a chinese new year
chinese new year just isn’t the same anymore. no firecrackers, no chances to a lion dance at the shoplots in taiping, no more relatives that flock back to my grandmothers home to have a brilliantly cooked meal. finally after years of not going back to taiping, my parents decided that we should head back there. We left on new years eve so that we could have the reunion dinner. as usual, i slept through the whole journey. I’m a nervous passenger you see, so i’d normally just choose to fall asleep. woke up a couple of times in the car, and heard my mom saying, ‘wah, don’t know why poh poh keep calling and ask us where we are’
i guess she was just happy that someone’s going back to visit her. after all, she’s living in that home all alone.
arrived in taiping at about 1500hrs. drove past an empty plot of land where my moms’ old house used to be. ahh… i have some memories of that place. it was a wooden home, with one of those arches in front. i wish i had a picture. maybe i do. i’m not sure. i remember once, i was running around in that old house, and i accidentally kicked a chinese alter kinda thing on the floor. my mom asked me to go say sorry. and i was confused. because i didn’t know to whom i should apologize. hehe.
anyway that home is gone now, land sold off, and i guess thats part of our history lost too. arrived at my grandma’s ‘newer’ home, and she greeted us with all smiles. a few minutes later, my sister and her husband arrived with the two kids.
That’s my nephew aqip. and thats my dad’s legs :/
another shot of aqip.
anyway, we sat a little, chit chat a little. my grandma remarked on how we’ve grown (in Cantonese), yes she speaks to use in cantonese, sometimes in malay (i must say that this is the first time that i actually heard her speak quite a lot of malay) and one more thing i’m a little proud of is that, she almost got my name right!!! she called me adlee!! A few years back i remember hearing her say “Uglee, eat cikin” whilst having our dinner. hehe i think adlee sounds WAY WAY WAY better then Uglee.
anyway we had our reunion dinner out, because she can’t stand too long to cook, her legs hurt.
here’s a shot of my mom and her mom, and my dad at the corner.
and here’s how my grandma looked when she was younger (it was from pictures hanging on the wall, and at least i think thats my grandma’s pic la)
so the food came,we all yelled “por por sek fannnnnn!!” we had to yell it cause she’s a little hard of hearing now… and we whacked some awesome steamed siakap, choytam with salted fish, some deep fried sotong and i forgot what else. and after dinner we headed back and i slept al the way again. after all… i was sick..
Next morning, we woke up early, and headed to the temple where my grandad’s urn is located at. i was wondering why the urn was at a thai budhist temple tho. my ‘kau gong’ led the way as we didn’t know where it was at. (yes i kno, normally people don’t visit the urns (or whatever u call those sites one the first day, but we don’t come back often so we just went and see.. after all for hari raya, my family visits my grandad’s grave in batu gajah on the first day of raya. so i guess bending the rules is okay rite)
i wanted to take a picture of each and every one of the urns (my grandad’s first wife, the first wife’s mother, my grandad, her my uncle *i think*). i asked my mom if it was okay. she in turn asked my ‘kau gong’.. he in turn said
“you can take pictures.. but i don’t know if they (pointing at the urns) would like to have their picture taken”
so i took a more obscure picture instead.
i don’t know what other people would say about seeing a malay family (read : part malay) going to a temple to visit the dead, but i don’t see whats wrong in doing so. after all, you’re doing this out of respect. Belief is belief, but respect shouldn’t be held back by the difference of colour nor religion. at least that’s how i think.
after that morning, we had lunch, then cabuted to kampar to visit my uncle and headed home.
chinese new year isn’t what it used to be. but i guess i kinda have to accept it for what it is now.
Saturday, February 16th, 2008