It's been five years since my 18th birthday, two years since my 21st. By any country's standards, I'm an adult, oui?

Not in my parents' eyes. Isn't that so frustrating? Any mention of a nightclub or drinkies after 9pm would produce horrified gasps and stern lectures about how nice girls do not go out to such places at such hours, haven't you heard of the hundreds of rape cases in town?!! I don't care if you have lived on your own since you were 16, while you are under my roof, you obey our rules, and that means, yes, you are going up to the sticks with the entire family and see the fifty million relatives that you've never met and the thirty million relations who claim they've not seen you since you were knee high to a grasshopper, never mind you don't remember them, hold still and let them pinch your cheeks and call you , "Apuuu, anak dara toh anak dik? Ni laki ya?"*!! That's my final word! Talk to the hand!

It's enough to drive anyone insane.

Sometimes I wonder if they could ever see beyond the little girl in diapers that they rocked to sleep on humid nights. Probably not. I'll be in my 50s, with a family of own, but Mum will still be peering over my shoulder, instructing me on the best way to fry a fish while Dad lectures me on car maintenance.

Great, something to look forward to.

* "This young lady is your daughter? Oh my, where's her husband?"