Remembering My Roots

I was reading Simon's post on Qing Ming, and it I'd like to record down these stories told by my parents from my teenage years:

My Father's Father...
Grandpa's a Penang boy. He studied in Penang Free School. That was at the dawn of Communism in China, and his parents, although from China, felt it was safer to have their children educated in British schools and not be involved in the Red Army beyond China borders. He later worked with the British Army during WW2/Japanese Occupation in Malaya and told us many stories of those dark days.

His parents from China knew Kung-fu. His mother in particular was a master in the martial arts. But because her brothers became mercenaries in Georgetown, she became very upset and taught her children only the arts of healing, i.e. Chinese herbs and medicine, massage and even fixing bone fractures. So, from my grandfather's generation on no real Kung-fu was practiced. Grandpa himself took up massage for extra income, moonlighting alongside his 9-5 job at the British Army's office (he actually had a very bad gambling addiction). He has a brother whose family now owns a major Chinese medical hall in Penang. Another sister-in-law took on to being a Chinese herbalist specialising in looking at children's ailments.


My Father's Mother...
was a simple woman. She died before I was born, so I never knew her personally. She was the only grandchild of a very wealthy family. Her parents came from China to tap rubber, lived frugally to save enough to buy some of the rubber plantations themselves, along with acres of land all over Taiping town. They built houses by the blocks and ran sundry shops. Her uncles were unscrupulous and squandered a lot of the family's wealth. So most of the family inheritance were kept by her parents. Her parents having only one daughter, adopted 3 sons. All her brothers took after their uncles, not working a day of their lives and lived off their parents sweat and blood. (Grandpa and grandma got married in 1945, just at the end of the Japanese Occupation in Malay, Dad was born at the end of that year.)

By the time my father was a young boy, they lived simply because of the lack of funds (mainly due to his father's gambling habit). In fact, my father started working as a massage therapist as in his teenage years, following his father's moonlighting trade to help put food on the table. Grandma died of kidney failure and a massive stroke. She was in a coma for a few days before she passed away at the age of 50.


My Mother's Father
He was the first born of his family. His parents were from China. I don't know exactly how many siblings he had except that his mother and a brother were opium addicts and that was where the family's big-hole-in-the-pocket was. His family lived by the sea. They did well, apparently had a fleet of fishing boats, housed travelling merchants from China, sent junk-boats-ful of supplies for relatives back home in China, and acted like a leader among the villagers. My mother's father had a stroke at an early age, 30+. After that the family business went downhill. By the time his father died, the family was reduced to near poverty because of the surviving opium-addict son.

Mother actually had 10 sibling in all, including herself, 3 boys, 7 girls. But her mother was a bitter woman and she gave away 3 of her daughters. One was actually given by my grandfather to a close friend as a gift (can't remember the exact story behind that). This aunt was acknowledged by the biological family and we still called her 4th aunt. My grandfather passed away 12 years ago. His family name, Lim, carried on by 3 sons and 7 grandsons.


My Mother's Mother
Love of course was unheard of in the early days. My mother's parents got married because they were matchmade. My mother talks very little about her because there was always stress in their relationship. Apparently Grandma is jealous that my Mom is her father's favourite.
Grandma is a very resourceful woman. She could make all kinds of kuih and put up a hen house from scratch. Her anger and bitterness was expressed by her "iron hand" - she could pick up something hot, like the pan/pot right from the fire, and not wince. She never talked about her parents it seems. My mum only knows of her mum's other siblings but it seems there are no stories told beyond that.

Toady she is the only living great-grandparent my kids have. She is in her eighties and had had a couple of strokes. We have been informed that her old body is slowly shutting down. She is my grandma, despite her anger and jealousy towards my mum. We have many fond memories of her cooking porridge for us, slaughtering a chicken from her coop for us and sending our cousin out to buy ice and fizzy drinks when we visited from KL. They stayed in the outskirts of Taiping - Pokok Assam. They shared a rented house with another family. They had no TV, no fridge, no phone. for the first few years they had a bucket in a shed for a toilet (a real out-house) until maybe I was 10, the government got proper sewage for that area.


So here is the record of stories from my side. There are more stories of my parents lives that had been interesting...at least to me. Nothing dramatic. Just fascinating to know your parents and what they were like when they were kids themselves.

More young people, especially teenagers, should listen to the ramblings of their folks talk about their youth. It really helps them understand and love and admire they parents. It really helps flourish their relationships.

It sure did for us... for my siblings and I.

Wii vs. Whee!

"Do Wii, Daddy?" means...



"Do Whee*, Mommy?" means...







Best of both worlds?

* Mommy's "Whee" was discovered by the boys when they were in the room while Mommy was changing the sheets. That was once upon a time before the wii existed.

Sleeping Angels and Tear-Smeared Pillow

The boys finally fell asleep close to 12am.

I was exhausted and frustrated.

I cried to release stress. That's what I do. Hot tears of anger and frustration rolled onto my pillow. There are days like these that I feel like I can't do this. I can't be a good mom.

Kissed my sleeping angels a few times over. Whispered into their ears, "Mommy and Daddy love you so much." Adjust their pillows to keep them from rolling over the edge.

Got a drink for Daddy. Had a few "nga-ku" (arrow root) chips stuffed down my throat.

Now really going to sleep...after I brush my teeth.

Guilty Angry Mom

It's one of those times I want to pull my hair out because I can't get the boys to sleep.

Bad enough that the boys are hyperactive, but tonight, because Daddy came home late from work (9pm and it's a Saturday!!), they played with him for all it's worth until 10pm and I had to send Daddy out of the room to try to settle them. Battled the boys into brushing their teeth.

With all the play they had done, there was no way they were going to give in to sleep now.

They kept running in and out of the room. Mommy constantly calling out: Come into the room now!

I tried to arrest one boy at a time. Did not work. Max came in, nursed, fussed over his diaper, insisted he wanted to pee in the potty. No Pee. Back to trying to put on the diaper. "No, shee-shee potty first." No pee. Back to the bed.. On and on goes this merry-go-round. Mommy lost count. He ran off downstairs.

Micah came in with some blocks built into a tunnel. Played with it. Asked for milk. Drank milk. Went back to play.

Max came in with a corn-cream bun. Insisted he wanted to eat it. (Both boys had brushed their teeth.) Max crushed Micah's tunnel. Screaming and crying Micah gets Mommy to reconstruct the tunnel.

Boys fought over the bun. After Mommy tired calming the boys down to sharing the bun, Micah walked out. He slammed the door. He came in and slammed the door again.

Mommy blew up. Micah got 2 strokes. Grandparents came to his rescue.

Was at the tip of my tongue to scold a certain adult in the house for giving the boys food at this hour. Wanted to tell him to brush their teeth for them himself, as if he doesn't know the plight of their dental problems and how hard it is to get them to brush their teeth!!

Max was running around the room with the bun (I had just mopped the room and changed the sheets a few hours ago!).

I started to blog and Micah came up to hug and apologise.

He is back to running around outside and slamming other doors...

Max has escaped to downstairs again...

No one wants to sleep.
I give up.
I am so angry and tired I just want to sleep and before i lose it again...

The Original Joy Juice

We were at my mom's (again) today. I had wanted to hunt for some milk powder for Micah in the shops near her place (the price rise has been crazy for milk since last year).

After all the errands done, we got back to my mom's and I decided to give the boys a treat, as they were quite well behaved. While Max had dragged his other grandma to the park across my mom's house, Micah and I went in with Ah Ma. So I got a can of Kickapoo from my mom's CNY stash, 2 cups and some ice.

Micah and I were half way enjoying our ice-cold joy juice when Max came back, so I gave him my cup.

"What are you drinking, Max?"
"Dunno.."
"Kickapoo."
"Kee-pa-pooh?"
"Kee-ka poo."
"Kee-ka poo."
"Yes, good?
"Good."

After a few moments, I tried again.
"What are you drinking, Max?"
"Dunno.."
"Kickapoo."
"Ki-pa-koo."
"Kicka-poo"
"Kee-pah-poo."

What a tongue twister for Max:
Kee-pa-poo
Kee- pa-Koo
Pi-ka-poo
kiki-ka-ka-(splutters, giggles)..
ki-Ki-pooh..

We had a good time laughing. He could get it sometimes...


Later in the night, I checked with him again.
"What did you drink today at Ah Ma's house, Max?"
"Dunno.. coco-cola?"
"Kickapoo."
"Kee-pa-poo?
"Kickapoo."
"Kee-ka-pooh."

Guess there is joy in that juice.

CNY Preview

Last Sunday evening it rained cats and dogs. We usually go out for dinners on Sundays but because of the rain, Mike called his brother to just buy back some noodles over to our place. To our surprise, there was more than noodles.

Yee-Sang!*

Mmm... Always so delicious.



* In case you have not heard of this, it's a Chinese kind of salad that comprises mainly of dried or pickled vegetables (cucumber, ginger, pomelo), a bunch or fresh carrots and radish, some other herbs, some crispy flour bits and raw fish/jellyfish. All these are to be tossed in a sweet and sour plum sauce with some pepper, cinnamon and sesame seeds. Everyone is to do the tossing together, symbolising a fellowship/ partnership we share (i.e. to be involved with each other).
Can check it out on Wikipedia too!

For the Love of Words

I did a spring cleaning at my mom's today.

It's actually because mom had to do an emergency renovation to one of the bedroom - the tiles on the floor cracked. And since Chinese New Year is just around the corner, she panicked and asked the repair man to do a quick job for her. In order to re-do all the tiles, we had to remove all the furniture. The bad news for us is that this is the room that my older sister and I still store our stuff. yeah, the married girls leave their childhood memories and mementos in their Mum's house. Literally!

So I had to cart back 4 bundles of files and 3 bags of all sorts of odds and ends. The odds and ends include an old pencil case with some stationery inside, a box with some odd trinkets, a pressed flower, and school badges and name tags. There were bunches of stickers and all sorts of bookmarks and cards from friends in school. There were old photos, a couple of cups, some things you'd put up for decorations, but are now too dusty or have faded through time. (If you know of "The Great Expectation", I think these would have looked great as props in Ms Havisham's house.)


The thing That caught me by surprised, actually I should have known better, was the big stack of letter writing materials. I had loved corresponding and hence I was always drawn towards letter-writing sets. There were really nice and fancy ones and there were cute cuddly nears and kitties, and some even had matching stickers as seals. It's a whole box that my mom stacked up and most I had thought were lost. Now I just wonder where to put them and if I'll ever find the time to use them up...or shall I keep them for my daughters (if we have any)...

The Files were the ones I had a hard time sorting out. They were all my undergrad as well as my MA stuff. I did literature, so you can imagine how much text and notes plus assignments there were that involved lots and lots of words. They were a passion, a pleasure. I kept everything because I really enjoyed them and also I had thought I would find materials within my hand's reach for when I teach. Well, I never got around to teaching beyond my tutoring days (for now anyway) and so I had to make a critical decision for my future. I picked out a few pieces of my favourites and the rest were sent for recycling - extra copies of the same stuff, lecture notes, tutorial notes, my graded assignments, notes from the library, notes from friends, my former students' uncollected assignments, exam papers. I had actually kept everything.

After sorting out most of the stuff, I ended up with 4 bags of letter-writing materials, plus color papers and greeting cards, and ONE arch file of my literature stuff (pat myself on the back).

The problem is I still don't know how to store them here in my already chaotic house.
Sigh...

Missing: Max!

While we were all at daddy's cousin sister's 21st birthday celebration, Max went missing and the whole house panicked!

It was a big party with lots and lots of relatives and quite a few friend. We have seen the same bunch of friends of our cousins in previous birthday celebrations and festive seasons. In a way everyone was somewhat familiar.

The boys were about the youngest around and somehow they were magnets to lots of the youngsters around, especially some of the girls who kept taking their photos and trying to talk and play with them. After getting the kids and Daddy fed, Mommy and Daddy sat down to just take a break and chatted while keeping an eye on the boys running around. After a while, we felt the need to go home (yes, we are getting old. It was only 10pm and we were tired already).

"Where's Max?" Daddy asked, and suddenly we realised that Micah is the only one running around. We tried not to panic, but it was hard, given the fact that all the doors and the main gate were opened.

If a stranger had walked in I wonder if anyone would have noticed. If Max had wondered out I think a relative would have stopped him and alerted us (although I think not likely, given that it's dark and it's a strange place, and I think Max is not all that brave to wonder out without an adult he feels safe with).

We checked with the grandparents and they did not have him. No Max.

In the kitchen: No Max.

In the garden: No Max.

In the back with their pet rabbit: No Max.

The host family help to do a search.
Our uncle was especially concerned about the fish pond: No Max.

A cousin brother went upstairs then said he is there.

Mommy rushed upstairs and opened the study door (the kids usually play here if they were to be upstairs): NO MAX!

My heart was really pounding by this time. I rushed back downstairs and checked with the cousin brother again.

"He is upstairs. In my sisters' room." He led me there.

Max greeted me with a grin. He was a little sweaty.

"Max. What are you doing up here?"

"Jumping on bed." He giggled and climbed back up on to our cousin's bed and started jumping, just to demonstrate to Mommy. By this time, Micah who had tailed Mommy all over the house, was also jumping on the bed.

Our cousin sister and her friend were trying to show the boys some card tricks but they were too busy jumping on the bed.

It took us another half an hour to get them into the car.

What a night.

Thank you, Lord. We don't take anything for granted, especially the safety of our kids.