FZ30'd

A Thai colleague once said to me, "When I first met you, I didn't know you were Singaporean. I thought you were Malaysian."

Er... ?

I furrowed my brows and screwed up my face. Why Malaysian? How could she tell anyway?

We Singaporeans can't even tell ourselves apart from the folks across the Causeway. At least not until they open their mouths and speak in their accented Mandarin.

"Oh, because you look like Malay-Chinese mix." (In her own exact words, ok.)

Wow. First time someone says I look 'chap zeng'.


I think I do have one kind of an 'universally local' face, though.

When I'm in Bangkok, the locals start speaking to me in Thai.

In Manila, folks speak to me in their native Tagalog.

When I was in Tokyo, people spoke to me in Japanese.

Here in Hong Kong, everyone speaks to me in Cantonese. Maybe it helped that I took care not to dress too shabbily here.

In Tokyo, I can take it if the Japs look so darned good and I fade away in the background. I liked walking along the streets of Tokyo like I were the 'Invisible Girl', watching the fascinating people but not getting noticed myself. But somehow here in Hong Kong, I just feel this need to look as good as those Hongkie girls do. Maybe I'm really secretly harboring a thought: if I were to get noticed by some cutie here, at least I could reply when they chat me up. Hiak.

But then, down here no cutie leh. I just hope, not yet. Ha.

But the strangest yet happened in the streets of Portland and Seattle.

The blonde-haired, white-skinned locals started asking me for directions.

I'm like, Hello?!

Strange enough, though, I always happened to know of the places they were looking for. How weird. Funny-haha-weird.


*****

Oh, did I already mention my heart was pinched yet again?

I am officially FZ30'd. No joke. It happened so fast the night before I came to Hong Kong - and just before I had to rush for my basketball training - I didn't really have time to feel the real pinch yet.

Then again, I hope I won't feel any. It sure is bigger and bulkier, and so is the ugly case. But I hope it's really as good as 'they all say'.

Sigh...


*****

My business trip has officially ended. And it's only half past three on a Friday afternoon.

I'm back in the hotel room, and while I feel this urge to rest my eyes and continue sleeping away the San Migs, I also can't wait to hit the streets and malls.

I'm gonna get me a pair of boots. Er... say only lah.

Or, perhaps I should take my FZ30 out on its virgin mission.

Or, maybe that can wait till tomorrow.

And speaking of which, I don't know yet what my plans are for the weekend. I don't even know why I'm staying here in Hong Kong over the weekend.

I think I'm just carrying on with plans that were almost made with someone. I actually thought he was for real when he said he could look me up in Hong Kong. Well, it sounded so real. How could I have contained the excitement?

I should've known better.

How could he have really meant anything?

I think I'm going out for more drinks tonight. And dancing. I need to dance.

And right now, I really think I need to get out of the room.

Housekeeping just called to ask when they could come up to make my room up.

Darn.