Forgotten Promises
“But we promised to watch the fireworks with him at our Town Hub this year!” My mother protested.
This was not a discussion I wanted to have, and to my mind, a bit self-centered. I wanted to watch the National Day Parade at home with my wife, not go chasing fireworks in potential crowds.
Growing up, watching the National Day Parade in Singapore together had been a family ritual. We would listen and sing along to the familiar National Day songs and run to the top of our HDB block to watch for fireworks. As my brothers and I grew older and formed our own families, that had gradually petered out, each of us watching the Parade with our spouses and family, or missing it, as the case may be.
Last year, I had brought my then two year old son back to watch the Parade with my mother and father, who had been facing an empty nest National Day. He enjoyed his time with them, and we had gone together to watch fireworks from my Town Hub, one of many side events scattered across Singapore.
He was scared at first, held his ears tightly and tried to run away. After a while he warmed up to the lights in the sky and stared with fascination. He made us promise to watch the fireworks with him this year.
But this year, he seemed to have forgotten the promise extracted, as toddlers are wont to do. As did I. This year has been too much.
The grandparents did not, though.
A Singaporean Story
My mother and father were both born shortly before the establishment of modern Singapore, part of the post war baby boom, in large families – they had 8 siblings each. They grew up in kampungs or villages on opposite sides of the island, finally meeting when they worked in the port – that great reason for Singapore’s existence at one of the crossroads of the world.
He did operations, she was on security. The story they told us was that they had met while she was checking his pass as he went to work. A story that I remembered many years later, when I was working for a merchant shipping line and had to sign up for my own port pass to visit our great ships at port.
They had me when the country was young – only 20 years old – less than half my age now. I was born in the old Kandang Kerbau Hospital, for a long time the busiest maternity hospital in the world. While the situation in the 80s had already greatly improved on what it was like in the 60s and 70s, the experience was apparently so horrific that my parents opted for the private Mount Elizabeth Hospital to deliver my younger brother 3 years later when he was born.
Later, when I had meetings with the Land Transport Authority that had taken over the old Kandang Kerbau hospital grounds, I used to amuse myself by wondering where the maternity wards were, and whether I had passed by particular rooms or buildings as an infant.
My first few months of life (?) – this is hazy, no one actually explained it to me – were spent in my father’s kampung apparently, but we had moved into a shiny new HDB apartment shortly after my birth. As far as I understand, we had 8 family members staying in that 4-room flat – my grandmother, 2 unmarried aunts, an unmarried uncle and his girlfriend, my mother, my father and me. When we say that older HDB flats were much bigger in terms of space, we frequently forget that they used to house more people too.
My parents devoted much of their youth and life to raising me and my brothers, both working through the rotating night shifts that the port that never slept required, and leaving us frequently in the care of relatives. Neither of them had the opportunity for higher education because of family circumstances, and they drilled into us that we should always study hard.
My mother particularly tried to teach us well whenever she could, and always took care of us when we were sick, even when she was sick herself. We never felt we wanted for much, although life was obviously a struggle, in hindsight. I remember wanting to go to work soon after university, so I could chip in to help my family.
I grew up in a young country, still coming into its own, although the trends were already in the right direction then. The government had hired a Canadian advertising executive to write celebratory songs like “We are Singapore” and “Stand Up For Singapore”, and kids like me loved them. My wife commented that Singapore does National Education very well – every kid seems to love their country. I agreed but couldn’t resist adding – until they grow up!
Today, it is fair to say that Singapore has done pretty well. When the large Town Hub in the HDB New Town that I grew up in was being built, it brought to mind for me the wonder building animations in the Civilization series of games, when the player had created a historical wonder such as the Taj Mahal or the Statue of Liberty. This is an exaggeration, but the Town Hub was huge. And well equipped.
All this to say, I am grateful for my parents and all they’ve done for me in bringing me into this world at this juncture of time and fending for me as I grew up, and all that they continue to do for me and my wife, including buying nutritious food and helping to take care of my young child. They’ve put me at the centre of most of their lives. But it’s still grating when they expect me to change my plans to bring my kid to celebrate National Day with them when all I wanted was a quiet weekend at home with my wife.
I decided to bring my son back to try to catch the fireworks at the Town Hub with the grandparents, after he had watched the majority of the parade in the peace of my home with me and my wife.
One Magical Day
We watched the tail end of the parade at my parents’ place before walking over to the plaza beside the Town Hub. They were prepared with cherries, one of his favorite fruits.
There were fewer people there than expected and the crowds that my wife and I feared were not present. My son amused himself running around the plaza while the grandparents chased him.
When the fireworks came this time, he once again clapped his hands over his ears and buried his face in my chest as I was carrying him to get a better view. My mother took over and coaxed him to take a look.
His fascinated look of joy, with hands clapped over his ears, as the flowers of yellow, purple and green bloomed in the sky, will stay with me for a long time.
The display lasted just about 10 minutes.
Later on the way home, my son told me that he had really liked today – the bus ride on the double-decker and articulated buses, writing and reading at home in the afternoon with his mother and me, swimming in the condo pool, and going to Ah Ma’s (grandmother’s) place, and of course the fireworks.
No one really knows what next year will bring. Singapore has been on an accelerating curve of change for 61 years. And someday, my son will grow up, hopefully knowing that we have loved him, but also realistically, being irritated with us at times, and on many occasions, doing other than we wish.
But such is life. For me too, it doesn’t get much better than this, one magical day.
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