I started adulting quite early when I was a kid. I grew up being raised by my grandma most of my childhood until I was 15 then I moved to Australia with my mum dad and siblings. I can recall an incident when I was in bed with my grandma one evening. I think I was 7 or 8. To be honest, I had no recollection of how old I was. Wait, it would have been before my youngest brother was born. So, I would have been 4 max. Grandma put her hand on my forehead: ‘Go to sleep. Don’t give a shit about what happened just now.’ Not her exact words in Hainanese (it’s a dialect of Chinese). But you got the gist.

I was running around in the big room downstairs. Usually around evening, a big group of relatives and family friends would start chattering over the loud, cracking noises of mahjong game. I can recall there would be at least 2 or 3 tables of 4 adults playing merrily. As the only child in the household (my other brother was still toddler), what could one do? I played by myself for a while. I didn’t own many toys back then. Playing by myself wasn’t exactly fun. So, I started to run around poking at the little dim sims and teas next to the players.

What do you think happen next? A cup of tea fell on the ground – Splash! Broken glasses and wet floor everywhere. I can recall the next few minutes being chased around by my dad. I got my well-deserved attention from my dad. Just not the kind I intended. I was told off by him. I screamed. I cried. I ran back upstairs and hid.

My grandma found me sobbing in my room. As she was coddling me to sleep, I remembered my very first adulting thought ‘I want to get a good job when I grow up, so I don’t have to depend on anyone.’ She hushed me ‘Don’t you worry. You will. But you better study hard. Or else, you will end up like me.’

As a kid, I wasn’t particularly likeable. I was lazy. I spent most days day-dreaming. Fantasizing ‘What if?’ was my favorite thing to do. Grandma would get me up from bed in the morning to do chores with her. I hated going to the chicken shed because it would involve me chasing the chicken so she could catch it to go into dinner.

Once the chicken was caught and slaughtered. She would say to me “You better study hard, you don’t want to end up like me. Stay at home, skinning chicken for dinner.”

When I couldn’t sleep at night, grandma would talk with me. And when I ran out of things to say ‘I can’t sleep, grandma.’ She would say ‘假假睡’ It means pretend to sleep. When you pretend to sleep, you would sleep eventually. That was her technique. Recently, when I can’t sleep at night and ran out of ideas, I would remember what my grandma said. And it still works now for me.

I would climb up the tree to pick a “Bread fruit”. Grandma would give me instruction from down below “The big one to the left. To the left!” I would mull and grunt. I still did what I was told though. Selling “bread fruit” was an income source for her. The big tree in the middle of our garden was visible to anyone who drove past our place. With the little extra money she made, she bought hawker’s food for my brothers and I. She would remind me again, ‘You better study hard, you don’t want to end up like me. No fruit, no money”. She would half-joke.

My grandma wasn’t educated and could hardly speak enough English to converse well with anyone outside her family. Spending time with her grandkids was her favorite thing to do each day. I studied and worked hard. I also spent the rest of my life trying hard not to end up like her.

Grandma, I won’t ever get the chance to say this to you in person. I still hate the chores you told me to do for you. But I will always remember the promise I made to myself because you listened to me. I will get up each day and look forward to spending time with my friends and family because it’s my favorite thing to do. Just like you did for me.

You are exactly the person I want to be.

All grown-ups were once children first. But few of them remember it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry