Happy 60th Birthday, Dad

Today is dad’s 60th birthday.

To celebrate this day, some may invite friends, throw a banquet or collect presents. But not my dad, or my family. My family has never had the habit of celebrating or giving presents, whether on birthdays, anniversaries or festivals.

We build our home not on special gestures on a few isolated days, but on a lifetime of love and unwavering support.

This entry pays tribute to dad, who has been a defining influence in the 30 years of my life.

Tough dad.

There are men who are skilled at paying worthless attention and insincere compliments in a kindly, charming way. There are conversely those, like dad, who have a great deal of warm, genuine feelings, but are unable to express them kindly.

At school, when I gleefully announced my 98% test result to dad, he flatly reminded me that there was no reason to be self-satisfied since there was another 2% to gain. When I played, fell and needed 4 stitches above my eye, dad showed no sympathy; his words were: “last year 3 stitches, this year 4 stitches – well done, you’re improving”. When I went home devastated after my GCE ‘A’ level economics paper filled with questions I couldn’t answer, dad was passionless, asking me blankly: “how will crying help your next paper?”

But this was how dad built my resilience and endeavour. He drilled into me that if I win now, I can lose next; if I lose now, I can still win tomorrow. Life goes on. There’s always a silver lining in the clouds, just as there’s always the next higher lap to strive for.

Dad’s dictum was “spare the rod and spoil the child”. The cane was his weapon. The worst I recall was the day I had a cough, my brother ate one chocolate, then another one, and told me to report that I ate the second chocolate (to be fair to him, I did agree). When mum came home, she gave me such a good lashing for eating chocolates when I was coughing, that I soon chickened out and protested it wasn’t me. But my brother refused to admit it still. Soon dad came home, fetched the cane, and began whipping the truth out of us. Eventually my brother confessed, albeit somewhat unconvincingly. (Till this day I still can’t understand what made me agree to my brother’s ploy in the first place!)

So for a start, this is dad, a person whose touch hurts, whose voice jars, whose tempers play him false, who wounds the people he loves, but all these only in the very act of protecting and nurturing my brother and I.

Soft dad.

But dad has his softer side too.

One example, mysteriously, revolved around the cane. A couple of times, after dad walked off to his room and returned with the cane in his hand, I started to giggle, and then he started chuckling too. Where the humour was, I have no clue! But somehow something tickled me, I found it funny, and dad obviously saw something funny too. Each time this happened, I escaped the cane.

Another example were the times dad, my brother and I queued for our turns on PCMAN. Dad was absolutely hooked. I was envious how he could always stay up late into the night to try to break the record score. I wish I had a video camera then to film his sheer determination to ‘clear the dots’ before the ‘monsters’ got him. I am not sure if dad realises this, but PCMAN was great in retrospect, for it created precious times when dad shared light moments with my brother and I in our childhood days.

Dad always advocated self-discipline. But as though his obsession with PCMAN was not enough to shatter his façade of self-discipline, he decided to pay my brother and I to do his job of mopping the floor during school holidays and weekends. Sometimes he even allowed us to bargain. Well, I guess dad would argue that he was just teaching us that we have to sweat to earn money, and of course, it had nothing to do with laziness. I must say I’ve internalised this value completely today, to the extent that I’ve sworn never to do housework – if need be, learn from dad: just pay someone else to do it!

I have always been amazed by dad’s legendary snores. He produced music in his subconscious. At times, there wasn’t much of a melody: it was silence for several seconds, and suddenly he’d burst into a loud snort. Other times, it was rhythmic, where each wave begins with a gentle sniff, gradually increasing in decibel until it peaks into a snort, before lowering into a gentle sniff again. Once, I was in my room and dad was sleeping in the living room, and I swore I heard an engine throttling.

Down moments.

Dad, and mum too, did cause me some anguish. Mum didn’t find dad’s snores melodious, and soon banished him to sleep in the living room. I felt sorry for dad and tried to talk mum into ‘allowing’ him back into the bedroom, but was not successful.

I also felt sorry when dad had to work late into the night at home. The image of him working on the mahjong table in the living room when I woke in the middle of the night still languishes within me. That’s probably how I picked up the idea of working through the night myself.

And if those times I was sorry for dad, there were other moments when I felt greatly saddened. Most deeply etched in my mind were the occasions when I eavesdropped on dad and mum’s late night arguments in the kitchen, dad’s raised voice and mum’s sobs, loose talk of divorce and how life’s not worth living. I always returned to bed each time sobbing quietly to myself.

And of course, that day dad was leaving for Japan for a one-week working trip, gosh did I burst into tears!

From provider to supporter.

When I was young, I appreciated dad for driving me to school when it rained, for making a detour to ‘fly’ at Jurong Town Hall Road, and for buying my brother and I $230 worth of Mask toys after striking 4D. Dad was my provider – financially, and in little forms of entertainment. I did not have much freedom until secondary school and junior college but strangely, despite my mischievous orientation, I did not rebel at dad’s disciplinarian ways. I’ve never quarrelled with him and I’ve always accepted what he said even if I did not agree.

Dad continued to be my provider until my enlistment for National Service and then university. Something then changed, and he, and mum, turned from providers, to supporters. They were no longer providing for me financially, but supporting me physically and psychologically. Dad would send and fetch me from camp regardless of the time, buy my favourite local foods, pack them into parcels and post them to me in England. Nowadays, he brings my car for a wash when I’m overseas, sends my suits for dry-clean, takes care of my breakfast, lunch and dinner, and even bear with my dogs when I take them home.

These seem trivial but in truth, they are to me the most valuable presents one can ever get from his family. They are little things that done on a daily basis amount to much, much more than any token of gift-giving. And understanding Dad’s predisposed lethargy just makes each of these acts even more amazing.

There remains only one form of love in this world that I am not skeptical of, and that’s a parent’s love for his child. I have this confidence only because dad and mum have shown me, beyond any trace of doubt, that their love for me is unconditional. From them, I have the assurance that even if the world collapses and everyone betrays me, my family will remain as the one source of support that I can always count on.

Today.

Today, I am what I am – my strengths and flaws – because of dad. He has taught me never to settle for second best, never be self-satisfied. Like him, I am full of emotions but poor at expressing them. The interior monologues I have, the perfectionist in me, and even my social lethargy, they all have their roots in dad’s character and the way he has brought me up. I am far from perfect, but it is dad’s influence that has made me good enough to become the person I am.

Well, dad, in keeping with our family practice I don’t have a birthday present for you today. Instead, I’d like to tell you that I owe what I have in my life to you and mum. If there is one thing close to my heart, it is my inmost thoughts and feelings, which I have always kept to myself. It is in this blog that I store these thoughts and feelings, and I hope opening it to you from this day on will be worth more than any birthday present.

Happy 60th birthday, dad.

Top 10 Uncool and Unacceptable Thoughts to Admit

Social conventions forbid or dissuade us from admitting certain truths. But I will come clean and admit 10 thoughts in my mind that may lead to disbelieving looks:

1. I hate foreigners, especially the French. French 'cuisine' tastes like puke. But I especially like the Brits, New Zealanders and Japs.

2. I am a racist. I think certain races in this world are lazy and stupid.

3. I think some of my friends' partners are cute/hot.

4. I love money, that's why I work hard. To hell with interest or passion for the job.

5. I wish my enemies die a terrible death. For instance, drown in shit, or get lynched.

6. I love my family. I always pray for their health and happiness.

7. I think the government is doing a wonderful job running Singapore. They are irreplaceable.

8. Pregnant women are plain ugly. They're fat, and fat people are ugly.

9. I have stolen a chocolate from a mama shop, an expensive calculator from a classmate, and more than $1000 from a source I'd be dead if I reveal here.

10. I am lazy, selfish and hypocritical. Well, I have to be hypocritical in real life to hide many of these thoughts.

Kids or No Kids?

I have no wish to have children. It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t want.

People tell me that children are good for many reasons: they brighten up our lives, take care of us when we are old and our hopes can be pinned on them. The older ones say that children continue our family lines. The religious ones say that children are the essence of life and the continuation of an almighty creation. Even the government has something to say, telling us that children are needed for the country’s growth and progress.

I have issues with these reasons individually, but first, my own deep-seated convictions why I don’t desire children of my own.

In life, there are happy emotions and sad emotions. Happy ones include love, surprise and humour; unhappy ones include fear, jealousy and anger. We live life for the happy emotions and hope that the unhappy ones will be offset by the happy ones.

But on balance, we go through more unhappy emotions than happy ones in life. Even as I write the preceding paragraph, the unhappy emotions came to mind far more readily. (If the reader thinks this is but a symptom of my own personality type and prejudices, have a go at churning out the two lists).

With this outlook of life, if given the option to be re-born, I won’t take it – why go through something that will cause me more pain than joy? And if I think this way, wouldn’t I be selfish to bring life into this world? Put in another way, if the new child had known that life would be more unhappy than happy, would he necessarily choose to be born?

Parts of these have to do with the tensions and struggles we go through in Singapore. The choice in our society is between allowing mediocrity, thus a low self-esteem, or pushing to be achievers, often in more than one field, thus a stressful existence. I blame the Singapore society because our insecurity as a country transmits into an insecure people, which fuels the tensions and struggles we have no choice but to cope with.

Then there are the selfish motivations. Perhaps my disciplined and regulated childhood has spurned a longing for the reverse, and I now crave for freedom to do anything I want anytime. I’ve become averse to anything that constrains my freedom – be it a low-paying job, heavy job responsibilities, unreasonable parents, a possessive partner, or of course, children. I want to live life for none other than myself and the ones I love.

I am also tired of responsibility and commitment. Having children will only add to my list of commitments – family, girlfriend, dogs, friends, football, work and colleagues – and drain my financial resources.

Now, my contention about the reasons that others have cited for having children. Yes, children brighten up our lives, but only for the first ten years or so, and it comes with much trouble and effort anyway. That they take care of us when we are old – this is something best not to assume. And while we can pin our hopes on them, whether it ends in heartache depends mainly on things beyond our control. In the past, parents have most influence over their child’s values and growth; today, with working parents, long hours in school, media and internet influence, the ones with the most influence are teachers, friends and maids. Since whom the child gets as his teachers, friends and maids is only fractionally within our control, it is essentially down to luck how the child turns out.

Moreover, aren’t each of these reasons self-serving, and would I not be selfish, even immoral, to have children for these reasons, especially given my perspective of life in the first place?

As for the arguments that children continue our family lines, the life cycle, and Singapore’s progress, I would reply thus: I am neither a traditional Chinese, hence my family line can be discontinued; nor religious, hence the life cycle is irrelevant; nor an extreme patriot, hence I won’t have kids just for the sake of my country.

Well, these are my views today. I concede that I may well wake up one day and decide that I want children and then start to reason why children are good to have. Let’s just hope that if and when this day comes, it won’t be too late. After all I’ve said, this is the weightiest counter-argument against my no-kids decision today.