Being Gracious

For once, I’m not going to talk about cats but something else I witnessed this evening. Its us aka humans aka homo sapiens. To the point its us being gracious, a gracious society. 3 incidents in Raffles City foodcourt prompted to write this post.

Incident 1 – I was sitting at a table behind 2 ladies who occupied a 8-seater table. An old man came along with a tray of food, hoped to share the table with the 2 ladies. One of them quickly told the man that the table is taken, he should look elsewhere. He ended sharing my table. That’s fine. But what is not fine is those 2 were actually ‘choping’ the table for just another friend. Its only 3 of them. But they just don’t want to share the table. That really pissed me off. It would have ok with me if it is not a peak period. Lunch & dinnertime are usually the busiest in any foodcourt & empty seats are hard to come by. By being selfish & with an old man, is simply inconsiderate, rude & not to mention, ungracious.

Incident 2 – a young guy sitting at the next table finished his food, stood up, clear his table, handed the tray to an elderly cleaning lady. I thought he was the foodcourt's staff but he wasn’t. He picked up his bag & left the foodcourt. That is not just a gentlemanly gesture, but a kind gesture. I was very impressed & at the same time, I was ashamed. As I’ve always taken the cleaners for granted. Yes it is their job to clear and clean the tables. But what is wrong with helping them? Especially the elderly ones. They take up such jobs for different reasons, be it to pass their time or to earn a living. The fact remains that they are our elders & respect should be accorded to them. This, I believe, is part of gracious living.

Incident 3 – a Caucasian tourist family. Husband queuing to buy dinner, wife nowhere in sight, 1 preteen daughter & toddler in a pram standing right in the middle of foodcourt traffic. Instead of pushing the pram aside or closer to her dad, the daughter was shouting to converse with him. Everyone had to walk around them.

Later, I ran into them again at the taxi stand. The father rudely & condescendingly ask the guy in front of me “THIS. TAXI. STAND.???” The guy obviously offended, just nodded his head. The father turned to the family & said “This is stupid, standing in the queue. Let’s go to the main road & get the taxi there.”

So, its not just Singaporeans who are ungracious. The westerners who are 'supposedly' better than we are, are sometimes not any better or worse sometimes. This family is a disgrace to their country. Ungraciousness knows no boundaries, country, race or religion.

Many of us animal lovers believe that we need to gracious to animals in order to become a gracious society. It is true. But before that, I think we first need to be gracious ourselves, to each other. If we can’t shake that I, me, myself attitude, how can we possibly be gracious to another being? And if we can’t be gracious as a human being, then how on earth can we be gracious to animals, how can we become a gracious society?