The whole world thought you were such a poor little girl when your foster family abandoned you. Alamak. You had no money, no resources, no nothing. Not even sufficient water to call your own! How to survive?

Then hor, a miracle of sorts happened leh.

You made friends- donch care they big or they small. You were such a friendly young thing. Heng, those people oso friendly. And thus, you had a place to stay in a whole new landscape.

You were worried, of course. Cos you were used to being protected by some ang mohs- No more shelter liao how? Then you remembered that those bloody ang mohs left you in the lurch before, and you realised the importance of self defence. And it’s not some masak masak weapons you acquired. You got yourself state of the art gadgets- I mean, some of your friends don’t even have submarines- and you are telling people, don’t mess with the best, cos the best don’t mess. People play punk with you, they will kana jia-lat jia-lat.

Heng, you had a good education. Maybe you studied blindly lah. But never mind, you studied lor. I mean, you studied law. So you knew what to do when people tried to force you to build a crooked road on your doorway. Then ah bes, people LPPL suddenly U-turned and caused a big lobang in their own pockets.

Outsiders who don’t know you, always criticise you. Say you very old fashioned. Haiyah, they buay hiao lah. You see them, try to be liberal loh. Try this, try that. End up they burn their own backside. Really, they should mind their own business, especially when their own business very jia-lat.

Just take your biggest neighbour for example. Their garden always got fire, all the smoke make all the other neighbours so irritated. Then you see their bank account like primary school boy, only got coins…so you ho sim lend them money, they still laugh at the size of your house and call you a red dot. You say angry or not? If I were you, I also very DL. Heng that house change owner liao.

Speaking about calling people names, I remember someone calling you a piece of pi sai. Because they not happy about you getting too close with their enemy. They said you por people’s LP. Or-bi-good, they guy who insulted you, kana slap left, right, centre. Hahahaha. Really what, LP this kind of thing cannot publicly say one. Only can say behind closed doors, or at the most on popular websites like cruzteng.com.

Look, I’ve known you for 27 years now. I have so much to tell you. But I scared my friends listen to my grandfather story, they will fall asleep.

I shall chop chop end by telling you this.

It doesn’t matter what people say. I have my doubts sometimes. But at the end of the day, no one else gives me that homey feeling like you do.

You might not be perfect, – who is?- but I love you all the same.

Happy 41st, Singapore!