market forces

It’s saturday morning: so i go marketing for the week:
my chicken seller is chopping up drumsticks

waaaahh, so expensive?

aiyah, everything also go up, mah, all the cost go up,
like transport, lah, i buy the chicken – now also more
expensive, i also need to eat, what, so price of chicken
go up, lah, you dunno, meh, this kind of things sure happen
one, what, don’t complain, lah, not say i greedy, want to
earn more money,
i cannot help it

it wasn’t just the chicken: the price of fish, fruits, vegetables,
they all went up, but the vegetable seller threw in some chillis
                                                                                   free of
charge; whatever the case, i bought the chicken because
                                                                                I needed
chicken.

with my more costly fresh produce, i lumber to the hawker
                                                                        centre nearby
where i stir my coffee slowly, unfold the papers and
read about the parliamentary debates

By Goh Peng Fong

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