Over a Cup of Tea-O

OG. The last time I had seen him was more than 5 years ago. Finally, recently he can make it for a brief meet-up. He is that busy. He is a businessman now and has to travel so frequently, for his business is still expanding over some countries (primarily China). He is now earning by millions per year. Wow! I "need" to mention lightly on his wealth to enhance this humbleness. He still stays at a HDB flat, we still drink at kopitiam and we still make silly small talks. Haha..

We have known each other for about 14 years and we were living together for a year. He was my room-mate during my first year in uni. Throughout his three years in uni, we were still staying in the same block, as we got single-room after our first year. So, I kind of know him pretty well. I remember how he got so drunk, how he aspired to assume high position in the hall, how he was struck by Cupid’s arrow, how he was so sick and practically lay on his bed like a log for about two days, etc. Rather memorable.

Unlike these days, we didn't know our room-mate until the first day we checked in. Our room-mate was more or less randomly allocated. How exciting to think of going to stay with someone, entirely a stranger, in a not-too-big room, for a year?! Nevertheless, we got along pretty well, despite that we were in different faculty and pursuit really different interests. Oh, I can easily help him in his mathematics modules in his faculty too. :P

I didn’t know we took so long to drink a cup of tea-o. Maybe our focus was never on the tea-o. We just sip it to keep our mouth not-too-dry, so that we can continue talking and talking. Haha..

I just marvelled at how easy, we from total strangers have become close pals.
从陌生到熟悉，那是一种很美妙的感觉。
若是从熟悉到陌生，那却是 ......

Oh, he was sharing with me something and so now I am also sharing with some of my readers.

(1) If we think S'pore is very competitive, wait till we see China. How many university graduates they are producing in a year?

(2) If we think the housing in Singapore is expensive.. *ahem.. the housing in China cities isn't too cheap either. He briefly calculated that a some-what 4-room flat-look-alike unit may cost SGD200000 ++. And that's very much like Singapore's. Yet a normal uni-grad may take a monthly salary of slightly above SGD1000 only. They are really working very hard for a roof over their heads (the basic of all necessities). Okay, the car pricing is half of ours.

(3) Because of reasons like (1) and (2), people really study very hard and work very hard. It's so competitive. Their working attitude is unmatchable. In fact, some of my friends / colleagues from China find it not easy to survive there too and that is one of the reasons why they are here with us.

People, if we are only thinking of "getting a life" now, take it so easy and enjoy yourself so much, what kind of "life" you want at a later part of your life?

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