My Mom And The Habit Of Thrift

Last night, my mother called me long-distance for the third consecutive night. It is unusual because ... um, sometimes, we do not talk for weeks - which happens when we get too caught up in our own worlds. Well, the reason she called me could be because my younger sis is vacationing in Hanoi and she needed some female affirmation which she may not be able to get from my brother :)

My mother's Chuan Park apartment is vacant now and on the phone, she was discussing the various prospective tenants with me. As our conversation drifted, she starting talking about how bad the economy in Singapore is. Like me, she uses everyday observations to prove it. She told me that she just came back from the NTUC supermarket and there was no queue that night at the check-out lanes. In fact, the cashiers were sitting around, digging their noses!

My mother has been very concerned about the economic crisis - not for herself, but for us, the younger folks. At the end of the phone call, she reminded me to be thrifty, telling me what I have been reading in the papers and listening on the news everyday... that the depressing economic spell could be a prolonged one. And my children are still young... I noted that during other recent economic bad times (Asian financial crisis, SARS fall-out), she did not ring such an ominous bell.

I have a lot of respect for older folks and I appreciate her concerns. The Chinese saying goes that they have eaten more salt than we have eaten rice. And I know where she is coming from because her generation has gone through a lot in the past.

My mother does not talk a lot about her past but from bits and pieces gathered over the years, I know my grandfather was a tailor and the family headed to wherever the economic opportunities were - so they had lived in Kampar, Telok Intan, Penang, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Times were tough and my mother only went to school when they had the money to pay school fees. During the Second World War, my mother was around 10-12 years old and her head was shaved bald by my grandmother so that she could pretend to be a boy to avoid the unwanted attention of the Japanese soldiers. Her elder sister by ten years disguised herself as an old woman.

Things might have got a bit better much later when she married my dad, but she was widowed when I was 6 years old. I can imagine how daunting it must have been for an uneducated young woman (she was 35 at that time) to think of a future without the support of a husband. Remember this was the early 70's and women's lib was still in its infancy in Asia.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we survived - through wit, grit and thrift. Thanks to my mother.

Knowing her background, it is not surprising that even today, although most people know my mother as being financially comfortable, she continues to haggle over every single transaction, big or small. I like to go to the wet market with her because she can bring down the prices to shocking levels! She goes to the hairstylist and haggles over the price of a hairperm. She would do the same while shopping for a car or an apartment with my brother.

I'd like to think that I have inherited the habit of thrift from her. Not the haggling, I am hopeless at that. But I do not crave for material possessions of the non-functional kind. My needs are simple: it is already considered a luxury if I buy a full-priced book from a bookshop. My reading materials are normally sourced from 1) discount bookfairs 2) those 3-for-the-price-of-2 promotions and 3) what is available on my brother's bookshelves!

I have one weakness, though. Travelling. If I have to choose between a 1-carat bling-bling and an overseas holiday, the latter would win hands-down. What if I have enough money for both? Then I would choose to go for two holidays. You get what I mean?

So, in the spirit of belt-tightening in anticipation of the deepening recession, overseas holidays will have to go for the time being. I declare that we are grounded. But there is still Cuti-cuti Malaysia (the tagline from the local tourism promotion board). Now I can't wait to explore the rainforests and some of the beaches and mountain resorts in Malaysia.... :)