LESSONS FROM MY MOTHER

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2012

Growing up as a child of the 70s and 80s, my mum was well and ahead in the game of being a career and multi-tasking mum. And from her, I learnt these life lessons. I think for the first 18 years of my life, I was pretty terrified of my mother. Here she was,no-nonsense, tall, statue-esque for a Chinese woman, and though we used to joke about her Victorian disposition (when she had her acid reflex attacks or asthmas flare-ups), she was always robust and ready to roll. She was loving, but with that came a very high level of expectations that she heaped on us, her daughters. Speaking proper English with the correct grammar and pronunciation, not using the same connectives when we are narrating a story, using your apostrophes properly, correct subject-verb agreements etc. We were expected to score top marks consistently and do our best- in piano, in our subjects at school( nothing below 85%), and being her eldest , I think I always felt the pressure the most. She juggled a teaching career (being an English specialist and a minor in Geography) and was discipline teacher and senior school head amongst other posts. She used to have a hockey stick in her car as part of her walk-about as discipline head. So you can imagine. For her, the value of a good education comes with a good dose of discipline too!

On weekends, she managed her own very popular Joy Luck Club. ( which also became, for most of my teens and twenties, a source of bitterness and resentment, which I hope I have left behind now that I am older and wiser.) But our meals were always hot and freshly prepared, and very delicious, she would never forget birthdays and I would always get a small party with a cake nearly every year, and would not think twice about spending money on books( of the Enid Blytons and the Bobsey Twins and the Nancy Drews she bought us, then trips to Chowrasta Market to the second hand book stores for classics, and even overseas holidays despite being on a government-school teacher’s meagre salary. When I was 15 and my second sister was 13, she single-handedly paid for and shipped is off to Australia for 2 weeks to be with our aunt, so that we could broaden our horizons and enjoy a special Xmas. There started our wanderlust for travel beyond numerous trips to KL and Singapore.

My mother’s most obvious golden trait is her generosity. I think she learnt that early on from her own mother( Our Ah Ma), who, even during her numerous post-baby recoveries, would share her one rare egg with my mum, her only child( out of 12) to suffer from asthma and therefore needed the nutrients, and hence was always well-protected. Like my Ah Ma, she would do the same with us, though we now have more eggs than we can handle. At restaurants, Mum would always ask us to try the dish that she ordered first, always wanting to share with us what she ate. If she bought herself a new scarf or purse, and if we complimented her on them, she would offer to give it to us straight away. Once, much to my sister’s chagrin, she offered me her LV bag that my sister has passed on to her, haha! And being a fair parent, mum was always and is always fair when it came to the three of us. When my sisters and I were very young, she would practise a true happy birthday celebration for us all. I would get a gift as a birthday girl, and my sisters would get one too. And the same would happen when one of my sisters had their birthdays. This was so no one felt left out. When my youngest sister was old enough to suss out that being born on June 23 was quite ordinary compared to both her sisters’s big bang birthdays (New Year ‘s and April Fool’s Days respectively), I remember hearing mum rock her gently on her sturdy legs and cooing to her that people born on June 23rd was the most special birthdate to have !

Mum’s closet in the 1970s right up to when she retired in 2000 was full of exciting, well- tailored clothes. She has long maxi dresses that were de rigeur in the 70s and smart tailored matching skirt and blouse suits in the 80s. With her we were introduced to Aladdin’s caverns of fabric shopping in stores Sungai Petani, Bukit Mertajam and Campbell Street. Looking for the best rolls of gorgettes, linens and Japanese cotton for her to make the best clothes. Needless to say, I think we are clearly chips off the old block now when it comes to being clotheshorses and style mavens!

From our mum, we learnt that it’s essential to go out of the house with your lipstick on. After all, you never know who you might meet. She would never get out of the house without proper clothes on, which means no shorts or sloppy t-shorts in case she met her students outside of school. Errr, I guess, it’s the noughties now, and I do love my short shorts and I don’t really care how my students view me outside of school but a bit of lip gloss is always essential.

Mum made time to create special moments, though as her joy luck club members increased, it became abundant clear to an adolescent and more aware me that her priorities had changed hence those to me were the most turbulent years of our relationship. They were not all bad, but those were the years when communication was difficult and I turned to Dad more and more despite his strictness and set ways. To say that both my parents have mellowed so much is an understatement. I think an important lesson out of mum here, is that I learnt not to get too emotional and to not use crying as a form of blackmail against my spouse, having seen it done the artful way by her! She’d make me delete this part for sure.

At university, I remember after a particularly bad week of orientation by the seniors, upon ringing home, and hearing Mum’s voice, I burst into tears. Her letters from home were always newsy and full of who had struck 4D in the family and who was treating dinner, or what tricks my dad had got up to up on the mango tree that week! It got more serious when devastatingly our beloved grandmother suddenly got terminal with lung cancer at 75 but mum dealt with that very admirably and recovered from her grief much quicker than the rest of her siblings did. From Mum, I learned to begin to truly honour my own. And I am sorry it’s taken my 40 years to write this for you.

Millie and I especially enjoyed some really fun special moments with her when she was a young mummy, with fun trishaw rides to Georgetown to old style coffeeshops like Kek Seng where she would never allow us to have fizzy drinks, lest we pleaded. She would then remind us of the Colgate advertisement of the girl with bad cavities( she would quote, pointing to our teeth- LAIN JADINYA) It always worked and we would stick to plain water. ( Till today, thanks to her, I stay away from carbonated drinks like a disease) Hence, when we did, it was a WILD treat indeed! Barley ice was as much a treat as a glass of coke. I remember in the late 70s when she had this penchant for Taiwanese movies- ( these days she loves American Idol and The Voice, which she has to fight with dad who will be channel-flipping to watch). After school, she would whisk us off( still smelling of her Elizabeth Arden perfume and in her lovely school clothes) to any Odeons or Cathays that were showing any of those with Lin Ching Xia, Chin Han, Ling Fong Chiao love triangles, set in bucolic Taiwanese scenes. A pure banana Chinese, Mum read the English subtitles as we did to understand what was happening. Mum was and is still a great cook but she wasn’t the world’s most fantastic baker. She had an amazing recipe called coconut biscuits which she used to bake every Chinese New Year. One year, the batch of cookies got burnt, and she was so embarrassed by it. She made us throw them away into the bin outside as she had a visitor coming.

What I most treasure about mum during my school days was that she NEVER missed a single sports day and end of year concert cum prize-giving day especially in Primary school. She would turn up and do the parents' races sportingly, once even got knocked off the pitch by an eager dad. She sat there proudly as I collected my First in the class or year prize and even though she never told me she was proud of me as in the Chinese way, the look of pride I saw when she saw me go up to collect the prizes of the smiles of assurances she gave as I played the glockenspiel, or as Millie read her speech, or Evelynn delivered lead lines in plays were enough to make us know she was well and truly proud of us. For that, I will forever be thankful for her.

Yes, our family is a rare Chinese breed who tells each other we love each other all the time. But any further praise or compliment is often veiled. We all know she is proud of us 3 girls, with all her heart but it’s not in her nature to show us off or be smug against her peers about our achievements. She knows she has raised us well, and being dad’s sidekick, I think one of their strongest strength as our parents is that they always believed in us, and were consistent in what they expected of us. She taught me that it was important to work at a great marriage. And it's okay to sometimes feel like you want to kick your spouse out of the house, but to never go to bed angry with each other.

Mum was with me both emotionally and physically for Isabel and Thomas’ births as she had retired from teaching by then. She gave up a month of her life in Penang to come and look after me and baby, and that in itself is an act of generosity and self-less that I hope I have learnt from her. She let me wash my hair and eat what I wanted though there was always plenty of ginger, steamed fish, chicken in Chinese wine , chicken essence, lots of eggs and copious amounts of red date water, she was the coolest confinement lady ever. We went shopping and she learnt drive from Sri Hartamas to Damansara Heights in my Suzuki Vitara and took Sam and then both Bel and Sam to school and brought them home safely. Anytime we had problems with domestic help, Mum and dad would be on their way in 5 minutes. Mostly they would drive, but Mum would sometimes take the bus from Penang to KL or Singapore to not miss her grandchildren’s special occasions.

From Mummy, we learned to always keep your husband happy (She’d chided us earlier in our motherhood for going to sleep with our babies and leaving the poor dads alone) but to get your way nearly every-time, haha and she lets you know she’s proud of you not through outward gestures but through her special rhetorical, sometime slightly passive-aggressive ways that her way, her advice is still THE BEST! And you never mess with a Chinese mother. If your results are less than par, she wouldn’t be happy. If your hair is unkempt or you are without your lipstick, watch her eyebrows raise. Or as a doting grandma, if you are over-disciplining your child! She would happily point out that you have a zit on your face, and that you are running out of time to complete your Master’s dissertation so you better get on with it( even though you were struggling with inspiration), and on a recent maiden Skype experience with Evelynn my youngest sister, she asked her why she had a congested forehead and asked if is she had put on weight on her face! Through these all, you just get tougher and more immune to loving criticism!

So, this is my parting paragraph, Mum.

I think I am turning into you, and it’s scary( but an honour as well), especially when I admonish my kids, and give them sage advice ala you or when I am trying to win an argument with my husband, haha. Growing up, I used to be more of daddy’s girl, and you, despite being hurt about it, you rose above it and knew that eventually we girls would return to the mother hen, who not only gave us everything that you could but MORE. And I mean everything, you taught us( besides how to play Scrabble), the value of strength and resilience and to not be ashamed of being yourself, and to never ever settle for less that what you deserve. You taught me to me a fighter, and to never give up, and to stay stylish and beautiful. You taught me to GIVE GIVE GIVE, as you have, and then be blessed. You have given me the greatest meaning in my life, Mum. I love you more than words can say.

Mum & her girls at our youngest sister's wedding at Lone Pine May 2010.