The Sandwiched Man

Do you belong to a family where your grandma and mum do not get along, where your dad constantly avoid getting involve in the conflicts between the two women? I do. There is nothing new about my story, just a typical problem between the mother- in- laws and their daughter- in- law, but one that I wished never had existed in my family.

Ever since I was young, I was aware of the tension between my mother and my grandmother, built up long before I was born. It all started after my parents were married, when my father made my mother promise that she will not ill-treat my grandmother. I guessed my father’s intention for doing so was to prevent any conflict in the family. I had to be honest, my mother was not perfect, as do no one was, but I would say that my grandmother was much worse.

Even without taking what I heard of the past, from my mother regarding my grandmother’s actions, into account, I would still say that things were very unfair for my mother.

Living in a period where women were getting jobs to help their husbands cope with the high standard of living, my mother faced the challenge of juggling her roles as a homemaker and a career woman. Having to leave for work at eight in the morning and only coming back at seven did not excuse her from the many household chores that she was expected to do. You might ask why it was expected of my mother to complete the household. Well, it was expected by my grandmother’s standard. My grandmother who had a traditional mindset believed that the only responsibilities of a woman were to look after their husband and keep the house clean. Hence, on top of the stress she faced from work, my mother was constantly under the pressure of performing her task at hundred percent of perfection. It did not help when my grandmother criticized my mother in front of relatives (trust me, her words can be pretty ugly) and her lack of discretion often left my mother fuming with anger.

For the past thirty years, because of the promise my mother made to my father, she never confronted my grandmother. She, did however, complained to my father about all the things that my grandmother said and did to her. My father, being a guy who disliked disagreements and confrontation, kept quiet all these years. This issue no doubt strained their relationship. It also built a lot of bitterness in my mother making her grumpy, short- tempered and constantly obsessed with doing things to perfection to avoid any sarcastic remarks from my grandmother.

At this point of time, it is no longer possible to ask my mother to talk to my grandmother to solve the issue between them without my mother lashing out at her. What should my father have done to improve the situation or is doing nothing the best thing to do?

I need some help!

OMG! This is the first time I am setting up a blog. Being a girl, vanity is part of the package. I am trying to change the look of my blog, and being a complete computer idiot just does not help at all. On top of that, HTTP language was never a part of the knowledge that I obtained over the years. Can someone help me with how I could change some outlook of my blog please?! Thanks in advance!

Not Just Talking

For people who know me, they will chuckle and roll their eyes if they hear me describing myself as being quiet and stranger- shy and this had been proven true in many occasions when I say that to people that I just meet. Most people know me as the girl who could not stop her mouth from spitting out words and delights in all kinds of gossip. However, this girl people know as LinHui was not always the way she is now. I grew up avoiding situations which requires me to speak or converse with a stranger either through the phone or face to face and when given no other option, I will do it with my heart beating and hands shaking at the speed of light. Probably due to the lack of interaction with people, other than my family members, and hence the uncertainty as to how I should behave, I find it difficult to break the ice with strangers and open up to them easily.

Each time I had to meet someone new, especially a big group of new people, I would worry about how things will turn out and I certainly do not like that feeling. Slowly, I tried to meet small groups of people to get myself comfortable with such situations. Luckily for me, such encounters always have a way of finding me as well. Sales, customer services or reception jobs are always given to me and I had to admit that they trained me to be able to communicate with people better. I had to be honest, the pay was an incentive for me to accept the jobs. Over the years, I trained myself to shy less from such encounters and to make it less awkward for me.

Reflecting on how things were when I was younger, I did not think that I was not able to communicate with people. I guess everyone is able to communicate with another party. It is the extent that they can communicate themselves. When I started primary school, I was not able to speak English at all, had a limited dictionary of vocabulary, if the limited amount even permits the use of the dictionary, and bad grammer. As a result of that and my shy character, I did not talk to any classmates who were more comfortable with speaking English at all.I am sure that I would be able to talk to people,but they might not be able to understand what I am trying to say entirely.True to what Brad said in class, I had to put in a lot of hard work to overcome this problem I have. I started speaking more English, deliberately doing things that I would normally avoid, and taking ES2007S. I hate interview and dislike public speaking even more. However, I cannot be avoiding them forever. Taking ES2007S is a way to ‘force’ myself to do them, hopefully becoming comfortable with them, and to communicate effectively in different scenerios.

Right now, there are occasions when I will still avoid talking to strangers, but that is when I want to hide in my little space and enjoy my personal time with me, myself and I, not so much about the shyness anymore. :)