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.<\/p>\n
The Oxfam Trailwalker race is something I hope to take part in this year and so I have to\u00a0try 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\u00a0whom\u00a0was my travel companion in Vietnam.\u00a0I 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\u00a0she had sent her detailst\u00a0to me by email. Shortly after that then I got a response from\u00a0Lady 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frankly, I had expected\u00a0Lady 3\u00a0not to help because she’s SO secretive (she’s\u00a0the know-yet-don’t-know\u00a0person<\/a>\u00a0I had written about before), but I thought I’d just try my luck.\u00a0I think\u00a0Lady 2 was planning to\u00a0ignore my message but seeing that\u00a0Lady 1\u00a0had sent a message, she probably decided that it\u00a0was more polite to\u00a0send a message to\u00a0at least say no.\u00a0I mean, that’s\u00a0the very least you can do, i.e. give someone an answer and not ignore someone’s message. I\u00a0think that’s simply rude.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u00a0for 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.<\/p>\n A very simple request I made of four friends\u00a0last week certainly\u00a0revealed a lot to me.\u00a0 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\u00a0is 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\u00a0I thought –\u00a0to do for a friend.\u00a0The episode\u00a0has left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth; I don’t understand why people\u00a0have to be so guarded.\u00a0\u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … Continue reading