It happened that tonight I was moved to study in the common study space in uni.
It is a rare scene to see me loafing around uni at night, besides in hurry state to print the material for the next morning class.
Tonight was one of the nights when I allow myself consumed into study mode, which I dutifully sat for three hours, doing nothing but reading.
In the occasional breaks between pages I braced myself to chat with a korean guy before me.
He was studying japanese. That book was a good guide I suppose, enclosed with translations in korean at the back.
Anyway, we talked. Using regular initiation "hey what time is it now" we got into this five-minute conversation.
As usual I would spin my SNSD fanboy mode to any korean person I met, to impress that I know korean shits. Funny that he thought I was from Thailand. Well, I get that a lot.
This is when he talked about his high school that he had here in New Zealand. And his life in other countries like Thailand and his dad in Saudi Arabia.
I was completely awed. If only he could see through me, I was complementing him all the way. Apparently he is privately funded, like his dad pays the tuition and shit.
What do you expect from a person who goes to local high school, funded by parents? Dirt rich it is. His dad might own a kimchi store or soy sauce factory.
I did not extent my introduction into my family affairs and how I got here. I suppose I should gladly tell him that my A-Level exam and generous sponsor got me here, allow me breathing kiwi air.
But I was too embarrassed.
Because they might not see the idea of sponsorship in the same light as mine.
For us, getting a sponsor is like a gift from heaven, oh yes a literal gift from heaven.
But for them, its might be a bunch of poor and desperate geeks who socially capable to suck it up to the sponsor.
It was very sad of me, to not being proud as I supposed to.
But I was afraid to be a clown to their eye.
Its like I'm in this super rich school where people only get into university to get this title as another accessory to their extravagant properties. Like in Boys Over Flower. People here don't get scholarship, they give scholarship.
It is not even funny. I mean, whats wrong with having a scholarship?
Whats done cannot be undone. I'll leave it at that.
