How would life have turned out? 01 (England / Singapore)

 

A student of mine (in her early 80s) from Lancashire told me that her mother had worked in a textile mill, and expected her to follow suit.

    Just as well she didn't go along with that, for she then went on to lead a very interesting life, publishing articles about her experiences too: teaching English in (alphabetical order) China, France, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland; editing an educational magazine in N.E. China near the Korean border; and is now learning Russian as well.  (She already knows French, Spanish and Mandarin.)

    I used to visit some relatives on my father's side who lived on Singapore's biggest offshore island, Pulau Ubin, where granite quarrying was done.    

    I was then told, aged 9, that when I arrived, a fourth girl, my mother had wanted to give me away to this family, who only had a son at the time.  It was a common Chinese practice to give away children, e.g., to let the child have a better life, to give the childless family a child, or a son-less family a son -- in my case, a daughter-less family a daughter.

    It got me thinking how different my life would've turned out, growing up on that outback of an island off the north-east coast of Singapore, with a family who ran a ferry service between Singapore and Pulau Ubin, as well as a grocery shop.  An environment that was very rural and quite different from my suburban upbringing (English stream Catholic convent school education).

(England / Singapore)