GEESE
GEESE
“ I once watched a Canadian goose whose mate had been shot by hunters. They mate for life, you know. The gander circled the pond for days, and more days after that. When I last saw him, he was swimming alone through the wild rice, still looking…….”
- The Bridges of Madison County -
6-43 Lorong Scott, Brickfields
During my childhood days, our family resided at No 6-43 Lorong Scott, Jalan Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur. I understand that the land in that area belonged to the estate of one Mr. Loke Wan Too, who was a descendant of the famous tycoon Mr. Loke Yew. Mr. Loke Wan Too was once described by a Sino researcher as the rising star in the midst of an enterprising Chinese community in South East Asia during the 1960s, but his tragic death in an air crash in Taiwan also crushed his business empire which was known as the Cathay Organization. Hence, many families continued to live in the vast piece of undeveloped property stretching from the present day Holy Rosary Church to YMCA along the Klang River.
My father probably moved into the area when he started working for the Klang Bus Company which had a workshop in that area, dominated by the Henghua clan like us.
Lorong Scott was very close to the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, and therefore, also very near to the once famous Hotel Majestic. Since in those days, the hotels or restaurant business were mostly dominated by the Hainanese, a number of Hainanese families also moved to the area. One of such couples happened to stay in our house as our rent paying tenant.
Pei-lay And Pei-neen
I verily remember that just the two of them must have moved into our house when I was about 7 or 8 years old and I never knew their names. The husband and wife who were in their sixties when they moved in, were simply known to us as “Pei-lay and Pei-neen” which means uncle and aunty in Hainanese.
I remember Pei-lay was working as a waiter in Hotel Majestic. Every morning he would cycle to work wearing his hotel uniform, consisting of a heavily starched white shirt and even more heavily starched light brown long pants with two red stripes running along the side seams. I was quite convinced that such starched pants could easily stand on its own without any support! And it must have been more difficult for him to cycle in such pants to work. Fortunately, I think he only needed to cycle for not more than 10 minutes from our house to the hotel.
Pei-lay and Pei-neen were truly a very loving couple at such old age, each really existing for the other. I have witnessed so much of their joy, laughter and unique caring for each other. It was really amazing how each was so willing to simply care for the other, generally taking no notice and keeping no record of any wrong doings on the part of the other, living simply to support each other and bringing relief and happiness to each other.
“Pa-Taap-Oo”
Once Pei-lay had left for work each morning, Pei-neen would be wondering around for some excitement. Generally, she would be looking for partners to play her Hainanese card game called “Pa Taap Oo”. Pei-neen was by the way, quite a fiery lady and on the heavier side too. On many occasions when she was loosing in her Taap Oo game, she actually turned the table over, intimidating all the other three players, causing great confusion and distress to the onlookers. But the end result was that she need not settle her loses since all the chips were mixed up intentionally by her in the confusion.
However, such tactics were later known by most of her friends, and gradually, she had very few friends who were still willing to play with her. And these remaining friends who continued to play with her were either as cunning as her or very careful in keeping side records of the score, so that she had to settle her losses no matter what tricks she could come up with. Of course this caused her quite a lot of pain and frustration, but since one would need someone else to play with, even in your late fifties, in the final analysis, I think she had to settle with that.
Pei-lay The Good Husband
Pei-lay was a very good natured and extremely well mannered man. Perhaps deeply influenced by his long lasting profession as a waiter in the premier hotel at that time, he was always ready to serve Pei-neen! Even after a whole days work, Pei-neen just needed to hint and he would obediently make a mug of Milo or Horlicks for her, with or without a raw egg put into it, according of course to her taste at that particular moment!
Sometimes, when Pei-neen had had a rough day, being very unhappy over the outcome of some silly card game, or still angry over some unresolved dispute with her gambling friends, she would poutingly wait in the evening for Pei-lay to return. Even a kid like me could tell from her face that she was working hard on her sad sobbing stories of how she was mistreated by all the people around her!
When Pei-lay finally returned from work, she would pour out all her conjured sobbing grievances to him, and he was always willing to listen and entertain such repetitive performances, by paying great attention not to agitate her further by comforting her with sweet soothing words and apologies, perhaps even more than he would to a very important guest at the Presidential Suite in the Hotel Majestic! Her complaints over her hard life with her gambling friends gradually became a routine but ironically, Pei-lay was always cheerful and never seemed to have had any rough day, although he had to serve all sorts of people in the hotel!
In the midst of all this fuss, Pei-lay was also a very amiable and courteous man in the community, of course, he often apologized secretly, to the neighbors about the behavior of his beloved Pei-neen. The whole community naturally respected him deeply and admired her jealously!
Pei-lay And His World
Indeed, by virtue of his career in the then premier hotel, Pei-lay was also a man of very interesting exposure. I remember spending much time sitting on a low stool by the side of his rattan rocking chair, while he proudly described to us some grand scene or occasion he had been in attendance. It was from him that I learnt much about some of the peculiar habits, strange behavior and interesting anecdotes of the tycoons of the time.
Pei-lay might have simply respected and admired the wealthy and the powerful whom he served everyday, but I am sure he had never ever imagined being wealthy or powerful himself! He was very submissive and accepted his status and station in life, or rather the lack of it, with peace and contentment. Hence, he often talked about the affairs and events involving the rich and the powerful and derived pride and satisfaction from simply “being there too”.
Among the fascinating anecdotes he told us was about how this Chinese tycoon, (perhaps Mr. Chan Weng, who built and used to live in the present Istana), being one of the first few who owned a car in the old Kuala Lumpur, used to care for the car so much that whenever the car was parked, it had to be jacked off the ground, to be rested on bricks!
He also told us about this grand funeral of a certain Chinese tycoon, when almost half the town was closed, everyone was so captivated by the display of wealth by the family, in such a time of mourning, just in accordance with the old tradition. We were so amazed to learn that, people who paid respects at the funeral were rewarded with a certain amount for lighting an incense stick, and a larger amount if they manage to cry aloud too! Those days, according to Pei-lay, there were many “professional mourners” who actually lined up to mourn the death of any tycoon, after collecting the “reward” for such “mourning”, they actually went back to line up again for a second round!
Pei-neen , My Brother Gian Ming And “Bo Hiap”
Perhaps due to the fact that they were at times lonely, both Pei-lay and Pei-neen simply loved and adored my brother Gian Ming who was born around the early years of them moving in with our family. However, I got into lots of trouble with Pei-neen due to her love and protective attitude towards my brother; Many times when I disciplined or rather, bullied Gian Ming, she would protect him and tell me off.
Once I tried to test just how much she could take, by intentionally bullying my brother continuously in the kitchen, when she was preparing her delicious Hainanese chicken rice, chopping chicken with a heavy chopper. To my great horror, I ended up being chased by her with the chopper swinging in her hand! Since then I was careful to observe the limit and only bullied my brother when she was not around! But eventually, I too suffered, because she had bestowed on me a wonderful nickname - “Bo Hiap” which means “the naughty one” or “the tyrant” in Hainanese, and the name stuck for a long long time!
Pei-neen’s Authentic Hainanese Cuisine
Despite all her worldly short comings in the eyes of her gambling friends and her "violence" against me, Pei-neen actually was a very nice old lady. She was also a great cook of great Hainanese cuisine and often shared her cooking with us! I have benefited a lot too from observing her cooking and till now, I can still remember some of her recipes! Till today, I still love to cook these dishes now and then.
Hainanese Chicken Rice
Being Hainanese, of course Pei-neen’s favorite dish had to be the very authentic Hainanese chicken rice! For this dish, I have seen Pei-neen spending very long hours performing so many steps with so many ingredients and not wasting anything in the whole process!
First, Pei-neen would boil a choise fat chicken in a pot with a small piece of smashed ginger. Meanwhile, she would extract some chicken oil by heating some of the fat cut out from the fresh chicken, then she would mixed the chicken oil with some freshly pounded chilly, with fresh lime squeezed in, hence completed the condiments for later serving with the chicken and rice.
When the chicken was just rightly boiled according to her perfection, the chicken would then be removed, and the stock with the small piece of ginger would then be poured onto the rice which she had previously stir fried with some chicken oil and pieces of smashed garlic, and boiled till cooked.
She would then chop the delicious chicken which was perfectly cooked according to her standard, into nice pieces, arranged on a plate, garnished with strands of split shallots and thinly sliced pieces of tomatoes, to be served with the divinely aromatic chicken rice and optional freshly pounded Hainanese chilly!
I have tasted many types of Hainanese chicken rice since, and I must insist, none tasted like Pei-neen’s; until now, I have not discovered the secret!
Whole Chicken Cooked In Coarse Salt
Another of her fine Hainanese cuisine was whole chicken cooked in coarse salt. Pei-neen cooked this dish specially for nourishing Pei-lay, supposedly to strengthen his health; As the chicken was normally too big for the two of them, and Pei-lay would suggest that some parts be given to us, we, the delightful kids would therefore be benefited after watching Pei-neen through out her skillful preparation.
For this dish, Pei-neen would select a suitable chicken, cleaned and dried before wrapping it up with oil paper. Then she would heat up a kwali with coarse salt in it, occasionally stirring the salt to ensure even heat, she would then placed the chicken wrapped in oil paper into the kwali, completely covered by the coarse salt and cooked till perfection.
When the chicken was removed from the kwali, the aroma was so deliciously pungent that one really looked forward to Peineen’s favor for a taste of it!
However, Pei-neen rarely cooked this dish as every such cooking usually damaged a kwali because of the long heating of the salt in the kwali.
Ribs, Carrot, Fish Maw And Crab
But, to me, the most memorable dish that was uniquely Pei-neen’s, has to be this divine soup of potent concoction of crab, pork rib, fish maw, white carrot and spices!
First, she would boil some choiced ribs and white carrot in a pot with assam leaves and some dried chily, then she would add in the fish maw that was earlier on suitably deep fried just enough to be brown but still retain the succulence in its texture! Before serving, she would add in the thoroughly cleaned and nicely chopped mud crab to finally come out with this creation of untold delicious in taste and beauty in sight, which I can still taste today, just by imagination!
Every time I cook any one of these dishes in later years, I always remember this interesting old lady known to me only as Pei-neen! Often time, while cooking these dishes, I could even visualized the image of Pei-neen cooking in the back kitchen at No 6-43 Lorong Scott!
Son And Grandson
For a long time, I thought Pei-lay and Pei-neen were alone with no children, until one day, for whatever strange reason, Pei-neen was really in very good mood and asked some of us to her room. She then took out a big manila envelope, and retrieved some letters together with many interesting photographs to show us.
At first, she showed us some old photographs of a fine looking young man in western suit posing in some western country, we were shocked when she told us that he was their son! Apparently, they had a son who went on to study in England and upon graduation, the young man somehow or rather ended up working and residing in Germany. Later, we were even told by Pei-lay that his son actually travelied to England in the same ship as Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, who later qualified as a lawyer and went on to become the legendary first Prime Minister of Singapore!
Pei-neen further showed us some photographs of a very cute looking little Euration baby boy and proudly announced that, that was her grandson! I could actually feel her joy and pride when she looked at those photographs with so much love and affections, something so rarely seen in our day to day encounter with her!
But throughout the whole session of admiring those photographs of her son and her grandson, she did not show us any photograph of her daughter-in-law. I supposed, being very traditional herself, she somehow did not approve of her only son marrying a western woman and not coming back to live with them! In fact, when someone asked her about her daughter-in-law, she was visibly upset, put back all the photographs into the envelope and chased us all out of her room!
Disaster Struck
Such was the case of Pei-lay and Pei-neen, each with distinct contradictory characters and yet demonstrated so much love, caring and needs for each other. But one day, disaster struck without warning!
I remember it was on a sunny afternoon, Pei-neen was down with fever and as expected, Pei-lay took time off to attend to her and to take her to a local clinic. On that fateful day, Pei-neen forgot to carry her IC and for that very rare moment, Pei-lay who had all the while been patient and loving towards her, was annoyed with her and gave her a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, Pei-neen was so upset that she went on a feat and unfortunately suffered a stroke as a result and finally ended up being half paralyzed!
After some unsuccessful treatments, she was sent back to our house and I could only remembered there was much illegible howling and mourning from the poor hot tempered, but now paralyzed Pei-neen accompanied by a confused and very sad Pei-lay.
The Suffering
For the next six months, Pei-neen suffered terribly as she could not express herself. For someone with such fiery temper and who had all along been so closely attended to by Pei-lay, it must have been very torturous for her. Through out the six months, Pei-lay had resigned from his job and spent all his time just taking care of her, with some help from my mother and some neighbors as well.
I remember her constant shrilling groaning and mourning, and watched Pei-lay’s anxiety turned into despair. Finally she died, leaving behind the poor Pei-lay totally heart broken in his sun set year of seventies, now all alone.
Pei-lay,s Grieve
Pei-lay grieved the death of his beloved Pei-neen very deeply. With tears in his eyes, he went through the whole ritual of a Chinese funeral. Later, with tears in his eyes, he began to thank all the people who had assisted him one way or another, and with much grieve and pain, he spent his remaining days and nights very lonely with no one for him to care for and there was no one there in the evening to complaint to him. And Pei-lay was physically wasting away.
As Pei-lay knew that Pei-neen loved my brother Gian Ming very much, he spent quite a lot of time teaching Gian Ming how to read his primary one textbook in Hainanese! Perhaps to seek some solace that at least he was doing something that Pei-neen would have approved.
Nevertheless, his grieve was too intense and soon he was down with tuberculosis. As he had no close relative, it became our family’s responsibility to take care of this poor old man.
My mother generally took care of his food and medicine, and my father would immediately upon his return from work, go to Pei-lay’s room to enquire about his condition and his needs. I could only watch all these from a distance as my mother did not allow us to be near Pei-lay for fear of catching the bacteria. But, even from a distance, I was very touched by my father’s care and concern for the poor man. He would always lean very close to Pei-lay every time Pei-lay talked to him to avoid Pei-lay straining himself, totally ignoring the contagious nature of Pei-lay’s illness.
Departure To Germany And ………
Later on, Pei-lay’s condition worsen and he was really very lonely with no closerelative nearby. Then upon advise and persuasion from friends and neighbors, he decided to leave for Germany to seek medical care and to live with his son.
We were all very happy to see him of in his western suit, being rather tall and with good posture from years of occupational habits as a waiter in the premier hotel in town, he really looked very impressive. All of us wished him the best and hoped that he would finally be united with his son happily.
Unfortunately, sometime later we were told that in Germany, he was not well treated and being a stranger in a foreign land, he felt more displaced and possibly, still unable to get over his grieve over the death of his beloved wife, he committed suicide one day, by hanging himself!
Geese
Indeed the Canadian geese of yester year mated for life, and could no longer live when the partner was lost; Such was the story of Pei-lay and Pei-neen, recollected from the remnants of my memories of my childhood days, which I have long thought of recording down, in memory of a truly touching love story that has long impressed upon my heart.
( November 1997 )
“ I once watched a Canadian goose whose mate had been shot by hunters. They mate for life, you know. The gander circled the pond for days, and more days after that. When I last saw him, he was swimming alone through the wild rice, still looking…….”
- The Bridges of Madison County -
6-43 Lorong Scott, Brickfields
During my childhood days, our family resided at No 6-43 Lorong Scott, Jalan Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur. I understand that the land in that area belonged to the estate of one Mr. Loke Wan Too, who was a descendant of the famous tycoon Mr. Loke Yew. Mr. Loke Wan Too was once described by a Sino researcher as the rising star in the midst of an enterprising Chinese community in South East Asia during the 1960s, but his tragic death in an air crash in Taiwan also crushed his business empire which was known as the Cathay Organization. Hence, many families continued to live in the vast piece of undeveloped property stretching from the present day Holy Rosary Church to YMCA along the Klang River.
My father probably moved into the area when he started working for the Klang Bus Company which had a workshop in that area, dominated by the Henghua clan like us.
Lorong Scott was very close to the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, and therefore, also very near to the once famous Hotel Majestic. Since in those days, the hotels or restaurant business were mostly dominated by the Hainanese, a number of Hainanese families also moved to the area. One of such couples happened to stay in our house as our rent paying tenant.
Pei-lay And Pei-neen
I verily remember that just the two of them must have moved into our house when I was about 7 or 8 years old and I never knew their names. The husband and wife who were in their sixties when they moved in, were simply known to us as “Pei-lay and Pei-neen” which means uncle and aunty in Hainanese.
I remember Pei-lay was working as a waiter in Hotel Majestic. Every morning he would cycle to work wearing his hotel uniform, consisting of a heavily starched white shirt and even more heavily starched light brown long pants with two red stripes running along the side seams. I was quite convinced that such starched pants could easily stand on its own without any support! And it must have been more difficult for him to cycle in such pants to work. Fortunately, I think he only needed to cycle for not more than 10 minutes from our house to the hotel.
Pei-lay and Pei-neen were truly a very loving couple at such old age, each really existing for the other. I have witnessed so much of their joy, laughter and unique caring for each other. It was really amazing how each was so willing to simply care for the other, generally taking no notice and keeping no record of any wrong doings on the part of the other, living simply to support each other and bringing relief and happiness to each other.
“Pa-Taap-Oo”
Once Pei-lay had left for work each morning, Pei-neen would be wondering around for some excitement. Generally, she would be looking for partners to play her Hainanese card game called “Pa Taap Oo”. Pei-neen was by the way, quite a fiery lady and on the heavier side too. On many occasions when she was loosing in her Taap Oo game, she actually turned the table over, intimidating all the other three players, causing great confusion and distress to the onlookers. But the end result was that she need not settle her loses since all the chips were mixed up intentionally by her in the confusion.
However, such tactics were later known by most of her friends, and gradually, she had very few friends who were still willing to play with her. And these remaining friends who continued to play with her were either as cunning as her or very careful in keeping side records of the score, so that she had to settle her losses no matter what tricks she could come up with. Of course this caused her quite a lot of pain and frustration, but since one would need someone else to play with, even in your late fifties, in the final analysis, I think she had to settle with that.
Pei-lay The Good Husband
Pei-lay was a very good natured and extremely well mannered man. Perhaps deeply influenced by his long lasting profession as a waiter in the premier hotel at that time, he was always ready to serve Pei-neen! Even after a whole days work, Pei-neen just needed to hint and he would obediently make a mug of Milo or Horlicks for her, with or without a raw egg put into it, according of course to her taste at that particular moment!
Sometimes, when Pei-neen had had a rough day, being very unhappy over the outcome of some silly card game, or still angry over some unresolved dispute with her gambling friends, she would poutingly wait in the evening for Pei-lay to return. Even a kid like me could tell from her face that she was working hard on her sad sobbing stories of how she was mistreated by all the people around her!
When Pei-lay finally returned from work, she would pour out all her conjured sobbing grievances to him, and he was always willing to listen and entertain such repetitive performances, by paying great attention not to agitate her further by comforting her with sweet soothing words and apologies, perhaps even more than he would to a very important guest at the Presidential Suite in the Hotel Majestic! Her complaints over her hard life with her gambling friends gradually became a routine but ironically, Pei-lay was always cheerful and never seemed to have had any rough day, although he had to serve all sorts of people in the hotel!
In the midst of all this fuss, Pei-lay was also a very amiable and courteous man in the community, of course, he often apologized secretly, to the neighbors about the behavior of his beloved Pei-neen. The whole community naturally respected him deeply and admired her jealously!
Pei-lay And His World
Indeed, by virtue of his career in the then premier hotel, Pei-lay was also a man of very interesting exposure. I remember spending much time sitting on a low stool by the side of his rattan rocking chair, while he proudly described to us some grand scene or occasion he had been in attendance. It was from him that I learnt much about some of the peculiar habits, strange behavior and interesting anecdotes of the tycoons of the time.
Pei-lay might have simply respected and admired the wealthy and the powerful whom he served everyday, but I am sure he had never ever imagined being wealthy or powerful himself! He was very submissive and accepted his status and station in life, or rather the lack of it, with peace and contentment. Hence, he often talked about the affairs and events involving the rich and the powerful and derived pride and satisfaction from simply “being there too”.
Among the fascinating anecdotes he told us was about how this Chinese tycoon, (perhaps Mr. Chan Weng, who built and used to live in the present Istana), being one of the first few who owned a car in the old Kuala Lumpur, used to care for the car so much that whenever the car was parked, it had to be jacked off the ground, to be rested on bricks!
He also told us about this grand funeral of a certain Chinese tycoon, when almost half the town was closed, everyone was so captivated by the display of wealth by the family, in such a time of mourning, just in accordance with the old tradition. We were so amazed to learn that, people who paid respects at the funeral were rewarded with a certain amount for lighting an incense stick, and a larger amount if they manage to cry aloud too! Those days, according to Pei-lay, there were many “professional mourners” who actually lined up to mourn the death of any tycoon, after collecting the “reward” for such “mourning”, they actually went back to line up again for a second round!
Pei-neen , My Brother Gian Ming And “Bo Hiap”
Perhaps due to the fact that they were at times lonely, both Pei-lay and Pei-neen simply loved and adored my brother Gian Ming who was born around the early years of them moving in with our family. However, I got into lots of trouble with Pei-neen due to her love and protective attitude towards my brother; Many times when I disciplined or rather, bullied Gian Ming, she would protect him and tell me off.
Once I tried to test just how much she could take, by intentionally bullying my brother continuously in the kitchen, when she was preparing her delicious Hainanese chicken rice, chopping chicken with a heavy chopper. To my great horror, I ended up being chased by her with the chopper swinging in her hand! Since then I was careful to observe the limit and only bullied my brother when she was not around! But eventually, I too suffered, because she had bestowed on me a wonderful nickname - “Bo Hiap” which means “the naughty one” or “the tyrant” in Hainanese, and the name stuck for a long long time!
Pei-neen’s Authentic Hainanese Cuisine
Despite all her worldly short comings in the eyes of her gambling friends and her "violence" against me, Pei-neen actually was a very nice old lady. She was also a great cook of great Hainanese cuisine and often shared her cooking with us! I have benefited a lot too from observing her cooking and till now, I can still remember some of her recipes! Till today, I still love to cook these dishes now and then.
Hainanese Chicken Rice
Being Hainanese, of course Pei-neen’s favorite dish had to be the very authentic Hainanese chicken rice! For this dish, I have seen Pei-neen spending very long hours performing so many steps with so many ingredients and not wasting anything in the whole process!
First, Pei-neen would boil a choise fat chicken in a pot with a small piece of smashed ginger. Meanwhile, she would extract some chicken oil by heating some of the fat cut out from the fresh chicken, then she would mixed the chicken oil with some freshly pounded chilly, with fresh lime squeezed in, hence completed the condiments for later serving with the chicken and rice.
When the chicken was just rightly boiled according to her perfection, the chicken would then be removed, and the stock with the small piece of ginger would then be poured onto the rice which she had previously stir fried with some chicken oil and pieces of smashed garlic, and boiled till cooked.
She would then chop the delicious chicken which was perfectly cooked according to her standard, into nice pieces, arranged on a plate, garnished with strands of split shallots and thinly sliced pieces of tomatoes, to be served with the divinely aromatic chicken rice and optional freshly pounded Hainanese chilly!
I have tasted many types of Hainanese chicken rice since, and I must insist, none tasted like Pei-neen’s; until now, I have not discovered the secret!
Whole Chicken Cooked In Coarse Salt
Another of her fine Hainanese cuisine was whole chicken cooked in coarse salt. Pei-neen cooked this dish specially for nourishing Pei-lay, supposedly to strengthen his health; As the chicken was normally too big for the two of them, and Pei-lay would suggest that some parts be given to us, we, the delightful kids would therefore be benefited after watching Pei-neen through out her skillful preparation.
For this dish, Pei-neen would select a suitable chicken, cleaned and dried before wrapping it up with oil paper. Then she would heat up a kwali with coarse salt in it, occasionally stirring the salt to ensure even heat, she would then placed the chicken wrapped in oil paper into the kwali, completely covered by the coarse salt and cooked till perfection.
When the chicken was removed from the kwali, the aroma was so deliciously pungent that one really looked forward to Peineen’s favor for a taste of it!
However, Pei-neen rarely cooked this dish as every such cooking usually damaged a kwali because of the long heating of the salt in the kwali.
Ribs, Carrot, Fish Maw And Crab
But, to me, the most memorable dish that was uniquely Pei-neen’s, has to be this divine soup of potent concoction of crab, pork rib, fish maw, white carrot and spices!
First, she would boil some choiced ribs and white carrot in a pot with assam leaves and some dried chily, then she would add in the fish maw that was earlier on suitably deep fried just enough to be brown but still retain the succulence in its texture! Before serving, she would add in the thoroughly cleaned and nicely chopped mud crab to finally come out with this creation of untold delicious in taste and beauty in sight, which I can still taste today, just by imagination!
Every time I cook any one of these dishes in later years, I always remember this interesting old lady known to me only as Pei-neen! Often time, while cooking these dishes, I could even visualized the image of Pei-neen cooking in the back kitchen at No 6-43 Lorong Scott!
Son And Grandson
For a long time, I thought Pei-lay and Pei-neen were alone with no children, until one day, for whatever strange reason, Pei-neen was really in very good mood and asked some of us to her room. She then took out a big manila envelope, and retrieved some letters together with many interesting photographs to show us.
At first, she showed us some old photographs of a fine looking young man in western suit posing in some western country, we were shocked when she told us that he was their son! Apparently, they had a son who went on to study in England and upon graduation, the young man somehow or rather ended up working and residing in Germany. Later, we were even told by Pei-lay that his son actually travelied to England in the same ship as Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, who later qualified as a lawyer and went on to become the legendary first Prime Minister of Singapore!
Pei-neen further showed us some photographs of a very cute looking little Euration baby boy and proudly announced that, that was her grandson! I could actually feel her joy and pride when she looked at those photographs with so much love and affections, something so rarely seen in our day to day encounter with her!
But throughout the whole session of admiring those photographs of her son and her grandson, she did not show us any photograph of her daughter-in-law. I supposed, being very traditional herself, she somehow did not approve of her only son marrying a western woman and not coming back to live with them! In fact, when someone asked her about her daughter-in-law, she was visibly upset, put back all the photographs into the envelope and chased us all out of her room!
Disaster Struck
Such was the case of Pei-lay and Pei-neen, each with distinct contradictory characters and yet demonstrated so much love, caring and needs for each other. But one day, disaster struck without warning!
I remember it was on a sunny afternoon, Pei-neen was down with fever and as expected, Pei-lay took time off to attend to her and to take her to a local clinic. On that fateful day, Pei-neen forgot to carry her IC and for that very rare moment, Pei-lay who had all the while been patient and loving towards her, was annoyed with her and gave her a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, Pei-neen was so upset that she went on a feat and unfortunately suffered a stroke as a result and finally ended up being half paralyzed!
After some unsuccessful treatments, she was sent back to our house and I could only remembered there was much illegible howling and mourning from the poor hot tempered, but now paralyzed Pei-neen accompanied by a confused and very sad Pei-lay.
The Suffering
For the next six months, Pei-neen suffered terribly as she could not express herself. For someone with such fiery temper and who had all along been so closely attended to by Pei-lay, it must have been very torturous for her. Through out the six months, Pei-lay had resigned from his job and spent all his time just taking care of her, with some help from my mother and some neighbors as well.
I remember her constant shrilling groaning and mourning, and watched Pei-lay’s anxiety turned into despair. Finally she died, leaving behind the poor Pei-lay totally heart broken in his sun set year of seventies, now all alone.
Pei-lay,s Grieve
Pei-lay grieved the death of his beloved Pei-neen very deeply. With tears in his eyes, he went through the whole ritual of a Chinese funeral. Later, with tears in his eyes, he began to thank all the people who had assisted him one way or another, and with much grieve and pain, he spent his remaining days and nights very lonely with no one for him to care for and there was no one there in the evening to complaint to him. And Pei-lay was physically wasting away.
As Pei-lay knew that Pei-neen loved my brother Gian Ming very much, he spent quite a lot of time teaching Gian Ming how to read his primary one textbook in Hainanese! Perhaps to seek some solace that at least he was doing something that Pei-neen would have approved.
Nevertheless, his grieve was too intense and soon he was down with tuberculosis. As he had no close relative, it became our family’s responsibility to take care of this poor old man.
My mother generally took care of his food and medicine, and my father would immediately upon his return from work, go to Pei-lay’s room to enquire about his condition and his needs. I could only watch all these from a distance as my mother did not allow us to be near Pei-lay for fear of catching the bacteria. But, even from a distance, I was very touched by my father’s care and concern for the poor man. He would always lean very close to Pei-lay every time Pei-lay talked to him to avoid Pei-lay straining himself, totally ignoring the contagious nature of Pei-lay’s illness.
Departure To Germany And ………
Later on, Pei-lay’s condition worsen and he was really very lonely with no closerelative nearby. Then upon advise and persuasion from friends and neighbors, he decided to leave for Germany to seek medical care and to live with his son.
We were all very happy to see him of in his western suit, being rather tall and with good posture from years of occupational habits as a waiter in the premier hotel in town, he really looked very impressive. All of us wished him the best and hoped that he would finally be united with his son happily.
Unfortunately, sometime later we were told that in Germany, he was not well treated and being a stranger in a foreign land, he felt more displaced and possibly, still unable to get over his grieve over the death of his beloved wife, he committed suicide one day, by hanging himself!
Geese
Indeed the Canadian geese of yester year mated for life, and could no longer live when the partner was lost; Such was the story of Pei-lay and Pei-neen, recollected from the remnants of my memories of my childhood days, which I have long thought of recording down, in memory of a truly touching love story that has long impressed upon my heart.
( November 1997 )
posted by tmf at 11:56 PM
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