My Life is Brilliant

I'm pretty obsessed with James Blunt's You are beautiful. I shall name this entry after the first verse. I spent 4 hours writing it.

Trip of a lifetime

It is exactly 1 and a half month ago that since I left home to embark on what has been hyped as the trip of my life. To discover Europe for four and a half months as a student is an opportunity that will never present itself again. What’s more, as an exchange student, I don’t even need to worry about getting excellent grades. Just a pass would do. From what I have seen in class so far, it wouldn’t be too difficult. That would leave me with a lot more time to enjoy myself.

Contentment is happiness.

I have always been fortunate, and have taken a lot of that for granted. But this trip really made me understand and appreciate how lucky I am. The opportunity to come on exchange is really a privilege that perhaps many would never get to experience. I am extremely grateful to my parents who have made it financially possible. Financially, we are not needy but I can’t say that we are rich either. My parents themselves have not gone on a holiday for quite a few years, though Mummy travels frequently for work. I always ask them to go on holiday but they say that they do not have time. They may not say it but I know that they want to be cautious in case any financial need arises, or maybe there wasn’t enough money left after sending me to Europe. I don’t know. My parents never share their problems with me. I would never know. They will try to give me what I want unless it is really financially impossible. (3 years ago, she told me that she could not afford to send me to US to study). Although I certainly would prefer that they share their problems with me (I want to help), I do appreciate their nobility. This is what they think parents should do.

My Xiao Yi was equally nice. She offered to give me $5000 to supplement my budget. She wanted me to enjoy my time in Europe and don’t scrim and save. I am rather surprised but certainly touched. She is a person who is always prudent when it comes to money. I am really touched. How can I not be? How can I not feel contented to get this opportunity?!

Feeling alive

The most fruitful thing for me so far is to feel alive again, to regain the emotional part of me that I thought have all but disappeared. The weeks before I left Singapore were extraordinarily hectic. Besides planning numerous aspects of my travel, I also have to try to complete my work in AS Louken. I also spent a lot of time meeting up with my friends and also try to spend as much time as I could with Jacylnn. All this made me drained, weary and devoid of emotions. I wasn’t particularly happy - which is really strange, since I am about to embark on such an exciting trip that I so longed for - or sad – that I will be leaving people who are close to me for so long. That troubled me quite a lot, especially when I saw how much my family and my friends love me. I hated the feeling, or rather the lack of it. Knowing that you ought to be flushed with emotions but in actual fact feel empty. It made me feel dead.

That was until the day I was at the airport. I felt guilty that I felt happy at the airport, when my family and girlfriend are so sad that I will be way from them for so long. I was happy because the hectic preparation is finally ending and not because of my excitement to embark on the new trip. All this are still secondary. More importantly, my close friends all took the trouble to meet up with me before I left. It may sound customary but it meant a lot to me. Michael, Pei Wen and Terence bought me nice dinners, seafood at Jumbo, steamboat and Chen Fu Ji freid rice respectively. Michael (too many… you are such a generous friend), Eileen (I really like the quotes and the chilli of course), everyone in ERC (the flowers were beautiful and the key chain never fail to remind me of mahjong) and Joel (sorry, forgot to tell you what I want) gave me meaningful gifts and everyone gave me your best wishes. I always know that you care, but this time I really felt pampered touched, and loved. Thank you. It is wonderful.

Parents screw up the first half of your life

Some of you would find this quote familiar. I’ve seen it in a few places, including Mitch Albom’s Five People You Meet in Heaven. That’s what I always believe about my father. Two men with such strong character and pride to match could never dream of a good relation. The three men in my family were never close. He hated my guts, vice versa. I always felt that he is biased towards my brother. For me, that’s the surest ingredient for hated.

It is more than a clash between two forceful personalities. The coldness was due to years of neglect - the father’s neglect to praise his son. It seemed simple enough; the last thing you should do to a proud son is to praise him. Things are never so simple, aren’t they? All boys are the same. There is nothing, nothing that can give a son more assurance than praise from his father. They neglect to praise can easily be mistaken as the neglect to love.

Of course, there are more things why I blame him. I blame him for the influence that he left in me. The ego, the extreme views, the opinionated mind, the lack of tact and so many other things that make it so difficult to communicate with people when I was younger. Growing up for me was so difficult, having to change so many things in me, and the painful lessons that littered my childhood. Sure, it made me a better man, but I always felt that a lot of the pain, not only mine, but those that I inflicted on others was not necessary.

Just for the record, at 16, we fought, almost, except because of Ah Mah’s timely intervention. Whatever happened that led to the confrontation wasn’t important. The fact is that he raised his arm, and was ready to throw a punch on the disrespectful idiot that he has failed to bring up properly. That incident by itself was interesting enough. I never figured whether, Ah Mah, in her 60s, with her body weakened by years of turmoil, had the reflexes of the young boxer to throw herself on my father to prevent him from striking me; or was simply because he did not really wanted to land that punch on me for whatever reason. Time seemed to stop. I could not figure out how long he held his fist by his face before he was blocked by my frantic grandmother. It did seem like forever.

Of course, the punch did not land on my face but there is no doubt that it was the worst punch that my heart ever took. It was awful. After that, I told my friends that the moment the fist went up, the heart was dead. I didn’t exaggerate. It really felt that way.

Children screw up your second.

At 21, I said words so hurtful that no men with his pride could ever fully recover from. It started out of good intentions, to improve our relations, to let him understand how we can try to mend the old hurt. He was an opinionated man, and one with rather extreme views. I was stupid enough not to put my words more tactfully. I wanted him to conform to my expectations, which on hindsight is definitely wrong. Once the words were misunderstood, there was no way to prevent the conversation from degenerating into an argument. Men of exceptional pride are never men of equal intelligence. Things of course turned ugly. Words, which are ten times shaper than the best swords are welded. I questioned the fundamental way he had conducted himself as a father, out of exasperation rather than malice. I said bluntly that what I want is a father who is my friend, not someone who always put on air of the traditional father. He could never have understood what I was saying. The argument turned out to be equally hurtful for all of us, me, my father and my mother, who did not utter a single word during the entire time, just sobbing as silently as she could.

Unconditional love

I am an emotional man. Even touching scenes on the TV can trickle my tears to flow. But I always thought of myself as a strong man. I hardly cried since I was 5 years old. I only cried three times since. The first was when I was 11, when my father’s mother died.

The second time was when I was 16, because I learnt that my Ah Mah (mother side) wanted to commit suicide. At first, I cried because I was overpowered by uncontrollable sadness. In this world, I know that nobody loves me more than her and I love her more than anyone in this world. I cannot imagine having to live without her. I continued crying for another hour, in addition to being sad, because I was touched by her nobility. She was troubled emotionally and tortured by rheumatism pain physically. The only reason preventing her from doing so was because she doesn’t want us to be sad. That is the kind of persons she is, always putting us before herself. This is sacrifice.

The second was 2 weeks before I left Singapore. It started with me worrying that she will be sad when I leave. My chain of thought continued and I went through my memories of my younger days, when I was living with her. I started to think about the kind of person my grandmother was and what happiness meant to her. I always knew it. She is a traditional woman. Her happiness comes from her family. Seeing all of us every weekend, and seeing that we are happy. Suddenly, I realized that it is more than that. She will only be happy if I am happy. She had such a difficult life but all that she wants is to give me the best. And that is only possible because she loves me more than herself. How can that be?!!! It is impossible for me to comprehend. What have I done to deserve this? Nothing. Nothing can ever make someone love you unconditionally unless she wants to. I cried.

Men don’t cry

At the airport, it upset me to see that my mother had been crying and my grandmother looked like she was in a daze. At one corner, I saw a familiar face in an unfamiliar expression. I only saw that expression once. My father’s eyes were red. That wouldn’t count as crying, not like the way I did. Even then, it was surprising enough. It was equivalent because he is a much tougher cookie than I ever was. I would never imagine that he would even drop a tear in this kind of scenario. I hated his guts but his strong appearance is paradoxically something that I always had some respect for. This moment was enough for me to breakthrough the emotional barrier that had plagued our relationship for the longest time.

The barrier was so strong that I have tried to forgive him before but I never succeeded. We were not at war but we treated each other pretty much like strangers, both unwilling to open up too much, perhaps still haunted by the past. In fact, the ugly quarrel where I used those hurtful words on him started with me wanting reconciliation.

That moment really helped me to overcome the pain from the years of neglect, the neglect to show love. Slowly, bit by bit, over the next one and half months, I learned to appreciate him for who he is. He is a great man. A man who is extremely sensitive to people that he truly cared for. He was equally respectful to elders. He is a caring father, except that he cared in his own way, never too outwardly. He was a generous man as well, and has helped many people before. I stopped blaming him for being so cold to me. All this I always knew, but it wasn’t sufficient to overpower the ill feelings until that defining moment.

Forgive

The battle was comprehensively won in one night in Barcelona while I was talking to Clifton, Cherilyn and Xiao Yu. We were sharing about our families and I suddenly realized that I haven’t done him too much justice so far. Instead of blaming him for everything, I started to reflect on the kind of person I was. While I inherited some irritating traits from him, I was a lot more intolerable than him in so many other ways.

I started to put more things in perspective, including many things that I have not thought before. I wondered how I would have dealt with such a terrible son if I was in his shoes. Fine, I would have done a lot better because I love children and I always wanted to be a good father. But it is so easy to come out with a list of people who would have thrashed a son like me to death. He did fine, not exceptionally well, but I should be contented. Contentment, after all leads to happiness.

Most of you know that I am an objective person and I always think a lot. The fact that I can deal with our problems with the same kind of objectivity that I use for any other issues is an important sign. It showed that I have forgiven him. In fact, I feel a little ashamed to actually say that I have forgiven him. He should be the one who should forgive me for screwing up the second half of his life. He did, I think. Maybe he loved me unconditionally all along...