Life in America: Honest life

Honest Abe, every child's story book.

People here in Madison are generally nicer than back in Malaysia, you can't argue about that. When you walk up to a counter (let it be whatever counter you want), someone will greet you with a big smile and ask "Hi how are you?" Because you know what, they are paid to attend customers, and they are expected to greet the customers. Back in Malaysia though, and I am not saying everyone does this, but you know there are many times when a shop employee just wouldn't be bothered to give you any attention.

"Hey, may I ask where can I find X and Y and Z?"

You will get two typical responses:

1.) "Harh? I don't know la," and then the conversation ended, the person continues to do what they were initially doing.
2.) "Harh? I don't know la, let me ask my supervisor," and then the person leaves and disappear until you get tired of waiting.

So naturally, I didn't know how to respond the first few times I went into a shop when all the sudden the person at the counter asked," Hi how are you today? But I got used to it. The standard response would be "Pretty good, you?" And then the person would reply," Good, so what can I do for you?"

Somehow though, it is a very scripted line, nobody expects you to tell your grandmother story when they ask you how are you. Just say "Good" or "I'm fine" and you will do alright.


Speaking of being nice, the people here are so used to being nice to each other, they think everyone is honest and sincere. Which they are, most of the time. Several incidents led me to this discovery, such as when I wanted to buy a stack of paper from a bookstore a few weeks ago, the cashier simply asked," How many papers are there in this stack?" without even counting it. Being the honest guy I am (don't doubt, ok!) I told the person I took 10. Then he charged me the price of 10 papers, without again counting the stack.

There was also once at Walmart, during the first week I arrived at Madison, my friends and I bought some buckets and a whole chicken and many other items. Due to the difficulty or carrying everything, we put the chicken in the bucket and loaded it onto the payment counter. We forgot about the chicken in the bucket, and the cashier checked out the bucket with the scanner without checking if we put anything inside. So we got the US$5 chicken for free for dinner that day. Oh well, "Wasn't our fault," we thought.

Sometimes we feel so bad trying to take advantage of their honesty. What to do lah. Try not to do it intentionally lor. But wouldn't it be good to live in a place where everyone is just honest to each other? Then we don't have to waste so much energy trying to find out if people are cheating. Baik kan?



Till next time, cheers~