Tale of Two Videos – Hong Kong State of Mind (aka SAR of Mind) & the MTR Song

Posted on April 14, 2011 by admin

**Updated on 19 April 2011: After this was posted a friend later told me guy who wrote song in Video #2 is a friend of hers, the very talented Steven James, dj at rthk Radio 3

Video#1

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEk2CoyJV9E]

Lyrics:

Yeah I’m out in Central

Now I’m down in Times Square
Right next to Victoria Park
But I’ll be local forever
I’m the new Donald Tsang
And since I made it here
I can make it anywhere
Yeah they love me everywhere

I used to club at Prive
Go with all my banker friends
Right there off of Lan-Kwai
Brought me back to that McDonalds
Then off to Tsui Wah
Se-ven-E-le-ven
Mixing cheap whisky with coke straight ballin’
Cruising down Queen’s road
Silver Mercedes
Driving so slow
But Fei Jai we call it “Ben-ze”

Me I’m out in Wan Chai
Home of them hookers
Got some Ebeneezer’s
Then drop by at Carnegie’s
Say what up to the Guai Los
Still sipping bubble tea
Sitting in a tram
Amy Chua give me high-fives
Teacher, I be gettin’ A’s
Gonna pass my CFA
Tell by my attitude that I’m most definitely from

Chorus
In Hong Kong
Concrete jungle where we eat dim sum
Special admin region
Now you’re in Hong Kong
The shops will make you feel brand new
The sales will inspire you
Let’s hear it for Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Roll up to the Jockey Club
Bettin’ on some horses
Sippin’ on the cheap beer
Ain’t no better place to play
I think I have swine flu
Hand me a tissue
It don’t stop me chilling on the street, eating great food
Welcome to the finance hub
Every corner selling grub
Chung King Mansion curry spot
Home of the shark fin
Red cab, green cab, blue cab, holla back
At Yung Kee like a tourist eating roast duck
7 million shopping malls, everyday they get packed
City it’s amusing half of y’all speak Engrish
Me I gotta plug a special and I got it made
Citi never sleeps, Merrill Lynch B of A
J P Morgan, HSBC, Chinese New Year, rest in peace Bruce Lee
Wan Chai Convention Centre, long live the Star Ferry
Long live the king yo, I’m from the S-A-R that’s

[Chorus]

Work is tiring
Homes need helpers
They come out on a Sunday
Hang out at the Jollibee’s
The tutor comes in with formalities
Who teach the math casually
Then maybe some science
Don’t skip the violin
Caught up in the in crowd
Now you’re white-washed
The winter gets mild, en vogue with your Uggs out
The colony passed back to the main-land
My boss is an expat, the city’s filled with them
Mommy sent the kids to an international school
Now they can’t read Chinese, less employable
Hail main-land to the city they buy LV
Gucci, Prada, we got everything they need
Came here high school, graduated elsewhere
Medicine, finance, engineering or law
Openrice.com got you feeling like a champion
The city never sleeps, gonna make my first billion

[Chorus]

Hands up in the air for the big city
Neon lights, big banks all looking pretty
No place in the world that can compare
Put your iPhones in the air, everybody say yeaaahh, yeaaahh

[Chorus]

Credits: Soo Jin Koh, Shao Ong, Charity Battad for her excellent singing, Brandon Koh, and Simon Li

And the British-born Chinese reader whom I recently got to know who then sent me the video, “It tells such a good and fairly accurate-to-a-point picture of HK.” She’s been here like, twice as long as my 7 years, so….

 

Video #2

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oqxQ5ovpI&feature=player_embedded#at=40]

Let’s start from the very beginning
Though there’s plenty of places to start
If you want to get around
You can get all over town
Just by stepping underground onto the M-T-R (M-T-R)
MTRKCR say
Just follow me:

Tsuen Wan, Tai Wo Hau, Kwai Hing, Kwai Fong,
Lai King, and Mei Foo, Lai Chi Kok,
Cheung Sha Wan, Sham Shui Po, and Tai Chi Doh
(change trains) Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon Tong,
Lok Fu, Wong Tai Sin, Diamond Hill,
Choi Hung, and onto Kowloon Bay,
Ngau Tau Kok, Kwun Tong and Lam Tin,
and then Yau Tong change for Quarry Bay

North Point, Fortress Hill, and Tin Hau,
Tung Lo Wan, in English Causeway Bay,
Wan Chai, next for me – Admiralty,
Central and then you have a choice
Sheung Wan but I like Tsim Sha Tsui
Jordan we’re off to Yau Ma Tei
Mong Kok and here we are again
we’ve returned to Prince Edward Road
so if you want to get around just get yourself down to the M-T-R

 

It’s like it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do but just stand there. Pun intended…

 

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Wordless Wednesday: Wheels

Posted on April 13, 2011 by admin

In case you didn’t get that, he broke the plastic strap attaching his skates to his shoes from deliberately flinging himself about when he was holding my hand, picking himself up, then doing it all over again…

So then we got him a skateboard…

And me a chiropractor.


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Notes on Learning to Read – How To Help Your Child by ESF Kindergarten (Part 2)

Posted on April 12, 2011 by admin

Things that make you go "Hhmmmm..."

List of stuff you can do to help your child learn to read:

1)     Lots of pre-reading experiences. Listening to stories repeatedly, rhymes, songs.

2)     Point out text in the environment. Exit signs, billboards.

3)     Cover the rest of the word, let your child guess based on the first letter.

As in Car. Fish. Bus. Not as in Philosophy.

4)     Later on, cover the last word or just cover nouns or verbs. (Check yourself as to whether you are blindly covering things up)

5)     Don’t forget to give your child time to process, when they get stuck. But also remember to move on and not stay stuck. You are supposed to be reading your child a story, enjoying the shared experience, not morphing into that dark alter ego, Kiasu Psychomum. Allow them to make mistakes.

6)     Play games like I spy. Or count the number of ‘And’s or ‘The’s.

7)     Label stuff around the house (or child’s room)

8)     Have paper and pens and stuff for kids to make their own story books. You may have to relinquish the stapler if he thinks that’s the best part.

My mum got me to write (more, in lower primary) by selecting passages out of encyclopedias for me to copy into a scrapbook about animals (my favorite – I wanted to be a vet, as a child) that also included sections for personal experiences, facts like hamster gestation periods (very important when later you start breeding hamsters like I did), photos and postcards I would search for in airports.

I still have this book today.

9)     Check for comprehension in case your child is totally memorizing all your reading materials. (For eg Rockstar in da house. Have “Rockstar” and “house” exchange places and see what he says.)

10)  Never forget to make it enjoyable and adjust to your child.

 

Oh M-UM...

In the car yesterday:

Me: I spy something that begins with the letter B.

Rockstar: Don’t know.

Me: <Trying to hide my dismay> Bus, Rockstar! (Thinking: Oh no, wasn’t that a really easy one??)

Rockstar: <Very prissy> That is not “a bus”. That is a double decker bus. That starts with D.

Me: Ok, fine. And I spy something else that begins with the letter D. (Pointing at JD sitting in the front seat of the car).

Rockstar: Don’t see anything.

Me: <anxiously> Isn’t JD a dog? (After much prompting and seeing a perfect afternoon of I Spy go down the drain.)

Rockstar: No. She’s a Border Collie.

Me: (Muttering to myself) And we’re a smartass.

Rockstar: <triumphantly> S! That begins with an S!

(Notes to self:

  1. Remember to go slow for awhile… Because Rockstar’s Putonghua lessons going on simultaneously have him learning to read right-to-left (English being left to right). He’s been scribbling some numbers (his favorite thing to write) from right to left…
  2. Pay more attention to the books I’m getting Rockstar (I blindly got him collecting Mr Men and Little Misses after he was picking up useless little matchbox cars as the occasional treat because I wanted him to like the concept of picking up books when we travelled and Mr Men was the most collectible bunch we could find everywhere we went, from the Westwood Well Come in Pok Fu Lam to the Borders on Orchard Road and umpteen bookstores in the States or Australia. He counts his collection out every bedtime… Except I hadn’t thought about what was/wasn’t actually in the books.) Must check out Dr Seuss as recommended by his school…
  3. Have. To. Find a way to adjust. From doing some of the exercises, I realized Rockstar tries to memorize text as quickly as possible so as to answer correctly. Because he hates making mistakes. This is a child who sometimes insists on making umpteen trips to the sink because he has paint on his hand that’s distracting him from finishing a picture.
  4. Stop falling asleep while reading to Rockstar. Our day-to-day conversations can be exhausting – this one’s hard.)

 

And so we laughed. We learnt. And I walked away from that one hour session with the sense of being prepped to help the Rockstar learn, via our interactions at home, as a parent aware of learning strengths and weaknesses specific to my child.

Much cheaper than therapy.

 

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Notes on Learning to Read – How To Help Your Child by ESF Kindergarten (Part 1)

Posted on April 11, 2011 by admin

When I first mentioned this, a local friend was, “Well, my (now 15 year old) son also had this in the neighborhood local school, what.” So when the 20-something page handout was emailed to all the parents, I wasn’t the only one wondering if we still needed to show up for it (I know because I asked around).

Newsflash: If you get the chance to go for this thing, go. It’s like the most productive 1 hour, worth umpteen books and googled articles and research papers. My first text after the course is to another mummy friend: U r NOT kidding it really was brilliant!

The Indian dad sitting next to me was taking notes on his iPhone. Actually the Asian mum on the other side of me too. Across the room a Caucasian mum I was chatting earlier with asks what kind of text the school uses, upon the suggestion we  mimic text used in school in one of the suggested games we can play with our kids.

I spy a little notepad of the kind we sometimes use to jot the grocery list. Somewhere on HK Island is a fridge door with those tips stuck on it. Probably held in place with fruit and veggie magnets.

"Right...Where did you go to Kindergarten?"

I… never realized how much thought a Kindergarten puts toward also prepping parents as part of the process in prepping their children for the next level at Primary schools. (Well, in the introduction they do point out learning happens everywhere – not just for the 3 hours in school.)

Even more interestingly, we parents might get homework and suggestions, but we are reminded to make it fun (or at least not painful) for our kids. To not freak out if our kids keep getting it wrong because it’s perfectly normal and kids can develop and learn very differently so don’t compare. And to tell the difference between actual comprehension of the text and your child simply having memorized the whole story.

So notes! Here’s mine. Kind of. (Cos I think on some level you just had to be there.)

 

NUMBER 1: Developmental milestones like talking and reading don’t all happen at the same time for all kids.

Barring the 5 year old who never speaks (in which case yeah, you have to get that checked out), within a range, DON’T STRESS. Rockstar’s principal said it with the caps on. But the example I really liked was of Finnish secondary schools outperforming all others for like, 10 years – and they start formal education at age 7 years, versus say, the British who start at around 4 years and don’t really score very high at high school level. (Must tell our Finnish neighbors next time I meet them walking their Westie whose name is – wait for it – Rusmus. That’s gotta be the coolest name for a dog ever, though I probably spelt it wrong. )

Remembering that step-by-steps are not the same for every child, good reading programs should cover all the different ways the kids read.

Preferably also don’t buy reading schemes and take them home to read because they may cause a lot of frustration (and end up turning your child off to reading I guess).

 

 

"So that means you can read......"

NUMBER 2: Don’t just think books.

Nursery rhymes? Good.

Comics? Better than nothing.

Also exit signs. Billboards. Those are words too.

And text messages and computer screens are reading too. Because our kids are going to grow up with technology – possibly 90% of secondary school level assignments will be typed, by the time our kids reach that age, just so the schools can get more material in.

Y-eah writing is important but perfect handwriting isn’t the real goal: Neat handwriting does not a good writer make. (Think 1 line of perfectly formed letters vs a whole page of scrawled, original story ideas.)

 

NUMBER 3: Phonics are important, but not everything

Teach your child the main sound a letter makes. (But bear in mind words like enouGH, wOmen and intuiTIon can go horribly wrong if you only taught phonics).

Note to self: Explain to Rockstar that for words like the above, he has to look at the whole word. Like when he mixes his red cough mixture into the milk, the whole mixture turns pink. Ergo, sometimes he’s gonna have to memorize how some whole words sound.

 

NUMBER 4: Learning to read involves a variety of strategies that include:

1)     Phonics – see above

2)     Sight/ memory – Some rote learning is required. And use your child’s knowledge of certain words to build on others. Rockstar’s favorite is “NO!” He has made the connection to “go,” but not “so.” And they don’t have to be real words either. Nothing wrong with nonsense words.

3)     Picture cues – Discuss a picture before reading the accompanying text to help your child work out what the text is saying.

4)     Context cues – Your child has to get meaning from the text. It will help him complete sentences like “The girl ate the c—“ (ie picking the word “cake” instead of “car” or “sandwich” to fill that blank).

Also, be aware that context relies on experience and culture – for eg, Aussie books may use the word “truck” where British ones may use the word “lorry”. So, if the book says “lorry” but your child usually uses the word “truck”, mentioning that in some places a truck is known as a lorry when discussing the picture before tackling the text will help your child read the word “lorry” in the text when he gets the visual cue of the truck picture with the “L” word where he expected a “T” word.

 

"We like hiring candidates who can read"

Coming soon in Part 2: List of stuff you can do

 

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The Hong Kong Celebrity Tutor – Richard Eng

Posted on April 9, 2011 by admin

This is not really new, CNN ran a story at the end of 2009… but then Kings recently got to know two fresh grads who had attended these classes at high school level (separately, yet both gave us very similar accounts of their experiences) and we happened to be talking about it recently…

“We were not there to learn, we were there to get exam tips. It’s what we pay the money for.”

Among others, the teacher studies trends in exam questions over umpteen years and predicts what’s going to come out this year. Apparently it’s quite effective and lots of students do get results from doing this.

(But then predictability in exam questions isn’t that unique to Hong Kong – Kings says his London School of Economics exams were quite predictable too. Ditto my conclusion on the Cambridge A Levels (at least for Economics and Literature) in my year. Dale Carnegie needs to add an extra chapter: How To Win Friends And Influence People And Please Examiners.)

Anyway. As described to us, there are so many students that a lot of the time you’re sitting in an “overflow room,” ie you’re just sitting in a room with a tv screen.

No “government” in these tuition classrooms? Wouldn’t all the kids be talking all the time? Uh, no. Attending students are generally really serious about getting everything they can out of these sessions because of the money they’ve paid for these tips and exam strategies. Also, there is no “repeat telecast”- if you miss the tip, it’s gone.

(Oh, but if you watch these clips, you do find some teenaged girls saying they’re picking the tutor because he’s so good looking.)

So here it is: What The Local Tuition Scene in Hong Kong Can Be Like. Or The Unlikely Profession That Pays Better Than Investment Banking (But Not Quite As Much As Being Brad Pitt. Yet.)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8660KuGP49Q]

They have their own TV commercial too (oh, and website)…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKn_H0TiUw]

Oh, and he’s the guy who tests Ms Hong Kong hopefuls’ English!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsiNxJ15XlA&feature=related]

Richard Eng, rock star (there are Youtube videos of him singing too, btw)…

At some point (not so very recently) students stopped caring about learning as they came to prize scoring. Oops, we did that. Society greatly rewards top grades. Too greatly, to the detriment of actual performance. There’s even a Cantonese saying about top grades without any actual ability to do anything.

Thing is, if I thought the string of As would get me to the interview table (at least in first, before it was sink or swim time), I’d also do it in a heartbeat (though it’s just not the only thing I’d do). For fear of not even being called in for a first round.

Because before I get to tell people how smart and capable I really am, I first have to speak the language. The one that has lots of As in it. It’s a vicious cycle that’s just starting younger and younger these days.

Next Up: LEARNING TO READ – How to Help Your Child which I attended at Rockstar’s kindergarten…

And no, very much NOT “exam tips”…

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Hong Kong Zoological And Botanical Gardens School Trip

Posted on April 8, 2011 by admin

It’s here.

Fuh-inally.

D-Day of Rockstar’s long awaited school field trip to the Hong Kong Zoological And Botanical Gardens.

Buahaha. <supposed to pass for evil world domination laughter>

Fountain Where The Kids Gather At Start of Trip

 

Aka Giant Fountain Conducive To Evil World Domination Thoughts. His arms were up in the air a moment ago, I just missed it.

Just so you can fill the world with fountains. (Why you want world domination, I mean). A fountain like this one in every lift lobby. Every school. Every apartment. And your border collies would be allowed to splash about in them and chew up sticks. People would smile more. They might even break out in song. La la la.

A mummy friend in the earlier session celebrated her boy’s birthday slightly earlier on the trip and looking around I think it must’ve been brilliant with the outdoors and the fountains…

Rockstar running round the gathering kids and parents

 

Y-eah. The Rockstar’s more of a Run Rings Round People World Dominator.

We pass an old Caucasian couple with delighted smiles on their faces as they watch Rockstar’s class troop along – I catch something about “adorable little hats”. I know how they feel. We were so psyched with the ESF sunhat Rockstar’d been wearing it all morning before we even left the building.

Out The Door

See? That was us leaving this morning.

On the Rockstar: Standard Issue ESF Outdoor Gear (ie Sunhat! Love!) and umpteen mosquito repellent patches

On me: Old T-Bags dress I chopped off into a top, Vince cashmere hoodie, J Brand jeans, yellow snakeskin moccasins (forgot label), Tom Ford shades, Prada leather tote (impulse purchase at Prada Warehouse years ago when I suddenly decided to bring my huge dealing diary on biz trip – something came up and it was my equivalent of a security blanket – it’s a giant desk diary that holds every single scrawl (ie thought) I make during the work day. Just glancing at some of the hurried scribblings would give me a blow by blow of the day’s activities <blissful sigh>

Draw What You See, Rockstar

Anyway – clipboards!

I’m surprised. I thought we were picnicking and vegging out but it turns out the kids get color printed folios with nice fat blunt sketching pencils attached to clipboards.  Throughout the trip they would all be encouraged to draw what they see.

Rockstar draws a 6-legged monkey and a monster next to it. I want to make pollution and toxic waste jokes but then decide not to. Just in case it doesn’t sound like I was joking.

Daddy’s turn to inspire the Rockstar. Daddy? DADDY?

Kings is too psyched about getting to join Rockstar’s school trip for a bit – he had a business lunch but because of the timing of the trip and the Botanical Gardens’ proximity to his office in Central, he could make part of this trip. It’s hard to tell who is more thrilled. He’s trying to get the camera on one of his two berries up so he can click away and take that with him back to the office.

A quick glance around shows up at least 2 more dads in full work garb out with their little girls for this trip. At snack time I catch a glimpse of the father-daughter team nearest me and suppress a smile – the packaging on the sandwich and drinks they’re sharing brings back vivid memories. Pret a Manger. I used to work at IFC. Before that at Citibank Tower. Kings was at Pacific Place 3. All boast Prets. Mc Donald’s is Outre. People would grab stuff at Pret before heading out for errands or warehouse shopping excursions on their lunchbreaks <blissful reminiscence>

There are like, umpteen cages of monkey-looking things (sorry conservationists, it was hot and Rockstar was running around so many of them are “monkey-looking things”), raccoons (see, I got that one!), lots of different birds with plumage that look like punk hairdos, giant Orang Utans and turtles.

Hot Rockstar Looking For Animals
Then settling down to draw

We get sketch breaks…

And then onward, into orchid houses and round little bamboo groves…

School staff hand out magnifying glasses to the kids and suddenly everything is getting magnified – leaves, roots, pavement, little hands…

Things that make you go AAWWWWW….

Rockstar And Friend (he got a couple of kisses too!)

A little while after this pic was taken, his (current) best friend in school would come hold his other hand…

Rockstar would later tell me this was his favorite part of the trip.

The tour ends at the playground, and after a bit we leave… We have a few minutes before our ride gets here, so we take the scenic route out, passing yet another dad in work garb hand in hand with a little boy in the same turquoise and navy as Rockstar, as they walk quietly together along the paths.

2 other schools scheduled field trips on this day – I spot grey and red uniforms being herded along one of the trails, and Rockstar and I pass through a little group of white and baby blue uniforms quietly and obediently sitting near the fountain. Their staff are friendly, the other kids seem a little older (maybe it’s their standard uniform of all track pants even for the girls, maybe it’s just Rockstar is tiny and there aren’t any other more normal-sized turquoise and navy kids to compare with…)

But none of the other uniforms were toting clipboards or magnifying glasses…

Rockstar gets huffy in the playground, and I assume he’s cranky from being over-tired – but he cools down after a bath (how could I forget, Kings is similarly impossible to talk to when he’s feeling hot), and we have a looong talk about the day. Right after he makes sure I put all his leftover snack food from the trip out for him – toasted smoked salmon sandwiches and chocolate mint butter biscuits. He eats it all.

3 large smoked salmon finger sandwiches, 3 butter biscuits – then also a large bowl of stirfried noodles with chicken, carrots and broccoli, some cheesy scrambled eggs, 3 bowls of watermelon, and two organic corn chips with several of my cheese aperifrais.

(Yes, and he had a good bowl of the same fried noodles, then 2 finger sandwiches and a chocolate butter biscuit he tattled on me to another parent for giving him during the trip.)

So sometimes his pediatrician is like He’s Little, Does He Eat Anything? and I’m erm is that enough? (But really, I did not see a single kid littler than mine today sigh and he was very much not a small baby.)

Yum.

My snack. Aperifrais. Shiraz. View.

Then the Rockstar gets out his paints. And then the marble run. And after that he wants to watch the Number Jacks. And then jigsaws.

(No, no nap since he woke just before 9 in the morning.)

I’m exhausted, especially from all the talking to him because he got mad at another kid on the playground.

At the end of the day Rockstar sleeps maybe 20 minutes earlier than usual. Just before 10pm. Just falls asleep after bedtime prayer – maybe because I beg him to. Because he was still asking me about the day.

It… might be time to find him more activities.

Because Mummy would like the break.

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Rockstarism #115

Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin

Me: (Trying on new skirt from T by Alexander Wang) What do you think of this skirt, Rockstar?

 

Rockstar: (Shaking head) No. Don’t like. You cannot wear.

Me: What d’you mean I cannot wear??

 

Rockstar: If you wear that people will laugh. Cos you look funny.

Me: What’s wrong with it, I like it and I’m going to wear it. It’s comfortable.

 

Rockstar: (Standing up in bath n drawing in the fogged up window)

See this? This is an X. It means you cannot wear this skirt. X, Mum.

 

Everything from Shopbop.com:

Here's the skirt Rockstar awarded an X

 

 

 

 

 

Which I'm pairing with my first attempt at a 100mm heel a la Charlie My Love (70% off and so comfy!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because Rockstar prefers Maxi skirts like this Rachel Pally one (which are more me)...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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His Will Be Done

Posted on April 5, 2011 by admin

Far as I know, no one’s trying to kill us.

Hopefully no one wants to.

No one wants to think about it, selecting executors of a trust, guardians – replacement parents – so their rockstar will be alright in the event of you-know-what. And it’s possible if you’re superstitious you will feel even more uncomfortable about the whole biz. I know certain perfectly well educated, intelligent, beloved ageds some of whom when we recently discovered hadn’t even bought terminal illness insurance (the thought of illness and incapacity so terrified them) responded casually along the lines of “Well, I thought I would just sell off one of my houses if it came to that.”

And then there are the dropped hints.

“Don’t you think this one is a pretty good home, it’s got the whole resort look going on…..”

“Fountains! The sound of all that water!”

“Chess tables?”

“I really should set aside money for (my spoilt mutts) in a separate account for this place – all the dogs get walked twice a day…..”

(That was my A-Ha moment for this one time when I’d met a fairly old lady walking a young working dog and filed it away for future reference. This lady told me somewhere in Hong Kong you could apply to be the owner of the puppies that would eventually be trained in the police force etc – for the first 1 ½ or 2 years of the pup’s life, you give them a home just like you would any other pet, and then when they’re old enough you give them up to be drafted in the police force etc.

In other words, you can still get your dog fix without worrying what happens to the dog if/when you croak.)

Ok I do narrate certain dropped hints affectionately, but it’s also vaguely suspicious. Of the You Didn’t Actually Write Down Somewhere What You Want Done In The Event (God Forbid) You Are Unable to Tell Us, Did You? variety.

Scary that it is to think about when you’re young-er, I think it gets a lot worse when you’re old. Er. Which would be one reason why Kings broached this shortly after we got married – yes, when we were like, 27. We started out of college with nothing but huge study loans and then home mortgages to pay off, remember? (Fine, he did.)

Ah, those days. That first condo we bought. Changi Rise in Simei, near East Coast Park Singapore. 1,032 square feet, 99 year lease hold. The point was if we put what 25 year old us paid in rental expense + CPF toward servicing mortgage payments, there was zero effect on our cashflow between renting and buying. And at the end of the day instead of simply rental going out every month, we would have a solid asset for resale. I went to sleep at night with the floor plans by my bed, lovingly dreaming of how I would furnish it. We would drive by to watch the construction works on weekends.

We never lived a day in it because Kings got a job in Hong Kong. Ah, well. We got out with a tiny profit, but please don’t mention Changi Rise to me again. Tell you why someday.

Anyway. The worst thing about choosing prospective surrogate parents for Rockstar in the event the Unthinkable, Unmentionable should happen to us, is how coldly logical you have to be about something you are obviously extremely emotionally invested in. Crap. But here goes.

Who would best replace me and Kings as parents to Rockstar?

Who might even do a better job?

And then when I’m starting down the road of Who (And Their Family) Would Be Best Capable Of Loving An Adopted Child Like Their Own –

Suddenly I remember the promise we made when Rockstar turned 1. Our church practices Baby Dedications (as opposed to say, cradle baptisms) and around the time of Rockstar’s 1st birthday, Kings and I had committed to pointing Rockstar to the Lord as we raised him. And our choices become less difficult.

Because the Lord giveth, and He taketh away, and whether you are Christian or not, the mindset of not clinging too much, not idolizing something, gives you a much clearer head.

One of life’s biggest ironies is that it’s when you “care too much” that it totally messes with your head, making you unable to make the best decisions, the very thing you want most to do for your child.

Still. It was terrifying to go to that place where I might not get to be Rockstar’s parent anymore. To where someone else would get to wake up to that first cuddle of the morning. Someone else would know what his breath smells like. I don’t want that. I only just discovered so much about Rockstar myself. I’m discovering new things about him every day.

Remembering that accepting Him means having faith that His way is best even if I don’t understand it at the time (wasn’t that how I ended up unexpectedly pregnant, in the wake of walking away from what I initially thought was a plump job offer in the first place?), I think I Can Sell That.

Even if I’m terrified. I don’t remember any mountains relocating into oceans just from my speaking to them. One of the authors of Our Daily Bread observed that. And that’s where I find the quote from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, former pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel.

“…………. Faith does not look at the difficulties………. at itself or the person exercising it. …….The measure of a man’s faith, always, is ultimately the measure of his knowledge of God……. And it is the prayers of such a man that are answered.”

Dear Father. Don’t let anything happen to us or Rockstar. Please.

Yet may Your will be done.

It’s interesting that our faith was what taught us the ultimate lesson in accepting, in recognizing our child as his own person. With his own choices to make. His own achievements to be proud of.

Because it would have to be the Rockstar’s choice to accept Jesus as his savior someday, it’s not something we can do for him. No matter how much we want him to.

I may use a religious example, but don’t all us parents want our children to be certain things? Yet it was from our faith that we learnt not to push.

You can lead a horse to water. Provide the water in various colorful beakers and sippy cups with Lightning McQueen and Thomas The Train on them. But. You cannot. Make the horse drink.

All we can do is answer Rockstar’s questions and be the people we hope he will be. Supposedly we’re raising this whole other person, but really we are the ones, as much as Rockstar, growing up along the way. Even as the Lord uses the child He gave us to shape us, give us the strength to be the people we always wanted to be.

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Rockstarisms #113 & 114

Posted on April 4, 2011 by admin

#113

One day recently, after glancing at the tv screen, usually switched on to CNBC in the mornings:

Rockstar: Oh! The market is going down!

<Big theatrical sigh n angsty head shaking> Everything! Down!

(Sometime back he asked what the red and green on the screen meant, I told him red = more sellers = market down, and v versa… Also, bad news like the Earthquake in Japan causes more people to sell)

Me: Uh, so how?

Rockstar: We must fix it! You must buy things!!

 

#114

After getting a marshmallow:

Rockstar: Mum. How come when I’m polite people give me what I want?


Nice eats for nice kids?

(Hi Tea after school at Shangri La Hotel waiting for Kings so he can have a coffee with us after landing back in Hong Kong and on his way in to the office… He’d been gone all week and had one of those badly needed basketball workouts after work til late)

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How To Make A Chicken (Or A Rockstar) Sleep

Posted on April 3, 2011 by admin

One of my all-time favourite baby pics of the Rockstar… tender pink feet… All too soon he’s gonna turn into a grubby, sweaty little smart-mouthed kid – oh wait, he’s there already.

Bedtime in the Lai household:

Me: Rockstar. Sleep.

Rockstar: What else? <Scrabbling about on bed in weird sleep positions> How else?

Me: You mean how others sleep?

Rockstar: How do giraffes sleep, standing up? Like flamingos?

(During Safari West he asked the guide why flamingos slept standing on 1 foot – apparently it has to do with circulation down their spindly legs and is also why they switch legs often in their sleep)

Me: Uh, yeah maybe. Let’s google it

(Who knew, giraffes sleep in a ball with their necks weirdly folded over – and I always thought elephants slept standing because they were too heavy and lying down would crush their organs but apparently they can sleep lying down too)

Rockstar: Hee hee hee What about chickens?

So here’s How To Make A Chicken Sleep:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r9QWtlLOdc]

It’s basically swinging a chicken back and forth in a wide ark after tucking its head in… The Rockstar wanted to try it so we enlisted Daddy’s help…

It works!

Even if the candidate is giggling for a bit before falling asleep.

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