Cross-Cultural Conversations

Observations by a Malaysian studying in Australia

Chain Reaction

Today I received an email from a friend. This is a very rare occurence so predictably I was pretty excited and immediately clicked on it to read the contents.

"Sorry,"-Anything that starts off with an apology must not be very good. "but this chain letter is for real"- chain letters! I've read about this global phenomenon in the newspapers. People who receive this will then have to forward it to their friends, and those friends forward it to theirs, and so on. But surprisingly I've never actually received one. This is my ticket to social interaction. I'm already seeing the wonderful possibilities.

"When Anne Wichert got it for the first time," Wichert? That's a pretty unfortunate surname. I was glad I didn't inherit Wichert as a surname, although my own could potentially cause problems for me in American airports where I might be mistaken for a terrorist.

"she ignored it and a week later the love of her live dumped her for no good reason" Could it be he was embarrassed to be associated to someone with such a weird surname?

"so BEWARE, and just send the stupid letter!!!!!! Remember, it must be sent to 25 people within 1 hour or your wish will not come true" 25 people in 1 hour?! I don't know that many people. I was starting to regret opening this wretched email.

"if you do not pass this on, something bad or worse will happen to you. You will have bad luck with your love life for seven years. This is no joke" No joke? That means they must be serious.

I've had bad luck with my love life since forever. Another 7 years is perfectly manageable. There and then, I made the life-altering decision not to participate in the chain letter movement.

posted by: Tembaga2 at 10:06 | link | comments |