Cross-Cultural Conversations

Observations by a Malaysian studying in Australia

One Coincidence Too Many

I was waiting at the airport for the train to KL Sentral when 2 sweet and cheerful girls, donning the bright red Hotlink prepaid service t-shirt, came walking towards me. “Oh, no...promoters!” I sighed, temporarily forgetting that I’m in the same line of work, except that I get to face people wearing a purple blazer, the colour of choice among fashion rejects and flamboyant attention seekers.

“Hello!!” the bubbly voices greeted me, and automatically handed two glossy pamphlets for me to browse through. Because I know - from my own work experience - how devastating it can be to get the brush off from total strangers, I decided to just indulge them, even though I wasn’t particularly interested in the Hotlink service.

They started explaining the merits of using Hotlink while I pretended to peruse the pamphlets with the diligence of a high school student crashing for his exam. I told them I wouldn’t be using this thing much since I spend most of my time in Australia, to which they countered by enlightening me of yet another service by Hotlink that solves the inter-continental challenge between Asia and Australia. “These promoters have thought of everything… there’s no way to escape” I sighed silently.

One of the girls asked me where I lived in Australia, to which I replied Melbourne, because I know they wouldn’t have a clue where the small regional town of Geelong is. “Oh really, I’m going there too!” she replied, with the bubbly enthusiasm you’d expect from a promoter. “Oh really?” I enquired. I was getting curious. It turns out she’s going to Melbourne to further her studies and eventually we both found out we were going to the same university. “What a coincidence!” she reflected. “Yes…what a coincidence...” I lamely repeated. After the blue-haired guy incident*, this is just one coincidence too many for me.

We promised to meet up again in Melbourne, not as part-time promoters, but as full-time students. Besides, I would never want her to see me in those shocking purple blazers again.

It’s amazing sometimes how closely linked you are to total strangers. All that’s required is a little bit of introduction.


*read earlier post, What A Small World (and the generalisations I make of it)

posted by: Tembaga2 at 10:37 | link | comments (2) |

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