By the time I was in my mid-30s, I had met Paul, who is part-Mediterranean and part-Celtic. I was writing a science-fiction audio series called StarPol at the time and he had offered his services as a sound engineer. As well as having the same artistic aspiration as myself, he too had grown up in a culture he didn’t belong to so we got on famously. The more we talked about our respective histories, the more we realised just how much we had in common – even down to the age we both were when forced to learn a language we had no previous knowledge of. In fact, we got on so well, the physical attraction between us was unmistakable and we eventually planned to live together but that initially would prove to be a huge challenge.

My estimation was that my parents had either planned for me to move out on their terms or for me to stay at home and nurse them until death. Either way, neither appealed to me and I found that out the hard way. Admittedly, my initial plans on moving in with Paul was a little cloak-and-dagger. The only reason for this was my uncertainty on how my parents would react had I told them of my plans in advance. My thoughts at the time were that I had previously enrolled into my Media Arts degree without their consultation and had graduated with distinctions. To me, this showed them that I had some form of independence.

As it turned out, my plan proved disastrous as my parents proceeded to tell me what a bad idea it was to move out into an unknown environment on the other side of the city without warning them first. As my mother later pointed out, she would rather I moved to a house nearby so she could keep an eye on me. Both Paul and I have often talked about wanting to move back to the UK. At the time, I didn’t have the courage to tell my mother this, fearing she would ban me from seeing Paul altogether. On hindsight, I knew that if I had attempted to inform my parents of the move in advance, they would have done everything in their power to prevent it from happening.

In their eyes, spending time with Paul was one thing but living with him was an entirely different matter. In fact, they disapproved with my relationship with Paul because he wasn’t of Asian descent. They even went as far as to threaten that my move would give the whole family a bad reputation. My mother, especially, is the queen of worst case scenarios. She never fails to present to you with the worst that can happen in any given situation. The phrase “learning from your own mistakes in life” wasn’t an option for her because she never offered me the opportunity to do so.

“Why won’t you let me learn from my mistakes?’ I asked her. “It’s the only way I’ll learn.”

Her reply?

“No, because I’m not going to let you make the mistake in the first place. Besides, if you move out, Paul won’t like the real you.”

The confrontation with my parents was so bad that my father tried to keep me home by promising that he would provide everything I needed to keep me in the family home – including building a studio for my photography interests and helping me buy a car. My mother added her efforts by taking advantage of my medical knowledge and telling me any unnecessary stress in the family lifestyle could trigger a decline in her health. Such was the emotional control my parents had on me at the time, I foolishly accepted their offer to stay and nearly ended my relationship with Paul.

Thankfully, he understood my predicament. Granted, it took him a while to fully understand the home life I was subjected to. We attempted to just remain friends from that point on but, within a year, the attraction between us once again became too strong for either of us to ignore and we were planning another escape on my part from the family home – this time while my parents were overseas.

In the meantime, the promises my parents made to keep me home never eventuated. Yes, my father took me to a few caryards to buy said vehicle, but every time I expressed interest in buying the car, he would always come up with some excuse why I couldn’t. True to fashion, he would then seat me down at the dinner table and spend hours calculating exactly how much it would cost to maintain a car. He would then point out that no matter how much I earned, I would never be able to afford it because of what he called my “reckless spending”.

I drove past the family home 2 years later and found out they had bought themselves a red Mazda. Now, for as long as I can remember, my parents have always driven white Toyotas. They had drilled into me that white was the best colour car to have because it was easy to spot on the grey bitumen road. In fact, shortly before I moved out of home, there were talks by my parents of them buying yet another white Toyota. They had even entice me into staying home by offering their old car to me despite the fact I had wanted a red car. Yes, I had mentioned the desire for a red car. Finding out they bought a red car two years later has made me realise one thing - my father had no intention in helping me buy a car. He were more interested in seeing what cars were available so my parents could buy one for themselves.

 As for the photography studio, my parents clearly had no intention on upholding that end of the bargain and made no effort to change the family living arrangements to accommodate it. On hindsight, I should have realised it would never happen. There was no extra rooms within the house to build the studio and my parents, being of the non-artistic sort, would not have had the first knowledge on what it took to equip the studio to begin with. In the end, I was forced to take long walks to nearby parks with my camera just to get inspiration. Admittedly, those times were also an attempt to get away from the house as I was beginning to feel more and more constricted.

The previous experience had now made it impossible for me to move out the conventional way and so I gradually began moving my belongings to Paul’s house without my parents’ knowledge. The plan was to transfer all the non-essential belongs first (that is, items that were not in full view of the bedroom for where my parents could notice its absence and hence halt the move completely). The time we had planned my independence coincided with the week both my parents would be overseas for two weeks, essentially making it the best time. It was now or never.

All went to the plan until the day before my father was to fly out to China. He had noticed most of my belongings had already been placed in Paul’s house.

“You will promise to stay here until I return or I’ll cancel my flight,” he told me, glaring me straight in the eyes.

I didn’t say anything for a while but eventually relented.

“Okay,” was my timid reply. However, I was only saying that just so that he wouldn’t cancel his flight.

“Good, because if you don’t, you’ll be a disgrace to the family. I’m calling your mother.”

It must be noted here that my mother was in Malaysia at the time. After a few moments of talking to her, my father handed me the phone.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

There was silence.

I couldn’t respond. They were coming at me from all angles and there was nothing I could say without them flying off the rails completely. If I had said anything my parents didn’t agree with, my father would have cancelled his flight and then there’d be no hope of me leaving. When I didn’t answer, my mother continued.

“Haven’t we provided you with a loving home? If you move out while we are gone, you’ll be running away from home. Do you want to be seen as a bad child?”

Here we go with the blackmail threats again, I remember thinking.

“No,” was all I could say.

“I order you not to move out, do you understand?”

Silence.

“Answer me!”

“Yes,” I croaked. What else could I say?

“Good,” was her final word. “Let me speak to Dad.”

The reactions from my siblings were mixed. My brother didn’t even bother to hide any of his annoyance towards me and told me quite openly how disrespectful I was toward my parents. My sister, on the other hand, seemed to understand my predicament and attempted to act as a mediator.

Despite my sister’s compassion, the backlash from my brother and parents made me more determined than ever. To appease them, I promised I’d stay in the family home just so that my father would go to China and give me an opportunity to keep to plan.

I moved out the day after my father left for China. Paul and I had planned the move while both my siblings were out of the house so as to give me the best chance of escape. It was a wondrous feeling to see the orange Dodge Calibre come up the driveway and to have the remaining of my belongings loaded into it on my way to freedom. To this day, we joke that I was rescued from the clutches of my parents’ overprotectiveness by my knight in orange armour.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve moved out. Every now and again, my mother would ring me to give me financial advice as she had always done to keep me under control. In 2016, I told her I was financially independent. She now rarely rings. She did ring in 2018, however, proudly informing me my brother had moved out of home a few suburbs away into the house of a family friend who had since migrated overseas. She then proceeded to ask me when I was coming home. Some things never change. While I don’t know what the financial arrangements my brother had, it was certainly an environment approved by my parents. Mind you, as Paul once pointed out, my brother is the only son of an Asian family and nothing he did was ever wrong in the eyes of my parents.

As for my father, he has not said one word to me despite the fact he has my email address. He once sent an email to my sister regarding the relocation of the family accountant, asking her to forward it to me. I strongly suspect that he has kept his end of the promise and, in his eyes, I no longer am his daughter.