OCBC tower

There was an episode which took place when I was 5. I remember it vividly and I think it does say a lot about the person I am.

I had a set of toy bricks given to me by my aunt's boyfriend. (They've since broken up.) I think they knew that I'd know how to make stuff out of it.

One day I tried to make a model of the OCBC building, which was Singapore's tallest skyscraper at that time. (OUB centre would be built when I was 10.) I stacked the blocks in the tower. I did it 4 or 5 times, but I never managed to make it stand up. I would never attempt to do that now because you would need extremely steady hands for that. It's like a stack of Jenga bricks. (But I don't know if Jenga existed in the early 80s.)

I might have started crying at that point. Just then my grandmother walked in. She was taking a break from cooking lunch. She asked me what the problem was. I told her that I was trying to build a model of OCBC.

Then she took the blocks and instead of building a tower like I did, layed out the floor plan of the place. This is where the backroom is. This is where people line up at the counter. This is where people come in through the door. I watched and learnt, fascinated. (As evidenced by how 25 years later I'm still reciting this to you from memory.) But soon a look of horror crept across my face. I demolished the layout with a sweep of my hand, and almost screamed, "that is not the OCBC tower!"

My grandmother must have recoiled from the shock. Shaking her head, she walked out of the room and back into the kitchen. I remember this because 5 minutes later I felt bad and guilty about having destroyed her hard work. But I didn't apologise because I hadn't learnt how to, and maybe I still don't know how to apologise.

But that's me. The guy who's insistent on building his tower of babel instead of thinking of the alternatives.
The guy who wants to be right instead of wanting to get along.
The guy who wants control instead of playing along.
The guy who wants to be difficult and insist on rigid insistance on his plans.
The guy playing with his blocks all alone, answering to nobody.
The guy who favours the grand scheme instead of taking care of the details.
The guy who's the architect, the guy who likes to think of structure and form.
Maybe even the guy who prefers to be phallic instead of - well you know that the flat terrain is more often associated with feminity.

That was 25 years ago and not much has changed since.

NB: This stubbornness and dogmatism is something I've inherited from my grandmother. She can be as difficult and stubborn as I am, although she is in many other respects a nicer person than me.