Love thy neighbour

Modern society has made us so afraid and insular that most of us don’t even know who lives next to us.

MY father was taking his usual morning walk around the neighbourhood when he stumbled upon a man in his late 20s, lying on the road, smack in the middle of a back alley some 100m away from our house. Feeling curious yet apprehensive at the same time, he went straight home and told my mother what he saw, just as she was about to go off to work.

“How can you leave him there like that? What if a car or motorcycle ran over him?” my mother exclaimed. In his defence, he argued, “But it’s really dark outside and we don’t even know where this guy came from. He could be dangerous, you know.”

After discussing this for a few minutes, mum persuaded him to go to the back alley again to check. This time, however, he went along with a few neighbours. It was 7am by then, and the surroundings were gradually getting brighter. Upon closer inspection, they noticed that the young man, who was fairskinned and quite good-looking, was fully-clothed and had a black sling bag with him. He was wearing a slipper on his right foot and a sneaker on the other.

“Hey! Hello! Wake up! Are you okay?” dad asked as he gently shook the young man’s shoulder. To everyone’s relief, he moved. He was alive! Unfortunately, he only shifted to his right and continued sleeping, oblivious to the commotion around him.

While some neighbours continued trying to wake the young man up, others took part in a heated discussion over who he actually was. Was he a drug addict? Could he possibly be a foreign worker living nearby? Or was he simply drunk? Dad, on the other hand, moved a big flower pot to the middle of the road to prevent oncoming cars or motorcycles from entering the lane.

A few minutes later, he finally woke up, but he seemed to be in a daze. Dad and the neighbours asked the young man his name and where he came from, but all they got in return was a blank stare.

In the end, dad asked, “Can you stand up and walk?”

Again, there was no reply but with some help from the neighbours, he stood up and started taking wobbly steps towards the main road. Seeing that he was at least well enough to walk on his own, dad and the neighbours headed back home.

On the way back home, dad was surprised to find Mr Tan and his family members standing in front of their house, wondering why a set of car keys was left outside the gate. Mr Tan was our neighbour who lives just a few doors away from our house.

It turned out that the car keys belong to his son-in-law, who was nowhere to be found. Thinking that Mr Tan’s son-in-law might be the young man he found earlier that morning, dad suggested that they walk around the neighbourhood in search of the young man as he wouldn’t have gone very far.

In the end, they found him walking aimlessly in the next street and brought him back home safely. As it turned out, the young man works at a karaoke centre till the wee hours of the morning. He had gotten himself so drunk on that day that he couldn’t unlock the gate despite having driven himself back home. If not for the neighbours’ intervention, the young man could have gotten himself injured, or even killed in his drunken stupor.

This incident taught me a few things. I learnt about the importance of neighbours. If it wasn’t for our helpful neighbours, my dad wouldn’t have approached the young man on his own. Something unfortunate could have befallen the young man. I also realised that we should always be alert of what is happening in our surroundings and get to know our neighbours better.

If dad had known that the young man was our neighbour’s son-inlaw, there would have been less confusion and the problem would have been solved immediately. Above all, I learnt that while it’s only natural for us to feel afraid of the unknown, that should never stop us from being kind or helpful to people.

If you saw a homeless person wandering in the streets, would you step up to him or her and ask if they need help? Or would you shun the person and choose to be indifferent simply, because it’s the easier and safer thing to do? Most of us would choose the latter. Mind your own business, people say, and stay out of trouble. Is there any wonder why more and more social crimes are happening nowadays?

Perhaps it’s time all for us to reflect and ask ourselves, what can we do to create a more caring and safer society.

The very first step would be to get to know those living closest to you: your neighbours. Only then, can we truly hope to live in peace and harmony.

Do you have any real-life, heartwarming stories to share with readers? E-mail them to star2@thestar. com.my. We’d love to hear from you.