roots.

Had a very heartening, informing, interesting and curious exchange with Mother Dear this morning on the drive up to uni. Amidst a boast of my ability to live off a dollar a day, in my latest adventure of "poverty" (which actually was more of a discovery of how much I actually have rather than not), we begin to exclaim who's life was harder. Then Mother enriches my knowledge and experience of poverty with her own- a stark contrast- my present and her past. Hers, much less rich, fortunate and sheltered as mine. Allow me to share with you a glimpse of what Mother shared with me. She didn't vomit out her life story but mentioned mainly how her mother worked herself deeper than the bone to lift her children up to the "satisfactory" standard, where they themselves took flight and tamed success bearing new and old scars of trial and error.

My mother was the second youngest of nine children. Her father died when she was ten. It cost 15c one way to take the bus to school on any given day since the distance would have been back-breaking to walk. However it was becoming an overwhelming burden for the travel expenses to be met and the children to go to school. Mother mentioned how she and her siblings would line up at the nearby orphanage at lunchtime for free lunch. Nothing remotely luxurious, of course. She couldn't count how many different jobs her mother had had or had changed. Anyway, there was a hero- apart from my grandmother. The priest at the catholic church was kind and compassionate. He took my grandmother to the public transport head office, and somehow managed an audience with the CEO, who, as any CEO, was balling off his brains and couldn't see the harm sympathising with one poor woman. Because any hard-working person can recognise another hard-working person coming to wits end. He gave her four monthly tickets, for each of the four children still attending school, with the only condition that they collect the tickets monthly for as long as they attend school, which for my mother meant 7 years of free transport to and from school. Even if the distance to the public transport office was as stink to walk.

Mother actually recalled how she had resented grandmother's work and being forcibly required to help distribute a display of food and noodles and lunches upon bicycle. A food cart for most of the year was the predominant occupation...if I'm not mistaken.
Starting about September, my grandmother would work morning till nigh making biscuits for Chinese New Year which wasn't usually till january. Apparently the average per day was 400 units, making 4 tins which would sell for $7/tin. $28 a day. She was renown around the area for her cooking and her devotion to making, and so was never short of clientèle, resulting in relative success, but she hardly got by for the large family she never intended to groom by herself.

How this family became so suddenly established is very unclear to me. Something about the children growing up and getting jobs and something more about my uncle winning the lottery of a couple of thousand, which apparently helped them out of the rented place into a house of their own, which replaced rent money (dead money) with loan repayments.

Then Mary met Michael, as they both worked in a bank in Malaysia and tied the knot. Father studied at Monash University's Clayton campus and taught Mother how to drive around in the carparks there on the weekends. They lived very earnestly and owned a milkbar, then sold it and had a German Shepard, then gave it away because lo, I was born and they thought it'd eat me. Then my sister came and I learned how to fight...and how to cower. I think this last paragraph is out of order. I can't remember when they migrated to this brilliant desert of a land, but glad as heck am I that they did. Because I live the life of luxury as a middle-upper child of very hard-working former children of poverty.

When Father returns on Monday from his visit to Malaysia, I'll ask him about his side of the family. He was the eldest son of seven children. Go figure half of Malaysia is related to me.

My children will hear horrific stories of how I lived on a dollar a day under the roof of my parents' newly built home, driving a car I didn't pay for and my father's credit card for buying uni books and transport.

Now I just need to collate properly the histories of my beloved parents and bind it into a book that will be passed down from my generation till ever, so that children never forget appreciation, and gratitude and to do away quickly with complaint and laziness. Because only the resilient fly over and beyond the circumstance dealt them. Only my parents could have paved such a life for me... Maybe I'll pretend to be poor for the first half of my childrens' lives so that they learn character richer than dollar signs.

Maybe I'll learn myself.
Maybe...I'll never know.