The furthest ancestor I am aware of are my maternal grandparents. They are from Indonesia and my grandfather owns an animal farm there. It was mainly a pig farm and my grandmother would help with the chore by waking up early to feed the stocks and ensure that the farm is of clean condition. My mother had 10 siblings including her. There was serious gender discrimination in the past as her parents only allowed her brothers to study. The reason they gave was because males carry the family line and there was just enough money for her brothers to go school. In addition, I heard from my mother that when she was growing up in Indonesia, she had to consume wild boar and snake to survive. Whereas for my ancestry on my paternal side, I am only able to trace back to my father. The reason is because my grandfather passed away when my father was the age of 10. Hence, there are not much records and stories being told about my grandfather onwards. My grandfather is a Singaporean and I am a Singaporean too. After my paternal grandfather passed on, my father was taken cared by my granduncle. However, my granduncle provided my father with a shelter to stay only. And so, at the age of 10, my father had to take up jobs to self-support himself to make ends meet. Interestingly, how my mother and father got together was through a pre-arranged marriage, in the 1980s, by my paternal granduncle and maternal grandparents. After the marriage, my mother had to travel back and forth Singapore and Indonesia before she got her Permanent Resident. Later, she become a Singaporean as she sees the economic stability and security in Singapore and nonetheless because she has a family that loves Singapore a lot. When I asked my father, who inspired him in building Singapore, he said there was no one as he believed in working hard himself. Hence, not relying on others was a preferred choice. As for me, Dr. Goh Keng Swee inspired me in building future Singapore because he had the foresight to build Singapore’s own defence technology (i.e. Singapore Armed Forces) and not rely on other country’s protection. This made me feel that we should always look at things in the long run and it is our responsibility to protect our home country, Singapore, and not letting someone else have control over our country’s fate. Things that I have learnt from my ancestry are gender inequality is a problem in the past. Luckily in Singapore, the government has taken steps and measures to ensure that women are not deprived of their rights. In addition, in schools, children are being taught from young that they should stop having discrimination for genders. Next, I learnt that much endurance and being independent are needed when there is no one there for you to rely on to help you overcome problems. For example, taking up jobs to support yourself. Lastly, I am not so optimistic about future Singapore. The reasons are due to the amount of debt that one would incur if we were to purchase a house Finally would be the constant decline in birth rate even though the minister has been encouraging Singaporeans to have children hence, I am quite worried about the ageing population that we are going to face in the future to come. #PAYMSB #PayaLebarKovanCCYEC