The Timid Takahina or the Indifferent Takahina

I went to work today on my bicycle.

You know that route, from my house, all the way down the road towards Simei ITE road, the whole stretch. Along the way, there are a few danger spots which I know.

1, the Simei entrance to PIE, and another, naturally, the Tampines Exit from PIE.

At approximately 11.15pm, I almost got into an accident on the way back, on the hotspot of Tampines Exit from PIE.

On my bicycle, I looked out to the curved road, no cars, so ok I went on. Partly I'm a little arrogant in the sense I didn't like observe the road, I just glance, no lights whatsoever, and moved on.

And just nice, a scooter just zooming into the exit, and we're damn close to hitting each other had I pedal a second slower.

Both of us left unharmed. And well, I was pissed. At the same time he was pissed.

As I finished crossing the exit, I was so very sure it's his fault. But as usual, the opposition is so very sure it's my fault. My fault for not paying more attention to the road, his fault for driving so fast into the exit. As a driver I myself drove in that exit frequently, and I'm pretty sure that there is a warning and a speed limit at that exit. 50km Speed limit, makes you able to stop in time had you seen a pedestrian cross that road.

Take it this way, had I not been on a bicycle, instead, I'm on foot.

I would have been dead. Imagine this...

Takahina, dead. The Woon Han you know, died. Before anything he knew or imagined is achieved.

The fucker driving was driving at quite a speed from what I see.

So afterwards, we both stopped. He stopped at a road in front, very obviously signalling me to stop.

I was thinking, "For what?"

I was looking pissed naturally, and well, I have no idea why he's so pissed.

So I went up to him, fucker who's a standard 30+ guy borned from a freaking normal Singaporean background of idiot who plays Mahjong every week at least once or close to that and watches football every night ... (Wait, isn't that me?)

He confronted me, saying shit like, "What?! EH you wanna die issit? Don't see the road one ar! What is that face ar?! Angry issit? What you want ah? What must you do now ar?!"

In otherwords, Kao Pei Kao Bu to da maxxxxxx..

At this point of time I had 2 choices, 1, either to just apologize to him (God knows for what reason), or I confront him back with my reasoning. Cause from whatever shit knowledge I know about, it's not the first time I crossed that road and cars appearing after I crossed the road. However!!! It's the first time a car managed to zroom past so fast while I'M on the road. They normally stop before the zebra crossing.

I mean, what's the use of a zebra crossing, if I look, saw no cars, and crossed, but still kena knocked? So zebra crossings came about, because a car knocked a zebra down and it's pattern got imprinted onto the road?

So if I kena knocked down like that, it's called Woon Han Crossing?

So I look at him, with a pissed face, saying...

"Sorry. Ok?"

He continued, "Wah, not happy ar?! What you want?"

I followed up, "Ok, I apologized, I'm sorry. What more do you want?" After that, he drove off. I carried on my way back home.

Then it was here I figured...

"Why did I apologized to him? Sure I'm at fault for not being cautious enough. But isn't he at fault too for driving too fast?"

Why did I apologize to him? 1 thing I thought.

How timid can I be, to the extent I can't stand up and challenge my point to him. I don't expect an apology from him for almost hitting me, so why must he expect an apology from me for almost letting him hit me, and get away with it!?

Somehow, I bui lun. He can lecture me a bit, but not scold me.

Then I thought again, it may not be that I'm timid, just that I'm past caring to such apologizing, and stuff. I mean, so what if I apologized? So what if I didn't apologize? The insurance company can pursue the matter, and determine from the road marks of his bikes and how fast he was traveling, I'm pretty sure I can win the case, or at least make a settlement out of court.

So I'm indifferent.

Sometimes I can't figure out things. In which timidness and indifference tends to act in hands with each other. There have been apologies which I made that aren't true hearted. There have been apologies which I didn't dare to make, but still haunts me to this day. There have been issues when I just didn't care and went away.

I guess you can say I'm somewhat a bit of an "Atas" person, or at least that's how I like to think of myself. Like any average Singaporean guy in the past, the point is the lesser things you get yourself into, the better. So timid or indifference is a good thing. But now, not really. Somehow the culture has changed to a fact that people like to stand up for themselves with their own points and views, and aren't afraid to let it EXPLODE out.

Take the fucker driver that almost made the True Takahina a Dead Takahina, if I'm the driver I would have just drove off or lecture. But not scold.

So somehow, if anyone likes to overall explain to much of their point to the extent that its absurd, I will care less about them. In otherwords,

"Fuck off you pantyhose. I can't be bothered to listen to your shit man. Watching Vasamtham channel is better than watching you."

And in my mind, that very "high high up there Barbie" feel will appear.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't listen to people, but I don't listen to threats, I don't listen to stupid opinions, points which can't convince me, although I do listen but it gets lost somewhere in the end.

I love listening to people's opinions, I listen to ideas, I listen to your whines and stuff. But, if it's shit regarding hokkien vocabulary towards me, I will be that Atas shit.

But the problem is not with me listening to you or not, the problem is why can't I get myself to express my own points when the opposition gets overly powerful?

Timidity, is a bad bad characteristic of mine. Or simply, indifference is just a characteristic which is negative in the current society, rather than it being neutral.