"I like your husband's car, I like the music he plays in his car and I like your husband"
I excuse myself to go to the Gents for 5 mins during dinner and these seemingly amorous words were whispered to the wife by a certain Japanese gent. A pudgy little married man hor, not a pretty little Manga-eyed damsel. Pity =))
Its not that I drive a Gallardo or anything, juz my humble little French Diamondback which had David Tao crooning over the OEM VDO-CDplayer. Its because the pudgy little Japanese CEO drives a Ipsum back home and probably hasn't seen anything Continental in awhile. And for the lack of any sing-song resembling Namie Amuro or Chage & Aska in my CD pocket, I thought Cheena music came closest to soothing the Nipponese. Hell you think they would dig the Red Hot Chilli Peppers meh? They look like they quit the Harajuku scene a long time ago =))
Anyway, K hosted some Japanese clients for dinner today and asked me to tag along for some makan chit-chat. You know lah I Tok-Cok King =P Apart from 2 minor boo-boos, I thought I did quite well lah putting on my song-and-dance routine.
BooBoo1 - I said all Americans were stupid (in jest) and discovered to my horror that the female legal consultant was dating a Yank =)) BooBoo2 - While engrossed in yakking, I promptly let fly half a crab claw which landed strategically on my lap, spraying chilli-juice all over my pristine pink t-shirt and pants. Conniving Crustacean! Made K look like she married a Clumsy Clutz =))
You know, the thing with Japs is, you either luv 'em or hate 'em. But I am quite the Kofi Annan lah when it comes to international relations so I don't discriminate =P Maybe I didn't live through the Japanese Occupation or had to be interrogated by the Kempetai so what do I really know hor?
But with these 3, their amicable faces and typical Japanese diplomacy aside, it was hard to imagine the atrocities their forebears inflicted on most of South-east Asia. And as we walked the length of Boat Quay towards the Merlion Park after dinner and talked about Koizumi and Yasukuni, the
Kamikaze culture, the Wax Museum display on Sentosa showing the final surrender, the War Memorial (aka Chopsticks) dedicated to our civilians who perished and my own sobering experience at the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, I could sense genuine guilt and remorse.
Anyway so much for the sad discourse. Depressing.
And oh did I tell you all about BooBoo3? I don't know if you guys are aware that Japs, thanks to the herculean efforts of our dear Tourism Board, are pretty much obsessed with that fugly creature we call the Merlion. God knows why. Anyway Mr CEO asked if we could take a walk down to see it and I said absent-mindedly that "its really a stupid ugly half-fish-half-cat you know".
That was before he said he was planning to buy some Merlion-shaped chocolates from the Airport later today.
Oh shit! =))