two farmers

lately i've been worried by a certain change. after living in an environment where u'r surrounded by japanese-speaking ppl all day, having to speak, write, LIVE in japanese, i've found that my ability in other languages hv degraded to the point of being physical. yesh, im actually losing the ability to speak clearly in english n chinese...!

not saying dat i was ever a bestowed wif crsytal clear speech, but im sure no 1 ever had trouble understanding me unless i was spouting gaming jargon. nowadays, my speech is so seriously slurred n full of mangled syllables dat sumtimes i pause n repeat myself juz 2 assure myself dat i can actually pronounce those syllables right. n sumtimes indeed i cant!

its all the fault of the pronounciation structure of the japanese language. they hv so few syllables dat if u speak almost exclusively japanese for days on end, muscles used in pronounciation of other sounds will eventually deteriorate. at least, thats my hypothesis (Shao Thing's Rule)

well anyway, gotta sleep soon. so, the mean topic of the post as follows:

2 farmers, Ah Seng n Ah Beng. Ah Seng is hardworking, Ah Beng is seen by some as a slacker. Ah Seng works hard on his plot of land, consistently watering the crops, weeding, taking care of his crops from morning till night. however, the crops seem sickly n do not flourish as expected, despite Ah Seng's best efforts. meanwhile Ah Beng doesnt do anything wif his plot of land. then one day, Ah Seng gets fed up wif all the hard work and abandons his crops. Ah Beng, seeing an opportunity, comes in n takes over the plot of land. within a few weeks, the crops matured n Ah Beng had a good harvest, despite only taking care of the crops for a few weeks compared to Ah Seng's months of sweat n toil.

now, a smart aleck wans 2 noe, does Ah Seng or Ah Beng deserve the harvest? Ah Seng DID put in tons of hard work, but gave up the crops in the end (understandably he wudnt b too happy if he found out dat Ah Beng took his harvest tho). Ah Beng was lazy n slacked off on his own crops but it was his intervention that prevented the crops from dying after Ah Seng abandoned them. n perhaps he had better agricultural talent as he managed 2 achieve good harvest in a short period.

oh, one last thing: apparently the crops kenot b 'split equally' or indeed, split in any way. they must b ALL harvested by one person only.


now, its a lame metaphor for sum stuff (read: drama) dats been going on here in japan, but im not d one who came up wif this story/riddle, n im not endorsing it or anything. juz feel like hearing d opinions of d masses....heheh. opinions, comments, questions etc welcome (adds sum life 2 my blog too :P )