We are watching Les Misérables the movie tonight.
When Les Misérables was first brought here as a stage play, a friend’s wife (who has a reputation for looking down on people) asked if I had seen it. As she was standing quite a distance away from me and also because of the way she pronounced it (with a heavy South Asian accent), I didn’t catch what she was asking initially.
This was how the conversation then proceeded:
Me: “Pardon?”
She: (raising her voice, after making a face) “HAVE YOU WATCH LER MIS-SER-RA-BLES?!” (Pronouncing it “miserables” the way it is spelt in English, instead of the French way.)
Call me petty but I was offended. I almost screamed a scream.
She obviously thought that an Ah Beng like me would not know Les Misérables if she had said it the French way.
Sure the only culture I have may be bacteria, but I do know Les Misérables. 60 million people have seen it, bitch. My friend’s wife is in public relations but she is like many idiots who call themselves “PR professionals” but who know absolutely nothing about interpersonal relationships when push comes to shove.
The conversation above illustrates an example of scumbags who think they are so smart – correction, that they are smarter than anyone else in the world – and are smug about it.
I met two more such persons recently.
Both were reacting to my question about a camera – the Olympus OMD.
I have come across a couple of world-renowned professional photographers who have retired their entire DSLR systems to migrate to the OMD but one person I asked about the OMD retorted “Waste of money!” and the other person shut me up by saying “Olympus? Cannot make it lah!!!”
People are entitled to their opinions – and their preferences – but that’s not my point.
My points:
Number one, don’t think that because you know a smattering of French – or a little about photography, or own several cameras – you are now the world’s greatest wise-ass. I speak as an enthusiast of Broadway and West End shows since I was a child and I speak as a humble owner of Leica, and many other high end cameras.
Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance. – Robert A. Millikan
Number two, many people have simply lost the art of conversation. By telling me “Waste of money!” and “Cannot make it lah!!!” you have immediately put an end to what could have been a meaningful and even edifying discussion and debate about the merits of one camera system versus another, an exercise that may enrich the conversationalists, allowing them to learn and discover a thing or two. Rude retorts like that simply killed the conversation and aborted all future dialogs.
Number three, in this materialistic, affluent society, where we have been having it good for so long, many of us are not yet chastened by the travails of life as others in neighboring countries have experienced it. I don’t wish ill of others, but often a haughty spirit needs to be broken before a person can be truly humbled. Only then perhaps these obnoxious, arrogate jerks will be less cocky and conceited and more open to views different from their own.
My mum always warned me to keep my words sweet, for I may have to eat them.
I hope those three retards mentioned above don’t ever have to eat their words.