I was determined to be financially independent as soon as possible, not wanting to be a financial burden on my mother who had to be the breadwinner to her brood as well as support her younger siblings and cousins.
When I failed to get into medical school, I decided to do a secretarial course as one could be a secretary in any line of business in those days.
I'd done a short stint of teaching at a secondary school as a temporary teacher, while waiting for my Pre-U ('A' level) results from Cambridge (Overseas Syndicate Board).
Two of my students at that school were from Indonesia. Their parents had sent them over to receive their education in Singapore, and they were sharing a house with other children (cousins or children of their parents' friends). I ended up being approached to give a number of them private tuition (on all the subjects that they were struggling with, as it was an English stream school, with every subject, except the Second Language, taught in English).
So, I was giving private tuition in the morning (sometimes at the weekend as well), and attending my secretarial course in the afternoon. This meant that I was able to start giving my mother money towards the household kitty.
How much to contribute is not laid down clearly as such. I think it depends on how much money is actually needed, and how much the contributor can afford. In a family where money is not short, it's then a case of a token sum as a token of one's filial piety.
I was earning three times my third sister's monthly salary as a bank clerk. She had stopped giving my mother money because she was building up her nest egg, knowing she was going to marry the man she'd met, so I decided to contribute a third of my earnings towards the household kitty.
(Singapore, 1973–74)
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