Dear Mr Wijey
I found some newspaper articles dated 12 years back, laminated and neatly tucked away at the back of my drawer. I took them out, read them, and laughed real hard to myself.
I was in Primary 4 then. My mum had an obsession with tuition teachers. I had tuition almost every single god-damned day. It came to a point where I dreaded those tuition teachers. Shopping trips would end early simply because, our dear son has tuition in 45 minutes so lets all wrap up and go home. While mum fed the tuition teachers well with good cash, I fed them with lots of homework, so I had additional time to play without having to worry about deadlines. They did my homework and I learnt absolutely nothing from all the tuition.
I read The New Paper a lot when I was young. And I was all too familiar with the Dear Mr Wijey section. He seemed to have the solutions to all the problems on earth. And I enjoyed reading his section. So one night, I went into my room, took out a piece of paper, and I wrote a letter to him. Slapped a stamp on the envelope, and mailed it over to Mr Wijey.
Days later, people from The New Paper started calling. Reporters rang my house asking to speak with my mum. Some spoke to me, asked me a few questions here and there. You’ll bet a million bucks that I complained to them with all my heart and soul. I told them precisely how fucked up having tuition everyday was. Mum, on the other hand, was more than happy to share her superb parenting techniques with the whole world.
And one day, an article (which was heavily edited and in no way like the letter I wrote) got published in the Mr Wijey section :
Check out the day and month.
Eventually a photographer came over to my place, arranged stacks of books on my computer chair and told me to hide behind the books. He snapped a few shots and left. This article talks about how fucked up my Chinese grades were :
They changed my name to Brian.
Well my parents are Singaporeans, they want me to go to EM1 very badly.
Yea right! See how the reporter tried to suggest the typical Singaporean kiasu culture? FYI, my mum and dad were both P.Rs at that time. My mum was from Malaysia and my dad was from Indonesia. My dad got his citizenship only when I was in secondary school and my mum just got hers recently. Obviously the facts weren’t right.
Looking back, I felt totally stupid and naive to have written that letter, which was blown up to epic proportions by the reporters, without realizing the good intentions of my parents. I felt even more fucked up thinking about that huge sum of money, wasted on tuition teachers who did nothing but my homework. 6 years of primary school tuition fees which could have been better used to finance my university education.
Click on ALL SIZES in Flickr, to read the articles.
I didn’t know you had such a tough childhood. *LOL*
This is a typical example of the accuracy of our local media lor. Welcome to Singapore. :p
Shelly
8 April, 2008 at 5:21 PM
haha! funny pic!! i didnt know you were so hardworking! cause i read your blog since like ash-hair or before and you look so rebellious! not those that look like will listen to mama. :p -dui ni ling yan xiang kan-
tingx*
8 April, 2008 at 7:24 PM
Phew! Lucky me!
My mum never stress me about studies; but i also don’t need her to supervise me to do my homework. And shopping trips always last from early morning 10am till evening 8pm. HA!
Jessie
9 April, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Shelly : easy on your kid next time alright! no spankings! i think its going to be stressful for baby Joshua’s generation because the syllabus gets harder and harder, and pressuring him actually makes it more stressful. what do you think?
tingx : i actually had to get jessie to translate, dui ni ling yan xiang kan. yea i was very tame and my homework was checked regularly by my parents. my dad was nice enough to leave me alone, but everything i got scolded, he would get scolded as well for not disciplining me. the pencil writings in my Chinese Spelling exercise book were smudged with tears because my mum used to sit down by my side, watch me do it, then cane me if I couldn’t write the characters. it was probably because i didn’t get enough satisfaction from scoring well that I decided to fuck up both my secondary school and poly results. now i’m picking up, slowly, and i am pretty much anticipating the release of my results, instead of dreading.
Jessie : cos you independent! even my dad says so. but you got everything you wanted as a kid didn’t you? *doll house, two of em* PAMPERED. I think michelle only got her polly-fuckin-pocket.
chris
9 April, 2008 at 3:49 PM
The picture was really cute at least..=)
Janice
9 April, 2008 at 7:50 PM
Dearest cousin,
I still remembered that. Someone told me. (Forgot who it was) But news travel fast even from South to North or vice versa. Anyhow, the photo with you behind the pile of books was really cute !
I actually started to imagine how will my little CY’s study life be. Ha…!
PL
PL
9 April, 2008 at 8:20 PM
Janice : You mean the oversized specs? Haha!
PL : Cousin, it was mum who told u la. News travel fast because every night Mum calls back to Penang.
I think CY no problem la. He inherit your family genes, all successful educated people with at least Masters like you, or PHD like Yeow. Language-wise, both you and CC are bilingual so no problem at all. My family communicates only in English and Hokkien. When it comes to Chinese, plain water can be pronounced as white water, really really hilarious.
chris
10 April, 2008 at 12:44 PM
Holy shit man, that’s a very sad story. Feel bad for ya, but hey you made up for it in secondary school :)
Jiarong
10 April, 2008 at 2:45 PM
lol… it would have been sad if u weren’t in the EM1 class. I would be damn lonely without knowing you.
rebecca
10 April, 2008 at 11:02 PM
Jiarong : slacked slacked slacked my teenage life away.
rebecca : FWAHAHHAA! Me too! *looks up at you with black ink all over the mouth*
chris
12 April, 2008 at 3:57 PM