wonder, ‘How will he feed himself?
How is he going to afford a car in
Singapore?’ These are concerns
that you’ll only start having once
you have a child. Of course, I hope
that he becomes successful if he
does choose to pursue a career in
the creative industries but I then, I
feel like telling him, ‘My son, there
are easier ways to do this’.”
always looking for a better way to do
it. Her maverick approach to life was
an anomaly in the strait-laced 70s
and 80s.
“Back in my day, in Primary Six, we
had to write a composition based
on a comic strip consisting of six
numbered panels and all of us had
to follow the sequence of events.
I remembered thinking why I had
to follow this and decided to jump
to panel four instead, which was
an image of a boat capsizing,” Tjin
reminisces.
“I even remember how I started the
essay. It was with ‘The angry waves
lashed against the sides of the old
boat’. The reason why this story is
always stuck in my mind is because
my teacher called me out to the
front of the class and questioned
me whether my mother had wrote it
because it was too well-written!”
Tjin was indignant and her mother
was similarly incensed, marching
down to school to berate the
teaching body for accusing Tjin of
doing something she did not do, or
in this case, not doing something
that she actually did. You could
say Tjin was someone creatively
ahead of her time, even at such an
impressionable age, and she was
fortunate to be raised by parents
that supported her creative, albeit
slightly off-the-wall, ambitions.
And now that Tjin has become a
mother, she too hopes to emulate
her parents, supporting Bubu in
whatever he chooses to do. There
is just one problem though: Tjin
finally understands why her Mum
and Dad always handled her freespiritedness with kid gloves. “It was
only after having Bubu that I figured
out the fears that parents have
concerning their children. You want
them to have a good life and to be
able to live comfortably. And what’s
the best and safest route that your
children can take such that this is
possible? Be a doctor or a lawyer or
any of those professional careers,”
Tjin reveals.
Don’t get Tjin wrong though. She
is a firm supporter of creative
professions (she is in the creative
line herself!) and genuinely
believes that the country is
slowly but surely developing and
embracing the arts and culture.
One only needs to look at the
2014 edition of the Audi Fashion
Festival, which will be organised
independently without any
government funding,
to see how far we’ve
come as a nation.
In the meantime
though, Tjin and
her husband are
cherishing the
everyday memories
they’re creating with Bubu and of
course, immortalising these filtered
moments on Instagram for the world
to see. The global citizen admits her
life has changed drastically with the
arrival of Bubu and occasionally, she
would feel a pang of sadness while
flipping through old travel albums
and realising how young and free she
was back then. “I would tell John that
it has been more than nine months
since my wings were clipped. He
would tell me not to worry because I
am growing fresh pair of wings and
soon enough, I would be able to do it
all over again.”
Then, Tjin would look over at Bubu
and marvel at how far she has come
since her rebellious days of yore.
Then, she would smile. There was no
time to feel sorry for herself.
After all, there was a
whole new adventure
to look forward to
with her #family.
She lets out a sigh, her eyes clearly
betraying the internal conflict that
she has between her bohemian
and sensible sides. “I want him
to pursue whatever ambitions he
has, whether it’s in fashion or in
business, and to be a dreamer like I
was. Then, I look at him again with
the practical eyes of H \