9-12

I was forced to do many housework at home. If I didn't do them, I would be beaten. I hated to be a girl because father said girls must do housework. When I did not sit properly he would beat me too, even though I learnt it from him. He said that girls have to sit properly.

I was always punished as the eldest child. I always hated that I had to be so 'old'. When I went into primary 4, I was extremely upset. I couldn't accept that I had reached 10 years of age, which I thought was 'very old'. I took a very long time before I realised that time wouldn't go back and it wasn't wrong to be 10. No word can express my feelings completely.

Also, I was not even allowed to wear shorts out of the house. I had to wear long pants or skirt when going out. When I was in primary 5, we had to go to school for housecleaning one day and we were required to wear T-shirt and shorts. He wouldn't let me follow the rules and beat me into wearing a long pants. I had no choice. He said that everybody would be wearing long pants and I would be the only one wearing shorts if I wore shorts. So I went to school, confused. Then I that saw everyone else was wearing shorts and felt cheated. I got laughed at by my classmates but I couldn't do anything. I did't understand...

I never had the chance to go to friend's house until 12. He didn't let me. When I wanted to go for school trip for graduating students, he was reluctant to let me go. But he had no choice at first so he gave in. During a particular meal time he beat me in public because I ate too slow. He said that with this speed I would lose to other students during the trip. I wanted to go so much that I told myself I would endure everything it takes to get the money to go. However, I was chosen by my school to go for an entry test to a Singapore secondary school during the same period of time. I didn't want to ask him but my teacher insisted. Then I knew I would regret for not going for graduating trip forever. I was naive to believe him that he would give the refunded money to me entirely and I was a little consoled. In the end he wanted the money back and I had to give him back. After a few years that I realised I was cheated. He even cheated his own daughter for three hundred ringgit.

妈妈，我好想你。现在我唯一可以安慰自己的就是死的人你而不是我们三个孩子，要不然... 真不忍心看到你那痛彻心扉的样子，更不忍心看到你苦上加痛却只能默默的努力的活着。

妈妈

妈妈好可怜，苦了三十多年，以为找到了一个好的归属，没想到却是另一个无底噩梦的开始。无助的撑了二十年，把孩子带大，一起寻找一条出路。但是，寻寻觅觅，还在水深火热之时，就毫无理由的死了，被摩哆车撞后不治身亡。

我能怎么办呢？什么都不能做。什么都不能为妈妈做！就这样走了，什么都没有说，什么都没有交代，忽然间就没有了！连死前最后一眼都没来得及看！

Day by Day

Everyday is meaningless. Why do I live? It feels like I am waiting for death to come upon me. So many things unsettled. Whether they can ever be settled is another thing. If I can't settle them, shall I just let them go and live with guilt for the rest of my life? I can't let go so easily like what people advise me to. Do it for your own life, they say. With these things hanging in my throat, how can I possibly live a normal life? People talk, but nobody understands.

9~12

I was happy at school. Had some good memories at school.

However, I was never happy at home. They were two different worlds completely. School and home. Almost everyday we were punished at home. We spent our childhood kneeling in front of Shen Tai and being beaten almost all the time we were at home. I can't quite remember what we did wrong, or whether we were even wrong at all. Everyday I tried to do everything in the way they want us to do, but father would always come out with new reasons to punish us.

We were taught that no one in the world is good. We should not trust anyone other than father. Even Wai Po and Mama were also bad persons who tried to harm us. I thought what father said was true and did not open my heart to anyone until almost 20.

Father did not join in any occasion Mama's relatives held. Weddings, New Years, Holidays, he would rather stay at home alone than to accompany his children to enjoy the fun hours of life.
However, we always went together with him to visit his mother and his siblings. When Wai Po and Xiao Yi stayed at with us, he scolded Mama because they interferred with our family life. But we never knew what was family life even without any intruder.

When we were younger, we loved people coming to our house because it meant less beating and kneeling. When people were leaving, we might cry. We knew what was coming after people left. But nobody at that time understood. They only commented that we liked to cry.

Father kept telling us how nice he was to us. Fetching us from school, paying bills, sweeping floors, he always claimed that he had been doing the same for a number of years equal to my age. But these were the only things he did. He often told us to be grateful of him and to treat him very nicely. He forced us to say 'thank you' everytime he fetched us from school.

We thought all fathers were like this. We recognised all these as normal lives until we saw much more of the world at a later age.

Truths

Today Xiao Yi brought Baby and me to Kuo Kuang to check Mama's insurance compensation. Haha, so it is confirmed now that $15000 has been given to father a few months ago. I did not know that EPF and pension are different. Xiao Yi asked Kuo Kuang whether Mama paid her income tax because father told MeiHua that Mama didn't pay so her pension was not given to us. Kuo Kuang said that all Mama's income tax is cleared so there should be no problem in withdrawing Mama's pension.

After that, we went to EPF building again. The person said father's signature is quite necessary in order to withdraw ( the rest of ) Mama's EPF money.

...

Don't know how to write today. A lot of feelings. Complicated.

Father wrote letter again. He refused to give Didi and Baby money for studies. He said we are poor and have to save money now. He just hired a new headmistress for the kindergarten to do what Mama did before, so that he can just relax and collect money as before.

Found out Mama's EPF was missing beneficiary and half the amount that should be there on Wed 12/19/2007:
"I went to check my mum's EPF beneficiary today and found that there is no beneficiary. However, we are very sure that my mum put my aunt and my grandma's name. Also, a few weeks after she passed away my father ask my grandma to 'sign'(thumb print) sth saying that it is to settle the EPF money according to my grandma's wish (she would take a small amt n give the rest to the 3 of us )
Today I found out that the money is not the amt that should be there (according to what we know and what the lawyer stated to me), only about half of what we expected remains and there is no beneficiary. The officer said it could either be that my mum did not put a beneficiary( which is totally impossible) or that it has been canceled.
I really don't know what I should do or what to think of my father. I feel helpless, like there is no way I can settle these many things. If I don't care, it is like running away. If I care, I feel very hurt.
I don't know how to feel anymore. I feel like giving up. Yet, I know I can't. "
It is almost impossible to find out if anyone has taken out anything, unless by court order.

According to law, insurance company should compensate us for Mama's death. The motorist company should also compensate us. Today MeiHua asked him. He told her it is not confirmed whose fault it was in the accident. More than four months have passed. Police's result of investigation should be out by now. Besides, he told her that he has taken out $120,000 for Didi's study. He said Didi wants money in his bank before going to the States, but he would only give Didi the money after Didi physically reaches there.

妈妈，你过得好吗？你一定要过得很好。我也会努力过好的，你放心。
妈妈，我好想你。

Do men really love?

I went to Baby's piano teacher's party last night. After we came back, I kept thinking of what I saw even as I slept.

I don't understand why fathers love their children. I always feel that something is not right when I see fathers loving their children. It is hard to put in words. Although I know that fathers love their children because they are their own children, this fact can't seem to make sense to me. I know the logic, but I am unable to feel it no matter how hard I try by looking at other families.

Another thing is, I don't understand how men and women can love each other so heartily and sincerely. Yes, I always see these in movies and even real life, but something in me can't make sense of all these. The feeling is complicated. I am not sure if anyone else at all would feel what I feel.

I am 21, turning 22 this year. Yet I am unable to understand such natural and simple things!! I have really tried and kept telling myself the logic. But I still feel weird when I see such things happening around me. I can't imagine why fathers love their children since it is so easy for them to have children. Like my father. A sperm will do. I can't imagine why men would love their wives. Why?

Maybe I will never understand the love from men forever. Perhaps it is the shadow of my past and present, the shadow father cast on me so deep that it will haunt me forever. It may never be erased no matter how much love from men I witness or even feel. It is already a part of me. I grew up with it.

5~8

My parents never slept together as far as I remember. During this period, Mama and Baby slept in one room, Didi and me and him in another. I guessed this was segregation of duties. Mama took care of the youngest and hardest child, while he slept with the two elder ones.

At this time, we were not allowed to watch TV. We had to sleep by 8pm. When Didi and I lie on the bed, father would be watching TV outside the room. When Didi couldn't sleep, he got me to play with him in the room. If we were heard, father would come and beat me. If I told him that Didi played as well, he would say that I was the eldest so it was my fault. When I couldn't sleep and tried to play with Didi, it was often unsuccessful. When I tried to play with him, I didn't dare to make any sound. I had to test his reaction slowly, either by whispering to him or touching him gently. If I realised he didn't want to play, I had to just shut myself. If I was eager to play and kept trying to raise his interest, at some point he would shout and father would come in and beat me. Everything WAS my fault.

Besides this, I often felt the need to put Didi in good mood so that he wouldn't fight with me and got me beaten by father. I felt that I had to make him like me, so father would not beat me. However, it was hard. He took it for granted when I gave way to him whatever he liked. When I accidentally did something that displeased him or did not do what he wanted, I knew my body would hurt again. Everything WAS my fault. How could I not hate boys?

5~8

Mama was always busy. Work, tuition, housework.

Father was always relax. Newspaper, TV, sleep.

We did not have childhood. No toys, no tidbits, no laughters.

They always quarreled. Or rather, father always scolded Mama. Sometimes Mama had to kneel down in front of him to be scold or beaten, for forgiveness. He even scolded Wai Po and Xiao Yi. He kept telling us that Wai Po was bad and that she always added something into our food to harm us, Gong Tao. He also told us that Mama was not a good mother, using a very fatherly tone. Basically, he embedded in us his idea that no one in the world can be trusted except for him. I did not think he will harm us since he is father. So, somehow, I believed what he said and was wary of everyone.

I witnessed Mama beaten by him using cane. Not only once. When he got angry, he would beat Mama anywhere, anytime, anyhow. I still never knew the reasons he got angry. I thought Mama was beaten because she did something wrong. I thought it was normal for a husband to beat his wife when she was wrong. I thought Mama should get punishment if she really did wrong. I was young and pure. From the little knowlegde I had of the world, I did not think much.

There was one incident I remember vividly. He was beating Mama in her bedroom. Mama was crying. "Please don't beat me. I won't do it again". The cane flew all over her weak body. I forgot how my youngest brother, Baby, got into that corner of the room. He was beside Mama, patting her back, perhaps telling father not to beat her. The other two of us were by the door, not daring to get into the room. The other brother with me, Didi, kept asking my youngest brother to come out of the room, and I didn't know what to do but to follow his call for Baby. However, Baby did not come out.
After some time, he stopped beating and scolding Mama. I forgot where Didi and I went but Baby was loyally accompanying and consoling Mama. So cute. He was as tall as Mama sitting on the floor. When Mama was better, she made us each a cup of Milo, and said that this was the last cup she was going to make for us. She was leaving the house and leaving us. In fact, she did this a few times, in my memory, wanting to get away from him. However, sometimes she didn't leave, sometimes she left and came back.
There was once I woke up in the morning and couldn't find Mama. Her car was still around and I asked father where she was because she didn't normally leave the house without the car. He told me Mama went somewhere she quite often went. I was a little suspicous but didn't care much. After quite long Mama came back and everything seemed well again.
It was only when I grew up I realised that Mama was trying to leave him. Due to the love for us, she was never successful, coming back everytime, stupidly.

0~4

I learnt the inequality between boys and girls as well as the cruelty of being the oldest in a family since I was born. Vaguely remember how I hated to be the eldest girl under the rule of my father and his spoiled son before I was even four. I was treated unfairly, often scolded or beaten for crimes I did not commit just because I was 'old' and I was a girl. I was always told that I was old enough, so I should give way to my little brother who was two years younger than me. Give way in everything. And because I was a girl, I had to endure men's ruthless. I hated to be the eldest very much. What more a girl.

When I was four, Mama was pregnant. I prayed every moment I remember that it was a girl. Please don't give me another boy. I was terrified of the idea of having another younger brother. How would my life be. I did not think I was strong enough to fight three...... On the way to the hospital where Mama had just given birth to another younger sibling one October morning, I heard that it is a boy, shocked. I didn't totally believe my fate. However, after some struggling moment within myself, I had to console myself. I told myself that there is nothing wrong with a boy. Unconscieously I knew what was wrong was only my father's way of differentiating boys and girls. So I told myself that a boy is a boy. I can't change that. Since he is new to the world, I can help myself by treating him nicely and bringing him up the right way. After he grows up he will be good to me and I need not suffer under him.

It was really a boy when we reach the hospital. I was sad. But with no choice I embraced myself and tried to 'love' my brother. I told Mama to let me carry him for a while. I thought I was 'old' enough to carry a baby. Mama wouldn't let me and I didn't understand why. Beside Mama's bed there was a little girl whom I thought was not 'old' like me. Judging from what I remember of her size, I think she should be about six or seven at that time.

Days after, I treated my youngest brother as best as I could, hoping that he would not join the male's team against me in future. Now, he is the best man in the family.

Prelogue

I am going to dedicate this blog to my very own life story. I was bored yesterday and I came up with this idea of sharing my story with all who love me by using blog. I have been living in my own circle for quite some time, and it is about time to walk out. Perhaps this little move will bring me out from where I have been keeping myself all these years.

妈妈，我好想你