Departure

My parents often said that when they were young, things were not as easy as they are nowadays difficult. Neither my father nor my mother comes from a rich family. My mother has 5 siblings, and when they were young, they had to share a bowl of bakso (meatballs), usually just consisting of 3 meatballs. As for my father, I remember him saying that Khong Guan biscuits were luxuries to him back then, yet kids nowadays aren’t really fond of them. It was blood and tears for both my parents to have education until graduating from universities. But even, as I mentioned a few months ago, after they got married, life was not really easy. My father always said that I am a “comic boy”, as he had to work in a comic rental in our hometown to support the family, especially my birth, until my mother got a position as a civil servant in a village in the outskirt of my mother’s birthplace.

Now, sometimes I am ashamed that things are much different and easier for me. I always have enough coins to spend on Pepsi or canned green tea at vending machines, although nowadays I mostly drink te-ping, mineral water, and milk. At least until next year, I have enough money to buy meals with one heavy and one light side dishes. Even when I went home last month, when I went out with a friend and was photoed, I noticed that I seemed to look like an upper class person, even though I borrowed the T-shirts and pants from my father. Some of my friends in the close circle are high-spenders. And I went to buffet restaurants a few times already.

I know that the place I am in now is not comparable to where I come from, which is of much much lower living cost. But still, even being average here is considered high enough there. My condition is much much better than those of my parents when they were about my age. Indeed, this implies that financially speaking, my family’s condition is getting better. But as I go forward, I seem to depart from the humble life my parents and I had in the past…