Every time I'm back in Sydney, without fail I would always make it a priority to meet up with a very special person in my life who is also my no.1 fan in Sydney (so he once told me :). This is none other than my dearest 'uncle' whom to me is more like my adopted grandpa (but he refers to me as his daughter in cantonese..LOL).
I lived with my uncle for 3 months while I was doing my internship in WW's about 8yrs ago.I can still remember the first day when my parents dropped me off at his place & left me there all by myself while they made their way back home to Melb. I wanted to cry. After all, I was only 19 and it was my first time living independently. How come I am staying at an old man's house who was none other than a stranger to me? Am I stupid or what? so I thought. I had questioned whether or not I had made the right decision.
After my parents left, I can still remember so clearly that he said to me in mandarin 'Ok Vicky, I am your landlord & you are my tenant. Here is your house key. You do whatever you want. I am not your parent so please don't expect me to look after you & boss you around because I won't.' I thought to myself.. yay... ok let's party! I can not wait to live like this with no set of rules whatsover. I will no longer need to report to anyone even if I go out past midnight (b/c my father back home would always want me to come home by midnight).
So the next weekend, my colleagues took me out to celebrate my birthday. I was out in Sydney until about 1am & I get this unknown number on my mobile calling me. 'oh oh this better not be my dad' I thought. Immediately I heard the voice of my uncle on the other line saying to me in a angry voice 'where are you?! What is the time already? how come you are still not home? et etc'. Immediately our landlord tenant relationship became a grandpa to granddaughter relationship.
I had so much laughs with my uncle. I would always tease him. He would always tease me. Whenever I made a joke where I pretended to take on a role of someone else, he would immediately get the joke & play the role of another person. We would pretend to be two different ppl & play out a conversation on the spot. It was just sooo funny. I was always amazed at how my uncle understood my silliness & always played along & thought it was funny too. No one else can play it out on the spot as well as my uncle can.
Every time I go out on a shopping spree, I would come back with bags of clothes & I remember I would parade down the runway and make my uncle watch me do the catwalk in all of my new clothes. He, of course played along and pretended to be one of the judges & then proceeded to nod & said very nice things like.. 'bu cuo, bu cuo!' (not bad not bad..) or 'piao liang fei chang piao liang' (beautiful. Very beautiful) and he would always say it with the biggest smile on his face just like the ones in the photos.
He was the one that I confided in about my career, about my relationships - yes every boy there was on the list. He would give me advice about how to sit through interviews, & was even with me during the time I nervously sat for my final round interview with P&G in Sydney. He would give me advise on what to look for in a husband, how to live life, where to go travel & assessed my weight to ensure I do not go over the 55kg mark so that I will always look pretty & slim to attract boys. LOL (yes he literally weighed me every time I came to visit him the years before I was married! too funny!).
To think of it, my uncle shared so many of my life's milestones. From going through my summer internship, to graduation, to the hardships of finding a graduate position, to sitting interviews, to getting a job, to finding a husband, to marriage, to making a decision on whether or not to leave Melbourne for Singapore and now to being a parent. I always sought my uncle's advise even on the little things such as what to wear & even to whom I should marry. In fact, I even introduced him to Mr M just before he was to propose to me the night of our engagement. I secretly asked my uncle in private when Mr M was not around 'so what do you think of him? do I have your approval? b/c if you don't approve, I will drop him like a fly!'. He laughed & then asked me questions about his background, his occupation etc before finally settling on 'bu zuo ah' (not bad) implying his given me his blessings.
I had not seen my uncle for nearly 2 yrs since I had Singapore for Melb. So as soon as I saw my uncle, we gave each other a hug & off we went to EAT like we had always done in the past. Mr M & I took him to our (as in Uncle & I's) favourite restaurant in Canley Vale & ate like kings. Then after dinner, my uncle gave us the hint to go home so that he could watch his 8:30pm TV documentary on SBS about Hitler undisturbed cos he really LOVES watching his TV shows. Of course, I wasn't going to listen to him & instead invited ourselves into his house to watch the TV with him. He was so cute. He pulled out his chair & placed it along his bed side & got Mr M to sit next to him so that the both of them could watch the documentary together. While he was engrossed in the program, I decided to annoy my uncle by pestering him to show me photos of his granddaughters & great grandchildren. Poor uncle had to get up his chair to get it for me & then rushed back to watch his documentary again. I flipped through all of the photos & realised he had kept all of the cards & photos of Zachariah that I had sent to him.
Finally during the commercial break, he turned around to me with this very frustrated look and said 'Vicky, why did you send me 2 photos of Zachariah that was bigger than the normal 4R sized photos because now I really don't know where to put it! They all don't fit in my photo album'. He was scratching his head literally. I couldn't stop laughing cos the truth was, I had blown up al
l these photos of Z to fit our picture frame & realised I had 2 spares so I decided to send it up to my uncle and who would've thought my small act of thoughtfulness had actually stressed my uncle out! He is just soooo cute! I told him to cut it but he said we should never cut photos. So we just left it in the envelope just as it was. So yes note to self for next time, never send my uncle abnormal sized photos - only the normal 4R sized please!I feel so honoured & blessed to have met such a great man. What a privilege to have shared so many of my life's biggest moments with my uncle and boy if only I could relive those times with my uncle again. All those memories made with my uncle are still so fresh & alive in my heart. I know without a doubt that we are & always will be each other's biggest fan...
