A life lesson

It all began with Dichi running over to me in her anxious philippino accent telling me " mdm... Aunty house a lot of smoke "

As I went to the door and looked out, I saw my uncle's house having loads of fume coming out from the window. I ran along to call for my mum who upon seeing the situation, started pounding at the door together with Dichi but mei mei and Jia Jia still did not open the door.

In summary, mei mei had tried to cook noodles but fell asleep. But a fire didn't exactly take place cos we managed to get the door opened in time. Our neighbors who stayed on the same floor helped out and at that point, you truly can see, life enactment of what they used to teach you in school, 远亲不如近邻，远水救不了近火。

Although technically, we are mei mei's 亲and邻。

Anyway, as expected, mei mei was scolded 狗血淋头by my uncle along with a little caning.

Later at night after I came home from the docs, mei mei and her mum and my parents together were in the living room watching tv with mei mei sobbing away and everyone of us started consoling her.

I can imagine if I'm her, at that age for this to have happened, I would have been so frightened. But at that point, I felt a state of warmth. Family warmth. How we could come together at times of events to be there for each other.

And I believe this is a life lesson for mei mei. I won't say it's a damn major one but I'm sure she learnt something along the way. And I guess that is what happened to all of us. Somewhere along the way of our growing up days, things happened, we make mistakes, we learn from them and we try not to let it happen again.

I also am proud to know if one day I accidentally burn down the house, my dad wouldn't kill me - hahahaa at least he said so! But I know he meant it. My dad is just not that kind. He rationalizes and he would believe I didn't do it on purpose and what has happened would have happened. It's not things that we can change.

On the bright side, we should be grateful for the wonderful helpful neighbors we have and for the fact that the situation would have gotten worse.