**WARNING! Highly sensitive blog post! If you are a devout christian, PLEASE do not read this !**
I never woke up today, expecting the day to be different than any other. It should have been the same as every other, honestly. But oh, how mistaken I was :)
As some of you know, I now work part time in a coffee shop. Dealing with customers is something i've been doing for several months, until I categorized customers based on their type :-
Type A : "I just want to chill" customers
Usually, this type are retirees and students. They came, order one awesome cappuccino ice blended or a hazelnut white coffee, maybe a sandwich or two, sit down on their computer or read a paper. They never worry much about anything else, just want some piece and quiet. I usually say a simple hi and let them do their own work. Type A is the easiest type of customer.
Type B : "I am here to eat" customer
Type B customers are there for a straight forward purpose. To eat, and leave. They have minimal comments, unless they waited half hour for their food and its still not there. They eat, pay, leave several cents of tips, and walk off. We see them again the next day. Pretty straight forward.
Type C: "I want my money's worth"
This are the "I will only pay for what is worth the money" customer. They are food critics. They eat, tell you what is nice, what is not, and how things could be improved. I honestly like customers like this. And if they think the food is really lousy, they will complain a lot. Fortunately, this doesn't happen much.
Type D : "Chris Ee" customers
While it is named after a good friend of mine, nice lad, but when it comes to the restaurant, he is horrible.Type D customers tend to make everything worst. If they do not get their food in 15 minutes, they start shouting and scolding people, making stupid comments like "If you cannot boil egg in 5 minutes what for open shop!? stupid!". They fail to realize when you boil ALOT of eggs, it takes longer. The most annoying type of customers. Generally disliked by everyone. ( i love you, if you by ANY chance read this! don't marah! lol )
I thought there was only 4 types of customers, but i was so wrong. The 5th type, "The Racist" customers, are the worst. I can patiently take many Chris Ee, but the racist comment i received today totally pissed me off. I was pretty impressed i could keep my cool and walk away. I was told, "You are Indian, how can you work in hainanese shop?" Look, even blogger gave me a spelling error on hainanese! It doesn't give me one for Indian!!! Ok back to the topic :P Seriously, because i am an Indian, i cannot learn others culture? I cannot be a malaysian and work in a coffee shop? So what are Indians expected to do ? Collect garbage and build train tracks? Toreh getah? Typical Indian work, right ?
Yes, the comment might not be much, when you look at it from a chinese person point of view. So is the comment "balik negara asal lah." Yet, that comment stirred up so much issues. I suppose when you are the one receiving such an insult, directly, not jokingly, then you would get how bad it was.
The stupid bunch of 6 chinese men made my mood bad for a long time. Until somebody came and cheered me up. A pastor :) ! Now, how often do you get to talk to a Pastor, about you're own religion? Not Hinduism, obviously not. Vishulism, of course :P LMAO! yes, i enjoyed myself, surely. The conversation started like this
Pastor : Vishul, are you a Christian?
Me: No
Pastor : A Hindu then?
Me: No
Pastor : Freethinker then?
Me : erm...actually, Not really.
The Pastor went a bit confused then, before he asked me what am i? I swear to God (oops,god :P) that i SOOOOO nearly answered "Vishulism. Wanna learn more?"
The Pastor was trying to tell me that God died for me. That God, in the form of his son, (or something like that) died for me. And 3 days later, rose from his grave. Ok, this part did happened. I told him. "If he rose back alive, he didn't quite die didn't he?"
But somehow, the Pastor insisted that he died. The pastor probably thought i had no idea about Christianity at all, so he was spending some time telling me about the Holy Cross, and Jesus Christ.
As i was working, I wanted to end the conversation quickly. I told the pastor, that I too, talk to God everyday. I do not believe in religion for each has a different story for God. I believe if there is God, there is only one, and whoever that is, I pray to him.
Then, the priest asked me, am i praying the right way? I asked him back, " you mean, there is such a thing called, praying the WRONG way? " He then quoted something from the bible, about "Through me, you reach God" or something like that, the one Jesus said ( you guys look it up! ) According to the Bible, it indicates that God said only those who go through Jesus and prays using the method set and fixed by the Bible gets to go to heaven. I then told him, that if that is true, God isn't so great, because he doesn't just want us to be good, he also wants us to worship him, following a certain standard method/formula/style that has been fixed. erm, actually er, Bro (upper case, i'm so nice), isn't that a bit vain ? Come on, you're like, the All-Awesome, and you want people to worship you :S ? A bit, contradicting, ain't it ????
I then told the Pastor, that God would understand us, no matter in what language we pray. Will he still insist that it has to be Jesus, i asked him, "What about those who call his Yeshua? or Hesus? Still his name, in different language, no? So to me, if God's name is Jesus, so i pray to God. Thinking like an Engineer :-
God = Jesus
Pray to God = Pray to Jesus
And yes, i told the Pastor the equation. LOL! And i asked him back, "Would God be so merciless, to punish us for not using the name, Jesus?" He actually smiled, and quoted another line from the Bible. ( I hope its the bible, i have no idea, if its something bad, i'm fucked :S ) . The Pastor said he saw God. Yeah, i too met Ironman. Fought with him as well. Wasn't easy, i know.
Dreams can do wonders.
He did leave, shaked my hand, and left saying he'll pray for me. I told him, yes, please do. And somehow, that entire incident just made my day :) I was happy :) !
Obviously, the Pastor wanted me to be a Christian. Not sure how it is in other countries, but in here, they go house to house spreading Christianity. I once went to a church (don't ask me why i went, then again, the girl was uber hot, wasn't wasted ! Too bad i'd not see her again. lol ). The church i went too, the Reverend/Priest/Pastor from international school of some priest something, (You can tell from just this, how distracting that girl was), said this exact line in one of his talks...or mass, you guys call it ? I could be wrong on the word, but this line, was exact.
"If you are a Christian, you should be fishing. If not, something is fishy about you."
It is good to spread religion, but everyone has their own rights, believes, and faith. While it is wrong to "fish" those from other religion, it is not wrong to try to get those with no faith towards God, to believe in Him. That, they are doing a good job. I hope they do keep it up then.
Yeah, i told the Pastor, I talk to God everyday. I just missed out the part, for making my life so miserable, i hate Him :P