Why so kay-poh?

I know in the comments of my previous posting, there were quite a number of kaypoh people who wanted to know the sequel of the Yah-Lin episode, but just in case any of my blog readers terasa, let me stress that the title of this posting is not meant for you… hehehe...

Have you ever had those moments when people would ask you what you’re doing when whatever that you’re doing is already obvious?

Like you’re hanging your clothes outside and a neighbour asks, “Jemur kain ke?”

Or you just came home from work and someone asks, “Baru balik kerja?”

Or you’re having lunch at a stall somewhere and someone asks, “Makan?”

Aren’t you just tempted to answer, “Taklah, tengah tidur!” :)

The above are actually just some people’s method of starting a conversation – ask the obvious. If you are ever asked as such, consider yourselves lucky. It’s nothing, really.

But when the questions asked are not just to start a conversation but more to answer the curiosity of some kay-poh people, the people who gets asked the questions may become embarrassed… and end up not knowing what to say.

A PLWHA once complained to me that quite often when he went to get his supply of HIV medication from the pharmacy, the person handing over the drugs to him would ask, “Why are you taking this medication?”

Obviously that person knew that the drugs were for HIV. So why ask?!

A fellow volunteer who is also a disabled person (he uses crutches to move around), whenever he sees any clients of ours having to wait for quite some time to get their supply of medication, sometimes offers his help. He’d take their prescriptions, go to the special counter for the disabled, and he’d be able to get the medication for them faster. OK fine, but there was once, he was asked by the person manning the counter, “Dah macam ni pun dapat HIV jugak?” Aiyo… so sarcastic! And so mean!! That was a double insult! The person was looking down on my friend whom he assumed did something “naughty” despite being disabled.

My friend, who is not a PLWHA, simply walked off without saying anything. He didn’t even bother to mention that he was not the infected person.

And when the PLWHAs are trying to hide their HIV status from families and friends, there are bound to be awkward moments. Most common amongst the HIV positive women with babies is of course the question of why they don’t breastfeed their babies. Then they get lectured about the advantages of breastfeeding. Oh, if only people knew how much these women WANT to breastfeed but simply CANNOT for the sake of their own children…

Then there are those, who, whenever these PLWHA families get visitors, like us Buddies for example, sooooo kaypoh want to know why so and so came to visit. Which is why, in our voluntary work, we always ask for permission from our clients before we visit them at home. And even when we do get permission, we’d have to find out some background first. Sometimes when neighbours ask who we are we’d just say we’re friends or relatives or sometimes when the neighbours themselves ask if we’re the children’s teachers, we’d just smile.

We also have to maintain a low profile during our visits. There was once when another charitable organization went to visit a particular PLWHA family to be considered for financial help, the organization representatives went in such a large group, the neighbours actually gathered outside the family’s house to find out what was happening! I guess in this case we can’t really blame the neighbours for being so kaypoh. The representatives of the charitable organization should have been more sensitive and not make their visit so obvious!

But sometimes no matter how hard you try to be discrete; people still tend to find out. Somehow they’d be able to put 2 and 2 together. Worse still, these kay-poh-chees put in additional herbs and spices to their stories.

Nuri for example, prefers to meet up in town instead of at home for fear the neighbours may find out about her HIV. But from what I found out from Ani (another client who stays in the same kampong as Nuri), the kampong folks were already gossiping about Nuri being HIV positive, without even having us visit her at home.

And as I’ve mentioned in my previous postings, sometimes I tend to bump into my kampong folks whenever I’m with a PLWHA at the hospital, I always get asked who the PLWHA is. My standard answer would be “kawan” but the problem is when further questions are asked. That’s when I need to apply the art of avoiding the answer by asking a question instead…

We can’t simply tell people not to jaga tepi kain orang, because some people may be in trouble and need our help. Sometimes we do need to be kaypoh a bit, but of course, in addition to being a bit kaypoh, we’d need to be caring as well…