I can live a No Frills Life

I listened with amusement what colleague C shared. Colleague H asked him if I drive a sports car. She thought she saw me driving off in a 2-door sports car.

I remembered another 'related' incident. A Singaporean friend in Beijing asked if I speak English at home.

In University, a schoolmate thought I live in some landed property or condominium in Telok Blangah. Yes! We used to take the same bus then and I would alight at the neighbourhood bus-stop which is right in front of a block of HDB flats. Somehow she thought right smack in the housing estate is a condo or a bungalow, and thats where I live, no less.

Sports Car, Speaking English at home and this home being in a bungalow, connotate (somehow, in Singapore) a privileged background.

I don't know how that (the impression) came about but I am not complaining. Nor do I mind. HaHa.

What I am going to write next does not mean I subscribe to the following :
- That there is anything wrong (nor anything right) about being born in a priviledged (or not) background.
- That I am proud or ashamed of my background.
- That the comments above have anything to do with what I am writing below. :-)

I can live a 'Simple' life, a No Frills Life. I did, I do.

In reality,
- I live in a 3-room flat. And its not even mine. I live with my parents. Only in recent years that I think I should get an apartment.
- Only until a few years ago that I bought myself a bed. Otherwise I was sleeping on the lower deck of what used to be a double decker bed (which does not even belong to me, belongs to my two brothers back then). Of course, I had removed the upper deck over the years.
- My mattress then was the $25 (ok I think its more expensive these days) kind of 'ti lam' that you buy at the neighbourhood store.
- My bedsheet was full of cartoon characters. My mum made them in her, and our younger days.
- Only until a few years ago I owned an Esprit towel. Otherwise I was using the thin ones my mum bought from the provision shop.

I was comfortable with the abovementioned (then) and I didn't think I need to change anything.

On the same note, yes, my back then cupboard (the kind that you see in the TV series "Growing Up") may be old and falling apart, there were some CK and DKNY clothes (the real thing) in it. And of course a few pairs of my couple-of-hundred bucks kitten heels. And yes, I think I would fork out a few thousand dollars for a signature chair or lamp if I think it fits or would create the necessary mood that I want, in my future apartment.

My point is (this phrase is borrowed from my Lao Ban haha), I reckon I am equally at home in a simple setting and/or a five star hotel. The 'feeling' has to be right. And that feeling could be in the form of the company I am with and/or my mood for the day.

Whilst I was in University, a schoolmate (we became firm friends thereafter) came up to me and said, "I thought you are this atas girl previously but today I changed my mind about you. I didn't expect anyone to have come to tutorial with a broken pair of specs (the left arm had come off and i was supporting the specs with my left hand periodically) and not care of the image and how people will see you."

I think she had described me aptly. I didn't think it was embarrassing to wear a pair of spoken specs. Nor was I ashamed. Besides I didn't think people would judge me as being 'uncool' or would they? Maybe some would. But that would make them uncool in my opinion.

Perhaps its not about No Frills, rather my Frills are different from others.