In Continuum.

To the Fat One, My Father

My father left for Taiwan again, all of those happening in the early hours of the morning while I still cuddled under my sheets, after merely an hour of sleep. The air-conditioning felt a tad bit too cold this morning, despite the fact that my knees were up to my chest the whole time and my arms were wrapped around them. Perhaps it was because the blanket is a little too small, but what the hell. It's not like turning it off would make me feel warmer - or better - anyway.

Like I said, my father left for Taiwan this morning yet again, for the nth time in a long time. I don't remember the last time he stayed in Singapore for more than two weeks, always rushing off to China or Taiwan for his business. I remember reading somewhere when we were still PR(Permanent Residents) in Singapore, there was a certain number of days you need to stay in Singapore to be eligible for the privileges of being a PR here. My dad clocked two hundred odd days overseas, just under the maximum limit.

So you see, I haven't had the time to be with my father my whole life. The times that I spend in Taiwan, he is usually busying himself in the offices and running around the country going for meetings, looking for businesses and always on the run. He is the kind of workaholic that cannot and will not understand the beauty of idle, and money is his passion. It has nothing to do with greed really, but it seems to be in the blood of his family. Everybody in his side of the family sort of cultivated a passion for business-making since young, starting from the oil barrel carrying days when he was a teenager for the family business. Afterwards, the part of the genes that is a workaholic never left him until now, two years over the age of fifty.

My father is the kind of person who has a stern face in the office, feared and often respected by his colleagues and liked by his friends. He has friends everywhere and especially on the golf course. That is where he made most of his money and his friends anyway, because golf for businessmen is like a cup of beer for two strangers. Once they tee off, they are good friends and money isn't a problem anymore. That is how businesses are done nowadays instead of being around the boardroom, and my Dad has done a great job at that.

Every year, he would return for the Chinese New Year holidays, and whenever he does, he would sit at home and do nothing. All right, maybe the word 'nothing' is a little too absolute, but he sits in front of the television most of the time, eat snacks and meals and spend the rest of the time sleeping. He has early morning coffee with my mother at the balcony at times, and once in a while they will visit the fish farm at Tampines to pick up bags of fishes or corals. That is a rough idea of how he spends his time in Singapore, the life away from his work. And to be honest, as much as I'd like him to stay, he isn't happy whenever he does.

Let's be honest here, because I don't know my Dad all that well. Of course, you can always argue that one does, but then again when you come right down to it, for me, I really don't know my father all that well. He comes home every time and starts his routine on teasing and possibly, pissing off the whole family somehow. But we all know that it is just a bit of fun, and most of the time we react to his pokes and ear flicking by doing the same thing back, or putting an ice cube on his stomach, practical jokes like that. That is as far as I know my Dad for, and to be honest though it is not exactly how a father-figure should be like in a household, I am glad that at least I have this with him, I have this.

But his true passion lies with his work, and I bet he can't wait to get back to his work again. We all want him to be happy I guess, want him to be satisfied with the life he lead and the life he chooses. As much as we want him to be around, we cannot afford to be selfish because, you can never catch a bird long enough if you still want to admire its beauty. Sooner or later, kept long enough, it will shed its feathers and die. Truth to be told, The further he is from the house the better, as long as he earns that hot wet wad of money, he is a happy man.

I cannot imagine how his retirement life would be like, sitting at home all day with his business ran by somebody else. Someday that is going to happen, and there was this once when he approached me on taking over his company. But I declined his offered, siting that I never had much interest in business-making or oil-related products. He jokingly disapproved of my interests in writing and music - art - but at the same time despite those jokes, I think underneath them he really wants somebody to take over the job. But that is not where my passion lies, or where my interests are. I've been pretending to enjoy a working environment for too long, and I don't intend to have the rest of my life earning hot wet wad of money by pretentious happiness, however guaranteed it might be.

So, to the fat one - my father - I do hope that some day you will lie in bed after retirement and be proud of what you have done, be glad that you led a life in your own unique manner, even if it means that most part of that life was spent away from us, the family. Just be happy Dad, because really, all I want for my own life is to be that way as well. Cheers to you Dad, and stop eating so much.