Grandparents

This story touches on the darker side of life and death. It may come across as a little sad, even depressing. For a long time, I hesitated over whether I should write anything at all about the passing of the people on my side of the family who were closest to me. I refer to my two sets of grandparents, my parents and a paternal aunt who stayed with me right to the very end of her life. But then I thought, I had already touched on my paternal grandfather before, how he died and how his remains were taken to the funeral parlour. That was my very first personal brush with death in the family. I was nine years old, and the unpleasant experience terrified me. Having gone that far, perhaps I should write about the others too.

Let me recap what I wrote last August 2025. My paternal grandfather (Quah Teik Beng) died in the wee hours of 10 December 1963 at the age of 66. Someone came round to Seang Tek Road to wake my father. By the time we arrived, his body was already cold. Later, a man from the coffin shop came to take the body to the Toi Shan Convalescent Home in Hutton Lane for the funeral preparations. Despite the name, the ground floor of this "convalescent home" was entirely a funeral parlour, divided into cubicles. Lighting was poor. At night, after the rituals, only a dim bulb lit the corridor. Shadows were cast on the walls, and if a candle was still burning, the shadows would dance. The dead, covered only with blankets, lay on wooden planks waiting for their coffins. As a young boy, I found the whole atmosphere terrifying.

One ritual involved wiping my grandfather’s darkened face and symbolically feeding him rice, placing a few grains on his lips for his final journey. That moment, staring into his lifeless face, has stayed with me to this day.

During the funeral, we had to wear black, topped with the mua sah, the rough hemp mourning cloth. My father wore a matching headgear made from the same coarse material. All of this was meant to show outwardly the depth of grief, that the mourner no longer cared for comfort or appearance. After the funeral, we were required to mourn for three years: wearing black for the first year, black-and-white for the second, then white-and-blue for the third. No celebrations were allowed. No angpow during Chinese New Year. Rigid rules, but that was the way things were done then.

Less than three years later, on 11 February 1966, my maternal grandfather (Oh Joo Siew) passed away, 68 years old. Although we had not completed the mourning period for my paternal grandfather, my parents and I had to quickly tnooi ang, literally meaning return to red, before going back into mourning again.

Of the two, my maternal grandfather was my favourite. He doted on me and much later, on my young cousin Irene. In the evenings, he would take me to a nearby Indian sundry shop. I was happy with the simplest things: sweets, crackers, biscuits. In return, I became very attached to him. So when he died, I was devastated. Just the day before his death, he was carrying his one- or two-year-old granddaughter happily in his arms. He could no longer walk while carrying her, having suffered from a mild stroke the year before. And that was the last time he ever held Irene.

At about five in the morning, my grandmother woke the family to say he was not responding to her call. We rushed downstairs to see him laying still on the bed. I shook him, beseeching him to call me, but all we heard was a gurgling sound from his throat. That was all. A massive stroke had taken him. Soon after, my mother’s sister arrived. She fell to her knees and crawled into the house, wailing that she would never see him again. That set my mother off again, though she had already been crying earlier.

Since he died at home, the wake was held in the house. The living room furniture was cleared, pictures removed, altars and mirrored surfaces covered with red paper. His body was placed on a narrow bed behind makeshift curtains. The curtains were drawn but if I climbed the stairs behind the living room to go upstairs, I could still look down at my grandfather's body. The coffin came the next day, and then there were the Taoist rites. My mother and aunt took turns kneeling beside the curtains, burning joss paper piece by piece, their mourning interrupted by fresh wails whenever relatives came. I was supposed to kneel and receive them as they entered, such was the custom.

As my grandfather hadn't any son, there was nobody in the immediate family to wear the mua sah during the funeral. Instead one of his nephews in Penang, his elder brother's son, stepped in to wear this rough hemp clothing and also carry the tong huan or paper lantern. For the year-long mourning period, we were wearing only black-and-white, which was comparatively a more relaxed requirement than my earlier experience.  

Soon after, my paternal grandmother (Lim Poh Choo) and aunt moved in with us at Seang Tek Road. She was already unwell and my father wanted her nearby. For a time, both my grandmothers lived under the same roof, a rather unusual arrangement.

But my paternal grandmother’s condition worsened. She tried all sorts of treatments, including an enema to unblock her bowels, but it only left her weaker than before. By early 1967, just before Chinese New Year, it was clear she would not last. On the night she died at the age of 62, on the sixth of February, my maternal grandmother decided to go stay with her other daughter to avoid the inevitable, but it was too late. Just as she reached the door, my mother’s wails drifted down from upstairs. She was trapped, and had to remain in the house through the funeral process.

Because it was so close to Chinese New Year, few relatives came and we couldn't fault anyone for that. It was a quiet affair except for the obligatory wails by my mother and paternal aunt. The funeral took place on the eve of the Chinese New Year and that night, as neighbours lit firecrackers and celebrated, our doorway had no red cloth and our lantern remained unlit. My father and I sat on the five-foot way and watched in silence.

This time, we completed the mourning period of one year. After that came the tnooi ang ritual. A cleansing bath, followed by the sin tok or pouring scented water and seven-coloured flowers over the head before changing into red clothes.

In the mid-1970s, we moved to Lorong Zoo Tiga in Ayer Itam. I can’t recall the exact year, maybe 1974 or 1975. The landlord of the row of four Seang Tek Road houses wanted them back. All the tenants resisted but eventually, we had to leave. We moved in with my maternal grandmother’s sister. Space was tight. My parents, aunt, sister Judy and I crammed into one room, while my grandmother (Tan Kim Lean) shared another with her sister's daughter.

It was there that she passed away on 16 August 1980, aged 79. She had long suffered from weak lungs. On that day, her breathing finally failed and she collapsed on the bed in my mother's arms. I remember that on the first night of the wake, there was a power failure. The house was in darkness, lit only by a pair of candles at my grandmother's feet. Immediately my mind raced back to that funeral parlour in Hutton Lane in 1963 when shadows danced on the wall. When the lights came back, I felt a huge sense of relief. By the time of her passing, mourning customs in Penang were already beginning to shift. Some of the older, more rigid practices were being relaxed. For instance, the wearing of black-and-white was shortened to about 100 days, a more practical arrangement for modern times.

There is one small incident I should mention. There is a Taoist belief that the soul lingers until the seventh day, not fully aware that it has departed the physical shell. The living cannot see it, but there may be signs of its presence. On the fifth day after her passing, two days after the funeral, most of the family had gone out. Only my sister, my paternal aunt and I were at home. My sister, as usual, started talking her light-hearted nonsense, even making jokes about our grandmother. Suddenly, from the back of the house, there was a loud crash of pots and pans falling to the floor. We froze. Then my sister started crying. Was it coincidence? Or was our departed grandmother cross about the jokes and wanted to show her displeasure? We shall never know for sure. 

I think I’ve gone on long enough for now. There are still more to say, but perhaps I’ll leave those for another time when I feel ready to return to this topic.

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...

#seangtekroad

Over in the blink of an eye

And just like that, Chinese New Year is over. All 15 days of it, gone in the twinkling of an eye.

Strange, considering the run-up lasted almost two months for me. The on-and-off spring cleaning, waking early to buy fruits for deity and ancestral worship, stocking up on fresh food for the long stretch of cooking ahead. And of course, preparing for the reunion dinner.

It’s not as though we don’t sit down regularly with my son and daughter. We do. But the Chinese New Year reunion dinner carries a different significance. A whole day is spent in preparation -- washing, chopping, simmering, tasting -- until evening comes and we finally sit down together to enjoy what we’ve made with our own hands. Usually roast chicken, garlic prawns, jiu hoo char, too tor soup. Sometimes a steamboat dinner, but not this year. The food tastes better for the effort.

Once that dinner is over, my annual pre-CNY duties begin. I gum strips of red paper carefully around each fruit, one by one, before arranging them neatly on plates for offering. Then come the gold-stamped worship papers, folded into paper ingots and lotus flowers. These will be burnt after the worship to Soo Kong, our house deity, and the Tnee Kong to welcome in the New Year. By the time everything is done, prayers said, incense offered, and suddenly it is usually close to 2am before we turn in.

The first day of Chinese New Year is vegetarian for us, from breakfast through to dinner. A tradition that has stayed, even as other habits have loosened over the years. We make our way to Bandar Tasek Mutiara to visit my mother-in-law, now the most senior member of the family since my parents and my aunt are no longer with us. Time does its quiet accounting. Generations shift almost without announcement.

Apart from that, we keep things simple. On the sixth day, when we are out visiting the Kuan Imm Teng and the Triple Wisdom Temple on the island, we drop by a long-time family friend’s home more out of habit than obligation. Otherwise, we stay home and wait for visitors, mostly relatives, the house filling and emptying in waves.

And then, before we quite realise it, Chap Goh Meh is upon us. On this day, I make my way to the Swee Cheok Tong, where my Kongsi makes its annual worship to the deities. Our principal deity is Tai Tay Yah, though Tua Pek Kong and Lo Chiah Kong are also prominent in the front hall. In the inner chamber are the Chow Moo Kong and Tay Choo Kong, along with the ancestral tablets. Once the noon worship is completed and the members have dispersed, I make my quiet way to Poh Hock Seah in Armenian Street to pay my respects to the resident Tua Pek Kong there. This is something I’ve done each year since my retirement.

So now, with the 15 days over, the mandarin oranges finished and the unused angpow packets put away, all that remain are the various unfinished Chinese New Year cookies. The red banner above the main doorway comes down, and the house returns to its ordinary rhythm. Two months of preparation. Fifteen days of observance. And it all passes as it always does.

Letting go

Today marks three months since Saw See took the plunge to ordain as a temporary sayalay at the Nandaka Vihara meditation society. I’m immensely proud of her. Not many ladies would willingly part with their hair, even for a short period, and I must admit that my wife was very brave indeed. She had been thinking about this for many years but never quite felt ready for such a transformation. When she finally decided, I knew I had to stand beside her and give her my wholehearted support. After all, it was only for eight days, and her hair would grow back soon enough.

The past few months brought their own small challenges. As I had warned her, her silver and grey patches stood out more conspicuously as they grew, but she took it all in her stride. When she went outdoors for programmes, she often wore a headscarf, and naturally, she attracted curious glances. At first, I sensed her discomfort — people seemed to look at her as if she were recovering from some illness — but she soon grew accustomed to it.

I wouldn’t be writing this if Saw See herself had not shared her experience on Facebook. Now that she’s made it public, I might as well share it here too.

*To Be or Not to Be… a Sayalay*

“To be or not to be.”

This question has lingered in my mind for many years, especially whenever Nandaka Vihara announced its temporary ordination programme for adults.

To be ordained as a temporary Sayalay, even just once in my lifetime has always been on my wish list. Yet, letting go of my hair remained my biggest challenge (I must admit, vanity still had its hold on me!).

Curious, I once asked Bhante Dhammasubho, “Why should a layperson ordain at least once in their life?”

Bhante’s reply was both simple and profound: “To be the daughter or son of the Buddha.”

(Buddhaputta – son of the Buddha; Buddhadhītā – daughter of the Buddha*)

Later, I posed the same question to Bhante Mahanama, who wisely said, “To plant the seed of Dhamma for future lives.”

These two answers deeply touched my heart and gave me the courage to finally “lose my hair.”

I also remembered Bhante Revata’s gentle encouragement a few years ago. When I told him I had been thinking about ordaining for years, he smiled and said, “You just need a little push.” This time, I gave myself that big push and registered for the temporary ordination programme held from 30 August to 7 September 2025 at Nandaka Vihara.

Becoming a temporary Sayalay was a dream come true, truly the best gift I could ever give myself. The peace and tranquillity of the monastic life were beyond words. The morning and evening chantings, ovāda from the Chief Abbot, and Dhamma talks by Bhante Revata, Bhante Panadipa, Bhante Upasanta, and Bhante Punnacara filled each day with mindfulness and joy.

The piṇḍapāta (alms round) with the Sangha and fellow Sayalays was especially humbling, a sacred moment of walking in the footsteps of the Buddha. My meditation interview with Bhante Mahanama also helped deepen my practice and understanding.

I am deeply grateful to Bhante Dhammasubho and all the venerable teachers for their guidance and kindness. This journey has strengthened my faith in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. May I be blessed with the opportunity to ordain again in the near future.

I share all my merits with the Devas, the Sangha, my teachers, my mother, siblings, husband, children, and everyone who made this ordination possible for me.

I dedicate these merits to all beings, and to my departed relatives and friends, especially my beloved father. May they rejoice in these accumulated merits, be reborn in higher realms, and attain Nibbāna in the shortest possible time.

May all beings be well and happy wherever they may be.

Red packet design

I was rummaging through my clothes drawer recently and came across an old angpow — a red packet my mother had given me one Chinese New Year in the early 1980s, certainly before 1985. Back then, this design felt as modern as things could get. Businesses, including Ban Hin Lee Bank, were still rather traditional in their outlook, and the angpow rarely strayed from its standard four-by-two-inch size. It wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that banks began experimenting with bolder designs and shapes. Since then, the humble red packet has evolved into something of a collector’s item, as financial institutions compete to outdo one another in creativity and style.

My mother's relatives

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 common 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 Khoon, 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 cooked dishes, 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...

My father's relatives

It would be a rare family indeed that doesn’t have extended relatives. Come to think of it, while I was an only child for much of my childhood until my sister, Judy, came along I’d still consider myself quite wealthy in terms of relatives, especially on my mother’s side. Her family was large and closely knit, and I had no shortage of uncles, aunts and cousins around me. But on my father’s side, it was a different picture altogether. There were only my paternal grandparents, Quah Teik Beng and Lim Poh Choo, and my aunt, Quah Liew See, with whom I had constant interaction.

The Japanese Occupation had a devastating effect on their lives. Grandfather Teik Beng couldn’t find permanent work after the war, and my father had to leave school in Standard VII to help support the family. He found his calling in banking, joining the Mercantile Bank (later to become the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank) in Beach Street and remaining there until his retirement. But because his father couldn’t earn a steady income, the responsibility of the family’s finances fell almost solely on him. They were staying in a rented room in Malay Street back then—a small, tight family unit.

It was from there that he later married my mother and moved in with her family at Seang Teik Road. That arrangement wasn’t uncommon in those post-war years. Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents and Aunt Liew See moved to another rented room in Green Hall. I still remember that old townhouse. It used to be some sort of association building: long and narrow, with the kitchen, bathroom and toilet  tucked way at the back, shared among all the occupants in the house. A sturdy wooden staircase hugged the side of the wall, leading to the first floor, which was partitioned into individual rooms for different families. My grandparents stayed in one of the rooms at the rear.

At night, the whole place was dimly lit with yellow incandescent bulbs as fluorescent lighting hadn't yet come into fashion. The corridors were dark, and there wasn’t much to do in the evenings but retire early or seek out cheap entertainment around town. My mother and I used to visit regularly, and I remember she and Aunt Liew See would occasionally take me across Light Street to the Supreme Court compound in the afternoons. The grassy field there, where the Francis Light statue and the Logan Memorial stood, was often overgrown and full of weeds. One particular weed made a popping sound when you put it in your mouth. Simple joys for a little boy. It was on that field that I first learnt to ride a bicycle. Unfortunately, I crashed my aunt’s bicycle more times than I care to admit. Sometimes we’d even walk to the Esplanade, which wasn’t far off.

It was at Green Hall that my grandfather died in 1963. I was in Standard Four and missed being in the annual Westlands School class photograph that year. He had been sick for some time, walking with the help of crutches after an accident left one of his legs permanently bent at the knee. He died in the wee hours of the morning, and someone came to Seang Tek Road to awaken my father. When we arrived, he had already gone, his body stiff, his leg still bent. 

Later, a man from the coffin shop—no such person as a present-day funeral director then—came to move the body to the Toi Shan Convalescent Home in Hutton Lane, where the wake would be held. Everyone familiar with that place knew the name was misleading. There was no convalescing at all. The upstairs housed the dying destitute, and the ground floor was entirely a funeral parlour, divided into cubicles for wakes. Lighting was poor, and at night, after the prayer rituals, only a single bulb might light the corridor and partitions. Shadows were cast on the walls. The dead, still covered with only blankets, lay on wooden planks awaiting their coffins. As a young boy, I found the whole atmosphere terrifying.

One ritual involved us wiping my grandfather’s darkened face and symbolically feeding him some rice. Placing a few grains on his lips for his final journey. That ordeal of staring into the lifeless face of my grandfather, haunts me till this day. But I survived the funeral. The procession ended at the Thai cemetery in the Wat Pimbang On monastery in Green Lane, where his body was openly cremated on a stack of charcoal tended by an Indian caretaker. A few days later, we returned to collect the remaining bones, placed them in an urn and buried it in the grave on the temple grounds.

On the seventh night of his passing, we performed the customary vigil of waiting for his spirit to return one last time. My parents, grandmother and aunt gathered in the darkened Green Hall house. The lights were switched off and we laid down, pretending to sleep. I was so scared that I closed my eyes tightly and covered my ears with my pillow, trying to block out all sight and sound. Eventually, someone, probably my father or grandmother, threw a small metal object into the corridor to scare away the (bull head and horse face) spirit guardians of the underworld and announce the vigil’s end. Everyone got up rather relieved to inspect the offering which had been left open overnight: a plate of bee-koh (sweet glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk) left out for the soul. If the rice showed signs of having been bitten into, it meant the soul had returned and realised its earthly journey was over. But nothing had changed. Ritual complete, life slowly returned to normal, although we wore black and white clothes for a year to mark our mourning, before transitioning to blue and white for the remaining two years, a small square piece of black cloth always pinned to the left sleeve of the shirt. Thank goodness that tradition has fallen out of practice today. In my opinion, it was just to show how filial piety one can be.

My father with Lee Chee Jin, his relative
from Sarawak (left)

After Green Hall, my grandmother and aunt moved briefly to another room in Carnarvon Lane. Whether it was Green Hall or Carnarvon Lane, it was impossible for two ladies, one elderly and the other unmarried, to live alone in a rented accommodation without a man around. So it was decided that they come to live with my parents and maternal grandmother in Seang Tek Road. It was there that Grandmother Poh Choo passed away in 1967. For about two weeks, she had complained of being unable to move her bowels. An enema was arranged for her at home—an old-fashioned treatment even then—but it turned out to be the last straw. She never got out of bed again. A few days later, just four days before Chinese New Year, her death arrived. My maternal grandmother was unable to escape the Seang Tek Road house in time and so she, too, had to remain in the house for all the funeral rites. That year, there was no Chinese New Year for us. The neighbourhood still celebrated with prayers, joss sticks and firecrackers but our house was silent. No red sashes across the doorway, no angpows to receive. We just sat on the five-footway and watched the festivities from a distance. We donned black and white clothes again but thankfully, we switched to blue and white after the 49th day, before discarding all the mourning colours after a year had passed.

Apart from Aunt Liew See, my father had no other close relatives in Penang. He had some first cousins living in Love Lane, descended from my grandfather’s younger brother, Quah Teik Lim. His family included Quah Kong Chai and Ah Siew, and their sisters, Quah Siang Bok and Quah Siang Kheng. The ladies married off and moved off elsewhere, Kuala Lumpur and Sungai Petani, I believe. The men, after the death of my granduncle, relocated to Butterworth. Of his four cousins, only Siang Bok remains. I still keep in regular touch with two of my cousins, Poh Chuan and Siew Suan. They’re my closest surviving relatives on my father’s side. Grandmother Poh Choo was said to have family in Sarawak, but I’ve never been able to trace them. All I know is they once lived in Keyalang Park, Kuching. There was an uncle, Chee Jin. His daughter, Choon Chai, stayed in Penang for a year or two in the mid-1960s while training as a nurse.

More reminiscences about other relatives 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...

Before the roads diverged

For the first 14 years of my life, I was an only child—until my little sister Judy came into the picture. Being the sole focus of attention back then, I naturally became the centre of attention for both sets of grandparents. We were living with my maternal grandparents in Seang Tek Road. When my parents married in 1954, my father moved into that household, which I believe was a fairly common arrangement in post-war Penang—grooms settling in with the bride’s family.

Unlike my mother’s side, my paternal grandparents had nowhere permanent to stay. No house, not even a rented one. My maternal grandparents or maybe, great-grandparents, on the other hand, had rented the house in Seang Tek Road a long time ago, and it had taken on the role of a kind of traditional family home, the kong-chhu (公厝). It was where extended family gathered during big occasions such as the Emperor God’s worship during Chinese New Year, prayers for the ancestors during the seventh lunar month, and of course, the winter solstice festival or Tang Chek (冬至). Relatives would come and go, especially to visit my maternal grandmother, who was the eldest among her siblings.

Her side of the family was large and lively. She had regular outings to visit relatives, too. The closest lived in Noordin Street, headed by a formidable cigar-chomping old lady I still remember clearly. Among her siblings, she was especially close to her younger sister who stayed in a kampung house in Ayer Itam. They had a car, so most of the time it was the sister who came calling. When we wanted to visit them, we’d catch a bus from Dato Kramat Road, either a municipal one or the green Lim Seng Seng bus. Her other brothers were scattered around Hutton Lane, Gopeng Road, Green Garden and Lim Lean Teng Road. I was told there was a fifth brother who died during the war, but nobody ever spoke much about what happened to him.

My paternal grandparents, meanwhile, were hit hard by the Japanese Occupation. After the war, my grandfather struggled to find work. My father had to leave school before completing his Senior Cambridge exams to earn a living. My earliest memories of my paternal grandparents were of them staying in a room along Malay Street with my aunt. I haven’t been able to trace that house anymore, but back then it was considered the groom’s “official” family residence when he got married. From there, they moved into a room in Green Hall—a gloomy upstairs space that also served as an office for a Chinese association. The stairs led to a dimly lit upper floor, and their room was right at the back. Lighting was poor in those days—just a bare incandescent bulb dangling from the ceiling.

It was in that dimly lit room at Green Hall where my paternal grandfather passed away. In the middle of the night, someone called at our home in Seang Tek Road to inform my father of the death. We arrived to see him on the bed, lifeless. The lightbulb was dim, the atmosphere heavy, and the air felt a little stale. The undertaker came and his body was taken to the Toishan Convalescent Home for the customary three-day wake.

That was my first encounter with death in the family, and I remember it vividly as something unsettling and difficult to process. The funeral home was dim, stark and solemn, filled with shadows and the smell of burning fake paper money, the silver gin-chua (银纸). Family members and acquaintances came and went, offering condolences, burning joss sticks, folding paper offerings. To me, it all felt like a blur. Ceremonies and rituals which I didn’t fully understand, but was expected to endure. Death wasn’t something people talked about openly. The adults moved around, and they wailed loudly when they cried. I didn’t feel grief the way they did, not exactly. What I felt was a strange sense of fear, of helplessness with no-one to talk to. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be sad or respectful, but as a nine-year-old, I was scared.

To this day, that three-day wake has stayed with me—not because of ritual or family unity, but because it was the first time I truly felt the presence of death. Not abstract, not in stories, but real, and final. It marked the end of something, but also introduced a part of life that, until then, had been hidden from view. I think that’s why I’ve never forgotten it. Perhaps one day I should write about it properly.

After Green Hall, my paternal grandmother and aunt moved to Carnarvon Lane, and later, came to live with us in Seang Tek Road. What began as my maternal grandparents’ traditional family kong-chhu eventually grew into something more: a shared home where the two mothers-in-law, each from different background, came to accept one another’s presence under a single roof. Once, that might have seemed unthinkable but times had changed, and so had the circumstances that bound us together. After finishing school at Penang Free School, I headed off to Tunku Abdul Rahman College in Petaling Jaya, graduating in 1976. I joined the Straits Echo but lasted only six months before moving on to Ban Hin Lee Bank. In 1980, everything changed. The landlord reclaimed all four units of the Seang Tek Road property, supposedly for development which, as it turned out, never happened. But we were evicted anyway, and with very little notice.

By then, our family circle had shrunk a bit more. There was just my maternal grandmother, my paternal aunt, my parents, Judy and me. We somehow squeezed into my grandmother’s sister’s house in Lorong Zoo Tiga. It was there that my last grandmother passed away. Around the same time, Judy left for Singapore to pursue a nursing career. That left only the four of us, and in 1984, my father bought a small flat in Seberang Jaya. We moved in, thankful for owning a property at long last but not long after, in 1985, my mother, who had been unwell for a while, passed away.

Following Chinese tradition, I married Saw See within 100 days of my mum's death. We moved to the Semilang area in Seberang Jaya, where our two children were born. Then, in 2004, came the big move to Bukit Mertajam after we grew tired of our Semilang neighbours. That’s where we’ve been ever since—21 years and counting.

Annual CNY lunch

Just wrapped up our annual Chinese New Year lunch at home with most of my in-laws. As always, we only made the too-tor soup—which took the whole morning to prepare—and catered the rest. This year, we picked two dishes from Zui Xiang Lou in Machang Bubok and another two from Kerala Spice Kitchen in downtown Bukit Mertajam.

 

When in-laws meet

Titiwangsa, the Main Range. That was what I crossed travelling on the East-West Highway between Penang and Kelantan last weekend. It was a six-hour drive eastwards on Saturday, followed by another equally lengthy journey back west on Sunday. My wife and I accompanied her sister and brother-in-law to Tanah Merah to deliver the pheng-kim to their future daughter-in-law’s parents, ahead of their younger son’s wedding in a fortnight. We felt honoured to be asked to help carry the siah-nah and other wedding gifts. Saw See led the way into the house with the siah-nah while my brother-in-law and I brought up the rear with the fruits. The pheng-kim is the traditional dowry ritual offered by the groom’s parents to the bride’s family, while the siah-nah is a woven rattan wedding basket used to carry those dowry items. All deeply rooted in Chinese custom.

On Sunday morning, we arrived at the bride’s parents’ house in Tanah Merah. They were well prepared for our arrival; a red banner was already strung across the main doorway, and to the left, a lavish buffet spread awaited. We arrived with minimal fanfare, met by the curious eyes of close relatives meeting us for the first time. Without much ado, Saw See entered the house first with the siah-nah, carefully prepared the night before in our hotel room, followed by her sister carrying additional traditional gifts such as a pair of dragon and phoenix candles, wedding biscuits and two bottles of brandy. Meanwhile, we men brought in the fruit—apples and oranges adorned with the double happiness symbol—which we placed on the table before the family altar. With the worship and dowry presentation completed, we gathered for lunch before exchanging farewells and setting off on our long journey home.

Lunch dana @ home

We invited six Theravadin Buddhist monks from the Nandaka Vihara Meditation Society for lunch dana at our residence. Among them were two local monks, one from Myanmar, and three from Sri Lanka. Lunch dana is a practice where monks visit to offer blessings, perform Buddhist chants, and share teachings for the benefit of everyone in the household, including friends and relatives who may be present. This unique occasion allows for open discussions and questions about Buddhism, providing an opportunity for deeper understanding. In gratitude for their blessings and chanting, we had the privilege of serving lunch to them.

Many thanks to family and friends who lent their support. Lai Kuan and Fang Yi contributed their peanut soup and mochi balls, Cheok San and Swee Hiang came with their yam kueh and cut fruits, Sister Yong with her salad bowl, Boon Leong and Eng Keong who brought bananas. Our appreciation to Mohven and Richard who drove the monks to and from the Nandaka Vihara.

#BuddhistMonks #LunchDana #SpiritualBlessings #DharmaTalk #BuddhistTeachings #DanaOffering

We served perut ikan, jiuhoo char, roast duck, chicken varuvel, fried bittergourd, fried chicken, briyani rice and tookar snooi. We cooked the jiuhoo char for this occasion, but everything else were purchased from various vendors. Other contributions came from Lai Kuan and Fang Yi who cooked their peanut soup and mochi balls, Cheok San and Swee Hiang arrived with his mother who brought oar kueh and cut fruits, Sister Yong with her broccoli salad, Boon Leong and Eng Keong with their bananas.