It’s official. We love Parkway Parade. So much so that it is now our regular jaunt after moving to the East. The rustic charm. The significantly smaller crowd. The basement, with its eclectic lifestyle mix is my favourite. Suffice it to say I am not enticed by the grandeur of Ion, Ngee Ann and the likes (not to mention the horrifying crowds!).
We have our routine down pat. The girls will go off gaming while we will be vegetating at either Coffee Bean or Starbucks, or grocery shopping at the lovely stretch of Organic Mart, Sakuraya and San Espirito, after which we will pick them up for Berrylite yogurt and go poke around Border’s, Exim Arts and Pet Lovers Centre. Oh, and the Watson’s at PP? LOVE. Don’t get me started on Isetan and the beauty counters.
We were there again last weekend chillin’ but this time there was hmm, something different. You know, like a cockroach smacked flat in the middle of a Monet SOMETHING.
SPGs. All eight of them, one after another, in the span of a few hours. Was it SPG Day or something?
I have nothing against Asian women dating white men. I have girlfriends dating or married to white guys and they cannot be further from the SPG tag. So what’s my irk? It’s clearly not their preference – I have dated white men before, I just don’t share the perceived superiority in doing so. Rather, it’s the typical SPG behaviour I find distasteful – the poor dress sense, the fake accent, the strange compulsion towards public displays of affection/ lust and the one thing that befuddles me the most – the grand air of superiority in snaring a white old man.
Put yourself in my shoes. We were enjoying ourselves, engaging in light hearted banter while people watching and shopping. It’s all good. Suddenly SPG zeros in on the horizon, sucking on white tonsils, pushing her insufficient but overexposed bosom against white chest while unleashing annoying giggles and an incomprehensible accent onto us innocent bystanders while looking extremely smug (why, I wonder).
ANNOYING.
K told me about her neighbour fooling around with his maid. That won’t be the first story I heard about maids getting it on with their white bosses. Before you think I am thumbing my nose at maids, I am not. I think any man or woman pulling a meal ticket on their boss is just poor form. If there is one thing I hope to teach my daughters, it is to make a honest day of living on your own capabilities and resourcefulness, but those capabilities and resourcefulness do not include making sheep’s eyes at your boss or worse, sleeping your way up.
Strangely though, I was not concerned about how such a display of unwise womanhood will register on my girls. I believe in not shielding them from the ugliness of life. If anything, I welcome the opportunity to talk about it.. And where else do you get such wonderful real life ‘how not to be’ scenarios? 
But bearing in mind I am the same mother who mentally plans survival strategies in case the ferry sinks, I did have some terrifying ‘what if’s going on at the back of my mind but they were querulously silenced by an incisive remark from my daughter.
I am proud.
