Public Display of Affection or Attention?

I had a cultural shock when I came to Malaysia, which is six years before. One of the many is PDA. It is a taboo in my place, at least few years before, even holding hands, leaning on other's shoulder. In April 2007, when Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty in public, the leftist took the matter to court and both of them ended up with a public apology.

I was shocked and wondered at the things that I encountered here.

There was a time I saw a couple totally into oblivion forgetting the surrounding, and the people around them. They came to a sudden realization of the existing world after they accidentally saw me. Guess, they were my students and it happened in the corridor of the college.

These days, whenever I happen to encounter something like this, either I pretend that I didn't see them or I just ignore them with a head nod, rarely with a smile.

Last week, we went to INTI UC for debate competition and after the event we all went to KL City planning to watch a movie. As usual, our plan failed so we ended up in Times Square, my favourite place in KL simply because of the Borders.( i bought only one book this time. :( )

We took LRT to return to Nilai, and the train was not crowded and Pius and I managed to get seats after few minutes. There was a couple in front of us. The girl was leaning on the boy(man?) and I heard her telling him that she was cold and sat closer to him. He was trying to pat her shoulder (watch..i am using a decent word-pat). Don't ask me why I saw this. It was happening in front of us, it was very noticeable for anyone since there were only few of us left in the train. Mind you, public transports have a limited space. After a while, the girl was rubbing her nose against his shoulder, etc....

I was naughty. I told Pius to take a photo of them. He is so good in taking photo without anybody knowing. He turned and asked me if taking photo of them was right. We switched roles of journalists. Journalists have the freedom of clicking anything anywhere. He asked me, " Miss Sentha, is this not invading their privacy?" I paused for a while. I looked at him questioningly but I wanted a photo of them for my blog.

He replied himself. When they exhibit their private matters in public, is it any more private? No. Exactly. You have a point and my vote is for you, Pius.

An intimate couple in real life does not have the need to exhibit their intimacy in public.

Because they have nothing to prove to the world. In contrast, Exhibitionism occurs when the couple wants to seek public attention and the approval of the society and in some cases immaturity.

And, I have a question -

Is there not a difference between private and public and is there anything much left for private? I wonder.....