Where Were You? When It Happened?

It was 9:40PM some four years ago.

I was about to sit down to eat my Teowchew Mui (Teow Chew Porridge) with my parents who have just returned from Shanghai in USJ Taipan when the first hint of trouble came from Hong Kong: "a plane crashed into the Twin Towers" a friend told me in an SMS text message sent from the former British Colony.

"You must be joking" I replied.

"No! I am watching CNN now!" he wrote, "go ask you journalist friends for details!"

Dropping the spoon, I quickly called a friend in Singapore who is watching Fox News and confirmed the story.

"Terrorist?" I sent him a message.

"Maybe," he replied, "but this is just like the Hollywood movies!"

I then told my parents to quickly finish supper and head home.

My television was left switched on for the next 2 weeks.

And in that two weeks, we were given a new definition of the word "Terrorism": it is now defined as the anti-American-way-of-life.

I chuckled when I heard the POTUS said that, try saying that in a straight face and act like you mean what you said yourself, and you'll know why I laughed.

While I detest the way 6,000 lives were taken away, I applaud the way the British responded when they were bombed in London. Instead of starting another war thousands of miles away, they did what they should do: they fought the "war" in the battleground where the fight should have been - AT HOME.

Sometimes, your greatest enemy is none other than yourself.

The world is not the same anymore.

But where were you? when it happened? The day the POTUS changed the rule of the game and changed the world?