Ode to Tai Pak

My eldest uncle on my father's side, my tai pak, I was told, passed away on Thursday night after losing his battle with lung cancer which had spread to his voicebox. I am told that he was struggling on Thursday, when my Tai Mo asked him if he wanted his children by his side, and he whispered Yes. So in the final moments, he was surrounded by his loving family, and he finally left in peace.

I remember my tai pak with much fondness. All my uncles were actually very well behaved, come to think of it. But my tai pak was a bit of dreamer, not unlike my eldest brother.

By day he would run his hardware shop which he had been running for years - and I remember loving to walk into the ordered chaos that was his shop. There would be wires curled up into coils hanging from the ceiling, screws of all shapes and sizes in the drawers, tins of paint everywhere, and he even had a key duplicating machine as well!

Naturally, he was very good with his hands, and paid careful attention to detail, his scrutinising eyes squinting in focus behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

Whenever he had free time, tai pak would love to read in his shop, but his main interest which kept him busy for a few years was his desire to romanise the Mandarin language. I remember he tried to teach it to us one evening, and it wasn't half bad - he basically broke down the Mandarin language into its syllables, writing it out in English, and then just adding a dash or a dot to each character to indicate which of the four intonations they should sound like.

Of course, the advent of hanyu pinyin basically rendered my uncle's years of work/hobby meaningless overnight, and I never really asked him how he dealt with it. He seemed to not let it bother him, I suspect, as he had other distractions (ie. his grandchildren).

Rest in peace, tai pak, in the knowledge that it was a life well led.