Queen Bees and Wannabes - Asian style

Queen Bees and Wannabes was a book I picked up a couple of months ago in California. I read it because I came across a review of that book, which said it was an accurate depiction of our trials and tribulations as females, the dynamics amongst our peers and how we relate to the outside world. I found it described my teen world exactly and my world in the school playground now as well.

D is off to holiday camp this week. We are in Singapore for 5 weeks, which is a pretty long time for a boy to be without structure. So I happily booked him in thinking that it would be a chance for him to get some R&R away from me, have some structure and for me to have some downtime.

What I didn't count on was the Queen Bees and Wannabes following me all the way to Singapore as well.

I see them first thing in the morning, a beauty parade of coiffed and freshly spruced women, all standing there in a row. From head to tow, they scream expensive - from their perfectly styled hair, down to their capri pants and heels. They are neatly turned out, with full on makeup and perfectly manicured nails. They stand literally in a row like a beauty parade as if to show off their expensive jewelry, expensive handbags and perfect makeup and clothing, in the melting heat at 7.30 am in the morning.

It screams expensive and brash to me, poor taste hitting me in the face this early in the morning. But ironically, I am the one being looked at. From the moment I step out of the car, they judge me. I can see their eyes following me - from my clothes to my car. What kind of car do I drive? What kind of bag am I carrying? What clothes am I wearing and how does my hair look? Then they look at D, to judge and see if he is good looking and whether he is pure Chinese or mixed race in order to determine whether my husband is a Chinese or a foreigner. They will judge me for who I marry, and make up tales about what it says about me.

I put on my sunglasses and laugh. It is hysterical that at a summer camp women are also competing. If I can be bothered, I would tell them that their kids are fat and need to lose weight, that they should pay more attention to their children because they cuss and swear like a truck driver and are mean spirited and bullies. And that all the money and expensive things in the world won't make them nice people, or valued members of the human race.

But I keep quiet and pretend that I don't notice their glances. I hurry D along and tell him to ignore them and their children who yell bad things at him, and to kick and stamp back when they kick and stamp on his feet. Bullies seldom like it when you push back and true enough, they back off and stop bothering him.

It makes me laugh that the school playground stayed with us in our 20s and 30s and still stretches into our 40s, 50s and 60s. It makes me laugh that even when we are discriminated against so badly we women can still be mean to each other instead of standing in solidarity and looking out for one another It makes me laugh that it is over such insipid things like looks and material wealth. Maybe one day we will look back and regret our actions. But then, maybe that day will never come.

Queen Bees and wannabes will never go away. Even at 7.30 in the morning in the melting heat of a small island state. But maybe especially in the melting heat of a small island state.

From San Francisco to Singapore - our first journey home

The doors slide open and the air is hot and thick like molasses. Molasses, an American food, a product that only belongs there and nowhere else. And now it belongs to us. Molasses. Even the word is thick, wrapping around our tongues like how the humid air wraps around us and chokes us, refusing to let us breathe.

It is our first flight back to Singapore since moving to California. We haven't been home for one and a half years, the longest duration between visits. I feel all grown up flying that distance myself. The last time I did it, I was 13 and with my parents. I am excited, strangely, to go back, many questions answered, many conundrums solved by our move to San Francisco. I no longer feel angst, in doubt, fearful. Suddenly, I have a new outlook and my visit back to Singapore is eased by it. I am generous and forgiving. I don't mind bias or favourites. I no longer count the different ways my mother favours my brother. I generously allow her without anger or resentment. Like the flight, I feel grown up. My pettiness is laid to rest.

Day One: we run errands and buy our necessities. Then the unthinkable happens. D acquires a large gash on his large toe. With blood dripping on the shopping mall floor, we hobble down to the clinic, helped along by a kind stranger who offers to be our guide. She leads us through the complex maze of shoppers and shops to the lift and we ride down, holding on to D's toe for dear life, stemming the flow of ruby red blood, all the while praying that it isn't broken or needing the hospital. We stumble into the clinic and in a jumble of words blurt out our problem, all this while trying to keep the blood from dripping onto the pristine white floor. We fall into the treatment room, grateful for a bed for D, hoping that we wouldn't have to go to the hospital.

We are in luck; after cleaning the wound, and examining it, the hospital isn't required. It can be dealt with in the clinic. We heave a sigh of relief and cling to the doctor's every word, drinking it up like nectar from the gods. We want to believe desperately that it will be alright and that this is where the trouble ends.

D is stitched up and hobbles back to the car. Singapore clinics are efficient. We are there for only an hour. We collapse into a heap in the car: jetlag and exhaustion overcome us. I am finally tearful.

Day Two: we rally the troupes. The cousins are brought in to soothe the painful foot and the bored soul. They haven't seen each other in a year and a half but it was like only yesterday that they were together. They chat nineteen a dozen, taking quick short breaths in between for fear of losing more time. They cannot believe that they are together again and constantly rib each other, nudging one another as if to reassure themselves of each other's presence.

The cousins are the siblings that D longs for. He doesn't mind that they are girls when it is de rigueur to ignore the opposite sex. They weave invisible threads, like cosmic heirlooms, that bind themselves to each other. But it is so much more than the blood that binds them. Friends more than family, they cackle with laughter and giggle at lame jokes, all this while shoving and pushing each other in jest.

Day Three: my own cousins turn up. I need reinforcements too and they, like D's cousins, are more than just blood. We fall into step as if no time has passed between us. All but one, the eldest who passed away last year. I feel the loss keenly. She was a force to be reckoned with, but also the eldest out of all of us, the first to go. I, the modern woman, sought her opinion and approval for a lot of things. She was the leader of all of us and presided over us. She was too young to go. But like D's cousins, we have invisible threads that bind us, history at school and in the family that weaves this complicated web. We gossip, mixing friends from school and family stories, even though they are a decade older. We share inside jokes and muse over common understandings. They are more than family. They are friends too.

Day Four: more reinforcements arrive. S, my best friend turns up. And here, more than a friend, she is a sister. We can't stop laughing and trip over our words in a hurry to spit it all out. This is the time I regret the distance when usually I relish it. We hug each other and promise to meet again soon.

Day Five: we are home bound. But D is whining: when can we meet with Auntie S's boys? Again, the ties that bind are stronger. Auntie S's boys are like brothers to D. More than just friends again, they are family. The ties that bind S and I bind D and her boys too.

All the things that I used to mind, used to resent about coming back here seems to have melted away. I scan through my old blogs and shrink back at the resentment that radiated from them all those years ago when I visited. What has changed? I don't really know. Maybe it is age, maybe it is finally being released from London, maybe it is finally feeling like I am moving forward, that I can breathe again. That I can put the past behind and look to the future.

Whatever it is, coming home is a wonderful feeling now. I can see myself moving back here, growing old here. I see myself settling into a routine when I usually dislike routines, I see myself appreciating the little things unlike before when I used to be dissatisfied and unrelenting in trying to make fate bend to my will.

A broken foot which will hopefully mend soon. A broken heart that has been mended. Long may it last!