read about yvonne's amazing grandmother and find out how one got hit on in the old days. (ans: literally, with fruit.)

[excerpt]

"They'd go on to have several children and build a lovely large rambling house on Upper Bukit Timah Road, where I spent every weekend of my childhood with the dogs and the durian trees, playing with the balsam fruits that burst upon contact. Cycling in the courtyard where we would put up tables for birthdays and weddings and Chinese New Year celebrations, going out to walk along the railway tracks, putting swings on the trees and feeding the arowana and the goldfish."

~~~

"I remember looking at her hands as a child and thinking they could do anything, can't they? Tie knots around the durians she sold to hold them, soothe a nervous dog, build roads, make Milo and mugs of Chinese tea, stroke a child on the head."

~~~

"She didn’t just make you feel loved and wanted, she made you feel special and just that bit daring. Having known poverty, she knew much about deprivation and had an amazing instinct for knowing knowing when people have not had enough nice things said to them or done to them in their lives and went about finding the right things to do or say. Without too many deep words, she showed me the importance she placed on showing kindness to the people who are unsure, timid, those who have been damaged in some way –- not pitying them, but helping them bloom."