tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52557105755922577102024-03-05T02:45:00.054-08:00In Those DaysMemories of a Chinese Immigrant's Granddaughter in British Malaya
By Dai Moong Yang (Grace Lee)
Edited by Antares, with illustrations by Belle Love LeeM.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-30427667603429350522012-03-23T06:30:00.000-07:002013-10-20T10:09:48.459-07:00PREFACE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5fPI39fR3I-UE2rr37X-x2kbDR09bNmqUnUQk6S-iVxXNLZs3vCuV44toW5meExeT_YVCmNmXX8qZvqMBqz-HMPcdNVFdKIdejq1Y_wbHvi3t0Ah9dvbk4xj6tvUs6u_WHnWEaVAqXw/s1600/MY&Mum-1982-jb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5fPI39fR3I-UE2rr37X-x2kbDR09bNmqUnUQk6S-iVxXNLZs3vCuV44toW5meExeT_YVCmNmXX8qZvqMBqz-HMPcdNVFdKIdejq1Y_wbHvi3t0Ah9dvbk4xj6tvUs6u_WHnWEaVAqXw/s1600/MY&Mum-1982-jb.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px;">Dai Moong Yang @ Grace Lee (left) with her middle sister Moon Loy in Johore Bahru, 1982.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">A message to my children, grandchildren, relatives, friends and readers:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
IT GIVES ME GREAT PLEASURE to share with you stories of bygone days. They are written to portray the struggle and joy of being human, as well as to entertain you.<br />
<br />
<i>In Those Days</i> is a collection of stories about my Foochow, Hakka and Tungkoon Cantonese ancestors. It chronicles some of the adventures of three clans - the Dai, the Siew, and the Lee, who migrated to Malaya between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<br />
<br />
Land was granted free on condition they cleared it to plant rubber, or mined it for tin. The Dai Clan were teachers, preachers, small businessmen or Chinese physicians. They had been landlords in their village in China, unused to manual labour. As the clan proliferated, the ancestral land could only support those who farmed; the non-farmers were compelled to migrate to "the land of milk and honey."<br />
<br />
Grandfather Dai sailed to Sarawak with his flock of Christians. Mama came as a teacher of Chinese classics; my father-in-law was a businessman, a pioneering entrepreneur. Grandfather Dai retired to Sitiawan, a kind of Foochow colony, and it was there that I first heard Grandma's numerous stories.<br />
<br />
Maternal Grandma, a Tungkoon Cantonese, would regale us with stories of her clan and that of the Siew clan. She had married a Hakka, which was unusual.<br />
<br />
My book is to be enjoyed like a big bowl of <i>rojak</i> (Malaysian salad). "I Remember St. Mary's" reflects my sudden change of culture, from a Chinese background to a typical English one, at the age of eleven.<br />
<br />
In "The Bride," I had another drastic change of life; I moved from a Christian home into a Buddhist one at the age of eighteen. My husband's household consisted of forty members: a married son and two married daughters and their families. There were four unmarried siblings and ten maids to serve the family and extended families.<br />
<br />
"Punchuri" represents the numerous Jaffnese neighbours I had, for my husband was a Court Interpreter and we moved a dozen times, to Pahang towns and to Kuala Selangor.<br />
<br />
"Vignettes from Childhood" are happy, carefree ones, while "Refugees" relates the most dreadful plight we and all Malayans experienced during the Japanese Occupation.<br />
<br />
"The Old Stone Bench" is a fictional story I wrote to show that age is no barrier to youthful pursuits such as falling in love, whatever younger folks may think.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Acknowledgements</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
Words cannot adequately express my thanks to my daughter, Dr. Dixie Tan, for her encouragement to publish my stories; to Kit Leee (now <a href="http://www.magickriver.org/" target="_blank">Antares</a>), my nephew, and my granddaughter, Dr. Grace Tan, for editing and typing my stories - a painstaking, arduous and time-consuming task; and, last but not least, to my grand-niece, Belle Love Lee, for enhancing my stories with her lively sketches.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>Dai Moong Yang</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i>February 1994</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-44506989491609034552012-03-23T06:06:00.000-07:002017-02-21T12:46:13.687-08:00LU-SHEE THE IMMIGRANT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzW7rG36K5hY7h16EnEuODouh0X_Y5IF51dpUSLfdEQOH_JdZK-kzvEwd8MnkYd4xaArL2JvXQaP0KOV7XEtMFdAVlz6xIkiTOFPeqroq8vn06LIY2D6dgw9d4K19dkTvab3j9nMtLsi0/s1600/Belle1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="564" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzW7rG36K5hY7h16EnEuODouh0X_Y5IF51dpUSLfdEQOH_JdZK-kzvEwd8MnkYd4xaArL2JvXQaP0KOV7XEtMFdAVlz6xIkiTOFPeqroq8vn06LIY2D6dgw9d4K19dkTvab3j9nMtLsi0/s640/Belle1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
ON AN ANCIENT HILLOCK in Fukien Province stood an old mansion which overlooked a peaceful village with rice fields, vegetable plots and fruit orchards stretching as far as the eye could see. The village was clearly a prosperous one, populated by quiet and industrious folks. Every inch of arable land was farmed, and babbling brooks flowed in every direction, bringing health and abundance.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In the mansion lived Lu-Shee the scholar, youngest scion of a family of landlords. He was an idealist. That is to say, he had never given a thought to the day-to-day affairs of the estate – and his elder brothers were only too happy to let him spend his allowance on books and regular English tuition (zealously offered by Christian missionaries from the city).</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Lu-Shee considered it a real privilege to be bilingual. His ambition was to be a lecturer in an institution of higher learning, or to be posted overseas as a diplomat. To this end he would spend almost all his waking hours in his private library - and some of his sleeping hours too. English was extremely exhausting to master, and more often than not he would nod off at his desk.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
He was rudely awakened one morning, after a whole week of intense study, by the shrill cacophony of quarrelling female voices. Bleary-eyed and greatly annoyed, he unbolted his window to investigate the commotion and to give the servants a proper ticking off. As he expected, the cook and the housekeeper and nearly all the maids were gathered in the front yard, gesticulating with noisy indignation. And lo! holding her own against them with arms akimbo was the most attractive vegetable seller he had ever seen. Despite her rough and ragged peasant garb, this village girl surpassed in beauty all the females in his household. She was what the Chinese would term “a dark peony.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Lu-Shee kept his peace and watched the little drama below his window. The girl’s wild beauty transfixed him – but what fascinated him even more was her arithmetical skill. She was reeling off a long list of prices and totalling them up with effortless speed. Unable to keep pace with her mental calculations, the cook and housekeeper were convinced that they were being overcharged – hence the raised voices.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Hearing someone cough at the window, the peasant girl looked up. She saw a fair-complexioned, good-looking and very refined young gentleman staring at her intently. For an instant she returned the stare, askance, her neatly plaited hair glossy in the morning light. The cook was quick to add to her accusations yet one more crime: “Now see what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the young master’s sleep with your screeching voice!”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
LU-SHEE HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED personal contact with any young females apart from the servants. One simply did not converse with domestics, one issued orders. Now Lu-Shee found himself wondering what it was like to enjoy the company of females. In particular, he yearned for a closer encounter with the vegetable seller. He could impress her with his advanced technique on the abacus. But how was he going to arrange that? Obviously it would require patience and some careful calculation.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Finally, he conceived a plan to waylay her in a secluded spot. He began to take morning strolls, first in the vicinity of the mansion, then gradually farther afield. After all, there was nothing like a little fresh air to revive a scholar’s tired brain cells. Before long, Lu-Shee’s regular morning strolls were taking him down many wooded paths and through the vegetable farms. And thus it chanced that, one particularly misty morning, a farmer’s daughter on her way to work found her path obstructed by the young master from the big house on the hill.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“Er… good morning,” the young master said. “I wish to ask you a question.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The girl rested her laden baskets on the ground, but held on to the flat wooden pole used for balancing her wares upon her shoulders. Like a yoke on a pair of oxen, the flat pole with a wicker basket at each end was the Chinese farmer’s traditional method of transporting heavy loads on foot. Now it could serve as a weapon. A farm girl could not afford to be too demure or gentle – but this man was a landlord, and it was prudent to be polite to landlords.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“What is it that the master needs to know?” Her gaze was direct and bold. A little wary, but by no means unfriendly.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“I need to know your name,” Lu-Shee said, careful not to sound overly earnest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The vegetable seller relaxed her grip on the flat wooden pole. A farmer’s fortunes depend greatly on the clemency of the weather: droughts and floods bring equal ruin and loss, even death. Late payment of rent, or the landlord’s displeasure, could lead to beggary. But the gentleman’s eyes are kind, she thought, and smiled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“They call me Ah Ling.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Ah,” Lu-Shee nodded gravely. “Good name, Ah Ling. Good figure. I mean, you’re good with figures. Well, then, hope to see you again… good day!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This “casual” meeting was to be the first of numerous discreet encounters, each less “casual” than the one before it; and so what began as a pleasant and exciting diversion in their dull routines quickly developed into a passionate romance of classic proportions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AH LING AND LU-SHEE were acutely aware of the dire consequences. If their affair were discovered, Lu-Shee would be disowned by his family; penniless and disgraced, his future would be bleak indeed. Ah Ling might survive the terrible flogging from her father (her parents could not afford to disown her) but she would surely have to leave the village – and perhaps her entire family with her. They would be homeless paupers, ostracized by everyone in the village. It would have been in order if she were Lu-Shee’s concubine, but never his wife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They could elope to the land of milk and honey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a desperate option. But theirs was a desperate love. Ah Ling had heard employment agents speak of how immigrants had prospered through hard labour in the southern countries. Boatloads were leaving daily for Nanyang, below the South China Sea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lu-Shee looked at his soft, elegant hands and feet and felt serious misgivings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Ah Ling’s robust optimism and courage more than made up for his doubts. She made it her business to find out everything she could about conditions in Nanyang: documents, procedures, fares, schedules, agents’ commissions, employment contracts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One day, Lu-Shee turned to his beloved peasant girl as they were leaving their favourite trysting grove: “Do you know the old saying, ‘When the horse dies, the rider must walk’?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ah Ling shook her head. “Don’t tease me with riddles!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m not teasing you. This is no joke. My horse is dead. I must find another one.” Lu-Shee picked up a twig and sketched three Chinese characters on the ground. One of them evoked the image of a running steed. Ah Ling furrowed her brow as she strained to decipher his writing:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Mah… lai… yah?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“That’s where I think we’ll find it,” said Lu-Shee softly as he brushed a leaf off Ah Ling’s threadbare blouse. “A life without you is no life at all.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br />
</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
IN THE WEE HOURS of the morning, Lu-Shee met Ah Ling outside the village and, with nothing more than they could comfortably carry on their backs, they made their way to the nearest port.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the docks, a “passage agent” was happy to relieve them of a substantial amount of cash. Hundreds were already queuing up to board a large steamer. There were schoolteachers, petition writers, petty traders and labourers; they would occupy the lower decks. A gangway leading to the upper decks was reserved for rich merchants, colonial administrators and their ladies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ah Ling and Lu-Shee gazed in awe around them. This was another world. Neither had ever seen the sea. As the ship pulled away from the wharf, not much was spoken. But everyone on the lower decks shared the same thought: will we live to see these shores again?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The third class passengers slept on straw mats – males on one side; females on the other. Throughout the voyage they were homesick and seasick, but hope for a new start in life sustained them. Ah Ling and Lu-Shee were befriended by another couple who spoke their dialect. They had heard that in Malaya land was being given to settlers willing to clear the jungle and plant rubber trees. Before the ship docked in Singapore, Ah Ling and Lu-Shee had been persuaded to join the other couple, who were heading for a rubber settlement in Sepang, several days’ journey up the peninsula.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the first few months, there were many evenings when Lu-Shee the scholar wept while his common-law wife Ah Ling salved his blisters with lard and dressed his wounds with clean rags. What a price to pay for love, he thought. But he felt sorry for Ah Ling too. She had never had to work so hard back in China. Now she was almost as dark as a native, and her skin was no longer smooth to the touch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lu-Shee the rubber tapper could read and write English. He could even speak it, though haltingly. Not many in Sepang could claim to be well-educated and bilingual. And so, when the itinerant magistrate needed an interpreter-cum-clerk to assist him whenever the tiny courthouse in Sepang was in session, Lu-Shee was the obvious choice. He received a monthly salary, of course, but he was required to attend court only when the magistrate was present. This arrangement suited Lu-Shee very well, for he could continue working on his own land as before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As their circumstances improved, Ah Ling bore Lu-Shee several children. But each brought her little joy, for they were all females. Ah Ling took it all in her stride, working at the plantation even when she was heavy, and returning to work three days after each delivery. Daughters or not, Lu-Shee saw to it that his children all attended the local primary school, where they could learn English. When they grew up, they could seek respectable employment as nurses and schoolteachers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Late in life, God answered Ah Ling’s prayers and gave her three sons. Lu-Shee decided it was time to move to the city, where the better schools were located. These were good years for the rubber trade. Ah Ling and Lu-Shee enjoyed their new prosperity without much display. They continued to be frugal, and had little to do with society. Ah Ling and Lu-Shee had their children, and they had each other, and that was enough.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my younger days, I was introduced to Lu-Shee and Ah Ling, who were then in their sixties. I remember watching the old couple sit quietly on the porch, not saying much, just gazing into each other’s eyes. One day, I asked Lu-Shee if he and Ah Ling had ever revisited the village of their birth. He shook his head without sadness:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“My children were born in Sepang. My wife and I now live in Kuala Lumpur. This is the only homeland we know.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-9916119120274479712012-03-17T09:04:00.002-07:002012-03-17T09:07:38.097-07:00THE DOUBLE TRIAL<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Stories about incorruptible and upstanding public officials have been passed down orally from generation to generation as a means of preserving ethical values deemed to be essential, for instance, noble-mindedness and a sense of justice, which are as rare today as they were in the days of our ancestors. The following story was handed on to me as a child and (as I have yet to come across a published version of it) for the benefit of my children’s children and their children, here is my own retelling of Magistrate Wu’s moral dilemma…</i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><o:p><br />
</o:p></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBHIbyrpZFEyuYE6h53aiVQ46pQ2j5dzBO1eS0dx-srmJr0fHMLjlgm_1_gzjwx9IXmVfHdUTA6lDOeG_6Wpn_WKtuPky6K-M58p5wk4wZobEU0p2IRI2Bbic_Is-xnkIPrV2toRiBws/s1600/chinesemagistrate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBHIbyrpZFEyuYE6h53aiVQ46pQ2j5dzBO1eS0dx-srmJr0fHMLjlgm_1_gzjwx9IXmVfHdUTA6lDOeG_6Wpn_WKtuPky6K-M58p5wk4wZobEU0p2IRI2Bbic_Is-xnkIPrV2toRiBws/s1600/chinesemagistrate.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">MAGISTRATE WU was a happy man, for the woman he had married was a matchless beauty – even if she was a widow.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">His kinsfolk, of course, had strenuously objected to his choice of spouse. It was shameful, degrading and totally unbecoming of man of his professional stature to marry a widow. Why, he had the pick of any virgin he fancied in the village. He ought to know that only a man too poor to attract a reputable virgin would settle for a widow. They warned him that widows were generally believed to bring bad luck, unless they happened to be wealthy heiresses – but it was common knowledge that this widow’s late husband had been an incompetent fool and left her nothing.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Nonetheless, Magistrate Wu was so utterly captivated by the widow’s charms that he went ahead and married her. Was he not, after all, known to be a man of independent judgement?</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Years went by (as they are wont to do) and all was well with the Magistrate and the beautiful Madam Wu. By now she had won the acceptance, even the admiration, of the entire Wu clan; and the others in the village had long since stopped referring to Madam Wu as “the widow.”</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">As nothing much ever happened that was out of the ordinary in this remote village, Magistrate Wu was inwardly quite excited to learn one morning that his next case was going to be a murder trial. The accused was led in: a fine-looking young woman whose husband had died suddenly. Poison was suspected. The victim’s brothers testified that only their sister-in-law had been present when her husband expired – and that he had seemed in excellent health when they had last seen him a few days ago. They were convinced that she had deliberately opted for widowhood, She was a wicked and ill-tempered woman from a distant village – an orphan with no kith or kin to attest to her character.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"> </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Magistrate Wu ordered the accused be kept in custody while the case was under investigation. This was to ensure her safety, for her accusers seemed a violent and vengeful lot. Then, accompanied by two physicians, the Magistrate proceeded to the home of the deceased to examine the corpse. There was not a moment to lose, as the burial was already due. The funeral rites had been going on for three days and nights – and that was all the family could afford.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The physicians were baffled: careful examination of the body had disclosed no sign of struggle, no wound or even a scratch. No evidence of poisoning either. Victims of poisoning were usually found to have discoloured fingernails, and the face of the corpse would often be contorted with agony and the complexion would be blotchy.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Magistrate Wu spent many days interrogating the young widow, her accusers, and everyone else who had known the victim and his family. He learnt that the deceased had generally been regarded as a spineless fool who ran errands for his brothers. He was, in fact, at their beck and call from dawn to dusk, and received no share of their earnings apart from his meals. His young wife had also been turned into an unpaid slave by her brothers-in-law, and deeply resented her position. Her husband had apparently been too stupid to realise that he was being cruelly exploited, but the wife was clearly of high intelligence, so much so that the other womenfolk displayed signs of envious hostility towards her.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">However, this background knowledge shed no light on how the man had died. Was it case of murder or death through unknown circumstances? Night after night Magistrate Wu paced his bedroom floor, ceaselessly stroking his goatee, brow furrowed in thought. He could see how the young wife might have suffered humiliation to the point of committing murder. Widowhood was at least a form of liberation, for in those days a wife simply did not divorce her husband; such an act was unthinkable! More unthinkable than murder? But if she had done the deed, what means had she used? And such a comely young widow, with a spirit and intelligence to match! But he could easily acquit her, since no cause of death had been discovered, and therefore no crime could be established. Yet a man had died suddenly and mysteriously – and it was his duty to see that justice was satisfied.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Dark rings of sleeplessness began to form under Magistrate Wu’s eyes. Madam Wu could not bear to see her husband in such a state. She had been a sympathetic listener, thus far offering no opinions of her own. But now she blurted out: “You ought to have examined the skull of the dead man!”</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Magistrate Wu looked at his wife in utter astonishment. Then he put on his hat and rushed from the bedchamber, summoned his staff and his sedan chair, and ordered that the young widow’s brothers-in-law be awoken and the murder victim be exhumed at once.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">In ancient China, the nails used by carpenters had no heads and, when hammered into soft wood, disappeared almost entirely from view. Such a nail was found embedded in the skull of the deceased, hidden by his thick, dark hair.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">For an instant, Magistrate Wu was elated by this macabre discovery. At last, the cause of death was known and the murder weapon found! Then his mind clouded with a dreadful suspicion. How could his lovely wife, Madam Wu, possibly have known about the nail? Good heavens! She had been a widow too and her husband had also been a fool. What if? Was his own life in jeopardy? How could he even begin to think such a thought? His dearly beloved, dutiful, affectionate wife?</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Nevertheless, the truth had to be ascertained. Justice must prevail, whatever the cost. With utmost discretion, Magistrate Wu arranged for the exhumation of his wife’s deceased husband. Only the Magistrate and his most trusted investigators were present when the bones were disinterred.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">With a quickening heartbeat, Magistrate Wu watched as the skull was subjected to close scrutiny. No! There was a tiny aperture at its apex… and he could hear a dull rattle… and lo! They found the nail.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-19197658174814096722012-03-15T11:20:00.004-07:002017-02-21T12:47:48.559-08:00PATERNAL GRANDFATHER DAI & HIS THREE SONS<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfG-n65LG5ijmIfrK-iDoP4A7VB6Kq3lXpsdXbQ7Ul0bVqpTKqXX1OYsO7dDHotMNcH2hYxxI9OaG7Gp1pVQtGlNkVAtrwXNeoIkkJMKk80CL5gO_WZMg1lacbkLkozVpC3hKHF7_F8M/s1600/DaiFly-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfG-n65LG5ijmIfrK-iDoP4A7VB6Kq3lXpsdXbQ7Ul0bVqpTKqXX1OYsO7dDHotMNcH2hYxxI9OaG7Gp1pVQtGlNkVAtrwXNeoIkkJMKk80CL5gO_WZMg1lacbkLkozVpC3hKHF7_F8M/s640/DaiFly-web.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>THE DAI FAMILY</b>: Grandfather Dai is surrounded by his three sons and their families. <br />
The author is the little girl on the left, holding her father's hand. <br />
Her sister Loy is in her mother's arms at far right.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 21px;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
GRANDFATHER DAI was a native of Gutian in the province of Fukien. There were six brothers in the Dai family, and none of them was known to do a day’s hard work. It is not recorded how many daughters great-grandfather had, but I have heard accounts of one who spent three days beautifying herself to attend a relative’s wedding.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It was fashionable in those days for rich landlords to encourage their brighter sons to sit for the Imperial Examination, which required much diligent study. Those who were successful would increase the family’s honour and prestige, not to mention its prosperity. There was nothing to stop young men from poor families from attempting the Imperial Examination, of course, and there were instances when the sons of peasants had overcome all odds and passed with distinction, bringing a dramatic change of fortune to their families. Ideally, this should have made Imperial China a splendid model of democracy – but the poor, as to be expected, were so thoroughly oppressed that upward mobility was rare indeed. While the peasants toiled and died under wretched circumstances, the dull and indolent sons of the landed gentry indulged in opium smoking, gambling, wine, women and song.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandfather Dai, whatever his faults, was determined to achieve something worthwhile with his life. He had no desire to share his brothers’ idle and parasitic existence. So he became a candidate for the Imperial Examination and threw himself wholeheartedly into the gruelling preparations.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Perhaps he was overzealous and strained his nerves, for he never made it to the big test. The report I’ve heard is that he suffered a debilitating shock while travelling through a forest on his way to the examination hall. Apparently he was startled by a werewolf – a fairly common hazard in ancient China, judging by the numerous hair-raising tales handed down to us. The details are vague, since no one knows for certain exactly what happened to Grandfather Dai that fateful day. It is also possible that he was ambushed by bandits and narrowly escaped death with arrows whizzing past his ears.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In any case, he was never quite the same thereafter. At the slightest sudden noise, he would tremble and break out in a cold sweat. All it took was a door slamming shut or a creak on the stairway. So intense was his anxiety that the mere act of sitting on a chair would take him ages, for he would repeatedly check to see if the legs were secure, or if he was correctly aligned with the seat.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The most routine transactions became extraordinary feats of will for him, and life would have been sheer hell were it not for the constant care and comfort he received from his devoted young wife, whose loyalty deserves to be recorded. Like most marriages in those days, theirs had been arranged by professional matchmakers when she was still in her early teens. Now, in the hour of his helplessness, Grandmother Dai came into her own as the young and dutiful wife. She tried every apothecary prescription on her husband, but to no avail. She invoked ancestral gods from far and near, but in vain. Her husband remained a human wreck.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Then one day she met a long-lost kinsman from overseas, home on a visit and a recent convert to Christianity. He suggested that her husband attend a prayer meeting at a nearby town: “We have a foreign pastor who has an excellent reputation as a faith healer.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandmother Dai had nothing to lose. She finally persuaded Grandfather Dai to go to church with her – and after several visits, many prayers and much laying on of hands, the required miracle happened. Grandfather Dai recovered his self-confidence and became a Christian.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
More specifically, he became a Methodist. It was an era of vigorous outreach for the Methodist Church, which was very active in the most remote and paganistic parts of the Far East.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In China, however, the evangelistic thrust did not penetrate very far – possibly because the Chinese are obstinate about their own traditions and jealously guard their age-old superstitions. Besides, most Chinese were convinced that all foreigners and their beliefs were inferior.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And so, many young Chinese Christians with the crusading spirit eventually found themselves seeking greener pagan pastures amongst the “savages” across the seas. This accounts for the many Foochows in Sitiawan, Sepang and Yong Peng, and also in Kuching and Sibu, over in Sarawak. Most of them had sailed forth as missionaries of the Foochow Methodist Church.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandfather Dai, being a well-educated and enthusiastic convert, had no difficulty getting ordained as a pastor. With a small band of Foochow faithfuls, he arrived in Kuching and established its first Methodist Church. Around the same period, another group led by Rev. Horley headed for Sitiawan, Perak. They wasted no time building a church and a school in Kampong Koh.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
GRANDFATHER DAI had only three sons, but he had had countless daughters. Countless… because many of them had been drowned at birth in huge jars of urine kept as manure for the fields. (I assume, of course, that this was before he became a Christian.)</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In those days the Patriarch’s word was law. The Patriarch was the Progenitor – and the Progenitor held the lives of his progeny in his hands. Taking a daughter’s life was not regarded as murder. It was simply a means of ensuring fewer mouths to feed. After all, it was one’s sons who carried forward the family name; only sons could establish a dynasty and assure one of immortality. Furthermore, sons were valuable members of the family mafia in times of territorial strife.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Although daughters were generally considered a liability to their parents, they soon became assets to their husbands’ families, who saw to it that they earned their keep.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Anyway, Grandfather Dai moved to Sitiawan with his three sons.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
THE ELDEST SON became a <i>sinseh</i> (traditional Chinese physician) and would have done very well, were it not for the extremely large brood he sired – and his wife’s obsessive fondness for durians. She was a <i>Nyonya</i>, a female <i>Peranakan</i>* prone to indolence and gluttony, especially during the durian season, when she would pawn her best sarongs to buy vast quantities of the rich and creamy “king of fruits.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 9pt;">[*<i>Peranakans</i> are people of Chinese descent who have adopted some aspects of Malay culture through long settlement in Malaya.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Eventually, the family went broke and relocated to China, where they lived off the Dai family land. I’m told that my Nyonya aunt, suffering acute durian withdrawal, soon abandoned her family and hastened back to Malaya – where she found a successful durian farmer to settle down with (I hope)!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandfather’s second son followed in his footsteps and became a Methodist minister. Like his father, he produced far more daughters than sons – but mercifully none of the girls was drowned (I suppose “progress” can be measured by such small mercies).</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Through sheer hard work and frugality, Second Uncle managed to bequeath rubber estates to his children. Unfortunately, the legacy was rapidly squandered and did not survive into the next generation.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandmother Dai used to say that losing one’s inheritance was the penalty for misdeeds committed by one’s forbears.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPWtpAH1vHgjsCClX-WGdjEG-a93kAATJbIHFEnwqSDSDpnOM5m8-Ea21sUJcK0fSzIzLR_2yuCvO0qN-tcTSXgncx9zbY2aRW9ZVVLFcDCLPoC-dpyhVKgDeceZDoAgXSE6nycY-Lqs/s1600/daichuilian-dt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPWtpAH1vHgjsCClX-WGdjEG-a93kAATJbIHFEnwqSDSDpnOM5m8-Ea21sUJcK0fSzIzLR_2yuCvO0qN-tcTSXgncx9zbY2aRW9ZVVLFcDCLPoC-dpyhVKgDeceZDoAgXSE6nycY-Lqs/s400/daichuilian-dt.jpg" width="253" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dai Chui Lian several months before<br />
his death in 1969 (Antares)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
MY FATHER, Dai Chui Lian, Grandfather Dai’s youngest son, was in his late teens when he was shipped off to Singapore to acquire a proper English education.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Having grown up in sleepy Sibu, Sarawak, my father wasted no time seeking out whatever sin he could find in Singapore. However, he did finish school, and went to Kuala Lumpur. Being bilingual, he easily qualified for the post of Court Interpreter – a highly prized job in the Colonial civil service.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
He settled into a lifestyle that he followed for many years to come. By day he was a highly esteemed Court Interpreter. By night he was a <i>ronggeng</i>-loving** Romeo, serenading his assorted Juliets with his fine baritone voice and his fancy accordion technique.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 9pt;">[**<i>ronggeng</i>, a popular Malay folk dance in its day]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
He was also adept at Chinese calligraphy, turning out lyrical poems in the classical vein. On Sundays he would appear in church as the angelic chorister.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It was on one such Sunday that my mother first saw him: huge bible under one arm and an open hymnal in the other hand. He was immaculate in his formal suit of pure white khaki, cut somewhat like a Nehru jacket, with gold-plated buttons down the front. Underneath he wore a singlet with sleeves, for shirts were still a rarity. Dad’s posture and manners were as impeccable as his grooming. Always soft-spoken and charming, his complexion (nourished with Hazeline Snow throughout his life) was smooth as velvet. He was the perfect dandy, the consummate Malayan <i>Baba</i>-about-town.*** It was a role he enjoyed playing.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 9pt;">[***<i>Baba</i> – male Peranakan]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What won Mama’s heart, finally, was his fluency with classical Chinese poetry and his superb penmanship. He was a true romantic, and a man of profuse letters. In addition to all his obvious assets, young Dai Chui Lian also promised to see to the welfare of Mama’s poor, helpless mother and her precious, spoilt kid brother.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When the wedding date was fixed, Dad had to borrow two hundred dollars from Grandfather Dai, who seemed to have grown more Scrooge-like as his fortunes improved. The loan was granted on condition that it be repaid within a year, with interest. Maybe this was the Foochow way, I really don’t know. To Dad’s credit, he bore all this without a grudge. In fact, when his parents returned to Gutian in China to spend the twilight years of their lives, my dad not only volunteered to accompany them all the way, he also footed the whole bill.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As it turned out, this was a calamitous episode. While in China, Dad’s playboy nature got the better of him and he frittered away all his funds on White Russian women – refugees from the October Revolution. To raise his passage home, Mama quietly appealed to her brother-in-law for a small loan, which he refused. Instead he demanded that she sell him her share in a rubber estate for a pittance. Having no choice, she agreed, but thereafter a deep rift divided the family and I never met my cousins till after Mama’s death, when we had all grown up.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I WAS THE ELDEST of Dai Chui Lian’s three daughters from his first marriage. When it was time for me to marry, Grandfather Dai set the dowry at one thousand dollars – and demanded a share of it. Dowry, what dowry? My fiancé was at that time a trainee Court Interpreter – strange how these patterns recur! – with a monthly take-home pay of eighty-five dollars. But in retrospect I can only take it as a compliment that the old Scrooge reckoned I was worth a thousand dollars. You see, dowries were established on a sliding scale to the estimated value of a prospective bride. An impoverished would-be groom who could only afford a hundred-dollar dowry, for example, was likely to land himself an illiterate, loud-voiced, pock-marked rubber tapper’s daughter; whereas a slightly more prepossessing specimen might fetch four or five hundred dollars. Only a bride with undisputed beauty – plus brains and education and family background, and bilingual to boot – could demand a thousand dollars in the market!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
GRANDFATHER DAI outlived his sweet-natured, faithful and quiet wife by more than a decade. He even outlived my dear Mama, who died soon after undergoing a hysterectomy, because antibiotics were unknown then. Both Mama and Grandfather were experiencing medical crises at that time; and friends and relatives whispered among themselves that the old man ought to release his hold on life so that my mother could live. The Lord of the Underworld would be satisfied with just one soul.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But the old man wouldn’t let go. He lived to almost ninety, remarrying a woman nearly forty years his junior. After his death, my dad felt duty bound to support his widowed stepmother. He was a truly filial son.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My paternal grandparents left Sitiawan when I was seven. I remember them well, though. The funny moments remain the most vivid. Like the morning I saw Grandfather Dai striding up to our government-issue bungalow in great haste, a very determined look on his face. Sensing trouble, I ran in and warned Dad of Grandfather’s approach, whereupon Dad put one finger to his lips and gave me a conspiratorial wink, before vanishing into the toilet. Not wanting to be questioned, I hid in the other bathroom and kept very quiet. Grandfather stormed up the steps and could be heard all over the house, calling for Dad, but seeing nobody about except the servant, he stormed off in a huff.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Dad never bothered to tell me what the fuss was about. I suspect it had to do with late repayment of a loan or a default on his monthly contribution towards his parents’ upkeep. Or perhaps some cuckolded old coot had complained to Grandfather about his wayward third son. How times have changed! I can’t imagine such a situation today: a crusty old father terrorising his adult son, himself already a father.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Dad, on the other hand, was incredibly tolerant of my misbehaviour, even when I destroyed his accordions one after another by poking holes in the bellows (I was curious to find out what produced the sound). Or when I threw out all his stationery and used the large drawer he kept it in as a boat (to sail across our flooded backyard).</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I CANNOT RESIST recounting the story of Grandfather Dai’s salted eggs. I know it’s not the kindest way to remember him, but it does reveal a great deal about the man.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Once, he bought a hundred salted eggs (on special offer, probably) and acquired such an addiction for the delicacy that he would consume a whole egg at every meal. After he had devoured ninety-eight salted eggs, he suddenly thought of his loyal, docile and frugal wife – and very generously offered her his last two!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Grandmother Dai was in the habit of visiting us once a month, and Mama would cook some nourishing chicken soup for her. It was during these solo visits that she would pour out her woes to Mama, who was a sympathetic listener and a very compassionate soul. Mama was disinclined to speak ill of anyone, and so she kept these reports to herself. Her own mother (my maternal grandmother who was then living with us) was just the opposite: she was the archetypal busybody who relished a juicy scandal or two. And it was through her that I learnt about Grandfather Dai and his amazing egocentricity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-47206160260223546722012-03-15T00:13:00.005-07:002012-10-19T00:52:11.006-07:00MAMA'S STORY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QboKYhehPKlfkaOepF-DtMeQUisOZB5H0-Hr8XPC2zr7yh6I54rFhP_i5krOPMNxIm5AEMjeAHXG_rOkJHKDZxphCtSaFPLEjtVtIM6_WP__1vps6UhR-geiwSFYRFEv_aOfEZd5jSg/s1600/siewsumchee-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QboKYhehPKlfkaOepF-DtMeQUisOZB5H0-Hr8XPC2zr7yh6I54rFhP_i5krOPMNxIm5AEMjeAHXG_rOkJHKDZxphCtSaFPLEjtVtIM6_WP__1vps6UhR-geiwSFYRFEv_aOfEZd5jSg/s1600/siewsumchee-web.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Siew Sum Chee (the author's mother) at age 18, before she left Hong Kong for Malaya</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A BIG CROWD was gathered outside the community hall of a Hakka village. People were jostling to see what was going on inside. Someone had intruded on the Council of Elders while they were in a session, deliberating the affairs of the village. Who was it? Who would dare? What was the trouble? Must be something serious.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Inside the community hall there was an astonished hush. The venerable members of the Council were granting an audience to a girl of twelve! Those who were lucky enough to have a view of the proceedings could only gape and gawk at the temerity of this rosy-cheeked child.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Her name was Siew Sum Chee. And she had marched in boldly on the Council Meeting to lodge a formal report against her seventh uncle. He had been making arrangements to have her sold as a child bride, thinking he could profit thereby from being her guardian. There was no one else she could turn to for help. Her widowed mother was meek and indebted to the uncle, and her only brother was ten years old.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
True, she had many other uncles – nine in all – but none had ever bothered to send money or even keep in touch. One was a hotelier in Hong Kong, another had migrated to Malaya and was a tin miner in Seremban. The others she hardly knew. Her own father had had little contact with them, and he had died when she was ten. Her mother had been trying to support her two children by taking on odd jobs. Sometimes she worked in the fields. She also hired herself out as a professional mourner, paid to swell the numbers at wakes and funerals; she could wail on command.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Bereavement, it seemed, was the recurring refrain in the family’s fortunes. Siew Sum Chee’s mother had been born in bereavement: her mother, married scarcely a year, had not survived her first child. She had died in agony on a wooden pallet, victim of a well-meaning but heavy-handed midwife, who had practically sat on her to force her contractions. As a result, Siew Sum Chee’s mother was raised on bananas, her father being too poor to employ a wet nurse.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Wet nurses in those days were a luxury only the rich could afford. Dainty concubines with bound feet who hardly walked or did physical work were often too frail to nurse their own babies; and, besides, breastfeeding was such a vulgar, uncomfortable routine, fit only for peasant women. Thus it was not uncommon that the children of the wealthy grew fat on peasant women’s milk. As for the children of the poor mothers who had to serve as wet nurses… well, they had to be content with rice gruel or sweet potato – or bananas (which, as we now know, are a good source of glucose and potassium). At any rate, Siew Sum Chee’s mother had thrived on her milkless diet. She was in fact strong and healthy all her four score years.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As a child, Siew Sum Chee’s mother had to earn her keep tending cows, and as soon as she came of age the family married her off to a tailor: a frail-looking widower who seemed a good catch; so what if he had two grown children. Soon, a daughter arrived, then a son, and within a decade the tailor had died, leaving his serious-minded and rosy-cheeked young daughter in her present predicament.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS listened gravely to Siew Sum Chee’s complaint, impressed by her eloquence and strength of spirit. One member in particular was deeply moved by her obvious intelligence, her courage and the luminous quality of her beauty.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“Now, here’s a child that deserves a better chance in life,” he thought. It so happened that he had returned to the village on one of his sporadic visits and had decided to sit in on the Council Meeting. He was a cultured, liberal-minded Christian of some means, and he now resided in the big city.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
His name was Mr. Zane. (At least, I think it was, for I never heard it mentioned till long after Mama’s death, when he sent us all an invitation to visit him in Hong Kong. But we couldn’t go, and he moved to Hawaii, and we completely lost touch… but I’m getting ahead of the story.) There and then, Mr. Zane decided to adopt Siew Sum Chee as his foster daughter.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
He would send her to a Methodist boarding school in Hong Kong. Her mother could visit her at school any time she wanted.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And visit she did, fairly regularly – squeezing out of her the pocket money that Mr. Zane sent without fail. But we must understand that Grandma Siew had experienced nothing but hardship her whole life. (Feeding on overripe bananas had turned her into a bit of a bloodsucker.) Meanwhile, the apple of her eye – her only son – had been recruited to work in his uncle’s hotel. It didn’t take long for him to corrupted by the sleazy company he kept in Hong Kong’s red light district. After all, he was in his impressionable teens.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
MAMA PROVED to be a brilliant student. Among the numerous prizes she won was a beautifully lacquered box, which is now in my possession. When she had completed her secondary education, her benefactor and foster father broke the good news: he was going to send her and his only son Andrew to Shanghai for further studies.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama was overjoyed and excited, for it was a very rare privilege for a girl to receive such a fine education. Grandma Siew broke down and wept bitterly. She had waited so long for her daughter to finish school and get a good job, so that she could help with her younger brother’s education. All these years she had dreamed of the day when her children could support her in comfort; how many more years did she have left, to enjoy life just a little?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama thought about it for a long time and then she wrote a letter to Mr. Zane, explaining why she couldn’t accept his generous offer. She was profoundly grateful for his kindness, which she hoped someday to reciprocate. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The day never came, even though her foster father lived over fourscore and ten years, for Mama died in her thirties. Three months after her funeral, I opened a letter addressed to her. It was from Mr. Zane, with many photos of his family and a warm invitation for all of us to visit him. It was one of the saddest moments I can recall. Would Mama have gone to stay with her foster family in Hong Kong and taken us with her? Might she not have been alive now? If only Mr. Zane had written earlier… if only… if. Fate doesn’t allow any ifs to alter our lives, does it?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mr. Zane understood Mama’s dilemma, bless his saintly soul. Not only did he readily release her from any obligation to him, he continued sending her beautiful clothes down the years. He must have spoken of her a great deal at home, for his son Andrew (whom we called Brother Fong) made attempts to trace our whereabouts after they had settled down in Hawaii. In 1965, Andrew’s widow instructed her grandson to look me up when his ship docked at Port Klang. Alas, I wasn’t home when he came knocking on the door. Our families seem destined not to meet – even unto the third generation!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
GRANDMA SIEW had a long-range scheme. She would move to Malaya with her two children and look for their ninth uncle in Seremban. He was a prosperous tin miner and a bachelor. (It was known that he had a mistress and that she had adopted two children, but they had no legal claim to his fortune.) As their blood relative, he would be obliged to extend hospitality, which they would gratefully accept. In due course they would be included in his will.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama thought it was one way the family could stick together, and agreed to the move. Furthermore she had heard that the cost of living was much lower in Malaya; she could easily support the family on a school teacher’s salary.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ninth Uncle happened to be a staunch Roman Catholic – a fact Mama learnt after she had arrived in Seremban with Grandma Siew and her brother. And, to Mama’s horror, Ninth Uncle revealed that he had made plans for her to enter a convent. In those days, sacrificing a child to the Church brought great honour to a family, and Ninth Uncle had long hungered for such an honour.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While she was at boarding school in Hong Kong, Mama had become a hardcore Methodist. But she bore no religious prejudices. She had never forgotten that it was her Buddhist neighbour who had hidden her from an anti-Christian pogrom during the Boxer Rebellion; she was only four then and her mother had been out earning a living.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So Mama went quietly to the convent and stayed there for several months – until she found an opportunity to slip out and escape to Kuala Lumpur, where she was offered a job teaching Chinese to the Chinese students at the Methodist Girls’ School. Miss Marsh, the principal, took an immediate liking to Mama, but could only pay her twenty dollars a month.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When word of Mama’s absconding from the convent reached Ninth Uncle’s ears, he promptly threw out Grandma Siew and her useless son. Now Mama had to provide for three mouths in a rented room on twenty dollars a month. Tough going for a seventeen-year-old!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Even today there are Chinese mothers who would not regard it as unjust to sacrifice their daughters’ happiness for their sons’ welfare. In some homes it is customary for the parents and the menfolk to sit down at table first; the women have the remnants. This is especially true in the villages, the reasoning being that the menfolk, as basic providers, had to work harder than women. Exceptions are granted in the case of expectant mothers, who are allowed a few extras. I remember my cook’s comment as she was dividing an apple between my own children: “Your son must have the bigger half since he will have to work harder when he grows up!” I know who works harder now.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
IT WAS AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME that Siew Sum Chee became aware of the attentions of a very presentable bilingual young choir member, who never failed to attend church services with a big fat bible under his arm.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
He told Mama he was a Baba, born in the Straits Settlements, and she believed him, of course. Being new to this country, she was unaware that most bona fide Babas and Nyonyas don’t even speak Chinese – what more quote the classics!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Now, why on earth would Mr. Dai, the bible-toting, poetry-loving Court Interpreter, lie to Miss Siew, the conscientious school teacher, about his cultural background? He had fallen in love with her, you see, and badly wanted to marry her. And when a girl agrees to marry a man, she is actually agreeing to marry his entire clan – to be at the beck and call of the mother-in-law, the elder sisters-in-law, even the grandmother-in-law. A good wife was supposed to obey not only her husband, but everybody else in the family who happened to be senior to her in years.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In my own teens, I was given a lot of advice about how to select a mate. Stay clear of Hakka men, they’re all wife-beaters. Hokkiens are tight-fisted, and Teochews are no better. Hainanese men all end up as cooks and butlers in European households. Foochows are slothful and will even pawn their wives when they’re broke. Cantonese men, however, pamper their wives, and if they can afford it they will hire domestics to relieve their wives of hard work (that’s why Cantonese women are such notorious mahjong addicts). There’s only one snag marrying a Cantonese; he’ll become polygamous as soon as he prospers. True, polygamy observes no dialect boundaries, but there is a difference: the others will make their concubines work like servants.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The best choice would be a Baba. They’re fun-loving and easy-going, and don’t believe in disciplining their wives too much. In fact, they often let their mothers-in-law run the household. Babas like to sing and dance and enjoy a leisurely lifestyle. Their Nyonyas play <i>chip ji kee</i> all day and chew betelnut and decorate themselves with gold and precious stones.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“We Babas have no qualms about living with in-laws,” Mr. Dai told Miss Siew. “If your dear mother and brother don’t mind, they are more than welcome to live with us when we are married.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But it was the love letters from Papa that Mama liked best. She was swept off her feet by his poetic soul and his mastery of brush and ink. At her age, how was she to know that husbands are not in the habit of writing love letters to their own wives?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
MARITAL BLISS would have been Mama’s to enjoy, were it not for her dear husband’s flirtatious nature. He would be out on the town, dandified and perfumed, while she was housebound and heavy with child.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It was a small blessing that my father’s parents had their own house, so Mama was spared undue interference from her parents-in-law. Grandmother Dai, however, was fond of visiting Mama and baring her soul to her. The poor woman looked so underfed, living with a miserly husband, that Mama always made sure she ate well on these visits. Over the years the two grew quite attached to each other, and I believe Mama loved her mother-in-law more than her own mother, whose scheming and money-grubbing had brought such heartache.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama spoke a little English and several Chinese dialects, and played the organ fairly well (though she stuck strictly to hymns). Papa’s musical instrument was the accordion, and he had to keep buying new ones because of my penchant for sticking my little fingers into all the delicate parts. He never punished his children. Once he built a wooden fence around his workdesk to stop me from rummaging through and destroying his things. I continued in my mischief till my parents put me in St. Mary’s boarding school at the age of eleven, so that I could learn some ladylike ways. It must have been quite an expense for them, for I don’t recall Mama buying nice clothes for herself from then onwards.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
BEING A GOVERNMENT SERVANT, Papa was transferred all over the Federated Malay States, serving as interpreter in courts of all sizes, in both urban and rural settings. My parents were married in Kuala Lumpur, but I was born in Tampin, Negri Sembilan, in 1916. We then lived in Sitiawan until I was six, at which time we moved to Kuala Lumpur. After a time, Papa was transferred to Temerloh, in Pahang. The only way we children could get a solid education was for him to send us all to a boarding school.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The arduous car journey between Kuala Lumpur and Temerloh became a regular event, and it took a toll on Mama’s health – especially since she was pregnant again. In those days, the roads cutting across the Main Range were hazardous: oftentimes at dusk you could see tigers cavorting with their cubs in the middle of the road.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Wild buffalo and sleek black seladang would graze noisily around and under our house in Temerloh, which was raised high on concrete stilts. Hornbills over a foot tall would fly into our bedrooms when they thought no one was about. Larcenous monkeys would slip in through the kitchen window in search of fruits or anything edible. Centipedes and scorpions were often crushed underfoot by anyone brave enough to visit the toilet at night; you could hardly see them in the faint glow of your kerosene lamp! At the same time, you could hear all the night noises of the dark jungle, which started only a few feet behind our government quarters. And besides all this, it was mosquito country, to be sure.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
To the typical Chinese civil servant, therefore, a posting in Pahang was tantamount to punishment. Everyone without exception would pray for a reprieve, which meant a return to “civilization.” Papa’s Indian friends, however, appeared to relish living in the boondocks. They reared cattle, kept vegetable plots, and ordered around a huge army of labourers. Out here, it was easy to find cheap labour, and even an ordinary government servant could afford two or three domestics, cowherds, gardeners, and perhaps a male cook. Best of all, there were no temptations; no eyecatching window displays in the shops, no pubs or nightclubs, sometimes not even a cinema. It was easy to save money, but no self-respecting Chinese cook or <i>amah</i> would look at it this way. “Very sorry,” they would say, turning down an offer of higher wages, “no one can live in such primitive surroundings!” </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p><br />
</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
MAMA HAD TAUGHT HERSELF Mandarin, and was now giving us lessons in this nationalistic new <i>lingua franca</i>, which was being heavily promoted in China to unite the myriad dialect groups. It was around this time that the <i>cheongsam</i> (“long dress”) came into fashion, though the Northerners insisted on calling it the <i>cheepow</i>. Ours were quite modest, with elbow-length sleeves and hems just below the knees. Well-behaved girls wore their cheongsams loose, but “loose” girls wiggled about in tight-fitting ones, with high slits to reveal the maximum amount of porcelain-smooth thighs. Before the cheongsam came along, I was wearing Chinese blouses trimmed with embroidered ribbon, mid-length skirts, and pointed shoes with silk or cotton stockings.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama used to carry either a tiger-skin or beaded handbag. She wore no jewelry apart from a pair of tiny pearl ear-studs (to conceal her ear-piercings, she said, because they were so ugly; we never had our ears pierced while she lived). While other girls flaunted gold trinkets, we wore only a thin gold chain and a watch. Mama regarded chains on wrists and ankles as symbols of slavery. Pierced ears, according to her, weren’t only unsightly; they were primitive and barbaric.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I WAS ALMOST FOURTEEN, in 1930, when Papa was transferred to the Education Department in Kuala Lumpur, to be an Inspector of Chinese Schools. For a while, we were a happy, reunited family living amidst lush greenery in the vicinity of Imbi Road, Kuala Lumpur. Then we began to notice that Mama’s eyes were puffy from extended bouts of weeping. We knew that Mama’s sorrow had something to do with Papa.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While on his rounds inspecting Chinese schools, Papa had discovered that the headmistress of one of the girls’ schools was a relative – some species of cousin. (We later nicknamed her “Guy,” after Guy Fawkes, the man who nearly succeeded in blowing up the British Parliament.) She was either widowed or divorced, thirty-five years old, abrasive-tongued, repulsive-looking, and compulsively predatory. She pounced almost immediately.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Papa was easy prey. Those who knew his taste were incredulous and surprised. Mama wasn’t. These were lean years for everybody, and beautiful women weren’t going for free. Besides, he wasn’t enjoying his new job in the Education Department as the government snoop, going around the Chinese schools sniffing for Communist ideology.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Chinese school teachers in those days were all graduates from China, but they were paid no better than salesmen or clerks. They were subjected to all kinds of injustice: their degrees weren’t recognized and they were generally made to feel inferior to those teaching in English-medium schools. They were even paid less for private tuition than their English-educated counterparts. With all their fine degrees and years of experience, they could only afford to live in cubicles while trying to make ends meet. Meanwhile, their illiterate countrymen were raking in the chips and returning to China as millionaire heroes. Little wonder then that the Chinese schools were a breeding ground for Marxist philosophy. Mama herself was paid the princely sum of $1.50 per child per month for teaching them six days a week, privately – and their children kept borrowing our textbooks, much to our annoyance!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
OVER THE YEARS, Mama had told us about the kind man who had rescued her from an arranged marriage when she was twelve. She said he still wrote to her, asking her to visit him in Hong Kong. She said he was like a father to her, and he was keen to meet our family. During those dark days – the days of Guy – I suggested to Mama that we accept her foster father’s invitation and move to Hong Kong. Loy and I could find work there; after all, we were about to sit for our Senior Cambridge Examination. We could start life anew in Hong Kong! It sounded rather exciting. To us, Hong Kong was as wonderful a prospect as England or America (I hadn’t even heard of Australia). Surely her generous foster father could help with our passage? We’d leave Papa behind to have his endless affairs. (I was only sixteen then, and knew nothing of loyalty or faithfulness. And I was never close to my father who, like most Asian fathers, hardly ever communicated seriously with his children.)</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama had been pregnant six times. Two boys were stillborn and a girl miscarried, leaving her three precious daughters – Moong Yang, Moong Loy and Moong Wai.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Guy (I never addressed her by her real name, such was the hostility I felt towards her) had the gall to come to our house and taunt my mother, pointing out that it was traditional for a woman with no sons to vacate her wifely position in order that her husband could remarry and have male heirs.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama believed in tradition, even though she was a rebel at heart. In an attempt to produce a son, she conceived again, but in her fallopian tube. She developed an infection after undergoing a hysterectomy. Antibiotics were not in use in those days, and Mama never left the hospital alive. She died in December 1933, at the age of thirty-eight.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p><br />
</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
AFTER MAMA’S DEATH, we had to move house because Guy couldn’t stomach staying in the Imbi area with all our old neighbours around. Years later, I learned that Papa had married her under threat. He must have thought she was capable of extracting vengeance by poisoning us all. It was no joke. I believe she would have done it too, the wicked witch! Anyway, she got a good dose of her own bitter medicine when Papa married a girl of eighteen.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Mama had warned Guy of Papa’s infidelity. He could never be faithful to any woman, just as a leopard can’t change his spots. But Guy had been confident of her power to control him.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Well, Papa met his third wife at one of his regular mahjong sessions. She was a refugee from Kwangtung, staying at her stepsister’s house in Kuala Lumpur. A goodnatured and cheerful soul, she was six years younger than I, the eldest daughter from his first marriage, and she bore him four more daughters and two sons.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Papa died in 1969, aged seventy-four. My third mother died in 1992, aged seventy-one. I don’t remember when Guy died. After all these decades, I still find it hard to think kindly of her.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But I’m sure my mother Siew Sum Chee has forgiven her, the angel that Mama was, and shall always be to me. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-88646507406967562872012-02-05T21:21:00.000-08:002012-02-07T04:31:53.821-08:00MY FATHER-IN-LAWPAPA LEE ARRIVED in Kuala Lumpur with only a few coppers in his pocket. The rest of his hard-earned savings had gone towards his passage agent’s “retirement fund.”<br />
<br />
His first meal in the bustling new Malaysian boom town was sponsored by the neighbourhood noodle vendor, who laughed and waved him off when Papa Lee tried to pay for his food with Chinese coppers.<br />
<br />
“Nobody will accept that kind of money here! When did you arrive?”<br />
<br />
It was then Papa Lee realized how little he had known of the world beyond his family’s farm in China. He thanked the noodle vendor and silently swore that he would repay him someday. (For the record, he did locate the hawker several years later and paid him for his first bowl of noodles – plus a few hundred dollars as a tip, “to sponsor a visit to your home village.”)<br />
<br />
The clan association took care of Papa Lee until he could find a job, In every town and village there would be an association set up by each clan to safeguard the honour of their kinsfolk. Cantonese immigrants, for instance, could approach the Kwangtung Association for food and shelter. Once they had found work and begun to prosper, they would usually become benefactors of the association. Even today, after so many generations, an association can be approached for help in sending a student abroad for higher education – but only if the student is promising and is likely to bring credit to his clan.<br />
<br />
Papa Lee started humbly as a shop assistant, board and lodging provided. In the evenings he sought recreation (and education) from the itinerant story-teller, who would pass his hat around for donations each time a joss stick burnt out. Apart from their usual function in spiritual rites, joss sticks also had a more temporal, practical use: since few people owned watches or clocks in those days, housewives often burnt joss sticks to time the steaming of their sponge cakes. Anyway, who needed clocks and watches? People rose when the rooster crowed and worked till dusk; and they ate their midday meal when the sun was directly overhead and it was too hot to work.<br />
<br />
But coming back to the itinerant story-teller: not only did he provide his audiences with glorious tales of ancient China, but he would relate stories from his wanderings up and down the length of the peninsula, or pass on juicy tidbits from the other side of the town. He was, in effect, the immigrants’ oral newspaper. Through him, Papa learnt about the rich tin mines of Perak, the timber fortunes, newly-named one-street townships in urgent need of provision shops, the escalating price of rubber, and the popularity of opium dens.<br />
<br />
Papa Lee was not completely illiterate. He was able to write down valuable information gleaned from the story-teller’s ramblings and other people’s gossip. And he could read the signs. He knew exactly what he would invest in – when he had the money.<br />
<br />
Half a cent gained is better than half a cent lost. That was his business philosophy – and he soon developed a formidable precision in mental arithmetic. Thus, through industry, thrift and sound instincts, Papa Lee built up a thriving and diversified business. He dealt in provisions and textiles, crockery and fine porcelain from China. He owned two sawmills, several rubber estates, and operated a licenced opium parlour.<br />
<br />
He also became a regular traveller. First class, of course. Now that he could easily afford it he owed it to himself. Moreover, he was getting obese, what with the superb cuisine of which he was so fond, and the peace of mind that came, in his case, with financial security. Whenever he returned to Kuala Lumpur he had a wife to attend to his physical needs, and a boundfooted concubine to pander to his whims and supervise his meals when he was residing in the northern state of Perak.<br />
<br />
He had two children in China, a son and a daughter, from a first wife who had long passed away (before he could afford to send for her). His second marriage was to a Penang <i>nyonya</i> (a Straits-born Chinese), who eventually became my mother-in-law. <i>Nyonyas</i> were widely regarded as flirtatious and vain, domineering and aggressive, but wonderful cooks. Woe betide the two-timing man married to a <i>nyonya</i>, for they were known to fight tooth and nail for their marital prerogatives. Mother-in-law took great delight in recounting her various victories in her decades-long war against “the other woman,” who was no match for her, the poor thing, with her bound feet.<br />
<br />
Papa Lee’s health succumbed to all the stresses and strains in his complex marital life. He also suffered from anxiety that none of his five sons seemed competent to take over his business empire. On top of that, he had a few undiagnosed ailments.<br />
<br />
Four sons were still “schooling,” and the eldest was a schoolmaster who had neither the inclination nor the aptitude for managing a business. It was all his mother’s fault. She had insisted that he be educated in English so that he could take his place among the Anglophonic elite. Besides, she had argued, it was useful to have someone in the family qualified to understand and deal with “government matters.” She was, however, sufficiently far-sighted to foresee the importance of her children being bi-lingual. She installed a “live-in” Chinese lady teacher, well-versed in the Chinese classics; a healthy, muscular, masculine-looking spinster, who saw to it that no one played truant. In exchange, the Lee brothers coached her in javelin, discus and shot putting. She participated in many of the Selangor Chinese sports events sponsored by the Lee team.<br />
<br />
These were the days when the only doctors around served in the government hospitals – and it was quite usual for a fairly large town to have only one general hospital. People living in villages had to travel miles to reach their nearest district hospital. But there were always alternatives. The Chinese took their medical problems to the sinseh (whose expertise sprang from the old tradition of the village apothecary). Malays had recourse to their witch-doctors or bomohs. And the Indians (at least the ones who could afford it) could consult a wide range of experts in astrology, homeopathy, ayurvedic healing, hypnotism and divine intercession. Only in the late ‘Forties did private clinics appear in Malaya. A bit too late to be much help to Papa Lee back in the ‘Twenties, whose condition deteriorated beyond all hope.<br />
<br />
According to Chinese custom, it is favourable to die in one’s own home. Furthermore, a fortunate passing would include the performance of last rites and funerary rituals by one’s entire family. But, much as Papa Lee desired the presence of his boundfooted concubine, it was absolutely unthinkable to admit her to his principal wife’s home. The fact remained that when Papa Lee took on his concubine, no wifely permission had been sought or granted, nor had tea been served.<br />
<br />
So when Papa Lee’s funeral cortege left the house, his concubine was seen only at the tail end of the long procession, struggling bravely along on her tiny deformed feet.<br />
<br />
No one has been able to tell me what became of her, the poor thing.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-65428054688750738712012-02-03T23:09:00.000-08:002012-02-03T23:11:02.267-08:00THE HORSE CARRIAGEWAGGING a tobacco-stained finger at me, the driver admonished me to sit still and told me he’d be back in a jiffy. “Diam diam duduk ya, sikit jam saya balek!” he said, and went off with his basket of kueh (Malay cakes) towards the police barracks to sell them to policemen’s wives.<br />
<br />
Here I was, five years old, left in charge of this great big four-wheeled horse carriage!<br />
<br />
The Sitiawan Courthouse in 1920 was a solitary brick structure flanked by government-issue wooden bungalows on concrete stilts. My horse carriage was parked on the dirt road bordering a very large padang (lawn) in front of the Courthouse and government quarters. To a five-year-old, the padang seemed like a vast lake of friendly, inviting grass on which one could safely gambol.<br />
<br />
Those who could afford it sent their children to school in a private rickshaw drawn by a bonded puller. Others depended on the horse carriage, and there were two types – smaller ones with only two wheels, and huge ones with four.<br />
<br />
“Sikit jam,” my driver had promised. Well, since he was taking longer than “a jiffy,” I began to get restless. Soon I had eased myself through the tiny window and onto his seat. What a very different perspective on the world! I picked up his whip and took hold of the reins and did what I had seen the driver do countless times: I gave the horse a whack. It began to trot. I delivered another whack and, ha! it started to gallop, faster and faster.<br />
<br />
Someone saw what was happening and shouted. I didn’t know what he was yelling about, but in a few moments I saw my dad running out of our house in his sarong, a look of horror on his half-shaven face. Soon the driver also appeared, and several policemen, also in their sarongs, and they all came running after the carriage.<br />
<br />
It was fun having such a comical-looking group shouting and hollering and trying to chase after me. Of course they couldn’t catch me – but now I wonder why no one had the common sense to cut across the padang and intercept the “runaway” carriage, instead of trying to capture it from behind!<br />
<br />
Having completed my circuit of the field, I hauled on the reins and yelled, “Whoa,” exactly how the driver did it. The carriage halted directly in front of our house. I beamed at the sweaty and breathless adults who had caught up with the carriage. I saw no reason to feel guilty or anticipate punishment (my parents had never beaten me or even raised their voices against me, so I really believed children were privileged beings). And the grown-ups were too relieved to be angry with me – except the driver, who nagged me all the way to school.<br />
<br />
The next year, my sister and I had to go to our school in Kampong Koh by two-wheeled carriage. It was terribly uncomfortable, since there were three of us (including a neighbour’s child) all squeezed into the single narrow seat. The other two resented my taking up half the seat (I was a plump and jolly six-year-old) and, besides, a two-wheeler always tilted backwards, so the three of us were flung together and could barely move. I suppose the two-wheeler would have been a good ride for an adult with his or her feet firmly planted on the carriage floor.<br />
<br />
It was a different driver, I think, but they all had other business to attend to on the side. One morning, as usual, we were left in our two-wheeler while the driver disappeared for what seemed like ages. We three small passengers began to squirm about and wriggle in an attempt to get ourselves upright; a quarrel broke out and the struggle got more intense. This startled the pony, who seemed particularly jumpy that morning; she reared up in her harness, legs flailing, and the carriage began rocking back and forth quite violently.<br />
<br />
By now we were in a panic, but held on for dear life. The pony whinnied and snorted and kept jumping up on her hind legs until one of our neighbours noticed what was happening and shouted for the driver. He came running as fast as he could and started talking to the pony in a soothing voice, then he caught hold of her bridle and began to stroke her, all the while uttering words of endearment. This calmed her immediately – and off we went on our merry way to school, as if nothing had happened.<br />
<br />
But as soon as my dad could afford it, he bought a rickshaw and found a puller who bonded himself to our service for several years.<br />
<br />
Many decades later, I was told that there was a four-wheeled horse carriage on display in the National Museum. I simply had to go and see it, but oddly enough it wasn’t what I’d expected. In fact, I was shocked to see how small it actually was. The one on permanent display in my memory is absolutely enormous!M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-36622749747941305802012-02-03T04:20:00.000-08:002012-02-07T04:24:38.454-08:00VIGNETTES FROM CHILDHOOD: “BAD WOMEN”<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Petaling Street Beauty Parade</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgnZ6GrTqOhyphenhyphencx4YRZ2y6S5zQ_BPlH0mBmduoKhAJZ7sJR5TZMsSS07xAJPUIp_MI-1AVr3vhGT5baoCyYaQLFa1U1rCXitYeC0IUvp0OjfU6LrlPq3mBUbocWtcNeyw6fqrdUVYh2vo/s1600/Belle2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgnZ6GrTqOhyphenhyphencx4YRZ2y6S5zQ_BPlH0mBmduoKhAJZ7sJR5TZMsSS07xAJPUIp_MI-1AVr3vhGT5baoCyYaQLFa1U1rCXitYeC0IUvp0OjfU6LrlPq3mBUbocWtcNeyw6fqrdUVYh2vo/s1600/Belle2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
PETALING STREET in the early 1920’s. I’m out on an evening stroll with my maternal grandmother. To my surprise, on both sides of the road, I can see a dazzling parade of attractive women, perched prettily on high wooden stools. I find them thoroughly fascinating; they seem to a curious seven-year-old the very epitome of something secret and forbidden. I can barely resist staring at each one of them as we pass…<br />
<br />
“Come on, come on, hurry up!” my grandmother’s gruff voice would reach me from a little distance ahead. “What’s there to see? Come on, quickly, it’s late already!”<br />
<br />
And as I caught up with her, she’d mutter in a low voice, “Bad women!” I always hoped she would elaborate, but she never did.<br />
<br />
I was fourteen when “Second Aunt,” the former sing-song girl, finally enlightened my naivete about these women. She commented that one’s fortune depended not so much on looks as on intelligence (referring to women like herself). But the slow-witted, like “Ah Lan,” usually amounted to nothing. Life for them held only drudgery.<br />
<br />
Every day, just before dusk, Ah Lan and her colleagues would gobble down a frugal meal before attending to their make-up. They daubed their faces with chalk-white rice powder and added colour to their cheeks and lips with red-paper dye (rouge and lipstick may have been in vogue in Europe but they certainly weren’t in evidence on Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur, in the 1920’s!) Ah Lan had plucked her entire brow and face clean of hair so that the make-up would stick better.<br />
<br />
Next, she would change her bodice – an undergarment with elbow-length sleeves and gold or silver buttons. Two large pockets on the front of the bodice provided support for her breasts. Brassieres were nowhere in sight in those days, which seems quite remarkable, in view of the veritable mountains of padded bras on sale along Petaling Street today!<br />
<br />
Women like Ah Lan usually wore long, black silk trousers and wooden clogs. When it was time to start work, they brought out their wooden stools and took their places on the five-foot-way, posing for invisible photographers. Most of Ah Lan’s colleagues (she called them her “sisters”) were by no means familiar with the concept of elegance. They were streetwalkers – or, rather, streetsitters – of the lowest grade and, at fifty cents a “go,” their clients could hardly expect elegance.<br />
<br />
Of course, Ah Lan had been worth much more in her prime – but that was many years ago. She was never much good at saving, though. Besides, a sizeable cut of her takings had gone to the upkeep of her “mummies,” and she, like her working sisters, had two of these – one natural and the other strictly professional. Apart from her natural “mummy,” Ah Lan also had to support a whole string of natural brothers and sisters.<br />
<br />
Now she was left with only a few gold teeth, a handful of bracelets and chains, and a small collection of good silver buttons; just about enough, nevertheless, to make her feel more fortunate than some of her really down-and-out customers. With these, Ah Lan could, if she was in the mood, extend a measure of charity by way of a few friendly words, or a few extra minutes, or even a genuine display of warmth.<br />
<br />
No doubt there wasn’t much of a future for Ah Lan and her sisters, apart from the prospect of ending their days in the local poorhouse. But this would only happen if Ah Lan was unlucky enough to have to sell all her gold ornaments to pay for exotic herbal cures. True, the government had started licencing the streetsitters, making it compulsory for them to report regularly at the general hospital for hygienic inspections. With any luck, Ah Lan might be able to retire gracefully in a few years, perhaps even become a “mummy” herself.<br />
Luck, however, wasn’t something that featured prominently in Ah Lan’s horoscope. Not “good” luck, at any rate.<br />
<br />
Years later, when I found out what the Petaling Street Beauty Parade was all about, I used to wonder why my maternal grandmother had called those poor streetsitters “bad women.” Unfortunate, yes… but “bad”?<br />
<br />
It is we who are cruel, not life.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: x-large;">The Sing-Song Girl</span></i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-chNNDoKBCD7kTnkQeAJ_i3jKD_TNVnio8GDhuWBskHjUnE6X5mZRkGrqJCi8b_vEDuPi7Q3eOChF-57Dy-g6JlVUGysVDyk0aVEh0ytIbhN647cue6BxD3KT0v6_DpldHVyn2FtSnLs/s1600/Belle4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-chNNDoKBCD7kTnkQeAJ_i3jKD_TNVnio8GDhuWBskHjUnE6X5mZRkGrqJCi8b_vEDuPi7Q3eOChF-57Dy-g6JlVUGysVDyk0aVEh0ytIbhN647cue6BxD3KT0v6_DpldHVyn2FtSnLs/s1600/Belle4.jpg" /></a></div><br />
IN OLD CHINA, the Courtesan was generally regarded as a highly accomplished person. Among the many skills required of her was the ability to sing and play on a zither-like instrument called the <i>pei-pai</i>. Her clientele usually consisted of nobles and rich landlords, sometimes even royalty.<br />
<br />
Kuala Lumpur in the Roaring ‘Twenties boasted no Courtesans (at least, not in the proper tradition of Courtesanship as practiced in China), but we had the <i>pei-pai chai</i> or sing-song girl. She was often to be found in the more established Chinese restaurants, providing entertainment while the customers dined.<br />
<br />
The <i>pei-pai chai</i>, unlike the cultured Courtesan, was usually a girl of little education, taught to sing and play by an older man (more often than not a guardian or uncle), who accompanied her on a lute or violin. As to be expected, he would also function as the <i>pei-pai chai</i>’s manager or agent, especially after hours.<br />
<br />
“Second Aunt” was once a <i>pei-pai chai</i>. She wasn’t really our aunt as such, but she lived next door to us and liked us addressing her as Second Aunt. Her husband was a government servant, and she must have been quite a celebrity among sing-song girls to have caught his eye and captured his heart. After all, in those days, a government servant was considered an excellent match; he could easily have married someone from a respectable background.<br />
<br />
Of course, Second Aunt could quite as easily have become a tycoon’s concubine. But she was smart enough to realize that being a rich man’s concubine often meant a slavelike existence by day at the merciless hands of the principal wife, despite all the endearments heaped on her by a doting husband in the privacy of the bedroom. As a concubine, she would have had very few rights outside of the nuptial chamber; even her own children would have been required to address her as “aunt” as long as she lived.<br />
<br />
Every time Second Aunt came over to chat with our mother, we noticed that she would be displaying a new ornament around her neck or on her wrist or on her well-manicured fingers, We enjoyed the way she flaunted her assets; the coquettish movements of her eyes and hands, her elegant clothes, the vivacity of her expressions. The mannerisms of a sing-song girl, in the case of Second Aunt, were a lifelong trademark.<br />
<br />
When Second Aunt’s marriage proved barren, she adopted three children who called her “mother.” She also gave generously to charities, for the Chinese believe that such acts of kindness will ensure that one ends one’s days surrounded by grandchildren. Perhaps Second Aunt was simply grateful to the gods for her good fortune in being someone’s principal wife rather than a mere concubine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Japanese Doll</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbH9DVw1Sp_LVgqjX8D2bcE7-Qvy7AimtQGVEuItrC3DQJ6pYVl1BvhDiA0kJ9M1BTmb6G8KZ8cnZDP_5LKua5jljzqWn5D03NIaFmbznXFFYOlOMpGhHsHtXBOLKga4mcaXBgs6FWyBg/s1600/Belle3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbH9DVw1Sp_LVgqjX8D2bcE7-Qvy7AimtQGVEuItrC3DQJ6pYVl1BvhDiA0kJ9M1BTmb6G8KZ8cnZDP_5LKua5jljzqWn5D03NIaFmbznXFFYOlOMpGhHsHtXBOLKga4mcaXBgs6FWyBg/s1600/Belle3.jpg" /></a></div><br />
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS when Maternal Grandma would take my sister and me on her rounds, collecting interest from her various debtors. She would drag the two of us with her from one end of the town to the other, because we had been entrusted to her care, and she didn’t dare leave us locked up in the house in case we played with matches and burned the house down. Like all young children, we found it hard to resist striking matches and watching them ignite. And, like many old ladies in her day, Grandma found it hard to resist playing the neighbourhood usurer – something my mother would never have approved of.<br />
<br />
But I loved walking along Petaling Street with Grandma, There was always something unusual to catch my attention. Grandma usually had my younger sister’s hand firmly clasped in hers, and a large parcel in the other, and she made a point of walking very briskly down this particular street, to minimize our contact with the sordid side of life. This ploy worked with my younger sister, who remained innocent of the adults-only goings-on in this part of Kuala Lumpur.<br />
<br />
At eight, I was intensely curious, and a practiced dawdler. Somehow I always managed to lag behind Grandma and catch a fleeting glimpse of a world beyond my ken.<br />
<br />
On this occasion, I spotted an assorted assembly of men bunched together against an open ground-floor window of a shophouse. They seemed to be engrossed in a show. I had to see what the excitement was all about, so I squeezed in amongst the men and peeked in the window.<br />
<br />
I saw a life-sized Japanese doll (that’s what I thought she was) combing her long hair and tying it up in a coiffure. She was seated daintily on a tatami mat on a raised plank floor. Her bedding was rolled up nearby and the mirror in front of her was surrounded by little bowls containing the paraphernalia of her toilette. Her kimono featured a low neckline and her eyes and lips were exquisitely made up. Her feet were demurely clad in cloth socks, and she performed her patient task of hairstyling without the slightest sign of perturbation. It was as if her audience did not exist, Could she be a very life-like doll? I was totally fascinated by the tableau in front of me and could have gazed for hours along with the men… but I felt a hard, knobbly hand on my arm, which pulled me roughly away from the window.<br />
<br />
All the way home I was lectured on how wicked I was; this was the umpteenth time she had caught me looking at bad women, and I would surely burn in hell with all of them, unless I mended my ways.<br />
Finally, Grandma made me promise not to breathe a word of this entire outing to Mama, and I agreed, knowing I had a useful trump card in hand. Grandma knew Mama would be livid if she ever found out about her unlicenced money-lending habit – and that she had risked corrupting her grandchildren by taking them on a walking tour of Petaling Street!<br />
<br />
Too bad my sister let the cat out of the bag one day, which resulted in our being sent to a boarding school, to keep our young minds unsullied. At least we would be safe from Grandma’s unwholesome influence.<br />
We could have wound up behind the high walls of a convent, were it not for the fact that Mama, being a loyal Methodist, chose for us a stolid Anglican institution, St. Mary’s Boarding School for Girls. There were no high walls around St. Mary’s – but we would soon learn that there were much subtler ways to confine young minds than mere walls of brick or stone.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-8545052626190706252012-01-30T10:01:00.000-08:002012-01-30T11:02:08.734-08:00I REMEMBER ST. MARY'S"DO YOU KNOW of any robust high-spirited girl of eleven who has never been tempted to run down a flight of steps, at least once?" I asked a friend one day, out of the blue.<br />
<br />
She looked at me with surprise before replying: "Certainly not!"<br />
<br />
More than six decades have passed since I left St. Mary's Boarding School for Girls, but I still feel a twinge of indignation at the injustice of the punishment meted out to me by the Superintendent of the boarding school (i.e., the hostel) whom we nicknamed Birdy.<br />
<br />
Her surname was Bird, and she had a sharp beak of a nose, set off by green, piercing eyes. She firmly believed that adults could do no wrong, and fervently enforced the dictum, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."<br />
<br />
My father was stationed in Temerloh, in the backwoods of Pahang, and there were scarcely any schools around, not to mention good ones. My mother had envisaged my sister and I growing up well-educated and refined. If she put us in a high-class boarding school run along the same lines as those in England, we had a better chance of turning into respectable young ladies. And so she scrimped and saved to achieve her ambition for us.<br />
<br />
St. Mary's was indeed "high-class" in terms of fees. Each month, it took more than a Chinese school headmaster's salary to keep us both there. And the rules, to say the least, were unbelievably strict.<br />
<br />
Boarders were only allowed three changes of every thing in their wardrobe, e.g., three cotton dresses for school, three silk ones for church, three pairs of underclothes, three pairs of socks, and so on. The idea was to have one set in the wash, one set in the wardrobe, and one on the body.<br />
<br />
Senior girls were addressed as Miss, and they had no problems, but we Juniors had to be on our toes the whole time. To add to our discomfort, we had to run errands for the dignified seniors and end up dishevelled and sweaty. Between the Seniors and the Juniors there was no love lost. How does it feel to be constantly discriminated against? Especially at bath time, when an impatient knock on the door meant we had to come out at once and let them use the bathroom first.<br />
<br />
This unwholesome rank-pulling seems prevalent everywhere - not only in the army, but also in schools and offices. No doubt a similar sort of pecking order occurs in the animal kingdom, but surely we can invent a better way of achieving social harmony?<br />
<br />
I recall flashing my eyes in defiance when Birdy punished me for using the rickety sewing machine on a Sabbath. No one had informed me that on the Sabbath only hand-sewing was permitted. Furthermore, Juniors were forbidden to operate a sewing machine. The penalty was six strokes on the cushy part of one's anatomy with a hairbrush, or Birdy's slippers.<br />
<br />
As an "Asiatic" child in a white expatriate environment, I was subjected to treatment which aroused in me a sense of inequality and injustice. It was easy to suspect that the white race was prejudiced against everybody else, even if they didn't actually despise us. At any rate, this early exposure to the insidious humiliation of racial discrimination made me shun anything Anglican - schools, churches, clubs. When it was time for me to find employment, I chose to teach in a Chinese school. This loathing lasted many decades.<br />
<br />
On weekdays, we played croquet and tennis, and on Saturdays we went on long walks in the evening. Here again, if I lagged behind the group, the penalty would be to do forty sums. Ironically, I fared very badly in my math exams. And I barely passed my Religious Knowledge, on account of the numerous penalties I had to endure for failing to memorize the scriptures correctly. I suppose in those days no one had heard of "positive feedback"!<br />
<br />
There was no way of describing the oppression my sister and I felt at St. Mary's, and no way of even informing our parents that we were miserable, for all letters home were censored by Birdy. And we couldn't go home till the end of the term.<br />
<br />
My mother probably suspected that all wasn't well with her daughters, but she was a great believer in perseverance. One day, Birdy carried her disciplinary notions a little too far. My sister Loy, who was only nine, arrived late for dinner and was sent to bed without it. Later, a jug of milk was delivered to her. No questions were asked as to why she was late (she had to let all the almighty Seniors use the bathroom ahead of her). The next morning, Loy was too sick to have breakfast or attend school. She was a frail child and, like most "Asiatic" children, she disliked milk. The Asian way would have been punishment after dinner - at least the child would be well fortified!<br />
<br />
This incident led to our being released from St. Mary's. Our stay there had caused my mother more hardship than her daughters. She had had to commute between Temerloh and Kuala Lumpur (on one of the most hazardous roads in the country), and she had had to rent a house in Kuala Lumpur because of us. This had put a terrible strain on her physically, emotionally, mentally and financially; with her having to budget for two separate households, including maids, while constantly worrying about our well-being.<br />
<br />
If Birdy had possessed the most rudimental insight into child psychology, or if only she had been inspired by the feeblest promptings of the heart, my memories of St. Mary's boarding school would have been as happy as those of the mornings I spent in the classroom with the day students. I greatly enjoyed learning literature and history. I also loved the chances I had to perform on stage. The role of a buccaneer inspired strength and courage. I was also a terrible prankster. In class, the standard mischief among us junior girls was to hide the senior girls' high-heeled shoes when they changed into rubber ones for games.<br />
<br />
On reflection, then, I should allow my happy school hours to offset the unhappy times in the school hostel. To quote Jean Juares: "We should take from the past its fire, and not its ashes."M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-43994844945525849592011-12-27T10:48:00.000-08:002011-12-27T11:01:20.226-08:00TO MADGE, WITH LOVESCHOOLS AND FACTORIES have much in common: they are places where "raw" materials are methodically processed into useful products - hopefully of some quality.<br />
<br />
This was very much the case even in the early 1920's. In my school, the students were expected to be prim and proper, scrupulously clean at all times. We had to keep a straight back and a straight face - unless the teacher happened to be telling a joke, which wasn't often. It was, in fact, just like being in the army; it's hardly surprising that soldiers tend to go berserk in times of war!<br />
<br />
In later years, there were moments when I considered myself fortunate to have been educated in such a mechanical, military fashion. Perhaps the discipline inflicted on me did equip me with an inner strength, which has served me well in the face of many hardships and setbacks I have experienced on the road of life. Yet I sometimes wonder: isn't it possible to cultivate the necessary grit and determination, to learn how to accept challenges without flinching, by less painful means?<br />
<br />
My teachers were all efficient robots, save one - and she was looked upon as the weak link in an otherwise steely chain of command. It is conceivable that these "robots" might have had a soft spot in their hearts - even for us "Asiatics" - but they had to maintain the hallowed tradition of the army and keep us all in our places.<br />
<br />
A rigid sense of decorum and dignity established and widened the gulf between the British teachers and their Asian students. We knew nothing of one another's background, culture and religion, and had absolutely no inkling of one another's personal opinions and expectations.<br />
<br />
It was during the last stage of my school life that Madge showed up and radically changed the meaning of education for me. Madge was our literature teacher, and the whole class fell headlong in love with her almost on sight.<br />
<br />
She could have passed off as a Brit except for her dark hair and eyes; but not being indisputably British, she didn't have that air of sternness, that stiff upper lip, that subtle sneer of condescension. Madge was Anglo-Indian, and exquisitely lovely blend of cultures and genes.<br />
<br />
Miss McNeil, our crotchety missionary Principal, and Miss Bird, the seedy-looking Superintendent of St. Mary's Boarding School, did not approve of Madge one bit. They took particular objection to Madge's style of dressing and her lively mannerisms. Madge, you see, dressed comfortably for the tropics, in collarless, sleeveless, unfrilly dresses - just long enough to cover her knees. Moreover, Madge didn't wear a straw hat, nor did she ever don a white cocked hat when leaving the school building.<br />
<br />
Madge had been accepted as a teacher on account of her excellent qualifications. As a part-Asian, her salary was probably about half that of a "full-blooded" B.A. imported from England.<br />
<br />
She couldn't have been more than twenty-three: fresh as a lily she was, and she walked with such a bouncy step, she appeared to be bobbing, especially when she was in a hurry. She was just a little under five feet, and slightly rounded. Her tailor-cut outfits matched her petite form to a "T" - in enviable contrast to our own sack-like attire (designed by our thrifty mothers to last us several years, and therefore deliberately sewn three sizes too large). While we girls had to wear three-quarter length sleeves, Madge wore daring sleeveless dresses that revealed her fair and shapely arms. Her hair, so smooth and sleek, was tied in a neat knot at the nape of her neck; ours had to be plaited or cut very short. In comparison with our completely outdated appearance, Madge was a veritable fashion plate. And apart from being so approachably small, she had the most enormous heart ever.<br />
<br />
Because of her, we all made excellent progress in English and Literature. We learned to appreciate poetry without being forced to commit every line to memory. My enthusiasm soared to such giddy heights that I even attempted to read Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i> and <i>Paradise Regained</i>.<br />
<br />
When I think back on my final year at school, I can picture Madge sitting so prettily behind her desk, which seemed too large for her. The chair had been specially modified for her and held an extra-thick cushion, without which we would all have towered over her. Our gaze often rested on her lips and not on our books as she read to us our favourite poems: <i>The Miller of the Dee</i>, <i>Young Lochinvar</i>, <i>Casablanca</i>, Longfellow's <i>Psalm of Life</i>.<br />
<br />
We acted out Shakespeare's plays with great delight - <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, <i>Julius Caesar</i>, <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, <i>Twelfth Night</i>. We shed tears over Dicken's <i>David Copperfield</i>, <i>Oliver Twist</i>, <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>, and laughed uproariously or wept over his <i>Pickwick Papers</i>. We were so very human during our Literature lessons. It was indeed wonderfully therapeutic for our souls to feel such a range of emotions. However, we had to restrain ourselves whenever we heard the "squeaky approach" of our Principal. Thank goodness she had those shoes - otherwise hers would have been a "sneaky approach"!<br />
<br />
Madge typified the Ideal Woman for us. When we heard she was going on leave, we immediately suspected that she was planning to get married and we rejoiced on her behalf, for in our hearts we all harboured hopes of someday being allowed to choose our own spouses. Some of my classmates were already betrothed to young men they had never met. Alas, they were compelled to be obedient and filial daughters, as tradition dictated.<br />
<br />
Those few months with Madge were the happiest period of my school life. But the Chinese have a saying: "Let us not be too happy lest the gods begin to envy us!" And sure enough, we were soon deprived of our ecstasy. Madge came in one morning, her cheeks pale, eyes hollow and dull. The sun seemed to have disappeared behind the clouds. We stood up in silent discomfort as she entered the classroom, all of us instinctively aware of her distress, and so we spared her the customary chorus of cheery greetings. With a grateful nod, she bade us be seated.<br />
<br />
The lesson began in an unexpected way. One of the girls was asked to read a particular scene from <i>Twelfth Night</i>. Our minds were definitely not on Shakespeare. How could we savour the Bard when it was so evident that some terrible tragedy had befallen our favourite teacher? But what the nature of the disaster was, we could only speculate. Madge didn't utter a sound until the girl had reached that excruciatingly poignant line:<br />
<br />
<i>She never told her love,</i><br />
<i>But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,</i><br />
<i>Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;</i><br />
<i>And with a green and yellow melancholy</i><br />
<i>She sat like Patience on a monument,</i><br />
<i>Smiling at grief.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Then, struggling to control her emotions, Madge thanked the girl and asked her to sit down. saying she had had a bad night and was suffering from a splitting headache, Madge told us all to carry on reading quietly. But we knew it was her heart that ached and not her head.<br />
<br />
As soon as class was over, we urged one of the Eurasian girls, whom everyone called The Official Reporter (as she was well-connected to "reliable sources"), to investigate the exact cause of Madge's grief.<br />
<br />
Early the next day, our Official Reporter turned in a story that generated a tidal wave of shock and anger throughout the entire class. Our hearts were moved to profound outrage at the injustice done to our beloved Madge.<br />
<br />
This was what we learned: Madge had a beau of French and Dutch descent whose family had strongly objected to his wanting to marry an Anglo-Indian girl. Such a case of unmitigated bigotry! The young man's family was known to be wealthy, but that didn't make them a better class of half-breed than Madge! Or was it simply because half of Madge was asian? The young man had suggested elopement - but Madge felt that such an unseemly recourse went against the grain of her character. Was it wrong to be in love? Why must they run away and hide their faces from society? In any event, Madge must surely have felt deeply stricken by such overt rejection.<br />
<br />
We debated this topic amongst ourselves for over a week. What would constitute a morally impeccable solution? The more impulsive or romantic ones argued that true love should triumph over all else, and that Madge would be perfectly justified if she threw convention and social mores to the winds. The more sober or timid ones maintained that love was far too noble a thing to be sullied with scandal, and that the truly high-minded lover must sacrifice love for the sake of love.<br />
<br />
In the end, we jointly penned a letter a message of sympathy to Madge, in which we promised to pray hard for her future happiness. We added that it might be a blessing in disguise for her not to have anything to do with such a snobbish family, and reminded her that time would heal all wounds.<br />
<br />
We never knew how she felt about our letter, which she graciously accepted, thanking us for our heartfelt concern. But Madge was never the same again. She had lost her effervescence, her buoyancy and bright confidence. We could only hope that she would meet someone worthy of her and live happily ever after. She certainly deserved it.<br />
<br />
Our Official Reporter had overheard that Madge intended to resign at the end of the term and emigrate. We couldn't help but regret that she wasn't going to be around to congratulate us for the wonderful results we were going to obtain in English and Literature. Still, we were glad to think that we would soon be graduating from school. The experience of losing such a good teacher and friend was too traumatic to bear for long.<br />
<br />
Without Madge, I might never have acquired a taste for literature, for drama and poetry. She evoked sympathy and understanding for our fellow-beings by her sheer generosity and vitality of spirit. These are what I consider the best things in life - the rightful heritage of all humankind.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-82101941927363886112011-12-25T09:09:00.000-08:002011-12-25T23:15:19.536-08:00THE BRIDE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimm2lrvhLCHF5fEZLJR6zcClttRRlgwOo40wGcUn7-Sh8k2CN0ASkGf9QT87EdXFXRK5G-gq5fRsWcQFiz0oDtT1zQ5ufywCIyxVsylQww6r64h9aoQPb-O4HTeMFDpqkWAai6yDE8XC8/s1600/MY%252BKB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimm2lrvhLCHF5fEZLJR6zcClttRRlgwOo40wGcUn7-Sh8k2CN0ASkGf9QT87EdXFXRK5G-gq5fRsWcQFiz0oDtT1zQ5ufywCIyxVsylQww6r64h9aoQPb-O4HTeMFDpqkWAai6yDE8XC8/s1600/MY%252BKB.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dai Moong Yang, 18, and her bridegroom Lee Kong Beng, 23</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
SHE SAT QUIET as a mouse in her bridal chamber while the guests were feasting in the garden. The wedding party was being held in the groom's family house: in the early 1930's, hotels hadn't got into the business of catering for such affairs.<br />
<br />
How she wished she could tuck in with the rest of the crowd. She had started the day early after a very scanty breakfast, and hadn't had another bite since. At the ceremony, the wedding cake had looked extremely tempting - but she hadn't had the nerve to help herself to a piece. To do that was unthinkable, and her lack of restraint would have been the talk of the town. Already, she was considered brash for walking into the hall with her head held high instead of looking demurely at the floor. She was a Christian bride going through a traditional Chinese ceremony; she had to know her place.<br />
<br />
She was so hungry she could almost <i>see</i> the tables spilling over with exotic delicacies - oh, for just a morsel to tickle the palate! (She later found out that the banquet cost $6 per table of ten heads, not including children. A real bargain!) The food must be excellent, judging from the noisy gaiety of the guests. Or was it the drinks and the multicoloured lights? The Bridegroom and his family were busy mingling with the guests. Each member of the family had invited their own friends.<br />
<br />
"You don't marry an individual, you marry an entire family!" That's what I always tell the sweet young things who come to me for romantic advice or to pour out their marital woes.<br />
<br />
Halfway through the dinner, the Bride's presence was required. Accompanied by the bridesmaid, the Bride did her rounds, smiling and inviting everyone to eat and drink their fill, all the while acutely aware that her own belly was growling. The Groom drank to the guests' health from table to table - in contrast to the Western custom, where the guests are expected to toast the Bride and Groom. (Nowadays, most Asians have settled on a compromise: they toast one another!)<br />
<br />
After dinner, the Bride was requested to entertain the guests with a little performance on the pianoforte. She played a semi-classical piece she had learned by heart, and the audience, though unused to such musical fare, seemed appreciative enough. The bridesmaid went up and sang a popular love song. So sweet was her voice, she received a marriage proposal that very night! The ardent bachelor conveyed his proposal through the Bride's mother-in-law, but the bridesmaid was not interested. (The word "incompatible" hadn't entered the vocabulary of romance. After all, a wife was expected to be obedient, so there was no real need to get to know one's future wife; as long as she had a pretty face, that was good enough.)<br />
<br />
Finally, the garden was quiet once more, and the newlyweds could retire to their private chamber. When they were alone, the Bride woefully confessed that she was starved, which surprised the Husband greatly. Wasn't it up to the Bride's family to look after her right until the moment she was married off? When his brother had gotten married, the bride's family had supplied her with homecooked food for a whole month. But then, this Bride wasn't a Cantonese and, even if she were, would her "wicked stepmother" bother with such a tradition?<br />
<br />
A slave girl was sent off to the kitchen to fry a couple of eggs and warm up the rice, and thus the Bride had a midnight snack for the first time in her spouse's home. It was heavenly. Anything tastes fine when one is hungry enough.<br />
<br />
Two weeks went by and the husband's relatives were still in the house. The Bride wondered when they were going to leave. She had to serve tea at both main meals before she could sit down and eat. This went on for a month, and then her mother-in-law instructed her to stop doing it for the other in-laws, but she was to continue serving the mother-in-law indefinitely.<br />
<br />
By now the Bride understood: all the in-laws were permanent residents, part of the extended family. The various maids or slaves belonged to the in-laws, except for two who were directly answerable to the Matriarch. These two had been bought specially for her by her late husband, the self-made tycoon. The cook and the laundry women, however, were shared by the whole household. There were forty people in that household and at least ten domestics. The entire operation was funded by earnings from the late Patriarch's rubber estates, crockery shop, provision stores, and so on. Still, it was a wonder that his resources could stretch that far.<br />
<br />
In a household this huge, it was difficult for an expectant mother to be given preferential treatment at meals, as the Bride soon discovered. The other women seemed to have no problems. The sister-in-law spent all her time with her rich mother and had access to all sorts of delicacies. The other two women were always out playing mahjong somewhere in town, within easy reach of whatever food they fancied. But the Bride hadn't established her own connections and had nowhere to go apart from the school where she taught, and the food sold in the tuck shop left much to be desired. In the end, her new husband solved the problem by routinely smuggling all kinds of goodies into their bedroom, where she could indulge her cravings in perfect privacy.<br />
<br />
Being married was turning out to be quite an experience. Did all brides have to go through such quaint initiations? It began on the second day of her marriage: she was expected to pour out a basin of water for her mother-in-law to wash her face in, making sure that all her paraphernalia were in their usual places - her big mug of mouth-rinsing water, toothbrush, tooth powder, silver tongue-scraper, face towel. This had earlier been the responsibility of the first daughter-in-law who, assuming that the new daughter-in-law knew the custom, had happily left the assignment to her.<br />
<br />
Later, after breakfast, the Matriarch asked to be shown "the white handkerchief" (the traditional proof of one's virginity). The Bride had been unable to comply, for she had taken a bath first thing in the morning, and had no stains to display; she hadn't realised that in some quarters such a custom still prevailed. The Matriarch was tolerant of this oversight, knowing the Bride had lost her mother before she could be taught these things. The less said about it the better - so the Bride refrained from pointing out to her mother-in-law that her late mother, a devout Christian with progressive ideas, would never have dreamed of being party to such a crude and humiliating test.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the early-morning toilette ritual for the Matriarch happened only once. As a school teacher, the Bride had to leave the house quite early, and so was exempted by her mother-in-law from carrying out the expected duty, which fell to one of the maids.<br />
<br />
Come to think of it, we Asians never used to go on honeymoons. After the wedding, the Bride and Groom had only the weekend to spend together before each went back to work, she to her teaching and he to his office.<br />
<br />
Grateful to her mother-in-law for letting her off lightly on all the old customs, the Bride decided to donate the handsome sum of $5 per month to the Matriarch - "cake money," they called it. Considering that her monthly salary was only $25, there wasn't too much left after deducting food and transport expenses. Still, it was much better than staying at home all day. Apart from the resident army of domestics who took care of day-to-day chores, the fact remained that the Bride didn't even know how to boil water. Her late mother had wanted her to become a school teacher or a music teacher, so as a child she had never been allowed in the kitchen! That was the new middle-class lifestyle practised in Hong Kong, where her late mother grew up.<br />
<br />
Her mother-in-law, on the other hand, was a <i>nyonya</i>, and believed that girls should primarily be taught to be good cooks; education was of secondary importance.<br />
<br />
But most important of all was respect for the mother-in-law! In fact, the first time the newlyweds went out to see a movie, the Bride was expected to ask the Matriarch's permission just to go out with her own husband. If the old lady remained silent, it meant NO! Fortunately, the Matriarch was in a good mood and replied, "By all means!" But, before leaving the house, the Old Lady had to inspect her daughter-in-law's apparel, to make sure she brought no disgrace to the family. On several other occasions, the Bride had to go through at least two changes before receiving the Matriarch's seal of approval. Nothing too old or too loud or too solemn. The Bride understood that the entire ritual served mainly to establish the parameters of matriarchal power. The husband, of course, refused to see it as such: for him, his mother could never be wrong!<br />
<br />
It took some time to adjust to the new situation, but at last the Bride could feel she had settled down comfortably to a happy married life, having been put through a crash course in what the Chinese call "the Art of Living."M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-46789431530019714732011-11-11T11:11:00.001-08:002012-03-23T06:42:32.312-07:00REFUGEES<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksxR5WW2mQdfWygvvVWLyzT7Wvww4XWRiQSqzrHec-8uy_1nMQdAaNPhvXocIO9U7glKx_0N7joB86sOf0EghgW57Nmnmp70n9rdCs-KcHJ5Jh90WW-All0tQUAk3DwkqnxEcKwpK7h0/s1600/Belle5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksxR5WW2mQdfWygvvVWLyzT7Wvww4XWRiQSqzrHec-8uy_1nMQdAaNPhvXocIO9U7glKx_0N7joB86sOf0EghgW57Nmnmp70n9rdCs-KcHJ5Jh90WW-All0tQUAk3DwkqnxEcKwpK7h0/s1600/Belle5.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;">"... we lugged our belongings along three miles of rough estate road..."</i><br />
<div><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>IT WAS, to say the least, a truly agonizing period, fleeing from one temporary abode to another. We had thought life would be peaceful and safe in our hut in the Karak Estate among newly-planted rubber trees, bananas and sweet potatoes. No possibility of starvation, at any rate. A few more dreadful months, perhaps. The British would soon recapture Malaya from the "Japs."<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Alas, it wasn't to be!</div><div><br />
</div><div>The estate workers were at the end of their tether: gangsters were taking advantage of the chaotic conditions and robbing all and sundry. Former government servants such as my husband could consider themselves very well off, with the three-month bonus they had received just before the invasion. But, on the other hand, that made the likes of us fair game for the armed gangs. The gory heads on display in the marketplace were no deterrent to these desperate criminals. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Around three o'clock on a cold, eerie morning, with the help of three young men (nephews of the estate manager), we lugged our belongings along three miles of rough estate road to a concealed lorry parked near the trunk road. Estate workers had dug up the already rough estate road to deter the Japanese army trucks from entering. Little good this did, for the Japs later marched right in and ordered all the able-bodied men to serve as porters, hauling out the entire hoard of foodstuffs there (tinned food and rice from the <i>kongsi</i>) on foot!</div><div><br />
</div><div>We got our baggage and ourselves on the lorry and by dawn were approaching Kuala Lumpur. My brother-in-law had offered us shelter in his house, which was already packed to capacity. Safety in numbers, that was the general idea. A room had been prepared for our family of four. Unmarried members of the clan slept where they could in the sitting and dining rooms. My sarongs and gold jewellery were sold to feed the Lee family - about a dozen of us in all.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The Japs were conducting sporadic search-and-arrest operations. No one could feel safe in that atmosphere of uncertainty. One morning, my husband had a craving for something different in our daily menu, and insisted on going marketing. I pleaded with him - another few days of lime rice and <i>ikan bilis</i> (preserved anchovies) wouldn't kill anyone! But there was no stopping this die-hard gourmet.</div><div><br />
</div><div>He was gone for hours. Word reached us that the Japs were hauling up young men in house-to-house inspections along Bukit Bintang Road. Finally, my husband returned with some fresh provisions, and a hair-raising account. As he was leaving the market with one of our neighbours, the Japs had stopped them and ordered them to squat by the roadside. Just then, a cyclist appeared and, seeing the Japs, began peddling furiously away. While the Japs were in hot pursuit, my husband had the presence of mind to whisper to our neighbour, "Now or never!" They hastened down an alley and disappeared. That day itself, several hundred men were taken away and never seen again.</div><div><br />
</div><div>We decided that it was time to move again. It would not do to have too many men in one house. But, before we could arrange our departure, the Japs came knocking on our door. It was too early to get drunk and rape a few women - so the females in the Lee household were spared. The menfolk were scrutinised and found to be a respectable, well-fed lot - obviously no communists, secret agents, or gangsters in their midst - so they, too, were spared.</div><div><br />
</div><div>By now, it looked as if the Japs were here to stay. The soldiers must have been under orders to avoid antagonising the locals too much. After all, it is one thing to invade another country - but quite another to try and govern it smoothly.</div><div><br />
</div><div>My father, who had been posted to the Kuala Selangor District Court, decided to resign and move to Sepang, a Foochow stronghold. There, amongst his fellow countrymen, he would be much safer - or so he thought. But no sooner had he arrived in Sepang than he found himself robbed of all his money and clothes!</div><div><br />
</div><div>I was tired of being a refugee. I suggested that my husband apply, in person, for my father's former position as court interpreter. At least, in Kuala Selangor, we would have a house of our own and our children could lead a more normal life. They were now aged six and seven-and-a-half: they needed a proper home routine, some tuition to prepare them for school; and they needed milk and eggs.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Life in Kuala Selangor was idyllic by comparison to what we had left behind in Kuala Lumpur. We had a she-goat to provide milk - just one cup daily and a bit extra for my "face cream." Chickens provided eggs and fresh meat, and we had our own vegetable plot. Despite the constant water shortage, we had little cause for complaint, though we had to make our own oil (from coconuts) for lighting as well as cooking.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"Punchuri" was my immediate neighbour and closest friend. (She was quite a character; you can read about her in the next chapter!) In return for my helping her in various ways, she taught me a little Tamil and explained Hindu culture to me. Even in war-time, I was getting extra education!</div><div><br />
</div><div>In fact, we were all getting a lot of education, in the most unexpected fields. Kuala Selangor was rich in seafood, especially cockles, which the Japanese loved; they would soon can them and ship them back to Japan. My brother-in-law Kong Soon and his friends came to Kuala Selangor to gather shellfish for a living.</div><div><br />
</div><div>It wasn't at all difficult. They rented a small boat, paddled out along the muddy banks of the river, and simply scooped up the shellfish with two shallow buckets, mud and all. They sat at one end of the boat and kept scooping up their catch until the boat was full. Then they would sell the entire boatload to a middleman and call it a day.</div><div><br />
</div><div>We were rather fond of our peaceful lifestyle in scenic old Kuala Selangor, but, towards the end of the war, we were advised to move again. Word had arrived via the "underground network" that a British submarine was sailing into position for an offensive against the Japanese. Our little house was at the foot of the hill on which a Japanese fortress stood, overlooking the sea. It was directly in the line of fire, and certainly not likely to survive the heavy shelling.</div><div><br />
</div><div>And so, after nearly three years in Kuala Selangor, we were refugees once more - this time to a tiny village a few miles away named Parit Besar, literally, "Big Drain"! We had to dig a well for water and build a makeshift bath and toilet behind our new shanty home.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The other residents, mostly "Anchoon" Hookiens, were amused by our genteel touches. Why couldn't we do like them and use the nearby rubber estate as our toilet? And why didn't we bathe at the well like everybody else?</div><div><br />
</div><div>Nevertheless, they soon became very friendly when they discovered how versatile I was: I could teach their children the rudiments of English, sew for them when they managed to obtain some cloth, diagnose their ailments and dispense free medicine (which wasn't too complicated, since malaria was rampant in the village!) I even played midwife when their daughters had babies.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The villagers were generous with sweet potatoes and vegetables and sometimes even rice - so I never really had to slog in the fields under the hot sun.</div><div><br />
</div><div>We remained in "Big Drain" till the British returned. As we loaded our possessions onto the lorry, the entire village came to send us off. We had a live goat, bought with the last of our Japanese Occupation Government currency (a crisp one-thousand banana-dollar note donated by Uncle Ho on his last visit to Kuala Selangor!) I sat up front beside the lorry driver, and as we were about to begin our journey to Kuala Lumpur, a lady whom I knew only as Ah-Mmm ("aunty" in Hokkien) threw a red packet onto my lap. I thanked her and she waved us off, smiling and dabbing her eyes.</div><div><br />
</div><div>When I opened the red packet, I was overwhelmed. Ah-Mmm had put in $20 (British Malayan currency) - a whole month's salary for some people. It could well have been her life savings!</div><div><br />
</div><div>Some years later, when I revisited Kuala Selangor to enjoy a reunion with old friends, Ah-Mmm came with her granddaughter (whom I had delivered) to see me. The poor child had a squint. She must have been left alone all day in her rattan cradle with nothing to look at but the colourful wooden toy attached to a spring!</div><div><br />
</div><div>For some reason, this brings to mind an incident which occurred when we were part of the Parit Besar community. A woman had offered her six-year-old granddaughter as a child bride for my eight-year-old son. The woman added that, if my son didn't fancy her when he grew up, I could keep her as an extra daughter or maid to look after me in my old age. It was a great surprise for me to find such a custom being practised so far away from China, and in that day and age. Yet the practice was not as uncivilized as one might think. A village female didn't have much chance of personal fulfilment: she would be raised as a workhorse, a breeding machine for the family she married into (where, of course, the menfolk would eat first and the womenfolk were welcome to the leftovers). Indeed, it was because the woman loved her granddaughter that she had made me the offer.</div><div><br />
</div><div>My son, like most boys his age, hadn't acquired an interest in the opposite sex, and was visibly upset when he heard about the offer. (We turned it down, of course.) What a narrow escape! But thereafter the child-bride was put to effective use as a threat by our cook Ah Wong. Whenever he was less than obliging in helping her with her errands, she would say:</div><div><br />
</div><div>"Maybe your mother will change her mind and accept a child-bride for you - at least I'd have someone to help me once in a while!"</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
<br />
</div>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-15682034430819414862011-10-18T13:13:00.000-07:002011-10-20T03:29:26.768-07:00"PUNCHURI"MY CEYLONESE NEIGHBOUR in Kuala Selangor was a lady from Jaffna with an extremely long name and a very small stature. We lived in one half of a wooden semi-detached house, and she and her family lived in the other.<div><br /></div><div>She was fastidiously clean - inwardly as well as outwardly -so much so that all the other Jaffnese around avoided her like the plague. "She's trying to be a Brahmin!" they would sneer. Then they would shake their heads and ask me: "How do you manage to tolerate her nonsense?"</div><div><br /></div><div>True, she could be quite a nuisance at times, but I found her fascinating. Whenever she was happy, she would experience religious ecstasies; when provoked by her husband or her sons, she would let fly with a fluent stream of Tamil curses. She walked very slowly and and always had plenty of time to chat - sometimes leaning on her balcony, and other times popping round for a long visit. But she was definitely a source of mental stimulation for me; indeed, Punchuri was an entire "library" for my inquisitive mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1944, the only book in my possession was a midwifery manual which helped me to deliver three babies under less than ideal conditions. I can still recall Ah Mmm's slippery eight-pound granddaughter. Rice being hard to come by, the mother had eaten too much tapioca during her pregnancy, which is why the baby turned out so heavy. There were no towels, so I used the father's new singlets. No proper thread, so I used pineapple fibres, which kept breaking. No rubber mat, only old newspapers strewn on the hard floor for the first-time mother to give birth on. Ah Mmm didn't want to soil the precious mattress.</div><div><br /></div><div>IT WAS ANOTHER pleasant evening in our government-issue wooden bungalow in Kuala Selangor during the third year of the Japanese Occupation. My two children were waiting for their dad to come home for dinner. They had been quietly observing as I chatted with our neighbour. Suddenly, my daughter asked: "Mum, how come her teeth <i>pun choot lay</i>?" ("Pun choot lay" is Cantonese for "to protrude"!)</div><div><br /></div><div>I ignored her question, but from that moment on my children kept referring to her as "Punchuri" - which, I suppose, did sound a little like her Ceylonese name. After a while, she picked this up, and she asked me, "Why your children calling me 'Punchuri'?"</div><div><br /></div><div>I managed to change the subject, but the nickname stuck. Children don't know how to be discreet... but they were right; Punchuri's teeth did protrude in a remarkable way.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>PUNCHURI'S HUSBAND was a chief clerk in a government office. She herself wasn't expected to do any work, owing to her "condition."</div><div><br /></div><div>She had been a lively, healthy teenager until her widowed mother married her off to a man twice her age. At that time, she was fifteen. Her health gave way after the birth of her two sons, and the treatment she received at the hands of her in-laws only caused her more mental anguish. Eventually, she suffered a nervous breakdown, and was now regarded by the family as "psychologically unsound."</div><div><br /></div><div>Punchuri's mother had had a son and two daughters. She had laid careful plans for her son and the fairer daughter. Punchuri, being dark and not as pretty as her sister, had been foisted off on an older man who was willing to accept a much smaller dowry. Punchuri's mother had promised to send the dowry after her son's graduation. However, no dowry came - not even after Punchuri's sister had snared herself a doctor. Now, every time Punchri's sisters-in-law came to the house, they would demand to know when they could expect the dowry. The only blessing was that Punchuri didn't have to cope with a mother-in-law as well; she had died before her son's marriage.</div><div><br /></div><div>The nasty sisters-in-law were in the habit of arriving at Punchuri's home without any luggage. This way, they had an excuse to borrow all her good saris. (Perhaps they had once been guests at a Japanese hotel! I was holidaying in Hokkaido some thirty years later when something reminded me of Punchuri's sisters-in-law; a whole busload of Japanese women checked in at my hotel empty-handed apart from their handbags. Not long afterwards, I encountered them in the village, and they were all clad in identical kimonos and clogs taken from their hotel rooms. Another group of women, also in identical kimonos, but of a different colour, suddenly appeared. At first, I thought that there must be a political convention in the vicinity. It took me a while to realise that it was all part of the hospitality Japanese hotels offered their guests, both male and female, who were thus free to travel unburdened with suitcases. They didn't even need to bring underwear - who would know under those robe-like kimonos?)</div><div><br /></div><div>Shortly after her marriage, Punchuri found that she couldn't eat meat without feeling nausea. So she turned vegetarian, which presented some problems: she felt she couldn't prepare vegetarian food for herself in the same kitchen where carnivorous meals were being cooked. Finally, a solution was worked out: the <i>panjaran</i> (temp;le keeper) would cook her meals, while their own cook supplied her husband and sons with meat dishes.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>ONE NIGHT, Punchuri had a dream. In her dream, she heard the clash of cymbals and the booming of a gong, which signified the arrival of a Royal Personage. Sure enough, Lord Krishna appeared before her bedroom window - and he didn't seem very pleased with her. She knew right away that it was on account of her failure to keep her promise, which was to dress the temple deities in new clothes.</div><div><br /></div><div>The same night Punchuri had her dream, a large brass ornamental plate fell off the mantel shelf in our living room. It made a terrible clatter as it rolled across the room, before coming to a halt with a thunderous clang. Could the brass plate have entered Punchuri's dream as a sound effect? I decided not to mention this at all; the poor woman seemed so distraught that I found myself volunteering to help her fulfill her promise. Little did I know what I had let myself in for.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, I had to clean and polish my sewing machine before starting work on the deities' new clothes. Then I had to bathe myself and change into clean clothes before cycling two-and-a-half miles to the temple and dressing up Punchuri's gods. Some of my Christian friends, I know, will raise their eyebrows at this concession to "paganism," but I had no qualms about performing this service for my neighbour because I was acting out of concern for her health.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>WHENEVER Punchuri had a monthly period, I was roped into special service. I had to go over to her house each time I heard her knock on the plank wall, and deliver food and drink to her on a tray. She would be seated on the floor near the bathroom, in the middle of a circle drawn with chalk. Apparently, her religious beliefs dictated that menstruating women must have an early morning bath and wash their hair before they could enter any part of the house. Since Punchuri was usually too sickly to carry out this ritual, she was required to spend the day just sitting in one spot, like a leper. Punchuri certainly knew how to make life difficult for herself. She would sit only in the children's cane chairs whenever she visited us; she felt the grownups' chairs were "unclean" since we observed no elaborate rituals during our monthly periods.</div><div><br /></div><div>One day, she invited her son's Tamil teacher over to read my children's palms. According to his reading, my daughter had God's gift of healing, but my son had the gift of the gab and would make a good lawyer or preacher. Thereafter, Punchuri always insisted that my daughter measure out her medicine for her. The palmist proved correct about my daughter; she did become a doctor. He was completely wrong about my son, however. His job is putting people to sleep (he became an anaesthetist)!</div><div><br /></div><div>Punchuri told me many stories about Hindu gods and goddesses and how they relate to Man. From her accounts, it would seem fairly hazardous for a Hindu god to commit any injustice, for all it takes is the curse of a righteous woman to burn down the god's heavenly abode!</div><div><br /></div><div>I kept in occasional touch with Punchuri after the war years. She must have valued my friendship greatly, for when my daughter departed for her medical studies in Singapore, Punchuri sent her husband to the airport bearing a sovereign gold coin as a gift. This was indeed a generous gesture, from a man who had always been very careful with his money.</div><div><br /></div><div>I heard that Punchuri's elder son married a girl from a lower caste and moved to Sarawak, and that the younger, more obedient son remained a bachelor. Over the years, Punchuri seemed to have grown stronger, while her husband eventually developed a heart condition. The last time I tried to visit Punchuri, her home in Brickfields had been demolished to make way for redevelopment, and I lost touch with her.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-84237562285151540372011-09-13T02:32:00.001-07:002012-03-23T06:38:19.179-07:00MY DAUGHTER DIXIE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_aEd4uu5FUYjiKQycqYMD8tHKJANjrnpjYobPrr8CB5W8S3MGfDb0-7GMfmQ-b65sbLTnDTSCASSN9x8lJJviliE4AWDUgcl2NGICLHt5xO0Y_SIInhUd0uvBQdZaSeCtrH03tsa6Vk/s1600/dixie%252Bsonny41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_aEd4uu5FUYjiKQycqYMD8tHKJANjrnpjYobPrr8CB5W8S3MGfDb0-7GMfmQ-b65sbLTnDTSCASSN9x8lJJviliE4AWDUgcl2NGICLHt5xO0Y_SIInhUd0uvBQdZaSeCtrH03tsa6Vk/s400/dixie%252Bsonny41.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>Dixie & Sonny, circa 1941</i><br />
<div><i><br />
</i></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
She was pretty chubby as a child and always insisted that she was born in Shanghai. The truth was, her father was in Shanghai as a participant in the China Olympics the day Dixie was born: November 6th, 1935. She must have heard him speak of the excitement and wonder that was Shanghai, the precocious thing, and felt that Kuala Lumpur wasn’t exotic enough a place to be born in.<br />
<br />
Anyway, her father (like every typical Asian father) had expected his first-born to be a boy and returned from China with heaps of beautiful suits for a baby boy! Fortunately Dixie managed to charm him the moment he held her in his arms – and before long he was getting out of bed to administer her night feeds while I slept like a log.<br />
<br />
Dixie was scarcely ten days old, and her father was still on the slow boat home from China, when she developed a sore throat and couldn’t drink her milk. My mother-in-law promptly took charge of the situation. She saw white specks in her granddaughter’s little mouth and immediately ordered her adopted daughter to fetch the jar of preserved vegetables. I watched as Dixie’s mouth was cleaned out with bits of salted vegetable. What else could I do? I was an obedient, frightened, nineteen-year-old mother, an alien in my husband’s household, where his mother’s word was law. She was fond of telling me that she had eaten more salt than I had eaten rice. And she was right – at least on this occasion – for Dixie got better with impressive speed.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, I was overjoyed when my husband received a posting in Temerloh the following year. It was a Godforsaken town, but it gave me the chance to be mistress-of-the-house, and there was ample space in our quarters for a toddler to enjoy free range. But these were hard times, and permanent postings were hard to secure. We soon found ourselves back in Kuala Lumpur under matriarchal rule.<br />
<br />
Around this time, Dixie had an abscess in he right arm which, I thought, required simple surgery. But my mother-in-law forbade me to take Dixie to a hospital. Instead, she applied a poultice of ginseng slices on the abscess until it ripened and burst. When the wound still hadn’t healed after a few days, I began plotting ways to take Dixie to a Western doctor without the matriarch’s knowledge.<br />
<br />
Fate intervened, and my husband was posted to Kuala Lipis on short notice to replace another court interpreter who was on leave. And so I was finally able to take my own daughter to see a doctor! As it turned out, the “doctor” who attended to Dixie’s unhealed wound was only a hospital assistant – but he certainly didn’t object to being addressed as “Doctor.” The daily dressing of the wound was so simple that I could have done it myself, but one couldn’t risk offending the almighty hospital assistant (particularly if one happened to be a woman), so one had to act dumb and play along with his game. Bear in mind that there were no private clinics to be found – even if one could afford such a luxury!<br />
<br />
The Kuala Lipis District Hospital was situated on a hill – and our government-issue bungalow was atop another. Buses and taxis were an idea that hadn’t yet reached this particular neck of the woods. And the area was too hilly for trishaws or bicycles. So I walked – or, rather, trudged – the distance between our house and the hospital every day with a well-fed one-and-a-half-year-old around my waist. I thought of all the frontier women I had seen with one child on their hips or backs, another child clutching their hands, and an unborn one bouncing around in their bellies (I myself was in the family way again!) – and though the reality was certainly no picnic, the image was picturesque enough to make it all seem very worthwhile.<br />
<br />
Dixie’s wound was stubborn, and I lost count of the times I had to negotiate those hills. But by God’s grace it finally healed, though it left an ugly scar on Dixie’s arm. The little hardships I had to endure were more than made up for by the many happy moments we had in that rambling old house with its long, wide verandah. Dixie loved to explore every nook and corner of that beautiful and comfortable bungalow.<br />
<br />
Her little brother Choong Keet arrived on the 8th of July, 1937. My husband bought us a push-cart, as Dixie was getting too heavy to carry for long, so I used it to wheel her around on little visits, especially to our good friends, the nurses who lived nearby.<br />
<br />
One evening, they invited us to tea at their quarters – a rare treat indeed, for it would be Dixie’s first “grown-up” party! She was all dolled up in her favourite outfit, and I left her to attend to my own dressing up – but when I was ready to go, I noticed to my horror that she had plastered her entire head with Vaseline from he dad’s dressing table! We had to cancel the tea but – since only doctors and high-ranking civil servants were supplied with telephones – I had to travel up hill and down dale to the nurses’ quarters to explain why we had to miss the tea party.<br />
<br />
My husband’s next posting was in Bentong, Pahang. Dixie was by now four-and-a-half, and she had mastered the alphabet. She also knew her Chinese primer (Book One) by heart and could recite the whole thing in Cantonese. She was bored with all her books (she had never cared for dolls and other toddler toys) and longed to join all the kids she saw going to school on the public bus. I was apprehensive about her wanting to commute to school at such a tender age – but realised she was ready for more learning experiences than could be found at home.<br />
<br />
Government servants were held in high esteem in those days, and the bus drivers all knew what position Dixie’s dad held in the Secretariat. At any rate, they were extremely friendly and helpful, and that eased my mind about letting Dixie set off by herself to school each day. There she was, a stickler for punctuality with her little suitcase holding her drink, her biscuits, and one cent as pocket money. Dixie had asked for the suitcase and the pocket money; she knew exactly what it took to be an adult!<br />
<br />
One day, Dixie missed her regular bus and was left behind in school. She had run off to ease herself just before the bus arrived. Her schoolmates, whose ages ranged from eight to twelve, for some reason were all afraid to speak up, coming as they did from families where children were not encouraged to display any initiative – at least, that was how the school principal explained it to me later. What did Dixie do? Rather than knock on the principal’s door (she lived just above the school), Dixie decided to cross the road to the bus station, where she managed to board another bus – after assuring the bus driver that she would pay the five-cent fare upon reaching home.<br />
<br />
We were in the middle of lunch when Dixie charged in, breathlessly asking for five cents to pay the bus driver. Then she came back in and burst into tears. I should have just picked her up, put her on my lap and comforted her. Instead, I told her there was no reason to cry, since her small ordeal was over. I was an ignorant mother, only twenty-four, and I knew absolutely nothing about child psychology.<br />
<br />
<br />
DIXIE WAS FIVE and Choong Keet three-and-a-half when the Japs landed on the east coast of Malaya in rubber dinghies – smack in the middle of the monsson season. For us, World War II had arrived. No one had ever dreamed the invasion would happen so swiftly. The British had been totally complacent – after all, no boats could survive the rough seas at that time of the year! Well, the Japs did very well in their rubber boats, and then they jumped on collapsible bicycles and pedalled down the length of the peninsula!<br />
My husband and I were volunteers in the St. John’s Ambulance. We witnessed the fear and confusion all around us and saw many families scattered by sheer panic. As a safeguard against such an event, I had two large silver pendants inscribed with the children’s names, their parents’ names and address, and other particulars. Dixie and Choong Keet were instructed to wear these pendants around their necks at all times, and I also equipped them with two miniature knapsacks containing milk powder, biscuits, a change of clothes, and some money.<br />
<br />
On top of all the anxiety of the times, both children and I came down with chicken pox. We survived by boiling and drinking large quantities of <i>chee chou yong</i> (a species of crystallised red herb). All semblance of routine existence had broken down. Rumours were rife, and well-meaning friends offered their advice, most of which only served to bewilder us even more. At last, we decided to accept the offer of refuge extended by the manager of a rubber estate in Karak. Mr. Ho Chee Cheong had recently constructed additional labourers’ quarters, and was kind enough to accommodate our entire family, along with those of other government servants.<br />
<br />
Bananas and sweet potatoes grew in abundance on the estate, and my husband had managed to procure some government warehouse rice, mixed with lime as a preservative. Life in the Karak estate seemed peaceful enough on the surface – but we were constantly on our toes.<br />
<br />
The Japanese advance guard had an uncanny instinct when it came to ferreting out stores of food and other valuables. Watches and jewellery were highly prized: some of the Japs wore “confiscated” watches all the way up their arms! Each time a Jap patrol entered the estate, all the womenfolk ran and hid in the wild undergrowth. My domestic, Ah Wong, carried Choong Keet on her back and disappeared behind the bushes, while Dixie and I buried ourselves under the tall weeds. Sometimes we had to remain in hiding the better part of a day. The Jap patrols enjoyed lazing about the estate, demanding to be served hot meals and drinking whatever they could lay their hands on.<br />
<br />
Our supply of lime rice was soon exhausted. We had been sharing it with the estate labourers. Now, we could sense a ripple of discontent amongst them; we heard reports that the labourers were whispering conspiratorially about all the cash the government servants had on their persons (it was true that my my husband had received a three-month bonus just before the British administration collapsed in disarray). We no longer felt safe on the estate, what with all this covert talk about the virtues of “sharing wealth.”<br />
<br />
So we arranged, through the good offices of Mr. Ho the estate manager, to move ourselves and all our belongings in the middle of the night, over several miles of uneven track, in pitch darkness, to a hired lorry, which was waiting to pick us up by the main road and take us to Kuala Lumpur. As we drove through Bentong in the eerie predawn light, we could see human heads stuck on spikes all over the marketplace. These had belonged to people executed by the Japanese for robbery and looting.<br />
<br />
We chose to go to Kuala Lumpur, thinking that in times of chaos and terror it was best to be in a big town, where we could lose ourselves in anonymity. Into a single-storey, three-room house we crammed ourselves with all my husband’s brothers. And all of us had enormous appetites. I had to sell my gold jewellery to keep the extended family fed. We had such heaps of foodstuffs that we seriously considered going into business, retailing much-sought-after provisions. Alas, the merchandise was quickly consumed before any of it could be sold!<br />
<br />
God has always helped us out of a tight spot – although in my youth I never quite perceived it that way, not being particularly religious. But I realise now that God blesses and takes care of each of us in His own way. Just as things were becoming difficult in Kuala Lumpur, my husband was able to take over my father’s post in Kuala Selangor. My father had decided to move to Sepang, where there was a high concentration of his countrymen, the Foochows.<br />
<br />
The Japanese Occupation Government was now in the process of consolidating its rule over Malaya – and that meant retaining as many civil servants in their original posts as possible to ensure continuity of services.<br />
<br />
Our sojourn in Kuala Selangor was a badly-needed relief from the stresses and strains of the preceding months. We had it so good in Kuala Selangor, in fact, that soon our relatives began sending their children to stay with us. At least they were assured of some wholesome food until better times prevailed.<br />
<br />
There was talk that a large amusement park was about to open in Kuala Lumpur; they would need entertainers, waiters and waitresses by the score. Since Dixie had learned a few Japanese songs, some of her aunts suggested that she try her luck as a professional songbird in Kuala Lumpur. I dismissed such an outrageous suggestion immediately. My daughter was hardly ten! I also voiced my objection to the whole idea of my young nieces being sent out to work as waitresses; it was the best way to ensure their meeting the wrong sort of men. The amusing irony of it all - when you consider that my own father would later be part of the regular clientele a the very same amusement park.<br />
<br />
<br />
AROUND THE MIDDLE of 1945, we received word on the grapevine that British submarines were about to shell the Japanese military headquarters on a hilltop overlooking Kuala Selangor. Our humble wooden bungalow was right at the foot of that hill! The attack could happen at any moment, so there was no time to waste. By now, we had had lots of practice packing up quietly and quickly. This time, we relocated to a remote village which everyone called “the Big Drain” – a literal translation of “Parit Besar.”<br />
<br />
There we learned that fresh toddy (coconut wine) contained lots of Vitamin B.* So we didn’t object to Dixie’s habit of wandering off into the coconut groves, where she would drink her fill of the sweet, intoxicating grog, before returning home with a huge jug for us. Whatever we couldn’t finish was kept till it fermented, and then used in lieu of vinegar. Dixie was fond of helping us scrape coconuts: we had a pedal-powered contraption that worked very efficiently, though it was none too safe for the butter-fingered. From the coconut scrapings we could obtain fresh coconut milk, as well as oil for cooking and lighting. The residue was fed to the chickens.<br />
<br />
<i>[*Or so we thought at the time; I have since learned that this is not true.]</i><br />
<br />
In Parit Besar, I learned to draw water from a well and transport it in two tins balanced on a kandar stick – the way construction workers do it! Ah Wong, our faithful domestic, turned out to be an excellent gardener: she worked all day long in the field, planting all kinds of vegetables for our own consumption. I took over her indoor duties – while continuing to give tuition to my children and, later, to a few other children from the village. In exchange for sweet potatoes and the odd kati of rice, I did some tailoring for the locals, and even performed some simple doctoring on the side.<br />
<br />
More than once I found myself playing midwife to the neighbours. Dixie, too, had proven herself adept at amateur midwifery some years back, when our she-goat was in labour. I couldn’t fit into the tiny goat-shelter, so I got Dixie to do the needful. Armed with a piece of rag, she crawled into the the shelter and delivered the kid. She even cleaned it and took out the placenta without the slightest qualm or queasiness. I knew then that she would make a good doctor!<br />
<br />
During the war years, we had the opportunity to sample an exotic variety of meats – monkey, iguana, musang (civet cat), even dog! Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to participate in these adventurous feasts, so I usually had an early dinner of poached eggs and went out visiting, to avoid witnessing the slaughter of these poor creatures (Ah Wong was quite expert at it). To the Chinese, these rare meats are considered not only delicious, but also medicinal.<br />
<br />
<br />
DIXIE AND SONNY (for that was what everyone was calling Choong Keet) managed to acquire a basic grasp of English and a little arithmetic. We had no textbooks. It was too dangerous to keep books in English about the house, for if the Japanese ever came to know about it the punishment would be severe. Of course, Dixie and Sonny also had to learn some Japanese, if only to avoid getting slapped whenever they ran into some Japanese soldiers!<br />
<br />
As soon as the British returned and English schools were reopened, I sent Dixie to St. Mary’s, my alma mater. She was admitted into Standard III – but within a term was promoted to Standard IV. In 1946, my husband was posted to Raub, in Pahang. Dixie was enrolled in a co-educational government school – the only English-medium school in town. Within a year she was given a double promotion to Standard VI. She did so well that another double promotion was offered to her – but I felt it was unfair for her to miss out on her childhood by moving so rapidly through school. So I turned down the offer. I didn’t want to see Dixie turn into an adult before her time!<br />
<br />
She was now at an age when boys would take notice of her and occasionally harass her. When she complained about this, we decided to put her in the Senior Methodist Girls’ School in Kuala Lumpur, where she could live with her youngest aunt until the school hostel was ready. This suited her fine, for this was Dixie’s favourite aunt.<br />
<br />
I accompanied my youngest sister Moong Wai and her young children to Hong Kong, where my brother-in-law Hai Kee was studying to be a doctor. When the family had settled in comfortably, I returned to Malaya, only to learn that, in my absence, my husband had been transferred to the Supreme Court in Kuala Lumpur. What a wonderful surprise! He told me that he had been recommended to the Supreme Court by one of the judges who had been impressed by his work in the Raub district court. So here we were, back together in the capital, and doing better than could be hoped!<br />
<br />
Dixie completed her A-levels when she was only sixteen – too young to be admitted to the University of Malaya in Singapore. In the interim, I arranged for her to teach Junior One classes at the Confucian Secondary School, a private Chinese medium institution. It proved to be a tough job for Dixie. Most of the boys were the sons of hawkers and shopkeepers – in other words, none too genteel or particularly motivated to learn. Seeing a fresh-faced teacher just a few years senior to them in age, the boys decided to become a major disciplinary problem for Dixie. I didn’t realise what the situation was, though I was teaching in the same school – but I had the Senior Twos and Threes, and had already gotten used to the “tough” behaviour of Chinese school “baddies.”<br />
<br />
Dixie kept quiet about it – until one day she simply walked out of the classroom and went home. The class monitor appeared at the house with an official delegation to lodge a formal apology – but Dixie absolutely refused to see them. They later wrote her an eloquent letter, begging to know why the honourable school teacher had made the whole class “scrape the dust” (the most terrible humiliation imaginable) by refusing to accept their sincere apology. Dixie didn’t see this as their asking for a second chance; she submitted her resignation and, with the money she had earned, paid for her own passage on a holiday with me. We sailed on a Dutch liner for Hong Kong – a very restful six-day voyage, discounting bouts of seasickness.<br />
<br />
The following year, Dixie gained admission into the second year of the University’s medical programme. She managed to complete the six-year medical course in four years and eight months! She also met her future husband, a senior medical student.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-13838375678743779932011-08-10T22:22:00.000-07:002011-10-18T10:58:26.249-07:00THE PUNISHMENTTHIRD SISTER was an incorrigible mahjong player, partly because she was a pampered daughter and wife – very unusual in an Asian family. Her mother was a nyonya and, like all Peranakan women, she loved her daughters more than her sons (this was generally true, though particular sons enjoyed special favour with the Matriarch).<br /><br />Both Second and Third Sisters stayed gratis in their mother’s home with their entire families. In reciprocation they paid their mother a token tribute of “cake money.” Eventually, of course, this practice resulted in the complete exhaustion of the family wealth due to extravagance and poor management.<br /><br />But, as long as the money lasted, womenfolk from such backgrounds had practically nothing to do. They were provided with slaves to look after their children. Some had personal maids to comb their hair. Others had maids assigned to serve their husbands, which invariably led to connubial complications. However, as nyonyas were well known for their aggressiveness and ferocity, such occurrences were rarer than in, for instance, Cantonese families. Anyway, their husbands would hesitate to try anything “funny” while living in their mother-in-law’s house – and after years of being dominated by women (first by their own mothers and later by their mother-in-law) they would naturally have become very docile and dependent. (It’s hard to imagine any mother-in-law today who would want to maintain their sons-in-law, plus their families. Today’s mother-in-law would surely prefer to spend her fortune vacationing abroad!)<br /><br />Third Sister’s mahjong habit began unremarkably enough. She would come home each evening before dinner time and no eyebrows were raised. As time went by, she grew bolder and bolder, and soon she was absent from home till midnight. Her timid husband put up with her waywardness until he could no longer bear it. He decided it was time he had a heart attack. In those days a heart attack was very different from what it means today: if someone clutched his heart in agony and cried out that he couldn’t breathe, it usually indicated that he was in deep emotional distress and could not articulate his suffering.<br /><br />Which is precisely what Third Sister’s long-suffering husband did. I knew it was all for show and that he was in no danger of expiring. He didn’t dare admonish his wife directly. To him she was a valuable prize, worthy of undying love and worship. He had, in fact, been offered another girl from a richer family as his wife, but had chosen to marry Third Sister – even though some people considered it a real humiliation to be subject to matriarchal rule (the Cantonese called it “being taken in by the bride”). In any case, Third Brother-in-Law undoubtedly loved his wife dearly – and she knew it. I suppose she was pushing the limits.<br /><br />The house we lived in was a rambling sort of bungalow, single-storey, with a huge compound where sports and games were played, ideal as a setting for a soap opera. When we heard Third Brother-in-Law groaning and complaining in between coughing fits that he couldn’t breathe, the elders of the household (his mother-in-law, brother-in-law and elder sister-in-law) rushed to the rescue with hot water and pungent oil for the “wind.” I woke my husband up and said I was going down to help, too, but he stopped me, saying that juniors should not interfere. Apparently it was a Cantonese custom. His father had been a typical Cantonese and his mother a typical nyonya. I realised that I still had much to learn about the two very different strands of tradition observed in this household.<br /><br />It was obvious that Third Brother-in-Law’s violent coughing and his “heart attack” had been timed to wake the household up just before the return of his prodigal wife. The elders administered the oriental treatment for chest pains and breathlessness: a vigorous massage with medicated oil and a pot of hot tea. After the anxiety and fuss had subsided a little, the atmosphere became brooding and angry. No words were spoken, but everyone knew that Third Brother-in-Law’s “attack” was caused by a serious transgression in the family. Now, added to the anger was a sense of collective guilt. In ancient China, whenever a wrongful act had been committed, not only the culprit but his immediate family, his extended family, all his relatives including those bearing his surname, would be executed; sometimes a whole village could be erased by this tradition of collective accountability! Considering that one was required to pay ancestral debts unto the third or fourth generation, it’s a miracle that China has always had such a large population.<br /><br />Third Sister was let in fearful and trembling. The living room lights were on. Three sisters with formidable faces were seated in council in their rosewood chairs: the silence was as cold as the marble inlayson the backs of the elders’ chairs. For months, Third Sister had been sneaking in after her mahjong sessions – and her loving and obedient husband had been quietly unbolting the door for her. But tonight… he was indisposed.<br />The eldest brother, representing the late paterfamilias, was the “Chief Judge.” The Mater, seated on his left, was the ”Prosecutor.” Elder Sister was the “Witness.”<br /><br />I couldn’t contain myself. I just had to open my bedroom door, a discreet slit, to watch the drama. For someone like me, who had been brought up in a Christian (that is, more westernized) household, it was like a scene out of a Chinese opera! My husband kept saying it was wrong to eavesdrop on Third Sister’s moment of humiliation. Well, I was quite sure he wouldn’t “report” on me – and even if someone caught me, apart from the embarrassment, it would be interesting to find out what manner of “punishment” would be devised for my crime!<br /><br />Despite the heaviness of her belly (she was nearing full term in her pregnancy), Third Sister knelt before the Family Tribunal. The charge was read. She confessed and promised to “sin” no more. A ruler was produced (there being no sword in the house). The “Judge” tapped her on the shoulder three times. Her husband, recovering in bed, called out for leniency. Third Sister was told, in the severest of tones, that she would henceforth be kicked out of the house if she came home after 11 p.m. Thus ended the punishment.<br /><br />Not long after this incident the baby arrived – and Third Sister’s mahjong evenings resumed. Her devoted husband was soon conspiratorially unbolting the front door for her whenever she came home late.<div><br />As the saying goes: “Who can say anything if the husband remains silent?”</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-68123871359270065152011-08-08T22:11:00.000-07:002011-10-18T10:25:49.140-07:00ALL SOULS' DAYTHE CHINESE observe All Souls’ Day as if they are going on a picnic. This is what I discovered when I married into the Lee clan.<br /><br />The clan elders would see to it that the younger generations of Lees attended and performed all the rituals. Usually, the only way to dodge All Souls’ Day would be to fall ill – or to produce astrological evidence that indicated an unfavourable outcome if you had to step across strangers’ tombs to get to your ancestors’. You see, certain spirits take offence to certain people stepping over or even walking past their resting places.<br /><br />On a typical All Souls’ Day, the Lee clan would assemble in the home of the eldest Lee. Then the entire motorcade would proceed to the cemetery, winding slowly along the narrow, badly maintained roads to reach their ancestral burial sites.<br /><br />I remember the big baskets full of goodies – one for each soul. In each basket were quantities of rice, roast pork, boiled eggs, wine and fruit. Grandmother, in addition to her basket of offerings, had two large paper trunks filled with paper clothes – to be delivered to her spirit world by flame. Pocket money for the departed was part of the fiery consignment, the paper currency folded in the shape of gold ingots used in old China. All this unearthly paraphernalia had to be unloaded from the boots of our cars and transported manually to the gravesides.<br /><br />First, the tombs had to be swept, and joss sticks and candles lit. One of the elders served as emcee for the ritual. He would announce each family member as he or she executed the three bows of fealty, before sticking a joss stick in the urn. After a decent interval, during which the spirit of the ancestor would have had ample time to savour the food, the living members of the clan would make themselves comfortable and consume the edibles. The same ritual would be repeated a each tomb. Afterwards, the Lee descendants would disperse, taking with them the empty baskets, and the picnic would be over.<br /><br />Each burial site had been selected with the advice of a geomancer well-versed in the language of Wind and Water (<i>feng shui</i>). The future prosperity of the Lee clan depended on auspicious interment of the ancestral bones; and one of the significators of prosperity was the number of descendants. Our geomancer was undoubtedly a competent one, for the Lee family is considered large even among the Chinese.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-24048130222466524392011-07-04T13:13:00.000-07:002011-10-18T10:25:34.416-07:00MY HOME IN PESIARAN AMPANGTHE DAY'S WORK DONE, I drag my tired self to the balcony, my private haven for meditation and relaxation. As my eyes rest on the blue and misty hills in the far horizon, the words of Psalm 121 spring to mind:<br /><br /><i>I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, </i><i>from whence cometh my help.</i><br /><br />To my right a solitary coconut tree sways gracefully in the cool, gentle breeze. The setting sun looks like a luminous oversized yolk from a fresh and healthy egg. Night will soon be here; twilight quickly ends in the tropics.<br /><br />The swallows hurrying home are flying in the direction of an abandoned mining pool whose calm and limpid waters conceal great treachery; already it has claimed at least half a dozen young lives. None but the foolish or the ignorant would venture to swim in that pool. Among the superstitious, it is said that the woeful spirits of the drowned are ever in search of new victims to take their place, for until they can produce a proxy, they will know no freedom, nor can they reincarnate.<br /><br />I have tried many times to explain where the danger lies: the long waterweed that undulates with the undercurrents can entangle the legs of swimmers. The harder they struggle, the more entangled they get, and sometimes the uneven bed of the mining pool produces unexpected whirlpools...<br /><br />My reverie is interrupted by the sharp bark of my dog, Ciro. I peer down into the garden and am just in time to see a green snake ringed with bright yellow slither into the bamboo clumps.<br /><br />"Oh, those accursed bamboos, lair of snakes and iguanas!" I have so often uttered under my breath, but the old dame, our cook, simply refuses to have them cut down. "Where are we going to get poles for drying clothes; leaves for wrapping rice dumplings when the Fifth Moon comes around; or switch-brooms to springclean before Chinese New Year?" she will retort. And, as usual, she has her way. She has always had the final say as far as the back garden is concerned - and rightly so, since it was she who transformed the patch of unruly undergrowth into the fruiting and flowering miracle it now is.<br /><br />Bananas, papayas, guava and sugarcane grow in such abundance that friends have facetiously suggested I export them.<i> Start a factory, the price of sugar is going up!</i> The Chinese view it as a crime to leave good land idle; hence every usable square foot of our garden is planted with fruits and beautiful flowers.<br /><br />Ah, the flowers! They grow not only in the garden but also in the fields beyond, in a hundred glorious hues and patterns. God has indeed dressed the fields with greater finery than Solomon was ever able to adorn his mistresses. Chrysanthemums, roses, lilies, bougainvilleas, hydrangeas and cannas galore! At midday the scorching sun tried its best to subdue them, but now in the evening cool, their flowery spirits revived, they are lifting their fragrant faces towards heaven in praise and thanksgiving. And they will do the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and ever after...<br /><br /><i>The night fairies will soon be home!</i> All Chinese girls are taught never to pick flowers after sunset.<br /><br />I offer a silent prayer of pure joy and gratitude for the daily blessings the Lord showers upon us.<br /><br />It is now more than three decades since I had to move from my home in Pesiaran Ampang, but the tranquil view from my balcony passes before my inner eye each time I find myself adrift in timeless reverie.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-83797346043089634492011-07-04T00:49:00.000-07:002011-10-18T10:25:22.303-07:00THE OLD STONE BENCH"HUNDRED AND THREE, hundred and four, hundred and five..."<br /><br />Joey was determined to be the skipping rope champion in her school and was feeling elated at her progress. As she kept count under her breath, her attention momentarily fell on her grandpa sitting on the old stone bench in the garden.<br /><br />"He's dreaming again, just like he always does when we're watching the ships on the horizon," she thought, careful not to lose her rhythm.<br /><br />"Hundred and fifteen, hundred and sixteen, hundred and seventeen, hundred and eighteen..."<br /><br />Joey loved looking at the distant ships with her grandpa whenever the two of them went on long strolls down the esplanade.<br /><br />"Hundred and twenty-two, hundred and twenty-three, hundred and twenty-four, hundred and twenty-five! Now let's see Lucy try and beat that!" Satisfied with her achievement, Joey dropped the rope and ran over to the stone bench, planting her plump little buttocks down with a resounding plop and disturbing her grandpa from his reverie.<br /><br />"Joey! How many times..." Grandpa spluttered and then, seeing the mock innocence on Joey's irresistible face, he smiled, though a little wearily.<br /><br />"Why do you keep looking at that house, Grandpa?" Joey asked, in her sweetest voice.<br /><br />This seemed to catch Grandpa off guard and, to give himself time to think of an appropriate answer, he cleared his throat with great seriousness. He put an arm around his inquisitive, eight-year-old, chubby and utterly adorable granddaughter. She was definitely the apple of his eye.<br /><br />"See those beautiful roses? I was admiring them. I love roses," he said, pointing in the general direction of the rose bushes across the road.<br /><br />Joey knew her grandpa was fibbing. He'd always been more interested in fruit trees than flowers. But something in his voice made her stop probing. Instead, she shrugged and ran off to try and break her own record on the rope. She remembered her mother's comment a few days ago that Grandpa was behaving oddly, giving up his comfortable rocking chair on the verandah for that cold, hard stone bench, and dreaming away for hours. He must be getting senile! Joey didn't know what "senile" meant, but she could guess that it had to do with extreme old age.<br /><br />"Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four..."<br /><br />Grandpa's back was aching after so many hours on the stone bench. Suddenly his face lit up, like a child who has just been offered a bar of chocolate. He noticed that the roses were in bloom - red, yellow, pink and white - and the bushes had been recently pruned... because he could now see a slender figure in a white blouse and red floral sarong watering the plants, very lovingly, very gracefully.<br /><br />Most elegant women had <i>quah-chee</i> faces - the shape of melon seeds - and if she was a <i>nyonya</i> (as she appeared to be by her manner of dressing), she must be using <i>bedak sejuk</i>*... good heavens, perhaps she was also a habitual betel-nut chewer - such a hideous indulgence, to discolour one's pearly teeth! Banish these unkind thoughts... ah, she's moving towards the gate!<br /><br />Grandpa's heart began to palpitate. He must find a way to meet her, to have a good look at her at close quarters, but how? As the days passed, his thoughts grew feverish and sometimes he completely lost interest in his meals. He noticed the anxiety written all over the faces of his loved ones. "Are you all right, Grandpa?" everyone kept asking, to his utmost irritation. But he managed to keep a poker face, at the same time feeling quite guilty at finding himself in this ridiculous situation - to be in love like a forlorn puppy at his age!<br /><br />Everything comes to one who waits. Grandpa remembered this from the scriptures. One afternoon, from his position on the stone bench, he saw his dream woman open the heavy front gate for the fishmonger and the butcher. She did this with such dignity and elegance! Then she beckoned them in. Grandpa's heart sank. How would it look if he went over on the pretext on wanting to buy some provisions? No, it wouldn't do: etiquette demanded that he call the vendors over and look over their wares in his own front yard...<br /><br />A whole week went by. Grandpa was rewarded by the sight of his dream woman opening and closing the gate for various members of her household. She must be married! But the man could also be her brother; there was some resemblance... Oh, look, there's her fluffy Pekinese rushing out on the road, chasing after the car that has driven off!<br /><br />Grandpa found himself out of the front gate in a trice, running after the dog. The woman had started in pursuit, but she was no match for the septuagenarian. He picked up the dog as it paused to urinate against the kerb, cooing reassuringly to it. As he turned to hand over his temporary charge, his gaze fell full on the woman's face. She was smiling, no doubt impressed by the old man's swiftness. She was the spitting image of Betty, his beloved late wife. In fact, she might have been Betty's twin, notwithstanding the forty-year difference, but Betty had never had any sisters...<br /><br />"Beautiful dog," he said, quickly regaining his composure.<br /><br />"Thank you, thank you very much... are you all right?" the vision said, expressing concern at Grandpa's laboured breathing.<br /><br />"Of course! Never felt better - bit of exercise, you know!"<br /><br />Grandpa walked slowly back to the old stone bench, feeling elated. A miracle had taken place! She was real... he had spoken with her... they could... anyway, they could now wave to one another across the road for a start.<br /><br />_______<br />*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">traditional skin-cooling rice powder used by some local women</span>M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255710575592257710.post-35268879869076954112011-07-03T09:18:00.000-07:002011-10-18T10:25:00.595-07:00BOREDOM? NEVER!"I'M BORED TO DEATH! Every morning, crawling to work through the traffic, I ask myself why I shouldn't take optional retirement," Joy said with a long, drawn-out sigh.<br /><br />I glanced at Joy. There was certainly little joy on her face. But that's life in the city for you! The city - how it seduces the young from the <i>kampongs</i>, with its bright lights, its tinsel and glitter, its fool's gold!<br /><br />There had to be a way to cheer Joy up, get her feeling positive.<br /><br />"Joy, look at that young man in the red car; he's enjoying his music so much he's actually dancing in his seat!"<br /><br />Joy cast a disapproving look at him, but I could feel her tension easing a little. All around us were routine scenes of joylessness and negativity. Mothers yelling at their kids, couples quarrelling heatedly in their cars, their flushed, irritated faces betraying the boredom and stress of their lives. Just another traffic jam.<br /><br />Fortunately, I have learned the art of amusing myself even under the most trying conditions. Pedestrians on both sides of the road, or passing in front of my car, are a rich source of entertainment, literally a moving picture, produced and directed by Life.<br /><br />Wow! Here's a highly fashionable Sweet Young Thing, short locks waving pertly in the breeze, wearing a blouse twice her size and a skirt so tight it could split right open at any moment, and she's wobbling along atop a pair of four-inch heels... whoops! Now right behind her is a very voluptuous damsel wearing an almost identical outfit, what a coincidence! Coming up next is a skinny young man in a huge hurry whose hairstyle is absolutely cat-and-mouse - the front sticks up like a cat's whiskers and the back is braided into a long, ratty tail! And look at his pants, and those oversized shoes - he must have escaped from a circus!<br /><br />The trick is to filter out and totally ignore those who are conservatively dressed.<br /><br />Waiting for people to show up after they've phoned to announce their intention to visit ("I'm coming over soon!") can easily lead to acute boredom and stress. What I do is to pick up last month's issue of <i>Reader's Digest</i>. Or sweep the dust off the top of my piano. Or mentally select my wardrobe for the forthcoming Church Annual Dinner or So-and-So's birthday banquet or the next YWCA Fundraising Dinner. You'd be surprised how much idle time stuff like that consumes. And when the visitor finally turns up, gushing apologies for taking an hour-and-a-half to arrive, you can be the perfect host and say you didn't mind one bit - and actually mean it!<br /><br />There's really no excuse for anyone to say, "I'm bored to tears." Not even if you happen to be a housewife. If you're tired of trying out new recipes or working on your garden, there are <i>always</i> good books you haven't read, parts of your mind you haven't stimulated - and no end of letters to write. It's definitely better exercise than gossiping on the phone half the day!<br /><br />All the different types of stressful boredom are compounded when you find yourself visiting a friend or relative in hospital, and you have to keep him or her company for hours, without actually being the usual definition of "company." Boredom added to anxiety and fatigue intensifies the stress. You can pray - though not for hours on end. And you can reminisce, mentally reviewing the happy moments you've shared with the loved one now knocking on death's door, so that the value of your friendship is experienced fully once again. This certainly helps to make you feel very glad to be there, despite the small discomforts and inconvenience. In fact, these quiet moments spent watching over a sick friend or relative can be infinitely rewarding - at least you can experience what it's like to be a guardian angel!<br /><br />So never, never be bored. If you are, you can be sure that it's entirely of your own making. Boredom is often the sign of a negatively charged mind. Reverse the polarity, transmute the situation into something positive - and you'll find yourself a much more resourceful person than you ever thought.M.Y.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12795131852763809378noreply@blogger.com0