Don't Waste Your Life

Do you still remember your childhood playmates? The ones you used to play masak-masak or hide-and-seek or police-and-thief with? Well, the thing is, I didn't.. until today that is.

I had the awesome privilege of meeting up with my childhood playmate today, you see.

Yingyu is also known in my life before today as 'Ah Mei'. I had never known her by any other name besides that.. cos it was the name my nanny gave to her when we were playing together. I used to be babysat by this auntie who also happened to be the biological aunt of Yingyu. Yingyu used to come over and we'd play all sorts of games together.

While I have absolutely no recollection of how she looked like before today, apparently she remembers me as this tall and skinny guy (??!?!?!??!?!?!?) who used to bully her. She says she distinctly remembers hiding behind a door while i tried to snatch her colgate toothpaste box from her. Apparently she says my brother bullied her too, even though he's younger than her. Maybe he thought he had me the older brother to be his 靠山。

Auntie used to take good care of us. I remember I once got a really bad caning for breaking a humongous antique vase that she had in the house (the caning was meted out by my mom, not her). And once, being a naughty Liren, I went to sweep her husband's face with a broom while he was sleeping on the floor. You know how Chinese really believe it's the most sway thing you can do. I got a mega caning for that too. She used to cook her famous red-coloured chicken, which to this day i still do not know what goes into it. :)

It's amazing how life deals us different lots, and how our choices move and shape us along the way.. how 13 years have changed us. We're on pretty different life paths now, and while we're similar in some ways, we're quite different in others. I guess, that's what makes life interesting, isn't it?