Excuse Me, Are You A Racist?

So I've been meaning to blog about this for a few weeks, but never did got the chance as I was busy with other stuff.

This incident happened on my flight back from Taiwan about 4 weeks ago. I was late for boarding as I was busy trying to finish using the credits I had bought for my WIFI usage. By the time I boarded the plane, I was one of the last few passengers and the flight was packed to the brim. As fate would have it, I was seated at the window, next to an old Taiwanese couple who were flying to Singapore to visit their daughter for Chinese New Year. What I did not expect was how this old Taiwanese couple would entertain/frustrate me during the flight.

I had to climb over the old couple, while I tried to stuff my huge laptop haversack, my oversized winter jacket, my paperbag with the various goodies I had bought at the airport plus the duffle bag full of Taiyang Bing and Moo Chi under the seat in front of me. I couldn't put any of the stuff into an overhead compartment as they were completely full. Of course all these bags couldn't fit under my seat, especially since I was taking budget airlines Jetstar Asia and on top of that, I already had my red trolley bag confiscated by the stewardess who was going to get it checked in. I couldn't possibly ask them to give me anymore space. So I politely tried to ask Mr Old Taiwan if I could put my duffle bag below the seat in front of him. His indignant and rather loud answer was "No, I want to put my things there later." I looked at him and saw that the only thing he was really carrying was a small black waist pouch, but decided not to argue with him. I simply climbed into my seat and tried to stuff everything under the seat in front of me. Fortunately, the passanger sitting behind me didn't make use of my seat, so I managed to stuff some things under my own seat, thus ensuring that the stewardess wouldn't scream at me when she saw how much I had carried on board.

As soon as I sat down, Mrs Old Taiwan struck up a conversation with me, asking me if this was my first trip to Taiwan and if I had been there on vacation, etc etc. I told her I had been in Taiwan for almost 10 days and did the entire island tour. She proceeded to share with me how she has been travelling to Singapore for Chinese New Year every year since her daughter married a Singaporean. Halfway through trying to explain to her where I lived in relation to where she lived, her husband, who was sitting at the aisle, turned around and asked me what dialect group I was. I thought about it for a while and said "Hokkien" He immediately launched into a tirade about how most Singaporeans are Hokkien but Hokkiens are not all that. And just because Taiwan is 70% Hokkien, it didn't mean that they were in control. He was from a minority group, but he had just as much power. He then began to tell me how Lee Kuan Yew was Hakka and Goh Chok Tong was Hokkien and how he felt since Singapore had so many Chinese, we should learn from Taiwan and implement Chinese as the national language. Chinese should cooperate and should not allow the "Lao Wai" (Caucasians) take over. He also said he felt that Mr LKY had made a mistake in allowing Malay ministers in the Parliament and having an Indian president.

Throughout this entire monologue, I kept quiet. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Here I was, flying home from a great vacation in Taiwan, having met many friendly Taiwanese people and enjoyed such a good time. Now I was faced with a 4.5 hour flight sitting next to a damn racist who was obviously passionate about his hate of everyone non-Chinese. He had his own opinions about every single dialect group and it looked like he was going to share every single one of these opinions with me. On top of that, he seemed to delight in discussing how horrendous Singaporean politics was while Taiwan politics was ironically extremely more fucked up.

I decided to feign sleepiness and turned towards the window in fake exhuastion. That seemed to silence Mr Old Taiwan and gave me a chance to catch a few winks. When I awoke an hour later, I was glad to see Mr & Mrs Old Taiwan sleeping soundly. I happily took out my NDS and started playing Mario Mini Games on it. Shortly after, Mrs Old Taiwan woke up and started to watch me play. She was actually kinda sweet, sitting quietly next to me and smiling at me as I passed the stages of the mini-games. Eventually she confessed that she found the games facinating and wondered if she could get one of these gadgets for her granddaughter.

Soon, the food trolley came by and I bought myself a 7-Up and some cup noodles since I hadn't had dinner. It was already 10 pm and after 3 hours on the flight, I was pretty thirsty and hungry. Mr Old Taiwan got up at this point and ordered a coffee for himself. He spent a good 10 minutes trying to explain to the stewardess what he wanted and seemed astonished when he realised he had to pay for the coffee. After some grumbling about how they couldn't get him coffee with milk, and trying to negotiate for cheaper coffee, he settled for a cup of normal coffee and Mrs Old Taiwan ordered a cup of tea.

When the coffee was served in one of those cardboard cups with plastic covers, Mr Old Taiwan spent another 5 minutes trying to remove the cover from the cup. He kept grumbling that he had requested for the stewardess NOT to put the cover on. I finally gave up and offered to remove the cover for him. After I had returned the now detached cup and cover to him, he began to examine the packet of sugar and creamer with great interest, constantly asking Mrs Old Taiwan which did she think was the sugar. I got tired of his nattering and told him which was which. Mr Old Taiwan then promptly poured both packets into his coffee. I silently rolled my eyes and returned to eating my noodles. We manage to survive my entire cup of noodles and my cup of fizzy without further incident.

After Ms Exasperated Air Stewardess had reclaimed the empty cups, I continued playing on my NDS while Mr & Mrs Old Taiwan discussed if the Indian fella who had just come out of the cockpit and was standing outside the lavatory was the captain. Mr Old Taiwan then remarked "If he is out here, who is flying the plane?" I barely managed to keep myself from retorting "His co-pilot?" Huddling further into my seat, I continued to ignore Mr Old Taiwan as he got up and went towards the front of the plane. Just as he got there, Ms Exasperated Air Stewardess drew the curtains across the passageway as Mr Indian Pilot entered the lavatory. This of course sparked off an argument between Mr Old Taiwan and Ms Exasperated Air Stewardess. He was getting more and more agitated while the other air crew began to crowd around him to try to calm him down.

Mr Indian Pilot exited the lavatory soon enough and Mr Old Taiwan was ushered into the tiny closet. Ms Exasperated Air Stewardess immediately came over to Mrs Old Taiwan and tried to explain to her the situation.

Ms EAS: "Excuse me Maam, was that your husband who just entered the toilet?"
Mrs OT: "Yes?"
Ms EAS: "I just wanted to explain to you that after the 9-11 incident, whenever the pilot is in the plane, no passangers are allowed near the cockpit. We tried to explain that to your husband, but he said that we were racists and bias against him because the Indian pilot looks down on him"
Mrs OT:  "Are you sure you explained this to him? And how is he supposed to know that the pilot was in the toilet? I think you did not explain to him properly!"
ME: (silently in my heart): "OMG... Were you guys not just talking about the damn INDIAN PILOT???"

Soon enough, Mr Old Taiwan came back to his seat whining and complaining about how the air stewardesses looked down on him because of Mr Indian Pilot. And that they wouldn't allow him to go to the toilet because he was Chinese.

Mr OT (Very Extremely Loudly): "This is what happens when you allow Indians to fly planes. They look down on us Chinese. Singapore is in trouble because soon all the Chinese will be looked down on. They even have an Indian as President!"
Mrs OT: "Yes, I understand. But can you please behave?"
ME(silently in my heart): "How long more do I have on this flight?????"

Later on the flight, when I was waiting my turn outside the controversial toilet, I had a chance to speak to the air crew and found them laughing over the entire incident. Ironically, all the crew on this flight was Chinese and seriously, if they were looking down on Mr Old Taiwan cos he was Chinese, wouldn't they be looking down on themselves as well?

I spent the rest of the flight hiding in my world of NDS and looking forward to seeing my bunny.