Xiamen visitors

I get very upset when I am informed of an event that requires my presence and yet, there is very little detail of what's happening. Last Friday or so, I received a cryptic message saying some important visitors from Xiamen in China were on a whirlwind tour of Penang and elsewhere. 

They wanted to come by our Swee Cheok Tong as part of their tour but the only information we had was that it would be on the 16th of the month. No time given. 

Mad, lah. Siow, lah! You expect our Kongsi to be open the whole day for them? You expect my committee members to hang around the Kongsi the whole day long without doing anything but wait for their arrival? 

Then on Saturday, I received an excited call from our clansman in Xiamen asking us to assist by ensuring we meet the Xiamen officials.

Slowly, more information trickle d it and it was confirmed on Monday midday that these people from the Xiamen Haicang Overseas Chinese Sandu Association would visit at 10am. Altogether with their local representatives there would be 18 of them.

Well, at least there was something concrete for us to work on, although it was still practically at the last minute. We had to arrange for a pewter plate for the exchange of souvenirs or else, pai say, loss of face for the Kongsi that we had nothing to give our guests in return. We also had to arrange some last-minute gifts for the whole group. And refreshments too.

For us from the Swee Cheok Tong, I also had my Vice-President Chin Sun, Treasurer Chin Chuan and Committee Members Chin Choon and Soo Liang on standby. We expected the visitors to be late and we were surprised that they actually arrived soon after 10 o'clock.

It was a whirlwind sort of visit, all right. My vice-President spoke to briefly explain to them why our signboards said Swee Cheok Tong outside and Hai In Tong inside. After a quick exchange of gifts, we had our group pictures taken and that was that! All over inside 20 minutes and for that, we had to make so much quick preparations in double quick time.

In a way I was glad for this chance to meet these Chinese officials. After all, Xiamen was one of the sources of us Hokkien clans in Penang. A very long time ago, our forefathers had departed there for the Nanyang to seek a better future. So there will always be ties with Xiamen but today, it's left to us to pull one another closer.