Dearest Su Kon,

It is my biggest regret, as your only aunt, not being able to watch you grow, not being there to cheer when you utter your first syllables nor to watch you take your first steps. I won’t be able to stand with your mum, dad and grandmother to celebrate those many other precious moments of your ‘firsts’ because I’m still suffering a serious case of wanderlust. Despite my recent desire to settle, get married and produce cousins who can become your playmates, I still have to ultimately find the ‘One’, to find the job that I truly enjoy doing (in other words, I don’t have to wake up every morning and feel like I’ve to drag herself to work) and to save enough money so that I can continue to pursue what I believe is right, honest and enriching. The pursuit of happiness is a challenging one because you’ve to learn to distinguish which ideas of happiness are of your own and which are dogmatic ideas, fed to you by the media. When you are measured against other people’s ideas of success, you may find yourself short and may consider yourself a failure even when you’re not to blame.

Now, what do you think your aunt does? Well, the reason why I’m away so much is because I now work on cruise ships. The length of my contract varies-sometimes it’s six, sometimes it’s eight. While I’m away, I think of you and your family all the time. I hold the position of a Crew Lecturer. I teach English as a Foreign Language to crew members, mainly the hospitality personnel and Deck Officers. On top of that, I also have to train those on their first contracts about the company and its values and mission. There are also several other projects that eat up my time, but because the nature of the projects are laughable, I won’t divulge the information.

The current ship that I work on is considered one of the larger ships in the fleet. It can carry up to 4400 people, both passengers and crew members and its maximum cruising speed is 24 knots. It was built in a Genovese shipyard, in 2003. The interior is rather kitschy (in my opinion!), full of gaudy colors and golden arcs, unlike the company’s older ships, which tend to sport more complimentary colors and classical designs.

We are about the finish the West and East Caribbean season. The ship calls at Nassau, Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, St Thomas, San Juan, Cozumel, Ochos Rios and Fort Lauderdale. I don’t have a particular preference for any of these port of calls as they are teeming with duty-free shops like Diamonds International and nasty touristy hang-outs like Magaritaville and Senor Frogs where rich and fat tourists love chugging a beer down at.

Having said that, if you’re a beach lover like your father, you may be enjoy the beaches in places like Grand Turk, Grand Cayman and St Thomas, where you’d find warm water of blue and emerald, sandy white beaches and palm fronds. Unfortunately, you may also find the rest of the cruise ship passengers with you there.

My friends and I, once took the bicycles and cycled around Cozumel. The stretch of coast is really pretty and wild. It is also full of shops and boutiques but we pay them no heed. Usually, after all that cycling, we go to a bar called the No Name Bar that has a rather apt tagline below it’s name: Don’t Screw With the Crew. It’s divided into several areas that offers wireless internet, a pool, a pool bar, a café, a cigar bar and the lot. It’s also built along the ocean so you can wade out into the salty water from the steps. Crew members from every other ship hang out there as well-some friendly, some not. It’s quite a cool place.

Somewhere in mid-April, I’ll be transferred to another ship which is a sister ship to the current one that I’m on. It will at first sail around the Mediterranean seas and then after, sail towards the Baltic cities like St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Riga, etc and then all the way up to the North Cape. I’ll have a chance to visit the fjords at the most Northern parts of Norway and Iceland, something which I really look forward to. I’ll definitely put my digital SLR to good use and show you the pictures when I get back in July.

I’m sorry that I don’t write very often but know that I’m thinking of you always.

Love,
Ying
Your gypsy aunt