Ma dearest

The photo is narrow, naturally because she was slimmer then. Only 25 years old and newly married.

Her impact on life, hers and many others, however is considerably broader. Much much broader.

She is my Ma and in her 80 years (and wishing her many many more!) on this world, and for many decades she has taught and shaped many minds, in their most formative years. There is a saying that one's personality is formed at the age of five and it is exactly at this age that Ma taught young children in Malacca, first at a renowned private chinese school and then at her own kindergarten (which she had jointly found with Pa).

She grew up in rural Malacca to an educator father and an entrepreneurial mother, my maternal grandparents. To call my grandma (Ah Jia) an entrepreneur probably flatters the word. Ah Jia was an immigrant from China, arriving in Malaysia with nothing more than the clothes on her. She was illiterate and could only scrawl the three characters of her name (more about that later) and only spoke the Dabu variant of the Hakka dialect. On the back of Pax Britannica migration, she came over at the behest of her mother as she was betrothed to my grandfather (a fine young teacher who was also a Dabu Hakka) in an arranged marriage.

Even in today's world, where gender and race inequalities are still uglily pervasive, imagine what it was like a century ago for a woman like her. She hardly knew her own language let alone the language of the natives or the colonials. She did learn enough to sign her name in order to procure the rubber estates that she worked on from her employers. That indomitable - surmount all problems, no matter the obstacles and disadvantages - spirit, was nurtured in spades in her daughter, my Ma. By the end of her life, my Ah Jia had acquired acres of rubber estate and half a dozen shop houses and was also able to send her youngest son to university in Australia.

Ma did not go to university though. Being the middle 5th child of 10 and living in a rural village amidst the rubber estates, Ma did not enjoy "elite" education and in fact studied in the local school where my grandfather was the headmaster. So, while not premier in reputation, the education she received was certainly premium in quality and today, she is the best speechmaker in the family. 

But more than mastering the toast, Ma also possesses a sharp strategic mind. She may have only studied till middle school (not unusual for girls then) and therefore does not have the papers to evidence her smarts, but the way she brought up her family and managed her career spoke volumes. 

First, in consultation with Pa, none of their kids were educated in Chinese, because back in the 70s/80s, an English-based education remain the surest path to success. Indeed, none of us are now anywhere as fluent as her in Mandarin (and our mother tongue ability is literally just to be able to speak with our mom) and so she fell on her sword there so that we may all rise in our careers.

The other testament to her strategic mind is how she managed her own career. Her middle school certificate got her a job as a kindergarten teacher but she knew, liked her own mom, that she could do more. After taking some time off to raise her family full time, she returned not to her erstwhile employer but to start her own kindergarten with her husband, my Pa and they ran that successfully for 2 decades before a 7-figure exit.

She is retired now but not being able to sit still, she keeps herself fit and is nearly as trim as the 25 year old in the photo above in her line dancing troupe where she has made new friends, some half her age. My Ma, she is forever young. Happy 80th birthday!

Working it out

 I am now on my way to Malacca, to the loving embrace of my parents and feeling so happy. Even at a ripe old age of 53++ :-), I am still not beyond feeling their love and loving them back and I know this will not stop.

In life, however, many things are less certain. Heck, even the climate is changing. I wonder if my grandchildren will one day live in Singapore or will it be underwater? 

The weather aside, we also cannot control others. We can only know them. 

M had told me a few days ago about how A had told someone and now her friends know about it. Both parents sympathised with her and like the different persons we are, we both gave different advice: in fact, we both represented the extreme ends of the range of responses. 

Truth is it is her journey and we can only proffer advice. Only she can decide which of the paths you want to take. At our chat ROAing at Funan, I commended her on having taken the right decisions even at moments of high stress.

So, the first thing is to recognise that. To take comfort that she does make good decisions when confronted with a problem. 

Second, as she decides what to do, I would like to share how I process my own challenges. She may have a different technique but I guess it never hurts to hear how others do it. Mine is a 3-step process.

1. Be kind to yourself. The problem was not created by you. So, don't blane yourself and don't take it out on yourself. Mom always laughs at dad when I blame the floor, but hey, its a mechanism I use and it has served me well

2. Take your time to decide what to do. No issues are that urgent and as you do so, embrace the journey because you are growing in the meantime. In fact, one day in the future, you may even look back and point to this time and said, yup, i learnt a lot then!

3. Write your thoughts, your options down. Like me, you are a writer and so its always easier to pour it out on pen and paper. In a way, that's kind of what I am doing now too as you have been on my mind and when we spoke last night, I felt that live conversations weren't quite the thing to do and so i am writing instead. Then with all your options laid out, you can decide. 

And this brings me to the final point. The options going forward. And she has heard two already, from her mom and dad... and there are at least two more.

i. Do nothing. It will pass. Some other stories will become more interesting. Besides the friends who love you will still do and this episode has given you the opportunity to learn who are true. If I were you, I'd be so grateful that I got the chance to know this at the age of 21

ii. Take more time to decide. You dont have to act immediately. This is not at all a life or death situation and in fact yoh have so much more to look forward to, not least being back in Oxford, your final undergraduate year and then Masters. Wow! Let not the urgent crowd out the important and this is not even urgent.

iii. Talk to A. It may help to tell him how you ferl about it. He is immature and you talking to him can help him grow too. As I said earlier, its good that you know now who you can confide in and who is not ready.

iv. Reclaim the narrative. This was what I had said earlier. Since the word is already out, might as well add your voice to it so its not just other people speculating and you can even make it a positive announcement thanking everyone for their support and that you are much better now. Its like a Simone Biles moment and she got so much more support in return for her courage of speaking up.

In other words, this is all part of life. Of growing up. There will be other challenges, big and small, that will come our way. How we overcome them is the key. And as I said during our ROA, she has shown she does make the right decisions to move on. 

And of course, she will do so from a rock solid foundation: the love of your family. Nothing can beat that, even for a half century old guy whose heart is brimming with love in anticipation of seeing his parents in an hour!