sometimes i think that i'm really too lucky in life. and it's not like i'm boasting or trying to make myself sound like i have sex with a leprechaun (midget sex? not really my thing). but i daresay that most of my life is really a bed of roses fertilized with mystical unicorn manure. i have not gone through any messy divorces, periods of low income, hunger pangs, terminal illnesses, major family fights or even adulterous uncles or aunties. none! nobody had a miscarraige. nobody is attempting in-vitro fertilization. and definitely no one going for a sex change. very boring right? i might sound like a bastard, but sometimes i wish that my parents would fight or throw plates or do something drastic like get into an affair. like at least give me a reason to call the police lah!!

alas, my parents are the faithfully-in-love-with-God-on-our-side type of parents. in fact, the only traumatizing thing that could prolly ever happen to my family is my mom accidentally mixing the coloured clothes with the whites.

ok wait, i can think of a few traumatic events actually: my relatively well-to-do 3rd aunt... she had a maid who got knocked up by an indon national. the big truth was discovered during a routine medical check-up and when the entire family knew about it, it was like a major uproar amongst the adults. the main issue was whether to send the maid back or getting her an abortion. and the item at stake here was a $5k 'security' bond that my aunt had with the authorities. if the authorities knew that she got pregnant here, they would happily claim the $5k as theirs and use it to add more lift landings and print more election leaflets. nobody could really agree. and even though the maid didn't belong to anybody except my 3rd aunt, everybody still had an opinion. and so, the peasants went into a revolt. the government was in an uproar. anarchy was widespread. the burgeoise went on strike. and everybody took sides.

all my cousins thought it was too awkward to talk about it and we never ever brought the issue up. in the end, the maid was sent back, the relevant authorities never knew and the $5k bond with them was still left intact. i felt sad knowing that someone i seldom talked to (i can't even remember her name!) but whom i saw every week was going back and i was never going to see her ever again. makes you think, doesn't it?

and what about the time i surfed gay porn on my cousin's computer and forget to erase the history folders? and i thought leeching onto free internet at my aunt's was fun until my uncle discovered it and confronted my dad about it. he got so embarrassed that we left straightaway without even taking dinner at my counsin's. it was embarrassing, and come to think of it, still is. i'm the oldest of 9 cousins, amongst my entire paternal family. i'm already 21 going on 22 this year. and i still haven't brought back any evidence that i'm straight and pretty successful in a domestic partnership. so much so that when the topic of a girlfriend and me pops up at the dinne table with the relatives, my dad gives a sheepish look and tells everyone 'In God's time... In God's time'. and he says it in this cryptic tone of voice which translates into 'We all know my son is gay, we're just waiting for the antibiotics'. which then makes everyone think back of the time that i surfed gay porn in my cousin's home which eventually leads to the conclusion that perhaps Jonathan will still be a good-looking bachelor with great taste in fashion and design when he turns 40. or at least that's what i hope they are thinking.

so you see, my life sounds like an episode from a lousy channel 8 drama complete with bad acting, bad storyline, unrealistically good-looking guys (seems like i'm the only one, HA!), and people brought up in English-educated environments trying to speak mandarin but doing really horrid jobs out of it. tis true, i say!!

but then all these problems seems really silly and insignificant when you compare it to what my colleagues have been through. i asked a few of them about their life stories and from what i gathered, you could make one of those indie art films complete with awkward silent moments and multiple tragedies in a totally foreign language. i sometimes think that i need a big bullet-train of tragedy to hit my family so that i can learn some lesson about hardship and suffering. making my family suffer so that i can learn something about the hard life, that's quite selfish hor?

here are actually some tragic stories i've been hearing the past week:
one of my colleagues has a total family income of no more than $2K with the father as the sole bread winner. another has survived repeated hexes and curses from an unknown source since birth (he had 7 potianaks looking into his house the day he was born). another colleague lost his father to a vengeful curse from a lecherous neighbour whom the mother rejected sexual advances from. i also knew of another friend whose dad jumped off a building when he was 8. and he told me he could never forget his dad's face as he lay on the void deck. and there were also several stories about divorcees and the like.

the more i hear of the stories, the more guilty i actually get. what am i guilty about? the fact that i have a relatively good life in singapore? the fact that i'm somewhat in the 'above-middle-but-below-high' class of society? what? the fact that i have parents who care about me so much (alas, it's one-sided, i apparently don't give a hoot as to what happens to them, but that's another story for another time). what? i know i'm an ungrateful wretch. but that doesn't suffice for a reason for my guilt.

it's still something that i'm trying to figure out. but for now, i guess i ought to do something drastic to my otherwise drab life in brunei. as to what that would be, i dunno.

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