The Mugging

One of my most memorable expriences was being mugged in Pudu bus station in KL in my first year in university. I was there in the wee hours of the morning on the way to an interview for a scholarship. I was groggy from the journey but still distractedly going over what to say in the interview when two Chinese men sat down next to me and started murmuring something - in Mandarin. That's right, I was being mugged but unaware of it! After getting fed up with my blank stares one of them pointed a small knife at me and patted my wallet. Light dawned. I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared stiff, but after the initial shock some measure of rationality came back to me - although no one seemed to notice, I was still in a fairly public place. I remember asking them to leave me with ten dollars - in Hokkien - so I could still take the taxi to the interview. They asked for my handphone, I pretended to turn out my pockets to show them I didn't have one (I did). Before leaving they took a close look at my watch and decided it wasn't worth stealing...oh well.