Courage

I guess we've all receive the email about the Parang Hi-jack incident in One Utama right ? I've personally sent it to some of you. (No ? Then you must be some pathetic bastard with no friends. Joking, joking. Haha)

Anyway, for those who have not seen it, here you go:

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Dear all,

You must have wondered why I asked of Carrie's help to send the following message to all of you. Please take serious note in what I am going to tell you here. I would say that yesterday was a lucky day to me, if not, I wouldn't be here alive to send this email out to you or to celebrate CNY open house to some of you who will be coming tonight.

I went to One Utama Shopping Mall yesterday after Tesco. Time was around 1pm. I parked my car at the old wing, B1 level near the Arena food court. I did a reverse parking and my car was indeed very near to the food court entrance. Those shoppers who went in and out can see me in full view. Exact parking location was D4, in 3rd or 4th plot where the car turn in. It was indeed very close to the entrance.

As I came down from my car, I saw these 2 malay young adults walked towards me. I did not bothered at all cos I thought they were shoppers who want to collect their cars. I then went to the trunk to check on a bottle of clorox i bought in Tesco cos I was afraid the liquid may be spilt during the driving. It only took me a few second to put up the clorox bottle and then I closed the trunk, I had not locked the car yet.

Suddenly the 2 malay came very near me and took out a 1 foot long parang and pointed at me. I gave them my handbag. But that was not enough, they asked me to unlock the car and wanted me to go inside the car. They said "jangan bising, masuk kereta, cepat."

At that point I was struggling, the car was actually still unlock. They commanded me a few times to unlock the car, so in the moment of confusion, I pressed the button and I actually locked the car. They repeated their sentence asking me to unlock the car, and one of the Malay with parang was pushing towards the driver side. In panic, I pressed the remote, this time the car was unlocked.

The malay with parang then opened the car door trying to push me in. I looked at the situation, due the driver's side car door was opened and there was another car parked beside my car, I only had a very narrow path to escape. Worse of all, I was afraid that half of my body might bang the car door and instead of running forward and out i would actually be pushed back to the robbers who stood beside me.

I prayed very hard in my heart. Canny Ong's case came into my mind. I can't go inside the car, I kept telling myself, that was the worst thing to do. I prayed and prayed then I looked at the robber with parang, I noticed that he was looking down somewhere, the other robber was standing next to him. I saw the narrow path, I knew I must somehow get myself out of the path.

In a split second, I seized the opportunity and run, thank God, somehow I managed to squeezed thru the gap and run out towards the crowd. I did not know how I did it.

Many people saw what happened to me. There was a lady grabbed me and tried to calmed me down. I do not blame those people for not doing enough to help me cos everyone was in panic and with a parang the robber can harm me in situation like that.

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Can you possibly believe that no one did anything to help ? It seems a little absurd now, but given the situation I cannot deny I could have done the exact thing. In fact, I actually did something like that.

I think I've related to many about this incident. It happened behind Sungei Wang. A group of people was hitting this guy with sticks and I did nothing but walk by.

You could imagine how I was near to terrified. I could not help but wonder what would happen to me if I so much as utter a word.

However, I recall another incident which happened during Form 3. I was having tuition at Martin tuition centre, Jalan Pudu. As I walked down the stairs after class, I saw a group of samseng boys hitting a student. Everyone was stunned to the point of doing nothing.

Then I think a lady driving across the road stopped and alighted her car, shouted from across the road : " Oi, what are you doing ? " in canto. And immediately, the group of samseng broke off and ran away.

I guess sometimes we need to gather the courage to do something. Just a yell that says you're calling the police could possibly scare the jerks off. I mean, they are probably more scared than we are, as they are committing a crime in view of so many people. They are just working on the psychology that we would not dare do anything.

Anyway, this is just saying. I'll never know whether I'd have the courage when it happens to me.