That Little Girl

I attended the Yellow Ribbon concert today. There was a segment in the musical concert somehow brought back memories. In the segment, the inmate was wondering whether his daughter, his little girl of 11 years old would forgave him when she visited him. Then I was reminded the first visit I made to the Changi Prison when I was 9 years old. I remembered I missed my dad badly when he was caught when I was five years old. That night just before the police brought him away for the next 7 years, though I was only five years old, I remembered he kissed me goodnite on the forehead. Then I woke up the next day, I did not get to see him till I was nine years old. I remembered I kept asking mum where dad was, she told me dad was working at the sea. She told me dad would be back for me. I guessed the sudden disappearance of my dad did had an impact on me. That is why till today, I can take rejection in the face yet I was scared when people suddenly refused to talk to me. That cut off simply reminded me of my lost when I was young.

The next 7 years was bad for me and mother. I did not understand why our house was burnt down a few months later after dad was taken away. I did not understand why if dad was working overseas, relatives and especially my grand dad would hated me so much. He hated me so much that he would often beat me up when his opium stick. His beating was always painful, knocked my head real hard. He often snatched the bowl of rice I was eating and threw on the floor. Everytime he did that, I would then proceed to the back of the kitchen, got whatever rice that was left, got the fish cake and got the soy sauce and ate beside the drain. There may not be enough dishes to go around, fishcakes were plentiful cos' my maternal family sold noodles for a living and we made our own fishcakes. Honestly it was always my neighbour of the same age thought that I was pitiful. I was quite contented with my rice and fishcake and I liked fishcake till today. I hated my grand father before but as I got older, that hatred was gone. I remembered when I was 19 years old, my grand father had an illness. During his last few months, surprising we made a connection. I would just sit beside him on the sofa, we did not talk much but I knew that he was glad that I was there. That was a closure for both of us. I thought it was his way of saying sorry and my way of saying I still regard him as my grandfather. When he finally left, honestly not a trace of bitterness left. I remembered at the funeral when my uncles and aunties wanted to reprimand me for not going through the taoist rituals, i told that I was the only one that visited him often during his last days and that sort of shut their mouths.

I stole when I was 8 years old. When I first steal, it was a nail clipper. That was purely out of curosity. The 2nd time I stole because it was my cousin's birthday and I knew that he always wanted a lego set. He was a cousin close to my heart till today and I wanted him to have that and so I just do it. The next few times, I remembered was to buy my classmates' sweets and the other time was to steal from mum because I wanted to have a barbie doll. All of my classmates have barbie dolls and I wanted a simple barbie doll, so that I did not have to borrow from any of them. But a simple barbie doll at that time costed $9.90 and I only managed to take $4 from mum. IHonestly sometimes, I thought to myself why my mother would want to put me in a prestigious school, that was a lot of social pressure there.

In that school, I remembered beside our name, they would put down the father's name and occupation. When I looked at the classroom register, there were so many engineers, doctors, lawyers and beside dad was always blank. As I got older, I thought I start to use the term " business man" for his occupation cos that sounded prestigious. Well, I was not totally lying, just a matter of what business... sigh.... ha ha...

Honestly, I was totally sold the sailor and working overseas story that my mother told me to explain for the disappearance of my dad in my life. So during primary school, I remembered I shared a story of my dad working on a ship and wrote back to my mother to my classmates. Actually what was fantasty and reality? They were determined by what we hoped to see in our world.

Back to barbie doll, I finally had my first barbie doll when I was 10 years old. I got this classmate - Joanne, she had a pair of kind parents that bought Joanne all sort of toys. There was so many barbie dolls in her room and strawberry shortcakes. They gave me a barbie doll for my birthday. Honestly I was still grateful till now. I lost touch with Joanne since primary five but I saw her once last year. I went forward to introduce myself but she no longer remembered me. I left my name card and she did not give me mine and she never call me. All I want to do was to tell her parents 'Thank You' for giving me my first barbie doll.

I was surprised that the Yellow Ribbon concert brought back so much memories and feelings.