact. Being Singaporeans, Mel and I insisted they take our 2 Sing dollars in exchange even though they told us they probably won't visit Singapore in the next decade. But as all good Asian-Chinese do, we engaged, for a while, in the to-and-fro "No, you take it; No, you keep it" pleasantry. Finally they relented and kept our polymer note as a souvenir.
And so, two weeks after the devastating 8.0 earth-shattering, literally, quake in the Sze Chuan province of China, it suddenly dawned on me that it was their hometown and I had this to wonder: Are they okay?
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