Blank Doll speaks.

All Rafflesians should be pro-PAP. This is not a fallacy, it is accepting who you are. Most of us belong to the middle or upper income quintiles with relatively few of us coming from families that have to sweat it out just to send their children to school. Most of us will go on to receive a sound university education funded either by the government via scholarships or our parents. We will return to Singapore, take up high paying jobs and continue our happy existence away from the dreary quarters of Potong Pasir and some of the western heartlands.

Know where your interests lie my fellow brethren.

Yet I do not come from this privileged stock. No. My mother certainly came from the very districts that I am disdainful of. She grew up under poor circumstances and was no stranger to social welfare. At the age of 16, her friend was taken to Europe after her birthday and all my mother could do was make a secret wish that she too would be able to do it one day. She could not afford Mcdonalds when it arrived it Singapore, nor could she afford to eat an entire charsiew pau, only eating the skin which was what they gave to her.

Which is why I am infinitely proud of her. She has come so far and has risen so high above her circumstances that when she recounts her childhood to us, I feel as if it were a story from some other person's past. How can we as her children, so pampered and cared for beyond belief understand the pain that she has gone through? She has taken us to see the world since I was 9 and it is only now that I may partake in some of her joy when she took us to Europe when I was 10. Then I had thought it a fine thing, it is only now that I realize what a landmark it must have been in her life. Today, you wouldn't even think about asking me to eat dim sum from just about anywhere. Heck, you wouldn't ask me to eat from just about anywhere. She was forced to quit school after secondary four so that she could work. I have come to Raffles to bring to fulfilment that other secret wish of hers.

So you see, my mother has been a brave woman. She has lived through the scorn of others, the horrors of an unhappy past, the travails of becoming a financial advisor when she was but a housewife before that and above all, she has done a remarkable job in raising two children. From the darkness of her childhood, she has shown remarkable strength and it is all because of her today that my life is filled with so much hope and certainty in my ability to further the circumstances of our family.

She also doesn't get drunk. Now that's a feat.

C'est tout.