A JOURNEY TO THE PAST

A JOURNEY TO THE PAST
(By the boy who once sent off a wooden crate from Bricksfield to China)



Beyond the city of Chuenzhou, after a short distance on some ancient stone pavement, we entered into the county of Sianyu, I am now traveling on the road leading me to the city of Putian, some distance away from the Henghua Bay, along beautiful but mysterious mountain range. In search of my father’s village and our ancestral home.

What is now covered by a fairly good four lane highway was once, I was told, a dirt road passing through many villages and many stone workshops along the way. Because of the granite reserve along the mountain range, this is an area with attractive stone carvings and stone carvings workshop, evidenced by the numerous statutes displayed and skilled masons working with their hammers on huge block of solid granite, creating granite blocks for road pavement, building materials and sculptures of lions and other vernacular objects. I looked at those skilled masons with awe, and later confirmed that my grandfather was once a mason; he died at the age of 38 due to sickness that probably received no medical attention, he also passed away a blind man, as a result of years of working dangerously with hammers on the granite and subject himself to all the attack of the flying granite particles.

Our car eventually arrived near somewhere, where we could see my father’s village. We stopped and took some photographs. Some distance later we passed Nai Kay ( Nai stream/creek) bridge and turned left to head towards the foothill where I shall find the house where my father once lived as a boy until he was 18 years of age.

Looking back, it must be the year 1932 when life was too unbearable that he left China for Nam Yong or Southern Ocean which eventually lead him to the British Malaya during the Great Depression.

I was told that my great great grandfather had five sons, my great grandfather had two sons, one was Toh Yuan Kee, my grandfather, who was born in the X year of Kuang Hsu (1880) and he was brought up in Unhong (“Cloud’s Peak”) and married my grandmother who was known as Toh Chan Peilek Mou Mui, or Toh Chan Eighty Mou Girl ( 6 Mou is an acre) . Some years after my father was born, they moved to Huateng (“Grand Pagoda”), which was and still is a longan growing area on a hill slope, into a small village called O LO LI, which actually means Deep Purple Village! By then he had one girl Chai Ji and a boy, Kim Seng (my father).

After my grand father passed away at the age of 38 in the year 1918, in those days, it was important, especially in the village, to have a man in the household for direction and protection, hence, a certain Mr. Wong was invited into the household. Mr. Wong also brought a young daughter, she was later married to my father; so technically, I think my father had had a wife in China, but she died very young after my father sailed to Malaya.

In the village, as it was also considered weak to have only one son, especially so when there were not many Tohs, Chai Ji was married to a Mr. Kwok (Ah Ji), but under the arrangement, he assumed our family name of Toh, and she assumed the surname of kwok; it is like a reverse “takeover” with the objective of strengthening the Toh’s clan by numbers, as numbers mean power and security in the village, and they actually had a signed, sealed and attested agreement for it!

Earlier Mr. Kwok had been to Malaya as a boy at age 18 in 1924, he returned to China several years later, married Chai JI and assumed the family name of Toh. Toh Ah Ji was disappointed some years later when Chai Ji got him a girl, he then returned to Malaya again in 1932, this time bringing along my father who was 18 years old.

It was believed that Mr. Wong happened to be a opium smoking bandit and village bully, there were stories of him beating up my grandmother and everybody else in the household, once hanging up one of my grand uncles and whipping him on longan trees (like medium size rambutan tree). The whole household was terrorized by him, and suffered dearly.

When eventually, Toh Ah Ji managed to make his way again to Malaya in 1932 with my father, my father was by then only an 18 years old village boy who had gone through all the difficulties of survival, being constantly bullied and abused by other clans and his own stepfather. Hence, my father felt and still is feeling very deeply indebted to my uncle Toh Ah Ji.

Mr. Wong was eventually executed by firing squad under the Kuomingtang regime, for some kind of crimes that he habitually committed. I believed the poor little girl who was married to my father was later mistreated for obvious reason and died very young.

After both Ah Ji and my father left O Lo Li, and after the death of Mr. Wong, the household had only my grandmother, Chai Ji (Ah Ji’s wife, and actually, my fathers sister) and her eldest daughter, Geok Boei. I was told in those days, they earned their living by working as carrier from Putian to Sianyu, carrying all sorts of merchandise with bamboo stick on their shoulders, over a distance of 50 km, on daily basis! Still, my grand mother lived up to a ripe full age of 88 in 1978.

Geok Boei was only a teenager, and she was not very good in her work, she was once badly whipped by Chai Ji with a cow’s whip for not being able to plough the land properly. Later, She was arranged to be married to a Mr. Kwok Yen Chiao, who was a clerk in the Kuomingtang army stationed at Putian at that moment; the marriage was again supposed to be a reverse takeover, but Mr. Kwok did not eventually change his surname.

And years later, when Mr. Kwok and Geok Boei visited O Lo Li in 1993, Geok Boei’s brother (Kok Meng, my cousin.) handed over to him, the signed, sealed and attested agreement, probably indicated his decision to free him from such obligation of changing his surname. By then, Mr. Kwok has already become an artist of fair repute in Taiwan, and I once organized an art exhibition for him in Kuala Lumpur in 1980.

Life was truly bitter for my grandmother as she was already in her fifties after the boys left for Malaya. Once, she saved enough and managed to buy enough cotton to make a quilt, properly to prepare for the coming winter. Upon completion of sewing the quilt over God knows how long, she placed the quilt on the stone Tu Ti Kong (earth god) by the stone bridge built by Ah Ji on his previous trip back to O Lo Li, to be dried; to her grave disappointment, the quilt was stolen and she just could not contain her grieve, she knelt in front of the Tu Ti Kong knocking her forehead vigorously on the stone pavement, and cried against the Tu Ti Kong for not being able to even protect her badly needed and hard-earned quilt! The other women folks in the household could only cried upon seeing her badly bruised and bleeding forehead, so I was told.

After several turnings to the left and to the right, passing one abandoned building constructed with solid granite stones, which once served as the village school, I finally saw the stone plaque with the inscription which read: “O Lo Li” !

Our car finally stopped on a small courtyard, in front of a stone bridge, where my grandmother lost her quilt!

Many curious village kids immediately surrounded our car, they were fascinated by this strangely looking man from a sedan car and I was fascinated by so many kids speaking Henghua with heavy accent like my father’s.

I must admit even in that emotional moment I did not fail to notice the poor personal hygiene condition of those kids, one particular little girl had some strains of blood on her noose, despite my reminding her to wipe it off, she just did not do anything. There was also a teenage boy of about 15, quite dirty looking and not properly dressed, I immediately thought of Tan Kah Kee’s biography about how on his first trip back to Amoy (now Xiamen), after becoming a tycoon in Singapore in the nineteen thirties, he saw groups of very dirty looking teenagers loitering everywhere, some without even wearing proper trousers! He was so shocked and later committed all his wealth to support the new China, and among other things, founded the present University of Xiamen. I never thought that in 1996 I would still be seeing something like that!

My cousin lead me to the house where my father once lived as a boy, presently I am standing In front of the common hall where the plaques of the dead were kept, the hall has no window or air vent, just a two panes door and feel quite gloomy, I was told that the common hall is for some serious functions like funerals. Before someone pass away, the body is normally placed here to wait for the final moment. The hall is shared by another Toh’s family who are the descendants of one of my four great grand uncles. Their house is attached to ours, very much like the condition of our earlier house in Bricksfield, except that the houses here are actually constructed with granite stones and the walls are plastered with mud mixed with straw, it looks very interesting and feels cool.

On the left of the common hall is the main entrance, but it was locked and my cousin could not find the person whom he had entrusted with the key. We moved along a narrow lane and found another side entrance. On the sides of the door panes were clear slogans in red paint which read:” Forever Revolution!”, “Follow Chairman Mao!”, “ Learn From The Big Camp” and “Support Chairman Hua!” These were all slogans during the Cultural Revolution in the sixties and Chairman Hua was Hua Kuo Feng who succeeded Mao in 1976 but later deposed by Deng Xiao Peng. I once saw him checking out of a resort reserved for state dignitary near Zhenjiang, and I was told that although he had lost power, he is still entitled to first class treatment as accorded to the other top senior leaders; but I think loosing power is bad enough, and he is already now a very old man.

I was very surprised that I could see those actual slogans painted in red depicting several eras in the last thirty years of political development in China! I moved closer to those red slogans, touching them with my bare hand and thought of all that I have read about those turbulent years! The kids who followed us were getting more curious upon seeing my strange behavior, and later one elderly man and another elderly woman came excitingly trying to find out who had returned.

They do know my father and asked many questions about him. The man asked if I know his brother Hong Mun, a name which I wearily remembered hearing it being mentioned before, he later brought a framed photo of his brother’s family taken in Cameron Highland (from the evidence in the photo). He urged me to persuade his brother to visit him next month and also to witness the parade of a certain goddess. I explained to him that my father is now a Christian and he looked rather confused.

We finally decided to break the lock for me to have a look inside the house, when the door was open, I was very excited and when I crossed that smooth horizontal stone block below the door panes, I knew my father must have crossed here many times and I also knew my mother must have also crossed this stone in 1962 when she came to China to visit her mother-in-law whom she had not met before!

I remembered when I was four years old, once my family was busy preparing lots of preserved foods, my mother hang many strips of pork heavily seasoned with five spice powder, to be dried and later packed in oil tins and sealed. Together with many other things, I think they packed in a wooden crate to be sent to somewhere.

Later one evening, the whole family went to the railway station, I remembered I was very excited and climbing up and down the couches playing hide and seek with my sisters and giving them a nightmare of a time, because they know that if I am injured, my parents will definitely beat them up! For I was the youngest son at that time and was accorded with befitting privileges as such!

Suddenly, I was carried off the train but my mother was still on board the train until the train started moving forward! I cried as the family waved my mother off. That was 1962 when I was four, I consider that incidence as the furthest point in my memory.

I was later told that my mother had gone to “Tongsan” ( China). I also remembered she came back one night when we were almost asleep, I remembered everybody was exclaiming “ Mother is back! Mother is back!” and I rushed to be carried and cried. Those were the scenes some 34 years ago!

Now that I am in this house where my father was brought up, where so much hardship was endured by my grandmother, I went round everywhere taking photos and making mental note of the condition, trying to imagine how life was those days.

After going round the four bedrooms on the ground floor, I went up to the mezzanine floor where some used items were stored. There on the mezzanine floor, suddenly I saw a wooden crate with my mother’s name written in red paint together with the address of O Lo Li and the name of the travel agency in Singapore, Lian Ho Travel Bureau! I readily figured out that this must be the wooden crate which my mother used to pack all the materials, including the seasoned pork strips in 1962. I must have also sent off the crate when I was four in that railway station in Bricksfield thirty four years ago! And now I am standing in front of the wooden crate, thirty eight years old, in O Lo Li.

There lies unscathed, this wooden crate for the past thirty four long years silently. It must have been totally oblivion of the turbulent days outside the house during the several mass movements in China, including The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976!

I stood there speechless for a long while, the crate looked so serene lying there, and it must have been so for the past thirty four years since my mother brought it here, and yet that boy who climbed up and down the train in Bricksfield thirty four years ago is now a thirty eight year old man, having gone through so much stormy days and unfortunately not so unscathed as the wooden crate in this remote village in O Lo Li, Putian, China! For such is life and all its awakening surprises!

We later visited my grandmother’s grave, on the hill slope behind the house, amidst many longan trees, there were three compartments in that grave, the other two were used for Toh Ah Ji and Chai Ji, his wife. On the way down, I was told that 36 longan trees on that hill slope used to belonged to our family but was subsequently distributed due to our absence. I was not at all surprised.

I left O Lo Li later and noticed that the little girl still had not wiped the strains of blood from her noose. Throughout my remaining journey, I kept thinking about that wooden crate on the mezzanine floor, in O Lo Li …...


( September 1996 )