My mother’s side of the family was a lot more complicated than my father’s. There were simply a lot more people to keep track of. For a start, my maternal grandfather, Oh Joo Siew, had a brother named Joo Hock who lived in Port Swettenham, the old name for what we now know as Port Klang. Granduncle Joo Hock had several children, including three daughters my mother always referred to as “the three sisters from Kang-Khao (港口),” this being the colloquial name for the Port town.
One of them eventually settled in Petaling Jaya. She had four children and by pure chance, I crossed paths with one of them at a chess tournament in Selangor. We played our game, made polite conversation, and still didn’t know we were cousins. Only when I visited him later at his home did we discover our family connection. That cousin, Phuah Eng Chye, later stood beside me as the Best Man at my wedding. We still keep in touch. Through him and others, I’ve remained connected to many of my cousins with the Oh surname, particularly Harry, Amy, Peggy, and a few more whose names now slip my mind.
Together, we managed to trace our Malaysian roots back to our great-great-grandfather, Oh Cheng Chan. As it turned out, he was a contemporary of Cheah Chen Eok, the man who built the Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower in George Town. I've already written of Oh Cheng Chan many times previously.My maternal grandmother was Tan Kim Lean, the eldest in a family of five boys and two girls. Of her siblings, I can recall only five names: Boey Hooi Hong, Tan Hooi Teik, Tan Hooi Cheng, Chan Fui Kam and Tan Kim Bee. One of the brothers died during the Japanese Occupation, and I never knew his name. You might wonder why the eldest, Hooi Hong, had a different surname. But this wasn’t unusual in those days. Families sometimes gave a child up to be named by a godfather, who lent his surname for one generation. In Hooi Hong’s case, his son reverted back to the family surname; full name being Tan Kuan Hai.
As the siblings married, they moved into homes of their own. Granduncles Hooi Hong settled in a townhouse along Hutton Lane, Hooi Teik lived on Gopeng Road, Hooi Cheng in Green Road Four and Fui Kam along Lim Lean Teng Road. Grandaunt Kim Bee, meanwhile, lived with her husband, Chong Swee Cheang, in a modest attap house in the Ayer Itam village. Their three daughters, my mother’s cousins, were part of my growing extended world. The eldest, Hoon Goey, had married a Eurasian man, Ralph de Vosse, and lived in a government quarters in Bayan Lepas with a clear view of the airfield. Visiting them was a real treat for a small boy like me. I'd be watching aircraft land and take off with wide-eyed wonder alongside my four cousins there: Eddy, Eleanor, Edgar and Edwin. Uncle Ralph was a passionate stamp collector, and it was from him that I picked up the hobby. I remember being fascinated by the names and colours of faraway countries. My stamp album became my first geography teacher.Grandaunt Kim Bee’s two other daughters were Hoon Cheng and Hoon Kew. Sadly, Hoon Cheng passed away sometime in the 1980s from complications after surgery to fix a congenital heart defect. Hoon Kew eventually married and is settled down in the Zoo Road area of Ayer Itam. There was also an adopted daughter in my grandaunt's family. Hoon Eng, the daughter of Granduncle Swee Cheang’s brother, had also grown up under their roof. She married Goh Eng Kheng in 1952 and had seven children of her own. That attap house in Ayer Itam must’ve been bursting at the seams. With so many voices and so much activity, it had the energy of a kampung within four walls.
And if that sounds complicated, well—it was. All these women were daughters of two very close sisters. Naturally, there were tight family bonds. But the twist came when my parents and Hoon Eng agreed to make me her godson. Just like that, I found myself with a new set of godsiblings: Johnny (Huat), Susan, Simon (Leong), Dolly, Rosie, Lilian and Raymond. It was the first sudden expansion of my little universe.
Still, my parents and I continued to live with my maternal grandparents in our rented house on Seang Tek Road. Life still went on as normal. Every month, the rent collector would come around. I can’t remember the exact figure now. Was it $16 or $32 every month? Either way, that little moment of ritual was part of the rhythm of our lives back then.
I assume Grandfather Joo Siew and Grandmother Kim Lean had lived there ever since their wedding on 17 March 1927. As his brother was in Port Swettenham, Grandfather often travelled back and forth between the towns, sometimes bringing along his two precious daughters, Oh Cheng Yam and Oh Cheng Kin. Those trips must’ve been formative, because the two girls from Penang and their three Port Swettenham cousins bonded for life.
My mother, Cheng Kin, was the younger of the two sisters, but the first to marry, to my father, Quah Ah Huat, in January 1954. Aunt Cheng Yam married a decade later in 1964 to Quah Boo Seng, who shared the same surname as my father but wasn’t directly related. Then again, our ancestors were Ow-Quah clansmen from Tia Boay (鼎尾) village in Hokkien Seng, China, so perhaps a more distant kinship existed. From their marriage came Irene Quah, my closest cousin on that side.
But Uncle Boo Seng had already been widowed once and had six children from his earlier marriage: Swee Beng, Molly, Swee Eng, Swee Siang and Swee Kheng. I was elated, welcoming them into the extended family, totally embracing their sudden appearance and presence, the second time in my life. I was closer to Swee Kheng since we were both in Standard Five at Westlands School, thus sharing a kind of kinship that went beyond family trees.
I can’t help returning now to one particular memory of the house in Seang Tek Road. It wasn’t just where my maternal grandparents lived, it was the family hub, the place where everyone returned to during festivals, the kong-chhu (公厝). Come Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn mooncake festival, the Seventh Moon offerings or the Winter Solstice Tang Chek celebration, the house came alive. The memorial tablets of our great-grandparents had a special place in the hall, atop a cupboard where Granduncle Hooi Hong kept his book and magazine collection. I’d flicked through old copies of Popular Mechanics without understanding much, except being fascinated by the pictures and illustrations. Maybe it was because of this collection that I found a special affinity with Granduncle Hooi Hong. In his old age, I would visit him in Hutton Lane, each time bringing with me a new tin of cocoa powder as a gift. Not Van Houten but Cadbury. I'd sit with him, talked with him, before moving on. I never did this with the rest of them.
During festivals, Grandmother would lead the charge in the kitchen, preparing elaborate Nyonya dishes with help from her daughters and a few of my granduncles' wives. They’d lay everything out on the table to invite the spirits home for a meal. The granduncles brought their own offerings of sweet meats, fruits and even durian if they were in season. After the worship, there’d be a big makan session and merriment. I looked forward to these gatherings, not so much for the food, but for the warmth of being among so many relatives, young and old. The relatives were complicated, yes, but they were also family.
There will be more memories to share in later stories.
NOTE: This story is part of my reminiscence series which I've been adding to my blog once in a while. The series is meant to document things I remember about my younger and childhood days; my important memories, which may be pretty mundane to other people, to pass down to my son and daughter. Life as it used to be in the 1950s to 1970s, perhaps into the 1990s. But let's see how it goes...