Hai......(sighs)

My wifey dearest lau puo is gone.... no lah silly... she did not die and we did not divorce.... She just went back to Japan. She may not be back for about 1 and a half years. The reason for this is that if she is pregnant, she will not be able to travel for the first 3 months. Then for the last 6 months, she will have to go back to her hometown in Akita Prefecture to find a hospital and get ready for the birth. So 9 months gone. Then eve after birth, she will have to go back to Osaka and bring the child up for another half a year at least, so that the child will have all his or her shots and also the much vaunted Japanese citizenship. Yes my dear readers, I will let them have Japanese citizenship.

I am not saying that being a Sillyporean is not good, just that being Japanese is better. A Japanese child gets free medical till age 5!!!! A Sillypore child gets to pay for all their own medical from birth.... Yeaaaaaa! BS$%^&*()(*&^$%^&*()!!!! Imagine a country that is having a falling birth rate and yet there are no goodies.... Yea... there are tax incentives... whoopeee.... If I were a poor man... how much tax would I be paying in the first place??? Oh yea... the Child Development thingy account thing... We put in X amount of dollars... the gahmen puts in the same amount.... Same argument... we give peanuts... we get peanuts.... And these peanuts cannot be spent on anything other than study, school fees and so on. Not even for bus fare and or books....

But you see my dear reader... It is not the price of education that really scares me... If my childis smart, will find ways of giving him or her an education. But if the child is sick... that is what I am scared of. Imagine if a child has childhood cancer.... you never know in this new world of ours man....chemicals in baby bottles.... whatever shit in diapers and so on..... But if the child needs an op.... 30k please!!! Who and how to pay? Max out the credit cards, max out the easy loans??? Borrow from your friends and family till they pretend they are not in when you come over (Hmmmm good way of avoiding family gatherings from now on.

So as you can see.... I am not going on a tirade against the gahmen... but it is the reality of the situation. We do not have a choice.... I do not mind my children going to a normal GP, I am not thinking of bringing them to specialists and or pediatrics... but still the idea of having to pay a hefty bill is scary.

Even for my half demented (or shouldI say prett fully demented mom).... if she has to go ino a home... it will be at least 1k a month..... How the hell does one pay for such things? It may have been called a luxury some while ago, but it will become necessity soon. Imagine.... demented old folk can actually start eating from the trash bin... This is because they may not even have the ability to understand the dangers of doing so. In fact, depending on which part of their mind is dying or has died, they may not even be capable of thinking. So if a family has to have dual income to survive, who will look after the old person? A maid??? Perhaps.... but now they are such a pampered lot that they can complain and the police will look into every case of ill-treatment. A home? Like I said... 1k plus if you are unlucky.

Things are getting ex here.... and yet the pay is not really catching up. Especially for us the "sandwiched generation", you have no idea when and where the pain will come from.