We are going to take a break on cross-cultural issues and talk about something which is equally important to all of us - self esteem. Self esteem is about a person’s self worthiness. Some people think highly of themselves, while others, not quite. Most of us have this inherent duty to make other people feel good about themselves, especially for those people who are disadvantaged. However, one has to be careful that your help or assistance given is not seen or perceived as been sympathetic. Many years ago when I was a student at University of Southern California (USC), I saw a physically challenged lady struggling with her wheel chair in one of the old buildings. Like most old buildings, the doors were really heavy. She was quite a distance away from the door but nevertheless, I decided to hold the door open for her. She saw me doing that and said loudly, “Let the door go”. Thinking that she was being polite, I told her, “That okay, I will hold the door for you”. Instead of being appreciative, suddenly the lady shouted in an angry voice, “Shut the door, NOW!!!”. I let the door go and was annoyed with the lady in the wheel chair. I was thinking to myself that this was one of the rudest and most ungrateful lady I have ever came across. After a few days when I began to cool down, I revisited the incident and felt that maybe my opinion on this lady was a bit too harsh. Perhaps, she didn’t want to feel vulnerable and by helping her, it would affect her self esteem. The lady wanted to be self-reliant and boost her self confidence that she could do things for herself and be independent. This proves to be a very important lesson for me later on when I became a lawyer. I am going to share with you two incidents that illustrated this point:-
Incident No. 1
An old family friend by the name of Rudy Lim (who has since passed away) asked an old ex-colleagiue who used to work as a waiter at the old Federal Hotel to see me with regard to drafting a Will for him. One day, this elderly Hainanese gentleman walked into my office with an old plastic bag containing some important documents. This elderly gentleman could speak very little English, so we spoke Malay, Hokkien and Cantonese (two Chinese dialects which I am not very good at) and some English. Somehow, I managed to follow his instructions. Finally, my father who speaks Hainanese came in as an interpreter just to make sure that I got the instructions correctly. By the way, the elderly gentleman’s face lit up when he saw my father as he could remember him back in those days when he was a waiter and my father was a regular customer at the coffee house. Because it was a complicated Will, I told the elderly gentleman to come back the following week and I will go through the Will with him.
Next week, the elderly gentleman came in with an old envelope and held it tightly like a prized possession. I went through the Will with him and when he was satisfied with the contents, he asked me how much was my fee as he wanted to pay me. My immediate thought was to inform the elderly gentleman that the Will was done with my best compliments but then I remembered about the incident that happened many years ago at USC. I didn’t want to make the elderly gentleman feel that I pitied him or in anyway affect his self-esteem, so I informed him that my total fee is RM10.00 (my rate for drafting a complicated Will such as that would have been RM700.00). He looked at me and didn’t say a thing. I thought to myself, “That’s good, it won’t affect his self esteem as he doesn’t know how much a lawyer would actually charge for drafting such a Will. I didn’t want him to feel that I pitied or felt sorry for him. He just reached for his old envelope and to my surprise, he pulled out a few hundred ringgit (RM) and pushed them into my palm. I told him my fee is only RM10.00 and I told him I didn’t have change for such big amount! He said to me, “Don’t be silly, you are not charging me what you are suppose to charge me. You are too kind”. I gave him back the money and told him that either he give me RM10.00 or the Will would be given to him free of charge. There were a few arguments here and there and finally he reluctantly took the few hundred ringgit and gave me the RM10.00. As he was leaving, I told him, “Wait, I need to write you a receipt”. He looked at me in surprise and said, “You want to give me a receipt for that amount?”. I replied, “Yes, all monies must be accounted for and placed in the trust account before I can take it out”. He looked at me in amazement, shook his head and just smiled. We shook hands and that was the last I saw of him. I hope his self esteem was not affected but from the look of things, I could see that he was happy and so was I.
Well, I will continue my second story in the next posting as I do not intend to make this post too long. Have a terrific day, everyone!
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