I don’t care who rules the world

I have said many times that I am a simple man … nothing fancy really. I am not into brands, I am not into cars and I avoid expensive places … I just don’t have any extra money for all these things. You will see me in my khaki shorts, singlet and sandals most of the time … occasionally when I am required to “dress up” a bit … I will put on a pair of old jeans, tee shirt and sneakers. I am most comfortable this way.

I don’t really care how people look at me … I may look like a ‘pasar malam’ (night market) trader, a coffee shop man, a hawker and there were a few times people mistaken me for an odd job worker. 

Let me tell you one funny incident. Several months ago I was fixing the roofing of my house … while taking a rest outside the house, a guy driving a nice SUV pulled beside me and asked me how much I charge to clear a blocked roof gutter. Remembering a joke I once read, I wittily told him … “Errr Mr, for this house I am working on now, I get to sleep with the owner’s wife”. Realizing that he had mistaken me as an odd job worker, he embarrassingly apologized and drove away probably laughing at himself. My amused neighbor who was listening to the conversation told me jokingly … “you lose ‘face’ lah, people “tai lei ng hei” (look down on you). I can’t blame the guy in the SUV … with a straw hat, pair of shorts and a dirty singlet, I do look like an odd job worker. 

Lose ‘face’? I am not bothered at all. To some people, ‘face’ is important … what they own, what they drive or what they wear. But I am not concerned about “face” … I don’t need to show what brands I own, what cars I drive, where I go, what clothes I wear …  I don’t need to show any status, class or prominence … simply because my values are not measured these material units.

 I remember a senior manager (in a large MNC) once told me that her car must at least be a 2-litre (2000 cc) car and worth no less than a hundred fifty thousand bucks. Her very own words … “I am a senior manager … not enough ‘face’ lah if I drive anything smaller or lesser”. She probably have some sort of formula that calculates ‘face’ value by evaluating what position one is in, to match what type of car one must own and how much it should be worth. Well, if that makes her feel good about herself … so be it.

‘Face’ … is it really that important? Maybe for many people, it is … to them ‘face’ is a stage where they show how big they can be, is an arena where they display how much they have achieved and is a platform where they walk as if they ruled the world. 

I don’t need a stage as I have nothing big to show, I don’t need an arena as I have nothing much to flaunt and I don’t need a platform to walk because I am confident of who I am, what I do (or don’t do) and how I look. I can walk anywhere ... because I don’t care who rules the world.