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Internet connection poor substitute for family bonds
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THE headline read: Boy who lost 22 relatives: “I just wish my family to be whole again.” (The Straits Times, December 25).
As I read the article on how Typhoon Taiyan had unmercifully decimated his enlarged family, my sad thoughts were quickly over-written by the fascinating fact that family bonds are still strong here, in this ill-fated town, as shown by the Christmas wish from a 12-year-old boy.
As I reflected on the devastation in Tacloban, the Philippines, I could not help but think of an incident some 50 years ago. I was a teenager and living the eastern part of Singapore, in the early 1960s.
It was a wooden-walled house with a zinc roof and a common toilet and separate bathroom to be shared by five families. Just like the dwelling conditions in the town of Tacloban before Taiyan struck.
Then we had a neighbor Ah Lim. He was a bachelor and was in his late 40s. He lived alone in the one room with an attached kitchen. He was an office worker in a well-known shoe company, BATA. He had a job in its warehouse in Telok Belangah (around 10 kilometers away). He seldom had visitors except for a sister who dropped by once in a while. He kept mostly to himself.
One Chinese New Year he told my mother that he envied her.
She had her whole family and children to celebrate the passing of the old year in a noisy yet vigorous way.
All alone
He himself was alone. He told mother that he once lived with his sister. She had a family. The nephews and nieces did not like him. As a Buddhist, he had an altar, but the younger kids placed their radio next to the altar, without thinking. He felt alienated and moved out.
Our rooms were separated by a wooden wall about eight feet high. There was an open gap of around 12 inches allowing air to circulate. You could peep into the next room if you were to climb above the wall.
One night my mother heard something drop into our bedroom. She woke up and looked.
It was a bundle secured by rubber bands. Inside were stacks of US$50 bills. The money belonged to Lim. He had thrown the bundle over. He had gone mad. He mumbled to himself.
I think the isolation from his family must have taken its toil on his mind.
Someone called his sister and he was taken to a hospital. Mother returned the money bundle to his relatives when they came to remove his belongings. All his life time savings, I presume.
My friend, Nam Heng, had opined and observed that his two sons are not close, when we were in the same buggy on the golf course two months ago.
With Internet connectivity, they live and operate in different individual rooms, unlike the days we were young when five children would be cramped in one room.
He was worried about what would happen to his family and family bonds when the parents passed on, what would happen to his cousins and nephews, the extended family ties that held the 12-year-old boy in destroyed Tacloban.
My nephew, Jia Qian, a master’s degree holder from Stanford, had reminded me in an earlier conversation that it depended on the person and his outlook on life.
With IT connectivity, families can even be closer since long-distance conversations can take place, and with Skype. There can even be face-to-face interactions. So if Lim were alive today, he would not need to suffer the despair of being all alone.
The world could be his arena — with online networking and multiple cable TV channels.
Ostensibly this is true, but IT connectivity would never be able to replace those human interactions and company, the warm and familiar feelings that radiate and surround us when we are with friends and families.
If anything, IT-enabled loneliness can be more isolating, deeply destructive to the soul.
With Chinese Lunar New Year around the corner, let us hope that more families can be united and stay personally connected. The author is a senior HR consultant based in Singapore.
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