Some things are meant not to be said

Alright. I might just get bashed up for writing this post but let me just say right from the start that this is purely from my own personal experience and from my own point of view and it is more towards the person in question and not to criticise the whole race, so to speak.

Today, one of my colleagues suddenly gloated to all the rest of us that the only reason that Singapore Table Tennis players could beat the China players was because the Chinese officials in-charge had sent out young and inexperienced players and not those that were already well exposed and National Champions don't know how many times over.

Almost immediately, the whole air around us became very tense and it became like a Singapore Vs China kind of conversation, a my-country-is-better-than-yours kind of conversation. One of my other colleagues , let's call her Colleague 2, was very sarcastic by telling her, "Yes, we do not have enough talents and so have to buy talent from overseas, like China...many of our sports talents are foreigners, etc, etc.

Silly me also went on to explain that there is absolutely nothing wrong with foreign talent. That was a common thing. I told them to look at soccer and some other sport like that. They have lots of players who do not belong to that country but are playing for that team because the money is good. I suppose at that point of time, I missed the point totally and was perhaps trying to tell that other teacher that she did not have to explain why we have foreign talents winning the game for us.

Our dear friend continued gloating by saying that there is no way that Singapore was going to win if not for that fact that the China team gave us a chance. Ha!! The whole place was getting heated up and was started to feel like a war zone.

Then comes Colleague 3 (she is also from China) who says it best of all, "It does not matter who wins, what is most important is that we (the Chinese) won. That was when I felt that I was given a slap on the face and realised that the last laugh was on the colleague who was laughing and gloating at us, our country.

For what Colleague 3 said was right. Either way, the Chinese still win, Singapore or otherwise, for they are all Chinese nationals! It is like the gloating colleague was giving herself a slap on her own face. Instead of getting the kind of reaction that she wanted, she had embarrassed and humiliated herself.

Sigh...I tell you, if she were in Australia, maybe she would learn to be more low key than this. Anyway, I knew that I did when I was there many yonks back.

Well, this gloating colleague of mine can sometimes be nice but I suppose she still misses home and like most of us, patriotic to her home country.