Ng

It was a full house. Da jiu, mama, er jiu, er yi, san yi, san jiu, siao yi, long jiu & pau jiu, and most of their spouses were are together under one roof! The last time I saw this was probably almost 10 years ago..Family squabbles and small feuds have made it tough for all of Gong gong and Po po's children to come together. Family businesses gone wrong, monetary issues (typical) and other scandalous issues too.

No family is perfect, but yesterday, I was really proud to be part of the Ng family.

Da jiu, the dutiful son had been keeping watch for 5 days. Da jiu is almost 70 years old, and yet, I've never seen him in a younger light ever. He looked so young, like a boy, being dutiful to his father. The "ah yis" had their usual gossiping session while folding afterlife money. Er jiu played a more forward role for the first time. San jiu was his usual self with all the kids. Long jiu was the allocated accountant, and Pau jiu was always the baby among the siblings. It was nice to see all the cousin brothers and sisters together again. All those years of torture (not understanding a word of Mandarin) were put aside, and we were basically happy to see everyone together again.

While we were praying for Gong Gong with all the Buddhist chanting going on, Tien Wei was teaching me how to fold a "jongkong emas!" Hehe. It was interesting (though I slightly tore 1/2 initially.:S). Rui Wen was my usual gossip kaki, and all the younger ones were teenagers already! It was nice seeing the cousins together again, and I have to hand it to Tien Wei and Rui Wen for making me even more at home..I've never realised it, but they were the closest cousins I have on my mom's side.

I felt a strong sense of belonging to the Ng family after adorning the blue shirt for grandchildren, and pinning the blue+red piece of cloth on the left shoulder. We had to "pai" every time we arrived and left the funeral parlour. It was a very very good sign of respect for Gong Gong.

So, on Friday night, while I was down with fever and sleeping in my brother's car, they burned the huge mansion for Gong Gong when he goes to the netherworld. He also had a car siap dengan drebar...haha.. He had tonnes of gold, silver and money..but I did not see a handphone. Hmm.. I guess all these gestures are good, as my uncles and aunties truly believe that these things would be sent to his place in the after world. I just did not take the massive burning too easily. The whole while I was thinking, "Pollution, wasting trees, money wasted." Anyways, being a tradition and a belief, I respect it..I do however wish they have a proper filter for the smoke emitted, and also hope they start using recycled paper...At least it was used before.

Saturday started pretty early. At 10am all the family gathered at Nirvana. This funeral parlous actually has space for almost 10 deaths at one time. It's almost like a freaking hotel! Scary, this business of death..:S. So we started the prayers, kowtow-ing and "pai"-ing (pai-burn joss stick, raise it up n bring it down before the altar like 3 times, and then bow before the altar). The older cousins were having problems kneeling down..Teehee...

After praying for Gong Gong's spirit, we also had to offer all the food to Gong Gong..they bunched up all the "sun" and "wai sun" (grand kids from sons and daughters) and offered the cake, pau, fruits, money and God knows what else..The monks were talking real fast..Oh, yea, the little green monsters joined the blue fleet as well...translation..Great grandchildren wore green shirts, while the grandchildren wore blue..:)

By the time the prayers were done, it was 2pm. Then we went to Kulai to the perpetual memorial park.

Now this was interesting. We were given a toilet break, and then ushered to this little room. It looked like a temple. Inside, the walls were filled with pictures of deities, and war heroes and also depictions of heaven. These paintings were larger than the average person. In front of us was a platform with with a table of crystal lotuses. And before us, was half a pillar embedded on the wall. It had Chinese characters written on this huge pillar.

So this "MC" for the day, came before us and went on talking in Mandarin too deep for me to understand. So the next thing I knew, he asked us to put our hands together as one would do in prayer. And the lights went off.

Celestial music was playing, and a deep voice was reading out traditional Chinese texts (I found this out from my Chinese educated brother and mother). With the celestial music, were the sound of birds chirping and a massive light show going on. All of a sudden, the pillar splits open, and "Ahhhhhhhhh" (like how they portray the sound of angels), lo and behold, a huge statue of Buddha is within the pillar!

And all stare with awe at the huge Buddha..and then...it all goes downhill.

This fellas over did it it green laser lights coming out of the round mark on Buddha's forehead! Spoilt. Soon after the "heavenly" experience was over. Poor cousins of mine, this was probably the most comforting divine experience they've ever had. But it was good for them.

Then we were ushered to the burial grounds. Another 45 minutes of chanting, pai-ing, bowing, and finally we received "ang pau" from Gong Gong, and then we threw soil into the grave, and were told not to look back.

We went off to a corner, threw away the socks we wore for the funeral, washed our hands and face with flower water, and went over to Er Jiu's house.

At Er jiu's house, we all changed to red shirts as a sign of celebration as Gong Gong lived a good and long life! 93 years! He was born on the 15 of March 1915!! So we had more chantings and more pai-ing and bowing and finally...we went for a huge family dinner.

This family gathering was the best ever as we were all praying as a family. it always makes a difference I guess. Mama even managed to get our full family history from her cousin from China. We have a place in the Kampung where the names of all the Ngs have been writen down. My mom is the 19th generation! I can't wait to see the list! Can you imagine a full family history dating that far back?

My Popo played a very important role in keeping in touch with all our far cousins all over. Even the naming system in our family have been obeyed for years! All the cousin brothers are Ng Tien ... and all the girls are Ng Xiao ... . The next generation has to be Ng Chen ... and Ng An ... . And so on and so forth! it is truly amazing, the richness of the history and tradition. Po po, a Mandarin teacher, even named the girls following a chinese saying, Wen Wu Shuang Quan, which means well versed in Kungfu and Literature.. Hence it's very complete, as it's exercise of mind and body. Using this, the four consecutive Ng granddaughters were named, Xiao Wen, Xiao Wu, Xiao Shuang, and Xiao Quan. Amazing..

Having said this, I have always wished I knew my mother tongues, tamil and mandarin, instead of just English and horrible broken Malay. It is such a waste! The women on both sides were linguists! My father's sisters were Tamil teachers, and my grandmother was a Mandarin teacher. I have none of the heritage! What a waste! Even now, the command of English my father had had been lost. None of us are even close to what he was capable of. Oh well, we shall just make the best out of it. Be proud of your heritage, those of you who do know it. It gives you pride and honour, and it strengthens families, as how it did the Ngs. :)