It has been quiet in the house after the youngest and noisiest one flew the coop to America, where they don’t know what hit them. Bak is not just out-studying them – 21 study credits to their average of 12 – but also stupendously out-singing them, in Chinatown, Atlanta, at least.
“The Chinese here are awful singers, awful lor,” he updates us over Gmail video chat. In the midst of William Hungs he is Aretha Franklin: minus the bodacious range, plus puppyish eagerness, dogged attempts at high notes and the superpower to mean every of the earnest Wang Lee Hom love songs he sings. “Everybody says, ‘Do you take private lessons?’”
We are taking all the credit of course. Clearly he has improved since he started singing with me – I really should patent my matchless stand-up-and-sing-in-the-KTV method, which is genius in its very obviousness – and also in the hearing of the Cowells, Fei and Y. “Wah, American Idol ah? We taught him. We insulted him.”
We are about tough love, much as we miss him. We miss him primarily during major dinners. On Chinese New Year’s Eve we wake him up at 6am his time to show him, over video, the food we have to somehow finish without him. “See, Bak? Roast pig.” (Roast pig, not to be confused with roast pork, is a festive must in the family. It is rare in Singapore and can be bought only from cleaver-wielding fierce Cantonese old women in Kreta Ayer market.)
Hugging his pillow, he just grunts. We are fooling about; he is playing along, time zones away.
4 comments:
another karaoke story for ms orangeclouds' anthology.
one day, i must try your stand-up-and-sing method.
Haha, yes, please patent your concert-in-karaoke-diaphragm-power singing style. So when are you going to k with me again?
Your family is hilarious! In a very heart-warming way.
girls, we need to k! i'm good thursday onwards...
yes yes how about fri night or sat afternoon this week?
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