When I arrived in Australia at the ripe old age of five, my parent’s financial situation was far from super. I’m not sure what the criteria for poverty is, but we probably around that description. My parents struggled to make sure we had a roof over our heads and enough to eat, but other luxuries like toys were completely out of the question.

But that was alright. I loved reading, and my thirst for knowledge and literary entertainment were easily and freely satiated by libraries. Once in a blue moon, the primary school I was at would have a book fair where they’d clear out incredibly old and mangly books (e.g. books without covers, or missing a few pages) and they’d be on sale for something like 5 to 20 cent each. I’d splurge my tiny fortune saved from Chinese New Years and my birthdays on such events and happily drag home a literal sack of these unwanted tomes.

But as I said above, I never had any toys to play with but I came up with an elegant solution to the problem. Like most people, our household got their frequent share of junk mail in the mailbox. Many of these would be glossy-paged catalogues from various stores having some sort of sale. I’d meticulously flip through these catalogues and clandestinely sneak specific ones into my room. These ones are always those that have toys on sale. I’d first carefully read over the short descriptions of each toy in the catalogue and marvel at what they can do. Then I’d cut out my favourite ones and glue it in an exercise book. I literally had a scrapbook filled with pictures of toys. I also did the same thing for jewelery from jewelery catalogues (I’d keep the most prettily designed ring or earring, for example) though that practice didn’t last very long.

I can’t remember being bitter about the experience. I guess it’s similar to how people might watch travel shows because one day they might be able to view the Parthenon or the Sistine Chapel with their own eyes. I guess it helped that I didn’t really have any other kid who had lots of toys to compare myself to. I could’ve been a lot more miserable than I was in that situation, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I can’t find my scrapbook of toys any more, otherwise I could scan a few pages in to show you guys. :P