Author: Yvonne Lee
I am rather preoccupied lately so I just picked up this simple read while passing by a book sale outside Plaza Singapura. This book is written by a former stewardess with an international airline (the book cover showed a well-known uniform). She wrote about how she started from Malaysia to flying around the world, stopping at major cities of Asia, Europe and United States. More importantly, she recollected her interesting encounters and captured special tales by her colleagues which we may never know of, flying at 35,000 feet.
She colourfully illustrated the eccentricities of passengers from the economy class all the way to first class, and the additional training and responsibilities behind the smiles. And she put all these in bite-size chapters with individual themes, making it a good book for your trip, be it on the plane or any other transportation. You will appreciate the job of a stewardess that bit more and learn how to be the passenger a stewardess will be more than happy to serve.
She wrote in a lighthearted way, with many funny stories interjected by a couple of sombre ones. Her encounters with the deportation of an illegal immigrant and the pair of children who were sent away for adoption remind us that the person sitting beside you in the plane may have a sad tale to tell and he or she can use your consideration.
Side Note:
I happened to read an article about SIA stewardesses in the Chinese newspapers before I wrote this. It was about a complaint on the English standard of the stewardesses. Apparently, the complainer asked three stewardesses about the availability of empty seats and the replies she got were three "OK"s. She said she manage to get her answer only after asking another steward. Though I give her the benefit of doubt but it seems highly unlikely that three stewardesses could not understand the complainer unless her English is incomprehensible in the first place. I knew of people who tries very hard to use an accent with sophisticated words, being sort of an English snob, where simple English suffice. Nowadays, people juggle different languages and we don't expect them to be masters of English, Chinese, French, Japanese, etc. Anyway, if the complainer's story of the pilot pronouncing "flight" as "fright" is true, kudos to the pilot for making a good joke.
