A "White" Christmas?

I think I'm going to have to create a label called 'Starbucks' seeing as I seem to blog about it all the time. I didn't have my morning coffee as I had a scheduled meeting, by the time it finished at gone 11, I didn't really fancy it as lunch was soon.



On my way back from the KLCC after taking a healthy lunch, one of the girls who works at my local called out to me and asked me to come over and I joked with her and the team over how silly it was that they have all their Christmas "specials" on sale already - special drinks, festive puddings and christmassy merchandise.



She laughed with me and said; "well we don't celebrate Christmas but we know you must do", she then followed to explain that they had decided they wanted to give me an early Christmas present and presented me with this mini ceramic ornament - it was a Starbucks Christmas mug that you can hang on your tree! Awh, how adorable, and they had signed a little card for me too! Too cute! I was really chuffed.



I've been in discussion with many of my friends here as to whether or not I get treated differently because I'm a "gweilo" - e.g the staff at Starbucks give me free coffee every now and then/ the taxi driver charges me triple the price (it works both ways) but I really feel like the young guys and gals who work there seem to genuinely enjoy talking to me each day, just for 10 mins, because of who I am, because I ask how their day is, what they have been up to and they can tease me over the muffins I never buy and the minuscule amount of Caramel I have in my latte as a "treat" - not because I am white. I hope this is not me being naive, I hope that my innocent perspective is correct. They shouldn't feel privileged that I talk to them, they are human beings, I speak no differently to them as to how I would speak to any "White" person. Or to be more specific, people that I like.



If I like you, if I feel you are genuine, then I will talk to you, if I feel you are just asking me questions out of pure nosiness or to make conversation to mask an awkward silence then I'd rather there be the awkward silence. At least then no one needs to bother. And everyone knows where they stand.


In fact I seldom see "colour" or "race" these days - just yesterday I was giving a friend advice in her new job and said something about "Asians" being a little quiet in the working environment, but once you settle in it will be OK. Granted, I was giving my perspective on "Asians" as a whole, but to my shock, I suddenly remembered my friend IS Asian! Haha. So, you get my point?



Anyway, I'm really tired. I need coffee. Merry Christmas!! Ho. Ho. Ho.