My Dad

It's Dragon Boat Festival ( Chang) and we just had dinner at Po Po's place. The crowd is very much reduced - most of the grandchildren are away either working or studying. As usual there's lots of food left over. Po Po likes a full table - she would feel bad if the plates were polished empty - as if she had not prepared enough food. Unlike me- who made sure the amount of food is just right - so that there would be no leftovers. How different we are in our perception of things !!

After dinner, I called home - my family in BP ( as I always do every festival) - they were having dinner at a restaurant and, celebrating my dad ( Jia Kong's) birthday. It occurred to me that since I moved to Sabah, I have not gone home once for my dad's birthday. He's 76 now - how many birthdays more ...? I must make it a point to go home next year.

I just met dad about a month ago at 2nd brother's place - he was cheerful and talkative. Asked me incessantly about the children - how they are doing. He has mellowed. I remember him as a very fierce and strict dad - the greatest fear we had if we were naughty was when mum threatened "Wait till your dad gets home...." That was enough to keep us in line. He laid such strict rules for us such as :-

1) No going out after 6pm

2) Don't let me catch you with the neighbourhood kids who live more than 2 blocks away from the house,

3) No playing by the river.

4) No bicycling on the main road

5) No movies on weekdays, ( even though we were entitled to free movies)

6) No foul language - even though the neighbourhood kids could swear their lungs off!!)

7) No talking to boys ( but it's all right for the boys to talk to girls)

8) After dinner - must take out your books...

Of course we would device ingenious ways of circumventing those rules - but if caught breaking them, the punishment was swift and painful !!

Dad was a self-made man - "rags to riches to not so rich" story. He started as a young man selling fruits and then moved on to selling sundries to the Malay community ( sort of mobile shop using a bicycle) and then went on to dealing in scrap rubber and then he began trading with the Malay and natives who lived near the fringes of the jungle. Eventually he partnered with some 3 others and set up a sundry shop, called "Hup Seng Company". The sundry shop expanded to another shop, the hardware store, then they acquired a timber yard, and then set up a furniture shop. They then had a snooker parlour ( and every year the whole family would make a trip to Singapore, where dad would buy the special felt to line the snooker tables). The village movie house leased their land, thus as part of the agreement, the families of the partners were allowed to watch movies for free. Soon the company acquire 2 rows of houses and rent them out. The profits of the company were always ploughed back to acquire more assets, a piece of land here and another piece of land there. Thus it was tough and we knew little luxuries. We see little of him when we were kids as he was mostly in the shop or trading in other remote kampongs. Sometimes he would go hunting and during fruit seasons, he would bring back stuff like flying foxes, pangolins, wild boar. We had a tiger once, there were snakes and some other exotic animals. Once he was gored by a wild elephant. We ate lots of flying foxes and wild boars but mum shuddered at cooking the other kinds. Some neighbour would gladly take them and cook a feast - I don't remember liking any of the other kinds of animals.

Dad wasn't much of a talker - more of a doer. Always helping people to get their I.Cs, settling disputes....... Eventually he got involved in the local politics, got elected in the village council, became the village headman and when the post of village headman was abolished, he was elected to the village municipal chairman. I remember him discussing the plans for village development - the meetings he had with the other councilors, worrying about the budget for running the village etc...

That's my dad..( sigh). 
Now he's old...... do people remember his contribution ?