March 10, 2004
Super long lunch break. 'Cos I had to go run some errand for my Papa. Mel, Joy and me, we went to The Concourse, a place in which I worked before. Quite a nice place, actually. Though now I don't remember how I spent my lunch hour there since I was working as the only temp staff there. I guess things just didn't register as much then.
I just came back to my little coop in this quiet and cold (the rain is back, deja vu Monday) office. Not from the lunch, but from a little nice chat with Joycelyn, our receptionist.
We were basically chatting about kids. Her kid and my kids*, as well as the upbringing of kids these days. The government is urging us to up the birthrate, giving us all sorts of perks and incentives just so we will find it easier to contribute to the ever-low birthrate of Singapore.
Sigh, how easy is it to give birth! In Chinese, there's this term called 'jiao4 yang3'. Loosely translated, it means to teach/guide and rear/feed. Joycelyn and I, we were both nodding our agreement that giving birth is the easiest procedure to having a child. How easy it is to give birth, but can you feed your child? How easy it is to feed your child, but can you teach and guide your child?
Seriously, the difficult thing about bringing another human being into this beautiful but crazy world is in whether you can give them the environment to see the beauty of this world, equip them so they not only can appreciate but also add to this beauty and not go crazy themselves.
In Chinese ('tis is one of those times that I regret not being able to write in Chinese in Blogger), the question will be how to give a child his/her jiao4 yang3?
*I refer to my tuition students as my kids. 'cos they are kids and having been their tuition teacher cum personal discipline mistress for almost 3 years and going strong still, I like to think I have a part in their character and academic growth. hee
Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 16:04