Cherish

As a young boy grows to be a promising young professional, does he pay attention to familial signs to do what he should, as a good son?

The growing pains for children to become self-sufficient adults can also affect their parents. In a fast-paced, corporate world and all aspects of life that compete for our attention, it’s easy to overlook and take the childhood home and all its occupants and past experiences, therein, for granted.

In a small and humble kitchen, a Singaporean mother and her son make what looks like mantou together – an activity they seem to enjoy the process of and sharing together. As the film progresses, the child leapfrogs to the age of a young man, who works at the front desk of a talent agency.

As his career advances, his mother wants to tell him something important but instead he interrupts to tell her his big news of being promoted for a position in London – far away from his mother. After he solicits her for what she wanted to tell him, and without missing a beat, she changes the subject by telling him that she’s proud of him, to which, he replies that she was right about how hard word will eventually pay off – a lesson she doesn’t regret teaching but may have to live with the consequences of.

What she holds off telling him twice and what the son later finds out, leads him to make a bold move he hadn’t previously considered taking – to choose kinship over profession.