There’s a Cantonese saying that roughly translates to: while you are looking for a horse to ride on, you can ride on a cow in the meantime. The meaning is that while one searches for their ideal something, one should be patient and be ready to compromise in the short term. An apt scenario to apply this to would be job hunting.
Another scenario is one that I spoke to my mom about a few days ago …
Me: Hey mom, why don’t I ride a cow while I find a horse (in Cantonese)? I need to get back into the game and I need the practice.
Mom: That’s not a good reason. If the girls end up liking you, it is not nice to treat them as stepping stones to someone else. It’s bad karma.
My mom’s response was unusual in that she’s been worried about me finding someone to settle down with. I guess to her in this case, the end does not justify the means. So, the search for the one, my one, is ongoing. Meanwhile, I’m gonna enjoy myself until that happens. No more melancholic brooding around. No more emo-ness.
My grandmother’s funeral in Penang was held over five days from January 7th till January 11th. Above you see a table of food which are meant to be offerings to my grandmother, my grandfather who had passed on many years ago, and other relatives of hers who had also passed on.
The ceremony was mostly Taoist but we also had Buddhist monks chanting prayers on different days.
This was the paper house which we would eventually burn. The whole thing was very intricate – in it were little paper figures representing servants, a car, a TV and even a cable TV set-top box. Taoists believe that by burning these, the deceased will get them in the afterlife and live a good “life” there. Everyone must be so rich and happy in the Taoist afterlife.
On the fourth night of the wake, we’d set the paper house in the middle of the road to prepare it to be burnt. I was pretty amazed that the other houses on the street were all very understanding about this. We also had a firefighter from the nearby fire brigade keeping a close watch on all of this.
When it started to burn, it was almost glorious though “glorious” doesn’t exactly feel like the right word to describe it. It was magnificent, maybe? It all felt very cathartic for me, and probably for most of my relatives too. I’ve always felt that funeral proceedings are more for the living than the dead.
Here you can see the aftermath of the burning, and one of the workers from the funeral service stoking it and making sure everything is burnt.
On the day of the cremation, there were more food offerings. They looked great but we never got to touch it. All the food that were used in this way were eventually donated to the local old folks’ home.
We even had a band playing some of my grandma’s favourite English oldies.
After family and friends paid their respect at the offerings table, the coffin was carried by some of us into the hearse. Family members then walked behind and around the hearse in a slow procession down to the main road, where a bus was waiting to take us to the nearby Hokkien cemetery and crematorium.
Once there, there were some last Taoist prayers to perform and a burning of more paper money.
After this part of the ceremony was finished, the coffin was moved into the crematorium and my grandmother was cremated.
When that was done, we all went into a big dining hall where we had porridge with vegetarian condiments. And so ended the 5-day wake. I was later told that everything including the paper houses, the Taoist priests, Budddhist prayers, the coffin, the nightly catering at the house, the band and even the bus that took us to the crematorium were organised and done by one funeral service company. And it was cheap too at RM 13,000.
Having one company handle everything must have taken a lot of stress out of organising everything individually. It allowed all of us to feel more at ease, and gave us more time to talk to each other. And most of all it was a great bonding experience, all of us coming together like this. I was mighty impressed.
When I go I also hope that people will come together, laugh and generally have an ok time. Besides the obligatory crying and mourning of course. But yeah I’d prefer it if people celebrated my life more than they would mourn my death.
Capitol went off last night for Grandmaster Flash’s mixing, cutting, scratching and awesome turntableism skills. He mixed songs of different genres like rock, pop, hip-hop and R&B seamlessly in and out, and enhanced that further with rewinds, cutting back and forth between two tracks and the obligatory scratching.
My arm was tired from waving it like I just don’t care, my throat was sore from making some noise, my neck was tired from the endless bopping and my legs were suitable exercised by the jumping around.
Mom: Wow. His hair is thinning out so much, and he’s so young. Me: *bends head down* Hey mom, look at the spot in the middle. Is it getting bigger? Mom: Nah, you’re fine. Me: Woohoo! Mom: But you’ll be bald eventually. Me: … Mom: I’ve been noticing more hair on your bathroom floor. Me: … Mom: You know what that means right? You better find a woman soon. Me: … !!!
Too bad I ain’t royalty or super-rich, then I won’t have to give a toss about losing my hair. And if it happens I’m gonna shave it all off. Let’s hope that I’ve got a good looking skull.
You know how sometimes you’d be happily going about your days and you don’t lack of things in your life, and then you see something, an ad perhaps or something a stranger is wearing or carrying or driving, and you feel a sudden urge to fill an emptiness that was not there just a moment ago?
It’s like that with relationships for me sometimes. One moment I am happily being single, tolerating people’s questions and curiosity about why I’m single, putting up with and at the same time understanding my mother’s worries that I might end up living alone in my old age like my two uncles, and then suddenly pangs of loneliness and frustration would creep in and overwhelm me.
Most times it is brought on by something that someone has said or done to me, a touch or a hug, or what were normally innocuous words being interpreted differently by my suddenly over-imaginative mind. And then I start to crave for what I haven’t been craving for. It especially sucks when who I crave for is either not available or the whole situation is ridiculous in context and will never happen. I really don’t like getting emotional over someone that would not have affected me this way otherwise.
Ignorance is really bliss, right? I wish that I would continue not knowing what I’m missing out on and that my mind doesn’t automatically go into fantasy overload at the slightest prompt. I may say that, but in actual fact I daydream more than I think I should. I daydream about taking them places that I love, and meeting the people in my life. I daydream about them being a part of my daily routines and how they would make mundane situations feel even better.
So yeah I like fantasising but at the same time, I don’t like feeling frustrated and depressed once I realise the fantasy is just that. I am working towards a happy medium. Wish me luck.
My grandma passed away at 12:30pm today. I am sad but relieved because her final years have not been the best – she had been bed-ridden and she suffered from pains and aches everywhere, and was coughing a lot. Now she’s free from her mortal coils and for that alone we are glad.
I will be flying off to Singapore tonight and then up to Penang a couple of hours later. The funeral should be in 2-3 days. After that, I might spend another day in Penang before flying down to Singapore to rejoin Tham and Kayo.
I’ll be returning to Perth on the 17th. I hope to have some stories and photos to share then. In the mean time, I leave you with Ferris Bueller’s classic words about living every day appreciating the people and the simple pleasures in your life.
I had planned for my holiday since September. I was going to be spending one week in Singapore from January the 8th till the 16th with Tham and Kayo, and my parents will be here to look after Snoop. The tickets had been bought and the accommodation booked. Then everything changed on the 27th of December. News came that my grandmother who’s in her 90s was hospitalised and it doesn’t look good this time.
Dad flew off to Penang on the 30th and mom followed the next day. And that was why I had the house to myself to celebrate NYE with my friends. I had to then hope that the kennels that I’ve always used would have a spare place at such short notice. Luckily for me they did, but the only day they could take him was today.
All the while, my parents have been updating me every day and most of the time their messages were along the lines of “this might be her time”. This added to my stress as I would have to fly off at a moment’s notice which means I would have to arrange for urgent leave from work, call my cousin who had previously agreed to do it to come over to house-sit, and to arrange for Tham to take Snoop to the kennels. I had also anticipated not being able to take the same flight to Singapore with Tham and Kayo.
Planning these contingencies was ok but not knowing when I would have to deal with them was very stressful. Every day for the past week, I would wake up and hoped that I didn’t get a message on my phone telling me the worst. I really hated not being in control of my schedules, and the stress of not knowing got to me. I was glad that I had my friends around me most of the past week to help ease my mind and anxiety attacks.
As it turns out, I could still take Snoop to the kennels myself today and I would still fly to Singapore tomorrow night with Tham and Kayo. But, I now have to fly off to Penang right after I’ve landed because now is “really her time”. I’m not sure how long I will be in Penang for but what’s certain is that my plans for my time in Singapore is no longer valid. I won’t be able to catch up with some of the people whom I’ve been meaning to catch up with, and I won’t be able to be with Tham and Kayo in Singapore as much as I wanted to. Though I still hope to have a few days there on the way home to Perth.
It’s kinda silly and selfish but all this time I kept thinking in the back of my mind how my holidays have been ruined, though death is never good timing is it?
