Lately I’ve been getting this feeling that Theresa has hit a bit of a rough patch. She has been making the occasional remark which suggests regret of leaving Malaysia. It all started a few days before Mother’s Day (last Sunday) and it probably hit rock bottom on Sunday itself, when I was pushing her to telephone her mother for Mother’s Day.

It may be the cold which has set in – it has been around 8-10 degrees in the morning lately and I have had to turn on the central heating just before I leave for the gym, so that kiddo can wake up to a warmer house. In fact she said as much. She hates the cold. She thinks it is stupid of us to leave warm, sunny Malaysia to come to this cold misery.

Of course, we are inclined to remember only the good things. Yes, Malaysia is mostly warm. And humid. Oh was it humid? She probably forgot that. I understand recently, it has been pouring in KL, especially early afternoon. Apparently, there are the inevitable traffic nightmares after each deluge. We have forgotten that, too. There’s a volcano in Java about to erupt. I guess Malaysia doesn’t need that sort of drama for a blanket of suffocating haze to choke the lives out of everyone there. I guess we have forgotten that, too. We only remember how warm (we forget it can get pretty hot) it was.

Yet, it hurts me. It hurts to see my wife hurting, whatever the cause. Last night as we huddle together and watched television, she said again how much she hated the cold. Kiddo responded by saying she would never return to Malaysia. Kiddo loves it here and from our conversation last night and from my office experiences, you’d think she is the only one who does. Right at this moment she is at a friend’s house, doing homework. She has numerous mates from school and church and she enjoys being with them, even if she didn’t particularly excelled in the activities they were engaged in (she was bowling last Friday night and returned a “record breaking” score. I’m not allowed to disclose the score.)

I’m not sure I would be always completely certain that moving down under to Melbourne was the best thing to do. It is always a balance of probabilities issue. If I look at the consistent polarisation of Malaysian society, the unspoken but certain Islamisation, the economic and political mish-mash corruption, the haughty attitude of the dominant race and the corollary of excluding of the minority races, I can only tell myself there can be no mistake about our decision to leave. Sure, these things have been happening since God-knows-when and at any one point in time it is a matter of degree only. Sometimes it is worse, sometimes it isn’t so bad. Well, even not-so-bad is not tolerable. I don’t want kiddo to grow up in this sort of society.

So, I will go out of my way to pamper the wife, comfort her, keep her warm and tell her Melbourne has been better. Cold mornings notwithstanding. My unhappy work notwithstanding.