One thing you can do, after your shift, is that you take it easy down Orchard Road, you know? Just take it easy. I like to go there around five or six because my shift ends at seven, and there's always someone who needs to drop downtown at Chijmes, five minutes before a date... a bit of a hell to drive out of there lah, on a Friday or Saturday night. Weekends, right? Like that, they'll always tell you take the highways, because it's faster, but here's what you do. I teach you.
Roll down your windows, turn off the radio, blast the air-con, and just listen. Ignore the back seat -- most of them don't mind. Inch down south with the traffic and you'll know it's all different, just like that. You have the tai-tais, the ang mohs, the young people in their flower shirts all, starting with Tangs that side. I like to listen to the songs, because I know people like to sing here, the Chinese songs, but sometimes English or Malay also have. Mainland tourists. Indian workers. Filipinos also have if you come early enough... the whole of Singapore is down here. Ice cream man. Erhu man. Drive down some more and you see the office crowd, the SOTA kids, the SMU kids, with their tight skirts tight pants all, going up along Bras Basah Station. Very nice, that one.
And then if you concentrate -- turn off your engine, if the jam is quiet bad -- like this, you concentrate, I tell you, you can hear everything. Project work lah, stress lah, worry lah, all will come out. Sometimes it is a little bit unclear and that is okay, because what one person says is very soft, but what a hundred people say will be very loud. Or sometimes they will be very quiet but you can tell from the way they walk, the way they squeeze past, it makes a very frustrated sound, just like that. Can tell one. I tell you: come on certain days, like last year National Day, three-day-weekend, or like during the financial crash. Can feel one, I tell you, before it happens. You can feel it in the crowd.
One time I was driving, the wind became really strong and you could feel people start to hurry, because it smelled like heavy rain. And -- this was around the Apple Store that side, not a lot of shelter -- so I heard the people hurry, and I very clearly heard the numbers in their footsteps: three-two-nine-four. I thought to myself, why, that's my mother's house number, what harm can it do? So I went to buy the next day. Next week? Win prize, nine-thousand four-hundred and sixty-three dollars. Not kidding one, you know? You just have to know how to listen! It's not just any one person that says it -- it has to be the crowd.
Told this trick to my friends. They all tell me I kee siao. But I have seen them from time to time, down this stretch, during rush hour, engines off in the jam, poking their head outside their window, listening. You ever wonder why taxi drivers are always winning 4D? Like that one lor.
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Last night, I picked up a guy from office. Around Raffles Place, Chulia Street there. I was running late shift, because my son had badminton in the morning, and I picked up this guy who looks like he's been through a car wash. Head to toe all wet like that. He's very apologetic about it, even put down a plastic bag on the back seat, before he jumped in with his briefcase and all that. He said he got caught in the rain. I thought it was a little strange, but I'm not the kind to ask questions.
The app said to drop off somewhere in Bedok, which was nearer to my place. It's a good route. ECP, lots of fresh air. I rolled my window down, thought maybe I could help air the car, help him dry a bit, you know? Outside, it's getting a bit quiet. There's still a lot of people outside but this is office district, not shopping district -- the crowd is different. They're packed, but it's like a full pail of water, you understand. Can't listen to things as easily. The guy didn't say anything, the whole way. He very quiet one, also.
He's sitting behind me, so I can't see him, but past Bayfront he started to fidget in his seat. Sounded like he was unbuckling his seat belt like that. I asked him, everything okay? He said uncle, can wind down my window also. So I winded down his window. He relaxed a bit, after that. I took an easy left, beating that red on Sheares Avenue, and we went ahead of every other poor sucker on the ECP, where you don't have to hit the brakes until you see the other shore. He must have been in a hurry to get home, all wet like that.
I think at one point he started shifting again. The road was very clear, so I turned my head behind. Then I see this guy, he's got the top two buttons of his shirt off, and his head is sticking out of the window. I called to him to come back inside, and there was no response, he was enjoying the breeze, cocking his ears to the sound of the wind. I do not think that he had heard me at all.