If you were thinking of inviting me over for dinner, thank you, but I don’t think I’ll make very good company due to the aforementioned reason. Then there’s the vomiting and overall lethargy. It’s amazing if I can even tell you the day of the week past 7 pm.

Anyway, last week, my Aussie mates F and B came to visit me from the other side of Australia. That was a triumph in planning and execution to rival some of the most complicated operations military too because F and B have 2 ankle biters and anyone with kids that age will know how hard it is to go anywhere with them, what more across a space as huge as Australia.

Cleaning the townhouse took me the better part of 2 mornings, as I was out of breath after each and every single self-assigned task and needed a bit of a break. Nevertheless it was worth it when F and B turned up; we were home most of the time because it was just easier with the kids and when we eventually ventured out, after B rented a car, we had “yum cha” in Northbridge and a short midday stroll along Cottesloe Beach one day, and a brief visit to Claremont Quarter the next.

Another day, F, Amanda and I took a drive out to Peppermint Grove to visit our mate G Rinehart who we suspect lives in the vicinity. I’m only joking. We don’t know G Rinehart or she, us. We just wanted a sticky beak around her part of town, as you do when you are on holiday, or convalescing like me.

As F said, “You know you are great mates with someone when they start cutting their toe nails in front of you.”

F had bought me a nail clipper to replace my misplaced one so I could get rid of my vampiric talons. Hence, after an impromptu house inspection (neighbour was selling), I hoisted one foot, then another, on to another neighbour’s outdoor table (I watch their house for them) to clip off the offending growth.

For most of F and B’s stay I also sported overgrown eyebrows (yes, I do have eyebrows), bed-hair, the clothes I’d gone to bed in the night before… Sometimes I napped in my outside clothes and when I woke up, had to have the heater on, even though I had on thermals, jumper, woolly socks and scarf. Seeing as my tiredness has reached absurd levels, I will have to look into Star Formulations, a vegan iron supplement for women produced by my mate Julie Moss, which had been previously unnecessary as I was consuming meat. But since I’ve been unceremoniously tossed from the meat-eating train…

Well, now that you know what I’ve been up to, you can go away reassured that I will be back. Speaking of which, what you been up to lately? Have you attended any public rallies or been a part of something I should know about?

“It will get better, Stella,” said my girlfriend. “Really, it will. When I first moved to West End (4101) I thought people were snooty and unwelcoming too. But I’ve since made many friends here. Life will get better. You’ll see it will.”

There was nothing I could do about my predicament so for my sake, I hoped my girlfriend was right. I went to a morning tea hosted by the parent body of Amanda’s school for parents such as myself, new to the schooling community. The principal took 10 minutes out of his busy schedule to give us all a warm welcome.

He told us of the school’s upcoming centenary and how our children would benefit from the many programmes the school has to offer. “I guarantee you that if your child stays here for 2 or 3 years, he or she will be impacted positively for life. Misbehaviour warranting disciplinary action is hardly an issue here – most of our students come from good homes – you’ll realise the importance of that as your child gets older, when his or her behaviour and choices are influenced by those he or she mixes with, and the vast majority (of our students) will go on to university.”

The claim about university might seem like a stretch in any other part of Australia, especially for a public school, but in our suburb, it is simply a way of life. It is the natural progression for children of highly educated parents, whose median household income is estimated to be well above the $150k pa mark. One suspects that but for the impoverished University students who also make up the demographic, and are thus included in the calculation of household income, the average would be significantly higher. It stands to reason, these are households that can and do see the benefit of proper schooling.

But just how does this translate into day-to-day life?

For one, even if the time-poor adults are a bit hard to get to know, the children have the most impeccable manners. There was once when Amanda and I turned up for school just as the morning bell was about to go. Most of the “good hooks” (read: height appropriate for little people) for hanging school bags had been taken and we were down to the last “good hook” available. Just then I noticed one of Amanda’s classmates standing there with his bag, it would seem, contemplating the last “good hook.”

To my surprise, he said to me (Me, a full grown adult!), “After you.”

“Are you sure?” I said to this seemingly very confident and gentlemanly little person. “It’s the last good hook.”

“Yes, please go ahead,” he said.

“But what will you use then?” I asked.

He pointed to a higher hook, which he obviously could not reach!

“Do you need a hand with your bag then?” I asked.

He nodded and said thank you after I’d put his into place.

When I asked Amanda how she liked school weeks later, she said, “It’s been good. No one has threatened me here, yet.”

“Is anyone mean to you?”

“No one is mean at all. They’ve all been very nice.”

I was going to ask her if any of her schoolmates have gone around shooting expletives, but it seems that in this land for whom none has heard of “gentle parenting” and the like, such a question is more than redundant. For the rest of Australia, for whom wealth is equated with undeserved privilege, such a uniformed display of good breeding is usually unheard of. Outside of suburbs such as mine, the common belief is that freedom of speech and choice is a God-given right, welfare is a basic entitlement, and people who pay shit-loads of tax are the unfeeling, calculative bastards known as the “idle rich.” Few see that in many cases these are simply ordinary people who have worked hard and made many right, if highly conventional, choices.

Take NAPLAN for instance; while parents right around the country are actively deriding the series of tests for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, many mothers in this suburb have bought their children NAPLAN-style practise test workbooks. They don’t say NAPLAN is backward or that it stifles their children. They don’t spout any of the common arguments against the exercise. Instead, we all compare whose kid had done the most pages, what books to buy next, when the next available workbook sale is going to be; all this, even when most children are bound for elite private schools and university thereafter.

Conversely, one might contend that it is precisely because of this behaviour, not usually associated with Australian laissez faire parenting, that the children are going where they are going. The rest of Australia may pooh-pooh at this, calling the children a host of unflattering names synonymous with “robot”, but due to the high level of conformity among inhabitants, welfare is almost nonexistent, crime is low to nonexistent, academic achievement is consistently high, incomes are well above the national average. If nothing else, the suburb makes a good case for a return to conventional values.

Three and a half months on, I am no closer to the life I once led, but as much of this post attests, have come to appreciate the many positives of living here – chief of which is Amanda’s remarkable improvement at school. If you had asked me a year ago what I thought my daughter’s chances of getting into medicine is, I’d would have said it depends on how hard she’s willing to work. She wasn’t at all hard working. I’d also have been the first to say, “My child’s not brilliant.”

We were consistently late to school; she often didn’t finish all the exercises doled out during a normal school day. This year we’ve been consistently early because she’s been racing me out the door each morning. She finishes most of the exercises at school because everyone around her does so too. Rather than report on how well her classmates are doing, Amanda’s telling me how she’s been commended for her efforts and achievement. There’s even a spark of hope in this old heart of mine that she might go on to land a scholarship in one of those elite private schools – something that if you’d ask me about a year earlier, I’d have said is totally impossible.

To them I say: would you rather your child’s first test be in Year 12? Or are you expecting them to be admitted into the University or Tafe of their choice based on a bunch of “feel-good” qualities that only you, as their parent, know of?

Some assert periodic assessment by the class teacher is enough to determine a child’s grasp of the “need-to-knows.” Bah! How do you know it is? I have a lovely tale for you.

There are 3 Year 3 classes in Amanda’s school. Since I get around quite a bit, I know parents whose kids are in the classes adjacent to Amanda’s. Those in the class next to mine have voiced their anxiety over their children not knowing how to tell the time, or gauge probability or even simple things like their 3 times table. One particularly concerned parent even went so far as to request a meeting with the class teacher, who assured her everything is fine. “The kids are only in Year 3,” she said.

“She might say that, but my kid doesn’t even know Year 2 work,” said the parent to me.

“And when your kid gets to Year 4, she won’t know Year 2 or 3 work either,” I said.

Those parents have every reason to fear NAPLAN and every reason to want to blame the system, citing GONSKI’s findings as reason for their child’s underperformance. If you ask me, by doing so, they take on the “poor me” victim mentality and abnegate their sacred duties as parents. But that’s just me.

Meanwhile, those in Amanda’s class are not just ready for NAPLAN, they’re actually looking forward to it. As I told Amanda when we started preparing back in January, “You will silently thank me when you see the NAPLAN test. Unlike the others, you will have no fear. You will cruise through it without breaking a sweat.”

Did Amanda willingly prepare for NAPLAN with me?

At first I had to threaten her, withhold privileges and offer up rewards in exchange for compliance but the day she aced a practise maths test, as the only one in her class (and I suspect all 3 classes) to get a perfect score, she came to me and said, “Thank you mama. You were right. I have nothing to fear now.”

Oh, and in case you think tests like NAPLAN only produce book-smart children, think again. Preparing for NAPLAN has taught Amanda discipline, perseverance, the need to read and understand a question before tackling it, it has primed her to think critically, to see how what she knows can be extrapolated to fit different scenarios.

Unlike in Asia, where it is all about memorising tables or facts, the Australia education system puts emphasis on knowledge application. Take maths for instance. Due to Mrs B and Mrs D’s stellar teaching of the current curriculum, Amanda can not only tell time but tell me how many hours and minutes there are until a particular time. She can convert hours into minutes and back into hours, if need be. Or divide a bag of 64 cookies among 4 people with ease. She can tell me how much change I should get from $10 if items purchased are $1.50 and $2.70. Or the probability that the items I’ve bought are one kind or another. She knows that ½ can be expressed as 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, 8/16 and an infinite number of fractions, and that they all mean exactly the same thing.

When it comes to English, she can easily write 2 to 3 pages in support of a particular argument, with a decent introduction, ending and 3 points in between. She can spot misspelled words, faulty grammar, provide correct punctuation. She comprehends syntax and semantics. What more can I, as the parent of an 8 year old, Year 3 student, ask for?

Since you don’t know my child, you may ask me, “How does all this help foster creativity? Independent thinking?”

I will answer you, “Look at that wonderful house you live in. Would you still be happy to live in it if it wasn’t built to safety standards? What are safety standards but a bunch of numbers calculated based on size of dwelling and strength of materials used? Yet, those numbers are necessary, aren’t they? Regardless of how wonderful the building looks, how eco-friendly the design is, how well it blends in with the environment, you wouldn’t want to live there for a second if you couldn’t be sure that the thing will hold its form without collapsing on you.”

“Same goes for the bridge you drove across this morning on your way to work. Or the medicines you took with your morning coffee. You want quantifiable facts in support of what you consume, because “feel-good” based on nothing solid is simply a con.”

The same, dear readers, goes for education. You want to be dead certain your child is on track for his or her Year; not just based on your personal bias because that’s playing a very dangerous game with your child’s future. He or she will not thank you when failing to get into the course or university of their choice. Of course, if you’ve been playing the anti-establishment, anti-system, anti-convention game so far, you can continue to do so by blaming the system, the establishment, convention and everyone around you.

However, since the dye has yet to be cast, I urge you to cast your view towards wider society where progress is made by mastering and building on the basics. Even if your child were to be as creative a person as Lady Gaga, for whom neither maths nor English is necessary, aren’t you the least bit concerned that he or she might be taken for a ride by his or her accountant or manager? Think about your various criticism’s of NAPLAN and broaden your perspective to take in ALL of your child’s future. You’ll realise that if you embrace orthodox schooling, embrace regular attendance, embrace standardised testing, and help your child prepare for these challenges, you have nothing to lose but everything to gain, in the form of a well-educated, well-rounded child.

At the time, this wonderful government was giving her both parenting payments and rent assistance. This came to about $1100 + a month. Today, she still receives the same payments, but gets around $1250 a month. The school kids bonus and any free money going around is extra. She also has a health care card, which subsidises the costs of medical consultation, medication, utilities and public transport.

To her credit, she was able to feed her family of 4 adults and 1 child from Monday to Friday on only $50 a week, whilst on weekends, she’d eat out. From her, I learnt quite a number of penny-pinching tricks (good ones too) so  in return, using what I’d gleaned from faithfully reading Money Magazine, I gave her some layman’s financial advice.

“Lose the credit card debt,” I told her. “Your credit card charges around 17% in interest. How long will it take you to pay off what you owe? What you’ve bought on the cards aren’t even income-generating assets and if they were, I wouldn’t bankroll them with cards if I were you.”

She wouldn’t listen and the debt kept piling up. Instead, she confessed to spending up to $400 a month on herself, my then-home and personal belongings serving as a real-life “Pin-interest” with which to decorate her own home. Using her first baby bonus she bought an old car with a 5-year loan attached, and with her next baby bonus, she took the family back to Malaysia for a month-long holiday. After that, she brought them back another 2 times, an average of once every two years.

“Why don’t you put the children in childcare and get a job to help out? At your level of wages, the taxes are negligible,” I advised.

You might say the same thing of me but there is no point I work outside the home since my husband already pays the taxes he does. I’ll have you know: for him to work those hours to pay these taxes, I do the bulk of all home duties and child rearing. In return, I receive no parenting payments, no rent assistance, no school kids bonus, and if I were to have another child, no baby bonus either. Since I’m out of the labour force, I’m also ineligible for the paid maternity scheme, single, childless folks Australia-wide have been seeing red over.

People often preach to me the value of work-life balance, of spending time with the family, but no one acknowledges that my husband is not just keeping me at home, but other mothers too. My friend’s husband works a regular 40-hour week. Mine works double that. Until last year, HRH was upgrading his skills (to pay even more tax in the future) so he didn’t have much time for us when not working.

Anyhow, a family member of hers told me, “She wants what you have, to be taken care of by a man, but married someone who can’t even care for himself.”

“What are you going to do in the event something happens to your husband? How much does his work insurance pay?”

“Sixty thousand.”

“That’s not enough to bring up children,” I said, out of concern. “What more with outstanding credit card bills.”

I tried to get her to put her finances in order and aim for self-sufficiency but that ultimately put a strain on our friendship. The way she sees it, I’m a FAT CAT because I live a much better life than her. She doesn’t see the sacrifices, the years of toil.

The flip side of the coin is story number 2. This other friend is like HRH, a surgeon. He isn’t HRH, because my stupid HRH is too much of a socialist, plus he always likes to take the opposing side just to rile me up. He says I look cute when pissed off.

Let’s return to story number 2. This conversation took place roughly a year ago, in my house.

“The country is heading down the drain under this government,” said this other friend.

“Why would you say that?” I asked.

“The government penalises you for working hard. People all point to me and say I’m rich and use that as an excuse to take my hard-earned money, but don’t see the 20 years I’ve put in to get to where I am. I had to work very hard to get into medicine, then very hard to get into surgical training, then very hard to stay in surgical training, then very hard to exit surgical training, then very hard to establish myself… when I could have skipped university, got myself drunk every night, found some interesting hobbies and gone on the dole.”

The truth is it doesn’t pay to be responsible.

We, stupid people, have mortgages, body corporate and council rates to pay (so we can fund our own old age), a flood levy to foot (so we can afford to clean up after another flood), the carbon tax to bear (God knows what’s that about), medibank levy and SURCHARGE taken before we even see a cent  of our wages (now no longer offset completely by the taking up of private health cover), private health insurance  to cough up (to reduce the strain on the public health system), flood insurance to protect buildings (to nullify dependence on public funds collected through the flood levy), and a raft of personal insurance policies (to prevent dependence on the government in the event of being sued, falling ill or being struck with disability) and FOR ALL THAT, we’re labelled SELFISH FAT CATS and targeted every time the public coffers run short.

“In hindsight, option 2 probably seems much better,” I said. “The interesting part is you have to provide care for the very people who accuse you of being a FAT CAT and you have to PAY for their care through taxes and various levies. And, none of them will ever hesitate to sue you, because you’re a FAT CAT and they are the “little guys.”

“That’s true.”

“Did HRH ever tell you about one of his consultants? He asked the guy why he drives such an old car. The consultant said he once treated someone, who subsequently tried to sue him, even though everything went well surgically, because the latter simply needed the money. ‘It’s not personal, doc,’ he said as he slapped him with a lawsuit.”

I’m not saying that all patients are ungrateful bogans. Many are very considerate and appreciative folk who bring sushi and fruits and whatever else they sell, as gifts, when coming for consults. But you will encounter those who think you should be taken to the cleaners simply because you are doing better than they are. You will also encounter many who feel ENTITLED to welfare payments because Australia is a supposedly rich nation and everyone, save them, is OBLIGED to help the underprivileged.

At any rate, I don’t see the need for more levies or more taxes. If, in managing the country’s finances, the government were even half as good as a regular housewife is at managing the family budget, they won’t have to keep slapping tax payers with more levies to fund projects.

Based in Australia, where people are not only encouraged to speak up but to get actively involved in community affairs, I’ve come to view societal participation of the individual as key to effecting change.

I’m not suggesting that these simple measures will wipe out RM500billion worth of national debt or narrow the divide between the super rich and hardcore poor, but if everyone adopts them, change will be imminent, even if at times, very hard won.

1)  Stop paying bribes.

This came to me when a friend said, “Even if there is a change of government, so what? There will always be corruption because we’ll choose to pay coffee money instead of receiving a summons from a traffic officer.”

If you feel corruption is endemic in society, then don’t be part of it. You can’t pay your way out of traffic infringements and around the bends in the law and then suddenly expect people to be honest mid-way through the food chain or at the top. If you want corruption gone, work within the framework of the law. Pay your summons; refuse to grease wheels to make them turn in your favour. If enough people put their hands back in their pockets, the bribe-taking folks will soon get the message they’ve to ask proper authorities for higher wages instead of moonlighting as toll collectors.

2)  Join your local neighbourhood watch (rukun tetanga). Know your neighbours. Watch out for each other.

Yes, it’s a dog eat dog world, but we can’t prosper, even if we can survive, alone. When you are friendly with the neighbours, they’ll watch your house for you and you for them. Someone will take in the mail when you are not around so you don’t alert the robbers to your absence. Someone will water the plants for you or feed the cat, so you won’t signal to low lives, “I’m not home. Come and rob me!”

By joining the neighbourhood watch and knowing your neighbours, you’ll know the faces that belong in your neighbourhood and those that don’t. Those that don’t, if not neighbour’s guests, are most likely thieves, robbers or similar scumbags.

3)  Call the police if you see suspicious behaviour.

This is common sense and they actually teach this in school, but how many pick up the phone if they see something untoward happening in the house next door? The old Chinese will say, “Less one problem is better than more one problem. Mind your own business.” Well, it will become your business sooner or later if you do nothing about it. I’m not asking you to be a vigilante or a cape and mask-wearing Marvel Comic Book hero; I’m asking you to exercise your civic duty as a concerned citizen. Pick up your handphone to record suspicious sightings when you are out and about to show to the police. Jot down car license plates of strange vehicles rounding your neighbourhood – they’re probably scoping out which house or person to rob. Police need tangible leads to work on. Be the eyes and ears that keep your area safe.

4)  Volunteer your time. Form Groups. Get involved.

Do you want to have greater say in your child’s education? Or perhaps have ideas to improve the education system? Apart from writing in to the papers to complain about the current system, ask your child’s school if you can spend some time volunteering in class. Get to know the current curriculum first, before tearing it down. If you still have reservations, join action groups to agitate the government for change. There is power in numbers. If none exists, consider forming your own group. Don’t have the time? Then you don’t have the time to complain either. Don’t be a backseat driver. Do something about your own complaints.

5)  Stamp out the money culture.

Sure, money makes the world go round, but did you know that overt materialism is also responsible for deforestation, poor air quality, poor water quality, corruption, blasé attitudes among the civil service…the list is pretty endless. And do you know why this is so? When everyone is focused on materialism, no one thinks that the new toys of today might end up in landfills of tomorrow, or the ink used to dye the perfect, must-have, pair of blue jeans might be polluting the drinking water of an impoverished riverside community somewhere…The desire for more money, more goods, just more of everything manifests as a money grab by everyone from the trash collector who demands his New Year ang pow all the way to the highest echelons of society who plunder the national coffers.

Ask yourself: are you contributing to the problem through conspicuous consumption?  

6) Vote with your feet.

Often, the price of essentials like flour, sugar, oil and salt, might go up a paltry couple of cents per litre or kilogram, but shopkeepers and restaurateurs see this as an excuse to raise prices across the board. If you think  a price hike is unjustified then don’t fuel demand. Use less, walk away, or find a substitute. If enough people react to price hikes by turning away, prices will come down to reflect a downturn in demand.

Similarly, there is no reason to tolerate shoddy treatment from your service providers or vendors. If they don’t value your business, take yours elsewhere.

How about rising petrol and toll costs? Car pool. It’d also help with the congestion on the road and protect you from would-be muggers who target drivers of single occupant vehicles.

7)  Enrol your child in a national type school.

As Chinese schools revert from teaching science and maths in English to Mandarin, another friend lamented the potential divide between those Chinese-educated and other Malaysians. As she rightly pointed out, people need language to communicate so how does only speaking a language not spoken by others, help national unity?

Even non-Chinese educated Chinese think and act differently to Chinese-educated Chinese. There may be a growing number of non-Chinese attending Chinese schools but they are still a minority. Unless Chinese schools halt the decision to return to teaching science and maths in Mandarin, I’d suggest you send your children to national type schools where they have better chance of picking up decent English and the official language of the country, Malay. Like it or not, Malay is the language used at all levels of government and their inability to read, write or express themselves adequately in the language won’t just make them aliens on home soil but also make them vulnerable to fraudsters who capitalise on this deficiency.

The bottom line is if you want a more caring, safer society, you are going to have to become involved. You are going to have to take a stand against corruption at all levels, not just the fat cats at the top of the tree. You are going to have to make yourself heard and visible somehow. If you keep saying, “I don’t want to get involved”, “It’s not my problem”, “I don’t want to court problems” then you have no one to blame for society’s decline but yourself.

P/s Do remember to vote on 5th May!

Second sister called me a “gaping gold fish” and made onomatopoeic noises.

Such is how much I rely on my mouth for breathing that you’d be hard pressed to find more than 5 pictures of me with my mouth closed in my childhood album. Sometimes my nose isn’t just blocked, but produces blobs of mucous that flow down into my throat. It gets particularly bad after eating. Once I had such difficulty breathing post meal that F, who I mentioned in last Friday’s post, wondered if I was going to past out while driving her around. Yes, there have been a number of hairy moments arising from this, but I can assure you I’ve never passed out while driving, even if at times it appears I am trying to cough out a hairball through the nose.

I decided to do something about it when I moved to Brisbane. At F’s insistence, I booked myself in to see a well-known allergist. After a 5-month-long wait, my number was called. A bespectacled old chap, seemingly bored by my very presence, poked my arm with his arsenal of allergens, and pronounced, after a short wait, I have a mild dust allergy.

Perhaps sensing defeat in treating me – not that he really tried, as far as I’m concerned – he gave me a half-hearted lecture on an elimination diet I could try to pin-point my hypersensitivity. He said he can only run tests for known allergens. What I might have is a hypersensitivity to anything from food stuffs to chemicals in my environment. The upshot of this is I came out as clueless about the cause of my stuffed nose as I was when I went in.

F suggested I try a different allergist. Dreading another 5-month-wait for nothing, I went about life as usual, blowing out up to 10 tissues full of snot after each meal. My parents came from Malaysia for their annual visit and Dad, who suffers a similar predicament with his nose, said I might have inherited his sinuses. Since he had a spare bottle of prescription-only nasal spray, he gave me one to try.

“But you need to be monitored by an ENT for this,” he said. “Long-term use can be harmful. I have nasal scopes done every year at the hospital.”

Dad’s father and brother both had nasal cancer; one died from it, another suffered a fatal heart-attack before nasal cancer could claim him.

On my last trip back to Malaysia, mum and dad gifted me with 2 pairs of “special socks”. They look like regular thick socks except the pads have mineral-encapsulated micro pods stuck to them. Dad claims his nose is much better on the nights he wears them so I should give them a try.

Meanwhile, a mother from Amanda’s last school recommended I try washing out my sinuses with a Neti Pot, a small teapot-like contraption sold in most health-food stores. I gave it a go and for the first time in forever, the nose seemed under control; I could breathe reasonably well through my nose, the mountain of tissues post meal shrank to about a third or less. I improved so much, I postponed a trip to see my ENT friend in Sunnybank indefinitely.

Then HRH and I drove 9 days across country in our move west. During that time, the good ol’ Neti Pot was buried under so many of our belongings that I had no access to it. By the time I did, my nose was playing up again and a single wash wouldn’t work it’s sinus-clearing magic. I had to turn to the half-used bottle of prescription-only spray Dad left me. Except now, in addition to congestion, my sinuses were sore.

I took myself to see the GP across from where I live. He’s a nice, nearing-retirement, Aussie gentlemen who confessed that what I have is a “Chinaman’s disease.”

“I have only ever seen 1 case of nasal cancer in my entire career,” he said.

It’s a curious fact Chinese don’t get reproductive cancers as often as nose and throat cancers. Some have pointed to our diets and habit of consuming steaming hot food as a possible culprit. Anyhow, given my family history, it seemed only prudent to investigate the matter further so the GP ordered a CT scan for me.

“You’re a bit too young to be having cancer but we’ll check it out, just to be safe,” he said.

Ever since I caught wind of a former secondary school classmate with stage 4 lung cancer, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as too young. At 34 going on 35, vigilance isn’t just prudent, it’s necessary. I don’t want to die any time soon as I have a loving family and a lot else to live for.

I told a doctor-friend about the CT scan and she said, “What you need is a nasal scope. Sometimes Aussie doctors can’t even detect nasal cancer on a CT scan as they don’t see enough to know. Perhaps, they can’t take a biopsy with a CT scan.”

“Yes, but I already have an appointment,” I sighed. “We’ll see what the CT scan says.”

“The CT scan says you have no sinusitis but mildly bulky turbinates,” reported the GP a week later.

“What does that mean in English, doctor?” I asked.

“The turbinates might be making more mucous than is desirable. It still doesn’t explain the pain you seem to have. How bad is the pain now on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“It’s a 2 out of 10. When I first came to you it was 7 out of 10.”

“And you’re still taking your antibiotics?”

“Yup. 2 tablets, 3 times a day. 2 puffs, 3 times a day.”

“You can stop the antibiotics.”

“But no cancer, right?”

“Not that I can see. I’m writing you a referral to a Chinese ENT who specialises in this Chinaman’s disease.”

And that, folks, is where we’re at. I’ve an appointment to see the Chinese ENT a month from now. HRH doesn’t approve of me taking this further – perhaps he’s in denial about my suffering (you have to have one leg in the ground before a surgeon thinks you warrant treatment) – but he’s asked me what I plan to do, even if the ENT can come up with a formal diagnosis.

“Do you want surgery?” he asked. “If he cuts your turbinates, you may lose some of your sense of smell. Food won’t taste the same anymore.”

“Are there no other options?”

“He might put you on medication but some will have serious side effects.”

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH… More and more the Neti Pot is looking particularly alluring.

F, is a very private person, so I can’t disclose more identifying information, but suffice to say we have a close friendship that has defied geographical and cultural boundaries. F is a first-generation, born and bred Aussie, but unlike many, she possesses a deep knowledge of her “white” roots. I appreciate this about her; I particularly like people cognisant of their ethnic backgrounds because it seems the more that they do, the less threatened they feel about apparent and perceived differences between us.

Overwhelmingly, it is true what a cousin of mine said in response to a post I wrote much earlier about being the only Asian among whites: if you have interests in common with the other person, it doesn’t really matter what colour they are. It’s when you don’t that relationships become problematic.

F and I both love books and I have always had the greatest admiration for her grey matter. She can say to me things I’d consider rather insensitive coming from another “white” Australian simply because we know each other well and I know she means no offence. In most instances, she just wants me to give some thought to her comments and respond, as she knows I will, in an honest and forthright fashion. Being exceedingly RATIONAL, her ego isn’t tied to my agreement or disagreement. Take for instance this conversation we had at the end of 2010.

Kevin Rudd’s confidential talks with Hillary Clinton regarding China had just became public knowledge and I was so incensed by what I read in the papers, I wrote to Brisbane’s Courier Mail, after which, of course, I told F.

“What did you do that for, Estella?” asked F, seemingly angry with me. “Politics is very dirty and politicians are very dirty people. You don’t go near them with a 10 foot pole.”

Coming from Malaysia, I am in complete agreement with that.

“Yes, but in his capacity as Foreign Minister, he should never have said that,” I went. “I hate how white people think they have the right to determine the rules and yet preach the benefits of democracy.”

I can’t quite remember what else we said but F replied, “Then I can say that the only people to gain from the rise of China are the sons (and daughters) of China.”

“That’s not true. Chinese are very dog eat dog. Others might think we’ll benefit our kind, but that’s not the way Chinese operate.”

Any real Chinese person will know what I’m talking about. It’s the “guanxi” or personal networks that determine who’s in and who’s out; it’s not race-reliant, it’s relationship reliant. Like I consider F to be in my “guanxi”, even though there isn’t the remotest possibility we ever came from the same family tree. For anyone who’s interested in knowing, my “guanxi” is made up of family, former schoolmates, former university mates, mums and dads from my daughter’s school, some of HRH’s university mates, and some of HRH’s former colleagues.

Having said that, unlike most Chinese who will walk pass you without the slightest hint of a smile if unacquainted, I am friendly to strangers. I smile and chat with them when queueing up for coffee, waiting for the bus or abroad a long flight to somewhere. But that’s how I am. F and I are very different persons but our relationship works because we have mutual respect. We also have a language which, in my entire “guanxi”, only she and I speak: astrology.

As example of this is when F expounded her findings on the solar eclipse which coincided with Julia Gillard usurping Kevin Rudd. Neither of us were all that interested in the event, but we both marvelled at astrology’s ability to predict such happenings. Similarly, when Kevin Rudd challenged Julia Gillard for the top job, and I cast a chart to ask the outcome to that (my chart said he’d not have the support of those under him),  F and I were more interested in the accuracy of astrology (or my ability to read charts at any rate) than we were about any actual outcome. You could say that we’re nerds and like nerds everywhere, “guanxi” is based on mental affinity with one another instead of superficialities like outer appearances.

Other than initiating me into the world of astrology, F has taught me to say “I love you” in a host of European languages (I still know it in French and German), shared with me a variety of dishes her mother brought with her from the old country, lectured me at length on the differences between Europeans, which I’ve found rather eye-opening. Before F, I used to think that all Europeans are the same, as in everyone is “white”, but thanks to her, I can even make educated guesses about where a person is from by looking at him or her.

What I’m straining to say is that F and I have never shied away from the topic of race for fear of alienating each other or allowed it define our relationship any more than 2 people of the same ethnicity would. We are different in obvious ways, and similar unobvious ways, but such is the nature of relationships with people in our “guanxi” that over time, we notice more of the latter than former. Over time, what was once the opening line between two people, becomes a footnote in a long, comfortable and mutually satisfying relationship.

Compared to my own mother, I’m no tiger. I’m more of a regular house cat. Raised by a real Tiger Mum, the sort that comments on my (normal) weight as an adult, I’ve always wanted to have the sort of friendship with my child, I’ve only discovered as an adult, with my own mother. But as Dr. Phil, who I’m much a fan of, says, “It’s your job to be a parent, not a friend.”

I don’t need to score brownie points on the playground for being the coolest parent around. I am Amanda’s mother and that’s all there is to that. She and I will have plenty of time in the future to be girlfriends, but for now, my task is to raise a well-balanced, contributing member of society.

“How about happy?” you ask. “Don’t you want your child to be happy?”

Well, I have had teachers tell me, without any prompting, Amanda is the happiest child they know. She can break into song and dance at the drop of a hat.

“How about creative?” you also ask.

You should have seen my $5000 Italian-made couch before I wiped it down with JIF and sold it off to a friend of a friend for a mere $200; she not only drew all over it, on our toilet wall, while sitting on the throne, she drew herself a birthday cake, to which she stuck a drawing of another birthday cake, complete with candles.

Hence, from where I stand, it’s an absolute fallacy that children raised by strict parents aren’t happy or creative. As I’ve said to a Chinese friend, who completely agrees, “Happiness isn’t coming last in class or stretching your hands out to ask your parents, friends or the government for money. It’s about having choices in life.”

I respect other parents’ rights to raise their children however they want, but there’s no danger of me joining hippies who allow their children to decide if they want to be vaccinated or schooled. You also won’t see me on xenophobic current affairs programmes complaining bitterly about other race children taking all the places at Australia’s top schools because if achievement were all about smarts (an insinuation that those who work hard mustn’t be smart) as many Aussies (and some Asians) seem to think it should be, then we’d have the equivalent of Stephen Hawking governing the country, instead of whoever we have.

No, folks, as a Tiger Mum’s second cousin, I tell my child it’s all about HARD WORK. At our house, we don’t praise Amanda every time she does her homework or reads a book. It’s expected that she does these things. It’s also expected that she apply herself to school. As her father explained to her last year, “You need to be in the top 1% to go to medical school like me. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head.

“Out of 100 children, you have to be number 1. How many do you have in your class?”

“24,” I filled in for her. “There are 4 classes. Some have 24, others have 25.”

“Right. But if you only put in the same amount of work everyone else does, how do you expect to be better than them?”

Amanda doesn’t have to do medicine, but if she can get in, she can do just about any university course she so desires. I reiterate my earlier point: happiness is about choices.

As a Singaporean friend of mine who completed 4 degrees in 7 years, while working full-time, once told me, “It’s not about how smart you are. It’s what you do with your smarts.”

Being smart is an inherited quality, not one we have control over, or can improve on. Research has shown we have an IQ of between 10 and 15 points of our closest relatives. Simply put, if your parents are not Einstein, it is unlikely you will be either.

At any rate, I don’t put much currency on Amanda being smart, although since she’s already doing Year 5 work in Year 3, you might contend that she is. For her 8th birthday, HRH and I presented her with a 288 page NAPLAN work book, expecting her to finish it in a month (because that’s what we ourselves would do), and when she finished it 6 weeks after we bought it, I simply took to writing out 50 questions on a single sheet of paper for her to do, then tiring of that, I bought her NAPLAN Year 5 books instead. She’s been cheerfully doing them, oblivious to the titles that suggest she might not be able to.

I have no interest in politics or politicians. However, since Malaysia’s General Election is once more upon us, I see it fit, as a proud, if absent, daughter of the country, to share with you the average Malaysian’s dream for our beloved country.

Many might contend I am the wrong person to speak for the average Malaysian, since I live abroad, and have done so for close to 15 years, but believe you me, the human heart knows neither reason nor geography. Although Australia has graciously housed my family over the years, affording me the freedom of speech and expression you see here, a large part of me still hankers for the familiarity of roots, of home.

It’s true what they say about childhood: it’s the time of our lives when foundations are laid. In my childhood, I played hopscotch and  ”five stones” under trees raining red saga seeds, lost a couple of baby teeth munching on leathery keropok lekor, and every monsoon season, especially on the East Coast where I lived for 3 years, wondered if the Malay boys kicking football in the rain were going to catch anything more than a cold.

Thanks to the national-type schools I attended, I made many friends of different races who I’ve kept in contact with until today. My Malay friends in particular, are often surprised I not only still speak Malay but do so rather well, choosing to do so when communicating with them, even though we can all speak English. Given the persecutory policies that led to my being based in Australia and the generally tense state of affairs between Chinese and Malays, I’m glad our friendships have survived time and distance. It’s testament to the fact that regardless of race or religion, Malaysians have more in common with each other than we do with anyone else.

Outside of Malaysia, or at least in cyberspace, away from the racial polemics typifying Malaysia’s social and political landscape, we get on like a house on fire, united by concern over the same issues: increasing costs of living, declining personal safety, affordability of education for our young, welfare for the old and infirm. Over here, we’re all minorities, indistinguishable by the local population from one another. On the world stage, we are one among many Asian nations – something I hope voters think about when they arrive at the polling booths this 5th of May, for Malaysia’s General Election. Regardless of race or religion, we are all bound for the same destination. As a people, we can put our racial and religious differences aside and concentrate on the important issues at hand, or we can bend to the will of those who will use our differences against us and go backwards.

It is my fervent wish that one day, when I speak of Malaysia, I won’t have to qualify my statement with, “But I’m Chinese,” (actually, I’m Peranakan) or give my audience a synopsis of the many issues hindering our progress from third world nation to first. I want you, the future government of Malaysia, elected with the mandate of the people this General Election, to address these issues without resorting to blame or racial polemics. Restore the people’s faith in you. Roll up your sleeves and get the job done. Make good on your election promises, whatever they are. Let the peoples of other nations, who achieved independence when we did, see us as equals, worthy of their respect and (positive) attention.

Thank you.

For once I will be both interviewee and interviewer. I conduct many impromptu interviews to write the stories I do, but it’s time I sat in the hot seat. Based on my heated exchange with SL, I feel the questions below need answering:

1) So why is your subject matter humans? Why not animals?

Obviously I am human. I embrace every aspect of being human – be it challenges of  finding fulfilment and overcoming frustrations, or making myself heard amongst a din of voices.  My special interest is human adaptation and environmental transplantation. Put simply: I’m a migrant from a long line of migrants. I want to know how people like myself can make an alien environment, home.

2) You write about home in many of your stories. Do you not think some might say your writings are based entirely on your own experiences?

They most certainly are based on my own experiences. All literary works are, to a large extent, biographical. The difference with a blog is that I openly and publicly stake an ownership to all opinions expressed. I make myself a lightning rod to public opinion instead of hiding behind a facade of made-up characters.

3) Wouldn’t it be better to lead a QUIET content life since you have THE MEANS to do so?

I believe privilege entails certain responsibilities. Having been raised in an environment in which racism is rife, and discovering ethnic and cultural heritage through unusual means as an adult, issues relating to the discrimination of people based on skincolour really irk me. For better or worse, multi-culturalism is the way of the future. To know what sort of a future this is, it doesn’t help to bury our heads in the sand and pretend there are no issues arising from the mingling of people. There are issues and there will always be.

Here’s a quote by Martin Niemöller which expresses most aptly why I speak out:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

4) But aren’t these generalisations though? Why can’t people all just get along?

Individuals may be as infinitely varied as the nuances of shades on a colour wheel, but in groups of people with the same background and upbringing, certain observable characteristics emerge. Hence when people tell me my observations are generalisations, I respond by telling them that generalisations are so called because they apply to an identifiable group of people. Are we all 100% different from each other? No. But the amount of difference is enough to cause deep-seated mistrust and make for testy relationships.

5) And you believe speaking about racial issues to be the key to overcoming that?

Certainly peaceful co-existence cannot exist in a vacuum of communication. For us to empathise with someone very different from ourselves, we must first understand them, and we cannot understand them unless there is dialogue. Many Asians are not in the habit of speaking out or up for themselves. Through my writings, I allow the western reader to know what and who we are. I’ve been told I give my fellow Asians abroad a sense of community; it’s a bond forged through the shared experience of being a perpetual visitor in someone else’s land.

6) Why do you say you’re a visitor? Aren’t you already home?

I once considered Malaysia my home but I was often told to “balik tong san” (go back to China) even though my family has been there since the days of Hang Li Po, the 1500s. I consider Australia my home, but as recently as yesterday, was told by SL, a white Australian, preaching tolerance and harmony, I can “go back to where I came from” if unhappy with the country. I’m happy with Australia; just unhappy with NAIVE, UTOPIAN, HYPOCRITES.

I’d like to point out to SL and others like her I have just as much a right to be here as you do.  Australia is a nation of migrants, built on the blood, sweat and tears of migrants. The only people who can claim ANCESTRAL ownership are the aboriginals.

7) But does racism exist in Australia? Why tar everyone with the same brush?

I’d ask you to trust me on this, but you don’t have to. Here’s an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) interview with prominent Sydney neurosurgeon, Charlie Teo, who touched on racism in his 2012 Australia Day address. Here’s his interview with the Herald Sun, claiming racism is very much alive in Australia:

Here’s the tail-end of a recent racial rant by a white person in Sydney captured on video. NO bystanders stepped in to stop his verbal attack on a group of Asian tourists. Here’s an article on the “subterranean” nature of racism in Australia. The title says it all: Noisy bigots drown out silent bias. The author includes some interesting statistics on the matter.

The fact is racism is everywhere because people allow their ignorance of those different to themselves to dictate their behaviour. To say ANIMALS have it worse and we should just disregard issues arising from the meshing of peoples and cultures is to say that doctors shouldn’t save people because we are all going to die anyway.

8) Do you just write about racism or can I expect to read about other issues on www.byestella.com?

I write human life stories with a significant cultural bent to them. If you trawl through my over 200 posts, you’ll see I often write about the clash between East and West. It’s NOT all about racism, but about DIFFERENCE. Why this particular theme?

Difference feels like sand in your shoes. You want to get rid of the irritation because it keeps rubbing against you, but human difference is something that cannot be eradicated, only managed. Wherever you go, you are going to come across differences arising from race and culture. There are few certainties in life but that is a given. Those differences will only become more pronounced with increased globalisation, and feel more personal, with intermarriage and subsequent reproduction.

9) What is your ultimate aim for www.byestella.com?

It is perhaps overreaching for me to say this but I’d like to leave my daughter, Amanda, a more racially tolerant world. I’d like my readers to go away knowing more about “others” or at least “people like me” than when they first happened upon my blog. I’d also like for them to pick up on that thread of humanism running through stories, to view similarity in people through the lense of difference.