parents

Chinese Name	Zhongwen: ¸¥Í Hokkien: Yap Tiam-seng
Western Name	Felino Po Yap
Birth Date	June 13, 1940
Birth Place	San Carlos City, Philippines
Height	170 cm (5'7")
Weight	62 kg (135 lbs.)

As a child I always felt intimidated by my father. He's a quiet and very reserved person who always spanks my butt whenever I did something wrong in his eyes. He never told stories about himself or his families. He never shared his childhood, adolescent, nor his practical work experiences with me and my sister. Thus, I never got to be very close with my father's relatives and I never got to know him deeply.

However, I do believe I was blest to have him as my father. He is a hard-working provider who always sees to it that everything is right for the family. Compared to other dads, he doesn't have much vices. His only regrettable vices are smoking, being a workaholic, and watching a lot of movies.

Of the few things that father used to share about his past are old movies. He claims that his peer's movie critique. Nobody in his circle of friends would watch a movie he didn't recommend. This means that he has spent a considerable amount of his salary each week watching all available movies! I guess he really was influenced by Hollywood right from the start. A proof of this was a picture of him taken in his teens where he made himself look like James Dean!

Chinese Name	Zhongwen: ¼B©ú¯] Hokkien: Lau Beng-chu Mandarin: Liu Mingzhu
Western Name	Anita How Yap
Birth Date	June 17, 1949
Birth Place	Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte
Height	160 cm (5'3")
Weight	64 kg (140 lbs.)

I definitely know my mother a lot more than my father. She and I have more things in common than my father or sister. But it also works the other way around. My sister and my father have a lot more things in common between themselves than the two of us.

Of the many things that she and I have in common, one thing stands out: Type A personality. Both she and I are perfectionists and hyper-active. She and I got a lot of heartaches during our schooling. Whenever one of us got a grade below 90, we felt as if the whole world would end! We also had (and still do) a lot of nightmares concerning exams, assignments, and being called to recite by a terror teacher!

My mother also trained both my sister and myself (perhaps since our births) on how to study well. That was probably the reason why we are good students. She also keeps on telling us to be self-sufficient like doing household chores. Right now, she keeps on telling me to learn how to cook - this despite the fact that we have a cook!

On other matters, my mother is a very religious person. She regrets (albeit a lot) when she heard that I'm now agnostic. She's hoping that I'm going back to being a Catholic again. She even forces me and my sister to attend dawn masses every Wednesday. This has caused me to have a sleepy head on Wednesdays.

If my father has an infinite enthusiasm for almost all movies, my mother, on the other hand, has sheer disgust in watching boring movies. You want proof? How about this: each night after arriving from work, my mom turns on the TV. However, instead of focusing her attention to the TV show that she's "watching", she falls asleep. She always complain that the show she's watchinng is very boring. Yeah, sure. She has slept on a lot of good shows like X Files, Early Edition, Allly McBeal.... As a result, snores are often heared competing the TV each night!