Rudy Yuan’s Streak oF BluE

Beijing’s main airport is called Beijing Capital International Airport, which was definitely a big airport. Its International Terminal 3 was the second largest terminal in the world after Dubai’s International Terminal 3 (Wikipedia).

So, on one of my flights from this Airport, I got a chance to look at the Terminal 3E. It was definitely huge. I had no problem reaching the designated gate for my flights after I passed through the immigration since there were lots of signs to guide me. But as I got bored waiting in one of the many gates in the 3E terminal, I decided to take a walk and got lost! I had never got lost in airport before, even if it’s new to me, like the one in Hongkong or Guangzhou. Even I spent one and half hour of walking through the terminal, I had the nagging feeling that I had not seen it all.

–00–

In that day in the terminal, I overheard something interesting.

I was walking through a long hallway looking for my gate when I saw two men walking in front of me. One was Indian and the other was Chinese, but I concluded both were of Singapore nationality.

Indian: Wait, I need to rest my arms and feet. This airport is crazily gigantic. (He was carrying a baggage at that time, dragging it with him all along)

Chinese: (laugh) okay. Yeah, they surely built this huge.

Indian: Yeah. The way they do things is when they build something, they do it grandly. This airport is no exception.

Chinese: Yeah. In contradiction though, we in Singapore try to make everything compact (this of course refers to the little land Singapore has)

Indonesian (oh, who was I) in his heart: Wow, we Indonesian also build compact utilitarian sad cheap(?) buildings! Despite the fact we have relatively big landmass.. We just don’t have many financial options.

Oh God, how sad is that? There were free drinking water dispensers all over the airport, while we couldn’t even find automatic vending machine anywhere in Jakarta (just recently in busway stops, which you still have to buy through the operator).

And even though Singapore has a compact airport, it’s still much better and bigger than Cengkareng.

What happened to our country? What’s the huge natural and human resources doing?

I’m not nationalist. I just wonder where we got it all wrong.

And don’t you dare reply me with the philosophical motivational (accusatory) responses like: it should start with you, what have you contributed?

*KICK

I haven’t lived my life in regretful ways. I could say I had averagely done my best in life: getting the right friends, getting the right educations, getting the right laptops, getting the right cell phones (all is probably exaggerated).

It doesn’t mean that I always get the best in life. My friends are not definitely the best. (TS is a pedophile. MA is a pee-in-a-bottle person. GC is a little bit too good at accounting. R is pervert. ETC)

And MIT is surely much better than my college. But I’d say that I went to my college without regret. Now, if I look back to times I have spent in that college, with friends and everything, I’d say that I don’t regret that I didn’t go the NTU or MIT instead (speaking like I ever had any chance in gettin into any of those.. lol).

I’d say the same about pretty much everything. I put what belongs to the past in the past. Regretting is getting me nowhere.

But if I had given the chance to change something in my life, there would be some several of these:

1.Change my name

I would gladly have a surname! Officially I am registered without any surname.

This has been a source of problem to me especially administratively. Imagine you discuss about someone in a scene like this.

“ Do you remember Rudy? The one that’s excessively handsome back in the high school”

“Which one? There are 3 Rudys back in high school. Which Rudy?”

“Aah, he doesn’t have any surname!”

Bug me…

But well enough, people sometimes know me by nickname and recently by the name I added myself for distinguishing myself. But it doesn’t help when I have to deal with things like buying things online, applying for Visa, opening new bank accounts, etc.

2.Change my birth date on my birth certificate

Not many people know this, but I have different birthday date. I was actually born one month earlier than the date stated in my birth certificate. It has something to do with my parents’ fault in late registering my date.

Imagine a scene like this.

… I was visiting a foreign country alone. I met a friend who was in the same batch with me during out training days in Singapore. And we were booked in the same hotel so we went quite frequently together for dinner. I would sometimes take my passport out to ease the space in my pocket. He would take a look and make a mental note that my birthday, the official but not a true one, was coming near.

In the untrue official birthday, he surprised me by buying a cake, in getting which, I know, would have cost him quite some trouble. He didn’t speak the country’s language, and the countrymen spoke little English. And he brought all the candles and birthday paper crown. And he lighted the candles for you and made me make wishes and blow all the candles. What was I supposed to say? That it was not my birthday? That it was a month ago?

It is a true story.

3.My friends

I’m kidding. LOL

4.My parents

LOL. I sometimes imagine what if I were born out of a super wealthy family. I could and would do so much in life that I hadn’t had chance to. Like, owning a Super Nintendo during childhood, going yachting, had a superhuge house, had an early knowledge on sex practice (wrong, i DID know it early), etc.

But I love my parents. They’re the best. And if I had lived differently, I wouldn’t have this awesome character as I am having right now. lol

5.Enough!

I should not be talking bad about anybody, especially not about the companies that are paying my salary either directly or indirectly.

But this company’s safety department pissed me off. And I want to strike back through this blog. It’s not courageous or even useful to play behind their back, but I need something to vent off my steam.

– oo — so –

The company is a world-class American company. It happened that I visited their base in China for some work purposes.

So here goes the story.

This new base in China had big workshop area, where, according to the company’s safety regulations, all persons working inside should wear several personal protective equipment (hard hat is a must, then safety boots and coveralls). Persons without any safety equipment could still pass through the area provided they stayed inside the green zone.

Sometimes I needed to go to the workshop to take care of some things, which were scattered on a spot not far from the door to the workshop and it’s far away from any activities and very close to the green zone. So rather than wearing a hard hat, which would surely ruin my hairdo put together with so much effort in the morning (lol), I’d usually go to the spot with casual attire without hard hat but still with a safety boot (which I thought didn’t ruin my look that much and provided enough fashion needed in the work area *grin*).

So this one day I worked like usual in the spot, getting inside a big wooden box to sort some inventory. And then I noticed that a little lady was walking through the area with casual attire some distant away (she wore a hard hat though). Casual attire usually means it was somebody who came from the office across the workshop who commonly didn’t work in the workshop. So I thought it was probably the person from the office trying to check on some inventory too. And so I continued my work.

Not five minutes later I heard a camera-clicking sound. I looked up and saw that little lady take a picture of me. My super brain quickly realized that she was actually a safety officer and I didn’t wear a hard hat!

She came to me and started to talk condescendingly in Chinese. She had this stern face to emphasize that she was serious, that she could kill to mean what she said.

And I, with my innocent face, told her in slow English that I couldn’t understand Chinese well. She obviously showed disbelief expression, probably thinking I was making a joke. “He had Chinese features all over but he claimed he didn’t speak Chinese? This cute man had to be teasing me” was probably what she had in mind.

But she replied in English anyway.
‘You can not speak Chinese? Where are you from? What division are you from?” She spoke with apparent difficulty, still with stern face and sharp tone, like a wife demanding where her husband has been after he shows up late at night with a lipstick mark on the collar of his shirt.

I replied, ‘Indonesia’ (shit, I should have said some other country, shouldn’t I? Philippines? Thailand? Shit)

‘Indonesia?’ she looked at me still with the stern expression and I looked back to her still with innocent face. ‘Do you know that …bgaifaoeidnandjsf minimum requirement jsndfoiawen hat dfnasfaiaiweawi..’

She obviously wanted to feel superior as she needed to stress the importance of wearing correct protective equipment while working in the workshop. But her poor English undermined her own effort. I could not catch the entire sentence as she pronounced it with difficulty yet real fast (didn’t want to lose her superior ground, obviously). As a result, she spoke like she was sobbing, only her face wasn’t sad at all, but rather it’s like a face that’s ready to wage a humanitarian war.

Safety issues could bring serious implications. So rather than having an argument with her, I chose to leave the scene and looked for a hat, but my hatred did grow inside for this little condescending lady. Almost all safety officers had this made-up air of authority to impose safety regulations on employees. Probably they were so idling in the office that they found it necessary to show off their superiority and the importance of their existence by doing trivial matters, bringing up unimportant warnings, etc. I never disliked them, as long as they didn’t press on illogical things.

Illogical things like I had just had.

The workshop was hot. It was crazy to wear hard hat, which in that kind of weather then would surely make your head pound in dizziness as you had to do hand labor. Which is saver: to work with clear head or dizzy head with a stupid hard hat?

And by stupid hard hat I didn’t mean to say that we didn’t need it. In my circumstances, they were no flying objects, no overhead heavy machinery movement (it’s at the other part of the workshop), no heavy falling objects hazard, ONLY HEAT. What’s a hard hat to do on the top of my head for?

And the most inexcusable thing of all was that she took my picture; so she could boast to her boss, or the company’s high executives, or use it in safety presentation, that she had captured an example of an ignorant worker who disregarded safety that could bring an end to his life, which I think the viewer would find it impossible once they look at my intelligence face, which goes in sync with my intelligence mind, which stated that the hard hat was a stupid thing to fuss about. The more important aspect of the picture is the fact that it will compromise my flawless image!! (but then, define flawless.. :D)

But still you must never confront a safety issue when the regulations are written clearly. I couldn’t do anything but went to the safe area and asked anybody if they had extra hat. And I could fire back with this blog…

I saw her again this morning taking some guys, probably from a contractor, around the workshop. I didn’t wear safety hat again this time, but I escaped her just right when she was far away. When I came back with safety hat to work, she was standing with a woman and a man who didn’t wear safety hat at all, even further away from the place I worked, which means it would have bigger hazard from heavy falling objects. And I wanted to come to her to shout, ‘SAFETY HAT ARR, LADY, DON’T YOU KNOW IT’S A MINIMUM REQUIREMENT TO WEAR A HAT IN WORKSHOP AREA?’

But judging from her poor English and the analysis that confronting a safety officer wouldn’t bring any good cause, I spared her the momentary humiliation. Or some of you would say I don’t have enough guts… or the balls (we all don’t have, buddies.. I’m definitely not alone..! lol)

…

It turned out that the couple of guys were sent to install some safety notices around the buildings.

Here’s an excerpt of the safety regulations pasted just this morning.

Here’s the definition of GROVE from Encarta Dictionaries:

So what is ‘hand groves’? HAND GROUPS OF TREES? HAND ORCHARD? Do they plant trees in an orchard as a side business???

Here’s the definition of PRODUCE: (look for the meaning of it as a noun)

Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

OH, Groves and Produce do go along, but since when the company went for agricultural business?!

STUPID.

Translating back from the Mandarin, what it’s supposed to mean is: Soiled hand GLOVES, rags, and waste PRODUCT, STUPID.

And how can you require the parked vehicles to back into the parking lot? It would have saved their asses if they had known the phrase “Reverse Parking”.

I don’t know who made the regulations and who’s even stupider to approve it, but I’d like to think she was the stupid head.

Fyuh, somehow I feel better. I just need to squeeze out something bad into her face, then the grudge between us would be relieved.