On Tuesday 8 May, the Oxfam Trailwalker Hong Kong lottery was open for registration for the 100-km charity race that takes place on 16 Nov 2012. As there are many people who want to get a spot to take part in this event, each person is allowed to submit a form to get a spot for their team. To increase the chances of your team in getting a spot, each of the four team members will usually send in a form with their name and three other dummy names. Why so? Because each person’s name can only appear in the ballot once. The main thing is that if you get a spot, you can change the names of your team members to the actual people who will be taking part. Hence dummy names are there just to make numbers.
The Oxfam Trailwalker race is something I hope to take part in this year and so I have to try my luck in applying for a spot. For the dummy names, I had to submit three other people’s names and personal particulars such as date of birth, ID number, address, telephone and email address. So I thought, OK, let me ask the three Hong Kong ladies I hike the most often with, one of whom was my travel companion in Vietnam. I sent them a Facebook message asking them if they could help, but got no response for two days. On the third day, Lady 1, my travel companion, sent a Facebook message saying that she had sent her detailst to me by email. Shortly after that then I got a response from Lady 2, but it was to say sorry that she wasn’t comfortable revealing those details and couldn’t help. Lady 3 has completely ignored my message altogether.
Frankly, I had expected Lady 3 not to help because she’s SO secretive (she’s the know-yet-don’t-know person I had written about before), but I thought I’d just try my luck. I think Lady 2 was planning to ignore my message but seeing that Lady 1 had sent a message, she probably decided that it was more polite to send a message to at least say no. I mean, that’s the very least you can do, i.e. give someone an answer and not ignore someone’s message. I think that’s simply rude.
I then asked another Singaporean hiking friend, a guy in his early 40s. I got the same response – not comfortable with revealing these details. To be honest, while I can respect their decision, I can’t say I understand it. It’s a very simple request that really isn’t asking for any more details than what you’d fill in on many forms that aren’t highly confidential or private. And this is for a legitimate cause! Perhaps they are just not comfortable with friends knowing their details (but come on, I know how old that guy is and where he lives). His actions just make me think he is what we’d call in Singapore <i>kiasi</i> (scared of getting into trouble) and has no balls whatsoever. A mutual friend of ours said it’s because this guy is the quintessential product of the Singapore civil service. Bleh.
A very simple request I made of four friends last week certainly revealed a lot to me. I know I have to respect that everyone is different with what they are comfortable in revealing, but frankly, I’m disappointed in them nonetheless. This is probably because I’m measuring people against what I would do. If someone had asked the same of me, I’d have given my details straight away for the simple fact that it’s a simple favour – or so I thought – to do for a friend. The episode has left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth; I don’t understand why people have to be so guarded. I don’t like people like that – they are not real. Or is it just me being too naive and open with people? I guess the episode has shown me where these people really stand as friends.
