olddog-samesame

      "Kia Ora". The air hostess        greeted us  when we  boarded        the air NZ flight from        Melbourne to  Christchurch.        The Maori  greeting that had        faded from  memory  became        strikingly familiar again.        Yes,  it has  been  that long.        3 7 years to be  exact since        I left NZ.  After spending        most of my early adulthood        there,  NZ is like a second        home to me so  the trip back        was nostalgic. The 11 days road trip around  the South Island brought  back  a flood of memories, like back flashes .  The small towns that  we passed through and the  idyllic countryside landscape were e ver so familiar.  It looked like time had stood still.  Nothing much  has changed.  The vast expense of rolling hills  interspersed with the wild native gorse and  brilliant yellow flowers in full bloom, sheep and  cattle grazing nonchalantly in eternity and the occasional  hares hopping  around leisurely.

My only child will be turning 21 on 19th August 2017. Whew, what a relief. Parenthood is definitely not a walk in the park especially for the Pan-Asian Chinese family. The responsibilities, expectations, obligations, sacrifices and cultural traditions to uphold as parents in this 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week & 365 days a year job of raising a child is a huge load to shoulder. If you are lucky and there is no major misstep or screwing up along the way, the kid might turned out alright.  While still deliberating on the issue and fraught with apprehension, my daughter was unexpectedly conceived on that fateful day 21 years and 9 months ago and I was unwittingly shoved into the job! The rest as they said is history. It has been a long journey with many ups and a few downs. Although our family tie, the father-daughter relation is for eternity, my role as a parental guardian is finally coming to an end. I no longer need to be present at the Immigration Department when she wants to