Sometimes I wonder why I volunteer to accompany my mum to the market. And it's always on the days that I happen to wake up early and when I see my mum the first thing in the morning; before I actually know it, the words are already out of my mouth. 'Going to the market? Need me to go with you?' You could call it a lack of volition (which would negate the actus reus) and a lack of intention (which would constitute an absence of mens rea). Automatism, maybe. s84 of the Penal Code anyone?

Alright criminal jokes aside, perhaps it's a duty I feel obligated to perform as a child, perhaps it's a sort of bonding time I share with mum, perhaps I just love to do marketing (haha).

Up till today I still have no idea what the butcher talks to my mum about unless I ask my mum for a translation subsequently, because they converse in hokkien. But that's one of the features of wet market, you see - the Baby Boomers have their preferred dialects for conversations. My mum and I had a brief exchange about things sold (and how they are sold) in the wet market and the supermarket. And I realised that as I was walking through the pathways of the market, I was more attracted by stalls which had proper signboards. It's the certainty and assurance we get from such signpostings which tell us what to expect. Frankly, the one big plus side of the supermarket is that one can choose to be anti-social and successfully finish grocery-shopping. You can tell the price of an item and choose from the variety of nicely-packed meat. There's no need to ask for the price of that pork ribs, nor try your luck to see if you could get the pig's liver together with the ribs for a special discount. And that's exactly what the older generation prefer - to build relationships and if discounts result from it, then it's a win-win situation.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not out to insinuate that all Baby Boomers are such calculative people, and definitely not my mum. But for one, I think we Generation Y people appreciate (and really, treasure) the times when we can be anti-social in going about our daily life.