Today, after I had my hair trimmed at MahatahTram, we went to Carrefour as usual, shopping for our groceries and rations. What else could you do in Alex though?
Carrefour is less cramp and congests on Friday morning, thus the best time for you to wander around whilst running through your shopping list without banging someone shopping cart or squeezing your shoulder with the locals.
We dropped and went in through the new wing of the Alex City Center. There were only few people along the aisle, one family having their breakfast at the Cilantro; a woman at her early 50s probably and group of men were having their favorites drinks at the Starbucks; the Mont Blanc boutique and Debenhams are still closed, and one nice security personnel greeting us as we entered the second door of the Center.
After briefly completed our part, in the interest of time, catching the Friday prayer, we joined the queue at one of the 8 opened counters out of 20 counters available. In Egypt, one must possess high tolerability; mentally ready for the unexpected and patience. Believed me, we only spent around 20 minutes filling up our cart, but took us about 25 minutes in the queue and another 5 minutes before I left the Cashier.
Anyway, the hiatus was psychologically entertained by two ‘frames’ of the usual Egyptian drama.
While in the queue, a very pleasant and polite Egyptian man accompanied by his wife and daughter Faridah (unusual name for Egyptian but very common to Malaysian) greeted us. He politely asked whether I preferred him to converse in Arabic or English. Certainly, I opted for English, or else it will be another scenario of a dumb and a dumber. He honestly thought that, from our appearance, we were Chinese, but I replied him with my broken ‘Arabic’, we are Malaysians working here in the oil & gas industry. Upon hearing my answer, he was very surprised that he exclaimed; “despite less popular as compared to British and Italy, you are here”. Continuing his excitement, sincerely expressed his respect, and saluted Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed for what he had done to Malaysia and the Muslim countries in general. I humbly responded; “Allahu Kaleeq” literally means Allah swt is the Creator, which is one of the positive sides of the Egyptian culture when somebody praises him. As the saying says; when you are in Rome, do what Roman do. Keep the saying aside, this is one of the good things that we should shamelessly subscribe.
It was our turned unloading our groceries and rations to the conveyor, just next to our counter, another drama commenced. It was about a boy disrespectfully jumped the queue, instigated a man at late 40s who was patiently waited for his turn since the past 20 minutes. He asked the boy to join the queue courteously. However, this arrogant and impolite vulgar, selfishly defended his case baselessly and with no sense. Henceforth, the usual scene of the drama – the shouting busted. Minutes later, one of the Carrefour’s Security personnel arrived at the scene, tried to settle the commotion amicably. Well, to cut the long story short, what frustrated me was the verdict given by the Security Personnel – the boy was not guilty - he allowed the boy to and disregarded the right of the grumbling old man. What an interesting world though!
Carrefour is less cramp and congests on Friday morning, thus the best time for you to wander around whilst running through your shopping list without banging someone shopping cart or squeezing your shoulder with the locals.
We dropped and went in through the new wing of the Alex City Center. There were only few people along the aisle, one family having their breakfast at the Cilantro; a woman at her early 50s probably and group of men were having their favorites drinks at the Starbucks; the Mont Blanc boutique and Debenhams are still closed, and one nice security personnel greeting us as we entered the second door of the Center.
After briefly completed our part, in the interest of time, catching the Friday prayer, we joined the queue at one of the 8 opened counters out of 20 counters available. In Egypt, one must possess high tolerability; mentally ready for the unexpected and patience. Believed me, we only spent around 20 minutes filling up our cart, but took us about 25 minutes in the queue and another 5 minutes before I left the Cashier.
Anyway, the hiatus was psychologically entertained by two ‘frames’ of the usual Egyptian drama.
While in the queue, a very pleasant and polite Egyptian man accompanied by his wife and daughter Faridah (unusual name for Egyptian but very common to Malaysian) greeted us. He politely asked whether I preferred him to converse in Arabic or English. Certainly, I opted for English, or else it will be another scenario of a dumb and a dumber. He honestly thought that, from our appearance, we were Chinese, but I replied him with my broken ‘Arabic’, we are Malaysians working here in the oil & gas industry. Upon hearing my answer, he was very surprised that he exclaimed; “despite less popular as compared to British and Italy, you are here”. Continuing his excitement, sincerely expressed his respect, and saluted Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed for what he had done to Malaysia and the Muslim countries in general. I humbly responded; “Allahu Kaleeq” literally means Allah swt is the Creator, which is one of the positive sides of the Egyptian culture when somebody praises him. As the saying says; when you are in Rome, do what Roman do. Keep the saying aside, this is one of the good things that we should shamelessly subscribe.
It was our turned unloading our groceries and rations to the conveyor, just next to our counter, another drama commenced. It was about a boy disrespectfully jumped the queue, instigated a man at late 40s who was patiently waited for his turn since the past 20 minutes. He asked the boy to join the queue courteously. However, this arrogant and impolite vulgar, selfishly defended his case baselessly and with no sense. Henceforth, the usual scene of the drama – the shouting busted. Minutes later, one of the Carrefour’s Security personnel arrived at the scene, tried to settle the commotion amicably. Well, to cut the long story short, what frustrated me was the verdict given by the Security Personnel – the boy was not guilty - he allowed the boy to and disregarded the right of the grumbling old man. What an interesting world though!
NOTE: Unfortunately, I could not capture both scenes because shoppers are not allowed to use their cameras whilst shopping.
1 comments:
It seem you really enjoy your assignment at Egypt.. and being an active blogger since then... Ive tried once .. but somehow not into it yet :-)
ABRAR
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