What tickled some about my last post seems to be the nugget that I once carried paper bags to work. How unimaginable! Yes, I had to smile too, thinking back.

When I first started work upon graduating from Oxford, I didn’t have any money, obviously. Whilst life had got better with Dad’s business stabilizing, we were not awash in cash. In any case, I would never ask him to fund anything. Not because he wouldn’t want to, but because he would.

I decided at age 16 that I wanted to go to Oxford to read PPE. Philosophy, Politics and Economics. My dream course, combining all the subject matters that I was – and still am – endlessly curious about and interested in. What I could do with it, I didn’t know, and didn’t much care, really. That they were fascinating to me was reason enough. I knew though that I wasn’t going to ask Dad to pay for it. This was a time when the GBP was at SGD 3. School fees plus tuition plus lodging and food would have cost $450,000 over three years. Money we didn’t have. Dad was very anxious when he learnt about the sum, worried that he wouldn’t be able to support my dream. I wasn’t the least bit concerned. I told him I was going to earn myself a scholarship. And if I failed, I would go to a local university. Much as I really really wanted it, I didn’t see not making Oxford as the end of the world – I was convinced that my life was mine to make the best of, and I could do that, Oxford or not. Luckily, I won a full scholarship after all and off I went!

A scholarship didn’t spare Dad from all expenses though. Remember those were the days before skype and FaceTime. The only way we could keep in touch was through good old phone calls. Email was just taking off but Dad didn’t know anything about computers. So Singtel made a bundle from him.. Mum would ask me not to call so often but Dad would insist that the phone bills were not mine to worry about. So religiously, I called every Sunday, and spoke mostly to Dad. It wasn’t just hi and bye. I would regale him with colourful accounts of my life in the City of Dreaming Spires, highlighting only the good and never the bad as daughters, especially Chinese ones, are wont to do for fear of worrying her parents. As I learnt later, the bill came up to about $1000 each month, a huge sum for us. But Dad never said a word…

Naturally, once I graduated, all I wanted to do was to start contributing to the family. Given the balance in my bank account, there was no question of a handbag, let alone a designer one. I was bemused when my twenty-something waltzed into the office on her first day of work with a Ferragamo. Are all Gen Z-ers this lucky, I wondered. Anyway, I had to figure out what to do with my stuff – wallet, keys, documents, etc. Paper bags! As in carrier bags from stores. Esprit ones were a particular favourite. Don’t roll your eyes, twenty-something. Before H&M and Topshop, there was Esprit. The epitome of cool! I remember a colleague, a Frenchman, asking – why do you carry these paper bags around? I no longer remember how I answered him.

He will have no problem with what I carry today, especially as a Frenchman. It’s a Kelly in black on most days, and a Constance in Bordeaux on some. I enjoy them, very much. As much as I enjoyed my Esprit paper bags, almost twenty years ago.