The Hows of Hospitality

With my grandmother's passing just a few weeks back, it did have us all thinking back on the fun times we all had when we were younger in the kopitiam; from hopping over specific wooden floorboards to avoid waking up the elders to the crazy shenanigans we got up to whilst working in a coffeeshop. You really never know what's going to happen when practically anyone can walk into the shop.

One thing I did realize after all this time is the fact that our dining table generally had an unfamiliar face every time we sat down for meals. Though we used to think they were some random relatives that my grandparents used to call over - or even old customers of the shop who dropped by, they mostly turned out to be long-lost friends and even total strangers sometimes that were invited over. As shy young children, it did embarass us to have such relative foreigners at the dining table, frequently staring unashamedly at us and blatantly commenting on how we looked. Certainly wasn't ideal for an impressionable child of any age. 

Turns out calling randoms to the table is a family trait since my own parents did the same, much to our consternation. 

Come join us for a meal!

But as I grow older, I realized those were some of the most important life lessons we had, though we didn't know we were being ably taught even then. What we learnt was the importance of friendship and hospitality. Till now, my table - and by extension my home - is always open to friends and family no matter the time of day. 不客气!

Although if you come banging on the wee hours of the morning, you might get a grumpier response than usual... but still my door will be open.

So much to my horror I found out recently how simple hospitality seems to be an archaic tradition. Certainly not something that's taught in most other households. 

Paul : So you're heading over there for a while? 

Miz Grundy : Yes. 

Paul : Staying over with your friend? 

Miz Grundy : No. 

Paul : You fell out with her? 

Miz Grundy : No. 

Paul : What gives?

Miz Grundy : She didn't offer her place to me. 

Paul : She's not squatting under a staircase? 
Miz Grundy : No. It's a double storey and she lives alone. 
Paul : How accommodating. Yeah, she's not a friend. 

It's as simple as that so let's just leave all the lame excuses that followed. A friend comes over to your place and you can barely offer a night's stay, much less a hearty meal? How ungenerous for a supposed friend. Hell, actually that's so much worse than a complete stranger. 

By her feeble responses, I assume Miz Grundy wouldn't have offered the same so I figure that's one 'friendship' that isn't going to last.

Dead & Breakfast

No doubt it wasn't a typical funeral. Just like the one we had for my grandfather twenty years ago, there just wasn't the similar hushed solemnity that goes on in other homes. Neither was there a lot of hysterical outpouring of grief not seen since pitiful widows threw themselves onto funeral pyres.

There wasn't even a hint of black. 

Maybe some white but even that was eclipsed by the brilliant reds and pinks that constituted our funereal colours. Merriment and mirth aplenty as well since there had been time enough to say goodbye to a beloved grandmother. Not to mention the dining table was laden with food enough to feed the entire village. Pretty sure she would have been pleased to see us all come together for one last hurrah to send her on that final journey. 

Which seems like a fitting tribute for my grandmother if you ask me. 

Though of course she would have dismissed the entire religious ceremony with the customs and chants that accompanied the funeral bits. The incessant gossiping, much to the disapproval of the others, would probably have interested her since most of the time we were ruminating over the inexplicable actions of her youngest, and by far the most problematic, grandson, Richie Runt. 

Cousin : Jail in three years?
Paul : Maybe five?
Cousin : A wager? 

Spoiled ever since he was a wee mewling babe, there didn't seem much the rest of us younger folk could do with his overly doting mom and the ever-enabling aunts ignoring all contradictory cries that he wasn't the docile angel he seemed to be. From playing truant in school to frequenting gambling halls after, it didn't take much foresight to predict what would become of the enfant terrible. 

Though it did give us much fodder for our cousinly conversations!

Which brings us to his current predicament. Not content with fleecing the frantic faithful with his necromantic prowess, it seems he had also taken up another side job with one of my other cousins. 

Ever the eternal optimist, Macho Mike ignored all the previous hoary tales about Richie Runt & The Missing Cash Register and took him under his wing. It didn't take very long before he'd confirmed that most of the tales of the boy's faithlessness, indolence and deceit were all too true. Apparently he was quite as awful an employee as he was a student in the past. 

Paul : You just didn't want to bail him out of jail, right? 

Mike : That's true. Now it's someone else's turn. 

Perhaps Lispy Lori needs another volunteer for her non-profit organisation?  

In The Wake of Gossip

Since listening to the conks, clicks and clangs of a faith none of us really believed in wasn't exactly wildly absorbing, my irreligious cousins and I had plenty of time to catch up in between the public pretense of abject spiritual contemplation.

And the seriously soporific repetitive chants.

With all the monks and priestesses from different Buddhist sects roaming about the kopitiam at all hours, it was hard not to poke fun at our very own spiritual shaman, the inimitable Richie Runt who last I heard had apparently taken up ghostbusting the Asian way as a side job. Though I have my curious beliefs in the netherworld, I do also have serious doubts about the abilities of our alleged amateur exorcist, even the esteemed ascetic he calls a master.

Though I wouldn't doubt the lucrativeness of said career path, especially since even the lowliest abbots invited for the funeral came ornamented with shiny Rolexes and gleaming iPad Pros. All of us stared in disbelief and I can easily imagine the choice words my late grandmother would have for the extremely well-appointed clergy.

But since Richie Runt always has his greedy lil eye on the quick buck, I can't imagine a more suitable appointment for him! Fleecing the faithful flock has to be a time-honoured profession, no?

Paul : Even I'm already thinking of taking up this career. 
Lori : It's definitely better than what he's already doing. 
Paul : Oh Richie finally has a steady job?
Lori : Well not exactly. He runs around collecting illegal lottery tickets. 
Paul : Damn this gets better and better. 

When you figure he's gonna zig, he can really zag.

For those who are wondering, we do have legal channels for lottery tickets in the country. Several in fact where you can dream up numbers and place a bet on them. However there are certain ... darker means to achieve similar, if not more profitable, returns with the illegal lottery operations hence their growing popularity.

And of course the neverending crackdowns by the boys in blue.

Umm... waitaminute, you mean it's not legal?

A distinct future scenario we definitely warned Richie Runt about though I'm sure he wilfully turned a deaf ear to our well-meaning brotherly advice. Well, I figured with such a huge family, there's bound to be one irresponsible black sheep at the very least! Never knew he'd turn out to be a conman too!

Something I'm sure my extremely law-abiding grandpa would be turning in his grave.

Death In The Family

I half suspect my grandmother only wanted to live long enough to see her hundredth year since she breathed her last just shy of the last hour of the new year's.

Since I'd just barely touched down back home after seeing her prior to the new year's, I half considered not returning for the final engagement. Much to my mother's consternation since such a shocking social solecism would be an anathema to her. Though my parents claimed I didn't have to,  I basically turned back to the airport to take the return flight, bowing to social convention - and yes, also to the unspoken censure in my mother's remarks.

Me not stupid.

I'm glad I did though.

Very little weep, whimper or wail when she finally passed beyond since we all had our chances to say goodbye the past few months before. When the news of her impending passing became known to us, we had all taken turns to pay her a final visit so everything that we wanted said had already been said.

So we threw a celebratory send-off for her, just as she would have wanted it. Not only had she despised overblown grieving during funerals, my extremely irreligionist grandmother also heartily disliked complicated religious ceremonies. Easy enough to see where she's coming from since she grew up in China during those turbulent times when such archaic pseudo-spiritual practices were being phased out.

Thank goodness she never left any wildly asinine superstitions for us.

Unfortunately no, the monks weren't all that hot. Didn't even imagine defrocking any of them. 

Apparently a memo not everyone received - since this time we were all greeted by a heartily pious Buddhist monk leading the ceremonies at the wake. She didn't like monks either. Unlike the far more entertaining Taoist monks from my grandfather's funeral with their engaging pantomimes, this turned out to be a far more sedate affair with a lot of repetitive chants and croons to the accompanying soporific rhythm of a wooden fish.

Not to mention a convenient prayer book with subtitles for those barbaric illiterates entirely unversed in obscure Buddhist sutras.

Figuring that only one particular religious discipline wasn't enough to wrest nirvana for my late grandmother, subsequently the family elders also invited an entirely different sect of Tibetan Buddhism who came over with their very own monks, decorations and accoutrements.

Om Mani Padme Hum indeed!

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Now wouldn't that have made it way more interesting.

Unfortunately that dreaded reindeer turned out to be nothing less than a suspicious lil malignant spot that has been bothering my grandmother for several years - and had finally managed to figuratively run her over, just a day after the new year which would make her more than a hundred.

Starting to think she mustered the last bits of strength just to doggedly drag herself across the finishing line to be a centenarian.

Two decades back, my grandmother had already warned me about the downsides of longevity and though I barely listened with half a ear, I perfectly understood what she meant about having everyone you loved pass before you. Back then with her perfect bill of health, I did tell her it would take a really long, long while for death to finally come for her. Guess that was a sort of premonition since it did take several long, long months for her to finally succumb to her cancer.

Long, long months it was since most of the final medical decisions about her ensuing treatment fell to her children and grandchildren, quite a number of whom have already graduated to become practicing physicians. So when there's basically a congregation of doctors from different fields discussing a specific case, especially one close to their hearts, I think you can well imagine the ensuing commotion.

Surprisingly though we had all the doctors in the family agreeing to halt the more troublesome invasive procedures in favour of the more palliative due to her advanced age - which her contumacious children automatically objected to, apparently preferring a more drastic course of chemotherapy. It obviously didn't take a day or two to decide - hard to argue overly much when everyone has her best interests at heart - so while the discussion was going on, my grandmother herself had resigned herself to whatever decision was made.

And took up the game of mahjong to while away her time.

This time though they didn't hide the diagnosis from her since it must have been pretty obvious from the way everyone rushed back suddenly from all corners of the globe. It was during the mahjong game that I realized that it really was time for her to go. Though there was no marked alteration in the way she reacted or spoke, there was no denying how very, very tired she looked.

It had been a hundred years and it was evidently time for her to finally rest. Almost everyone in the family had returned to see her. So what better time to say goodbye?

The Mighty Pen

Which for me would certainly be mightier than the sword.

And quite a match for the mighty penis as well.

So why the sudden swift descent into scandalous prurience? Well with the tragically declining standards of English in the country, and the ever diminishing capacity to communicate in anything other than laughable emojis and chat abbreviations, I find fewer people willing to believe in the power of the word. Rather than adroitly employing language to seduce the heart and mind in the venerable art of flirtation, the youths of the Grindr era are far more gratified with the near instantaneous ASLs and the HMUs.

Let's not deny the undeniable allure of a casual, anonymous hookup! Quick, fast, instant gratification. But for anything more than that quickly forgotten romp in the sack, I would need more than a picture of your penis, no matter how wonderfully hung you may be.

And that's where the pen can be mightier than even the penis. Since unlike many out there, I would need words. Soul-crushing, heart-rending, life-changing words; not only whispered out on the spur of the moment but also typed out on the screen or even printed on a sheet of paper. Guilty of epeolatry, I find something close to magic in the clever turn of a phrase.

Something some of my less expressive friends would quibble with.

Though I'm sure even the most heartless ones would feel a slight pang when they hear this beautifully written letter from the Man in An Orange Shirt.

Really wherefore art thou, the Dickens and the Shakespeares of before. Or have the poets of yore also gone the way of the almighty 280 character Tweet.