Ni tou dong xi!

An example cited by Pooey:

You were in a washroom and you left your wallet there when you left. The next person who walked in after you had left took your wallet, totally disregarded your contact number or name card inside the wallet, and pocketed the wallet.

Is that stealing?

Oxford's definition is to "take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it".

But I think that is very ambiguous leh. If you took a loaf of bread from the bakery when the store manager was looking away, that's stealing. If the deliveryman dropped a loaf of bread en route to other destinations, you can of course chase after him to return him that loaf lah, but even if you took it, that's not stealing right?

If “不问自取就是偷” is something to go by, then the prerequisite of "stealing" is that you have to have someone there to "ask" first, and if there was and you didn't ask then it's stealing. If there's no one around to ask, 何来的偷？

If I left something behind, be it in cab or on a bus or wherever, and someone picked it up, I wouldn't say that the person stole from me. I would call that person all sorts of things which probably include the letters f, u, c & k, but a thief wouldn't be one of the names. I can't even convince myself that the person "stole". The universal idea of stealing suggests that it's only "official" when it happens at real time, AND you catch the person doing it right? How do you argue a case when it was your own carelessness that caused the thing to be "lost" in the first place, then subsequently someone picked it up? The guy didn't steal it from you when the thing was ON you mah. If taking = stealing, then 小偷 can be called 小拿 lor.

The thing should be on/with/around you at the time it was lost, and it should not be lost due to own carelessness. Like.. you have to be WITH a guy, before someone can steal your guy? If you're not with the guy.. then you cannot say people steal him? Or if I'm in a house and my bag was in the room away from me, I can still say someone stole my wallet, cos the bag was intended to be there and not due to my carelessness.

But but buttttt.

Here comes the entire point of the entry, and yes it IS something personal. Giggles.

If you lost your phone in a cab because you are tum-bai, then how is it that the person who picks it up "stole" it? Even if it was taken by the cabby and not the next passenger, I don't think the cabby "stole".

That said, there are things that I will try my best to return if I ever pick it up, like wallets or phones or laptops blah. But it's definitely not because "I don't want to be a thief", but because I got conscience and moral values.

If you see a random $10 bill on the floor, you tell me you won't take it lor. HOR YOU THIEF! But I would do something subsequently lah.. like buy tissue from random aunty or give $2 to a busker.. not to alleviate guilt whatsoever but to pass it on.

Ok I am damn tired and I refuse to stay up for the Man Utd match. I have faith in my Devils.

Good night my olive-skinned-Portugese-Prince-with-mad-curls.