i have a word of warning to any prospective boyfriend that i might be seeing in the (hopefully) not too near future: Sundays will seldom be spent with you. this means that any plans of Sunday nights at St James are out and ditto for the concept of Sunday brunch with three of your 'bestest' girlfriends. well, not because my soul is leashed to the good Lord on the Sabbath, god, no. but rather, since the age of infancy till today, every Sunday spent in Singapore has been with family. be it the parents, the maternal or the paternal family, Sundays in my life revolve around church, God, lunch in some random hawker center, an afternoon siesta, dinner at the paternal side and perhaps some light grocery shopping at the nearest supermarket. even though i could and prolly should, i try not to skip these weekly affairs of the family. having lived the life of a harlot for most of the week, i've always felt that Sundays are my days of cleansing and forgiveness. all the malicious thoughts, the evil intents of causing harm to the patient's relatives and dirty thoughts of fornication; all of them seem to come to naught after some family time. furthermore, because i hang out with the parents the entire day, i tend to smoke way fewer sticks on Sundays. looking at the health benefits and spiritual growth, how could i possibly tear myself away from a chance at redemption?

the Sunday mornings and afternoons have always been uneventful: church, followed by lunch with the parents and then siesta. the evenings however, are a bit more lively with the paternal family and dinner. i have always liked them more than the dowdy maternal side. they have always had an inherent desire to make every week a different experience. it could be a new marinade for the chicken, baked scones, keropok, dinner at a different relative's place every week, a new Paranakan restaurant (side note: the paternal family are frequent patrons of Ivins, located in Binjai Park which is off Bukit Timah), or the occasional new vehicle that somebody has just purchased. there was even once when my taxi-driver uncle had new advertising decals on his cab and more than twenty of them relatives actually went down to the communal carpark to ooh and aah over it. it was extremely bizarre as it was only Jack Neo and some Japanese air-conditioning that he endorsed. i was adamant about not going down and decided to suck it up at one corner while reading my pro-American copy of Newsweek.

the Sunday that had just passed was no exception. we had dinner over at the first aunt's place and as always, she impressed us with her culinary skills. ok correction... it was actually more like her HUSBAND'S culinary skills. the husband is a contractor who apparently puts together beautiful homes at discounted rates for relatives. in fact, he's the one who came up with the creative and space-saving concept of putting more than ten cabinets/drawers/cupboards in every single room in my house. now my house looks like a scene straight out of a claustrophobic person's nightmare. but back to culinary skills.

there was an extremely artery-clogging dish of fried chicken chunks topped with a very spicy curry sauce to go. to assuage my guilty feelings of binging, i skipped the rice and went straight for the chicken instead. it was an instant hit with the kids and also an instant conversation topic with the adults. in fact, the one who chipped in the most was a grand-uncle who made an apparent guest appearance today. this particular grand-uncle is a freelance pastor with the appropriate certification but without a resident church to preach in. he has a church where he worships in, but he's a bit like a wandering minstrel, except without a lyre and armed with a bible, an organist and a pianist. it was he that suggested a time of family prayer after dinner. it's rather bizarre though. most families watch DVDs and play mahjong or drink liquered coffee post-dinner. we spend a good hour sitting around with our eyes closed and muttering weird things amongst ourselves.

as for me, i've never really liked prayers. i tend to look at prayers the same way i do when it comes to the taking of my multivitamins. you can't really see the effects even though you do it on a daily basis. but after some time, you start pin-pointing every single good and bad thing that comes your way to the power of prayers. it ends up looking a tad like a self-fulfilling prophercy of sorts. prayers with the family would also involve a short session of sharing. normally, the entire family would sit in a circle (i would straight away jump for the couch) and everyone would have to start relating some random story about work difficulties, health issues and life problems. of course everyone has problems, it's just a matter of whether they want to share it with you or not. i tend not to because the relatives have no idea that i'm a cock-sucking fellow. which is why they tend to ask me questions about my work and life. to them, the most pressing issues for a male twenty-three year old are work and love. work i can easily come up with some politically-correct answer that my hospital would be darn proud of. but for love... that's the tricky bit. the relatives love asking about love.

it was thus with great relief that the contractor uncle of mine started refilling my cup of pinot noir. he's a bit of a connoisseur and into fine foods and all that. plus he's a gracious host who simply loves topping up people's glasses with fluids. i've had my fifth glass of fine wine and i was already slurring in speech. but with the sixth glass, i managed to garble some crap about focusing on work before looking for love. of course, if you glanced in the direction of the parents, the father had his eyes diverted away from me and the mother was looking at her phone. the grandmother demanded for a child before she passed away to which i was tempted to reassure her that if i ever had a child, it would be via an orphanage rather than an orgasm.

if memory serves me well, it was with the seventh glass of pinot noir that the relatives finally started praying. it was at that moment that i prolly fell asleep. i do remember though, waking up when everybody said AMEN in unison. another reason why i'm glad i have an effective biological clock whom i suspect is an ardent Christian. being able to wake up in church when the AMENs have been muttered is a very useful ability to have. even though i'm not a Christian, i'm glad that my relatives are. i feel that it's because of their united love for the Lord which brought them together. they share problems. they pray for each other. somehow or other, they have even brought in the wonderful concept of combining fine wine with prayers.

how then, can i possibly bring myself to skip my Sundays with the family?

(NB: in the picture from left to right - taxi driver uncle, contractor uncle's wife, contractor uncle, John Chua's father, John Chua's mother)

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