I am Clarissa, the Middle child of Daniel Foo.
It is good that my elder sibling started the ball rolling of sharing my dad’s stories then my cheekier younger sibling decided to inputs his share. So, what’s next? The so-called middle a.k.a. rebellious child die, die also must shares one or two stories about her dad too!!!
You already read two good quality stories from both my siblings about our dad. If you have not read it, please go ahead to read the postings dated August 30 (Cheryl) and September 13 (Desmond).
My dad said I should write something, so here is my short story version of my dad who I have learnt to cherish and admire for the last 27 years.
When we were young, my dad is a very family oriented and hands-on man. He helped my mom around the house doing chores like washed the dishes, changed our nappies etc. During weekends, he sent us to our grandma’s house so that he can totally cleans up the whole house as well as has some peace to do his self-studies. If you have known my dad, he started as a Machinist in the production line and grew to become a Regional Manager in a MNC till he retired from the Corporate Jungle two years back. Most people said my dad is lucky but the hidden hardwork that he has puts in on his unexpected journey is hardly known. My dad keeps on improving himself by studying for 20+ years and eventually got his BBA. That’s not the end of this learning journey, today he is still learning…maybe who knows a Master Degree certification with his name is awaiting.
Till today as a semi-retiree, he still does some of these household things mopping the floor and washing the toilets are still my dad’s favourite chores. We greatly appreciated my dad’s thoughtfulness and I hope one day, we as his children will not be too lazy picking up all these chores that my dad is still doing in order to give him a good quality break.
The difference between my mom and dad is that she is rather rigid and always worries about our upbringings and safety.
My dad, on the other hand is more willing to let go and treat us as friends. We started drinking a bit of wine and beer at home during most of the Chinese festive celebrations. My dad allows us to be drunk at home rather than doing it outside. To my mum, dad tends to creates jokes and stories that are serious into insignificant and ordinary incidents and mom will scolds him for not seeing the severity of these incidents. When we drive our dad’s car, mom will always reminds us to drive slowly and safely.
My dad, on the other hand is more willing to let go and treat us as friends. We started drinking a bit of wine and beer at home during most of the Chinese festive celebrations. My dad allows us to be drunk at home rather than doing it outside. To my mum, dad tends to creates jokes and stories that are serious into insignificant and ordinary incidents and mom will scolds him for not seeing the severity of these incidents. When we drive our dad’s car, mom will always reminds us to drive slowly and safely.
My dad never likes the word “slowly”. In his Quality Improvement Process workshop as he preaches “Speed Wins and Speeding Kills” and he always has this favourite Words of Wisdom his ‘FSY’ – reminding us that when we are at the wheel – be Focus, be Steady & You will reach point ‘B’ happily.
Why Speed wins? In my dad’s workshop which I have attended and assisted a few times, he told participants that there are many wastes in the workplaces and environment. The number one waste is the transportation and movement (T&M). Any T&M from point A to point B are wastes and has no added values to the end products or results so it is important to either shortens both T&M activities or speeds it up.
He further explained that is why every countries have to put the infrastructure right – the roads, the air, the sea and the communications (internet). Nowadays, every T&M is getting faster and faster, a good example is the bullet trains reaching a speed of 500km. Speed wins! Look at ourselves, today the broadband provides instant connectivity in nano-second to our smart phones. What will happens should there be loss of connectivity due to a fire at your telco exchange building? We are at lost when our smart phones do not work. Another speed wins is the Singapore road pricing system, ERP (Every Road Pay) that deducted your toll fees in nano-seconds as you drive past the gantry. We are all talking about speed. The pop culture of today is speed nothing matters. In the far future, the whole Asia will be linked with bullet trains. The short future will be from Singapore to KL in 90 minutes compare to 3 hours by car at a speed of 180km.
Back to my dad, besides keeping the house clean (Good Housekeeping is another of his favourite subject when he teaches working safely in the workplace), he can be an impromptu cook with only one dish. During our younger days when our mom was hospitalized for a week, we realized that our dinner for that whole week is fried rice so much so that we never look forward to dinner! But dad is dad, does it matter if his fried rice were overcooked or didn’t smell good? It does not matters so long as we were able to laugh at the things that went wrong and those were the good old days. Fast forward…after 20+ years today my dad’s fried rice has improved with years of practice. Now he can ensures that each grain of the rice is coated with eggs and the fried rice is golden in colour. I believe this dish can be values at $15 dollar a plate…any takers? Someone said it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill and my dad really did it. He is one guy that keeps on learning, doing the abnormal things, mastering some things and break the rules. Nothing is normal or ‘new-normal’ to my dad.
I hope you enjoy my story.
We are thankful for my dad’s invaluable contributions and feel that we could not have asked for a better dad, who loves my mom and cherishes us, understands each attributes and personalities and occasionally coaches us and telling us many of his boring insightful stories, but we loved his repeated stories. My dad is THE best story teller, learn from him. In fact, he is the one that spoils us the most!
Enjoy and have a good weekend ahead
Clarissa Foo
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