Very proud Chinese lady at the bank

Today I went out to the DBS bank at Clementi to bank my cheque. After I had filled up the forms, I joined the queue. In front of me was this Chinese aunty who I assume to be in her early 50s. She turned around, saw me and exclaimed "Wah, so tall ah you!". As usual, the expected question that comes after that is - "Do you play basketball?". Haha.. unfortunately, my height has nothing to do with me playing basketball. I didn't really play basketball until after I came to Singapore.

Anyway, back to the point. After asking about my height, she starts to talk about America - Las Vegas. She continued to critise Batam as stupid because they have just banned the casinos there. Her rational was that countries that have casinos prosper well and that casinos earn a lot of money. In my mind, I thought - "Wah, she very support S'pore gov't on the casino". Before long, she went to say - "S'pore now then start have casino. Way too late liao lah. How to compete. You see: Macau, KL (isn't it suppose to be Genting?) all so rich now". I just nodded and didn't really care what she said.

After she stopped talking about casinos, she started to rant about Chinese overseas - how united they were. The way she describe it, I think if I put it on this blog, you might see my name in the newspaper tomorrow for causing some discontent in racial harmony. I was shocked when she started to explain how in countries like America, Chinese overseas are very united and "white" people see color. She went on to explain that see color makes the Chinese people strong and that it forces them to stick together and earn a lot of money. Furthermore, she was virtually attacking any non-Chinese. Everyone in the bank could hear her. I looked around nervously and wondered if there would be someone to protest. People around didn't really bother or as how I would feel if I was one of them - "Seesh, who is this person talking a lot of crap". As she continued, I felt like saying "Lady, please stop. Keep the opinion to yourself."

After talking about "color", she went on to brag about overseas Chinese as super rich. Sugar King, Timber King, Flour King, etc. She said to me "You know Robert Kuok - Sugar King... you see so rich." In my mind I thought - "Heh...Lady, if I was still studying in NUS this year, I would take up the opportunity to have lunch with him in Hong Kong this December." The queue for the bank counter felt like eternity as she continued. It was torturous. I've never met someone who can say so much to a stranger other than the taxi drivers. Taxi driver coffee-shop talk I'm used to but bank customers having coffee-shop talk, this is my first experience. Anyone else had similar experiences before?