A dredged up remembering of mid-1997

A funny thing, the brain. Other than being a CPU capable of processing information, it is also a hard disk, capable of remembering things.

But like a fragmented hard disk, filled with hidden data, some 'rememberings' are lost in the ether of brain cells, awaiting the right moment to be unearthed.

I was in Jurong East Interchange waiting for my bus when this couple walked by wearing matching T-shirts. In Chinese, this is referred to as the 'qing2 lu3 zhuang1', or couple-wear. I was reminded of this time in 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China - it was sometime in the middle of the year.

It isn't the handover which I recall though - it was that my father made the family wear matching T-shirts, the T-shirts emblazoned with a design commemorating the Hong Kong handover. Oh, and this memory by itself isn't what got thrown up in my consciousness. The memory that I refused to dredge up, but came rising up all of its own, is this one: I saw the T-shirt I was supposed to wear, some night before we were supposed to wear it. On that Sunday (it was church going day), I stubbornly refused to wear the T-shirt.

I think my father was hurt, or at least somewhat offended that I refused to participate in a family thing. I was old enough to know that I certainly did not look cool in that T-shirt, but not being a part of it was an affront of sorts to my father. It was a culmination of teenage angst and rebellion (of course, by then, I was no teenager already). It was one in a series of incidents which just show how little control parents have over their children as they grow up. It was the kind of pain that, bit by bit, brings about the realisation that your children aren't children anymore - even if you want to continue treating them like they are.

I'm sorry dad. I have not forgotten, and I don't think you did either, though you never speak of your hurts. Perhaps some day, I will come to truly appreciate what being a father means.