It was the weekend of the big extended family gathering which only happened once a year..
Unless someone got married with their love ones or report themselves to either God or Hades.
I live in Pahang, Malaysia since born but my hometown, a.k.a. kampung is in Melaka. I will always go back to Melaka during free time with my family to visit my grandfather. He is the most amazing human creature that ever exist on earth. My grandfather is a very strong man. He loves his grandchildren a lot ,especially when we were having our meals. He always told us :
A child that eats well is a blessing to him or her for healthy growth.
He always gave the best to his family and helped anyone out whenever they had any trouble. He always saved his money that gave by his sons because he knew that they worked hard to earn a living and did not want to spend them unnecessarily. The best thing I loved about him was his smile because it was the most beautiful smile I seen in my life. He will always hump some off tuned songs and when he knew we were looking, he will gave us an awkward smile which was funny. It was like a thought went through his mind...
Ohhh shoot... They knew i'm singing the wrong songs...I need to think of a way to solve this... Can't fall back now...
And then he will asked us any random questions such as "Have you eaten your lunch?" even though we ate with him like few minutes ago. He was like the IT-MAN of my family and he became the most respectful man I ever known in my life.
Noooo...He is not my grandfather... I can't post a picture of my grandfather as a respect to him. He's almost like the man in the picture...Just that my grandfather is way cooler, thinner and had shorter hair as well as clean shaved beard and mustache. And no... He do not walked down the runway although I know that he can rock the runway. (#proudgranddaughtermoment)
2 years ago, he was getting old and was starting to forget our names one by one. It broke my heart when he looked me in the eyes and asked me...
What is your name already ah?
I knew his day to meet the Heavenly Father was getting nearer and I was praying to God that He will grant him a few more years to stay with us. I was being a greedy granddaughter and not letting him joined with his favourite singers in Heaven. It was January 17th 2016 and it was weeks before Chinese New Year.He decided on that day to leave this world and join his beloved wife up in Heaven. Almost everyone was back on the day of passing, included the eldest daughter of my grandfather that he was longing to see. I still remember my eldest uncle was reading bible verses to comfort him and I was holding myself not to cry in front of him because I did not want him to remember my ugly crying face. He took his last breath in front of us and that was the saddest day of my life. If you think that relationship breakup hurts a million ways, try witnessing someone that you love turned into an ice cold body without any breathing sign. It hurt so bad at that moment and I couldn't put myself together. I went outside and called my siblings about it. Both of my brother and sister were working outside of Melaka at that moment. It was the one time I wish that they were there instead of talking to them through a phone call. But I knew that I needed to be strong for the sake of my parents and plus, my grandfather will not go peacefully if he saw his family members cried for him.
Why am I telling you this?
Well..this is the main reason I never went back to Melaka since the day he passed away.
I was afraid to bring back all the memories with my grandfather.
I did not want to sleep in the house where our memories of laughter existed.
I did not want to go back to his favourite shop and eat his favourite Mee Rebus or "Dai Pau".
I did not want to go back home and see his handsome memorial photo...
But it is obvious that I could not escape as it has been so long and I was missing all my crazy-ass cousins.
So, I decided to go back Melaka this year with my parents and attended the reunion dinner.
It was like the famous drama 'Heart of Greed' , a.k.a. 溏心风暴 where all the overreacted dramas happened between all the elders, especially the LADIES. And me? Just being me, enjoying all the food provided in the restaurant. The dishes served will get cold and they will not taste nice if they are not warm okay? It will be a waste if nobody was eating . They should thank me and gave me a bigger AngPau for helping them finishing all the dishes.
I know..I know.. Stop the applause and you are welcome.
Anyways... My dad always had this wish to see his childhood village house with his brothers and sisters. The next day after breakfast, he went to a small village in the area of Limbongan and searhed back his old house. They were suprised to see that the house was still perfectly standing there,excpet for the fact that it is now perfectly renovated by the current owner.
When my mum walked pass a Malay house, the Malay lady inside was very curious in why there were so many Chinese people in their village. (Don't worry..They are not being racist..It's just that..not everyday you will see a bunch of Chinese folks walking around in the Malay village) When my dad explained to them in why they were there, she recalled all her childhood memories which came to a surprising twist to the story. She knew my dad and my uncles when they were little. Her brother, the owner of their childhood house also knew who they were. It was like seeing a group of 50's grew backwards into their childhood period. (like the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) They were so happy and could not contain their excitement to see my dad and uncles which you have to admit this...They have better memory power than you.
The best of all...The couple of Malay brother and sister remembered who my grandparents were. They remembered how my grandfather used to ride bicycle around and my grandmother brought their children to the nearby sundry shop for shopping.
It was a very warm moment to witness.
As a girl that has been living under a concrete roof in a town or city area since born, it was my first time walking around a village and saw chickens running around as if zombies were chasing after them. I even saw a fresh little tiny egg being hatched in the chicken coop which literally blow my mind away. I saw how the kids in the village running around with each other ,thinking that they can be Usain Bolt of Malaysia. The whole environment was like the scenes in the local movies that I usually watched when I was a kid.
Despite the difference of culture and race, the couple of Malay brother and sister kept on inviting us to go into their house as guests and they would served us food and drinks. I was amazed of the invitation as being a villager that has been living in the village and had daily income that was enough to live day by day, they still offered us what they have because we were their "long lost buddies".
There was a saying by Nelson Mandela:
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion....
People tend to jump into conclusion that the Arab people are bad and they carried bomb all the time or Indians are famous for the increase crime rate. As for me, I despise people who think like that. To be honest, culture discrimination and racism happened a lot in Malaysia. There are slogans that stated we have 3 different cultures and we worked together for a better country but all the citizens of Malaysia knew that... This is just plain old bu****it.
I heard Malay citizens urged the Chinese citizens in going back to our ancestors homeland or keep on emphasizing Chinese as "Malaysian Chinese", not just simple"Malaysian". I saw how people judge each other just because of the difference in skin colour. We all kept on blaming the Muslims or the teaching of islam..Blah blah blah....
But we never look ourselves in the mirror and reflect in who we really are.
Why?
Because we all are humans,just like them.
Yes.. We are just like them. Just because some lady wore Islamic clothing, we need to look down on them ? Just because his skin colour is darker and you need to be extra careful with your purse? Just because they were doing their daily prayer time, we need to roll our eyes and cursed them silently?
Not all people with different skin colour is bad. I have Malay and Indian friends as well. They are kind and nice people that I have known since young. It made no difference at all if we, Non-Muslims acted like the ones who were against each other. Some honorable people that are currently in the higher position of the government wanted peace in our country but apparently, they were just promoting racism vigorously. They said , Action speaks louder than words.
Well... Over-spraying huge water guns and dropping tear gas towards innocent citizens are definitely not the right action of promoting peace in my country.
Racism...Discrimination... These are just words, words that we can prevent if we all work together for a better country. For example, an ant cannot work alone to move the food for their troop. They need different teams such as the scouting team, the hard-core team and the organizer team to make sure that the food searched are taken care thoroughly. They worked so hard for the better life of every single ant in the troop. (God bless the souls of ant that being crushed by humans.) If a bunch of tiny ants can have that kind of positive spirit, what's stopping us?
Everyone who lived in this world is not perfect. The kind ones might have characters that people dislikes or the naughty ones might have a good side that no one ever seen. There are a lot of "maybe" and "might" in this world. It is not easy to change that overnight, but the first step is always the most important step.
Some of you might feel offended when you read article. I sincerely apologize to you if I hurt your feelings in any way. These are just based on my observation and opinion from my surroundings recently.
We have the rights of free speech and it is time to prove the world that Malaysia is more than just a country with negative political issues.