by You Jin
“What?” I cried furiously, “Why did you let him cut your eyebrows?”
“He said…he said he would beat me up if I didn’t let him.”
I became angry and frightened. When we had sent him to childcare, the picture that had been painted for us was that he would be safe. Gu Long’s saying came to mind: “The safest place always turns out to be the most unsafe.”
Early the next morning, when we sent him to the childcare centre, we met with the person in charge, Ms Zhang, and told her the situation. I added, “If this sort of vicious behaviour can’t be controlled, the children’s safety is of concern.”
Ms Zhang promised to look into the matter.
That night, I received a call from her. She coolly laid out for me the results of her investigation. As soon as I heard her report, I wanted to faint. I really had been too careless, naive, and impulsive. My maternal instinct had kicked in, and led me to falsely accuse another child, nearly getting him in trouble instead.
The teacher had kept Kai Ming in the classroom and questioned him, but could get nothing out of him. After that, she had examined Fung Yee carefully and found that the eyebrow was cut very smoothly. She could be sure of one thing: it had not been cut by scissors.
Ms Zhang asked, “Did you bring Fung Yee to a friend’s house last night?”
“Yes,” I answered.
She said, “He told us plainly what happened. He played with an electric razor there. He wanted to try it out, so he shaved off his eyebrow.”
My god!
I was so upset that I caned him. Though I do not usually advocate corporal punishment, it is sometimes the only way to get through to a child who is too young to understand reason, in order to make an impression. But still, the most important thing when administering corporal punishment is that, when it is done, the parent must patiently explain why it was done. Making a mistake is not a big deal. What is important, though, is understanding completely what one has done wrong and not ever doing it again.
This particular incident made me set the first family rule: no lying. Many wrongs in life come about because of dishonesty. These things can have a negative impact on the people around us, and even society at large.
Health can be addressed by medicine, but education has to start at home. Wanting to lay a foundation of honesty as the basis for everything we would teach at home, one day I came across the short anecdote in American author Alan Cohen’s book, A Deep Breath of Life. When I read it, I felt like I was being hit hard on the head with a bat. An enlightening excerpt from the article reads:
When I was a little boy, my mother told me never to flush the toilet while I was sitting on it, or else I would get a “cold in the tush”. Since my mother knew everything, I believed her. For many years I avoided flushing while sitting, confident I was escaping the dreaded tush cold.
Then one day at the age of about 30, I was sitting on the toilet and I inadvertently reached to flush. The moment my fingers touched the cold steel, I was overtaken by terror—I almost accidentally summoned the awful tush monster from his fathomless lair!
But then, for the first time in my life, I called this belief into question. Would I really get a cold in my tush if I flushed prematurely? And what is a tush cold, anyway?
I had to find out for myself. I pressed down on the lever and took my chances. Once and for all I would find out how vulnerable my tush actually was. But nothing happened. No tush cold. Not even a sniffle. I was liberated!
This experience, silly as it might sound, stands quite symbolic. As children, we were taught many erroneous, limiting and debilitating beliefs. We were told what boys and girls each could and couldn’t do; which people were acceptable and which to avoid; how much money and stuff you had to have to be respectable; how long people in your family live and what they die of; what are your chances of surviving cancer; and what you would surely go to hell for. Our innocent little minds were crammed with judgements, fears, statistics and expectations that, like the bull shark, cut off our reach and ripped our self-respect to shreds. Then, without testing these limits, we went on to live as if they were true.
What Cohen says is absolutely correct. When we are parents, we often make mistakes without being aware of it at all.
For instance, because I wanted my son to eat vegetables, I would spout a lot of nonsense without feeling any shame, “Do you know why the seven dwarves in Snow White’s story never grew tall? Because they didn’t eat vegetables!” I would pile leafy greens on my son’s plate, then add, “Remember, if you eat your vegetables now, you’ll be big and strong when you grow up.”
Due to this “irrefutable evidence”, my children strongly believed over a long period of time that a person’s height had something to do with his or her vegetable consumption. Sometimes they even circulated the erroneous message to persuade their friends to eat vegetables.
My two oldest children both have asthma. To keep them from eating ice, I often lied without blinking, saying, “There are worms in ice, thousand-year-old little demons that can’t ever be killed. When the ice melts, the demons will come out and bite your lungs, one bite after another, until your lungs are filled with holes. Then, you’ll start coughing, your nose will start running, and you won’t stop wheezing.”
Scared speechless by my stern warning, my children, for a period of time, did not dare to open the fridge and steal ice to chew.
And there’s more—so much more. Because I wanted to stop my children’s bad habit of biting their nails, I said, “Fingernails are blades growing on your hands. What if you swallow it and it cuts your stomach? You won’t be able to eat anything then.”
Although my children believed what I said, it did not stop their bad habit. Instead, when they were biting each nail with relish, they were careful not to swallow it and let it attack their stomachs.
The most ironic part of this was that I was relying on lies to teach my children not to lie. For instance, when I read Pinnochio to them, I warned, “Remember, don’t tell lies or you’ll end up like Pinnochio, with your nose growing long.”
Parents everywhere use this sort of sleight of hand. For instance, we say, “If you’re naughty, I’ll call the police to come catch you,” or, “Go ahead and cry. If you keep it up, I’ll sell you to the karung guni man”. Even public servants and manual labourers have innocently become tools for mothers to scare their kids!
Thinking of these things, I feel a bit guilty. Children love to lie, but perhaps that is only true when the parent is the initiator of evil. To put it simply, you may be forced to eat the evil fruit you grow, if you plant the seed of white lies.
Once, I got water in my ear while bathing, making me unable to hear clearly for the rest of the evening. That night, we were having mushroom-braised chicken for dinner. Fung Yee, who was in Primary 1 at the time, picked up a plump mushroom and placed it in my bowl, saying, “Mama, eat this mushroom. It will bring your hearing back.”
I wanted to scold him for making things up, but I suddenly realised that the one who needed to be told off was me. When he’d been small, he hated mushrooms, so I made up a story for him, telling him that, since mushrooms were shaped like ears, they would be good for his hearing. The more he ate, I said, the better his hearing would be—in fact, he might even have super hearing.
Now my own words were coming back to haunt me. Looking at the mushroom in my bowl, I thought morosely that it would have zero benefit for my hearing. I could only laugh at myself.
An old saying in Chinese is that whoever ties the bell on the tiger’s back will be the one who has to remove it. How would I clear up this mess, and right the wrong? By this time, there were little tigers all around me, each with a bell on its back.
CHAPTER 4
A New Guest
A Last Resort
MY OBSTETRICIAN-GYNAECOLOGIST, Dr Lena Chen, flipped through my medical chart smiling, and said, “I delivered your first baby four years ago. Time flies. Just about time to have a second one.”
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sp; Second one? Second one! I looked at her blankly. This was good news, but I did not look happy. My heart was a ball of tangled, knotted yarn.
This child was not arriving at a good time. It had only been four months since I started my course at NIE. The baby was due in May 1982, which was exactly the time for final exams. Also, the house we were living in was being renovated at the time. It was a mess, with dust and materials for the renovations everywhere. This was not at all an ideal living situation for an expecting mother.
A few years earlier, I had undergone the heartbreaking experience of losing an unborn child, the memory of which still haunted me. (I’ve already written about this in detail in The World in Words, so I won’t say more about it here.) This time, I had no alternative but to see it through.
After the appointment, I took a walk on Orchard Road, which was busy with traffic and crowded with tourists, and felt a great emptiness inside, as If I were watching fireworks through thick glass. I knew the fireworks were spectacular, but I could not fully feel the charm of the colourful profusion. I knew the explosions were hot, but I felt no warmth at all.
But I suddenly heard James’s voice in my head: Hey, haven’t you been saying you want a daughter who looks like a little doll?
A doll? My gloomy face brightened up right away.
A daughter, with a plump face like a ripening honey peach, ruddy lips like fresh blooming rose petals, with two dimples on her cheeks that would make her look like she was always smiling, intelligent eyes that would bewitch whomever looked upon her, and two short braids flying about like a pair of joyful butterflies as she ran. A daughter!
A deep sense of joy began to blossom in the garden of my heart. Harbouring the hope of having a daughter, I finally accepted the fact of my pregnancy.
What was really strange was that I did not have any of the negative symptoms associated with my first pregnancy. My appetite was good, and I was quite energetic. I walked as swiftly as a whirlwind, strong as Tarzan. I kept up my old habit of sleeping four or five hours a night without feeling tired. Sometimes I even forgot all about being pregnant, and when I looked at my protruding belly, I absent-mindedly thought I had overeaten.
Some women, who normally pay great attention to their looks, make a 180 degree turn when they are pregnant, becoming sloppy and dispirited, losing interest in everything, like a lazy cat. Not me. I went crazy buying loads of new clothes, dressing even better than I normally did. I was certain that even a pregnant woman burdened with a big tummy should have a graceful bearing. I did not buy boring maternity clothes that resembled sacks. Instead, I went to the boutiques and looked for dresses designed for tall people, stylish things that were quite flattering, trendy and beautiful. I shopped to my heart’s content, despite the fact that I would only be able to wear these clothes for just nine months. On the surface, I was just buying clothes but, in fact, I was really buying a certain mood. I hung my fashionable purchases in the wardrobe and, every day, with the air of an emperor picking his concubines, I would pick out things that made me happy and wear them to teacher training school. This was an endless source of pleasure for me.
During this time, everything I read dealt with education— introduction to education, educational psychology, educational principles, education code, the history of development in education, and other such topics. My friends all teased me, saying I was going through a complete antenatal training, and they jokingly predicted that my unborn child, under the rich nourishment of the nutrients of education day and night, would certainly become a good, accomplished person. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I passed smoothly through my days as a student.
The most difficult thing to face during this period was the renovations going on at home. We were converting an upstairs balcony, which did not serve much purpose, into a spacious leisure room and doubling the size of the kitchen.
Every day when I came home from school, I would hear the sound of knocking and hammering. I ran up and down, settling this and that, and ran in and out to take care of one thing or another. There was not a moment to rest. Now that I think of it, the amount of exercise I got during this time made the later birth of my child seem easy.
At times, I was even audacious enough to climb on a tall, narrow ladder to clean and tidy things up. One day a friend came to visit and, when she saw me perched precariously on the ladder, she could not keep from exclaiming, “Hey, don’t you value your life?” In fact, every time I have recalled my ignorance and audacity since then, I break out into a cold sweat.
Finally, the renovation works ended. We bought a giant television, VCR, computer and refrigerator for the new room upstairs, along with lots of educational toys for children. We put all our effort into making it a multifunctional space. It was a workspace for the adults and a game room for the children. More importantly, it was a welcoming leisure area for both young and old. After many years, my family members and I had accumulated many happy memories in this room, and the kitchen played an even more important role in our lives, being the place that strengthened our family bond and added a lot of unusual interest and delight to our lives.
With our living environment updated, I waited joyfully for our new baby to arrive.
During my pregnancy, the first thing everyone asked when they saw me was, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
I always responded honestly, saying, “I don’t know.”
This answer surprised people. “You mean you didn’t do an ultrasound?”
I replied, “I did, but I told the doctor not to tell me the sex under any circumstances.”
The reason I did not want to know was that I wanted to hold off the bitter taste of disappointment for as long as I could. I had a friend who had had two sons in a row, and she craved a daughter so badly that it became like a sickness. During her third pregnancy, she prayed and prayed that this one would be a girl. Then, when she had the ultrasound and learned that it was a boy, she said angrily, “Aiyoh, I’ll keep my thighs tightly together and not let this one come out.”
At this point, I wanted a daughter with all my heart, so the wardrobe, the crib and the stroller I bought were pink. Even when I saw a cute little dress, I would buy it right away.
I naïvely believed that whatever you wanted would become a reality if you thought about it with all your might all the time, as in the saying, “faith moves mountains”. But things like the sex of an unborn baby could not be manoeuvred by human actions. It had already been determined early on by nature, but I was like an ostrich, burying my head in the sand and refusing to face the truth.
As the time for my exams drew near, my classmates were all anxiously studying. But my due date was also not far off, and I was feeling quite uncomfortable. My swollen legs were making my movements difficult, and the occasional cramp prevented me from sleeping well, so I requested medical leave and stayed at home to rest.
A classmate, Huang Huayan, was also pregnant, but her due date was later than mine. While I skipped classes and rested at home, she would take a taxi and bring the notes given out by the lecturers to my house every two or three days so I could study at home. This spirit of offering help in a time of need is something I have often thought back on later in life, and it always fills me with a deep feeling of gratitude.
Because we were afraid the baby would come late, when I would be in the middle of exams, Dr Chen set the date to induce labour for 7 May. We were all prepared and ready for action, but something happened that caught me by surprise and sent me into a state of panic. Because I wanted to be free to study after the baby was born, I had very reluctantly made arrangements for a confinement nanny very early on, through a middleman. I paid a deposit of four hundred dollars and we agreed that, as soon as the baby arrived, she would move into my house and help take care of everything.
On 6 May, the eve of my admittance to the hospital, I called her but, no matter how many times I called, no one answered. I called the middleman who had made the introduction and was dumbstruck to learn that the confineme
nt nanny had been put in jail!
For a long time, this woman had been living in Singapore as an illegal immigrant, working as a confinement nanny. She had rich experience and outstanding cooking skills, was hardworking, and had a good attitude, so she had an excellent reputation. By word of mouth, business had poured in continuously, and she moved from household to household, living like an urban nomad all year long. Even though she did not have a permanent residence, her earnings were rich. Things had gone along smoothly for many years but unfortunately, a few days earlier, someone had reported her and she had been put in jail.
I hung up the phone, at a loss for what to do. James, who was calm and cool as always, immediately made a decision, “We’ll ask my mother to come help out.”
So we called her in Ipoh and laid out the situation for her. Without a second thought, she promised, “No problem, I’ll take the train down tomorrow.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and gratitude filled my heart. My mother-in-law was like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp. Whenever I was in trouble, I only needed to rub the magic lamp gently, and the genie would pop out and grant me my wish.
The next morning at seven, I went to Mt Elizabeth Hospital and prepared for the birth. I had a friend who spent more than ten hours in painful labour after being induced before the baby finally made an appearance. I was quite fortunate, taking only three hours from the time I was induced until I delivered the baby.
As soon as it was born, it greeted the world with an earthshattering cry.
The nurse said, “Ah! It’s a boy!”
A boy? Another boy! I was so disappointed I turned my head away, not wanting to take another look at the baby.
Dr Chen told the nurse, “She wanted a girl.”
The nurse protested loudly, “Such a beautiful boy! If you don’t want him, sell him to me! I’ll buy him even if I have to sell all my property!” Was he really that special? I turned to look.