hello..i am back!!
although the trip to batu island..a small island of indonesia..which is still bigger in singapore...took three day and two nights... i can tell u..me is totally tired out..going that place is totally more tiring than working at watami...where time fly pass everyday..and before u know it..its the end of the day and it time to go home... but at batu..every destination on our list needs at least an hour's ride on the road..and as u travel deeper into the island alway from civilisation..the road gets so bumpy that u have to grip on to watever is available in the van.. and take care not to sprain your neck..for it is that jerky that u are bumping of your seats every second....and that whole bunch of joss sticks u have to burn at every temple..about twenty plus each time..and that is average for about 5 temples we visit each day..towards the end..me already blur which god or goddess me praying to... just ask for good health for my family ..get a bunch of joss sticks and pray..

this trip to batu really made me realised that singapore is really made up immigrants that have came from afar to singapore to settle and set up families..its always from a third person's point of view when we read in our history textbooks that our ancestors came from china, india, malaysia, indonesia, britain..and so on.. it never occured to me that history was not that far away as though.singapore is indeed a very young country..near to fourty..very young..kept saying this becos through this trip..i was actually brought to my mom's birth place..in this tiny backward island in indonesia..named batu for short..frankly saying..me never knew my mom was born there..but from was i learnt..my grandmother took the whole family over to singapore when my grandfather died and that was about 45 years ago where the island was more backward than anything and there the pple there were anti chinese.. and so my grandmother took her children..i am not sure how many..but i think about 5 and the grandchildren ..took off in a speed boat and came to singapore...illegal or not i dn noe.. but at that time...was there proper customs to go through?...hmmm..but from wat i know..they all just swear in as citzens soon after...and became singaporeans of course....imagine is my grandma did not make the choice to bring the family over...i would not be here... even if i was born..i would most prob be cutting rubber over there...no eduaction..prob be a mother of two kids already..when i told my mom that our grandma had forsight and was wise enough to choose singapore as a place to settle and to provide better eduation for her children.. my mom smiled and said 'had only ur ah ma have been alive to hear wat u just said..'
wat i have also learnt is that all my grandparents..all four of them are from china...true blue chinese i must say i am..my roots..far away in a place i do not know and even if taught to me..i do not know to pronouce the name of the place....of course all these is quite distant from the present...not in terms of only place but time also.. but being a few generations away from someone who u would know to be from far away who come away piao yang guo hai to start a new life... how courageous they must be .
to think that most of our ancestors had roots in other countries and how we are related to them... how is our generation treating the foreign talents who are now coming here to develop their business..