Thursday, November 06, 2008

Was having dinner with my mum at the coffeeshop when my mum's friends, an auntie and an old uncle, came over and started a conversation with me. *entire conversation is in cantonese and kindly translated by me.*

Auntie (A) : "Going back to camp ah?"

Me: "Yup"

A: "NS pay not very high right? My son gets only like $500++.."

Me: "Quite ok la. Depends on what you do lo. And your rank."

Uncle (U): "He's a 3 stripes leh (3rd Sergeant)"

A: "Oh? My son is 2 stripes in police (I think is corporal). So how much 3 stripes get?"

Me: "Abit more la. Less than $1000 still."

A: "Got at least $900?"

Me: "Ya... around there."

A: "Oh...."

U: "3 stripes not bad leh. Not very easy to become. Pay also better lo."

Me: "Ok lah..."

*Auntie walks off*

U: "So what you do in the army?"

Me: "I'm an engineer."

U: "Combat engineer?"

Me: "Yep, combat engineer."

U: "Wah, very xiong one leh. Need to build bridges one."

Me: "Heh, not quite lah, now quite high-tech already. Besides, I am not the type that build bridges."

U: "Oh, then what type of combat engineers you do?"

Me: "Other things lo. Not building bridges."

U: "Combat engineers got alot of types one ma, what type are you?"

Me: "Just other things lo. Heh."

*At this point, uncle becomes very emo and his face became sad*

U: "Oh... now got alot of things cannot tell other people already..."

Me: "eh... ?"

U: "Now is like that already la.... become secretive..."

*Uncle walks off* *I went ?!*

What a very emo uncle. Dunno is spy or what...

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