Monday, August 29, 2005
My grandma passed away on last Monday night, surrounded by her husband, her 11 children,countless grandchildren and great grandchildren.Today was the day of her burial. My uncles,aunties really cried and shout like crazy. Hai. If you know me, you know I love to scold hokkien vulgar. One of my pet phrases is kaopei kaobu ___. I hereby solemnly swear that I will never ever scold kpkb again. Today I really saw the real effect of kaobu. Seeing adults crying for their mother is probably one of the most heartbreaking scenes I will ever witness. So kaobu-ing is really a very solemn and sad thing. To think I always say it..i felt like corrupting something that is sacred..wadever la..i just felt bad. If next time u hear me say that again, slap me with a used pad or flush me down the toilet.
We had 7 days of the songka. In between where we did not think of our grandma, i have to admit that it was quite fun. Two of my uncles run a catering service, so the food is like never ending. My uncles were definitely generous. All the 40 tables of guests had sumptous food, like tempura and baby squid? The last dinner was a 9 course meal. I had definitely turn fat. And my auntie in law cooks very very well!! I know chicken breast meat taste very coarse. However through her handling, we were like all eyeing the breast meat instead.
Food's good, so what about company? It was rocking as well! I have 28 cousins to start with. Can have 7 tables of mahjong open casino ok. I did not managed to get alot of pics, well..it was definitely not an occasion for photo taking, and most of the older cousins are busy with the burial preparations as well.
Notice that we are all wearing the same type of shirt. That is how superb logistics were, to arrange same t shirts for 50 people.
There are actually 2 batches of grandchildren. The first batch is those old enough to get married ones, oldest 30 and youngest 24. The ones that appear in the picture above belongs to the second batch, oldest 21, youngest 6.
When everyone gathers like that, there's usually alot of reminiscing of the old times. For example, there was a fine recollection of this particular incident that is classic..
Place: Pasir ris chalet 1997 or 1998, baby pool
What happened: We have a older cousin that was once the leader of the second batch. He was in the lead when we went swimming. We were all happily following him when he suddenly halt. We were all perplexed.
Us, '' what? why you stop?''
Him, '' Got shit''
Then we saw a piece of shit innocently peacefully floating past us, us presumely with our jaws wide open.
I forgot about this incident alrdy until we saw this cousin again after 4 years. So happy were the times ya? When we have mega family outings and the family was complete. Well everything and everyone ages. I suddenly thought of my ah ma lying in her coffin alone..damn.
The funeral procession was huge. There's actually two muscial bands, with a lion dance group and another opera group, singing hokkien songs as we walked along. The procession itself was like 200m long I guess. We walked for 1.5km before we board the bus, with only a thin pair of socks,in reluctant contact with the scorched road. There's still 2 da tou wa wa dancing and big flags waving around
I heard we spent like $40K already, figures still moving up. People, if next time you want to have a funeral as grand as this, remember to have 11 children, not to mention them being obliging and fillial. They did exactly what my grandma wanted. The songka was as traditional as any I had seen before. The family was very united as well. All of the younger generation was basically waiters and cleaners during this songka period when the guests came.
ok enough crapping. my main pt of this blog is to say that i miss my ah ma and i love my family (good enough conclusion?)
flabbyarms thought hard on 11:10 PM.
