Should I help?

Is it me who always bump into things like this or these kind of things are just too plentiful?

This is the 3rd time I said something like “I was in the bus and…” Yeah, this again happened in the bus.

I was sitting quietly while watching tvmobile in the bus when suddenly the bus driver started yelling to a passenger at the back of the bus, that she hasn’t scan her card (means she hasn’t pay her bus fare). This girl (not a M’sian, not a S’porean, you guess the rest) then kind of reluctantly asked how much to go to xxx… The driver yelled, “90cts! 90cts!” He wasn’t very friendly, in fact he was quite harsh. I presumed he encounters this situation quite frequently, and perhaps gotten fed up by it…

And you would have thought the girl would go and pay her bus fare, but she didn’t. She just sat there, procrastinating, I supposed. It wasn’t too far from where she wanted to alight… And a while later, she walked towards me and said in Mandarin, “Miss, can you help pay for me?” I was shocked by her action and I asked without thinking, “Don’t you have money?” If she would just give me an excuse, I might, just “might” consider paying for her. The last time I encountered a similar situation with an old weird lady, I gave her the $1 she asked for without asking anything… She’s so weird that I was kind of scared that she might follow me home. She said to me after I gave her $1, “The bakchomee (a kind of noodle) at xxx is very delicious leh. I wonder if I’m lucky enough to have someone give me a treat. But I doubt so lah hor?” I just smiled and took out my handphone and pretended to sms and ignored her.

Anyway, I digressed. The girl then repeated herself, “Can you pay for me?”. I too, repeated myself, “Don’t you have money?”. She didn’t answer. She went up to other passengers in the bus and tried her luck to get people to pay for her. Nobody did. She didn’t look to me that she cannot afford the bus fare. She carried several plastic bags in her hand, looked like she just back from shopping at a market or something. If she says to me, she so happened to use up all her money without realizing it, perhaps I will pay for her. But she refused to even give an excuse, too embarrassed to say she’s very poor? I doubt so.

When the bus stopped at the next station, (she stood at the back of the bus at this point, because then it won’t appear too obvious that she’s going to alight without paying) and she hurriedly alighted. That was near where she intended to go already, if not the THE station.

The bus driver didn’t do anything. I didn’t expect him to either.

I told my colleague about this and he was certain that she definitely has the money but she just didn’t want to pay. "It’s very common in xxxxx." he said. “In xxxxx, if they can get away with it (bus fare or anything), they definitely will not pay.” When he was backpacking in xxxxx, he encountered where a bus was full, really FULL of passengers, sitting and standing. Half of the locals were then discovered that they did not pay for the bus tickets… They never intended to pay. That is really appaling…

Why do such people exist?? What would you do if you were caught in a situation like that? Would you pay for her?

90cts is not much, any of us can help her pay that, but chances are she’s not without money. It’s not worth to help someone like this.

There are just too many frauds and bad guys out there in our world now. It’s better off for us to be a little bit selfish and protect ourselves first before giving out a helping hand. Because if you’re not careful you might end up losing your that “helping hand”… This is a no.1 survival skill living in the city……