Educated elderly

I was having lunch at TTSH kopitiam today and was having vegeterian bee hoon (cuz that's the only stall with no queue!). This elderly lady with her husband took a peek at my food and exclaimed aloud, "that's so healthy!"

I was gobbling my bee hoon halfway then I kinda realised she's talking about my bee hoon, so I just chuckled and told her that it's because there's no queue! Hahaha. Then we strike a conversation from my plate of bee hoon.

She asked where was I heading to, I told her I'm going to a ward in level 7 and she said, "Geriatric ward right? I know cuz we (pointing to husband) are also geriatric!" She giggled, then she went back to sharing her soya bean milk with her husband (super sweet! :D)

I was quite surprised by the term she used. Geriatrics. This is probably something that even a young layman now won't really know, let alone an elderly lady who lived in the era whereby education for girls was for the priviledged. Oh yes, she conversed with me in very good and fluent English throughout.

This is not the first time I'm seeing elderly like that.

I went to SAGE to visit once, and the one who addressed us and gave a talk was the CEO who is 72yrs old! He was so affluent and using powerpoint somemore! He gave a 3hr long lecture and he was still so robust and fit, walking around, very excited about his job. Hahaha. To me, its an eye opener.

My perception of elderly is still those who speak Hokkien/Cantonese/Mandarin/Malay, low literacy and does whatever you ask them to do. Nowadays this is not so. We've come to the age whereby elderly are getting more and more educated. They're able to converse in English fluently, perhaps even more fluent than us! There's even a council for third age for the elderly to persue higher education now!

I'm not too sure if its a good thing that elderly are becoming more educated. Well, I've seen educated and friendly elderly before, just like that one I've encountered today at TTSH. I've also seen elderly making a scene with some youngsters previously in a supermarket. The elderly man shouted at the young chap who was probably rude to him or something. He was like, "young man, you should learn to respect the elderly! You should be the one saying sorry!"

Yepps, still an educated old man, but check out the difference in attitude.

I think when people are a little more educated, they tend to get a little too high and mighty sometimes. Well, people think they know alot, they can get knowledge from internet anytime, anywhere. The pride may have brought about a nasty attitude in the elderly when they have this I'm-as-educated-as-you-but-I-eat-rice-more-than-you-eat-salt mentality..

I keep my reservations on the topic first. I shall let time show me more things before I pass a judgement on anything ya?

It just makes me wonder what kind of aging population we will be expecting in future? Its scary..