Last Tang Standing
A tremor entered her voice. “If I’d been born in Laos or North Korea, I’d be dead by now. Even now my body is breaking down from all the menial labor back in my youth.”
Just to be clear: my mother worked as a clerk for a judge for two years. That’s the only job she had before she married my father and became a housewife.
“Sometimes I wake up, my heart and bones aching, and I wonder—is this how the end looks like? Dying alone, in Kuala Lumpur—without a maid? And no grandchildren?”
Quel emotional blackmail!
Now she hardened her voice. “I’m a simple woman, with simple needs. All I ever wanted in return for the sacrifices I made for my children is their love, and grandchildren. But what do I get instead? A work-crazy elder daughter, who just so happens to be my favorite child, in Singapore that I never see and the other one living in sin with that … that”—she exhaled with force—“Malay boy.”
Same thing again. She was referring to Kamarul Siddiq, my younger sister Melissa’s Muslim boyfriend, a brilliant conservation architect in Malaysia, whom my sister had never brought home for introductions because my mother categorically refused to accept him, which was a crying shame since Melissa was going to marry him anyway.
“And here I thought we were talking about my ovaries,” I said, attempting to defuse the tension.
“Don’t be blithe,” she said. “One Halle Berry success story and you think it’s fine to delay having children. Wait, wait, wait! And then one day you wake up and you’ll find that your womb has become a prune! And you’ll be all alone, you’ll regret—”
I took a deep breath and ended the call before she could hear me dry heave. Luckily, I had my inhaler at hand. This was a new development in her approach to my singlehood; she never used to be so direct and so aggressive about it. It used to be gentle, the occasional earnest reminder: “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if you’d come over for dinner with that nice young man of yours, Ivan? Do you spend enough time with him? Work is not everything in life.” (She can say that with a straight face because I’m senior enough in my career.) Then two years ago she began to get passive-aggressive—I can still see the texts she sent after I messaged her to wish her Happy Mother’s Day last year: Thanks, but I can’t wait till I start getting Happy Grandmother’s Day texts! followed by Auntie Ong’s daughter just gave birth. She’s younger than you, isn’t she?—but even that was still tolerable. Since my thirty-third birthday last December, however, the situation had devolved into outright badgering. For example, before she’d found out that I was single again, she used to demand that I drag Ivan down to the registry and just sign the papers first and plan the wedding later.
Doesn’t she have anything better to do with her free time than fixate on her daughter’s lack of prospects? you ask. Wouldn’t she rather spend her golden years discovering exciting new prescription drugs or the cerebral delights of reality TV? No, Diary, she would not. My mother doesn’t have time for leisure, or retirement for that matter—that’s for rich white people. When she’s not hustling to sell some multilevel-marketing product of the day, she’s obsessing over how she will marry me off—the last item left unchecked on my mother’s checklist of Life Goals (for me). The rest of them, as established a long time ago (when I was an embryo, essentially), were as follows:
Go to a Top School (kindergarten/primary school/high school must be appropriate feeder school for top university) (done)
Go to a Top University (done)
Become a doctor (specializing is very much encouraged), lawyer (attaining counsel or partner level), investment banker, or a millionaire (legit currencies only) businesswoman [this goal is within reach, since I’m a lawyer and am already on track for partnership—only a little ways to go to the top!]
Own a piece of property by the time I turn thirty-five (done—well, almost: only twenty-eight more years of mortgage payments to go!)
And the one my parents thought would be the easiest for me to achieve, but in reality was anything but:
Get married by thirty, so I can reproduce, and the vicious cycle can begin once more
Before she decided I was not making as much progress as she’d like on the marriage front, my mother used to harp on and on about how important career was, how I had to make as much money as I could and be the best. Then, as soon as I turned twenty-eight, her tune changed completely. Now it was all about the man and the wedding and the babies (in this order, of course). How if I wasn’t en route to getting sprogged up I was basically an ingrate, that I was displeasing my ancestors, even those I’d never met. Now my mother was all “focus on the family.” Not that I didn’t see her point, of course.
You see, most Asian countries are not welfare states; we basically need the little moppets that come after us to be successful so they can in turn feed us. That’s why family is so important in most traditional Asian cultures.
I am oversimplifying, of course.
I know what you’re thinking: screw that, you don’t have to do this. You can just shake it off and do your own thing. Right?
Problem is, you can’t just shake off centuries of cultural mind-fuckery that tell you that you are nothing but a sandworm without the benevolence and sacrificial love of your parents, who fed your worthless child self and molded you into the acceptable, if not exceptional, adult that you are, and that the only way you can ever hope to repay them is if you take the hopes and dreams your parents had for you and gently but surely stuff them down your brain hole, make them yours, and realize them, or betray your parents and burn in the special place in Chinese Hell for unfilial children while eager but inefficient Chinese demons disembowel you ad infinitum.
And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the concept of Filial Piety.
To be fair, it’s not as though following her Life Goals had caused me harm. In fact, so far, so good. I am disrupting a traditionally male-dominated industry. And I don’t hate the idea of marriage and kids (to Confucian guilt-trip into taking care of me in my old age, naturally). It’s just—I need time to achieve the other goals first. If Sheryl Sandberg, unicorn woman, can have it all, so can I—albeit on a more modest scale.
I just need a strategy to fend off my mom before I make partner. Aside from matricide.
3
Sunday 14 February
2:35 p.m. Today is Day Which Must Not Be Named (it’s no coincidence it shares the same first letter with “vomit” and “Voldemort”). Urgh. Bought Linda her stupid champagne brunch today upon her insistence and paid Urgh Day primo rates for it. Hated every simpering couple in sight. Comforted myself with the thought that one out of every three marriages in Singapore will end in divorce. That’ll teach them to believe in love.
As a gift Linda got me three boxes of Ladurée macarons and told me to go wild. I got her a card (hey, she was already getting a free alcoholic brunch).
I didn’t receive any other V-day presents aside from Linda’s, unless you count a five-dollar e-coupon from my favorite patisserie. No cards, either, not even an anonymous one. The only V-day texts I got were from my sister and two of my female colleagues. The only way this day could get any sadder is if I get one from my mother.
4:45 p.m. Got an email from my mom. She only sends me emails when she wants a paper trail for her records (she does not trust messaging apps). I opened it with trepidation.
It said:
Happy Valentine’s Day, darling. You remember Auntie Mavis, my friend from church, right? Her son went to Harvard Medical School and is still single. She would like very much if the both of you could get together over dinner next week. Should I give her your number?
I broke out in hives and deleted the message.
5:05 p.m. Speaking of things that make me break out in hives, I texted Helen to ask her out for a coffee. Will casually use the occasion to ask her about her sham marriage. I might glean some useful information that I can use later on, when I destroy her.
6:08 p.m. Helen just replied:
I guess you’ve heard the Good News lol lol *confetti emoji*
Two LOLs? The smug bitch.
She suggested meeting up the next day, meaning she had probably been savoring this gloating session for some time. I agreed, even though I had to reschedule a couple of client meetings. Nothing is more important than finding out the truth.
6:10 p.m. I take that back, universe. Of course making partner is way more important.
6:15 p.m. Just saw Helen’s fiancé, Magnus, being interviewed on local news. Apparently, he’s some kind of Iron Man veteran. The lens of the cameraman lingered lovingly on his super fit body. Goddammit, why couldn’t he have a SpongeBob body? Why? Why?
7:30 p.m. Took a cab to Orchard Road to buy myself an LV bag because no one else will and it being a classic model means it can totally be classified as an investment, according to some listicle.
8:05 p.m. Louis Vuitton was chock-full of gleeful shoppers, and a goddamn queue of soulless consumers.
8:30 p.m. Left the queue in disgust.
8:55 p.m. Bought Earl Grey and lavender buttercream cake from the kind, e-coupon-giving patisserie.
10:10 p.m. Decided to drink. Discovered a bottle of vodka in the freezer. Well, maybe “discovered” is not quite the right word here.
11:25 p.m. Took Tuppi out. Discovered batteries were flat. Too lazy to go the manual way. Watched The Walking Dead instead.
2:20 a.m. Woke up disoriented and distressed from the recurring nightmare of taking my exams and getting a B on every paper and having to explain myself to my very unimpressed mother. Had to calm myself by focusing my gaze on the framed first-class honors degree hanging on my wall as my self-worth slowly regenerated. Tomorrow is a new day.
Monday 15 February
7:10 a.m. Is it Monday already? Urgh, back to work. Wish I was one of those hip children who works for a cool company with bean bags, beer pong, and prescription drugs, but I’m not. I have to actually work for a living in a crappy job like the rest of the world, using 80 percent of my waking hours to eke out a living just so I can enjoy what’s left of my week for the remaining 20 percent and not be homeless. Unlike Linda, whose parents are loaded and intent on spoiling her to make up for their absenteeism during her formative years, my parents are middle class and from the “I’ve-raised-you-till-the-legal-drinking-age-now-please-fuck-off-and-let-me-die-in-peace” school.
7:45 a.m. Rush hour. I plunged blindly into a seething mass of commuters trying to board the MRT.[fn1] Managed to squeeze into a carriage by virtue of elbowing someone in the boobs, and now she’s left on the platform, fuming. Well, she can comfort herself that it wasn’t molestation.
7:50 a.m. Ah, shit. Am now crotch-to-shlong with a poker-faced blond cyborg in cycling gear so tight I could see inside him. If the train makes an emergency stop I will fall pregnant. It is not the way I wish to go about it, so have placed an expensive handbag between us as a makeshift condom. Sorry, Prada.
Am trying to think happy thoughts but failing. Hate everyone in sight who managed to score a seat, even the young mother in a sundress carrying a toddler. Especially the young mother in a sundress carrying a toddler. Woman, if you’re not rushing to work, why take up rush-hour space?
Some people are so selfish, rubbing their happiness in other people’s faces.
8:10 a.m. Arrived at the law firm where I will soon become partner, Singh, Lowe & Davidson. Our office is just an eight-minute stroll from the Raffles Place MRT station. We’d just relocated to this spanking-new building two months ago, as befitting our ambitious expansion plan in the region. I stepped past the plush-carpeted lobby with its soft lighting, minimalist artwork, framed portraits of the founding and senior partners, and hot receptionist, and entered the real office, what we called the “Chumpit,” which had its own, less glitzy entrance away from the carpeted lobby. That’s where the real bowels of the office began: more than ninety lawyers were spread out over two floors in open-concept, junior associates’ hell, except for the few of us that had enough seniority to share proper offices until they finish renovating the floor upstairs for the new partners, counsels, and senior associates (the current partners have their own offices, of course).
Luckily for me, I was one of the people who actually had an office, an office I was now attempting to sneak into, because I was ten minutes late, even though technically work starts at nine but nine is for unambitious losers and I am not an unambitious loser but an ambitious, no-holds-barred loser—I mean, winner.
“Morning, Andrea,” announced my officemate, Suresh Aditparan, at a decibel loud enough to wake the undead.
I scowled at Suresh, who had probably arrived at his desk just a few minutes earlier than I had, because his computer screen was tellingly blank and beads of sweat coaxed by the unforgiving Singaporean sun were coursing down his temples. Unluckily for me, for the past nine working days I’ve been sharing my office with Suresh, a hotshot M&A senior associate who’s British with some Singaporean roots (a Singaporean Indian mom, my PA tells me).
“Morning, Subhan, I mean, Suresh,” I said, purposely dismissive in a retaliatory Power Move.
We both turned on our computers and proceeded to Power Type with the vigor of (youngish) people who had not had sex in a very long time (longer in my case than his, I’d imagine, but still).
Suresh joined the firm five years ago, but had been based in London and for most of the last three years was the Singapore-London desk rep for the law firm (in part due to the interest in Singapore/Hong Kong/Southeast Asia from Europe, the increasing cross-continental investment and business relations between these continents in the clients we represent, and the bragging rights in having a swish London address, elevating the overall prestige of the firm, that’s my guess). He’d just returned to Singapore at the start of the year and was now my Little Buddy (management’s new pairing strategy to encourage quicker integration of “new” joiners into the system, and also to orient them in the new office).
I don’t like sharing the office with Suresh, even though he smells like cinnamon. He has a habit of saying annoyingly posh things like “loo,” and he’s tall and conventionally, boringly attractive (golden-brown skin that will turn ashy if not moisturized, hazel eyes framed with such thick eyelashes he’ll definitely have droopy eyelids one day, a rakish mop of silky black hair that will most likely never make it past his forties, and, if I’m held at gunpoint, a rugby player physique, but only like a so-so rugby player whose favorite food is tacos), so now I have female visitors to the office I never had before, such as my nemesis, Genevieve Poo, I mean, Beh.
Genevieve is one of those women who’s just perfect. Not because she’s stunning—she’s not, but she’s very well-manicured, and is always clotheshorsing lustworthy designer threads. Her family is pedigreed—her uncle on her father’s side is a former minister of foreign affairs, her mother’s family are politically connected Chinese. She speaks perfect Mandarin, fluent Japanese, and business Korean, aside from English. And she went to Cambridge, then Harvard Law. On top of it she’s married and has two children, with another on the way—that’s what she does when she was not putting me down in front of others and trying to steal my files: she reproduces. Her husband, Jonathan Beh, a successful real estate multimillionaire, seems to exist solely to gift her with Hermès bags and impregnate her (not necessarily at the same time or in that order)—big, planned families are trendy status symbols these days. The only thing that made me feel slightly superior to her was the fact that she was still a senior associate despite having worked at the firm for longer than I have, possibly because she was always taking maternity leave. Serves her right.
Anyway, as I was saying about Suresh: I don’t trust him. He looks like he cleans between his toes. Every day.
More important, Suresh was a potential threat to my career advancement, since we had about the same amount of experience and seniority, and we were both on the same team working under Mong. Mong (short for Toh Sim Mong) was one of the senior partners at our firm and our boss. He was a legendary M&A lawyer and it was my dearest wish to be just like him, minus the divorce and the kids he had fathered but who knew him not. Typically, only one senior associate per department was promoted each year, hence why I was keeping a very close eye on Suresh’s manicured paws. Suresh had just that bit more experience on cross-continental deals (especially with European jurisdictions) than I did, and because of this he’d been tasked with servicing some of my larger clients such as Sungguh Capital and Poh Guan Industries as support, but I have the advantage of having squatted in Singapore longer than him, and being a permanent resident in Singapore makes me a more attractive candidate to promote.
Nonetheless, he’s still a formidable threat. I spend a lot of my time glaring at him when he’s not looking (our desks are facing each other’s). Goddamn Foreign Talent,[fn2] coming here and stealing jobs from locals.
At no point during this train of thought did I find it ironic that I was a Foreign Talent myself.
Suresh did have one identifiable weakness: he was getting married. His partner was a third-generation British-Indian ob-gyn. Kai, my PA/trusty spy and confidante, whose services I unfortunately had to share with Suresh for now, told me that they were betrothed. I know why Suresh is keeping mum on his upcoming nuptials. He’s afraid that people at work would start expecting that he was going to impregnate his fiancée sooner rather than later, even if she was currently still in the UK with no definitive plans to move over. Then nobody will promote him.
It makes no difference to me personally whether he is single and available, or not. Even if he were single, Suresh is forbidden fruit.
Most Chinese parents, no matter where they are in the world, want their kids to bring home a mate of:
Chinese ethnicity (trade-offs are tolerated in some families, but rare—however, likelihood of acceptance increases inversely the longer the errant offspring in question remains single).
High earning capacity and/or wealth: MD or similar (Lawyer, Investment Banker, Consultant[fn3]). Otherwise, being a rich and successful entrepreneur is also acceptable; legit royalty is, of course, welcome.
Compatible religious faith (which, unfortunately, tends to mean non-Muslim, as the Islamic faith encompasses cultural practices, customs, and beliefs deemed incompatible or at odds with our traditions and cultural practices).
Good family background: nebulous, but usually linked to social status and wealth.
Compatible values or the “Nice Guy” catch-all: Chinese parents prefer conservative, traditional mates, believing that such mates also subscribe to values like filial piety, which can only benefit them; so if you’re rocking studded sneakers, wreathed in dragon tattoos, and/or believe that elderly retirement homes are acceptable resting places for your parents/in-laws, well goodbye, my friend.
Despite possessing all other desirable qualities, Suresh fails the first and possibly the third criteria. Anyway, not that it matters. Suresh is taken. And it’s not like I’m attracted to him.
Also this is my year to shine. This is my year to make partner, and everything else must come second. Only then, if all goes well, maybe I’ll beat Hairy Helen to the hitching post somehow.
3:40 p.m. Dashed out for a “client meeting,” but in reality am having coffee in a chic café at One Fullerton with Helen.
3:55 p.m. Arrived five minutes late but of course Helen was not there. Urgh. Power Move. We’ll see who pays the check.
4:25 p.m. Helen made an appearance almost twenty minutes late, just as I was really starting to stew, sliding into my booth without a whiff of apology. She looked polished in a long-sleeved black boxy top, black jeans, a navy blue Chanel 2.55, and tons of designer bling, her hair a very cute pixie cut with a silver ombré effect. We air-kissed each other and exchanged perfunctory pleasantries.
“WTF,” I said/asked when we were seated.
“So you’ve heard about the wedding and you’re dying to know what gives, am I right?” she purred. She lifted an arm lazily, flashing a huge yellow diamond ring that might also be a weapon, and a waiter materialized so fast with menus it was as though he’d been standing there the whole time, which of course he hadn’t been, seeing as I’d not been served. Linda tells me it’s because I don’t give off the “I-will-tip-you-despite-being-Asian” vibe—i.e., I look cheap.
“Yes, pray explain, and in generous detail.”
She laughed. “Let me get my coffee first. What would you like?”
She sneered at my choice (“Cappuccino after ten in the morning? What are you, a peasant?”), ordering two double espressos instead. Typical bossy Helen.
I smiled with as much nonchalance as I could fake. “So, why are you getting married, and in a hetero marriage no less? I thought you were holding out till gay marriage was legalized here. What happened to your principles?”
She giggled. “You are so jealous, you should see your face. I don’t even have the heart to tease you, you poor, poor thing.” When I didn’t slap her (not because I didn’t want to but because I saw one of the partners in my law firm queuing for coffee), she sighed and steepled her hands. “Seriously though, woman, you know I live large, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Quite,” gesturing to her armful of diamond Love bracelets and Richard Mille watch of the day.
Helen nodded grimly. “Well, Mummy told me that if I didn’t get hitched—to a man obviously, this is Singapore—by the time I’m forty, she would turn off the money tap. And she would throw me out of the house and take me out of her will. Isn’t that insane? Her only daughter! As if any of the other money-grubbing Tangs are worthy.”
When I didn’t rise to the bait, she continued. “I had to act fast after that ultimatum, so I found myself a willing fish. I’ll be damned if I have to start buying Zara clothes by default instead of ironically. You might as well just toss me into a meat grinder and call it a day.”
I pressed my lips together in a thin smile—Zara was my go-to apparel store. “It took your mom this long to threaten to cut you off?”
Helen shrugged. “Oh, she’s threatened before, twice, but she’d never brought up disinheriting me. This time she meant business. Her lawyer was there and everything.” She brushed invisible lint off her watch and flicked a sly look at me. “You know she’ll take you out of the will, too, if you’re single. All the Tangs of our generation have to be married to inherit. And trust me, you’ll want to be in that will.”
I swallowed and felt faint. Did I! I’d never have to work again. As for my tiny credit card debt situation …
To steady my staccato heartbeat, I dug my nails into my palms and changed the subject. “So tell me: is Magnus straight?”