The Hello

The Hello is suppose to be a greeting right? Wrong. Yesterday at the hawker centre, there was this guy whose way was blocked by a lady, and he gave a low "harlo .....”. Very interesting way of shooing your way through a crowd. Surprisingly the lady actually understood and gave way. I didn't think the guy was rude, after all this is Singapore. I was wondering what happened to the traditional “skew me??” (Short form for excuse me) .... I love the ''skew me". "Skew me, you have barbeque chicken wings today or not?" Some are even too lazy to skew me, it's just skew, which is also effective for clearing people off your way.

There are many ways of saying hello. Some people pronounce it as harlow!, some haloo, some hell-low, and some just low? But we all know we don't care. The hello on the phone is just a form of silent breaker. You pick up the phone and you automatically say hello, it’s like giving the other caller permission to talk. It''s like the traffic light turning green on the phone, and then you say whatever you have to say. So actually you can use "Go" instead of the hello. But imagine the awkwardness if someone answers your call and not give you the hello. For that split second, I bet you would feel like you either called the wrong person or there's another pervert on the other line. Want to scare somebody you hate? Just answer the call, don't give him the hello, and then breathe heavily. Ten out of ten times, the other person will hang up. Its fun, try it! Then after this experiment, you will not take the hello for granted.

Or you try the hello mirror effect. You say hello, the other caller says hello, and then like a mirror facing each other, you keep reflecting the hello back and forth. This is really useful when your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife tries to call you, and you are doing something illegal. You just keep mirroring like you cannot hear them. You want to stall them and make time! Then while helloing, you walk to somewhere safe and away from the scene of crime and then say you can hear them better now.

The hello is said in almost 800 ways around the world. In Russia hello is Zdravstvuite, in Austria it's Hoi , in Korea it's Annyong and in Panama its Na. But my personal favourate is the Vietnamese's. They call it Chào. And they have different hellos for different sexes. To a man, you greet with Chao Ong. To a woman you say Chao Ba. To a young woman you say Chao Co. To a man you know, you say Chao Anh, and to a lady you know, you say Chao Chi. So if I am in Vietnam, they have greet me with Chao Ong Ong ('cos Ong is my surname). But that will mean every Vietnamese is cursing me all the time when I pick up the phone. Chao is a swear word here you see.... And if you are a lady and your surname is Bai, you better not go there. It's going to be CCB to you all the time.