When I was born into this world on 18 February 1995, both of my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandfather were not in this world, they had already passed away. My paternal grandmother helped my mother to take care of me sometimes when my mother was busy.

My grandmother was born in China in the 1920s. She was an orphan. Her parents sold her to someone when she was born. She said that she stayed with her guardian until he died, when she was about 11 years old. After her guardian’s funeral, she came back to Singapore at 12 years old with her guardian’s son. Both my grandmother’s guardian and his son took great care of her and treated her like their own family members. My grandmother is very grateful to them.

After my grandmother arrived in Singapore with the guardian’s son, they soon lost contact with each other. Then, my grandmother met my grandfather and after a few months of dating, they married. My grandmother also told me that life in China and Singapore is about the same. My grandmother then gave birth to a total of 8 children. My father is the youngest of all the children. My grandmother gave birth to my father at the age of 46. it is considered quite old for my grandmother to give birth to my father. She knew that there would be risks giving birth at her age so she took medicine that could let the fetus in her body die, but the fetus (my unborn father) did not die. My father was born in the 1969 in the end.

My grandmother stayed in kampong until 1943 the government asked them to move to a HDB flat as they wanted to use the land to build other buildings. The government compensated my paternal grandparents a large amount of money. She bought a house at Choa Chu Kang. All her other children except for my father who were not married by that time and they were staying with their husbands and wives.

My father had just started working at that time so he did not have that much money to buy a house. He met my mother in 1992 and they dated for about half a year and then married. My mum conceived me in the year or 1994 and in 1995, I was born. My grandmother was not happy that my mother gave birth to a girl but she still doted on me very much. After 2 years, my brother was born and 3 years after my brother was born, we moved to Jurong together with my grandmother.

My grandmother stayed with us for another 2½ years before moving to the house that my aunty had bought for her. After living there for one year, she had a stroke and was admitted into the hospital. I remembered when my family last visited her, she couldn’t even walk or talk to us. I really hope that she can get well soon. From my grandmother’s experiences, I learnt that if you do your best in everything, you will never regret it.