Sleep In Heavenly Peace

To all my readers who have been checking the obituaries for me, let me just say that there is a death in my life indeed. My computer of six years is finally dying on me, and with it, all my photos and associated memories.

It is irredeemable, and I am afraid that I will be unable to write for the next one or two weeks. I will be dependent on the kindness of my friends for access to the internet these next few weeks.

Oh, well, change is inevitable, I guess, and what better way to ring in the New Year, than, perhaps, with a new computer.

Have yourself a blessed Christmas, and may you keep your resolutions in the coming year. If only for a week.

Of A Different Set Of Parents

I watch as the mother speaks, her volume drumming both the men in her life to quiet submission.

She is loud and crass, and heads in the restaurant turn to look at us every time she opens her mouth to speak.

I remember her son describing to me that his mom is like that lady in Kung Fu Hustle - the one with the really big breath and loud voice. The one with curlers in her hair. He sounded really apologetic, yet I thought he was only joking. Tonight, I found out first hand.

They say that as a couple ages, the woman loses her oestrogen and assumes a more dominant male role while the reverse is true for the men. They lose their testosterone and develop into quieter, less aggressive creatures. I have only seen this to be true in Asian families, though. Maybe we do grow up to be our fathers.

They obviously did not enjoy the Malaysian dinner experience tonight. The father is more subtle in his dislike - he has stopped eating after one bowl of rice, politely declining further entreatments for a second helping. The mother, on the other hand, wears a scowl, almost disdainful for the food served tonight. I do not take offense, instead, there is a smile creeping on my insides, for I know that despite all this rough exterior, they are both kind souls and have loved their son the best way they knew how.

She calls loudly for the bill,- lau pan! - her hands outstretched and her neck angled as if she were reaching for something beyond her grasp. Mai tan eh! she says loudly. The restaurant owner, who vaguely knows me, smiles and looks up at me, as the dance to pay the bill begins. No let me, no I'll handle it, no let me.

She sits in the back of the car with her husband as we drive through Melbourne by night. She is very keen on the houses here, and keeps asking whether we were driving through a rich person's area. She keeps repeating how the air in Australia is good, and how where she comes from the people are many and the cars are few, but it is the reverse here. Her husband sits in silence, talking only occasionally, flinching ever so slightly when the repetition becomes obvious.

I wonder if there ever can be an equality in a relationship of two people. What I've often witnessed is that one person will take the spotlight, with the other (?forced to be) content in the shadows. And then I wonder if I will ever marry a woman who will match me in my noise and my silence.

I finally rescue a night that is spiralling into disaster, bringing them to Docklands, which is a beautiful part of Melbourne, especially at night, situated by the bay. I see the both of them happy for the first time tonight, breathing in the cool night air together. He carries a slight smile and his cigarette, observing the reflections of the bright restaurant lights on the water. She is like a child at Christmas, gushing over the beauty of the place, wondering how much apartments nearby must cost.

We walk around for awhile and a peace settles once more, one that comes from a quiet contentment and relief. They, for having seen this beautiful bit of Melbourne after a fairly dreary night, and I, for having brought them here.

I look at the both of them again - sure, there are no overt expressions of love, but somehow, there's this indefinable bond that holds them together, one that comes from being together for so long. Like a pair of comfortable old loafers or a doll that you had since you were a child, neither of which you are willing to part with.

Penang

"Heng Ghin, lei kei tak Ah Mo ke sai mui mo? Lei sai ke si hei ho sek lei gah!..." (HK, do you recognise Ah Mo's little sister? She loved you a lot as a little boy!)

Penang. Pearl of the Orient. Penang always holds a special place in my heart because Dad was from there, and I was raised there for the first three years of my life by my uncle and his family.

It was my cousin's - Ah Pak's second son's - wedding that I was attending in Penang, and he was the last of the Ah Pak's children to tie the knot. Interestingly enough, their family mirrors ours - two boys and a youngest daughter. Which bodes badly for me in the marriage department. Again. Hahaha!

I was raised in this very house for the first three years of my life, although I have very little recollection of my time there - a dark memory of me singing Hokkien songs as a child perhaps, and maybe running along the tall lalang grass that grew wildly in the backyard. Otherwise, I have almost no recollection about my childhood in Penang at all.



Oh, indeed, there is photographic evidence of my time there - there is a sepia-ed photograph of my Ah Mo, holding my head against a mango tree to compare how big it was. And that all compromising nude-baby-lifted-from-a-plastic-bathtub-to-expose-his-wee-wee-for-photographic-evidence-of-his-gender-in-case-he-decides-on-a-sex-change-later photo is there as well. With pretty flowers at the side for good measure, because Ah Mo, till today, works as a florist for a living.

And then there is this picture of me celebrating my second or third birthday, with a plastic toy guitar in hand, in white overalls. There is a table behind me with all sorts of kuih and a birthday cake and the compulsory traditional pink hard-boiled eggs symbolising ...er... dangerous colouring that could seriously stunt a child's growth. (I don't know what they symbolise, do you??)

I looked happy in those pictures, so I must have been.

Every time that I go back, I would always be introduced by my relatives to the neighbours again, and everyone present. "This is Heng Ghin. Remember him?" In turn, the strangers would be introduced to me "This is so-and-so. Remember them?".

The light of recognition will flare up in their eyes, and they would recognise that big-headed, small wee-weed (I'm just humble.) boy who they used to adore and play with. They would look at me in anticipation, but be rewarded instead with a polite smile of someone who's meant to recognise them, but stares as blankly at them as if he were demented.

Add to the fact that I can no longer speak Hokkien, and the death of that little boy is complete. The polite smile is returned, and the aunties shepherd away their children, carrying the memories of that little boy now forever lost to them.

Home. Sick.

This first week of return back to Melbourne has been a difficult one, but I think I am getting the hang of it once again.

Two weeks back home is just about the right amount of time, I have decided. Once you spend three weeks, a certain inertia will creep in, and one is guaranteed to develop homesickness as well.

This sickness has translated into actual physical sickness this week, when I had to take a day off work to attempt (unsuccessfully) to recover from a head cold. It always seems to hit me this time of the year, for some reason. But now, finally, I am rested enough to have returned to some semblance of health.

Christmas and the New Year fast approaches, and it is time once again to say "How time has flown, man! I remember this time last year...", reminiscence, regret and thanksgiving all rolled into one.

I have just sent my brother and his girlfriend to the airport yesterday to take the same journey that I happily took one month ago, and in my current state, a part of me just wanted to creep into their suitcases and take that journey home with them.

Melbourne is really quiet this time of the year, and come next week, when all the pre-Christmas sloth develops into a full blown two week hibernation, it will be quieter still.

Anatomy Of A Chinese Wedding (III)

We now come to the most important part of any Chinese wedding - the dinner. The dinner is the usually both the climax, and the closing ceremony, if you will, of the Chinese wedding. All of the couple's planning will culminate in this event, after which they can finally kick off their shoes, and spend time together as husband and wife, the events of the past few days a sweet memory to look back on, rather than a stressful time to look forward to.

(Sorry for being unromantic, but weddings can be fairly stressful events!)

In Malaysia, especially, the guests will saunter in past the time indicated on the invitation cards (6.30 pm sharp!), so the couple will often make a fashionably late entrance at about 8.00 pm to much fanfare. One couple I heard about was brave enough to start fifteen minutes later than the allocated time, so only half the wedding hall was filled when they walked in!

The Chinese wedding dinner itself will be of a standard eight course meal (I have heard of a thirteen course one, which I think is unnecessarily extravagant, and will require lots of ta-pauing). A typical Chinese wedding dinner menu will look like this:

i) The opening entree platter - The four (or five) seasons platter. This dish has four different hors d'oeuvres which are meant to represent the four (what is the fifth season?) seasons - spring, summer, winter and autumn.
ii) A soup. This traditionally is the sharks' fin soup (Poor sharks. Poor yummy sharks.) or the double boiled soup.
iii) Chicken. Or suckling pig, if you've got a fully non-halal (kosher) guest list.
iv) Prawns. The usual standard is the custard prawns (lai yau ha) though I have seen cold salad prawns as well.
v) Fish. This is usually steamed with soya sauce, although the one we went to had a very nice spicy Pattaya sauce variant.
vi) Vegetables. Lavish vegetables cooked well. One for the vegetarians. Unless sea cucumbers are animals (are they?)
vii) This is usually rice of some semblance - fried or steamed in lotus leaves. By this time you're usually so full you don't care.
viii) Dessert - can be cold (longan jelly) or warm (red bean with fried pastries).



The dinner itself is a noisy, festive event. Especially if either the bride or bridegroom are Hokkien.

Giveaways that you're at a Hokkien wedding dinner

1. There is a loud boorish wedding singer who has been hired for the occasion. He or she is very good at working the crowd, and can sing My Heart Will Go On in three different languages.

2. There's an uncle who must have been dragged here by his wife who is conspicuously uninterested in the fact that you're getting married. How do you know that? He is reading newspapers at your wedding.

3. You have uncles or aunties who insist on blessing your wedding with select irrelevant songs sung by them. They try their best, bless their souls.

4. One of the compulsory songs is "Ai Pia Cia Eh Yeah" (In Order to Win, You Must Try Hard.) Which I suppose means that in order to win children, the couple must try their hardest. No, I'm making that one up - I honestly don't know what that song is doing in a wedding dinner. Here is a (not-so-cheesy, if you can believe it) sample:



All the sincere singing of songs aside, there's the important, beautiful bits - the speech by the bride and the groom, and the speech by the parents of the bride and groom. This is one of the few moments in a wedding where the clanging of chopsticks against porcelain bowls will quieten down to a minimum, and where the uncle will (hopefully) put down his newspaper.

There is also the cake cutting ceremony and the popping of the champagne bottles. The wedding singer at this point will interject with sweet words of the significance of both ceremonies. The champagne is then poured into glasses, and the climax of the wedding then begins - the Yam Seng.

The Yam Seng is the loud and raucous part of the Chinese wedding dinner, where the guests all unite in one voice to wish the bride and groom all the best. This part of the wedding is usually lead by the emcee or the wedding singer, and follows three rounds of wishes:

1) To the bride and groom and their families. For a long happy marriage together, through thick and thin, and for wealth, health and happiness.
2) To the bride and groom. To the pitter-patter of tiny feet, a euphemism for many, many, many children. (At this point the bride will lose her smile. And look terrified.)
3) From the bride and groom. To all those who have taken the time and travelled from near and far to grace their wedding. Even the newspaper reading uncle.

Each wish is then ended with a unified, protracted Yaaaaammmmm Seeeennnggggg!!! from both the families and all the guests. This is a glorious part of the wedding, as the whole restaurant literally reverberates with the well wishes of the guests, and there are always smiles all around.

The poor bride and groom don't actually get to eat much after that, as they will be going from table to table, thanking people for coming, and there will be intermittent episodes of Yam Seng from each individual table as the well wishes continue.

Unless there are faithful groomsmen by his side to take the gulps of wine after each Yam Seng for him, you can bet that the groom will be pretty drunk by this stage. The bride will be smiling through her third change of dress for the night, and be praying at this stage that her new husband will not embarrass her too much tonight, or vomit all over her evening dress. The good bride is supportive and will not care at all, happy that everyone is having a good time.

The night finally dwindles to a close, and the bride and groom and their parents are outside the banquet hall, waiting to thank all the guests for coming. There are hugs and handshakes, and as the last of the guests leave, both families will sit down, heaving a sigh of relief that the night is finally, successfully over.

And the groom will reach out and gently grab his bride's hands, look into her eyes, smile and then vomit onto her evening dress.

Melbourne-cholic

It feels better today than it did yesterday. I know that it will be better again tomorrow, and that these transitional blues are normal.

[Note to A: I have absolutely used up all my SNTPG (sit-next-to-pretty-girl) points and sat next to... no one on the way back. Two seats to myself! The Shack has come in really handy, thank you very much! Awesome read too, by the way... more than halfway through it.)]

This has been a really important trip back to Malaysia, though, and I think God in His infinite wisdom, and His impeccable timing, has allowed me to go back to Malaysia at a time which is important to my family, and my friends.

It has been a time of seeing love consummated, and love interrupted. It has been a time of sitting around food, exchanging ideas and laughter, hearing of the things that have happened in the breath between our last goodbye and our present hellos.

Now I sit in the silence, and the quiet isolation of Melbourne again. I cannot describe this distance to you, except to say that it has always been here.

I will be okay, in the days to come. Life will take over again.

Anatomy Of A Chinese Wedding (II)

Beep! Beep! BeEeepPPPP! BEEPPPpppPP! BEEEPPPP! BEEEPPP!!

It sounds like irate drivers on a highway in rush hour traffic, but the sound is highly alien in the setting of the small roads of this little taman. The guests look up from their catered meals and smile when they see who it is.

The bride and the groom have both arrived in the wedding car, and have come over for the second most important event in a Chinese wedding - the tea ceremony.

The tea ceremony, or the chum cha is a very important tradition in Chinese weddings. It is both a symbol of respect for the elders, and the couple seeking their blessings for their union.

The tea ceremony almost equates to an officiation of the marriage, as parents (and my grandmother) will often sigh wistfully when their unmarried children take forever to get married, sparking the phrase "Ngo kei si yam tak san po cha ah?" ("When will I ever get to drink the tea of my daughter/son-in-law?") (Lei yau pai tang lah, po po!)


(From top, left to right)
The wedding car. Typically a classy luxury car, like the Mercedes Benz or BMW. Typically, as well, with two soft toys hanging on for dear life (look how frightened Mickey and Minnie are) for the rest of the day, signifying the couple's desire for cruelty to soft toys.
There was food for the guests all the way from yesterday night until this afternoon. There is always curry chicken as well, symbolic of a spicy marriage. (Okay, so I made that one up). Notice the tables and canopies especially erected for the occasion.

The guests stand in respect as the bride and bridegroom make their way out of the car into the house. They are not alone, however, and are being led by the kam jie (the Chinese wedding specialist). These kam jie are like the aunties you always want at your wedding, - loud, shameless and funny enough to brighten up any occasion.

She leads the way into the home, uttering blessings in Hokkien all the way, ensuring that the married couple walks into the fragrance of her words. The kam jie is also an adept tea pouring machine - preparing all the cups and tea for the bridegroom's family for the ceremony.

So this is how it works - anyone older than the couple gets served tea while seated in front of the standing couple. This includes grandfathers, your parents, every separate uncle and auntie (all twenty of them), your older cousins and siblings, your neighbour and the dog who is older than you by virtue of its one years being equivalent to our seven human years.

(I'm kidding about the dog. They don't like tea.)

While giving the tea, the young couple will have to say "(Insert relationship to you here ie. Mum, second maternal uncle, third paternal aunt) please drink this tea." This is an acknowledgement of being now included in the family and taking on your spouses' relatives as your own.

In return, the older relatives give you ang paus - red packets filled with money, and sometimes, gold trinkets, if you're lucky - a symbolic gesture of their blessing and goodwill towards you and your new husband/wife. (With the right pawnbrokers, suddenly the wedding doesn't seem so expensive to the young couple anymore. Hahaha!)



And then it is the newlyweds turn to sit down and give out ang paus to all those younger than them. The kids in turn will have to acknowledge the newlyweds as their new uncle/aunt before they are rewarded with ang paus themselves. The kids will then run to a quiet corner and rip open the red packets, with their newfound wealth, their eyes crazy, their lips snarling "Myyyy preecccioouss....." (Yes, kids are like little Gollums.)

Soon the tea ceremony ends, and the family gathers around for photographs with the newest additions to their household.

The tea ceremony is peformed in both the bride and bridegroom's families separately, and is a simple yet beautiful ceremony signifying the marriage of not only the husband and wife, but of their inclusion into each other's families as well.

My Grandmother

Everytime that I come home, and travel, I learn new things and remember old things about my extended family.

My grandmother is 86 this year. She was the prettiest little thing in Kampar and married my grandfather, who was the son of a rich man in Ipoh. My grandfather was an alcoholic and was one of those layabouts who never really fulfilled his role as provider of the family.

He was a lucky man when it came to gambling, though. As my mum tells me, "Tai yat pai, chong lok hap choy, tai yee pai, yau chong lok hap choy, tai sam pai, chong fan shi". (He struck lottery the first time, he struck it again a second time, and the third time, he struck death.)

Grandma was widowed from an early age and had to raise five children by herself, which was no mean feat in itself.

Her children all turned out pretty well, brought up with strong work ethics and moral values.

Grandma is the only grandparent I have ever known in person. Both my paternal grandparents and maternal grandfather died by the time that I was born.

Through the years, she has been a quiet unobtrusive presence in our growing up years, breaking the silence only to ask how we were, and to encourage us to "kan lik tit took shi ah!" (Study hard!)

She has been living with my mom's sister and brother in law (my tai yee and yee cheong) in the early years, and I remember the annual birthday celebrations that we would throw for po po. This usually meant an eight course meal at some fancy Chinese restaurant, which was always a treat that we little children looked forward to.

During these dinners, po po would join in the initial conversations, but soon fade into the background as the families start to converse in English, inadvertently excluding her from the ongoing topics. She would never complain, however, and continue to happily feed away at her sharks' fin or suckling pig.

She has remained relatively healthy in her old age. Age has left her with a walking posture like that of a hen - leaning forward with her arms folded behind her, one foot plodding after the other. Time has left her health relatively untouched - she climbs stairs with the speed of a forty year old, and with the surprising silence of a trained assassin.

One thing that time has robbed her of, however, is her mental faculties. Over the past few years, po po has been stricken with dementia, leaving her short term memory ravaged. She would often repeat questions, much to our amusement. My youngest uncle once made a funny observation, that grandma would make for an awesome inquisition - she would be able to break down any spy or prisoner of war, simply with her gentle repeated, repeated, repeated questioning.

But some things evoke more sadness than mirth - having the memory of a goldfish means that po po gets terrified every time she gets left alone for too long. My yee cheong was telling us how they would leave the house for a period of time, and, in the early days, po po would subtly hint at her fear of being left alone - "When are you coming back? Should I be cooking for you?". Right now, it is a full blown somatisation of her anxieties - "My head doesn't feel right. I think I need to see a doctor" - whenever they leave her home alone.

The way that age has tinkered with her brain also means that she has conversations with herself and sometimes sees her sister who has been dead for many years. Almost as if po po was suspended in time, an unwitting intermediary between the living and those who have gone before us.

But her appetite and strength remain intact, and it was a pleasure seeing her again this time. I know that there is still some feistiness left in this old lady, as she told me off for being twenty eight and not getting married yet!

Sorry lah, po po, my dear grandmother, the gentle grand old dame of our lives.