From: Rosa - 13
Date: 7/14/00
Time: 10:24:02 PM
The World It is A-Changing or What Ah Koong and Ah Mah found Appalling
As I sit, in the first year of this century, tapping on my computer, sending messages through cyberspace to my meimeis and didis, each at their computers, discussing the seemingly intricate terms of address and ranking order within a family, my mind goes back to the times of our grandparents.
Ah Koong and Ah Mah were set in their ways in many respects but, for their times, were admiringly relaxing grandparents.They were, for most times, not the authoritatrian figures of the grandparents of their era but would joke with us, amuse us and spoil us, the two of them each in his and her own way. Ah Mah especially, with her stories, her jokes, her sense of the mischievous and her gamesome spirit, which she brought to the level of her grandchildren to entertain us or even to take our sides against other adults sometimes.But there were some things that appalled Ah Koong and Ah Mah but even then, in the particular area of our appalling ways that I refer to, they did not react in the fearsome Confucian way that they sometimes did on other matters. When they were appalled by our behaviour their standard responses to each other or mutterings to himself/herself were ‘faan ju faan gau’ (foreign pigs and foreign dogs) and ‘sai gai bin sai’ (the world it is a-changing). Their exasperation tinged with regret was directed at the erosion of the Chinese way in our behaviour.
It must be said of my grandparents that they never insisted that their daughters-in-law address them as ‘lou yeh’ and ‘nai nai’, the formal terms, but were happy to be addressed by the warmer, more familiar terms of father and mother that their sons used. Koko (Auntie Theresa) was brought up in the proper Chinese manner of addressing her brothers as ‘Peter Go’ and ‘Paul Go’ (I don’t remember her using ‘Dai Go’ and ‘Yi Go’) and her sisters-in-law as ‘ Dai Sou’ and ‘Yi Sou’. But the faan-gui influence soon seeped in insidiously and this properly brought up young woman was soon addressing her brothers as ‘Peter’ and ‘Paul’ although she retained the proper terms of address for her sisters-in-law. ‘All is changing, faan ju faan gou!’ Papa had always been ‘Ah Bak’ to Paul Suk’s children and Uncle Paul is ‘Paul Suk’ to us. Because Mamma and Sei Yee are sisters, Mamma was quite clear that the terms of address for them should reflect the relationship in the female line as blood is thicker than water. So Mamma is ‘Dai Yee’ and not ‘Dai Bak Moh’ to Paul Suk and Sei Yee’s children and we address Sei Yee as ‘Sei Yee’ and not ‘Yi Sum’. Another plus has to be chalked up for Ah Koong and Ah Mah in that they agreed. Auntie Theresa is our ‘Koko’ instead of ‘Gugu’, using the term in Hokkien, again perhaps of Mamma and Sei Yee being from a family that speaks Hokkien.
For many years, in the unadulterated atmosphere of a Chinese home presided over by Ah Koong and Ah Mah, we were familially and familiarly dai-ga-je, yi-ga-je, saam-ga-je, sei-ga-je to the ones younger than us. Rene was ‘Dai-Go’ to the younger ones and Stephen ‘Hoi-Go’ and Justin ‘Hung-Go’. The assault on this age-old, wonderful Chinese system of address came not from the uncivilised faan-gui West but from the horrible boys at the Chinese school that we attended in the afternoon. The older four of us being dressed alike by our scrupulously fair parents was beginning to be a source of acute embarrassment and a target of the boys’ teasing. Added to that, they laughed at us, chanting ‘dai-ga-je, yi-ga-je, saam-ga-je, sei-ga-je’ as they heard us using these terms. So it was as ‘Agnes, Rosa, Angeline, Mary’ that we began to address one another and this habit continued at home. ‘All the ways of the faan-ju-faan-gou!’muttered Ah Koong and Ah Mah to each other, across their beds in the room where we spent much time in their presence. Once the rot set in it was not long before it took hold and spread even to the adults. I daresay that our parents became laxed and did not make sure that we used the correct terms of address for the later-comers to the two families. I don’t remember that Margaret was ever ng-ga-je or Oi Ling Je and I am not sure how those younger than him address Simon. The world, it is a-changing!. Indeed, the appending of ‘je’ to the names of the younger generation Changs by those younger to them is now only a half-forgotten practice. Family ranking now only appears at tea ceremonies on special occasions.
‘Faan ju faan gou!’ grumbled Ah Koong to Ah Mah at the sight of us in sleeveless dresses and, turning to Mamma, added in a sarcasm couched in the language on concern, ‘Are the children not cold dressed in this way?’ Mamma put on her mental kid gloves and made sure that we had a new suit of samfoo to wear every Chinese New Year, and so we ‘bai nin’ (paid our respects) to Ah Koong and Ah Mah attired impeccably in Chinese dress. But there were times when even Mamma’s kid gloves could not saveAh Koong and Ah Mah from annoyance. When the Duke of Edinburgh visited the colony of Malaya, the children in our school were drilled to the formation of the Union flag to welcome him. For this we had to wear red, white, or blue ribbons according to our position in the display. I happened to have to wear a big white bow. ‘We Chinese do not wear white on our head except when we are in mourning; kweilo ways are robbing us of our culture,’ Ah Mah fumed. Blue was not a favoured colour for the same reason but it was the colour of our school uniform.When we got dressed for school we were warned by Mamma to put on our socks only when we put our shoes on, not to run around the house in our white socks which was another indication of a person in mourning. We certainly were not allowed to walk barefoot in the house as this had the same significance. The world, it is a-changing, for in their late years my grandparents had to tolerate the practice of folk taking off their shoes before entering a house, a practice which had become the norm in Malaysia. When ponytails were all the rage Ah Koong and Ah Mah were aghast to see us sporting them as Chinese men tied their hair into ponytails only when they were led to be beheaded. This appalled even our gentle and non-critical Popo so it must have been a really unacceptable divergence from practices Chinese. But by then we were old enough to know our own minds and Mamma’s warnings and kid gloves had no effect.
It was very lucky that all Mamma’s and Sei Yee’s babies were cheerful, happy ones not much given to wailing, for a crying baby, especially one who cried first thing in the morning did not endear itself as it brought bad luck to the family. But like most children, these well behaved babies grew up to want to imitate others, especially in what was not done at home. Curries were a rare treat for us as they were regarded as heaty food and Ah Koong had no stomach for them. On the few occasions that we had them we liked to imitate our Indian neighbours and ate with our fingers. Ah Koong was appalled; another practice of those in mourning. In this Ah Mah was more relaxed as she saw the fun of eating a curry in the manner that it should be eaten. Similarly, we learned not to try to eat rice with one chopstick in fun and certainly not to play with our chopsticks which is very poor table manners indeed.
Although it appeared that there were many things that we did that appalled our grandparents, we were well brought up in the Chinese way and ours was a household that duly observed the customs, to a more exacting degree than many other Chinese families of the time. At Didi #3’s wedding, for example, before he and his bride offered tea to Papa and Mamma, they (Papa and Mamma) first offered it to Ah Koong to congratulate him (Ah Mah was dead by then) at his grandson’s wedding and to thank him for having brought Papa up in the manner that he in turn successfully brought up his son to manhood. Following this, the bridal couple offered tea to the Ah Koong before Mamma and Papa received theirs. In most families this nicety is not observed. The tea ceremony was always carried out at Chinese New Year, the birthdays of Ah Koong and Ah Mah, and at an individual’s birthday when the person (not the rest of the family) would offer tea to his/her grandparents and parents as a gesture of gratitude for life and for their care. This last was again a rare practice. When we were young, instead of offering tea we were taught, as an alternative gesture for children, to bow three times to the person in question. I knew all this from an early age. So, on my birthday one year, a school day, I was all dressed for school (sans white socks) and thought to perform my filial gesture. Drawing open Ah Mah’s mosquito net I was about to make my three deep bows when I was snatched away by Mamma in the nick of time, ‘Silly girl, don’t do that; you only bow to a person lying in bed when that person is dead!’ Ah Koong and Ah Mah would have been more than appalled! I obviously had not learned all the nuances of correct Chinese practice.
A grievance that Ah Koong and Ah Mah held was that in the scheme of things corrupted by the faan ju faan gou there was no room for one’s parents, the most important persons in one’s life. This was how they saw it when, upon his promotion, Papa was allocated a much bigger house which still had only three bedrooms, barely sufficient for eight growing children and the grandparents. They saw literally no room for them but of course they were comfortably accommodated in the manner the Chinese do their parents. Paul Suk’s rising position in the education service saw him allocated a house, first in Lower Ampang and later in Federal Hill, both desirably quiet areas away from shops and buses. To Koong and Ah Mah these were almost deliberate plans by the faan-gui authorities to rob them of their access to town. 'Those faan ju faan gou, never a thought for parents, as if we didn’t exist,’ was their bitter complaint.
Poor Ah Koong and Ah Mah, they did adjust to the changing world and did well too. having us speak in English and not Chinese was one of the appalling developments that my grandparents had long become reconciled to. Koko, the vanguard of using names only without the correct terms of address, developed a flair for making up names. Ah Mah became ‘GM’ (Grandma) and Ah Koong became ‘GP’(Grandpa), names that we used as referring terms (never as terms of address) sometimes with affection but more often when we did not want them to know that we were talking about them. Ah Koong especially was ‘GP’ when we were making fun of him, or complaining about him, or plotting childish pranks against him. So much had he kept up with the changing world that he would say, ‘I know all of you are talking about me. What is it?’
So what would he and Ah Mah say if they visited us now, say, at Mamma’s ninety-first birthday celebration: everyone speaking in English as the younger generation could speak no Cantonese or only stumblingly, Eric’s bobbing head of blonde hair, Hua’s dreadlocks (at least she was in her post-black phase), almost all the great grand-daughters skimpily dressed in the latest spaghetti-straps and many more appalling things. Such as kweilos/pos in the family, resulting in mongrel (Didi’s affectionate term for them) great grandchildren. The world it is a-changing and Ah Koong and Ah Mah had changed with it more than they realised, more than they would admit. For I am certain that they would not be appalled any longer. And I know because Ah Koong gave his full blessings when I married a kweilo. And if Ah Koong did not mind Ah Mah would have minded even less. Ngai dou dee all would be well.
13 July 2000