The van. The memory.

The van in the picture is widely seen everywhere. When I was little, looking at those colourful pictures and reading out loud the slogans that were printed around the vehicle's body seemed to be my hobby. I knew the advertising jargon-'Transit Advertising' when I was in the college; it is actually a term that describe the 'moving' advertising medium like train, bus, truck, van and so on. So, the 'Red Bull' was a transit advertisement.

Most of the times, those advertisements can be fun to look at as they are normally simple and catchy to the eyes. However, I do not believe that too many of you out there had really sat in those so-called advertising van or truck before. Well, I did, for uncountable times. My father used to be a salesman who drove around company's big vans (bigger and more colourful than the one in the picture, I swear), promoting the products besides delivering them to the particular stores. Of course, it was not with the 'Red Bull' company, he had done similar jobs with several different companies before. The only one that I have memory of was 'Tong Garden', the Asia's largest flavoured nuts supplier company.

Both of my parents hailed from extremely poor families which did not even able to provide them three meals a day. As such, education was an unreachable luxury for them. Listening to their upbringing was like being exposed to the greatest nightmare. I could never imagine myself growing like the way they did. Living itself was the toughest challenge for my parents as even the utmost basic thing like getting A bowl of rice A day also appeared to be impossible. But, somehow, they survived and then continue the circle of poverty.

My family was poor, in fact, we still do. But things are getting slightly better now since we need no educational funding or kids' pocket money anymore. Before that, it was a total mess. Everyday my parents argued about money and my mom worked like a dog just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, my father worked hard, too but he did not contribute much due to his different set of belief that forced him to make bad choices in life. In short, he was never a good husband and certainly stayed far away from the standard of being a responsible father.

I hated him. I blamed him for all the damages and pain he brought to the family. However, now I look back to my childhood memory with my father, all I have in my mind are the pictures of me sitting in my father's advertising van. That was the only transportation we had and he used to rush back home during lunch hour to take me to the tuition centre and sometimes found some excuses to leave earlier from work just to pick me up later.

I remember that year I was ten years old. One of my friends spotted me getting off from my father's 'Tong Garden' van in that burning hot afternoon. Then, she told my others classmates that I got off from a big colourful advertising van, asking if that was my father's van.

I was young and ignorant. I got embarrassed and defensive immediately. I denied it on the spot. Ever since then, I realised that I was the only one student who got off from a big advertising van whereas most of my friends had those rich parents who drove luxurious cars. I think I started having the idea of 'caste' right after that incident.

Obviously, I was ashamed by my father's van and most of the time I refused to have him drive me. When there was no other better options, I would walked away from the crowd to wait for my dad at a corner and then got on the van as fast as I could when he arrived to avoid attention. Besides, I would also moved my body off the car's window, placed myself into a total 'facing-the-right' side position so that even if my friends saw the van, they would not notice that I were sitting in it.

My sneaky behaviours sure made my father suspicious. One day, when I was sitting diagonally from the window, My father said to me," You just don't want to let your friends know that you are sitting in this kind of van, right? That's why you waited me at the other place and try to stay away from the window."

I was shocked to be confronted like that. So again, I denied, as if my actions were not apparent and cruel enough.

He did not say anything afterwards. Instead, he gave out a big sarcastic laugh. His eyes was hollow and the laughing was like the only expression he could use to cover his disappointment.

Unequivocally, he was not the best father. Anyhow, he was not the worst either. At least, he cared about his daughter even when she did not deserve it. If there were any chances again, I will sit in the huge advertising van, next to my father because now only I realise that having a father who cares is an undoubtedly honor in life.