Chapter
24
Reflection
by Joseph
Chan’s open door and one
big Family
The Chan’s household was
an amazing one where friends, old and young came and went. From their early
days of their wedding, Father and Mother had brothers, in-laws, cousins,
nephews, nieces and grand children under his wings living under one roof, at
some stage or the other. Sometimes two generations stayed with us. There was no
boarding fee; at most they did chores and babysitting for Mother. This extended
family was very atypical even in a Chinese setting. Blood is thicker than
water.
3rd
Aunt Kong Wah Sam
After the war, she was in
her early teens and it was not easy learning A B Cs. Father had to tutor her to
help her catch up.
5th
Uncle Mark
In China, at 13 years
old, Uncle Mark joined the youth communist party. The family quickly sent him
to Nanyang. When he arrived, he was the
subject of the minor family disagreement.
He stayed with us. Father also tutored him his English.
4th
Aunt Kong Wah Mee
She babysat Ann and
claims to be her favourite niece.
5th
Uncle David Kong
He was the same age as
Francis Chow Fei, Say Bo’s oldest
son. He went to the same school. In the evening, these two uncles entertained
us with their magic tricks.
Youngest
Uncle Kong Seng Kee, Ah Boon
Seng Kee Ah Boon stayed
many years with us. He followed us to Kanowit and back down to Sibu.
7th
Uncle Peter Chan Ying Fei
When he was born in the
village in Lanang Road, Mother bathed him and discovered there was something
wrong with his eye. At around 15 years old, he had problems with that eye. It
was operated on and his eye ball was removed. We were in Padang Road when he
stayed with us to recuperate.
Cousin
Ah Mei, 3rd Aunt Siew Ying’s second daughter
She was not a very
healthy baby and 3rd Aunt Siew Ying was too busy working to take
care of her. Mother babysat her.
Cousin
Vincent Kong Chak Kam, Mother’s nephew
Ah Kam is Ann’s age, and
Grandmother Kong was very proud of her number one grandson.
Cousin
Cecilia Kong Shui Ngan, Vincent’s 2nd sister
The intention was for
Margaret to teach her Roman Catholicism and learn English from us.
Cousin
Wong Kee Fior, 3rd Aunt Kong’s son
He was a year Ann’s
junior, the idea was for him to be tutored by Father and Ann.
6th
Uncle Francis Chan Chou Fei
He was working for SESCO,
the company that supplied electricity to every household in Sarawak. The
Communist activated and soldier led him to stay with us.
Cousin
Kong Choi Yok, Vincent and Cecilia’s sister
Father got her a teaching
post in some school in the country in the Sixth Division. It was too far for
her to go home in the weekends, so she came and stayed.
9th Grand Aunty Patricia Chan
Grand Aunty is a distant
relative, not in the Clan. Like Chok Yok, she was in a similar situation,
spending her weekends with us.
Cousin
Teresa Chan Kit Siong, Uncle Mark’s daughter
While Teresa was waiting
to go to university in Kuala Lumpur, she worked for Pan Sarawak in Sibu and
stayed with us
Rose
and Brother-in-law Chai, Elizabeth and Brother-in-law Kallang and their
Children
The Chais: Flora, Raymond
and Andrew, The Kallangs: Wayne and Jane were around when their Grandpa was the
DEO. Wayne was often in the newspaper photographs following Grandma when she
went for prize giving ceremonies.
When Father died, except
for 5th Uncle David who was in New Zealand, Kee Fior, Ah Mei and
Flora in Australia and Choi Yok in Sibu, everyone came to his dying bed. Most
of them had to fly in from other places. Some have to take time off from work.
They had not forgotten that at some time when they were young, Father had been
good to them.
How
did Father and Mother manage to accommodate so many people?
Well, I never
slept on my own bed until I was 14. We lived in Sarikei at Repok Road. That was
the first time, I had my own bed and I was sleeping at the servant’s room
downstairs.
We did not
have a fridge in Sibu. Everything was bought fresh or from the garden. Because
there were so many of us and relatives staying at our place, Father and Mother
had to supplement our diet by planting vegetables and fruit trees. We had our
own wild vegetables like Paku and Midin. Mother grew the wild ferns. We kept
chickens and ducks. It was Ann’s job to feed them with rice husks. Ann and Margaret related their stories on
collecting the sea weeds from the drains and the embarrassment.
Four times a
year, we reared a little piglet and fattened it for special occasions. Grandpa
assembled all the uncles to slaughter the pig. Those were the happy times when
we all have plenty to eat. We shared them with our aunts. What we could not
finished, we dried them to make waxed pork. Up to now, I am the only person in
my island growing my own organic vegetables and fruits. I even kept hens for
eggs.
Mother was creative and
made brown beans paste in a clay basin. We also have pickled vegetables.
In Embang
Road Grandfather Chan set traps to catch moor hens, squirrels, foxes and
monitor lizards. These added protein to our diets. Henry is now with WWF and he
would not approve us eating exotic wild life.
Bean Sprouts,
toufu (bean curd) and potato leaves are cheap and nutritious. Mother bought
them on a daily basis for lunch and dinner. We had so much that we were sick
and tired of them. Now they are expensive cuisine in any Japanese and Chinese
Restaurants. Ann and I have a policy to never ever order these cuisines at
restaurants. Let say, we were not over the fact that the toufu was 0.5 cents a
block and now we have to pay $20.00 per dish at a fancy restaurant in
Australia. In fact, Ann absolutely refuses to eat them.
We have our
own make shift oven. Mother had a wood fire and then baked cakes in homemade
oven. The cakes were excellent. They were never burnt. Those were the days when
Mother gave those presents to family and friends particularly during Chinese
New Year. We kids have to beat one hundred eggs with a hand held spiral whisk,
and creamed with butter in big blue laundry bins. Butter was a luxury. Later
mother learnt how to make Chiffon cakes with no butter. For the flavour, it was
my job to pound the pandan leaves in the mortar and extract the essence for the
cakes.
When the
twins Henry and Helen were toddlers, Mother bought the Lactogen Baby Formulae
in 20 gallon tin. There were so many empty tins. The used tins were used to boil chungs, glutinous rice with pork fillings wrapped in leaves. Mother
would make the small ones. Making Chungs
was a family event, everyone was involved. It was the boys’ job to make the
fire downstairs and I loved starting fires.
Grandfather Chan made his as big as half a loaf of bread with plenty of
fat pork. Up to these days, we prefer chung
with fat belly pork.
Sweet
Potatoes and Mung Bean Soup were our occasional sweet treat at 4 p.m. Unlike
our neighbours who have high tea, we have this soup to keep us cool and a tonic
to avoid sickness. If anyone of us was sick, then all of us would have to drink
the Leon Cha (cool herbs). We were
always reminded of the demise of 3rd Uncle and the “heaty” moon
cake.
Our garden
was full of herbs. Cheng Hit Chai (small green leaves), Andrographis paniculata was the King of all Bitters was the dreaded
medicine we were made to take. Mother would harvest the leaves and pour boiling
water in a mug full of leaves. If we were sick we had to drink the green bitter
concoction. It was so bitter that we have a spoonful of sugar on standby. It
just numbed the brain. It has the same effect or feeling as mistaking wasabi
for avocado. You can still find them growing at Rose and Elizabeth’s place. Ann
would even pretend not to be sick to avoid this horrible bitter concoction.
That’s why she never wagged school. I believe it is an instant cure for
headaches and sore throats and I still take them.
Whenever we
have an infected bruise, Ah Tai would
look for the green moss growing on moist walls. Then she pounded them in mortar
and applied them to the wound. We never had to use penicillin or anti bacterial
cream. The cure was imminent.
Cousin Kee
Fior was staying with us and had constant nose bleed. Ah Tai took him for a haircut. She collected his hair and burned
them in ashes. She and Mother boiled the ashes in water. Kee Fior drank the
extract a few times. His nose stopped bleeding. Was that a myth or a
coincidence? Kee Fior is a big towkay in Sydney.
We did not
have telephones and television till Father’s promotion as DEO in Sarikei.
Before, we relied on borrowing our neighbour’s phone in times of emergencies.
It was a very exciting time when we saw the first Mohammad Ali and Joe Bugner’s
heavy weight boxing fight on TV. Then we watched the 6 million dollar man. For
the record, Father and Mother never bought a fridge or TV in their entire
lifetime. These were later standard household equipments in the Government
bungalow for senior servants.
A tradition has been
formed, Charles in turned has had relatives staying with him in New Zealand and
Australia, Uncle Mark’s John and Luke, Margaret, Joseph, Helen and Grace, and
Cousin James, son of Father’s cousin Fung Fei.
Father stayed for many
years with Margaret.
The last half year when
he was very sick, he stayed with Henry. When relatives visit Singapore, they
stay with Ann and Grace.
Grandfather Chan said,
“The good, you propagate, the bad you nip in the bud.” That’s the Chans’ philosophy that has been
passed on to generations.
In the 1970s and 1980s,
Charles opened their doors to Margaret, Cousin Chok You, Ah Chung, Helen,
Grace, Father and Mother and I.
In Kuching, Margaret
opened her house for Cousin James, and Father. Her house is like a hotel to the
family on their holidays.
I have nieces stay while
they study.
The Chan houses are
always full with relatives and friends during the school holidays.
Ann’s conclusion:
I like to highlight the hospitality of the
Chans as I conclude this section. We were in Embang Road and one day, a blind
man came to 3rd Aunt’s shop and insisted that she led him to our
house. Mother brought her home; a complete stranger except his surname was the
same as us. He learnt Father was a very kind person and would help him contact
Dr. Wong to get a referral to go to China and treat his blindness. Mother
agreed to take him, and it took a long time to get an appointment. When the
doctor said he could not be treated, and would not give him a referral, he was
stubborn, and wanted a second opinion.
In the mean
time, he stayed with us for a long time sharing Grandfather Chan’s bedroom,
billeting on the floor. He ate as though he had never eaten before, he was a
scrawny thing when he came, and we really fattened him up. Grandfather Chan did
not mind him so much, but this blind man kept talking to him late into the
night, and when Grandfather Chancsaid he had to sleep, he turned on his
transistor radio. It irritated Grandfather especially when he was always
talking to him and us children, disturbing us in our homework. He went, but he
came back again. Finally his relatives came to take him home and apologized for
overstaying his welcome.
I was sweet
16 and never been kissed. The blind man needed someone to hold his hand and led
round the house. If not, he said to tap on the wall, and he would listen to the
sound and be guided this way. I felt embarrassed to hold a man's
hand. One day, I led him to the dining room by tapping. I tapped on the
door way, and "BANG!" he crashed his head on the door frame and had a
big gnash on his forehead oozing with blood. Rose was very good, and quickly
washed his head, and put on a band aid plaster.
Mother
scolded, "What were you embarrassed about? He can't even see you."
For a couple
of days, he enjoyed Rose' tender loving care. The blind man went home, and told
the whole village how good this "Brother John Chan" was to him.
They
nattered, “He is so good, and why don't you go there?
One day, Mother saw him in 3rd Aunt’s shop with a "Haj's head."
He was beaten up so badly that no way was Mother going to let him return
home. His relative said he raped his
niece. We could not believe he cannot even know where to go, how he could rape
a girl. Mother said, they just want an excuse to send him away.
Father approached our ex neighbour, Mr. John Wong Siong Cheng,
Charlie and Edmund’s dad, about a placement at the Bind Centre in Bukit Lima.
John was the secretary of the Blind Centre. Mother said he was sent
to the blind centre in Kuching. He was much happier with his flute. We never
heard of him again. Mother wondered why he was not sent there a long time ago.
Of course, he did not have connections that Father and Mother had.
As I finish
this book, I pause and ponder. Am I blowing our trumpet? Have I painted too
honourable about Father and too virtuous about Mother?
I leave you
with these words from Orlando Chua Siao Hui, a lawyer in Sarawak. I taught
Orlando in 1974-75. When I left for Canada, I had not seen him since.
In 2012 he
wrote on my Facebook:
“I will never
forget you Miss Chan. I was 13 and representing Binatang in a sports meet in
Sarikei. You came with a pile of blankets and pillows for us students.”
I have no
recollection about this, and I believe it was Mother and Father who told me to
do it. Mother knew these kids had to sleep on top of school desks without any
bedding.
Before
Father died, he left written instruction and directions for us if we decided to
return home to Hui Veng, Kwang Zhou in China.
