Empty 'Care'

Not sure if anybody has the same experience as I.

My 3rd sister was finding fault with me today. Again.

She had posted a confession of a girl on Facebook. On it was a girl who has gone through a terrible childhood. My 3rd sister captioned it something to the effect of "Hope this experience is not gone through by anyone who is dear and close to us".

Earlier on, I had checked with Coco if she was the one who posted that, and she denied it.

So I watsapped her,"You thought it's her, right?"

And she replied,"And you thought it's not her, right?"

What followed was an hour of rude and accusing messages over watsapp. In all, she said that I wanted to ditch Coco and raise a separate family, and that she cared more for Coco than I did, and that I was the lousiest mother. When I asked her to leave me alone, she hurled more awful words at me. I had to abort my plan to visit The National Museum with Baby because I was too affected to do anything else.

I had to find Coco and asked her if what my sister had said were true.

Coco was shocked to know that her aunt had been stalking her on Instagram. She was doubly shocked to know that her aunt knew about her 'dark side' Instagram. She cried,"It's meant to be my secret!"

So she watsapped her aunt to ask her to stop cyber-stalking her and not to use what she knows about her to attack her mum. She also told her aunt not to 'mess around with' our relationship.

This is not the first, or second, or third, time that my sisters have done this to me.

My elder and third sisters often accuse me of trying to abandon Coco and treating her badly.

Firstly, who was the one who almost lost her life at KK Hospital because of Coco?

Who was the one who spends tonnes of money on Coco? When I told my elder sister,"Since you care for Coco so much, why don't you foot the remaining bill of $900 for her braces?" she said nothing. When I asked my 3rd sister to keep quiet unless she could fork out $200k for Coco's overseas university education in 4 years' time, she continued to throw malicious and false accusations at me.

If you have never spent a cent on my daughter, what right do you have to tell me that you care for her? That kind of empty 'care' - I can do without.

If you have never sat with her to help her in her studies, you can f off with your stupid 'care'. Lots of cheap 'care' you have there.

If you have never stayed up a night to feed her medicine when she was ill, your 'care' is non-existent.

Just because my kid has some secrets that I do not pry and you invaded into her privacy to find out does not make you more caring. You have crossed the line. This is not 'care'. This is 'intrusion'.

'Care' is not something that you wear on your negative lips.

It's no wonder I am reluctant to let Coco join the family gatherings.

Day 14 - Tiling of Shower Area

Tiling continued today. 

It's slow-moving after the first day, after Ah Huat knew that the plumbers were not coming until Monday.

Tile-cutter

Ah Huat cutting a tile

A floor trap needed to be installed in the shower area.

Previously when we bathed, the water would flow out from a hole in the shower kerb towards the floor trap under the basin near the door. It made the whole bathroom floor wet and I didn't like that. However, this tile-insert floor trap was thicker than the average floor traps, so the floor level was raised. My worry is that the dry area would be raised even higher, 4 inches off the ground to be exact.

 Tiling the kerb for the huge pipes in preparation for the box-up

Because the floor level was raised substantially, Ah Huat ran out of sand for the remaining area. 

He said that the sand would arrive the next day.

The shower screen was installed in the master bedroom bathroom. 

We can't open it to the max though as it would hit the thermostat.

The installer stuck a rubber piece to the shower screen so that when it knocked against the thermostat, the screen would not break, but I found it too ugly and got William to remove it.

Baby said,"Oh my goodness! The doors are so nice!"

Day 13 - Tiling of Walls and Waterproofing

Ah Huat finished tiling the walls and waterproofed the bathroom. 

I had mistaken that he had waterproofed the bathroom yesterday as I saw that he placed 2 sticks in the form of 'X' at the doorway to indicate 'no entry'.

Dorothy gave Ah Huat a call and asked him to create an extra inch above the doorway. She knows that I wish to place my storage heater there. I measured the heater and it was 14 inches while the space above the doorway was 16 inches. She wanted to play safe and to 'give provision' to the heater.

I appreciate her thoughtfulness.

In the meantime, the tiles above are taped with masking tape to hold them in place.

The view from outside the bathroom

Day 12 - Tiling of Walls for Common Bathroom

I told Xiao Hei that the mosaic had been tiled in such a way that the piece of mosaic was cut in all ways  - top, left, right and bottom. He said that he would return on Saturday to stick another piece of mosaic in the niches, but he didn't sound like he was confident of tiling the mosaic the way we wanted it. But I don't think we are being OCD, right?

Today, another tiler, Ah Huat, came to tile the common bathroom.

By evening, he had almost finished tiling the walls ...

and water-proofing.

I am impressed with his speed. 

Despite working alone on a larger bathroom, he could complete so much within a day.

I also like the small grooves between the tiles.

This colour is closer to the kind of beige that I have always wanted (although it does not show up as beige on camera). Now I like the common bathroom, a little more than I like my master bedroom bathroom.

I really like beige, don't I?

Bad news from Dorothy: the plumber can't make it to my place on Friday or Saturday. He can only come next Monday. This would mean that the whole renovation would be held up, as without the laying of pipes, boxing up of pipes can't proceed, neither can tiling of the box-ups be done.

Day 11 - Plastering the Common Bathroom

A China man came to my place to plaster the walls of the common bathroom.

Day 10 - Hacking of the Common Bathroom

The Indian who hacked my master bedroom bathroom did the hacking of my common bathroom, all by himself.

The tile-drilling machine

By 12pm ...

The plumber came in to connect the pipes so that there was water running to the master bedroom bathroom.

Despite the bigger size of the common bathroom, the guy managed to complete hacking and clearing the bathroom by 6 plus in the evening.

By the time the guy was done with his job, the house was covered with a layer of dust everywhere!

I had a hard time wiping the floor, platform and tables. I must have been crazy to do up the bathrooms with us living in!

I am hoping that the tiling would not be so bad. I can't imagine myself wiping the floor and sweating like a melting ice every day for the next one week!

Xenophobic? No. Just Fed Up.

When we were having our dinner at the famous beef kway teow stall at Geylang Lorong 9, a British-accented Caucasian man was having his beside our table.

I was quite curious at the fact that a Caucasian was at a place almost only familiar to the locals, so I took a quick look at what he was having. I saw that he had a half- or one-quarter-eaten plate of white rice with the famous beef on his table, and he seemed to be smsing or whatsapping someone on his phone with an unamused face.

"Quite weird," I thought."Whoever comes here to have rice with beef?"

After a while, as we were having our kway teow, the Caucasian started talking to one of the younger waitresses who could speak good English. I could not hear what they were saying but both of them did not look friendly to each other.

William said that the man was complaining to the waitress that the food was not good, and the waitress asked why.

I vaguely heard that the waitress said,"You are the only one who says this."

After a while, the Caucasian got up and started to leave, apparently not happy with his food.

As he was leaving, a local Chinese man sitting on the other side of the Caucasian man said,"Get the fuck out of here! Go back to your country!"

And the Caucasian turned back.

I could not hear the exchange between the two men, but fortunately, no fight broke out.

Before the Caucasian left, he said that the local was "racist".

I thought it such an irony. When we were in London, the racial discrimination sentiment was so strong we could see it in their expression, feel it in their behaviour and sense it in the atmosphere.

In Singapore, I dare say that the locals are always friendly, even over-friendly, to Caucasians. And this British, who apparently basked in superiority complex, came to one of Singapore's local favourite stall just to diss the quality of the food. After behaving in an ungracious and unacceptable manner, he called the locals 'racist'.

I find it totally ironical and laughable that a nation of people with superiority complex call people they deem inferior 'racist'.

I had thought Coco and I could have been over-sensitive, but what I heard from colleagues and friends confirmed what I felt - that the Caucasians look down on us. In fact, my colleague said,"They despise Asians."

Yes. Go back to your country.

Just like how you order us to go back to China, GO BACK to your country.

I am not sure if the locals are truly, in William's word, "fed up" with the number of foreigners invading the Singapore they used to know, which gave rise to the Chinese man's verbal outburst.

Right after the meal, I went to place an order for a packet of beef kway teow to take home for Coco.

As I was placing my order, a Filipino woman butted right in - in between the auntie I was ordering from, and me - and asked,"Auntie, is that my packet?"

I said,"I came first." and continued to speak to the auntie.

What I am fed up with is the rudeness of these lowly educated foreigners. If they jump my queue, I would go in front of them and jump theirs. If they walk a distance ahead of me to hail a cab, I would go right in front of them to hail my cab. I have made up my mind not to be gracious to ungracious people. I If they do what they want, I shall also do what I want.

However, I don't think I can stoop as low as a British - to criticise the quality of the food enjoyed by the locals. That, I should think, takes years of training since childhood, as evident from what the little British children did - threw stones at my sister's friends when they visited their land.