Colleague: Hello, [company].
Janvier (mechanical voice): [Colleague], zhao an!
Colleague: Shi me zhao an? Shi wan an!
Janvier (still mechanical voice): Ah! Dui bu qi! [Colleague], wan an!
Colleague: Wan an!
Janvier: Ni hao bu hao?!
Colleague: Wo hen hao? Ni le?
Janvier: Wo ye hen hao!
Colleague: Hen hao hen hao!
Janvier: Wo yao wen ta ni...
Colleague: Ah, shi me?
Janvier (normal voice): It's about the end of this year, when are the dates that we're supposed to be coming down...
Yes well we told our colleague we'd have to use Google Translate if we wanted to speak in Mandarin any further.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Road Rage
Right this has to be jotted down before we procrastinate any further.
So yesterday we decided to break the routine and head to FF 1 Mont Kiara instead for Klevin's Pump instead of the usual cardio classes, and on our way there we had a rather unpleasant encounter with what would be a road bully. Unpleasant in that, after a day of nothing but good things and laughter thanks to Foxtrot and The Japanese Tradition YouTubes, this one bit soured up the rest of the day.
Start with us heading down Jalan Dato Abu Bakar towards the T-junction where one would turn left to Phileo Damansara or right towards Bangsar and Hartamas. Along the way, this white Mitsubishi on the right lane makes a good show of showing that he's the kind of driver that drives aggressively, cuts into other people's lane without signaling and cutting it real fine short of causing scraped bumpers and blares his horn at you for signaling to move into the left lane just because he's currently in said lane and speeding his arse off to beat the traffic lights.
Oh well since this is Malaysia, it's quite likely that many people may have started off as good, safe drivers, but given how aggressive the drivers are over here anyone who didn't learn to drive aggressively as a form of defense against other aggressive drivers would end up spending hours on the road due to giving way to callous drivers cutting into their lanes, forcing them to drive oh so very slowly, and waiting ages in a long queue as others instead choose to drive as close to the bottleneck before cutting back into the already congested lane...
So anyways this road bully started off at us by trying to cut into our lane when he drew level, or was perhaps just a couple of inches ahead of our car. You know, that kind of cutting-into-other-people's-lane-by-edging-in-slowly-and-forcing-the-other-car-to-slow-down-or-move-into-the-next-lane-or-else-get-into-an-accident method. Soon enough he realizes that he wouldn't be able to cut in that way and so he cuts in behind us.
That kind of overtaking could be expected on the road, really.
Then later on as we arrived at the traffic lights at said T-junction, we were on the leftmost lane, just slightly ahead of the left exit to Phileo Damansara. Said road bully so happens to be behind us and wants to take the exit.
Instead of waiting for a green light, so that we could move ahead and he could head his own way, he decided that he couldn't wait and honked for us to move forward and make space for him to squeeze into the exit lane.
(We understand that this description is not easy to picture unless one is rather familiar with said location.)
Anyways. Fellow honks us to move forward. We can't move forward unless we want to knock the bumper of the car in front of us, so we didn't budge. Fellow honks again and for longer.
And the next thing you know said road bully decides to go ahead and squeeze in, and somehow manages to squeeze between the curb and our car...
...And proceeds to wind down his window and hammer on our front passenger window, before driving off down Phileo Damansara.
Whoa. That's a first.
Since he had to squeeze his way through, we had enough time to whip out our iPhone and jot down his car plate number. We then proceeded on to 1 Mont Kiara, and after a quick chat with the Chief (via Whatsapp) and a gym friend, it was agreed upon that this would count as road bully behaviour. However, we weren't sure just what we could achieve by reporting this incident as we weren't hurt and Aidan wasn't damaged (save for the road bully's oily smudge of his knuckles on the window).
So after gym and dinner, we headed off to our nearby police station and made a report. We thought it best to give ourself a measure of protection - if we should cross paths with him again and things took a turn for the worse, we would have a report to back us up. Also it would be good to help others - we're thinking that if someone else falls victim to him then our report might confirm his behaviour.
Armed with his car plate number, we walked into the station to make our report. Sitting at the counter, the officer took our statement, we showed her using our iPhone Maps where the incident took place, and then proceeded to open Notes to show the information we took down.
Before she looked at the note, the officer wanted to see the location again (she probably wasn't too familiar with the area), hence we switched back to Maps. The iPhone was on the table facing her. Once she was done, we switched back to Notes - only we had accidentally touched the screen somehow and was about to send the note as an email - the draft screen appeared.
We wanted to cancel the draft, and at the pop-up asking us if we wanted to delete the draft we tapped the red 'Delete Draft' button...
...only...
...our note seemed to have disappeared as well. Somehow the note got deleted as well. And we couldn't remember the car plate number save for a couple of letters (which was why we wrote the note in the first place).
The disappointment, despair and embarrassment we suffered at such misfortune! To be let down at the last minute!
In the end the officer did continue on to finish the report, and then provided us with the station's telephone number in case of anything. So we guess, this is the best there is for now.
At least we're thankful that it didn't lead to any fights nor damage to our car!
So yesterday we decided to break the routine and head to FF 1 Mont Kiara instead for Klevin's Pump instead of the usual cardio classes, and on our way there we had a rather unpleasant encounter with what would be a road bully. Unpleasant in that, after a day of nothing but good things and laughter thanks to Foxtrot and The Japanese Tradition YouTubes, this one bit soured up the rest of the day.
Start with us heading down Jalan Dato Abu Bakar towards the T-junction where one would turn left to Phileo Damansara or right towards Bangsar and Hartamas. Along the way, this white Mitsubishi on the right lane makes a good show of showing that he's the kind of driver that drives aggressively, cuts into other people's lane without signaling and cutting it real fine short of causing scraped bumpers and blares his horn at you for signaling to move into the left lane just because he's currently in said lane and speeding his arse off to beat the traffic lights.
Oh well since this is Malaysia, it's quite likely that many people may have started off as good, safe drivers, but given how aggressive the drivers are over here anyone who didn't learn to drive aggressively as a form of defense against other aggressive drivers would end up spending hours on the road due to giving way to callous drivers cutting into their lanes, forcing them to drive oh so very slowly, and waiting ages in a long queue as others instead choose to drive as close to the bottleneck before cutting back into the already congested lane...
So anyways this road bully started off at us by trying to cut into our lane when he drew level, or was perhaps just a couple of inches ahead of our car. You know, that kind of cutting-into-other-people's-lane-by-edging-in-slowly-and-forcing-the-other-car-to-slow-down-or-move-into-the-next-lane-or-else-get-into-an-accident method. Soon enough he realizes that he wouldn't be able to cut in that way and so he cuts in behind us.
That kind of overtaking could be expected on the road, really.
Then later on as we arrived at the traffic lights at said T-junction, we were on the leftmost lane, just slightly ahead of the left exit to Phileo Damansara. Said road bully so happens to be behind us and wants to take the exit.
Instead of waiting for a green light, so that we could move ahead and he could head his own way, he decided that he couldn't wait and honked for us to move forward and make space for him to squeeze into the exit lane.
(We understand that this description is not easy to picture unless one is rather familiar with said location.)
Anyways. Fellow honks us to move forward. We can't move forward unless we want to knock the bumper of the car in front of us, so we didn't budge. Fellow honks again and for longer.
And the next thing you know said road bully decides to go ahead and squeeze in, and somehow manages to squeeze between the curb and our car...
...And proceeds to wind down his window and hammer on our front passenger window, before driving off down Phileo Damansara.
Whoa. That's a first.
Since he had to squeeze his way through, we had enough time to whip out our iPhone and jot down his car plate number. We then proceeded on to 1 Mont Kiara, and after a quick chat with the Chief (via Whatsapp) and a gym friend, it was agreed upon that this would count as road bully behaviour. However, we weren't sure just what we could achieve by reporting this incident as we weren't hurt and Aidan wasn't damaged (save for the road bully's oily smudge of his knuckles on the window).
So after gym and dinner, we headed off to our nearby police station and made a report. We thought it best to give ourself a measure of protection - if we should cross paths with him again and things took a turn for the worse, we would have a report to back us up. Also it would be good to help others - we're thinking that if someone else falls victim to him then our report might confirm his behaviour.
Armed with his car plate number, we walked into the station to make our report. Sitting at the counter, the officer took our statement, we showed her using our iPhone Maps where the incident took place, and then proceeded to open Notes to show the information we took down.
Before she looked at the note, the officer wanted to see the location again (she probably wasn't too familiar with the area), hence we switched back to Maps. The iPhone was on the table facing her. Once she was done, we switched back to Notes - only we had accidentally touched the screen somehow and was about to send the note as an email - the draft screen appeared.
We wanted to cancel the draft, and at the pop-up asking us if we wanted to delete the draft we tapped the red 'Delete Draft' button...
...only...
...our note seemed to have disappeared as well. Somehow the note got deleted as well. And we couldn't remember the car plate number save for a couple of letters (which was why we wrote the note in the first place).
The disappointment, despair and embarrassment we suffered at such misfortune! To be let down at the last minute!
In the end the officer did continue on to finish the report, and then provided us with the station's telephone number in case of anything. So we guess, this is the best there is for now.
At least we're thankful that it didn't lead to any fights nor damage to our car!
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