Part 1: A Singaporean Family Messed up by a Father, Government & PRC Women (Part 2)
[PART TWO OF THREE]
A seed of hatred was sowed
The PAP’s obsession for huge number of immigrants staying in Singapore attracted all kinds of foreigners setting foot here, including criminals, crooks, beggars, prostitutes and even women in their 50s coming here to look for old Singaporean men to marry! The government’s open-door policies were so loose, or desperate, that foreigners entering Singapore on short-term social visit passes could end up staying here for a very long period : upon their social visit passes expired, they just needed to board a public bus that crossed over to neighbouring Malaysia, made a U-turn after walking past Malaysian custom checkpoint and returned to Singapore with a new social visit pass issued to them. Two PRC women in their 50s managed to stay in Singapore for a much longer period than most Singaporeans would welcome. Maureen called them Bitch A and Bitch B.
(i) Bitch A
Bitch A was a PRC woman in her late 50s who arrived Singapore on a social visit pass. By her confession, she came with the hope to look for a Singaporean man to marry. Perhaps due to certain agent’s arrangement or advice, she had been actively moving around HDB heartlands trying to strike up friendship with men, especially elderly men.
She came to know Maureen’s father and asked to live in his place for a few days while she looked for a permanent place to rent. The few days ended up weeks and she left only after Maureen’s youngest brother had a big quarrel with his father.
Fortunately and unfortunately for her, Bitch A was able to quickly find and marry an old Singaporean taxi driver. However, one day, she confessed to Maureen’s father that she regretted the marriage because she did not know that the HDB flat which the old taxi driver previously lived in was registered under his son’s name. When the son discovered his father went ahead to marry her, he asked his father to leave the flat. The old taxi driver had to approach HDB to rent a small flat.
(ii) Bitch B
It just shocked you, why some of those PRC women were willing to go around making such shameless confession about themselves!
By her own confession, Bitch B (in her early 50s) was a divorcee in China with an adult son. She was also eager to marry any Singaporean man who was willing to bring her over to Singapore. As she was then living in China, she asked Bitch A to help finding a man for her in Singapore.
It did not take long for Bitch A to find an elderly Singaporean for her comrade back in homeland. After a series of long-distance telephone interviews between Bitch B and the old man (and exchanged of photographs), a marriage deal was struck over the phone.
Bitch B was then flown over to Singapore. Unfortunately, the elderly man could not marry her because all his children threatened to throw him out of the house! He finally confessed that the 5-room HDB flat he lived in was owned by his children.
As she was already in Singapore, Bitch B did not want to return China before finding a Singaporean husband. While extending her social visit pass in Singapore was not a problem, getting a place to live was impossible due to the high rental.
Hence, Bitch A approached Maureen’s father and begged him to let Bitch B live in his flat temporary while she continued to look for a Singaporean man to marry.
(iii) The bomb went off
After Maureen’s father brought Bitch B home to live, big quarrels between the old man and his youngest son (Maureen’s brother) ensued. Weeks later, the youngest son was chased out of the flat.
Maureen was then in United States on a sponsored post-graduate programme. When news reached her, she called back but her father denied chasing his youngest son out and lied that the China woman had returned to China. He promised not to let any outsider staying in the house again. Maureen persuaded her brother over the phone to return but the latter refused.
One evening, while having a regular telephone chat with my mother, she told me that my dad heard from some neighbourhood friends that Maureen’s father went around boasting that he had a great China wife much younger than him. I was astonished, shocked actually. I dropped an email to Maureen, seeking a clarification – after all, her father had a reputation of exaggerating something to make himself important.
It was through Maureen’s email reply that I learned about her father had been approached by PRC women and her youngest brother had left the home.
My earlier email triggered Maureen’s idea to get one of her siblings to perform a search on the Registrar of Marriage. The search result revealed that Maureen’s father had indeed registered a marriage with Bitch B! The date of marriage was a few weeks after Maureen phoned her father.
“How could the government allow such a marriage where the man is so old, had no income for decades and the Bitch came from a developing country on social visit pass?”
Feeling devastated and betrayed, Maureen wrote to me along the following lines, “… He (i.e. her father) could not feed his first wife (i.e. Maureen’s mother), I feed her! He could not feed his own children, I helped to! He could not even feed himself, I feed him! Is he now expecting me to feed his second wife as well? Who the hell is she? A BITCH!! How could the government allow such a marriage where the man is so old, had no income for decades and the Bitch came from a developing country on social visit pass?”
It took Maureen about three months to make that hard and painful decision to stop all GIRO payments relating to all her father’s expenses. I knew she tried not to hurt her father but the thought of her father using her money to finance Bitch B must have been humiliating and mentally insulting! He toured China with Bitch B and paid the first instalment for a new home there so that Bitch B’s son had a place to live – by Bitch B’s confession.
Within several months, as if Heaven was angry, Maureen’s father died in an accident – it was not a peaceful death. Maureen arranged for her father’s funeral and gave him a final send-off. She confided to me that when his cremation urn was placed to rest, she said to his ash-urn that she would not return to pay tribute to him – because of the anticipated troubles he had created for her, her mother and siblings.
A meeting that shocked everyone
A new set of problems, very painful problems which Maureen expected, had finally arrived on the death of her father. Maureen’s father died without a Will. While his 3-room HDB flat (estimated to worth around $180,000) was effectively fully paid by Maureen, the home was registered in his name. His agreement with Maureen to let his youngest son inherited that flat was verbal (he refused, over the years, to put it in writing).
One week after the funeral, Maureen and her siblings met up with Bitch B to discuss about the 3-room HDB flat that was registered under her father’s name.
Had I not agreed to be a ‘busy-body’ to accompany Maureen to the meeting, I would have difficulties believing what came out of the China woman’s mouth!
“Bitch B warned that she had already approached the GRC MP (a PAP one) for advice – when Maureen’s father was still struggling in his death-bed!”
Bitch B said (or perhaps warned) that she had already approached the GRC MP (a PAP one) for advice – when Maureen’s father was still struggling in his death-bed! The MP had kindly referred her to a lawyer who agreed not to charge her money. Her lawyer advised that she was entitled to half of the flat, regardless who paid for it. She claimed that her lawyer also assured her that it was not a crime to marry for the purpose of having a better life, and with the death of Maureen’s father, she was free to re-marry any man!
“Bitch B said that she had just registered with a local marriage agency to look for a new man to marry!… THREE DAYS AFTER her husband’s funeral!!”
Till this day, Maureen and I could not understand why Bitch B said and did such a thing in that meeting: Bitch B said that she had just registered with a local marriage agency to look for a new man to marry! As if to convince people about her claim, she produced a registration form processed by that marriage agency! And the date of that registration form was just THREE DAYS AFTER her husband’s funeral!! Maureen and her siblings were shocked! I was shocked too! Whether it was wholesale or retail, that shameless China Bitch was operating in the same industry! 不管零售还是批发，这下流贱妇搞的还是同一门生意！
The meeting broke down. It was no longer only an issue of money. It was an issue of humiliation! It was about a home where all the siblings grown up, seeing their mother endured all kinds of suffering!
One of Maureen’s sister went to see the MP whom Bitch B claimed had recommended a lawyer to her. However, the MP’s grassroots members did not let Maureen’s sister met up with the MP; the sister was hurt by some grassroots members’ cold behaviour; she was told that the issue was a family one and so she should go and hire a lawyer for herself! Disgusting, wasn’t it?
(continue in Part 3)
Celia Lim