DJ on life: Ah Keong~

"To err is to be human, to forgive is divine" If that were true, I think I just experienced humanity and divinity, both together at the same time.

If you think that just because you’re e paying RM12200 for each subject you enrolled, you’ll get knowledge? No doubt you will. Academically, it’s a big “Yes”. Life wise? I don’t think so. I think we could agree that there’ll come a time where academic knowledge is pointless in life, and that life lesson is more valuable. Reason? It’s simply because life lesson is obtained through many years of experience. It could be 30 years, 40 years…who knows?

Still skeptical? Put it this way, “By studying, I may loose to you, but to survive and being successful in this world? I guarantee you I’m no lower than you.” Think about this phrase and relate to what I said earlier. Does it make any sense to you? If life lesion were to be more valuable than academic lesson, I think I just got lucky. Why? It’s because I learnt this lesson off the class, through a hawker, someone who’s always being regarded as uneducated. But mind you, these people are just as educated as any of us is. Papers are just decorations on a visa when it comes to the real world. Veterans will strongly agree on this point. The thought of hawker are uneducated people is just purely human perception without any solid and concrete evidence.

It’s 16th of May, and I’m in charge of food and beverages in this college event, known as C2AGE. Well, I managed to convinced them to turn up for the event. Am competent in communicating? I have just proven myself. All things are well, at least for now…..

To cut long story short, this hawker was placed a bit far from the event venue. To be frank, I t wasn’t a fair game for him because there were more stalls inside the venue. Put it this way, the crowd was never near him at all.

Working non-stop for more than 24 hours, exhausted and tired, he was already loosing his temper with much flowered language, of course. What more? He has zero sales and it’s been 4 hours since he has been here. After trying 13 times to call me but greeted by failure because I was busy doing emcee, he just wanted to quit, pack up and hit the hay sack. But somehow, he stayed. Bare in mind that he’s already superbly pissed. Any passerby would probably sympathize and perceive that he’s being unreasonable. On the other hand, I really empathize his position and I think he has every rights to be reasonable. And for him to stay on with these conditions was just a miracle.

It’s 5, the event is about to end, still very little sales, not to mention profit. A call came, it was the pissed hawker. However reluctant to meet him, I went anyway. I didn’t wanted to meet him is because it just the same as walking in to a lion’s den.

It started off very coldly, not to mention that it was also raining. Knowing that more communication doesn’t always solve any problem ( at least in this case), I kept quiet. The wisest thing for me to do now is just listening. Trust me, it was way harder than I expected.

Expecting him to give me a big tight slap on the face and leave, he gave me a lecture instead. He started to tell me how things should be done, angrily of course. Well, put it this way, he’s giving me another chance, and all he’s asking is just to make enough money to patch up his petrol fee, a rather simple request. At this point, I knew that action speaks louder than words, and it’s a now or never situation.

Well, I gave him what he wanted, or should I say what he needed. I took the whole organizing committee out to his stall, and he was more than happy to see a stream of black t-shirts walking towards his stall. I saw the ticket, I took it, and I ran into the train.
On that “train”, I wondered why he didn’t pack up and leave when he had the chance. I had that mind blogging question in mind, and it was soon answered when he and I had a small chat while I was eating at this stall.

I guess I have a theory to propose, or rather a perception at this point of time, that is “All strangers can and always can communicate, as long as they have empathy towards each other.” He stayed because he knew that I was still young and I lost because of experience deficiency, and he knew that to blame me for his poor sale was just too poor of him. He stayed because he wanted to give me another chance, and that he looked at the bigger picture and he knew my position very well. On the other hand, I knew about his position and I simply acted upon it.

In the end, with each other’s phone number in each other’s phone, contented, we parted ways waving to each other. At that very second I knew that I could make an angry terrorist to my new good friend. I experienced the humanity side of him, that is anger and disappointment. What about the divine part of him? Well, he was just too God-like to skip the details and teach me new tricks for life.

That is what I call divinity!

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-DJ Damian Thomas Khaw-