Hooonesty, is such a lonely word...

I had nasi lemak for breakfast today. The bill came up to RM14.60. I paid the Indonesian cashier RM20.60. She gave me back two RM5 notes and an RM1 note.

I told her she counted wrong, and returned her an RM5 note.

Sometimes I wonder is it still worth it to be honest. In the real word, the golden rule is unilateral. No matter how honest you are, you cannot expect the same to be done to you.

Let me tell you why I think the golden rule is unilateral.

1. Remember the guy who banged my car from behind? Up till today, he maintains that the police has not decided to summon him yet. I made a good, clean police report. And he's trying to lie his way out from paying for my insurance claim.

2. I was given a RM200 voucher from Brothers for a car window tint. I showed the guy the voucher. I said I wanted a tint worth around RM400. He showed me a tint worth RM450. To cut the long story short, he gave me a Sun-Good window tint, put a V-Good sticker on the rear window, and charged me RM450. Actually, the real price of the tint was RM650. The RM200 voucher makes it reduced to RM450.

And I later discovered that Sun-Good and V-Good tints are both ciplak brands. The really good one is V-Kool.

3. My kitchen sink got blocked. The plumber came to remove the blockage. Nothing was replaced. The plumbing costed RM120.

There are many things I could've done in return.

1. Since I have the guy's name, IC number and address, I could send him poison pen letters every birthday, new year, and Deepavali.

2. Since the Brother's tint shop is just nearby, I could drive there, wind down my heavily tinted windows, and "PTUIIII!!!" Then drive away.

3. I could walk downstairs and cut out the plumber's phone number from all his posters in my neighbourhood. So no one from Taman Bandar Baru Selayang will ever call him again.

Is it because I'm too lurus bendul? Is it because Chinese who can't speak the Cantonese dialect are more prone to con jobs? Or is it because I am incapable of lying?

Somehow I feel that lying is one of the most annoying and damaging sins a person can commit. Annoying, because the person who gets fooled will feel really stupid. Damaging, because it seriously tears apart your integrity... Something very easy to destroy and very difficult to repair.

I have a student in my class. Let's call him G. He is a prefect, clean shaven, bespectacled, and he doesn't look like a thug at all. But I've heard stories of how he sabotaged and won a Tamil competition, and how repeatedly cheated in exams.

I pray for a chance to confront him on his lying character. Dudes like him think that everybody lies, lying is a norm, and lying is a legitimate practice, as long as nobody catches you.

We look at laws back then, and we look at them now. The law is much more complicated today, because people in the past have found ways to lie through it or manipulate it.

The civilization of a nation is supposedly reflected by how well-developed its laws are. The more developed its laws, the more civilized the country is.

On the other hand, a nation with " highly developed" laws also goes to show that many people have found ways to get around those laws before. Therefore, the law is not really a representation of how civilized a nation is. Instead, it mirrors how crooked it actually was, and is!

Hence, I put it to you that the system we live in is not built for people who need it to live. Rather, it is caused by, or built around, the people who live to destroy it.

Once, a girl who came and sat in my class. Let's call her A. She said she was from a different class, but she wanted to learn Add Maths. She said she had her teacher's permission to sit in, but she did not want to say who. I sniffed out who her form teacher was, and when I uncovered her plot of skipping classes... I called her in, gave her a lesson she will never forget, which also served as an object lesson for all the students in my class:

Cikgu Joshua is nice. But he tolerates no liars. Even if you don't believe in God, believe that Cikgu Joshua won't let you off as long as he has breath.

She dares not to look me in the eye again. Because she knows I have seen through her. It is difficult for her to be transparent before someone who cares about integrity.

Ah, well... Here's to the few lurus benduls left in the world... Even when you get conned to your last cent, always remember... Billy Joel still loves you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgmJ1miBzek