Tiger Mother 2

Although we had a very strict and sheltered upbringing, we also had very happy times when the whole family packed into a Morris Minor and many Sundays were spent at the beach in Morib.

Mum cooked food which we usually ate under the shade of the Casuarina trees after playing in the sea. My father would pack a couple of old tyre tubes which we would use as floats. When the tide was out, we would all dig for clams. That would be our dinner when we got home.

These outings were very exciting for us as Malaya as our country was then known, was fighting the communist insurgency during the Emergency. Father had to apply for a police permit to carry food and we had to wait in a convoy that was escorted by the British soldiers in their armour cars, which had gun turrets. This was to preclude any ambushes by the communists.

I have much to thank my mum for. She taught me how to embroider and later, how to sew. I remember embroidering pillow cases, with pretty daisies and roses. Then I learned to sew simple dresses, and helped her to sew school uniforms for my younger sisters.

Cooking was another skill she imparted to us. Before the Chinese New Year, we would all sit together in the garage, facing the hot charcoal, as we made the Love Letter, Kuih Bangkit and Kuih Baulu, all the traditional cookies. It was like a conveyer belt type of action. She would spoon the batter into the love letter irons and clap them closed. Within a few minutes I had to open the irons and toss out the love letter which my sister would then fold into quarters. She had to be quick or they would not fold once they cool. Then another sibling would put them into the tins. Because we worked together, played together and got punished together, we grew up to be a very close-knit family.

She scrimped and saved so that we could have piano lessons. Every afternoon our piano would be thumping away, as my sister and I took turns to practice. “Practice makes perfect” was drummed into us. It was a good way to de-stress and I usually poured my emotions into the piano pieces. My father’s favourite was the Blue Danube waltz and he would always ask me to play that piece.

He was a very strict no-nonsense disciplinarian with stern notions of how his daughters should dress. We were not allowed to wear shorts and no sam foo ( Chinese apparel consisting of a mandarin collar top and trousers ) outside the house. Sam foos were for housemaids. We could wear the cheongsam ( Chinese dress with high mandarin collar and slits at the sides ). He had no problem with that. He used to bring home treats for us. We had lots of toffee. That probably accounted for our bad teeth!

When we grew into teenagers, I remember my father imposing a ten o’clock curfew when we had class parties at the end of the year. Then during varsity days, the curfew was extended to 11:00 pm. I remember being locked out a few times and my younger sister had to quietly let me in by the side gate, for which she earned a good ticking off.

We have a good laugh when we reminisce those old times but as parents ourselves, we were not harsh in our parenting. It was the carrot more than the stick and our children have turned out well, praise the Lord.

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The Tiger Mother

Much has been made of the Tiger Mother’s parenting ways in the media. The western communities are mostly outraged that a mother could subject her children to such methods of upbringing in order to ensure that they are competitive and succeed in all their endeavors, failure not being an option.

To Asian families this is not surprising as we are familiar with this kind of upbringing. However I must clarify that this is so only with parents of my mother’s generation. To me, when I read what the Tiger Mother did, it was déjà vu.

My mum was a school teacher and discipline was inculcated into us by means of the cane most of the time. She had to as there were seven of us then. My father was a travelling salesman who worked very hard for his large family. Mum had to deal with us most of the time and handling seven young children, a year apart in age, was tough. She had to be strict. I think it had also to do with ‘face’. A teacher’s children must be better than others. Being the eldest of my siblings, I had to be exemplary all round.

Coming out first everytime in class was paramount. My younger siblings were also under great pressure to perform but I had the greatest pressure of all. I had to come out first everytime. I remember once I came out second and I dreaded going home from school. I walked as slowly as I could, my report card in my bag, feeling as if I were walking to the death chamber, my heart thudding with fear, as the distance between the school and my home shortened by the minute.

The scoldings, the lash of the cane across my legs and my back reduced me to a skinny mass of quivering jelly as I promised not to lag again. “Half bucket of shit” ( in our Hokkien dialect ) was a common term used when we presented less than perfect scores. So “garbage” as used by the Tiger Mother is comparatively mild. These days such treatment would be child abuse but in those days it was discipline, good for the child. It was upbringing that would stand you in good stead in a tough competitive world.

Woe betide you if you try to answer back, or if you ever dared tell that your teacher hit you with the ruler because all you would get is more of the same, more caning, as parents inevitably believed that the teacher was right to punish you. You must have transgressed to merit punishment. Being punished by the teacher brings shame to the family and for that you would be punished again by your parents.
So different are parents these days, that if their child is disciplined by a teacher, they would be up in arms. I remember an irate father coming to the school with a parang, looking for the teacher who had dared to discipline his wayward son. This was back in the seventies. Fortunately the school principal and the senior teacher were able to calm the parent down.

The discipline my mother dished out was for our own good, for all of us ( we finally totalled ten siblings ) turned out well and never got into trouble, such as the like of these days. We all performed very well in school and I must hasten to add that this was during our primary or elementary school days. By the time we entered secondary school, discipline had been so ingrained in us that mum did not have to resort to harsh measures.

However I must say that my younger siblings, number 7 to 10 had a better childhood experience than the older seven of us. However they were never molly-coddled. Neither were they subject to the caning that we had to endure for less than stellar performance in school, for playing in the rain, for running away from the dental nurse when we had to have our teeth checked at the government dental clinic which was a stone’s throw from our home.

Those were the days! Sigh……the drama of those days!

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The Pain and the Joy

I don’t know if you have ever felt this way. Have you ever been in a situation where suddenly a good friend goes incommunicado and despite frequent attempts to resume communication, steadfastly resists overtures made to her?

The bewilderment, the pain of not knowing what went awry in such a good friendship is very hurtful. The sudden halt to regular get-togetherswas a shock. The not knowing whether I’ve offended and in which way makes things worse.

I simply couldn’t think of anything which I could have done to cheese her off and reluctantly I accepted that it could be a situation where a friend feels the need to keep a distance because she has outgrown the friendship. I really don’t know.

Because she is such a good and close friend I feel very sad over this. The happy memories are still there but they only sharpen the present sense of loss.

Then by chance I happened on her one day and we exchanged pleasantries. It wasn’t the time to ask the whys and why nots as she was busy and on her way somewhere but at least there was an intimation of sort that we could get together again.

To me this was a great joy, a feeling that is hard to describe.
Maybe if the meeting materialises, we could move forward from there. I do fervently hope that it will. Hope springs eternal in the human breast and a renewal of friendship is something wonderful to look forward to.

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Keeping Close

As one grows older, one appreciates and values more the relationships we have with people around us. I wonder why when young, we do not do so. Is it because we were so taken up with the there and then, the concern with activities, rivalry that we often took for granted the relationships?

Going through school, making friends, graduating from college and university, some relationships grew closer and endured while others petered away. Keeping in touch constantly helps foster the relationships, be it the annual greeting cards, the occasional phone calls or emails these days.

However as some of us may have discovered, texting and emails are not the same as talking over the phone, be it a local call or an overseas call. The sound of the voice of a loved one makes all the difference and invokes feelings no text or email can.

Thanks to phone cards, the cost of international calls has become more affordable and makes possible frequent contact with siblings and friends who are far away.

I find that I appreciate my siblings more and feel the need to maintain closer contact now that we are all growing older by the day. Time has become of the essence as we do not know how much time is left to us so each contact is all the more precious and meaningful, even though we may talk of mundane matters.

To my siblings and dear old friends, thank you for the lifelong friendship and for making a difference in my life.

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