There is nothing like a small, everyday humiliation to knock us off balance and jolt the ego. Lord forbid any greater shame than a public display of common clumsiness, or worse, stupidity. Embarrassment is a particularly harsh lesson in humility to those of us who are hard on themselves, and its imagined consequences feel catastrophic to those of us who are self-conscious.

Now there’s a voice in your head that gets even stronger when you’re in your thirties — it is the stern voice that shakes your shoulders and says, “Get a grip.” No spiralling downwards and sideways! No letting the negative thoughts creep in! Have you not got the hang of it by now, this absurd game called life? Anchor yourself.

For your next test of mental fortitude, below a crib-sheet covering a collection of common cringe-inducing, stomach-crunching situations, what to do in the moment and the lessons learnt:

1. Calling someone the wrong name. Move on — everybody has been greeted by the wrong name before, they’ll get over themselves. Lesson learnt: If you’re not 100% sure, don’t say their name.

2. Being underdressed at an event. Make a speedy exit. Lesson learnt: Follow the dress code.

3. Being overdressed at an event. Snap out of it. Lesson learnt: Carefully consider the dress code for the event. If this was not specified, ask around.

4. Having your trousers split at the seam right down the centre of the rear. At the office and can’t sew? Staples work. Go to the washroom, staple along the seam on the inside, and go to the meeting. It will hold up till lunchtime when you can make a mad dash to the shops for a new pair of trousers, and drop off the broken pair at the alterer’s. In public and don’t have a jumper to tie round your waist? Slip into the nearest clothing store. Lesson learnt: Invest in clothes that can last.

5. Misspeaking. You meant one innocuous word, but said another that could offend. You fumbled on your pronunciation. You were caught unawares, and had to scramble to form a string of mumbled jargon. In front of an audience or a few important people. For an important occasion or in casual company. Move on. Lesson learnt: Take your time with speaking.

6. Workplace tech blunders. Sharing the wrong screen (showing what you’re not supposed to share) in a Zoom meeting and having your client point it out. Heaving a huge sigh, thinking you were on mute. Move on. Lesson learnt: Be extra careful with technology.

7. Inadvertent grossness. You were in a rush and accidentally left the toilet in less than pristine shape. Or you found, and proceeded to leave, it in a state of gross, only to have another person come along. Move on. Lesson learnt: Check before you leave, and avoid messes to avoid having to make disclaimers.

8. Your companion is being rude to the wait staff. Sometimes when you cannot even bear to look at the waiter for whom your lunchtime company is giving a hard time, the best you can do is to differentiate yourself by being extra polite throughout the rest of the meal and/or by leaving an extra large tip. Lesson learnt: Either you gently remind them of common courtesy, or you reassess the quality of their company.

9. Not knowing. One of the most interesting conversations with a stranger that I’ve had was with an American man, ex-military, early Tesla investor, on a safari in Cape Town. In what I find to be true American fashion, when meeting someone new, he spoke about his entire life story, his children, a son-in-law, how he met his wife, the places he had been when he was with the army, the current state of foreign relations. One thing he didn't know: that the pound sterling was the currency of the United Kingdom. And he wasn’t the least bit flustered when we told him that it wasn’t the euro. And on top of that, we weren’t the least bit judgemental that he didn’t know. Lesson learnt: Consider everyone’s realm of relevance, including your own.

10. Being on your own. At a restaurant. At an event. To watch a film at the cinema, Over the holidays. Just be present, and use the opportunity to observe your thoughts when in solitude. Lesson learnt: A lot of self-consciousness is the inability to sit comfortably with yourself.

11. Miscellaneous mishaps. Lessons learnt: Be prepared.

    1. A broken heel on your way to work, an unhinged battery door of your flimsy film camera. A roll of black PVC tape.

    2. A speck of broccoli or chilli stuck in your teeth. Dental floss.

    3. The consequence of your insistence on food having a depth of flavour that only garlic and onion can bring. Mints.

    4. Laddered tights, puddle-splashed socks. An extra pair.

    5. An enthusiastic twirl of tagliatelle bolognese. Tissues (wet and dry) and a Tide pen.

    6. Social awkwardness at a gathering. A fun film camera behind which to hide.

Turning thirty felt daunting because it meant: no more excuses. No more excuses of youth and inexperience. Falling back on the benefit of the doubt is no longer an option, because, surely, you should know better, should know this, should know that. There was also this nagging feeling about timing: there’s no more time to do things before you turn thirty. Taking your time does not appear to be option, because, as a social expectation, you should have done this, should have done that, should be there already. Least of all, you should be able to drive.

My own milestone birthday came and went, with just a light trill of fanfare to mark the occasion, which I found more solemn than celebratory. I said the stocktaker’s version of the Serenity Prayer: What have you done? What have you still not done? What has been done has been done. What has not been done has not been done. Let it be. I began the year taking stock, and ended the year counting all my blessings twice over.

It wasn’t until my thirtieth year that I realised that I had everything in me to deal with anything thrown at me — because in the year I turned thirty, I had everything thrown at me from all directions. It was a year of a singular significance that I am yet able to articulate. It was almost as though at the universally acknowledged age of maturity I suddenly found myself with a steadier grip on the reins, and in mastering this metaphorical mechanical manoeuvre, I have been granted the licence to drive (ha!) the course of my existence.

In 2025 I have steered through a few highways and speed bumps:

1. Triumph: Well, well. I finally passed my driving test. On my fourth attempt. On my first attempt, I failed because I was too slow. My second attempt, I failed for “dangerous driving”. The third attempt, I didn’t look over my shoulder to check the blind spots and a motorbike sneaked up beside me. The morning of my fourth driving test, I still remember when the taxi driver dropped me off outside the motoring school. “今日係好日子嚟嘅，唔洗緊張！你一定得嘅！” (“Today is a good day — don’t be nervous! You will ace it!”) I took him for an angel, and his words the charm.

2. Grief: My grandmother passed away in late July 2025 after five years of rapid decline following a surgery. The overarching feeling was relief. The grief comes in bouts, like tropical summer showers: when I was painstakingly writing the eulogy for her funeral, when I gave the eulogy at her funeral, when I was looking out the car window on my way back home after attending a wedding. We interred her remains at the Catholic cemetery that cold wintry morning. Her portrait, was a picture I took for her at home. I still remember that day, it was sunny outside, probably early afternoon, Mom and I were taking some photos together with my DSLR for the school newsletter before the start of term. My grandmother asked me to take one of her, too, out of characteristic vanity — my grandmother was beautiful, and wanted a constant reminder that she was. She was very pleased with the pictures I took of her that afternoon. As I looked at her picture, I longed to return to those sunlit hours of the early afternoon, probably towards the end of summer, my grandmother radiant. If she had ever felt any bitterness, or latent fear, about being in the autumn of her life, she never really showed it to me. She only often asked to be photographed, as though to seek evidence of her own self as she knew it, of her own beauty that remained through the years — my sister and I were always more than happy to oblige.

3. Enduring friendship: Went on a trip to Türkiye last February with two of my best friends (where one of us and her family were the most gracious hosts). The last time we were all together in such close proximity for more than 24 hours was in the summer term of 2014. I said I wouldn’t go on a hot air balloon, and yet there I was, looking out on the snow-covered expanse of Cappadocia as we rose with the rising sun. Nobody planned on being in Türkiye in the cold, and certainly nobody thought we would find ourselves catching the heaviest snowfall there in nearly three decades.

4. Hope: Found a new direction in my career, and got a new job the thought of which gives me a rush of excitement and sense of purpose that I had not felt in years.

5. Miraculous joy: A romance came out of left-field and I managed to catch it one-handed, with my lack of coordination and all. It is the one kind of blind-spot collision that can tell you that you don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore. Every day I ask myself how this happened, what have I done to deserve something, someone, so wonderful. How this happened? Fate. By God’s grace. Pure dumb luck. What have I done to deserve this? Every day I just do my utmost to be the best self I can be to be deserving of this.

In the foreground behind which my own life plays out, there have been tragedies in my immediate vicinities — on both the levels of my circle and my city — that have struck an entire collective to the core. It is hard to comprehend — they had a whole life ahead of them, and overnight, their lives are now behind us.

There could be many a takeaway from all that has happened. That at the heart of it all, love is the question and the answer. That confidence tips the outcome. That positivity is a magnet. That we are all hanging by a thread, marionettes at the mercy of this callous puppeteer called fate. That everything you have or have earned is but given to you, and everything so freely given to you can equally be so abruptly taken away. That gratitude lends your world such a beautiful hue. That where there is strong enough of a will, there is a way — one dug out in the dark by dogged determination, or one through which the frequencies of fortune flow.

In a rather simplistic / butchered rendition of the classical Confucian ideal about this stage in life, at the age of thirty, I find myself standing, on my two feet, having found surer footing, on solid ground. There will always be that sense of doubt, that quiver of anxiousness — but these feelings no longer haunt, no longer chill. There is no longer the desperate need to prove yourself worthy, capable and relatively better — instead a hum of easy self-assurance brings a soft melodiousness to your days, like the occasional twittering of birdsong.

After failing my third driving test, I told myself that it was okay, I just needed to get my driving licence before I turned thirty. Well, I finally passed my driving test the summer after my thirtieth birthday. Whenever I feel nervous these days, I think back to that day, how I closed my eyes and channelled the beaming positivity from those words while I nervously waited for the unsmiling examiner to get into the car to start the test, and how I told myself not to panic and mess up in the last few steps of the exam (brake, shift gear to ‘Park’, lift the hand brake).

Now that I can drive, what I seek to harness next is this: the ability to sit with my anxieties, fears and insecurities — the full turbulence and quiet quivering of it all — and get on with my day, showing up at work and wherever my people are, with fullness of heart: I am in the driver’s seat after all.

The ‘Street View’ circa May 2024 had already been uploaded: there it was, the driveway boarded up, the brick building scaffolded, a ‘For Sale’ sign planted even in our ‘secret’ back-gate leading out onto Church Street. Hungry for one last look, I found myself clicking on the historical ‘Street View’ images, tracing the steps that we once took every day with such everyday ease. But Google Maps can only take you so far — as far as the main road, but not up the gravelly driveway to the doorstep and around the bay window, which once looked into our housemistress’s office.

It guts me a little to think that we hardly have a moment to reflect on the way we have come — the way is paved afresh each time we turn back to take a wistful second look. It is almost like going through life as a Word document with a ‘backspace’ key on the keyboard operated by a cruel editor. You are mid-draft, getting into your flow. Words and thoughts begin to come together fluidly. You start to find your voice and rhythm again, a familiarity that gets buried under the rumbling of everyday motions. You then decide to revisit the previous paragraphs, past chapters — only to realise that upon your second glance at the old draft, your editor has hit ‘backspace’, and the page is a blank space for you to fill up again, in your newly developed voice, metered by your newfound sense of rhythm. You are oddly knocked out of balance, disoriented — time will tell if this was a pivotal moment. But life goes on, there are emails to attend to, urgent deals to complete, lunches to go to and people to meet. My latest fear is that one morning I will wake up from a vivid dream of a deeply familiar childhood place, in achingly accurate detail, and I will discover a new kind of heaviness that is the heaviness of only being able to revisit a place, by chance, in a dream.

There is something about returning to a place you inhabited in a different time. No matter whether it was a place of hardship or nurture, you want to return victorious — to show that you triumphed against the odds, or to show up, and speak your gratitude. It will be a place to let your soul crash for a bit, to regain a bit of that ease of youth. It will also be a place where you pay your respects to an experience that honed you to the person you are today. To lose such a place, almost feels like having been robbed of an old home and a resting place.

Earlier in the year I turned thirty. Thirty years have been long enough to weather a number of partings — one tearful parting is one too many. But as time passes, we come to accept that people come and go. But it is those goodbyes that catch you unawares, farewells to those things whose temporality you never considered, that hit you hard in the stomach like a blunt force, then slowly rise to meet you in the eyes as they well up in tears that you did not know you could cry.

Still, we dust ourselves off and move on. At least the cricket club is still there — you see that bowling green as you pass by in the car, always so green. And your grandfather will always be there, in his all-white lawn bowls outfit and rimless glasses, standing with his hands on his hips, intently watching the game, until he hears you — your six-year-old self — call out “公公!” And the game ends (perfect timing) and it’s time for lunch with the whole family. And the bowling green (honestly I’ve never seen a game of cricket at the cricket club) will always look so green.

While we know that people go, we are inclined to think places stay. Mind you, I have lost a number of such places. The most personal of these losses include my old kindergarten turned into a children’s art school, my old taekwondo gym is now the offices of a local basketball association (or so I hear), a shiny new building now stands in the place of the building which housed the firm where my dad and I both first started our careers in Hong Kong (him in the ‘80s, me in 2018). Thankfully, the cricket club is still here. But when just across the road your old school in Hong Kong before you left for boarding school has since been redeveloped into a humungous complex with a rooftop tennis court and a heated swimming pool, you just cannot help but already look onto that bowling green wistfully, as though already a distant memory.

I never thought I would lose Mount quite so soon. It was a place where mothers sent their daughters, and grandmothers came back to visit. Surely, I thought, time would stand still for this beautiful boarding house, in the way it did for my mom and so many generations before.

I still remember my mother’s unbridled glee on that fateful day when she dropped off my sister and me on our very first day at boarding school, setting foot in Mount for the first time in what may have been thirty years. “This part of the house was called the ‘Annexe’.” “Cecile stayed in this room.” “This used to be a six-person dorm and I was in this dorm!” She was so elated at being back that she forgot to be sad about sending us off. To return to a familiar place full of happy memories is a luxury that I never realised until now that my generation would be so often denied, and that I would so fervently yearn for.

I have always imagined how I would feel when I go back to Malvern, and walk up that road again to Mount. The place will smell familiar, and you may find yourself fifteen again, at four o’clock in the afternoon, in the pantry, waiting for your toast to be ready, while the pantry door flings open and bangs shut multiple times, as other people pop in to make themselves a cup of tea or take a Custard Creme from the biscuit tin.

In reliving old memories, you find yourself again. That same self that was fifteen and perpetually hungry in the pantry; that same self that spent hours in that dorm overlooking the back garden, writing and re-writing an essay until she considered it as good as it could be. In reminiscing old times, you are reminded of the friendships you cherish to this day. That corridor where one night after lights-out we played hockey or tried out someone’s new penny board. That time when all thirty-odd girls in Years 9 to 11 huddled up on the staircase in Mrs Prophet’s flat when there was a fire drill.

While my mother’s puppy-like elation upon returning to Mount did not then run through the gamut of emotions, something about the way she left her dark Chanel sunglasses on her head as she hugged us goodbye — sunglasses which she made sure she had with her to hide behind, as she was so sure that she would leave us bawling — spoke of an internal restoration. She was not Vivienne who was dropping off her two girls at boarding school, marking the end of an era in her motherhood — she was simply Vivienne, and the same Vivienne who walked along the same corridors, trudged up the same stairs, the same Vivienne who lived in Mount not so long ago, the cleanest, tidiest girl (and still is today) in the house who stuck Snoopy posters above her bed (and still does love Snoopy).

I remember one evening, walking from the main school building back up to Mount from supper, Mrs Prophet told us about how she took an Old Girl around the school that day. She was in her eighties and it had been many years since she last visited the school. “And as we walked up the road, the lady started crying,” Mrs. Prophet told us. “And she was saying, that after all these years, so much has changed, she has changed, and yet the road remains the same.”

I still think about the bomb shelter that was supposedly built under Mount in the Second World War, whose entrance was in the shed outside by the entrance to the back garden where we had a tea party celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of the late Queen of England one weekend. Now we will never know what the bomb shelter was like. I do not know which to grieve — the loss of a childhood fantasy, the loss of a piece of history, the loss of a place which housed all the memories, or heck, the loss of the joy of sharing a beloved place with future generations of schoolgirls settling into a building which they will think of as their second home.

In an age where we are to expect rapid upheavals of the ways of life as we have known it, it may be foolish to attempt to cling onto the fading relics of a soon-to-be bygone era. Foolish to hold onto old buildings that have only been an incurable liability, when they can be sold for a handsome sum and be redeveloped to meet fresh demand. (Luxury flats in Great Malvern, anyone?) But the way I feel about this is almost as though the life support machine has been unplugged from someone so dear to me, someone who had been frail and struggling a little, but for whom I had never lost hope, whom I was so sure one day would regain the vitality that I knew in them and whose vitality was their defining feature.

My old school trunk now sits in my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house. It stays filled with my faded pink bedding, long fleece dressing gown, chef’s whites and a rolled-up Michael Jackson poster. When I lift the lid of the trunk, a waft of the crisp smell of fresh laundry — fresh from the airy laundry room, in Mount or Greenslade, they smelled the same on a crisp English morning — still floats up, and I close the trunk again — it is the only way to bottle the memory, if only for a little longer.

Maybe one day I will look past all of this. Maybe, in thirty years, I will walk along Albert Road North again, and will probably try to peek into the windows of the new tenants of the building which stands in the place of Mount, and I will just be glad that the air still smells familiar, like freshly laundered sheets on a crisp English morning — that, you cannot get from Google Maps.