Surprise Invitation

A surprise because I surprised myself by inviting my parents to come Shanghai to live with me for a week. Considering how fiercely I guard my space (and gawd knows how much space I need for my ridiculousness & fantasies) from them, it's not something I would have thought to do.

Yet, there is space, and there is space. Physical space. After moving out, I have made alot of decisions. Learnt to say 'no', have decent conversations (mostly I have to curb my perverted joke tendencies) with strangers, paid my own way to a lone holiday and dealt with loneliness & chaos (sometimes turning away both on any single day) and with many plans more to run away to distant lands as soon as time lets me (of course this means minimal savings). All these the parental units know of and amazingly have not disapproved. Perhaps like all Chinese Singaporean parents, they too, feel that getting a degree & job is the passport/ gateway to adulthood. Note: it is not adulthood yet. One only becomes an adult when roles are reversed and it's your turn to wipe your parent's ass.

Mental space. Guess the recent CNY trip was also a milestone to our relationship. Openly introducing someone whom I have no formal relationship with, yet enough to set inner parental alarm bells ringing at 'red alert', without much trepidation. All they had was a fair bit of warning not to fall in love easily thatsall# I had expected them to give me long talks of the follies of getting pregnant and evil europeans/ westerners. All I got was weakly veiled stories, which were supposed to set me thinking towards the lines of finding a nice Chinese boy (from mom, dad doesn't care, refer to explanation below). Lack of the normal medicinal-cocktail of advice forced down my throat. Nice.

#Dad is a true-blue feminist. He thinks females should be well-learned, independant (financially & mentally), form their own opinions and be respected. So the 'falling in love' part comes in because he's worried his daughter may drop her life and run away with a knight in shining armour (who may just turn out to have a nasty non-female respecting disposition underneath his armour, or someone really stupid. Though methinks it is more likely his daughter does more rescuing and polishes her own blade). Having said so, my dad is close to 60, born in an era when women in Singapore haven't been fully emancipated with education. So if he can respect women, there's no reason for me not to stick a camel's foot into guys' arse or pluck out strands of hair one by one till they are bald if they disrespect women right? *evil laugh*

Ok, digressing here. Invitation was sent out via internet texting on April 6. Followed immediately, in record time, a phonecall from dad. Normal suggestion of dates, with a footnote confession that 'evil' european boy was staying with me for two months. Think dad took it pretty well after I told him "Don't worry, 我有分寸的". Plus, it's only for a week. Can't be that bad right? Right?