::footprints of ie|en

Like Mother, Like Daughter

We (hubby, lil’ junior and I) were at Kuching International Airport, queuing up to get our boarding passes at the Air Asia counter. It was a long queue and the flight attendant was doing her best to shorten the queue.

A short while later, up came this lady and her daughter, who is in her teens. They stood next to us in the line. We didn’t give them much attention at first as we thought they just wanted to read the sign posted near the counter. That is, until I heard the mother telling the daughter: Just push the trolley in front of him. He wouldn’t scold you – you are just a girl. Too bad for the both of them, my husband do understand and could speak Mandarin even though he’s an Iban. So, to their shock, my husband said in perfect Mandarin: Do you think you could please queue up?

His question was replied with a nasty look from the mother and daughter, as if saying: Why should we??

Seeing that, and without even thinking, I said: Its okay. These people never went to school. They are uneducated. They don’t know what is queuing up. To this, they finally and sheepishly (and of course not without a glare at us) pushed their trolley to the end of the line.

What irked me most was not the fact that they did not queue up even after my husband asked them to. It was the mother. How could she teach her daughter something like that? What kind of monster will the daughter grow up to be? With a mother who has got such perfect manners, and who wasted no time in teaching her daughter those perfect manners, she will probably teach her own kids the very same “values” in the future – like mother, like daughter. Perfecto! The world will end up with more monsters as such.

posted by ie|en @ 10:43 AM