Something disturbing just happened...I told my mum about the river valley high concert at the esplanade tomorrow and obviously she was sulking about it. She never did like my affiliations with bands, even though it wasn't mine, directly. After that she called me out from my room again, and mentioned visiting my grandpa over at my aunt's house (dad's side) as she had apparently received a call from one of my cousins saying that his condition had worsened. Something about a ruptured kidney if I remember correctly. So she told me,

"You better call your auntie tomorrow and ask her how your grandpa is doing. I shouldn't be doing everything since he's YOUR grandfather. You want to follow your father's surname and not my surname so you're of THEIR blood and not MINE. You're his grandson and I'm not his granddaughter so you better do it yourself this time."

Earlier this morning at Hong Kong International Airport, while waiting for our departure at ten something, she'd asked me a question I considered to be laughable. She asked whether I'd like to change my surname to 'Lim' instead of following the traditional malay name, having my dad's name at the back. I certainly did laugh it off, and I said I'd prefer to have my dad's name within mine. It was like a kind of recognition. That relates to another story.

According to mum, dad was a great guy, and from what I've heard about him from my aunts, my mum and my grandma, he was probably one of the best men a family and a wife could ever had. He didn't earn much, he drove a modest car, but he gave everything into our family, and that's how I came along. He was the gentleman dad I almost never had. And so I tried to take after him...

okay, to the girls, I respect you, I try to be gentlemanly, but I'm not quite there yet I presume. Don't take this as an excuse because I'm dead serious that I should treat women equally or even better than men. You laugh this off because of the usual ways I act and how I carry myself. That's just the way I am. But the true meaning lies just beneath the surface. Under millimeters of skin, within endless reaches of soul.

So why the sudden stereotyping by pushing me toward my dad's side all of a sudden? What, I choose to remain with my original name and all of a sudden I'm not my mum's son anymore? Just because her name is chinese and my name is malay, so she doesn't feel a sense of belonging...two pieces of a puzzle which don't fit. And probably for the past sixteen years they'd been welded and melded together just to seal the spaces in between. Has the solder diminished? Since when has my name ever been a problem for my mum? And for her info, MY GRANDPA IS HER FATHER IN LAW. she's only one step down the family tree from him and she considers me to fall under another branch. I just hope she doesn't stereotype me further by blatantly sending me off to stay with my dad's side. She'd threatened to do that everytime I'd done something terribly wrong or disappointed her to the edge of her mental threshold. And frankly, though I consider them family, nothing makes me feel more at  home than right here...with my mum's side.

The chinese.

Suddenly I seem to feel caught in the middle of a cultural collision and religious conflict.

"I'd prefer to be called a very dark chinese rather than a malay"

That's what I'd said not long ago, and I wasn't very sure that was the notion I was going to live by for the rest of my life.

So much for living as someone with mixed blood. You not only draw attention, but the implications swamp you like piranhas to an ox which, unfortunately, just fell into the river.

I HOPE this is just another one of her untimely mood swings.

cheers, with wine in a dirty glass. I do not appreciate woeful posts.