The Mandarin talk show broadcasted last night with the notorious Singaporean female blogger as one of the guests was indeed very interesting. I'm contemplating if i should transcribe the discussion and post it up for everyone to read, especially for the fellow Malaysians who don't get to watch Singapore TV channels. Hmmm, maybe someone across the straits had already done it. Anyway, we'll see...
Story 1
Ah Beng was under trial for selling and distributing pirated DVDs. His defence lawyer told the court that Ah Beng was only 21 years old and came from a single-parent family. Money is something not easy to come by for them. His mother worked very hard and he had a little brother who was still in primary school. His brother didn't have his own room, and Ah Beng had always wanted to move to a bigger house so that his brother could get himself a room of his own. He also wanted to give his mother a better life.
The lawyer asserted that Ah Beng's action was justifiable given his age and family background. He said that even though Ah Beng had done something wrong, it was understandable and out of good intent for his family. The lawyer even asked the court: would making Ah Beng not have food to eat make you any happier?
Story 2
Ah Seng was a successful IT professional. At the young age of 21, he had already become the Senior Consultant of the global IT solution division in a huge MNC. Ah Seng's success didn't come by chance. He was a smart and diligent employee who had proven himself worthy of the promotion, even though he had only joined the company last year. The management believed that Ah Seng would have a bright future.
Ah Seng came from a single-parent family. Money is something not easy to come by for them. His mother worked very hard and he had a little brother who was still in primary school. His brother didn't have his own room, and Ah Seng had always wanted to move to a bigger house so that his brother could get himself a room of his own. He also wanted to give his mother a better life. Back in school, he had always been the top of the class, and he worked part-time to finance himself through college. He believed that to achieve his goal, he would have to work hard and face all the obstacles in life.
I must apologize for being such a lousy story teller. I'm never good in writing fiction, perhaps due to my lack of imagination. However, if you've noticed, some phrases in the stories were plugged from somewhere directly.
I wrote the above because i have an issue with someone bringing up this single-parent family thing whenever there's an arguement. Seriously, i don't see how this is ever relevant in justifying anything. As illustrated in the two stories above, similar situation and intent can lead to different paths and personalities, depending on the individuals. The very same thing that makes you can pretty much break you too.
Let me relate more stories, but this time it's about the people whom i know personally:
I know of a gal whose father passed away due to heart attack when she was still in primary school. Her family was poor and for many years, they gotta live in a plank house built beside a Catholic graveyard. She and her two elder sisters went though highschool with scholarships, which means that their academic results were always excellent. She didn't have the luxury to go for higher education, so she worked and studied part-time for ACCA, for she believed that she could make it on her own one day.
I also know a gal who never had her father by her side. She grew up with just her mother and elder sister. She was a straight-A student and excelled in everything she did. After high-school, she attended college for twinning program and subsequently went to Scotland for her final year in Accounting degree. She joined one of the top audit firm and worked hard in achieving professional certification within a few years. She is now the Senior Manager of one of the biggest audit firm in the world, at the age of 30. She is one of the youngest person with the highest post in the history of the firm.
There's this guy whose father committed suicide when he was only 2 years old. His elder sister and him could hardly remember how their father looked like. He went to Japan for his degree and worked to finance himself when he was there. He came back and was employed by a Japanese MNC.
Then there's this gal whose father died of cancer when she was in highschool. Her mother used all the father's hard-earned money that was left to finance her brother and her through universities. After graduation, she worked for many years and saved up enough to pursue her Master's degree, while at the same time still bear part of the household expenses for her mother. She's working as an IT professional now, earning just decent pay but not enough to have her mother living luxuriously. So her mother still has to work even though she is getting on in years and suffering from some sickness. This gal hopes that one day she can earn enough to give her mother a better life.
The first two gals are my best friends, the guy was my highschool classmate, and the last gal is me. Maybe except for the second gal, we are not high achievers despite our constant striving for better lives for our families. I've always thought that having grown up in a single-parent family, most of these children would actually be more mature than the rest. Apparently i was wrong.
Of course we have flaws. Of course we make mistakes. Of course we can be nasty sometimes. Of course we were criticized by others sometimes because of our mistakes. But there's a thing that we don't do: we don't cite our family background to justify anything or to imply that we should be treated leniently.
This is a cruel world no matter who you are. Just because we may have a bit lesser than others when growing up doesn't mean that we would or should be exempted from any lashing. We learnt, sometimes in the most painful way, and then strive on, in the hope that in the process of achieving our goals in life, we are also making ourselves better beings.
